Africa

By Martha Katsi
HARARE, Zimbabwe, Jan 27 2020 (IPS)

Steven Seremwe, who is 57 years old, was retrenched from his job as an administrator at Lake Shore Missions in 2012. He decided to focus on farming, and he started growing various crops—white maize, sugar beans, and sweet potatoes, among others—for consumption and sale.

“I have always loved agriculture but because of work pressures, I was not practicing. But when I got retrenched from work, I decided to follow my heart and started farming,” he said.

The problem was that every farming season, even with a bumper harvest, Seremwe`s income was falling short. Profits were never enough to feed and care for his wife and two children. He had to do odd jobs in the community to help make ends meet.

Seremwe lives in Zvimba District of Mashonaland West Province in Zimbabwe. According to a National Nutrition Survey conducted in 2010, Zvimba was among 27 districts in Zimbabwe that were identified as having a high prevalence of malnutrition.

The irony is that in Seremwe’s district, many types of crops and vegetables are grown, but most are grown for sale rather than for consumption.

In 2016, under the Zimbabwe Livelihoods and Food Security Programme (LFSP), HarvestPlus introduced biofortification in Zvimba district.

The programme, which is funded by the Government of the United Kingdom through the Department for International Development (DfID), aims to reduce poverty through increased agricultural productivity, increased incomes, and improved food and nutrition security for smallholder farmers.

To improve nutrition and health, the LFSP aims to increase the production and consumption of a wide variety of nutritious foods by target households, including biofortified crops.

Encouraged by staff from HarvestPlus and the Agricultural Technical and Extension Services (part of the Zimbabwe Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement), Seremwe joined in the LFSP, hoping that the new crops would help boost his family’s income and secure better and healthy living conditions.

After attending several biofortification trainings organized by the project, Seremwe applied the techniques that he had learned, such as mulching, weeding, and application of manure in his field.

During the 2017/18 agricultural season, 3,300 farming households in Zvimba district were supported with vitamin A orange maize and iron bean seeds and some agricultural inputs. Seed test packs were given to farmers. Seremwe received a two-kilogram pack containing both iron bean and vitamin A orange maize seeds.

After cultivating these crops for the first time, Seremwe saw their potential and was motivated to expand output. During the 2018/19 farming season, he purchased 10 kilograms (kgs) of vitamin A orange maize seed, which yielded 1 ton of maize grain.

He kept 250 kgs of this for home consumption and sold 750 kgs to the Grain Marketing Board to earn ZWD2076.90 (roughly USD138). Seremwe also planted 2 kgs of iron beans and harvested about 60 kgs, of which he kept 40 kgs for home consumption.

Seremwe has also become an ambassador of biofortification—to date, he has passed on 10 kgs of iron bean seed to other farmers to plant. “My family loves eating vitamin A orange maize, especially porridge, it is really tasty. The iron beans also are fast cooking. Above all, as a family we appreciate the health benefits we are getting from eating these biofortified crops. As you can see, we all look very healthy!” Seremwe said.

Seremwe`s fields now yield produce that brings greater prosperity and opportunity to his family. “Vitamin A orange maize and iron beans are an excellent add to our crops that we grow here. Now we have crops loved by many for sale. This contributes significantly to improving the living conditions of my family and education for my children,” he added.

In the current 2019/20 agricultural season, Seremwe—as a farmer who was taught by the project on preparedness—has already bought his farming inputs, including vitamin A orange maize seed, iron beans, and some fertilizers. He has already done his land preparation and is only waiting for the rains to come.

Seremwe is one of roughly 250 000 farmers who have benefitted from the UK-funded LFSP project to end micronutrient deficiencies in the country. The project also supports farmers with market linkages.

Through the program’s interventions, a cumulative 259 metric tons (MT) of vitamin A maize seed and 400 MT of iron bean seed have been distributed in the country through a combination of direct distribution and market-led inventions.

By 2020, it is expected that 400,000 smallholder farmers will be growing and consuming biofortified crops in the country. Based on the success of biofortification in the country, the government of Zimbabwe has included biofortification in the National Agriculture Policy Framework 2019- 2030.

One of the pillars under the framework will be driving food and nutrition security and resilience.

*HarvestPlus is developing and promoting new, more nutritious varieties of staple food crops with higher amounts of vitamin A, iron or zinc—three of the micronutrients identified by the World Health Organization as most lacking in diets globally. The process is known as biofortification—and regular consumption of these innovative crops is improving nutrition and public health.

The post Biofortified Crops Improve Farmers’ Livelihoods in Zimbabwe appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

HarvestPlus*

The post Biofortified Crops Improve Farmers’ Livelihoods in Zimbabwe appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The 2018 African Women's Player of the Year Chrestinah 'Thembi' Kgatlana signs for Portugal's Benfica Feminino.

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Judge Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf is pictured during the ruling at the International Court of Justice in the Hague, Netherlands on January 23, 2020. PHOTO: REUTERS/EVA PLEVIER

By Tasneem Tayeb
Jan 27 2020 (IPS-Partners)

(The Daily Star) – Two days after the Interna-tional Court of Justice (ICJ) approved emergency “provisional measures” asking Myanmar to stop persecution of the Rohingya in all forms— including killing, raping, and destroying homes and villages—two Rohingya women died in Rakhine State when the Myanmar army shelled a village. One of them was pregnant.

While many celebrated the ICJ’s order of provisional measures, some—especially those who have witnessed the ineffectiveness of the ICJ’s repeated “provisional measures” to protect Bosnian Muslims in 1993—had been cynical about the ultimate outcome of such a measure. Their scepticism is yet to be proven wrong.

Despite the ICJ’s order, Myanmar—it seems—remains defiant with its genocidal intent against the Rohingya. And Myanmar has good reason for its intransigence.

First of all, while the ICJ’s order is binding, it is not enforceable; and in the face of Myanmar’s non-compliance, The Gambia (the country that brought the case against Myanmar at the ICJ) at best can approach the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) for it to decide whether it will use its powers to force Myanmar to comply with the ICJ’s order. And here lies the advantage of Myanmar.

China and Russia—two of Myanmar’s major allies—are two of the five permanent members of the UNSC, which also includes the United States, France and the United Kingdom. Both these countries have in the past resisted the United Nations’ attempts to address the Rohingya issue. To refresh the memory: in March 2017, China and Russia blocked a UN Security Council statement that would have “noted with concern renewed fighting in some parts of the country and stressed the importance of humanitarian access to all effected areas”, as reported by news agency Reuters.

With deep economic and military ties with China and Russia, it is no wonder that Myanmar is safe and strong in the knowledge that the UNSC will not be able to induce it to comply with the ICJ’s verdict in the months and years to come.

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Myanmar earlier this month and the signing of 33 memorandums of understanding (MOUs), agreements, exchange letters and protocols send a strong signal to Bangladesh and to the wider world about its strategic ties with the country. According to Myanmar’s Directorate of Investment and Company Administration data, in 2019 China was the second biggest foreign investor in Myanmar, accounting for 25.21 percent of investment in the country; Singapore was the biggest, making up 26.86 percent of the foreign direct investment Myanmar received in the same year.

On the occasion of Xi’s visit, a joint statement in Chinese state media said that China “firmly supports Myanmar’s efforts to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests and national dignity in the international arena” and hopes for it to advance “peace, stability and development in Rakhine State.” Even if one does not read too much into these two lines, it would be difficult to misread China’s stance on the Rohingya issue.

During the visit, China and Myanmar also signed an agreement for the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone (SEZ) deep seaport project, a major town in the volatile Rakhine State that is at the centre of the Rohingya genocide.

China is not the only actor investing in Rakhine. The World Bank in 2019 came under heavy fire from international human rights bodies and non-government organisations (NGO) for its proposed USD 100 million development project in the conflict-riven Rakhine State titled, “Rakhine Recovery and Development Support Project”.

In a letter to the World Bank dated April 9, 2019, obtained by Reuters, more than a dozen Myanmar-based NGOs said, “It is difficult to imagine how meaningful recovery and development are possible in Rakhine without addressing the underlying human rights issues that currently impact every aspect of life for communities.” Despite World Bank’s assurance that, “The project is being carefully prepared so that it does not reinforce or perpetuate movement restrictions or other forms of segregation, and that it creates new openings for social cohesion and positive exchanges between communities,” how it is going to make sure of this remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, Myanmar’s military ties with Russia have only strengthened over the years. In January 2018, Russia agreed to sell six Sukhoi Su-30 fighter jets to Myanmar costing at least USD 204 million. The deal was announced during the official visit of Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoygu to Myanmar in January 2018.

As late as August 2019, Myanmar military chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing paid a visit to Russia and during his stay, he visited the Irkutsk Aviation Plant Corporation that is assembling the six Sukhoi Su-30SM multi-role advanced fighter jets for Myanmar. Photos of him sitting in a cockpit next to a test pilot made quite a show of his trip to the plant.

Of course, warplanes are not enough; military personnel require training as well. Here too Russia comes to their aid –more than 600 members of the Tatmadaw (Myanmar’s military) were studying at higher military educational institutions in Russia in January 2018, as suggested by Russia’s Deputy Defence Minister Lieutenant-General Alexander Fomin.

Apart from these economic transactions, around 60 foreign companies from around the world have ties with businesses controlled by the Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited and the Myanmar Economic Corporation—two military-governed businesses in Myanmar. It is these two conglomerates that dominate the economic and commercial landscape of the country. To address this, the UN fact-finding mission in 2019 urged imposing targeted financial sanctions on companies linked with Myanmar’s military and suggested that foreign companies doing business with Tatmadaw-controlled corporations could be complicit in international crimes.

During the Rakhine State Investment Fair in 2019, Suu Kyi said, “Myanmar has opened up its economy to the world. We have been constantly adjusting our policies, rules and regulations to be in line with international best practices and to make the investment climate more favourable, predictable, facilitative and friendly. We want to establish a welcoming economic environment for all.” Unfortunately, it seems the welcoming environment is not inclusive of the Rohingya.

Given the scenario, it is not surprising that the world, including international bodies like the UN, has miserably failed to address, let alone stop, the genocide unleashed by Myanmar against the helpless Rohingya. Thousands of adults and children have been killed; millions forced to flee; and an unaccountable number of women and girls have been systemically sexually violated, impregnated and exposed to various sexually transmitted diseases by the Myanmar military. And the world watched the spectre unfold before their very eyes like an audience at a macabre movie screening.

While the world is busy exploring potential economic tie-ups with Myanmar, thanks to its vast untapped resources and strategic geopolitical importance, it is the Rohingya and Bangladesh that are bearing the brunt of Myanmar’s economic possibilities. While the ICJ’s verdict is a welcome move, without political will to hold Myanmar to account it will not yield any positive outcome for the Rohingya. Expecting much from it would be a folly. The 1995 Srebrenica massacre should serve as a reality check.

Tasneem Tayeb is a columnist for The Daily Star.

Her Twitter handle is: @TayebTasneem

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

The post When economics prevails over genocide appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Simi Mehta
NEW DELHI, Jan 27 2020 (IPS)

The unease in the relations between the US and Iran have been in the international news for around a month now. Both sides have not shied away from using outright methods of warfare like the use of ballistic missiles and assassinations, along with attempts at economic and diplomatic sanctions.

There have been voices that have mentioned a possibility of a full-blown war in the Middle-East accentuated by US-Iran tensions. Given this background, this article attempts to connect the dots of the prevailing wariness with the historical antagonism between the two countries. It also reflects on the possible implications this might have on India.

Background
It all began in August 1953, when by the covert actions of the Secret Information Service (SIS) of the United Kingdom (UK) and the Central Investigation Agency (CIA) of the United States (US) connived a military coup- Operation Ajax, to topple the then Iran’s elected Prime Minister (PM) Mohammed Mossadegh, an ardent nationalist- who had plans to nationalize Iran’s oil industry and turn oil profits into investments for the Iranian people. The reasons for this coup d’état was that the US feared disruption in the global oil supply and worried about Iran joining the Soviet sphere of influence and the UK feared the loss of cheap Iranian oil.

In January 1963, the last Shah of Iran-Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi- who had close ties with the West, introduced the ‘White Revolution’ and was the harbinger of a series of reforms- for example: allowing women to vote, urban and rural modernization, reduction of religious estates in the name of land redistribution and free and compulsory education among others.

Iran’s Islamic fundamentalists, Shi’ite clergy and the landlords led by Ayatollah Khomeini, were enraged with Shah’s initiatives based on liberal ideals of western thought. They were successful in toppling the latter’s rule in 1979 after years of protests and bloodshed. This came to be known as the Iranian Revolution.

The Iranian revolutionaries took to hostage 52 staff of the US embassy in Tehran for 444 days, following which the US severed all diplomatic relations with Iran, banned American exports to the country and expelled Iranian diplomats. Iran was added to the list of state sponsors of terrorism after an attack by the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in Beirut in 1983 that killed 241 US Marines in Beirut.

On July 3, 1988, the American cruiser USS Vincennes fired a surface-to-air missile and shot down an Iran Air Flight 655- a passenger flight scheduled from Tehran to Dubai, over the Persian Gulf and killed all 290 aboard. The cruiser commander displayed an ‘error in identification’ and termed the commercial aircraft as a fighter aircraft.

The 9/11 attacks on the US soil led the then George W. Bush administration to designate Iran as part of the “Axis of Evil” for supporting terrorism and pursuing weapons of mass destruction. This was fueled by a 2002 controversy that erupted over Iran’s clandestine nuclear program, when the National Council of Resistance on Iran (NCRI), an Iranian exile group, revealed information that Iran had built nuclear-related facilities at Natanz and Arak that it had not revealed to the IAEA. The US government then began pushing for UN sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.

Obama’s election as the US President saw a rise of optimism from the Ahmadinejad’s government for developing understanding with the US. This continued with the election of Hassan Rouhani as the Iranian President in 2013.

Obama-Rouhani administrations witnessed attempts at rapprochements between the US and Iran. The historic Iran nuclear deal between P5+1 (US, China, France, Russia and UK + Germany) and Iran was signed and was known as Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which freed over 100 billion dollars in frozen assets overseas for Iran and increased foreign access to the Iranian economy.

It severely limited Iran’s capacity to enrich uranium and mandated that international inspectors monitor and enforce Iran’s compliance with the agreement. In return, Iran was granted relief from international and US economic sanctions.

Trump and Escalation of Tensions with Iran

Though the inspectors regularly certified that Iran was abiding by the agreement’s terms, in May 2018 President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the agreement and by November all the sanctions against Iran were reinstated. Iran’s economy began to be strangled to pressure it from stopping the ballistic missiles program and to force it to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

Incidentally, this move by the US was regretted by the EU, UK, France, China and Germany. Iran rejected US’ unilateral decision and vowed to defy the sanctions against it. Trump continued with his sanctions-strategy and imposed them on Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, and other top officials of Iran including Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IGRC) of Iran. IGRC was designated as a terrorist organization.

Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah attacked an air base in Iraq on December 27, 2019 where American and Iraqi forces were stationed. It killed a US civilian contractor and wounded several US and Iraqi service members. Airstrikes against the Kataib Hezbollah fighters in Iraq and Syria were ordered within two days.

Revenge and retaliation did not stop as the Iranian-backed militia groups chanting ‘death to America’ stormed the US Embassy in Baghdad on December 31, 2019, and burnt and defaced property.

On January 3, 2020, Iran received a massive jolt of the new decade when on the orders of President Trump, an American drone fired a missile that killed Major General Qassem Soleimani, leader of Iran’s elite Quds Force, as he prepared to leave the Baghdad airport. Soleimani was considered to be second most powerful man in Iran after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

The situation became further heated up when Iran launched more than a dozen ballistic missiles at two Iraqi bases housing American military personnel. While no casualties were reported, Trump announced new harsher economic sanctions on Tehran1 .

As Iran entered a heightened state of alert, preparing for a possible US retaliation, out of “human error”, it accidentally shot down a commercial Ukrainian airliner departing Tehran for Kyiv, killing all 176 people aboard. With the Iranian forces demonstrating “highest level of readiness” at the time, the aircraft was mistaken for a “hostile target”.

Implications for India

India has a veteran diplomat S. Jaishankar as its Minister of External Affairs, and hence the position taken by India amid the US-Iran tussle is likely to avoid taking sides, either of the US or of Iran, in favour or against, since, it shares exceptionally good relations with both. India would continue to expand its economic and cultural ties with Iran and its Global Strategic Partnership with the US.

The US has understood the significance of Iran-India relations, imminent from the waivers provided to India in the recently legislated Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), allowing it to continue importing Iranian oil. Further, Iran’s strategic location provides the route through which India, blockaded by Pakistan, can fulfill its Eurasian ambitions.

The balanced, mature and status-quoist approach of India towards Iran was echoed by the Iranian Deputy Minister for Culture and Guidance of Iran Mohsin Jawadi, when he remarked that India-Iran relations were independent of the ongoing crisis Iran was facing back home. Javad Zarif acknowledged India as a dear friend, which also has good relations with the US. He exhorted the Indian leadership to encourage the US to come back to the negotiating table on the nuclear deal. The Chabahar project provides a route to Afghanistan and Central Asia. Because India and Iran are ‘complementary economies’, Iran has highlighted the need to ‘remove the dollar’ from their bilateral trade and instead concentrate on a ‘rupee-rial’ mechanism, which could ease the difficulties faced by them in bilateral trade due to financial sanctions posed on Iran by the US.

Jaishankar seems to have handled the US-Iran standoff over the last one year quite professionally, and accorded Prime Minister Narendra Modi the diplomatic agility to make calculated and successful visits to oil-rich kingdoms of United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. In fact, Iran has been responsive in negotiating with these countries without any preconditions, and that it ‘would welcome India’s positive role’.

Analysis:

The US has been seeking to contain Iran’s nuclear program, had in the first place, itself helped create in 1957 under the Atoms for Peace Program. It provided Iran its first nuclear reactor and nuclear fuel, and after 1967 by providing Iran with weapons grade enriched uranium and continued it until the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

The downing of the Ukrainian airliner has an eerie similarity with the downing of the Iran Air in 1988 by the US. The reasons cited for both incidents were ‘human error’, and ‘miscalculation’. The fact that Iran used the 1988 incident as an instance for a revenge cannot be overruled.

Further, the US may advise Ukraine to file a case for compensation with the ICJ soon, alike the Iranian claims in 1989. While an all-out war between the US and Iran has been averted as of now, the crisis has important consequences for longer-term regional stability.

1 Blake, A. 2020. Transcript of Trump’s Iran speech, annotated, The Washington Post, January 8, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/01/08/transcript-trumps-iran-speech/

*Simi Mehta also serves as the CEO and Editorial Director of Impact and Policy Research Institute (IMPRI), New Delhi., and can be reached at simi@impriindia.org.

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Excerpt:

Simi Mehta holds a PhD in American Studies from School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She was a Fulbright Fellow at the Ohio State University

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Credit: SIPRI

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 27 2020 (IPS)

Donald Trump, the vociferously unpredictable US president, has long chastised China for seeking “unfair” advantage over trade and tariffs, violating intellectual property rights and “manipulating” the country’s currency to its advantage.

But while this blatant political rhetoric has continued ever since Trump assumed office in 2017, the Chinese have steadily built a massive military arsenal — and joined the world’s major players in arms production and arms exports.

In a new report, released January 27, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), said that China is now the world’s second-largest arms producer, ranking behind the United States and ahead of Russia.

And in 2014-18, the five largest arms exporters were the United States, Russia, France, Germany and China—in that order.

At the United Nations, China is a veto-wielding permanent member of the Security Council, along with the US, UK, France and Russia.

According to SIPRI, China has invested considerably in the modernization of its arm industry since the 1960s, and particularly since 1999.

One of its primary aims is to be self-reliant in the production of advanced weapons and technologies for its armed forces.

However, due to lack of transparency, the value of Chinese arms sales has been either unknown or based on unreliable estimates – until now.

Based on estimated arms sales in 2015–17, SIPRI has identified four major Chinese arms companies as the front-runners.

In 2017, of the 20 largest companies in the SIPRI Top 100, 11 were based in the US, six in Western Europe and three in Russia.

If the four Chinese arms companies, investigated in the study, were included in the top 100, they would all rank among the top 20, with combined estimated arms sales totalling $54.1 billion. Three of the companies would be ranked in the top 10, said SIPRI.

The four have been identified as Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), China North Industries Corporation (NORINCO), China Electronics Technology Group Corporation CETC) and China South Industries Group Corporation (CSGC).

These companies are ranked behind the world’s four biggest arms producers: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon—all based in the US.

Asked whether the quality of Chinese weapons was on par with Western military equipment, Dr Nan Tian, Researcher, Arms and Military Expenditure Programme at SIPRI, told IPS generally there is the opinion that some of the Chinese weapons are still a bit behind in quality as compared to those made by Western countries.

“But we have seen massive improvements in the quality of Chinese weapons,” he added.

“This is also one of the factors why Chinese weapons are considered less expensive than Western alternatives,” he added.

The large buyers of Chinese weapons include Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Algeria. “Most of these countries are considered friendly or are allies of China”, he pointed out.

Asked if these sales were tied to Chinese foreign policy and meant to advance political causes, he said: “Yes, indeed it has foreign policy ties, but so is the case with Russia, US and other countries as well.”

Meanwhile, according to the China Power Project at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), China is also an arms supplier to two other Asian countries, namely Indonesia and Thailand.

In Africa, its arms markets include Algeria, Egypt and Morocco while Chinese weapons have also been used in several military conflicts in the region, including in Sudan, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Dr Nan said that China, like most other arms suppliers, often provides exports through loans or economic partnerships (i.e. 1st access to certain mineral fields).

On loans, it is common that over the course of the repayment, China will write-off the loan as a form of aid, and thus there will be no need for the buyer to pay back the loan, he explained.

According to SIPRI, the largest of the Chinese companies is Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), with arms sales totalling $20.1 billion would be sixth largest in the world.

China North Industries Group Corporation (NORINCO), which would be placed eighth in the Top 100, with sales of $17.2 billion, is in fact the world’s largest producer of land systems.

Contrary to most other major global arms producers, SIPRI said, Chinese arms companies specialize primarily in one arms production sector. For example AVIC produces mostly aircraft and avionics.

And most of the large non-Chinese arms companies produce a wider range of military products across different sectors—covering aerospace, land systems and shipbuilding within one company.

According to SIPRI, these new estimates are most likely still an underestimate. A lack of transparency in the arms sales figures of Chinese arms companies continues to hinder a complete understanding of China’s arms industry. This new research, however, acts as an important scoping study that opens the possibility for further research and prepares the ground for a fuller estimate of Chinese arms sales.

*The authors of the report are Dr Nan Tian, Researcher, Arms and Military Expenditure Programme at SIPRI and Fei Su, a Researcher with SIPRI’s China and Asia Security Programme.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

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By External Source
Jan 24 2020 (IPS-Partners)

As the world marks the second International Day of Education on 24 January 2020, Education Cannot Wait’s Director, Yasmine Sherif, interviewed one of today’s most prominent and passionate advocates for the global movement to ensure education for all. In his role as UN Special Envoy for Global Education and as Chair of the ECW High-Level Steering Group, Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown has successfully galvanized financial and political support globally with the hope and opportunity of quality education for every child in this world.

1. You are the leading global advocate for education worldwide. What inspired you to take on the cause of education out of so many issues facing our world?

I’m just one of many who realized that – as the Education Commission concluded – education unlocks not only individual opportunities, but also unlocks gender equality, better health, better qualities of life and a better environment. The Education Commission’s report illustrates how education is the very foundation for unlocking all other Sustainable Development Goals. For example, I am struck by the fact that infant and maternal mortality can be as much as twice as high among uneducated women compared to those who are educated, and I continue to be shocked by several brutal facts:

• 260 million school-age children are not in school
• 400 million children are completely out of education for good at age 11 or 12
• 800 million children are leaving the education system without any qualifications worth their name

In fact, it’s even worse than that: In 2030, we could be as far away from meeting SDG4 as we currently are, unless we act decisively together, now. One reason why the situation is so grave is that today there are 75 million children and youth in need of urgent education support in crisis-affected countries, of whom 20 million are internally displaced children and 12 million are child refugees. Indeed, only a fraction – 1 to 3 per cent – of refugees go on to higher education, whereas, for example, in pre-conflict Syria it used to be 20%. That is why Education Cannot Wait (ECW) is so crucial to meeting SDG4. We need action now. It simply cannot wait if we are to meet the target by 2030.

2. As the UN Special Envoy for Global Education, what is your vision for some of the key multilateral actions, such the UN, EU and the World Bank to achieve SDG4 by 2030?

We need a renewed focus on education and we need resources, response and reform. We set up the Global Education Forum, working with UNESCO, to ensure that we have maximum coordination of our efforts between the UN, EU and the World Bank and we will soon outline plans for raising the profile of global education in countries across the world.

As humanitarian crises and refugee flows are multiplying at an unprecedented speed, it is critically important to fund ECW’s investments delivering quality education to children and youth impacted by armed conflicts, forced displacement and natural disasters. Furthermore, and in partnership with these actors, we have set up the International Finance Facility for Education (IFFEd). Through IFFEd, we are aiming for $10 billion in extra funds for educational investment. Currently, we are now around $2-2.5 billion. To achieve our goal, we have to secure the support of more countries.

3. What do you see as the biggest challenges in ensuring that every child and young person has continued access to a quality education and what are the priorities to meet those challenges?

Quality education is crucial. As I said, we need resources, speed in the response during crisis and long-term reform to succeed.

Children and youth affected by emergencies and crisis cannot be out of school or wait for a decent education for years simply because a crisis has erupted in their country. As a matter of fact, education is their only hope and opportunity to be able to sustain conflicts and disasters. By the same token, every crisis-affected country needs human capital to rebuild and recover.

We need to train and properly remunerate teachers. Teachers are so important – no one ever forgets their teachers and teachers are the key to improved school standards. We also need the best school leaders serving as head teachers. We need a more relevant curriculum. We need to use technology more effectively, especially in outlying areas – to ensure children are not denied the input and the resources they need for a good education. We need to use technology effectively not just for school education, but for higher educational opportunities that could be both on-line and tutor-led.

4. You are also the Chair of the High-Level Steering Group of the Education Cannot Wait Global Fund, which was created during the World Humanitarian Summit largely thanks to your leadership. Education Cannot Wait is a rather unique name. How did you come up with such name and why did you think this fund was necessary?

I saw the urgency and the need for speed in situations of crisis and forced displacement. Education in countries affected by conflicts and disasters was falling between two stools – humanitarian aid, which prioritized health, food and shelter, with hardly any resources allocated for education – and development aid, which is more long-term and often is slow to react to a crisis. Millions of children and young people were left behind with no education, no hope and no means of bouncing back and plan for their future.

Education Cannot Wait was established at the World Humanitarian Summit to inspire political support and mobilize the resources that we lacked. It was also established to bring together both humanitarian and development actors to jointly provide the crucial flow of educational support for children and youth impacted by crises. And so far it has worked! It is a fast moving fund that is focused on bringing education to the most difficult humanitarian contexts. We now have investments in over 30 countries.

One example is the comprehensive Uganda Education Response Plan for Refugees to give support to South Sudanese and other refugees – where all organizations have come together and where we are providing support to the government in mainstreaming refugee education. This is important because the common impression people have of refugees is that they are only out of their country for a short time. But in fact, the average humanitarian crisis now lasts more than nine years, and families caught up in conflicts spend an average of 17 years as refugees. For far too many children, this mean being a refugee throughout their entire school age years. So, they need help with education now. It cannot wait until a conflict or crisis has ended and they can return home.

5. How do you see the Education Cannot Wait Global Fund progressing in advancing UN reform, the New Way of Working and making a real difference for children and youth in conflicts, disasters and forced displacement?

I think we are learning all the time. We now see that education in emergencies and protracted crises requires joint programming where governments, UN agencies, civil society organizations, and private sector organizations work cooperatively together to bridge the gap between humanitarian and development systems. Education Cannot Wait brings all these actors together through one joint programme whereby humanitarian and development activities are coordinated and complementary towards collective outcomes. This in turn accelerates delivery and strengthens the collective capacity to produce real learning outcomes.

Since Education Cannot Wait is situated in the UN, it is well placed to translate the New Way of Working, the Grand Bargain and Humanitarian-Development coherence into very tangible action in-country. It is encouraging to see how education in emergencies and protracted crises is now playing such an instrumental role in setting an example. In Uganda, for instance, the Education Response Plan for Refugees is now modeling response plans and joint programming in other sectors, such as health. Education Cannot Wait has developed a crisis-sensitive formula that is not only aligned with, but also has the potential of supporting the New Way of Working across the SDG Agenda.

6. What are the three most important value-adds of the Education Cannot Wait Global Fund?

Education Cannot Wait was born in an era when we couldn’t provide for Syrian refugees an education without new ideas and coordination. One of them was double-shift schools. With refugees dispersed across Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan, the idea was conceived to share existing schools, so that in Lebanon 300,000 or so Syrian refugee children are educated in their native Arabic in the afternoons in the same classrooms that Lebanese children are taught French and English in the mornings. We were creating the wheel in developing plans like the RACE plan in Lebanon with all of the donors and partners, and were determined to create a system that could provide rapid education delivery and medium term planning and financing in emergencies.

Education Cannot Wait works with governments, while supporting vulnerable populations, such as refugees, internally displaced, war-affected, marginalized groups, girls and children with disabilities. As a global fund, ECW was designed to reduce bureaucracy and strengthen accountability towards these children and youth. Hosted by UNICEF, the fund is able to operate with speed and quickly access those left furthest behind in crisis areas thanks to a business model and support mechanisms designed for crisis-contexts. A major added value is the way in which ECW serves as a catalyst for humanitarian-development coherence in the education sector. This is quite unique.

7. You also conceived of the International Financing Facility for Education (IFFEd). How did it come about and how can it become a game-changer? What makes it different and how can it be optimized in cooperation with partners?

There are 200 million children in low income countries and what the World Bank has done by enhancing IDA is make more resources available from the international community. In theory, IDA could raise educational aid from $1.6 billion to $3.5 billion over the next few years and we’ve advocated that education in low incomes countries should be 15 per cent of all IDA spent.

But there’s a gap that hurts the 700 million children in lower middle-income countries where we have the most out-of-school children and the largest number of refugees. Here, the World Bank provides not 10 or 15 per cent of its resources for education but around 4 per cent, and sadly, the recapitalization of the World Bank – while successful – has also created a ceiling limiting the future availability of new resources.

Therefore, with World Bank support, we are creating a new fund for education that will focus resources and financing help for the 700 million children in lower middle-income countries, on similar terms that the World Bank offers, but with far more resources.

We aim to raise $10 billion, which would require $2 billion in guarantees and perhaps $2 billion in grants to create four to five times as many resources for investment in education. This will be of special help to countries where there are large numbers of forcibly displaced persons, including refugees.

8. How do you see the complementarity between the International Financing Facility for Education, the Education Cannot Wait Global Fund and the Global Partnership for Education?

Each of us have complementary jobs to do in a synchronized way. The chair of GPE, Julia Gillard, was a member of our Education Commission, which recommended the new facility. GPE does important work – thankfully with increased resources after their recent replenishment – and this work, mainly in low-income countries, is complemented by what is offered through IFFEd.

Education Cannot Wait provides a different business model. It is grounded in the UN system’s ability to move with speed in crises, while also applying a crisis-sensitive development response, which is so important to reach SDG4 for those left furthest behind. It is no longer a start-up fund, but is growing rapidly in outreach and influence. So funding needs to continue to increase to complement other funds, such as GPE and IffEd.

9. In your view, where will we be in 2030? Will we still be in a global education crisis or will we have resolved it?

One of the tragedies is that while the numbers of qualified young people have risen, still less than 25 per cent will have any recognizable qualifications by 2030. More than 27 per cent will have left school by the age of 11 or 12 years, or have ever been at school. This educational divide between the ‘education-poor’ and the ‘education-rich’ will only grow and what worries me most in this regard is Africa. I’ve already shared earlier on in this interview the shocking figures for 2030, but worse still, Africa will see a rise in ‘out-of-school’ and in ‘unqualified school-leavers’, unless we act now. To inspire such action, we must share the data, show how challenging the situation is and propose the solutions that are so desperately need now and which all funds can help provide.

10. Any final thoughts as we enter the Decade for Action? How do we best translate the vision of SDG4 into action in the coming 10 years?

We must become the first generation in history where every child goes to school.

Instead of just developing some of the talents of some of the young people in some of the countries, we must develop all the talents of all young people in all countries. I am very conscious that universal education cannot be achieved unless we include the 75 million crises-affected children and youth whose education cannot wait. Their needs must be met if we are to meet SDG4 and achieve the noble objective that no one is left behind.

I am a great believer in the power of young people. We have seen this in the global march against child labor, by girls getting together to prevent child marriages, and through the work of global youth ambassadors in UNICEF, UNHCR and Their World who are an effective pressure group for change.

We must enlist students and parents and we must put pressure on both national governments and international institutions to achieve change. Politicians say that adjudicating is their top priority, but the current state of financing for education does not yet recognize this; some countries spend only 2 per cent of their national income on education.

We must have a coalition of education advocates that ensures that governments and international institutions take action when they say education is a priority. This must start by acknowledging how far behind we have been in securing education for crisis-affected children, including refugee and displaced children. Their needs and aspirations must be at the forefront of our thoughts.

We know that hope dies when a food convoy does not get through to refugees or a boat carrying them is lost at sea – but hope also dies when education is denied to children who desperately want and need it, and who cannot prepare for, nor plan for, their future. We must restore that sense of hope in the future for every child and young person living in abject poverty, on the margins of their societies or in countries of war, as refugees or affected by sudden disasters. We cannot leave any child or young person behind.

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The interview is also available here.

About Education Cannot Wait

Education Cannot Wait (ECW) is the first global, multi-lateral fund dedicated to education in emergencies. It was launched by international humanitarian and development aid actors, along with public and private donors, to address the urgent education needs of 75 million children and youth in conflict and crisis settings.

Follow us on Twitter: @EduCannotWait
Additional information is available at www.educationcannotwait.org

For press inquiries:
Kent Page, kpage@unicef.org, +1-917-302-1735
Anouk Desgroseilliers, adesgroseilliers@un-ecw-org, +1-917-640-6820

For any other inquiries: info@un-ecw.org

This story was originally published by Education Cannot Wait

The post Education Cannot Wait Interview with Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Star Online Report
Jan 24 2020 (IPS-Partners)

Amnesty International released a music video today on the occasion of the International Day of Education to encourage people of Bangladesh and around the world to support education for Rohingya children and those of host communities in Bangladesh.

Bangladeshi hip-hop lyricist and musician Mahmud Hasan Tabib and child artist Rana Mridha, who became popular on YouTube for their songs promoting education of underprivileged children in the country, lent their voices to the track, according to an Amnesty International media release.

“As humanity is not limited to the confines of any one race or border, supporting education of the oppressed Rohingya children is all of our responsibility. This song for Rohingya children’s education is driven by that belief. I felt inspired to work with Amnesty International after learning about their work to promote education of the oppressed Rohingya children,” said Tabib.

The Bangla song, with English subtitles, contains the lyrics: “If all children today are enlightened with education, the future of the world will be bright. Otherwise, it will be a mistake, injustice will increase. They will be silenced by the rage of the sinners.”

Thousands of Rohingya children and youth are denied access to education in villages and towns in Myanmar as well as in places where they have sought refuge. Raising these children without access to education exposes them to poverty and exploitation, which in some cases include serious criminal activity such as drug smuggling, child trafficking or recruitment into violent armed groups.

“Education is not at odds with repatriation. Instead, a quality education in appropriate language and accredited curriculum can empower the Rohingya children to claim their rights, contribute to the society and economy they live in,” said Saad Hammadi, South Asia campaigner at Amnesty International.

Nearly a million Rohingya refugees have fled to Bangladesh from their homes in Myanmar because of action by the military in the country, many of which amount to crimes against humanity. Almost half a million are children below 18 years living in threadbare camps in Cox’s Bazar, which has the lowest primary school enrolment rate in the country at 71 percent and the second highest drop-out rate at 31 percent.

Amnesty International launched a petition in major countries calling on governments to support Bangladesh in educating the children of Rohingya refugees and those of the host community.

A global petition also calls on Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to ensure quality education in appropriate language and accredited curriculum to protect the social, cultural and linguistic identities of both communities.

“As we encourage the international community to share responsibility for the crisis that has hit Bangladesh as a result of the refugee influx, using this moment to improve access to education for all children in Cox’s Bazar will be a step in a positive direction for the government of Bangladesh,” said Saad Hammadi.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

The post Amnesty’s musical appeal for education of Rohingya and host community children appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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