Africa

Samuel Sorie Sesay, who died last month in Sierra Leone, fought for the British army in World War Two.

The upcoming British Punitive Expedition anniversary has reignited calls for the return of stolen treasures.

International judges blame Uganda for the death of 10-15,000 people between 1998 and 2003.

Pulses provide nutrients and energy and they help prevent diseases like diabetes and coronary conditions. The United Nations declared 10 February World Pulses Day.

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Feb 9 2022 (IPS)

Pulses and meat are both needed as part of your diet, however… While the total emissions of greenhouse gases from global livestock amount to 7.1 Gigatonnes of Co2-equivalent per year, representing 14.5% of all anthropogenic emissions, pulses have root nodules that absorb inert nitrogen from soil air and convert it into biologically useful ammonia, a process referred to as biological nitrogen fixation.

Moreover, cattle (raised for both beef and milk, as well as for inedible outputs like manure and draft power) are the animal species responsible for the most emissions, representing about 65% of the livestock sector’s emissions, according to a report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Pulses, instead, provide nutrients and energy and they help prevent diseases like diabetes and coronary conditions.

“They are rich in proteins and minerals, have high fiber content and low-fat content, and no cholesterol. The carbohydrates in pulses are absorbed and digested slowly, and thus help control diabetes and obesity.”

 

Meat, instead…

Back to livestock, the Organisation says that, in terms of activities, feed production and processing (this includes land use change) and enteric fermentation from ruminants are the two main sources of emissions, representing 45% and 39% of total emissions, respectively.

And that manure storage and processing represent 10%. The remainder is attributable to the processing and transportation of animal products.

 

Pulses on display at a farmer’s market in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

 

Protein for the poor

In many cultures, pulses are considered as ‘protein for the poor’ and their high nutrient content makes them ideal for vegetarians and vegans to ensure adequate intakes of protein, minerals and vitamins, says FAO.

In addition to their function and role in reducing greenhouse gases emission, the world body highlights the following ten great benefits:

1. Pulses are naturally low in fat and contain no cholesterol, which can contribute to reducing the risk of cardiovascular diseases.
2. Pulses are also low in sodium. Sodium chloride – or salt – is a contributor to hypertension and can be avoided by consuming foods with lower sodium levels such as pulses.
3. They are a great source of plant-based protein. Surprisingly, 100 grams of dry lentils contain a remarkable 25 grams of protein! During cooking, pulses absorb considerable amounts of water thus reducing their protein content to around 8 percent.

Yet, you can still increase the protein quality of cooked pulses by simply combining them with cereals in your meal, for example, lentils with rice.

4. Pulses are a good source of iron. Iron deficiency is considered one of the most prevalent forms of malnutrition and is one of the most common types of anaemia. To help optimise the absorption of iron in our bodies from pulses, combine them with foods containing vitamin C (lemon juice on lentil curry for example).
5. Pulses are high in potassium, which supports heart health and plays an important role for digestive and muscular functions.
6. Pulses are often quoted among the top high fiber foods, necessary for supporting digestive health and helping to reduce the risks of cardiovascular diseases.
7. Pulses are an excellent source of folate – a B-vitamin naturally present in many foods – that is essential to the nervous system function and especially important during pregnancy to prevent fetal defects.
8. Pulses can be stored for a long time and therefore can help to increase the diversity of diets, especially in developing countries.
9. Pulses are low glycaemic index foods. They help to stabilize blood sugar and insulin levels, making them suitable for people with diabetes and ideal for weight management.
10. Finally, pulses are naturally gluten-free. This makes them an ideal option for coeliacs.

 

A full World Day for pulses

The United Nations declared 10 February World Pulses Day, keeping alive the positive momentum surrounding these healthy, nutritious and protein-rich legumes after FAO’s successful International Year of Pulses Campaign in 2016.

“They are our delicious ally in achieving food security, reducing malnutrition and creating a #ZeroHunger world.”

 

Love for pulses

“There is a lot to love about pulses! They are inexpensive, healthy, environmentally-friendly and, last but not least, tasty!”

“Red, green, white, black, brown… name a colour and we can give you a pulse! And what exactly is a pulse, you might ask? Well, pulses are a sub-group of legumes that are harvested for their dry seeds. Beans, lentils and peas are commonly known pulses.”

“But the world of pulses is much more than that! From lupins to lentils or cowpeas to chickpeas, pulses can surprise you with their breadth and depth,” explains the Food and Agriculture Organisation.

No matter whether they have an alluring name like velvet beans or a curious one like winged beans, pulses are wonderful foods for both human and environmental health, FAO underlines.

 

Vital and inexpensive

“They are a vital and generally inexpensive source of protein. They are full of vitamins and minerals that can help prevent diseases like diabetes and coronary conditions.”

Planet-wise, it adds, pulses are good for soil health, and many are also drought resistant and climate-resilient, their genetic diversity helping them adapt to changes in climate.

 

Less popular now!

Despite the many benefits, these extraordinary foods have lost popularity in recent years and worldwide consumption has decreased because of rising incomes and related consumer preferences, reports the world body.

Anyway, you surely know how to cook pulses. However, should you want to learn more, please click here: Pulses recipes from around the world!

Fostina Kachimera in her maize garden that she planted under irrigation. Since she has started to use irrigation she no longer lives in fear of dry spells. Credit: Esmie Komwa Eneya/IPS

By Esmie Komwa Eneya
BLANTYRE, MALAWI, Feb 9 2022 (IPS)

In the past, the people of Sande Village in Chikwawa district, Malawi, would go to bed with empty stomachs even when the rest of the country harvested bumper yields.

This is because the area in southern Malawi is prone to both floods and drought – making rain-fed agriculture difficult.

One woman farmer, Fostina Kachimera, said that after practising rain-fed agriculture over several years without results, she stopped farming and was just sitting idle because agriculture was her only option for employment.

“When we try to do rain-fed agriculture is either the crops will be swept away by floods or burnt by drought before they even start to produce fruits,” she said.

Chikwawa and Nsanje districts are situated in the Shire River valley.

According to Shire Valley Agriculture Development Division (Shivadd) programme manager Francis Mlewah, the valley has 313 215 hectares of land, but almost half experiences prolonged dry spells.

“In addition to that, its annual rainfall falls between 400 to 1000 mm, and this is below the average annual rainfall needed by most of the crops grown in the country,”  Mlewah says, explaining that optimal rainfall was above 1 200mm.

Then there is flooding.

“One-third of the land is situated along the country’s biggest river, and indeed farmers who cultivate their crops in these areas face floods almost every year,” he explained.

Now, this has become a song of the past because Kachimera and her fellow 259 farmers can now harvest three crops a year through irrigation. This has enabled them to produce enough food for the year and a surplus to sell.

All the farmers had also managed to build substantial houses which withstand floods – unlike in the past when floods often damaged their homes.

The Evangelical Association of Malawi came to their rescue in 2007 and introduced irrigation farming.

“We started as a club, but by 2010 we transformed into a scheme known as Sande.

“When we were starting, we were using water canes to irrigate our crops, but right now we are using water pumps which we purchased through the profits from irrigation farming, and almost every one of us has managed to buy one,” said the scheme’s chairperson Samuel Wise.

Apart from growing maize, the country’s staple food, Wise explained that the system produces different crops such as legumes, tubers, and vegetables.

According to him, the idea is to have diverse foods available to combat malnutrition and fetch reasonable prices on the market.

Once the irrigation started, the families started to live healthy lives.

They no longer lack necessities such as clothes, soap and can pay school fees for their children.

“In the past, transportation was so difficult for us since we could not afford even the cheapest bicycle, but now we have motorbikes that we bought with the farm proceeds,” he said.

Malawi’s Deputy Agriculture Minister Agnes Nkusankhoma recently visited the scheme and praised it.

“Finding the big area like this green is rare especially considering that this is the dry season, and these farmers made this place look like we are in the rainy season.”

Nkusankhoma encouraged them to register in the livestock subsidy program to add to what they are already doing because livestock production does well in these districts.

While the farmers relish their success, they lament the rising fuel prices. The water pumps are reliant on fuel – shrinking their profits.

The community will benefit from the Shire Valley Transformation Programme – a government-led project financed by World Bank, the African Development Bank, and the Global Environment Facility.

According to the project’s coordinator, Stanly Chakhumbira, the project put 43 370 hectares under irrigation using gravity to divert water from the river to the canals. Once this is completed, farmers will no longer need to rely on fuel.

 

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

By Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI, Feb 9 2022 (IPS)

If India ranks among the world’s fastest growing economies it is also where inequity is growing the fastest, thanks to endemic features unique to the country such as the caste system.

“It is not widely understood but India does not have a working class — instead it has large labouring castes that are trapped in an inherently iniquitous system,” says Manas Ray, professor in cultural studies at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata.

According to Ray, the labouring castes and their interests are poorly represented where it matters and they also have little guidance or support from voluntary agencies. “There’s no capable voluntary sector of the type that works to empower the marginalised in other countries in the region. In fact, hundreds of NGOs, including Amnesty International and Greenpeace, have been forced to shut down operations in India in recent years.”

“It is not widely understood but India does not have a working class — instead it has large labouring castes that are trapped in an inherently iniquitous system,”

Manas Ray, professor in cultural studies at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata

“A contrasting situation can be seen in Bangladesh, where powerful NGOs reach down to people at the grassroots and guide them on how to generate and manage surpluses,” says Ray. “It helps immensely that Bangladesh is not burdened by a caste system.”

Last year, Bangladesh posted a per capita income of $2,227 or $280 higher than that of its larger neighbour. “Bangladesh, once regarded as a ‘basket case,’ can now be expected to maintain this lead in the foreseeable future because of investments in the social sectors, especially education and health,” says Ray.

In a global report released in January, the British charity Oxfam describes India as ‘very unequal,’ with the top 10 percent of its 1.4 billion population having cornered 77 percent of the total national wealth. The report, Inequality Kills, estimates that inequality has been rising over the last three decades.

Oxfam calculates that it would take 941 years for a minimum wage worker in rural India to earn what a top paid executive at a leading Indian garment company earns in a year. India’s stark wealth inequality is attributed by Oxfam to “an economic system rigged in favour of the super-rich over the poor and marginalised.”

The report said that during 2021, when the COVID-19 pandemic caused 84 percent of Indian households to suffer a drop in income, the number of billionaires in the country grew from 102 to 142. During the worst months of the pandemic (March 2020 to November 2021), the wealth of India’s billionaires more than doubled, from $313 billion to $719 billion.

“The pandemic proved to be a crunch point which exposed the country’s uncaringly iniquitous system,” says Ray, referring to how a suddenly imposed lockdown left millions of internal migrant workers stranded in the cities with no jobs, food or shelter and with little choice but to trek to their distant homes in the rural hinterland, often hundreds of kilometres away.

It took petitions in the Supreme Court for government to admit that more than half a million people were walking down the highways trying to get home, often braving assaults by police charged with enforcing lockdown rules. Trade unions said the bulk of an estimated 200 million migrant workers in India’s different cities and towns lost their jobs.

In contrast to the callous treatment meted out to internal migrant workers, the government spared no costs in arranging special flights to fetch students and privileged people who found themselves stuck in foreign countries that had also imposed lockdowns to stop the spread of the highly contagious COVID-19 virus.

The Supreme Court has had to intervene on behalf of the poor and marginalised on other occasions where inequity has been glaring. For example, the court stepped in to order the distribution to poor and starving people of vast quantities of surplus grain rotting in state-run godowns.

On 7 January the apex court dismissed petitions challenging the government policy of reserving a quota of coveted post-graduate seats in India’s medical colleges for socially backward castes on the plea that it went against the principle of merit. The court did not buy that argument and pointed to India’s iniquitous system, which it said impacts on merit.

“Widespread inequalities in the availability of and access to educational facilities will result in the deprivation of certain classes of people who would be unable to effectively compete in such a system,” said Y. Chandrachud, handing down the judgement. “Special provisions enable such disadvantaged classes to overcome the barriers they face in effectively competing with forward classes and thus ensuring substantive equality.”

“Merit should be socially contextualised and re-conceptualised as an instrument that advances social goods like equality that we, as a society, value,” Chandrachud said, pointing to provisions in India’s constitution to award reserved quotas in jobs and educational opportunities to “remedy the structural disadvantages that certain groups suffer.”

Reserved quotas have, however, barely scratched the problem. Since 1983, the government has implemented a policy of reserving 50 percent of jobs in the coveted civil service for socially under privileged castes, but by 2019 only four individuals from these categories had made it to a list of 89 secretary-level positions.

How may such ingrained inequities be remedied? The Oxfam report called for higher taxes to be imposed on the richest 10 percent of the Indian population to help fund measures to reduce inequality. That’s easier than done because only one percent of Indians declare earnings sufficient to attract taxation.

In 2021 only 50.89 million individuals in a population of 1.4 billion people filed income tax returns, and only half that number paid any worthwhile tax.

Prabhat Patnaik, former professor of economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, agrees that that the solution to gross inequity lies in “taxing the rich and investing the proceeds for the neglected social sectors — it is shame that large numbers of people continue to have no access to health or education.”

The Oxfam report says that 63 million Indians are pushed into poverty each year because of unaffordable healthcare costs. Public spending on healthcare ranks among the lowest in the world — 1.8 percent of GDP in 2021. Although India is a major destination for medical tourism because of its fine specialty hospitals, several of its poorest states have infant mortality rates higher than those in sub-Saharan Africa.

Patnaik pointed to how government policies have consistently favoured the rich since the country embarked on economic liberalisation in the early 1980s. Inheritance tax was abolished in 1985 and in 2017 the government abolished wealth tax, allowing the concentration of wealth in rich families. In September 2019, corporate tax was slashed from 35 percent to 26 percent.

“In contrast to India’s policy of providing tax concessions to the rich the international trend is for the wealthy to ask that they be taxed more,” said Patnaik referring to the open letter from the Patriotic Millionaires group to the World Economic Forum’s virtual Davos in January asking to be taxed more to help economic recovery after the pandemic.

“As millionaires, we know that the current tax system is not fair. Most of us can say that while the world has gone through an immense amount of suffering in the last two years, we have actually seen our wealth rise during the pandemic — yet few if any of us can honestly say that we pay our fair share in taxes,” reads the letter, which was prompted by the Oxfam report.

Predictably there were no Indians among the list of 102 Patriotic Millionaires and there has been no statement on it from any quarter in India.

Ending poverty and hunger once and for all – is it possible? Credit: United Nations

By Andy Sumner and Eduardo Ortiz-Juarez
LONDON, Feb 9 2022 (IPS)

In 2010 and the following years, there was attention to the fact that much of global poverty had shifted to middle-income countries (for example here, here, and here).

The world’s poor hadn’t moved of course, but the countries that are home to large numbers of poor people had got better off on average and poverty hadn’t fallen as much as one might expect with economic growth in those countries moving from low-income to middle-income.

There were also some big questions over the country categories themselves. One could say the world’s poor live not in the world’s poorest countries but in fast growing countries and countries with burgeoning domestic resources to address poverty albeit ‘locked’ by domestic political economy (who doesn’t want cheap petrol?)

This idea of the distribution of global poverty has more recently been revisited (here and here), just as it seems that global poverty has shifted back to low-income countries (LICs). Or has it? To get a better picture of global poverty trends, locations, and to understand the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, we need to understand the limitations of the data.

What can’t the data tell us?

We are facing one big, and one monumental, data problem. First, there are no real data for poverty in India over the last decade—a country with a substantial impact on global poverty counts given its large population.

Instead, the World Bank’s PovcalNet database extrapolates households’ consumption to compute poverty in India from 2011 to 2017 (not 2019, though why is not clear). Extrapolation is not unique to India’s data; the World Bank also infers poverty estimates of other countries if data for the reference year are not available. And there’s the rub. There is an underlying monumental problem.

The World Bank has over 6,000 distributions in its database but only a third—about 2,000—are real survey data, so interpolation/extrapolation is endemic (see Figure 1 for details).

All the figures in this blog post are based on that World Bank’s PovcalNet database (one difference: we take the 2017 World Bank estimate of poverty in India and apply it to 2019). So, everything here is based on the ‘official’ database used by the Bank who to their credit make publicly available.

Can we objectively say how many people live in poverty?

The World Bank uses the $1.90-a-day poverty line whose determination relies heavily on two decades worth of Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for some of the world’s poorest countries. This is contentious since errors could change the overall value of the poverty line and change the poverty headcount.

Every dime above the World Bank’s line adds on average almost 70 million more poor people. So, the global poverty count at $1.90 a day— almost 700 million people—rises by another 500 million people by the time one gets to $2.50 a day, which is the average poverty line of all developing countries (see Figure 2).

Further, the headcount increases by a billion people moving from the $1.90 to the World Bank’s ‘moderate’ poverty line of $3.20 a day. This $3.20 threshold is important as it is also the poverty line closely associated with headcounts of multidimensional poverty and the average poverty line among lower middle-income countries (LMICs), where most of the world’s multidimensionally poor live.

In Figure 2 we also include $5.50, the average poverty line of upper middle-income countries (UMICs), and $13 a day, as this is the line associated with ‘permanent’ escape from poverty used by the World Bank in Latin America.

So where do the world’s poor live? Hint: it depends on who you count as ‘poor’

Mostly in Africa and, now in contrast to a decade ago, low-income countries once more, right? Well again, it depends on where you draw the line. Around the income/consumption poverty line correlated with multidimensional poverty counts ($3.20 a day), the world’s poor live in South Asia as much as in sub-Saharan Africa (see Figure 3).

At the same time, if we use the World Bank’s moderate poverty line of $3.20, three quarters of the world’s poor remain in MICs (see Figure 4).

Then there’s the pandemic. We’ll never know for sure the impact of the pandemic on poverty, as we’d need surveys for a large number of developing countries before as well as after, and those just don’t exist.

Moreover, the pandemic is ongoing and could shape the prospects for growth and poverty reduction in developing countries for the next five to ten years given the slow and unequal global distribution of vaccines.

Figure 5 shows various scenarios of how much the poverty count in middle-income countries could have risen due to the pandemic. Our purpose is not to predict one precise poverty outcome but to show what different income shocks to those near the poverty line imply in terms of potential poverty impact in the absence of compensatory policy intervention. We thus use a set of universal, arbitrary shocks to estimate the extent of precarity.

In short, we are highlighting the fragility of progress on poverty reduction in the current pandemic context given the characteristics of the responses to the pandemic—i.e. lockdowns—combined with pre-existing conditions of high levels of informality of employment and the weaker coverage of social protection in the informal sector.

Our study illustrates the following: if the income shock is of this magnitude, the effect on poverty could be dramatic. What is evident is that millions of people in MICs live not that far above the $1.90-a-day poverty line (and the $3.20 poverty line) and thus could easily fall (back) into poverty as a result of disrupted economic activity due to lockdowns or ill health.

Why does this all matter? There are three reasons why

First, shockingly, we don’t really know how much income poverty there is in the world due to the missing India data. Of course, we do have multidimensional poverty estimates (at a global level the headcount could be double that of $1.90-a-day poverty).

Second, just because the data tells us that extreme poverty, at $1.90 a day, has moved back to LICs (at least prior to the pandemic), much of the global poverty remains in MICs. In fact, three quarters of the global poor at the $3.20 line are living in MICs, even if measured before the pandemic.

Third, the pandemic itself has rendered millions of people in MICs who are living just above the $1.90-a-day poverty line at risk of falling back, meaning the global poverty headcount could rise, and stop-start economic growth in the next few years could leave poverty rates higher.

What is clear from the pandemic is that every country will need a universal (probably annual) vaccination programme. And yet the Global South—with some exceptions, notably India and China as vaccine producers—is unlikely to have fair and equal access to the global supply of vaccines to achieve universal coverage.

Consequentially, economic growth and poverty reduction will likely proceed in starts and stops as infection waves peak and trough. Even the vaccines that do reach the Global South will need to be paid for and require state capacity to deliver.

That could mean the diversion of public spending and state capacity away from social spending and poverty reduction. The immediate impact of the pandemic has led to an expansion of social safety nets and policies, these need to become permanent and universal in the years ahead beyond the impact of the pandemic’s first phase on poverty is to be reduced and the Sustainable Development Goals ever met.

Andy Sumner is a Non-Resident Senior Research Fellow at UNU-WIDER. He is also a Professor of International Development at King’s College London, and Director of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Global Challenges Strategic Research Network on Global Poverty and Inequality Dynamics.

Eduardo Ortiz-Juarez is a Lecturer in Development Economics in the Department of International Development at King’s College London, with a particular interest in the study of poverty dynamics, inequalities, social policy, and green development.

 

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As people eye the benefits there are questions over the environmental cost and the timing.

By Sania Farooqui
NEW DELHI, India, Feb 8 2022 (IPS)

The Covid-19 pandemic affected countries and people globally, at the same time exacerbated vulnerabilities such as modern-day slavery. There are over 40.3 million people estimated to be in modern-day slavery, and certain population groups, sectors and geographies such as children, migrant workers, women and girls that were already vulnerable, became more vulnerable to recruitment and exploitation during the pandemic. The United Nations has called the pandemic more than a health crisis, “it is an economic crisis, a humanitarian crisis, and a human rights crisis.”

Romy Hawatt

UN Secretary- General António Guterres called the world to go into emergency mode in the COVID-19 battle, stating the global economy which continues to be uncertain, health systems which are overwhelmed and millions of more people being pushed into poverty.

“The world has slipped backwards”, said Romy Hawatt, founding member of the Global Sustainability Network (GSN) in an exclusive interview given to IPS News. “The modern-day abuses of human rights and dignity are completely abhorrent and unacceptable in all its forms and at all levels. Governments everywhere are falling short on their responsibilities to protect their citizens (especially children) and are not putting in the proportionate focus, attention and resources into fighting these crimes against humanity,” Hawatt said.

As a ‘social entrepreneur’ he has used his business success and platforms to directly develop, fund and implement solutions for social, cultural and environmental issues. What started many years ago as informal charity work, eventually turned him into becoming a philanthropist, supporter and benefactor of various charities and organizations, GSN being one of them.

Earlier in 2020, more than 50 independent UN human rights experts warned that the COVID-19 pandemic played into the hands of slavers and traffickers, and it required stronger government measures to prevent exploitation of vulnerable people. The statement urged governments and businesses to recognize how the loss of jobs, income or land could put vulnerable groups at great risk and that exploitation could mean forced labor, including the worst forms of child labor, or being sold, trafficked and sexually exploited.

This report states more than 70% of the 4.8 million sex exploitation victims are in the Asia and Pacific region. 1.5 million victims are living in developed countries, with an estimated 13,000 enslaved in the UK.

Romy Hawatt became a founding member of GSN a network organization which was founded in 2014 by Raza Jafar, The RT Rev Lord Bishop Alastair Redfern and S. E. Mons. Marcelo Sanchez got together with a vision for a world free of slavery, child labor and human trafficking. This was initiated after the signing of a Joint Declaration Against Modern Slavery by Pope Francis, Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew from Greece and senior representatives of the Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhists faiths.

With a rapidly growing number of change makers, and influencers joining GSN, Hawatt says, “each one of them play a prominent role in creating awareness, educating, articulating and lobbying the powers to be at the faith, government, academia, business, media and sports levels to harness the power of connections and collaborations to help achieve the United Nations Sustainability Development (SDG) Goal 8 and 8.7 objectives which focuses on ending modern-day slavery, human and human organ trafficking. The plan going forward is to get further on to the front foot and make as much of a sustainable impact as possible, by utilizing all mediums and platforms available to articulate, inspire, invigorate and support a plethora of influencers and collaborators like those associated with the GSN to undercover and expose all forms of human exploitation”.

As governments around the world from the time when the pandemic began in 2020, mandated lockdowns and worked with limited pandemic response opportunities, traffickers adapted their methods to the pandemic, including social media and other online platforms to recruit new victims.

“Women and girls have been recruited, often locally or online, for sexual exploitation, especially in private apartments. Children have been particularly affected – out of school and needing to support parents who have lost their livelihoods, increasingly targeted by traffickers at the local level and online, says this report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

“Traffickers responded to the closure of bars, clubs and massage parlours (due to lockdowns, curfews and other measures to control the spread of COVID-19) by moving the sexual exploitation of adults and children to private homes and apartments. In some countries traffickers have also capitalized on social distancing measures to transport victims across national borders, knowing that law enforcement has, at times, been unable to carefully inspect vehicles,” the report states.

According to this report, there are at least three ways in which COVID-19 impacts efforts to end modern day slavery: 1) heightening risks for those already exploited; 2) increasing the risks of exploitation, including child labour and child marriage; and 3) disrupting response efforts.

“Very simply put, traffickers target the most vulnerable and it is the women and children that fit this category, and especially those that are from poorer communities, perhaps are refugees, and those who lack education fall into the highest risk category of those who are trafficked.

“This is not just a third world problem; human trafficking is happening literally everywhere. Wittingly or unwittingly, we are all consumers that create demand and work in or drive supply chains that use and abuse fellow human beings. We therefore have an obligation to help fix it,” said Hawatt.

 

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How Aliou Cisse, a workmanlike player who became a disciplinarian coach, led Senegal to their first Africa Cup of Nations title.

The UN commemorates Safe Internet Day annually on February 8. Credit: International Telecommunication Union (ITU)

By Amanda Manyame
JOHANNESBURG, Feb 8 2022 (IPS)

The internet and digital technology have allowed children and young people to connect, exchange knowledge and information, and truly turn the world into a global village.

Although a lot of good has come from this level of connectivity, the ability to reach millions of people at the click of a button has also allowed bad actors access to a wider potential victim pool.

Most critically, increased accessibility to the internet has exacerbated the sexual exploitation and abuse of children and young people.

What happens offline has found its way online. Children and young people are repeatedly victimised as these crimes are usually captured in permanent digital images that are perpetually reshared online resulting in long-term impact that often lasts into adulthood.

There is an urgent need to develop adequate and future-proof laws that ensure safe, responsible, and positive use of the internet and digital technology to guarantee children and young people are able to safely enjoy online spaces.

While online sexual exploitation and abuse (OSEA) occurs in digital spaces, the roots of this form of violence are fundamentally the same as those that occur in the physical world. Sexism, gender-based discrimination, intersecting inequalities, cultural beliefs, and social norms underpin sexual abuse and exploitation that occurs “in the real world” as well as online.

The factors that make children and young people vulnerable to OSEA were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic prompted the closure of schools, recreational centers, after school activities and other places where children and young people tend to spend a majority of their time.

These necessary public health measures led to an unprecedented number of children and young people going online and using digital technologies, some for the first time and many with little or no supervision.

Many children are attending online school from home during the coronavirus outbreak. Credit: UNICEF/Lisa Adelson

Regulation of online sexual exploitation and abuse

At Equality Now, we believe that one of the ways to end OSEA and create secure and respectful online spaces is to have laws, policies, and measures that adopt a human rights-based approach and are informed by the needs and experiences of OSEA survivors.

OSEA is global and multi-jurisdictional because offenders, victims, and digital platforms are often located in different countries which presents legal challenges when prosecuting offenders. As such, legal remedies for survivors need to be multi-jurisdictional and enforceable internationally.

OSEA is not only found on the dark web but on the surface web where children and young people frequently socialise and create and share content. In Equality Now’s latest report, Ending Online Sexual Exploitation And Abuse Of Women And Girls: A Call For International Standards, we examined legal responses to this global problem.

Adolescent girls and legal experts in India, Kenya, Nigeria, the United Kingdom and the United States informed us of their experiences of OSEA on social media apps, which are easily accessible to children and young people and require very little data to access.

For instance, many girls shared that request for intimate images were a common occurrence and that reporting these incidents to the police was extremely difficult. They reported that they were afraid that the authorities and their community would shame them and that their reports would not be taken seriously.

In some instances, girls simply blocked the offenders and did not report the abuse to the police or the social media platform. The stigma associated with experiencing OSEA prevents victims from reporting, which only contributes to the vicious cycle of abuse.

Children and young people are going online without information on how to protect themselves or identify and report offenders. Their caregivers are also not always well equipped to manage these challenges.

Digital platforms need to improve their systems for reporting OSEA by making it easier for children, young people, and their caregivers to report abuse and exploitation and track the progress of their reports.

They must also ensure that they have systems in place to respond in a timely manner to complaints and inform users of the decisions and actions they have taken.

It has become clear that relying on digital platforms to self-regulate has not been sufficient in preventing OSEA, thus governments and international bodies must take a more proactive approach and develop and implement laws that regulate the policies and practices adopted and applied by digital platforms.

National laws should require that these reports are also passed on to national authorities and monitoring bodies, not only when the incidents are criminal, as is currently the case. This will enable authorities and monitoring bodies to understand offending pathways better and be better equipped to detect OSEA.

Balancing digital rights with preventing online sexual exploitation and abuse

A critical and often contentious issue is how to effectively balance between users’ various digital rights and interests — freedom of expression online and online privacy with protection from online harms, such as OSEA.

For instance, there are concerns that regulating what users post online and holding digital platforms liable for user-generated content online could lead to self-censorship and/or digital platforms erring on the side of caution and removing content which would, in turn, infringe on users’ freedom of expression.

An approach that can be adopted is a principle established under international human rights law, that in the event of a violation of the rights of others, the freedom of expression of alleged offenders can be limited if the limitations are legal, legitimate, necessary and proportionate.

But for this approach to be effective, there must first be legal clarity on what constitutes OSEA. Laws should define OSEA, and exclude speech or expression that is in fact OSEA from freedom of expression protection.

This would be similar to the case of children, where many countries categorically exclude offers or requests to obtain Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) from freedom of expression protections.

Still with this protection provided for CSAM, the detection of adolescents in CSAM on the internet is a challenge for law enforcement and digital platforms. Human reviewers and automated tools that detect CSAM online cannot always be sure that images of young people who have reached puberty are not images of adults.

Technology companies have made great strides in developing tools to detect CSAM on their platforms and we call on them to use these capabilities to address this gap in technological tools and work with law enforcement and child protection specialists who can bring their skills to improve detection of adolescent victims.

Our report found that laws at the international and national levels are currently inadequate to deal with the global and multi-jurisdictional nature of OSEA and the legal complexities this brings.

The existence of gaps and lacunae in the law due to the rapid evolution of technology and the law’s failure to keep pace has created patchwork offences and a lack of coherence in the law which has made reporting, prosecution, and online content moderation difficult.

Across many countries, this leaves children and young people with inadequate or no safeguards from OSEA.

Equality Now calls on the international community to develop and adopt legally binding international standards that provide for protection of all vulnerable people from all forms of OSEA. The international standards would demonstrate consensus on the severity of OSEA and provide a framework for legal implementation, policies, programs, and international cooperation.

Amanda Manyame is Digital Law and Rights Advisor at Equality Now

 

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Disseminating science via social media entails a public service. Throughout the pandemic, for instance, the value of science communication to the public has been instrumental with many scientists being called upon to provide accurate information about the latest scientific advancements. Credit: Bigstock

By Esther Ngumbi
URBANA, Illinois, Feb 8 2022 (IPS)

In the spirit of science communication, I posted via twitter a video clip of a bee that had taken a little too much of pollen. It received over 30,000 views and had over 100,000 impressions. Over the years, before the pandemic, thanks to several science communication workshops and trainings about various ways to communicate science, I have continued to grow as a science communicator.

The appreciation and appetite for science communication was on the rise among institutions of higher learning, professional societies and early career and junior scientists prior to the pandemic was equally growing. The National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine published a report on best practices while pointing out potential research areas to advance science communication.

Throughout the literature, there was a proliferation in journal articles, book chapters, and technical reports and web resources by Professional societies such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Workshops on science communication were routinely embedded in Professional Society annual meetings.

Science communication will continue to be important into the future. Social media and other avenues of communicating science are here to stay and they are shaping present day and potentially future academic cultures

It is critical to keep nurturing this emerging appreciation of science communication, particularly as institutions of higher learning and professional societies regain the momentum and begin rebuilding after COVID-19.

Thanks to science communications, many large-scale science related challenges and great advances in scientific discoveries with major implications to humanity have been translated into solutions and communicated effectively with the public. With on-going science-related challenges like COVID-19 and the climate crisis, science communication is more crucial than ever.

But, with no major incentives, it may be difficult to convince graduate students, postdocs, and tenured and untenured professors to partake of science communication. This is understandable because of the many demands in academia.

New graduate students, newly minted PhDs who may have transitioned to post-Doctoral fellowships and newly recruited Assistant Professors may have a hard time deciding if it is worth parking in science communication. However, as I know firsthand, it can be very beneficial to people’s careers to engage in it.

Oftentimes, when scientists publish in scientific journals, the audience is small. This is because, scientific articles can only be accessed by far fewer people, since journals require expensive subscriptions. But if they take the extra step of communicating their research, and disseminating it widely via blog, op-eds and social media, they can reach a much bigger audience.

Indeed, disseminating science via social media entails a public service. Throughout the pandemic, for instance, the value of science communication to the public has been instrumental with many scientists being called upon to provide accurate information about the latest scientific advancements.

This has led to vast increases in their followings on Twitter and Instagram from people outside academic circles. Sharing our scientific findings with the public allows us to practice speaking and writing in non-scientific language in a timely manner while reaching more diverse audiences. This can also build trust among various communities and the public.

Science communication can also help advance one’s career. For instance, since external reputation is a key metric that is used by universities to evaluate and promote professors, being active and disseminating your science via social media can help establish that reputation that would benefit you professionally. This is something that’s happened in my own career.

Being active online can help you build your professional network, which can lead to peers recommending you awards, inviting you to give talks and participate on panels, or asking you to judge to conference presentations and other competitions.

Newly formed networks may also lead to the birth of new collaborations and co-writing grant proposals. I can attest to this too as I built my professional network through Twitter. For example, I’ve received invitations to present in university departments and opportunities to present my work at the Entomological Society of America.

Moreover, the social media platforms offer ways to track impact. In Twitter, for example, you can track how many people re-tweeted the tweet, how many people interacted with the tweet, how many people accessed the links, and from what geographical location where they from.

All these data can help science communicators to better understand their audience while finding creative ways to continue engaging audiences. It can also be included in portfolio for academic promotion.

Of course, there are negatives that can come about with science communication on social media. The large volumes of science and other information shared can come at the expense of quality, and people with enough followers, but no expertise can have influence over science conversations and easily spread misinformation.

At the same time, science is continuously evolving, and the results today may improve in the future, and that is always a difficult point to communicate to non-scientists. It is also possible that those with followers can be sponsored by companies or organizations to share certain opinions and specific content. But the benefits outweigh the negatives.

So, if you want to start engaging in science communication, first, find out what already exists in your department, institution, region, and professional society. Explore what opportunities are available to begin your science communication efforts. In addition, inquire from your department if there are science communication classes you can attend.

Science communication will continue to be important into the future. Social media and other avenues of communicating science are here to stay and they are shaping present day and potentially future academic cultures.

Newbies and those who have not tried to partake of science communication can take their first steps. In the end, both the academic community and the public benefit when scientists share their discoveries with the public.

 

Dr. Esther Ngumbi is an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, and a Senior Food Security Fellow with the Aspen Institute, New Voices.

Managing the life cycle of plastics, from production to end-of-life management is crucial to solving plastic pollution crisis. Credit: Antoine Giret/Unsplash

By Samira Sadeque
New York, Feb 8 2022 (IPS)

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly affected plastic waste management, as the world saw a rise in single-use sanitary products, and many cities abandoned their recycling and waste management efforts in the first few months, Eirik Lindebjerg of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) told IPS.

“For example, in March 2020, amid potential hygiene concerns, some major coffee chains paused filling reusable containers in favour of single-use receptacles,” he said. “We also saw many regulators around the world pausing or delaying bans, taxes, or fees on plastic items as well as recycling initiatives in response to sanitary and hygiene concerns.”

He added that some such measures included a pushback against the use of single-use plastic straws, stirrers, and cotton buds in the United Kingdom; meanwhile, the United States saw more than 100 cities halting curbside recycling programmes.

Lindebjerg, WWF’s Global Plastics Policy Manager, spoke with IPS as more than 70 business and financial institutions produced a statement demanding a legally binding treaty to address plastic pollution, ahead of February’s UNEA-5.2, which will be a continuation of UNEA-5.1, which took place in February 2021.

“We need to create proper systems for controlling and regulating plastic pollution, at local, national and global levels,” Lindebjerg said. “Governments need to cooperate and step up their game drastically.”

Excerpts of the interview:

Inter Press Service (IPS): A part of the statement reads: ‘This requires governments to align on regulatory measures that cover the whole life cycle of plastics, not limiting the scope of negotiations to address waste management challenges only.’ What would an approach that considers the ‘whole life cycle of plastics’ entail?

Eirik Lindebjerg (EL): A “whole life cycle of plastics” approach addresses all the potential risks of plastic pollution at each life cycle stage, from the extraction of raw materials to processing materials into plastic and its end-of-life management. Essentially, it is about introducing measures to stop plastic pollution at the stages where it is most efficient, instead of only focusing on high-cost infrastructure to clean up the problem afterwards.

A lifecycle approach would entail a mix of the measures, such as banning certain unnecessary and highly damaging product categories (like certain types of single-use plastics and intentionally added microplastics), product and design standards (to make sure a product produced in one country can be safely reused or recycled in another), as well as global requirements on waste management. Essentially, enabling better regulation of how we make, use and reuse plastic.

A new treaty should include all relevant measures necessary to solve the problem along the entire lifecycle and prioritise those most effective and least costly measures.

Categories of measure in the treaty could be:

• Harmonised regulatory standards and common definitions across markets;
• Clear national targets and action plans for tackling plastic pollution;
• Common reporting metrics and methodologies across the plastic value chain that can calculate discharge rates of plastics by country;
• Coordinated investment approaches toward infrastructure development in key markets and innovation.

IPS: How would a ‘circular economy for plastics’, as mentioned in the statement, add to the efforts to tackle climate change?

EL: Plastic is responsible for generating 1.8 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions a year across its lifecycle. That is more than the annual emissions from aviation and shipping combined. A circular economy for plastics would mean significant GHG emission reduction related to plastic pollution and virgin plastic production.

It would ultimately mean that all plastics used stays within the economy. It would mean zero virgin fossil fuel plastic production and zero leakage to the environment. It would most likely entail a reduction of plastics consumption, especially the unnecessary uses that are so common today. It would be built around reuse and recycling. New business models would create new job opportunities. Biodiversity would benefit both from eliminating pollution and reducing the footprint from production and consumption.

Such an approach can potentially reduce the costs and tackle the negative impacts of the plastics system. Research has shown that this approach could reduce the annual volume of plastic entering the oceans by 80 percent and GHG emissions from plastic by 25 percent, while promoting job creation and better working conditions. By one estimate, a circular economy approach could create 700,000 quality jobs across the plastic value chain by 2040. An increase in plastic material value through design for recycling can also lead to significant improvements in waste pickers’ working conditions and earnings.

IPS: Could you share in detail how to ‘keep plastics in the economy and out of the environment’?

EL: The Reduce-Reuse-Recycle hierarchy must guide policies, production, and consumption practices. We must stop producing and consuming unnecessary plastic products and packaging. Plastic products must be designed for being reused or recycled. And producers must be made accountable for the end of life of the products.

Today, most plastic products are being designed with the intention of becoming waste at the end of life. But when the right incentives are put in place, there are a lot of examples demonstrating that it is perfectly possible to have a more circular system, such as deposit return systems for PET bottles in many countries.

Several comprehensive interventions which can support the transition to a circular economy have already been identified. For example, the Pew Charitable Trusts has proposed nine systemic interventions in line with circular economy principles:

1. Reduce growth in plastic production and consumption;
2. Substitute plastic with paper and compostable materials;
3. Design products and packaging for recycling;
4. Expand waste collection rates in the middle- to low-income countries;
5. Double mechanical recycling capacity globally;
6. Develop plastic-to-plastic conversion;
7. Build facilities to dispose of the plastic that cannot be recycled economically;
8. Reduce plastic waste exports by 90%;
9. Roll out known solutions for four microplastic sources.

IPS: There is considerable evidence that climate change and environmental pollution disproportionately affect marginalised communities. How does it work for communities where plastic is just a cost-effective alternative for many objects?

EL: Unfortunately, this is true for plastic as well. Marginalised communities disproportionately bear the cost of plastic pollution: pen burning, open dumpsites, polluted drinking water, soil pollution, damages to marine ecosystems and fish stocks are all implications that disproportionately affect low income and marginalised communities.

Incineration plants and oil and gas refineries are built predominantly in low-income and marginalised communities exposing them to health and economic risks. In addition, incinerators and landfills are disproportionately situated in indigenous communities because their lands have unclear tenure status. Crude oil and gas refineries are also disproportionately built in low-income and marginalised communities. This exposes these communities to chemical pollutants released during the incineration and refining processes.

IPS: Of the countries that have not yet backed this new treaty, which ones are crucial in the global economy? How do you plan to get them to participate?

EL: China is the largest economic actor that has not yet formally expressed support for the treaty but has expressed an openness to engage in negotiations through a recent declaration from trade ministers at the World Trade Organisation and has engaged progressively on the issue at a global level regarding plastic waste trade. Therefore, it is likely that China will support a mandate decision at UNEA and play an essential role in the treaty negotiations.

 

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There have been eight coups, successful and unsuccessful, in West and Central Africa between 2020 and 2022.

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 8 2022 (IPS)

Calls, even screams, to fight inflation above all else are getting shriller. Thankfully, even The Economist (5 Feb. 2022) reminds all, Fighting inflation could put the world in a slump.

No inflation consensus
International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva doubts the world faces a runaway inflation threat. She urges policymakers to carefully calibrate fiscal and monetary policies, with more “specificity”, as not ‘one size fits all’.

Anis Chowdhury

Widespread reversal of COVID-19 spending and low interest rates threaten recovery. Similarly, Bank of England chief economist Huw Pill stressed the central bank was not going all out to tighten monetary policy.

Instead, like Georgieva, he advocates a more nuanced approach, reasoning, “As the pandemic recedes and the level and composition of global demand and supply normalise, these inflationary pressures should subside”.

US inflation phobia
Inflation hawk Larry Summers – Clinton’s last Treasury Secretary and Director of the National Economic Council during Obama’s first two years – claims it is “wishful thinking” that current inflationary pressures will subside.

He insists, “The painful lesson of the 1960s, 1970s and the 1982 recession is that excessive demand stimulus leads not just to inflation, but to stagflation and ultimately recession, as inflation must eventually be brought under control”. But Summers’ economic history is partial, tendentious and misleading.

Draconian policy prescriptions supposedly inflict ‘short-term pain for long-term gain’, but care little for their ramifications. Summers has nothing to say about how the early 1980s’ interest rate hikes pushed nations into default, triggering debt crises, and over a decade of stagnation in much of the global South.

Most governments can do little to tackle rising commodity, especially fuel and food prices. Conventional monetary tightening reduces overall inflation, typically by inflicting much unemployment, without affecting international sources of inflation.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Recent US wage growth
The recent US wages growth that Summers is obsessed with is actually very different in cause and consequence from the pay rises in the decades he decries. Europeans have also been quick to point out how different inflation on their continent has been.

First, recent wages growth is not due to workers’ collective bargaining, as in the 1960s. Or ‘wage-indexation’, linking wage growth to inflation during the 1970s.

Workers’ bargaining power has declined greatly since the 1980s, with labour market deregulation increasing casualization.

Meanwhile, foreign direct investment has accelerated offshoring, while technological changes have reduced labour needs. Many have changed to self-employment, informal work and other ‘off-the-books labour’. By 2020, there were more than two billion in informal work, mostly in developing countries.

The pandemic has greatly increased ‘gig work’, especially in higher income countries. More piecework remuneration and illusions of independence barely compensate for less bargaining power, and greater labour, work and income insecurity. Working from home increases unpaid overtime work as ‘wage theft’ becomes more widespread.

Second, apparent wage rises may be a statistical anomaly. An estimated third of the total US non-farm workforce, many low-paid – quit their jobs in 2021 for health and safety reasons while better paid workers remained in employment.

IMF research also found labour supply declined in the US and the UK as older workers and mothers with young children quit due to pandemic related challenges. This changing composition of employment has raised the average wage.

Consider a job market with three workers – A, B and C, with hourly wages of $10, $20 and $60 respectively. The average hourly wage is $30. If worker A quits, the average hourly wage – for workers B and C – will be $40. This raises the average hourly wage by $10 – not due to wage growth, but the changing workforce composition.

The higher reported US wages reflect the one-time impact of increased minimum pay, especially when paid by major employers with a nationwide presence such as Target, Southwest Airlines, CVS Health and Walgreens.

Bleak prospects
The IMF’s October 2021 World Economic Outlook saw bleak prospects for low-skilled and young workers. This seems consistent with why low paid workers are reluctant to work for a pittance at great personal risk to themselves.

Many younger workers face special difficulties, e.g., parents of young children due to inadequate childcare facilities and pandemic school disruptions. The mismatch between available jobs and what people want has also grown.

Current inflationary pressure resembles the post-World War Two situation, with pent-up demand for consumer goods unleashed before war-disrupted supplies were restored. Inflation reached nearly 20% in 1947 before collapsing.

Current consumption demand still faces supply chain disruptions due to the pandemic. But such situations are very unlike the episodes Summers cites to make his alarmist case for prioritizing inflation.

Conventional anti-inflationary policies – e.g., fiscal austerity, raising interest rates and credit tightening – are not only inappropriate for dealing with current inflationary pressures, but can be very harmful – as the IMF chief warns.

Understanding inflation
The pandemic has triggered large price increases – notably for food, clothing, fuel and communications. The mismatch between labour supply and demand in some sectors has also become more acute.

Meanwhile, US government data show US non-financial corporations raked in their largest profits ever since 1950 in the second half of 2021 despite rising labour costs. But Summers denies that monopolistic corporate behaviour has contributed to price increases.

Overall corporate profits rose 37% from the previous year while employee compensation only increased 12%, despite “the second year of a pandemic which began by wiping out 20 million jobs”.

US Senator Sherrod Brown (Democrat-Ohio) has asserted that “prices are high because corporations are raising them – so they can keep paying themselves with ever-larger executive bonuses and stock buybacks”.

Rising house prices and accommodation rentals are also raising living costs. Following the 2008-2009 global financial crisis (GFC), governments ill-advisedly abandoned fiscal recovery efforts early. Unconventional monetary policies became the main policy tool since.

This has encouraged real estate and financial asset speculation, instead of investing in productive capacity. Fiscal austerity and continued reliance on market solutions also deter government actions to address key supply chain bottlenecks.

Lack of effective coordination between fiscal and monetary authorities – e.g., in responding to the pandemic – has exacerbated such situations. Instead, commodity and real estate speculation has been much enabled.

Such perverse incentives have undermined needed investments in information and communications technology (ICT), renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, healthcare and education. Businesses have even paid out dividends and bonuses with COVID relief funds. Thus, billionaires got billions more.

Nuance and specificity
Effective coordination between fiscal and monetary authorities is vital for a nuanced approach to ensure sustainable, inclusive and resilient recovery. Fiscal-monetary policy coordination is also needed for a range of long-overdue reforms to address structural factors exacerbating inflationary tendencies and pressures.

But earlier reforms to ensure central bank independence and strict ‘fiscal rules’ in favour of market solutions have undermined government fiscal and monetary capacities to act effectively. Thus, such policies and related ones – e.g., inflation-targeting – must be irreversibly consigned to the policy garbage bin.

Knee-jerk responses to fear mongering by inflation hawks will derail global recovery which the IMF deems “disruptive”. The Fund is also concerned about “divergent” recoveries between rich and poor nations.

Instead of the new Cold War preference for economic sanctions at the slightest pretext, much better and more sustained international cooperation and policy coordination are needed. They must address global supply chain disruptions, stabilize international commodity prices and minimize harmful policy spill overs.

 

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Two experts argue that democracy is still the way forward for the continent, despite some set backs.

Five-year-old Rayan Oram died despite a painstaking rescue effort to free him from a well over the weekend.

With a storage capacity of 580 million cubic meters and an irrigation target of 22,500 hectares, the Picachos dam in the state of Sinaloa, in northwestern Mexico, will also generate 15 megawatts of electricity. CREDIT: Conagua

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Feb 7 2022 (IPS)

The Mexican government is prioritizing the construction and modernization of mega water projects, without considering their impacts and long-term viability, according to a number of experts and activists.

Dams, reservoirs, canals and aqueducts are part of the new infrastructure aimed at ensuring water supply in areas facing shortages, but without addressing underlying problems such as waste, leaks, pollution and the impact of the climate crisis, like droughts.

One of the flagship projects is Agua Saludable para la Laguna (ASL), which will serve five municipalities in the northern state of Coahuila and four in the neighboring region of Durango, benefiting 1.6 million people.

Gerardo Jiménez, a member of the non-governmental Encuentro Ciudadano Lagunero – an umbrella group made up of 12 organizations of people from local communities – said the ASL initiative launched in 2020 neglects the structural causes of the water crisis, water pollution and the overexploitation of water sources.

“It focuses on effects, shortages and pollution. It is designed for a 25-year period and is based on a vulnerable source. There is illegal water extraction and contraband. It does not provide alternative solutions,” he told IPS from the city of Torreón.

Five of the eight aquifers in the area that provide water are overexploited. The Principal-Región Lagunera is the most important, supplying four cities.

The reservoir becomes cyclically deficient, as its annual extraction exceeds its recharge. In addition, the water contains arsenic above the limits established by Mexican regulations and the World Health Organization (WHO).

ASL includes the construction of a water treatment plant, with a capacity of 6.34 cubic meters (m3) per second, a diversion channel and an aqueduct to transport 200 million m3 per year from the Nazas River.

At a cost of 485 million dollars, the project is part of a network of new water infrastructure promoted by the National Water Commission (Conagua), Mexico’s water regulatory agency, several of which are being challenged by social organizations and communities, in some cases through the courts.

The project also includes a diversion dam, a pumping plant, storage tanks and distribution branches.

It will start operations in 2023 and will also harness runoff from the Francisco Zarco reservoir, popularly known as Las Tórtolas, and the Lázaro Cárdenas reservoir, known as El Palmito.

These reservoirs could reduce their water supply due to the drought that has affected the area in recent years. The lack of rain is plaguing half of Coahuila, a situation set to worsen in the coming months with the arrival of the dry season.

Both dams are almost overflowing at present, but that level should change when the dry season starts.

Conagua’s budget has recovered from previous years, from 1.4 billion dollars in 2017 to 1.6 billion dollars in 2022, concentrated primarily in works to prevent floods, due to their high human and economic costs.

Mexico, a country of nearly 129 million people, is highly vulnerable to the effects of the climate emergency, such as droughts, intense storms, floods, and rising temperatures and sea levels. While the south and southeast have water in excess, people in the center to the north face water shortages.

This Latin American nation has a high risk of water stress, according to the Aqueduct water risk atlas of the Aqueduct Alliance, a coalition of governments, companies and foundations. In fact, Mexico is the second most water-stressed country in the Americas, only behind Chile.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (C) visited in September 2021 the Santa María dam in the northwestern state of Sinaloa, intended to strengthen agricultural irrigation and generate electricity. CREDIT: Conagua

Conventional approach

Another key project is the Libertad Dam, whose construction began in 2020 and is scheduled to be completed in 2023, with 132 million dollars in financing. Designed to take advantage of runoff from the Potosí River, the reservoir will provide 1.5 m3/s to meet demand in 24 of the 51 municipalities in the northeastern state of Nuevo León, serving 4.8 million people.

Aldo Ramírez, a researcher at the private Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, said large infrastructure and environmentally friendly works should coexist, as they make different contributions, based on a vision of urban development with an adequate hydrological focus.

“Both approaches have their advantages in certain niches,” he told IPS from Monterrey, the state capital. “When we think about water management in cities, many years ago the focus was on removing the water as quickly as possible so that it wouldn’t cause problems. Green infrastructure can help a lot, it has great environmental value, in water management and aquifer recharge.”

Like other areas of the country, Monterrey and its outlying neighborhoods, made up of 13 municipalities and inhabited by more than five million people, depends on the supply of water from the El Cuchillo, Rodrigo Gómez or La Boca and Cerro Prieto dams. The first holds half of its capacity, while the other two barely store any water, according to Conagua data.

Through a presidential decree published in November, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador classified projects that he considers to be of public interest and of national security as high priority and/or strategic for national development.

Among them are hydraulic and water projects, which will receive provisional express permits, in a measure questioned by environmental organizations due to the violation of impact evaluation procedures.

ASL, for example, still faces a challenge filed by the Encuentro Ciudadano Lagunero, while five others were withdrawn after agreeing with the government to review the project. But if this agreement is not respected, the threat of legal action remains.

More and more water

Northwest Mexico faces a similar situation to the other regions in crisis and the government is building two reservoirs and a canal, and upgrading an aqueduct.

In the state of Sinaloa, construction of the Santa María dam on the Baluarte River is moving ahead and it should also be completed in 2023, to irrigate 24,250 hectares in two municipalities. In addition, it will generate 30 megawatts (MW) of electricity, with an investment of almost one billion dollars.

The Picachos dam is also undergoing modernization, with the installation of turbines to generate 15 MW of electricity and the irrigation of 22,500 hectares. With a storage capacity of 580 million m3, it holds 322 million m3 and will cost about 136 million dollars.

To the south, in the state of Nayarit, the 58-kilometer-long Centenario Canal, with a capacity of 60 m3/s, is being built to irrigate 43,105 hectares in four municipalities. With an investment of 437 million dollars, it will serve some 7,500 farmers with water from the El Jileño and Aguamilpa reservoirs, supplied by the Santiago River.

In addition, the government agreed with opponents of the El Zapotillo dam, in the western state of Jalisco, to leave the dam at a height of 80 meters and operate at 50 percent capacity, so as not to flood three towns, in order for the project, worth some 340 million dollars and with a capacity of 411 million m3, to start operating.

But the construction of new dams has ecological repercussions, such as the modification of the landscape, the generation of methane and the displacement of people, as evidenced by several recent scientific studies.

In the northern city of Tijuana, on the border with the United States, the government is upgrading the Río Colorado-Tijuana aqueduct, which transfers water from the Colorado River, shared by both countries, to meet urban and agricultural demand in the area, at a cost of 47 million dollars.

Jiménez, of the Encuentro Ciudadano Lagunero, calls for the regulation of the extraction of water from the Lázaro Cárdenas reservoir on the Nazas River, as well as from the wells, a more precise extraction measurement system, a fight against illegal concession trafficking and the maintenance of the urban water distribution network.

“An urgent measure must be taken so that in the medium term extraction equals the level of concessions and in the long term extraction equals recharge. We are talking about modifying agricultural production conditions and being more efficient in the use of water,” he said.

In his opinion, “this situation anticipates recurring crises. If it is not addressed, it will worsen, and it is not necessary to reach that crisis.”

But, in the midst of this complex scenario, he warned of the lack of political decision to change the country’s water policy. “The human right to water is not being fulfilled here,” he said.

Ramirez the researcher highlighted measures underway, such as pressure management to reduce leaks, the review of wells assigned to industry, the reuse of treated wastewater and demand management.

“We need to make more efficient use of water. We still have a margin of consumption, but we need to come up with more environmentally friendly solutions. We are heading towards a water crisis,” he said.

Dr. Roberto Savio is somewhat unique as an eyewitness to history and builder of institutions, a man who turns his visions into reality

By Mushahid Hussain
ROME, Feb 7 2022 (IPS)

We are sitting in the heart of Rome, Via Panisperna, where Dr. Roberto Savio has had his office for the last 58 years. His energy and activity, both mental and physical, belies his age. At 87, he walks the 7 kilometres from his house to his office building and climbs two flights of stairs to reach his office. When I caution him about the traffic on the roads of Rome as he walks home every evening, he is very relaxed about it. “Look here, Rome is over 2,000 years old, and these roads were meant for pedestrians, not cars.”

I have known Dr. Savio, arguably one of Europe and the Third World’s pre-eminent public intellectuals (he has Italian and Argentine nationality) for the last 35 years. He is probably the only living journalist who was witness to three major summits of the 20th Century: Bandung Afro-Asian Summit 1955; the meeting of Tito, Nasser and Nehru at Brioni, Yugoslavia in 1960, which laid the basis of the Non-Aligned Movement; and the 1978 first-ever North-South Summit at Cancun.

Injustice is supreme, during the Coronavirus pandemic, some people still got a $1 billion dollar bonus, with the 50 richest persons increasing their wealth by 27%, while over 500 million of the poorest, got pushed below the poverty line.

Dr. Roberto Savio
Dr. Savio also cofounded, with Pero Ivačić, the Non-Aligned Press Pool, apart from the first-ever Third World news agency, Inter Press Service (IPS), plus now the aptly named ‘Other News’.

Dr. Savio is somewhat unique as an eyewitness to history and builder of institutions, since he’s not just a man of ideas but also a man of action, a doer who has the will to translate his vision into reality. In 1964, four Western news agencies — Associated Press (AP), and United Press International (UPI), both American; Agence France Presse (AFP) and the British Reuters — jointly controlled 96% of the world’s free information.

It was a near total monopoly of how and what information was disseminated. It was in this context that Dr. Savio, along with an Argentinean journalist, founded the Inter Press Service, the first Third World News agency with its headquarters in Rome.

And IPS, guided by its guru, had the audacity to challenge this monopoly of news and information, which is a subject of a number of studies. Noam Chomsky calls it Manufacturing Consent and Media Control: Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda. Edward Said published a landmark study, Covering Islam: How the media and experts determine how we see the rest of the world.

It was thus no accident that major wars were started on the ‘big lie’ peddled by a pliant media by first ‘manufacturing consent’ so that wars would have political backing. The 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, which laid the groundwork for the Vietnam War, or the 2003 lie about Iraqi ‘weapons of mass destruction’ as a precursor to war, are both cases in point.

Dr. Savio was a hands-on boss at IPS (I know it because I worked for him at IPS for close to a decade!), personally presiding over editorial meetings at such locations as Manila, Bangkok and Rome, giving ideas and directions but always willing to listen and learn. He led IPS with a crusader’s passion to present a perspective that was different, and, at times, opposed to what the ‘mainstream’ Western media outlets were promoting. That idealism of the 1970s and 1980s has given way to pessimism and disappointment in Dr. Savio as the divisions, class and cultural, deepen amidst an increasingly polarised world.

He is deeply disappointed with two erstwhile democracies, the United States and India. “The America we knew no longer exists,” laments Dr. Savio wistfully. “That America has gone now.” In fact, he feels that political polarisation is so deep in the US, with 60 million evangelicals (the Religious Right) in the US pushing the country rightwards, that he’s convinced Donald Trump will be back with a bang in 2024!

Ever the empirical fact-checker that he is, Dr. Savio cites a PEW public opinion poll to corroborate his assertion. In the 1960s, he says, 8% of Democrats and 12% of Republicans didn’t want their children to get married to someone from the ‘other party’. Today, 88% of Democrats and 93% of Republicans have such beliefs, signifying an almost bridgeable political divide. No wonder, in the 2020 US Presidential elections, Biden won with 80 million popular votes while Trump came a close second with a record 75 million votes, most of whom are still convinced that the 2020 elections were ‘stolen’!

The other country that has disappointed Dr. Savio is India because “Nehru’s India has ceased to exist.” He adds that “Nehru was a very careful statesman, he didn’t want confrontation within India as he understood the diversity of people and the diversity of opinion that exists in India.” Dr. Savio then adds with a note of sorrow similar to his lament about the USA, “that Nehruvian India doesn’t exist any longer. Modi has divided India, Modi has marginalised Muslims.”

Looking at the global media, economic and political landscape, Dr. Savio feels three factors are going to be decisive in transforming the world in the 21st Century.

Considering the global media landscape, Dr. Savio sees the “print media as having a less and less of a role, as most of the print media is neither making money nor posting correspondents abroad, except perhaps El Pais, Le Monde, The Washington Post and the Guardian.

There was a time when Beirut had no less than 75 foreign correspondents.” He dismisses social media as “useless, dividing the world into bubbles, with 7 seconds as the average attention span of a teenager using the social media.” However, Dr. Savio understands how social media can be a ‘weapon of choice’ for some politicians, e.g. Donald Trump who has 86 million Twitter followers.

Dr. Savio adds in such a situation, “why should Trump bother about the American print media whose total daily circulation stands at 60 million, with quality print publications at less than 10 million.” Moreover, “media is now more local, no longer global.”

The second important change, in Dr. Savio’s view, is the crisis of capitalism, citing a quote of Nikita Khrushchev in 1960 that “capitalism cannot solve social problems.”

Dr. Savio adds that most of the capitalist West is also facing other crises, with conspiracy theories galore ranging from the anti-vaccine campaign to strange notions with 60 million Evangelicals in the USA convinced of the second coming of Christ, from QA Non to the ‘Birds Aren’t Real’ madcap conspiracy concoctions, which however have garnered support amongst a large section of Americans.

Despite the rightwing racist campaign against immigrants, Western economies increasingly won’t be able to function without foreign workers. Dr. Savio cites figures: “Germany needs 600,000 new migrant labour, while Canada needs 300,000” for skills and work that locals aren’t willing to do anymore. The core issue is that “society has lost its moral compass, with the culture of greed paramount” in the capitalist West.

Given this context of a ‘greed is good’ culture, Dr. Savio likens talk of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) on the part of big companies as “locking the stables after the horses have bolted.” Actually, Dr. Savio rightly concludes: “the capitalist system has collapsed.”

However, the third factor is Dr.Savio’s biggest worry: the future of Europe and the looming New Cold War. He is highly critical of NATO since “it’s a structure of war, always searching for new enemies, and pushing Russia closer to China.” Criticising NATO for adding China to its list of “major challenges and threats,”

Dr. Savio questions: “by which stretch of imagination is China part of the North Atlantic? This is an exercise in futility.” Moreover, he is convinced that “Trump will come back in 2024, and one thing is for sure, Trump is not interested in spending American money on war.” Perhaps the only silver lining in an otherwise gloomy scenario. With the exit of Merkel, Europe is leaderless.

Dr. Savio then quotes his late friend, the former UN Secretary General Dr. Boutrus Boutrus Ghali, as telling him “the Americans are lousy allies and terrible enemies,” and the biggest problem is that “the Americans don’t want to be told yes, they want to be told, yes sir!” Thankfully, in a world of multi-polarity requiring multilateralism, there are very few countries in today’s world who will simply acquiesce to US bidding with a nod of “Yes Sir!”

Dr Roberto Savio is actually part of a vanishing breed, the ‘last of the Mohicans,’ idealists who were builders in the quest for a better tomorrow, for whom the good fight is to present the truth, the unvarnished truth, while giving a voice to the voiceless, a task he has admirably performed. More power to his pen!

Senator Mushahid Hussain is an elected Senator from Pakistan’s Federal Capital, Islamabad. He is currently Chairman, Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. He has been Minister for Information, Tourism & Culture, Journalist, university teacher and political analyst. He has a Master’s degree from the Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Washington, DC.

This story was originally published by the Wall Street International Magazine
 

Excerpt:

The Inter Press Service co-founder is part of a vanishing breed

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