Africa

By External Source
SEOUL, Republic of Korea, Apr 20 2021 (IPS-Partners)

The Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) has officially appointed Professor Kyung Nam Shin as Assistant Director-General and Head of Investment and Policy Solutions. He will assume his duties at the GGGI Seoul headquarters on May 1, 2021, to further the organization’s aim to catalyze green investments and policies for its Members.

“Considering all that has happened over the past year with the COVID pandemic, now is a crucial time for countries to integrate green policies and projects into their national priorities in order to regain economic stability for the long-term. To this end, GGGI has a lot of potential to greatly aid its Members to achieve impactful results and catalyze the investments necessary for this transition,” explains Prof. Shin.

Prof. Shin serves as a Committee Member for International Development Cooperation under the Prime Minister’s Office in Korea and is a Professor at the esteemed Kyung Hee University in Seoul. He holds a BA in Economics and an MA in Public Policy, from Seoul National University, as well as a Juris Doctor from Colombia University School of Law.

He has diverse background and professional experience of working to accelerate green growth development across Asia.

“Prof. Shin’s deep and broad expertise in the development of green investment projects and the mobilization of green and climate finance will be a great asset for GGGI to further its initiative to catalyze green investments and policies for its Members,” shared Dr. Frank Rijsberman, Director-General of GGGI.

Prof. Shin has over 30 years of international development experience throughout Asia, working with the Ministry of Economy and Finance of the Republic of Korea and the Asian Development Bank in Manilla, Philippines, as well as serving as the Director-General of the Green Technology Center Korea.

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The ability of trafficked persons to access services has greatly reduced. In many countries, resources that had been set aside for legal, physiological and police support for trafficked persons have been diverted to deal with the effects of the pandemic. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

By Ignatius Banda
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Apr 20 2021 (IPS)

Before Zimbabwe imposed lockdown measures last March as part of global efforts to curb the coronavirus pandemic, Grace Mashingaidze* would attend workshops in Harare arranged by a nongovernmental organisation assisting trafficked women who had safely made it back home.

A survivor of trafficking, the 27 year-old Mashingaidze told IPS she joined a group of other young female survivors and had received assistance that ranged from counselling, psychosocial support and self-sufficiency skills. The latter was important as many of the young women struggled to earn an income in a country already suffocated by high levels of unemployment.

“It has been tough ever since we were told we could not attend the workshops and trainings because of the coronavirus. But you come to understand that safety first is a priority for everyone,” Mashingaidze told IPS.

The coronavirus lockdown has meant her life is at a standstill when ideally she and other young women who are part of support group ought to be accessing much-needed help to deal with the trauma of human trafficking and also fend for themselves.

Mashingaidze, who said her ordeal took her as far Mozambique, has ambitions to educate herself and “do a course” that will help her provide for her three-year-old son.

“Up to now, I do not know how I have managed,” she said.

Her story is a microcosm of disruptions brought by the coronavirus in virtually all sectors of human existence in this southern African nation. Non-governmental organisations working with trafficked women have conceded that while there remains a huge need to assist survivors, they cannot risk violate government-imposed public health restrictions for a greater good.

“The immediate impact (of the coronavirus) that raised an immediate outcry from victims of human trafficking was the lack of personalised face-to-face counselling and also loss of livelihoods,” said Dadirai Chikwekwete, who served as coordinator African Forum for Catholic Teaching (AFCAST) at Arrupe Jesuit University where she worked with trafficking survivors until September.

“The therapeutic weekly sessions enabled them to have a “me time” away from their homes and families. They were also engaged in various economic activities ranging from buying and selling groceries, small business entrepreneurship, cake making among other things,” she told IPS.

The experiences of the trafficked women are part of broader interruptions that hit other sectors of the economy such as informal traders who have been forced to stay home as government enforced measures to stem the spread of the coronavirus. 

Previously thriving home-based businesses which trafficked women started have suffered because of restrictions.

“Some of the women lost their incomes during the lockdown. Those who had spent their incomes sewing school uniforms ended up with piles of them since schools were closed,” Chikwekwete told IPS. 

“Tailors had spent sleepless nights making garments for which they were unable to receive payment for since clients want to first fit the garment before making payment,” Chikwekwete explained. 

Schools only reopened in Zimbabwe last month.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) says the COVID-19 pandemic has had “a major impact on the support provided to victims of human trafficking as services are reduced, postponed and in some cases halted”.

In February, UNODC’s Global Report on Trafficking in Persons noted that while COVID-19 had exposed more people to trafficking, there was a need for governments to “support victims as part of integrated efforts to build forward from the pandemic”. 

It’s a sentiment shared by Tsitsi Matekaire, the global lead for Equality Now’s End Sex Trafficking campaign.

“The ability of trafficked persons to access services has greatly reduced. In many countries, resources that had been set aside for legal, physiological and police support for trafficked persons have been diverted to deal with the effects of the pandemic,” Matekaire told IPS.

“It is imperative that governments recognise the gendered impact of the pandemic and also build in to their COVID responses measures to increase identification of victims of human trafficking,” she said.

In the absence of such interventions, the most visible COVID-19 response for low-income countries like Zimbabwe has been to enforce lockdown restrictions that have, in many instances, been routinely violated as people seek ways and means to survive.

According to the Zimbabwe Republic Police, by July 2020 over 100,000 people had been arrested for violating the restrictions in the four months since the March 2020 lockdown. Of these, the bulk were informal traders – most of whom are women who survive by street vending.

But it was a risk Mashingaidze said she had not been willing to take.

“I have already been through a lot already with my experience being trafficked I do not want any brushes with the law,” Mashingaidze told IPS, expressing a desperation that has only been heightened by the government’s failure to provide coronavirus stipends for informal traders.

A UN Zimbabwe report on the effects of COVID-19 noted that the country still needs to do more for victims of human trafficking and “support for women-owned enterprises and social innovations that can lead to self-employment,” something that has been lacking in young women such as Mashingaidze in their efforts to pick up the pieces and lead productive lives.

The southern African country remains a favourite target for human traffickers as desperate young women attempt to escape the economic hardships that have stalked the country for more than two decades.

However, as Mashingaidze explained, being back home has not been without its headaches as COVID-19 added more difficulties to her already desperate situation.

“My prayer is that the pandemic ends soon so that we can get on with our lives,” she said, echoing what has become a global sentiment.

*Name changed to protect source’s identity

 

This is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Airways Aviation Group.

The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ) is pursuing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 8 with a special emphasis on Goal 8.7 which ‘takes immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms’.

The origins of the GSN come from the endeavours of the Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders signed on 2 December 2014. Religious leaders of various faiths, gathered to work together “to defend the dignity and freedom of the human being against the extreme forms of the globalisation of indifference, such us exploitation, forced labour, prostitution, human trafficking” and so forth.

 

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Thousands of men, women and children fall victim each year to human trafficking, a serious crime and a grave violation of human rights. The 18-year-old girl (pictured) was taken to Almaty, Kazakhstan, and promised work as a housekeeper but forced to become a sex worker. Credit: UNICEF/UN045727/Pirozzi

By Simone Galimberti
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Apr 20 2021 (IPS)

The numbers are so staggering that is hardly imaginable striking a positive tone about the situation of child trafficking in Nepal and yet some positive developments are occurring here in a country that soon could be set to graduate from the group of least developing countries.

Only last week a story was published about seven girls aged between 10-18 from a district neighboring India that had gone missing but luckily were found safe by the Indian police and returned back to their families.

The existence of an open border between the two countries poses one of the greatest challenge in fighting child trafficking as also explained by Nobel Peace Laureate Kailash Satyarthi in a program held in December 2020. This is just one episode amid an ongoing crisis that is affecting thousands of children every single year.

For example, on the 2nd of April, the national police arrested five men accused of trafficking and forcing to prostitution underage teenage girls.

Unbelievably as it might seem, according to the official data from the Government of Nepal, around 300 children, with girls being in the majority, go missing because of child trafficking.

Those ending up in India, deceived and entrapped without apparent escape, are forced into a circle of exploitation and abuse that will mark their lives, while for others their subjugation means a new life characterized by misuse and ill treatment in the Gulf countries.

At the same time, we should not forget the heinous patterns of enslavement within Nepal that feed many industries, from entertainment to construction to public transportation. While boys are also victimized, it is clear that child trafficking is particularly hard on underage girls that become objectified as domestic and sexual workers.

In all the cases, none of the children dragged into these abuses know if one day will be able to be rescued, rehabilitated and have a chance to start their lives anew.

#EndHumanTrafficking visual. According to the UNODC Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, 30% of human trafficking victims are children. Credit: UNODC

A recent report published by the Ministry of Women, Children, and Senior Citizens portrays the situation even in starker terms with estimates that 2,729 children, including 831 boys and 1,898 girls, were reported missing in fiscal 2019- 20, a stunning number but still a reduction in comparison to the previous year when 3,422 had been missing.

Probably the only factor that contributed to the slowdown was the closing of the international borders due to the pandemic but with the lockdown that followed hitting the poorest the most and with a second wave of the virus now reaching the country, it is very realistic to imagine a much worse scenario in the months ahead with more and more children finishing in the networks of unscrupulous traffickers, many of which are relatives or known people.

The economic boom that followed the signing of the peace agreements and the abolition of the monarchy did not materialize in positive advantages for the most vulnerable segments of the population, another evidence that trickle down economy only works to help the middle class move on the social economic ladder.

Despite the gloomy scenario, we are witnessing some positive developments that might help revert the trend and constitute important steps towards ending child exploitation in the country.

The Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons of the US State Department in the latest edition of its annual Trafficking in Persons Report published in 2020 highlights the challenges faced by the country but also recognizes some important improvement, especially in terms of the Government’s commitment to eradicate the problem.

First of all, Nepal ratified the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons also known as Palermo Protocol that came into force in the country on the 16th of June 2020.

It is an important legislative milestone that is now prompting the Government to amend the Human Trafficking and Transportation (Control) Act, making it a more robust legislation able to better deter and punish those engaging in acts of children’s trafficking.

Due to the complexity of the issue, other legislations have to be amended including the Foreign Employment Act but also The Immigration Act, exposing the links between child trafficking, force labor and abuses in foreign employment.

The National Child Rights Council is a new institution that builds on the legacy of the Central Child Welfare Board and was born out of Section 59 of the Children’s Act 2018, the recent piece of legislation aimed at modernizing the entire approach to child protection in the country.

Just recently the Council was able to rescue 53 children in Nepal involved in street vending selling items like water and food through local contractors that have been recommended to the Labor Office for prosecution.

Now these children are being protected, thanks to the Council, in safe shelters with the goal of having them reunified with their families as soon as the conditions will allow.

“We are expanding in, cooperation with the Provincial Governments, our outreach in all the seven provinces and soon we will be able to have a stronger presence throughout the nation” says Milan Raj Dharel who has been involved in the field of child protection for his entire life, first working with established civil society organizations and now as founding executive director of the Council.

In order to better intervene in the incidents of child trafficking like the one involving the seven girls, the Council, explains Dharel, is working to systematize cross border rescue protocols so that it will be easier for children rescued in India to be repatriated back to Nepal.

Moreover, some improvements have been also made in the sensitive process of de-institutionalization, closing many faked orphanages that have been taking advantage of and profiting out of the hosted children.

It is still a serious problem, said Dharel, but important achievements have been taken in this regard but at least stronger regulations are in place and very importantly, these are now being enforced.

“Another area we are working with is the upcoming entering in force of new Child’s Rights Rules” that we expect to be endorsed within the end of the May this year”.

According to Dharel, with the new Children’s Act in place, it is now imperative to have the new rules endorsed that will better reflect the transformation of the country in a federal republic where many powers are enshrined with locally elected governments and provinces.

The new regulations will also codify the existence of two child help lines, the 104 being managed by the central police with technical support of the Council and the 1098 that instead is managed, always with Council’s help, by CWIN, a leading civil society organization working in the area of child protection.

According to its official data, only in 2021, 492 case were registered by the 1098 help line, the majority of which were made by female with abuse and child marriage resulting as the two main causes for the requests of help, reinforcing the rationale that only long term solutions encompassing a full spectrum of support, including better social protection schemes directly reaching out the most vulnerable families, are the answers to the complex factors underpinning child abuses, including trafficking.

According to Dharel, the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Affairs, is working to ensure that the amendments to the Human Trafficking and Transportation (Control) Act will be tabled in the next winter session if the situation allows as Nepal is undergoing a delicate situation politically and fresh elections might be called soon.

Despite the objective difficulties of the problem itself and the instability that the country faces, the fact that in this particular sphere of governance, focused on ensuring better life prospects for the most vulnerable children, there is a political will to act and improve the existing legislations whereas needed and finally enforcing them is definitely encouraging.

Partnerships with civil society organizations remain indispensable as they play a big role in stopping and rescuing many minors as well more efforts are required to ensure intra-institutional collaborations within the organs of the State, including with the National Human Rights Commission that since 2005 has been publishing the flagship annual National Report on Trafficking In Persons in Nepal.

Will the country be able to do more, leveraging its “whole of system” approach, mobilizing more partnerships and innovative social programs to root out the causes of child trafficking and finally shut down this dark business that still enriches many and victimizes many more innocent minors?

*Simone Galimberti writes on volunteerism, social inclusion, youth development and regional integration as an engine to improve people’s lives.

 

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Excerpt:

The writer* is Co-Founder, ENGAGE, Inclusive Change Through Volunteering, a not-for-profit in Nepal.

The post Child Trafficking in South Asia Facilitated by Open Borders appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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By Timothy A. Wise and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
BOSTON and KUALA LUMPUR, Apr 20 2021 (IPS)

Since the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) was launched in 2006, yields have barely risen, while rural poverty remains endemic, and would have increased more if not for out-migration.

AGRA was started, with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, to double yields and incomes for 30 million smallholder farm households while halving food insecurity by 2020.

Timothy A. Wise

There are no signs of significant productivity and income boosts from promoted commercial seeds and agrochemicals in AGRA’s 13 focus countries. Meanwhile, the number of undernourished in these nations increased by 30%!

When will we ever learn?
What went wrong? The continuing Indian farmer protests, despite the COVID-19 resurgence, highlight the problematic legacy of its Green Revolution (GR) in frustrating progress to sustainable food security.

Many studies have already punctured some myths of India’s GR. Looking back, its flaws and their dire consequences should have warned policymakers of the likely disappointing results of the GR in Africa.

Hagiographic accounts of the GR cite ‘high‐yielding’ and ‘fast-growing’ dwarf wheat and rice spreading through Asia, particularly India, saving lives, modernising agriculture, and ‘freeing’ labour for better off-farm employment.

Many recent historical studies challenge key claims of this supposed success, including allegedly widespread yield improvements and even the number of lives actually saved by increased food production.

Environmental degradation and other public health threats due to the toxic chemicals used are now widely recognized. Meanwhile, water management has become increasingly challenging and unreliable due to global warming and other factors.

Ersatz GR2.0 for Africa
Half a century later, the technology fetishizing, even deifying AGRA initiative seemed oblivious of Asian lessons as if there is nothing to learn from actual experiences, research and analyses.

Worse, AGRA has ignored many crucial features of India’s GR. Importantly, the post-colonial Indian government had quickly developed capacities to promote economic development.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Few African countries have such ‘developmental’ capacities, let alone comparable capabilities. Their already modest government capacities were decimated from the 1980s by structural adjustment programmes demanded by international financial institutions and bilateral ‘donors’.

Ignoring lessons of history
India’s ten-point Intensive Agricultural Development Programme was more than just about seed, fertilizer and pesticide inputs. Its GR also provided credit, assured prices, improved marketing, extension services, village-level planning, analysis and evaluation.

These and other crucial elements are missing or not developed appropriately in recent AGRA initiatives. Sponsors of the ersatz GR in Africa have largely ignored such requirements.

Instead, the technophile AGRA initiative has been enamoured with novel technical innovations while not sufficiently appreciating indigenous and other ‘old’ knowledge, science and technology, or even basic infrastructure.

The Asian GR relied crucially on improving cultivation conditions, including better water management. There has been little such investment by AGRA or others, even when the crop promoted requires such improvements.

From tragedy to farce
Unsurprisingly, Africa’s GR has reproduced many of India’s problems:

• • As in India, overall staple crop productivity has not grown significantly faster despite costly investments in GR technologies. These poor productivity growth rates have remained well below population growth rates.

 

• • Moderate success in one priority crop (e.g., wheat in Punjab, India, or maize in Africa) has typically been at the expense of sustained productivity growth for other crops.

 

• • Crop and dietary diversity has been reduced, adversely affecting cultivation sustainability, nutrition, health and wellbeing.

 

• • Subsidies and other incentives have meant more land devoted to priority crops, not just intensification, with adverse land use and nutrition impacts.

 

• • Soil health and fertility have suffered from ‘nutrient-mining’ due to priority crop monocropping, requiring more inorganic fertilizer purchases.

 

• Higher input costs often exceed additional earnings from modest yield increases using new seeds and agrochemicals, increasing farmer debt.

Paths not taken
AGRA and other African GR proponents have had 14 years, plus billions of dollars, to show that input-intensive agriculture can raise productivity, net incomes and food security. They have clearly failed.

Africans — farmers, consumers and governments — have many good reasons to be wary, especially considering AGRA’s track record after a decade and a half. India’s experience and the ongoing farmer protests there should make them more so.

Selling Africa’s GR as innovation requiring unavoidable ‘creative destruction’ is grossly misleading. Alternatively, many agroecology initiatives, which technophiles decry as backward, are bringing cutting-edge science and technology to farmers, with impressive results.

A 2006 University of Essex survey, of nearly 300 large ecological agriculture projects in more than fifty poor countries, documented an average 79% productivity increase, with declining costs and rising incomes.

Published when AGRA was launched, these results far surpass those of GRs thus far. Sadly, they remind us of the high opportunity costs of paths not taken due to well-financed technophile dogma.

Timothy A. Wise is senior advisor at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and author of Eating Tomorrow: Agribusiness, Family Farmers, and the Battle for the Future of Food.

 

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Joseph Lowasa Baraka at his vegetable and fruit kiosk in Nairobi. During Kenya’s coronavirus lockdowns traders opted to stay away from congested market places and prioritised more secure digital platforms. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu
NAIROBI, Apr 19 2021 (IPS)

After Joseph Mandu lost his job because of the country’s coronavirus lockdown, he would still wake every morning and leave his home in the City Carton slum in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. But instead of heading to the restaurant he worked at as a pool-table attendant, he would walk around City Carton searching for odd jobs to earn an income so he could pay for the food his family needed to survive.

“I tried to find something to do because my wife could not understand a fact that I was totally not able to provide for the family.

“With schools closed, all our five children were there in our single room and they needed food, water – which can only be bought – and soap, among other things, that were beyond my affordability,” Mandu told IPS, noting that he also owed his landlord Sh2000 ($18) in monthly rent.

Mandu is not alone in the need to provide for his family.

Blanket containment measures imposed by Kenya’s government to control the coronavirus pandemic have denied poor slum dwellers access to sufficient nutritious food and livelihoods, according to early findings from an ongoing evidence-based study to assess the impact of COVID-19 on dietary patterns among households in Nairobi’s informal settlements.

The study noted that urban slum and non-slum households are impacted differently by the COVID-19 pandemic, and therefore differentiated policies and solutions are needed to address food security, nutrition and the livelihoods of these two consumer groups.

The researchers, led by scientists from the Alliance of Biodiversity International and the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), are now calling on the Kenyan government to consider the unique challenges that people living in urban slums face before imposing blanket measures to curb the spread of the disease. 

“Through this study, we have seen that about 90 percent of households in the slums reported dire food insecurity situations, and are not able to eat the kinds of foods they prefer such as indigenous vegetables and animal sourced foods like milk and eggs, which had been more affordable and accessible before the pandemic,” Dr. Christine Chege, the lead researcher on the project, told IPS. The Alliance provides research-based solutions to harness agricultural biodiversity and sustainably transform food systems to improve people’s lives in a climate crisis.

The study found that more than 40 percent of slum households lack employment and their average monthly household income is $78.

• Scientists collected primary data from 2,465 households in the Kibera and Mathare slums, as well as from middle-income residents within Nairobi city.
• Household dietary diversity scores were calculated based on 7-day food consumption recalls.

The City Carton slum in Nairobi, Kenya. An ongoing study by scientists from the Alliance of Biodiversity International and the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) has found that more than 40 percent of slum households lack employment and their average monthly household income is $78. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

So far, the government has turned to policies such as curfews, social distancing and closure of eateries, bars, churches to contain the spread of the virus. As of today, Apr. 19, Kenya has reported over 151,000 COVID-19 cases.  

But the current measures to restrict spread of the virus has had a direct negative impact on livelihoods of tens of thousands of urban slum dwellers across the country.

Generally, slum dwellers live in crowded single-roomed, shanties where a number of households share bathrooms, sinks, and water points. There is little or no space for children to play and social distancing is impossible. 

They also do not have personal means of transport and so many have to use crowded public transport, which includes the use of motor bikes that sometimes carry up to three passengers on a single bike.

For these communities sanitisers remain a luxury. And some people use one disposable mask for more than a week — not for protection against COVID-19 infection, but to avoid the wrath of law enforcers who are reportedly using it as an excuse to distort money, particularly from the poor.

One respondent from Kibera slum told researchers that she was on antiretroviral therapy for HIV but she was not able to eat a balanced diet, as advised by her medic.

These are just some of the reasons why slum dwellers, according to the study, need differentiated containment measures that will not completely deny them access to food and livelihoods.

While the findings note that non-slum households may benefit from a decrease or cap on rising food prices to improve their food security and nutrition, for slum dwellers the solution is different and perhaps more complicated.

Researchers instead recommend strategies and interventions to assist slum dwellers in earning an income as a solution, first giving them economic empowerment in order to access nutritious foods.

“Once they are empowered economically, a second intervention would be towards lowering food prices,” said Chege.

According to Joram Kabach of Twiga Foods, a company that currently supplies fresh fruits and vegetables from over 20,800 farmers across this East African nation straight to more than 30,000 small-scale vendors via mobile technology, there is need for the government to partner with the private sector to bridge the gap between food and nutrition security for slum dwellers, and containment measures for the COVID-19 pandemic.

“During the pandemic period, we observed a sharp increase in our daily turnover from Sh13 million ($18,200) to Sh35 million ($318,200),” said Kabach.

“This means that in line with the government guidelines for social distancing, traders opted to stay away from congested market places and prioritised more secure digital platforms, where orders are made via mobile phones and products delivered at doorsteps with much reduced human interactions,” he told IPS.

In that regard, he observed that the government could cushion slum dwellers by offering them food vouchers, which can be redeemed from structured vendors who belong to structured platforms such as Twiga Foods. The company is also participating in the ongoing study.

Chege said she hoped that the research would influence policy design and implementation to include vulnerable poor consumers in the slums.

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The post Kenya’s Poor Need Different Lockdown Restrictions to Survive, Scientists Urge appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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Skilling programmes already face issues with the delivery of training and achieving the desired learning outcomes. Moving them online may in fact worsen learning outcomes. | Picture courtesy: Flickr

By External Source
HYDERABAD, Telangana, India, Apr 19 2021 (IPS)

India’s evolving Technical and Vocational Education and Training ecosystem (TVET) faced many challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of the national lockdown, organisations had to remain shut for 7-8 months, until September 2020.

This ecosystem is made up of a range of players, including vocational education providers such as schools and higher education institutions; short-term skill development programmes supported by corporate philanthropy and National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC); public and private Industrial Training Institutes (ITI), among many others.

Though internet accessibility has increased from 27 percent to 50 percent in the past five years in India, a majority of the youth who attend skill development programmes have very limited access to smartphones and data connectivity

All of these have faced an uphill task in reaching their customers, ensuring quality delivery of training, and connecting trained youth with jobs. And there have also been many lessons along the way, with different entities experimenting and adapting to the constraints posed by the pandemic.

 

How the pandemic impacted the skill development ecosystem

Delivery of training went online, widening the digital divide

Most skill development programmes in the country follow a classroom-led delivery model. Because of this, many faced huge infrastructure and human resource-related challenges while moving their operating models online overnight.

On the one hand, participants from low-income families didn’t have access to digital infrastructure. On the other, trainers were not equipped enough to deliver virtual training, particularly while doing so from home.

Though internet accessibility has increased from 27 percent to 50 percent in the past five years in India, a majority of the youth who attend skill development programmes have very limited access to smartphones and data connectivity. At Dr. Reddy’s Foundation (DRF), our skilling programmes are primarily designed for unemployed youth from low-income families, with schooling until the 10th or 12th grade.

We have found that prior to the national lockdown being announced last year, 25-30 percent of our students did not own smartphones. The pandemic has widened the digital divide between these students, and those who have access to resources. Reaching them through any kind of online programme was difficult.

 

Few jobs, and the challenges of commuting

Job placements—a key indicator of success for all short-term training programmes—were adversely impacted when the lockdown began to be eased across the country. This was mainly due to a few things.

First, there was a negative impact on the demand-supply chain, which meant there were few job openings.

Sectors such as retail, hospitality, and tourism, for instance, were severely affected and had fewer job openings compared to healthcare, banking and financial services, information technology-enabled services, e-commerce, and logistics.

Second, the fear of getting infected with COVID-19 forced some students and their parents to defer placements.

Third, a lack of transport facilities, especially public transport, which is the preferred mode for a majority of Indians, made commuting to workplaces difficult for even those students who had received a job offer.

When cities started opening up, the local transportation cost (such as shared auto fare) tripled, creating further difficulties for students, especially in entry-level jobs which pay between INR 10,000-15,000. In our programmes, many youth who were in dire need of employment, preferred to join hyperlocal jobs, rather than travelling long distances in the absence of affordable transportation.

 

Funding ran dry

The funding sources for all government-sponsored programmes were largely unavailable during September-October 2020, when the lockdown was extended. This created a lot of stress on small skill development organisations and as a result, they were forced to downsize their project staff.

Many of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) foundations I know of have provided a lot of flexibility to their nonprofit partners to try new approaches, including virtual delivery and extending digital infrastructure support during this time.

This is so they can ensure that the impact of the lockdown on their skilling programmes is minimised.

As we are still in the midst of the pandemic, it seems that re-building the government funding pipeline may take some more time.

The phase one launch of Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana 3.0 in January 2021 is a welcome change as it will revitalise government-sponsored skilling programmes to some extent. But the pandemic has also created an opportunity for CSR and private foundations, for industry (through apprenticeship programmes), and for employers to play a bigger role in creating a skilled workforce for the country.

 

What’s next? Virtual, blended, or self-learning?

The COVID-19 pandemic saw a surge in self-learning apps and virtually delivered programmes. But maintaining the same quality of training with a digital delivery model is a challenge. There are logistical issues, then there are issues with the trainers’ approach to engaging students digitally, and of course the commitment of participants to learn online.

Skilling programmes already face issues with the delivery of training and achieving the desired learning outcomes. Moving those same solutions online may in fact worsen learning outcomes. Additionally, we saw that during the lockdown, the impact of the training course varied based on the nature of the course that was delivered online.

It is easy to delivery theoretical concepts online, but practical sessions still require classroom support. So, ‘foundational’ courses might see better outcomes than those that teach ‘technical’ skills online. Based on our virtual programme learning, we think there is a huge opportunity to create quality digital training solutions for this segment of youth, with a trainer-assisted programme that can be delivered in a local language.

 

What we did, and what we learnt

Agility, using digital technology more, diversifying our funding portfolio, and investing in a Training of Trainers (ToT) course, helped us survive the crisis as well as create something new.

At DRF, we were able to quickly transition to and manage all key processes of our ‘core employability skills’ training programme online. However, in case of our healthcare skilling programmes it was difficult for trainers to deliver classes online due to the ‘technical’ nature of the courses and the practical elements involved.

We changed our outreach strategy while on-boarding students for virtual classes by clearly explaining to them how a virtual class will be delivered, through videos. We also encouraged students and their parents to arrange for smartphones at least on a temporary basis. We made training available at a discounted fee, which enabled them to buy required data packs to avail of the virtual training.

Investing in a ToT course was very helpful. We trained our trainers to deliver virtual training effectively; we developed short videos on core modules in vernacular languages; we delivered training virtually through Zoom in the first half of the day, and utilised the second half to keep students engaged through WhatsApp.

We also used our learning management system to administer assessments and share videos of core modules that students used for self-learning. Additionally, we held online meetings with parents and conducted extra sessions every Friday, which also contributed to achieving good learning outcomes.

On the funding side, having a diversified funding portfolio helped us to survive. Our long-term CSR partners supported us to manage our ‘core employability skills’ programme online, however, our healthcare skilling programme, which is supported by the government, was completely shut until the end of September.

In a recent study we conducted with the participants who were attending our virtually-delivered training, we found that 40 percent were comfortable attending the programme online (despite being given the option of in-person training).

This insight helped us design a digital delivery model, which has now been tested at scale with more than 10,000 participants. We have been able to do this without deprioritising our classroom-led model, which is still very relevant for a sizeable portion of the youth we work with.

Pranav Kumar Choudhary is the director of operations at Dr. Reddy’s Foundation. 

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

 

The post Challenges with Skill Development Programmes During the Pandemic appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Uganda and Tanzania have signed a $3.5bn oil pipeline deal which is to create up 10,000 jobs.

Everyone views each other as a person they can get something from, Tsitsi Dangarembga says.

Samah Ghalloussi, one of the entrepreneurs interviewed for the article with a worker of the French Red Cross. Credit: French Red Cross

By Angel Mendoza
PARIS, Apr 19 2021 (IPS)

This year’s World Health Day on 7 April was an opportunity for three entrepreneurs to share their insights and reflections on a rather complex year due to the health crisis and comment on their experiences developing impactful products and services in this sector.

Emeric Lemaire, co-founder of Arkhn, Samah Ghallousi, CEO of AALIA.tech and Antoine Noel, co-founder and director of Japet, are all either associates of Liberté Living-Lab, (a tech for good innovation space hosting a multi-actor collective) or members of Tekhné, a start-up acceleration programme.

The annual World Health Days help to raise public awareness of a wide range of topics, and thus provide an opportunity to highlight three health issues, whether they concern professionals or the general public: medical data management, inclusion in the health sector, or the challenges of back health.

The health crisis has highlighted the problems of accessing and managing data in the health system. Some of the most striking examples of these problems include the poor management of the number of patients attending emergency rooms, limited access to medical history and therefore the risk factors linked to patients, as well as the recent administration of vaccines.

Emeric Lemaire, co-founder of Arkhn, whose mission is to enable more efficient and ethical access to hospital data, shares some lessons learned during this pandemic.

“Even if the past year has been very hard for our society because of the health crisis, there are some positive realizations for the future of the health system. In particular, some governments have taken measures to increase the resilience of hospitals, including investment in research and in their information systems: this is one of the main missions of the Segur (consultation of French healthcare system stakeholders), ” said Emeric.

According to Emeric, proper data management would help to better control the Covid-19 pandemic. Firstly, because access to medical information is vital for understanding the Covid-19 virus and the development of treatments/vaccines.

Secondly, this would greatly benefit research, which requires rapid data access in order to recruit patients for clinical trials.

Finally, from an organisational point of view, efficient and accessible data management allows for better monitoring of bed distribution and the construction of efficient propagation models.

Credit: French Red Cross & Aalia tech

Despite the pandemic, Arkhn has grown and is now supporting around ten hospitals. The teams are developing a digital platform that facilitates access to all the data collected in health care institutions.

They are deploying a standard data warehouse in each health care institution which is accessible through a universal interface (an API – Application Programming Interface – using the FHIR standard, an international reference for medical IT). This centralises data from existing software, which is difficult to access at present.

Enabling data access in this way has a number of advantages namely for research purposes (setting up cohorts, conducting clinical research), for improving the capacity of care teams and maximising their efficiency (monitoring patients’ progress, rapidly searching for medical information) and also for promoting the shared access of the data by the hospital’s partners (software publishers, pharmaceutical companies, etc.).

This year’s challenges? “To learn the lessons of this health crisis in order to build a health system more efficient for everyone and better able to respond to such pandemics.”

For Samah Ghallousi, Managing Director of AALIA.tech, there remains a major challenge in health care: inclusion. A real public health problem exists, on which AALIA.tech is working, which involves accessibility through language.

During the pandemic in France, an issue transpired whereby a whole population that did not speak French well enough struggled to understand prevention messages and even access health care.

“There are already often basic communication problems between doctors and patients, which means that some patients do not always understand their treatments and how to take them correctly. When a patient does not speak French or does not speak it well, the problem is even more complex.”

“If we are unable to translate messages into their own language, they will be less likely to manage their health correctly, which could lead to their condition becoming more aggravated or even worsened without the proper care and attention.” said Samah

AALIA.tech has therefore launched its product, currently in beta testing, to help emergency services by offering a voice assistant via an application that translates the health professional’s questions into the patient’s native language.

This technology takes into account the medical and cultural context of the patient, and allows for a fine-tuned understanding by not restricting the doctor to a list of questions, and not limiting them to a pre-established artificial language. The assistant has also been developed into an audio version to also help those who cannot read.

Back problems, common among workers, are even more likely to develop among the large number of home-based workers, who are often poorly equipped at home for extended periods of sitting. According to the medical journal The Lancet, an estimated 540 million people worldwide are affected by lower-back pain.

“The annual cost of back pain is more than €1.4 billion each year for the social security system. It is therefore essential to find solutions for people who suffer chronically from back pain as they represent 80% of the expenses. It is also essential to take preventative action to avoid entering this vicious circle,” said Antoine, co-founder and director of Japet.

One of the main themes of the last World Health Day is the “Mobilisation of all public health actors”, especially those who are not necessarily considered. According to Antoine, the mobilisation of companies is essential, as many risk factors are linked to professional activity.

To combat musculoskeletal disorders (MSD), Japet has designed exoskeletons for the labour market. This “Wearable Medicine” is defined as the combination of medical science and modern robotics.

The start-up markets its exoskeletons in France, Germany, South Korea and Hong Kong, and this year Japet intends to multiply its partnerships in Italy, as well as in several Asian and South American countries.

In addition, in the specific context of the epidemic, Japet is one of the many players who have mobilised. In 2020 they joined the French Red Cross accelerator to promote the integration of new occupational health solutions, and in particular to help staff working on the front line against the pandemic.

 

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The post A Growing New Health Crisis Focusing on Emergency Rooms, Medical History & Vaccines appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The writer is Communication Officer at Liberté Living-Lab, Paris France

The post A Growing New Health Crisis Focusing on Emergency Rooms, Medical History & Vaccines appeared first on Inter Press Service.