Africa

Yahya Jammeh was forced into exile in Equatorial Guinea in 2017 after 22 years of authoritarian rule.

Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 20 2020 (IPS)

As the United Nations commemorates its 75th anniversary this year, the financially-crippled Organization is also saddled with a rash of administrative problems, plus an ongoing cash crisis, perhaps one of the worst in history.

At a town hall meeting with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last month, UN staffers in Geneva, led by the Staff Coordinating Council (SCC), raised several issues, including the impact of the illegal pay cut on incomes, family life, and staff morale, and the growing number of obstacles to career development.

And they also singled out the harassment and retaliation against whistle blowers, (with harassments apparently going unpunished); the “exploitation” of colleagues on temporary and consultancy contracts; “management abuse” of rules under the new delegation of authority; and the negative impact of administrative offshoring and plans for hot-desking.

And that’s only for starters.

Guterres initially “refused to meet staffers”, according to a message from SCC. The request for a meeting was made when the Secretary-General was in Geneva on Dec 4.

Reacting to the refusal, the SCC pointedly said the welfare of staff should be a prime concern for any organization.

“It’s clear from the huge number of stories we’ve received and responses to our survey that UN Geneva staff are not just angry and disaffected at the injustice of the illegal pay cut they have suffered, there have also been significant consequences for the lives of many of their families.”

“Any decent employer (read: United Nations) should want to listen to the views of their staff, however challenging. Trying to ignore such opinions and experiences hurts employees and is damaging for the wider organization, and that’s just part of why we were so disappointed to learn of the Secretary General’s refusal to meet with UN Geneva staff on the topic of equal pay”, the SCC said.

“This was a missed opportunity, but it is far from the end of the matter. The Staff Council doesn’t take no for an answer”—and it eventually pulled it off.

Perhaps reacting to the SCC attack on him, Guterres agreed to address the town hall meeting during his second visit to Geneva on December 16.

But the SCC said the Secretary General’s response for equal pay was “significant”. Guterres told staffers: “Equal pay is obviously a norm that should be respected everywhere”

“I fully understand that this system of unequal pay is unacceptable and it will have to be solved. I will do everything I can for that to happen. I fully understand how angry you are with this situation that is unfair and I’m interested in solving it,” Guterres added, according to SCC.

The SCC also said: “These are encouraging words and we will hold him to them. Whilst such a commitment is a notable step forward for our campaign, we remain concerned as he also refused to take immediate action to resolve the situation by adding: “I don’t have the power to do what you ask me to do.”

A big test will come when the UN Dispute Tribunal delivers their ruling on the issue. “We are confident they will find in favour of equal pay and, given the Secretary General’s words, staff will expect him to accept the decision and not lodge any appeal”.

“In the meantime, we will watch every move and keep up the pressure, not just on equal pay, but on the other issues that we raised and which he acknowledged,” said Prisca Chaoui, SCC Executive Secretary and Ian Richards, President.

The UN Office at Geneva (UNOG) says it serves as the representative office of the Secretary-General in Geneva, which also houses the Human Rights Council and UN agencies such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labour Organization.

A focal point for multilateral diplomacy, UNOG services more than 10,000 meetings every year, making it one of the world’s busiest conference centres. And with more than 1,600 staff, it is the biggest duty stations outside of United Nations headquarters in New York.

Asked about the impact of the cash crunch on UN staffers, Ian Richards, who is also the Geneva-based President of the 60,000-strong Coordinating Committee of International Staff Unions and Associations (CCISUA), told IPS the General Assembly has ordered that a certain number of posts be kept vacant at any time.

“This basically has the effect of a promotion-and-recruitment freeze despite workload on the rise and the growing dangers for staff in places like Iraq and Afghanistan”.

“Staff are not happy,” he added.

Asked if the UN is in the process of eliminating short term and consultancy contracts, and also replacing overseas assignments with teleconferencing as spelled out by Guterres, Richards said these are being used much less on the regular budget, which has implications for impacted personnel.

Teleconferencing has always been there, he noted, but there are limits to its usefulness.

“You can’t conduct an investigation or research mission on the other side of the world by teleconference. And sometimes you need to get key people around the table for a solid 3 days if you want to solve a particularly complex problem”.

“You can’t do that by teleconference when people are scattered across time zones,” he declared.

Asked if regular staffers are assured of permanent stay in New York or is it mandatory for them to serve in overseas posts, Richards said the “mobility policy” is currently suspended, pending a new one.

The suspended policy turned out to be cumbersome to administer. He argued that something more simple and less top-down is required while providing staff a reassurance that if they go to the field, their service will be recognized and they have a way back to headquarters, he added.

Meanwhile, the General Assembly has postponed until spring a proposal to move some of the UN offices to Budapest, Kuala Lumpur, Mexico City and Nairobi.

“It’s been under consideration for several years and hasn’t got anywhere,” said Richards, pointing out that, ultimately, it’s not a financially viable project and many managers and member states know this.

“And as the UN’s administrative systems become ever more technology-based, the usefulness of physical service centres goes out the window. We’re in 2020 now, not 2005,” said Richards.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

The post Geneva Staff Battles UN Chief over Unequal Pay & Illegal Salary Cuts appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Chelsea and Germany defender Antonio Rudiger declares 'Sierra Leone is home' as he makes a donation to support education in the country.

The United Nations on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance has recently offered her assistance to the Indian Supreme Court in a long hearing about India deporting Rohingya refugees to Myanmar. Pictured here are Rohingya refugee women in Jammu, India. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 20 2020 (IPS)

University of California professor E. Tendayi Achiume, who is a United Nations Special Rapporteur, has recently offered her assistance to the Indian Supreme Court in a long hearing about India deporting Rohingya refugees to Myanmar.

The hearing, which began in 2017, has this update at a crucial time when the world’s largest democracy is reeling from citizenship rulings that explicitly exclude Muslims from certain neighbouring countries. 

Achiume, who is a U.N. Special Rapporteur on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, submitted the application to the Supreme Court on Jan. 10, according to local news agency The Wire. 

“Litigation schedules are long and complex, and the timing of my filing reflects that,” Achiume told IPS this week, in reference to why she made her application at this time. 

According to the Wire, which reviewed the application, Achiume did so in order to “aid the court in upholding India’s obligations under various international law instruments and principles to which it has committed”. 

• India, although not the most common destination for Rohingya refugees, has a large number of the population, many of whom migrate from neighbouring Bangladesh.
• At the time of reporting, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had documented 17,911 Rohingyas in India as registered with the organisation. 

In 2017, when the hearing began, the Indian government, responsible for the current crisis in Kashmir as well as the Citizenship Amendment Act, told the court that Rohingyas pose “a threat to national security”. 

Two years later, this sentiment remains relevant given the recent citizenship ruling as well as the crisis in Kashmir have stoked further anti-Muslim rhetoric in India. In the past, Indian Home Minister Amit Shah has used similar rhetoric of “threat” to national security against Bangladeshi immigrants in the country.  

Last week, at the launch of 2020 World Report Human Rights Watch (HRW), the organisation’s head reiterated that the current rulings in the country are discriminatory. 

“We are extremely concerned about the anti-Muslim drift by the Modi government,” Kenneth Roth told IPS at the launch where he also blasted Aung San Suu Kyi for her defence of Myanmar’s practices against the Rohingya population in the country.  

While the recent rulings do not directly affect Rohingyas from Myanmar, the current anti-Muslim sentiment heightened by these rulings adds another layer of complication for a community that is known to be largely Muslim and has their share of challenges already. 

As it is, the Rohingya community already is vulnerable to discrimination in India. India’s decision to deport Rohingyas “raises critical issues as to its compatibility with these instruments and principles of international human rights law,” Achiume wrote in the application. 

“In India, Rohingya face protection risks due to difficulties in obtaining legal documentation and access to basic services,” Kathryn Mahoney, Senior Communications Officer at UNHCR told IPS. “UNHCR is also aware of instances of arrest and detention of Rohingya refugees and asylum-seekers at the border.” 

This already festering sentiment against the Rohingya, when viewed under current circumstances, can prove grave for the community. 

“I believe there is strong reason to believe there are heightened concerns for Rohingya and others in the current legal and political climate that is fostering intolerance and discrimination against Muslims,” Achiume told IPS. “India’s judiciary has an important role to play in upholding the country’s human rights commitments.” 

In their statement to IPS, UNHCR reiterated the urgency with which forced repatriation efforts by India must be stopped for the Rohingya community that still remains vulnerable to violence and displacement in Myanmar. 

“UNHCR is deeply concerned by the return of Rohingya asylum-seekers from India to Myanmar, who may be at risk of serious human rights violations or persecution,” Mahoney told IPS. “UNHCR does not believe that current conditions in Myanmar are conducive to the safe and dignified repatriation of Rohingya refugees.” 

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By Joseph Chamie
NEW YORK, Jan 20 2020 (IPS)

Whenever the issue of population comes up, pro-growth demographic dogma invariably dominates. Governments, political parties, businesses, the media and many others typically praise population growth and lament population slowdown, stabilization or decline. The demographic dogma basically advocates maintaining robust population growth and a larger and youthful population. 

Population declines, even slowdowns, generally inspire angst among most policymakers, military officials, business leaders, economists and others, as they see them tied to economic, political, social and cultural decline. The dogma foresees financial ruin and a loss of political influence and national power resulting from demographic declines and population aging. 

Fear of population decline and aging is promoted by many groups, especially business leaders who tend to gain the most financially from a growing, youthful population of consumers and workers.

The pro-growth demographic dogma is fundamentally a Ponzi scheme. It is a pyramid scheme that generates more money, power and influence for some by adding on more and more people through natural increase and in some cases immigration. Questions about the sustainability of long-term population growth are typically dismissed or left unanswered

For example, while Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Alibaba founder Jack Ma may disagree on many issues, they are in agreement that the biggest problem facing the world in the future is not enough people.

Although world population is projected to add 2 billion people by midcentury, the two prominent businessmen claim, “The biggest issue in 20 years will be population collapse. Not explosion. Collapse.”

In the United States, the Chamber of Commerce regularly calls for the government to continue importing foreign workers. In a recent interview, Chamber CEO Tom Donohue commenting on the ongoing labor shortage in the country said: “The fundamental issue is that the United States of America is out of people.”  

However, data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics show there is no labor shortage. In addition, automation, artificial intelligence and robots are reducing labor needs in many sectors of the US economy. 

The pro-growth demographic dogma is fundamentally a Ponzi scheme. It is a pyramid scheme that generates more money, power and influence for some by adding on more and more people through natural increase and in some cases immigration. Questions about the sustainability of long-term population growth are typically dismissed or left unanswered.

In an unrelenting public relations campaign, every effort is made to equate sustained population growth and a youthful population with economic prosperity and developmental progress. The dogma warns that population declines, even slowdowns, and demographic aging will lead to serious financial problems and a bleak future by reducing the labor force, hampering productivity growth, contracting the domestic market base, lessening public finances and increasing social costs for the elderly. 

Concerns about the environment, climate change, poverty, gender gaps, socio-economic inequalities, human rights and peace and security are either ignored or considered best addressed by a growing and youthful population. A growing and youthful population, according to the pro-growth advocates, leads to a robust expanding economy, which in turn ensures social wellbeing, cultural dynamism and political and military strength. 

With sustained rates of below replacement fertility and projections showing future population decline and aging, the governments of many countries, including Austria, China, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Singapore, South Korea and Spain, have population policies to address what they consider to be a looming national crisis (Table 1).

 

Source: United Nations Population Division.

 

Some governments are promoting marriage, childbearing and parenting through public relations campaigns, incentives and preferences. While incentives and family-oriented measures may encourage some couples to have children, those policies are costly and their overall effect on fertility is weak at best. 

The many forces pushing fertility below replacement levels are simply too powerful for governments to overcome. In short, men in power are not able to persuade women to bear more children than they desire.

Most countries experiencing population slowdowns and decline are averse to turning to immigration. While they desire higher rates of population growth, they are opposed to altering the ethnic and cultural composition of their populations through immigration. Recently, for example, Austria’s recently re-elected chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, said that illegal immigrants are as much a threat to his country as climate change. 

Even in countries with a tradition of immigration, such as Australia, Canada and the United States, opposition to additional immigration is increasing, especially from countries having very different cultures. The United States government, for example, has reduced its annual number of immigrants and imposed a travel ban restricting the entry into the country from certain countries. 

Population declines and slowdowns are frequently entangled in political, social, religious and ethnic concerns. Demographic downturns are typically perceived as losses of power, influence and standing by particular groups of individuals. 

In democratic societies population numbers are closely linked to political power, financial assistance, social influence and cultural traditions. Elections and representation in legislative bodies and the distribution of government monies, in particular, are closely tied to population numbers. 

Also increasingly in societies with serious ethnic, language, religious and cultural cleavages, population numbers and proportions are critical matters. The fear among many, especially nativist and far-right groups, is becoming a minority in their own homeland. Their primary demographic concern boils down to tribalism or  “more of us and less of them”. 

In Europe, for example, le grand replacement, or the great replacement, is a proposition originated by French author Renaud Camus that concerns the replacement of one population with another one. In this particular instance, white Christian Europeans in France are seen being replaced by non-white non-Christian immigrants and their descendants. 

The proposition in its various forms has spread among some right-wing groups, in particular white nationalists throughout Europe and in Northern America and beyond. Driven by fear over the loss of white primacy, white nationalists believe that white identity should be the organizing principle of Western society with some calling for white ethno-states.

Tapping into le grand replacement, Hungary’s prime minister, Victor Orbán, at a recent demography summit held in Budapest aimed at promoting policies to encourage procreation not immigration said: “There are political forces in Europe who want a replacement of population for ideological or other reasons.” 

Orbán’s remarks were supported by the former Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, who added that dying populations, not climate change, were the biggest threat to western civilization. Another summit participant, Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vučić said: “Serbian people have one expression for negative population growth: the white plague.”

World population is expected to reach the 8 billion in 2023, 9 billion in 2037 and 10 billion around midcentury. Most of the nearly 2 billion addition to the world’s population over the next three decades will be taking place in the poorer countries of Africa and Asia, 60 and 33 percent of the increase, respectively (Table 2).

 

Source: United Nations Population Division.

 

Recognizing the serious consequences of this expected population growth, growing numbers of people and organizations are rejecting the pro-growth demographic dogma. For example, recently some 11,000 scientists declared unequivocally that the planet Earth is facing a climate emergency and among their six urgently needed actions included: “Stabilize a global human population that is increasing by more than 200,000 people a day, using approaches that ensure social and economic justice.”  

So, be advised: whenever the issue of population comes up, don’t be taken in by the pro-growth demographic dogma. A world soon reaching 8 billion people and an additional 2 billion in a few decades is seriously challenging humanity’s sustainability on planet Earth, which is enduring an array of human-induced calamities, including climate change, environmental degradation, fresh water depletion, deforestation, pollution and loss of biodiversity.

The post Pro-Growth Demographic Dogma appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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A protester in the Slovak capital, Bratislava holds up a picture of murdered journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kusnirova. Hundreds of thousands of people took part in protests across the country in the weeks after the killing, eventually forcing the resignation of the Prime Minister and Interior Minister. Credit: Ed Holt/IPS

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Jan 20 2020 (IPS)

As four people appear in court in Slovakia over the murder of journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kusnirova, both 27, the trial is being seen by many as a historic moment for not just press freedom in the country but public faith in its justice system.

Miroslav Marcek, Tomas Szabo, Alena Zsuszova, and Marian Kocner have all been charged with Kuciak’s murder. A fifth person, Zoltan Andrusko, was last year sentenced to 15 years in jail for being an intermediary in the murder after agreeing a plea bargain.

On the first day of the trial last week, Marcek, a 37-year-old former soldier, admitted shooting the pair at Kuciak’s home in Velka Maca, 40 miles east of the Slovak capital Bratislava, in February 2018. Szabo, Zsuszova and Kocner have denied the charges against them.

But it is Kocner, a powerful local businessman with alleged links to organized crime and whom Kuciak had written about, who has become for many the central figure in the trial and a symbol of deep-rooted corruption at the highest levels of the state.

And the outcome of the court case is being seen as a test of not just whether the media will in future be free to hold the wealthy and powerful to account, but also whether the judiciary can do the same now.

Adam Valcek, an investigative reporter with the Slovak daily newspaper Sme, told IPS: “In terms of what this trial means for Slovakia, [what happens now] is absolutely fundamental. This what we journalists have been saying for a long time – that the state had been taken over and was being run by an elite. Also, Kocner was able to control the organs of the state.”

The killings of Kuciak and Kusnirova shocked the nation and prompted the largest mass protests in the country since the fall of communism.

Prime Minister Robert Fico and Interior Minister Robert Kalinak were forced to resign, and the head of the police service later stepped down.

Police said that the murders were related to Kuciak’s work as an investigative journalist – Kuciak’s last story had exposed alleged links between Italian mafia and Fico’s Smer party – and the subsequent investigation uncovered alleged links between politicians, prosecutors, judges, and police officers to the people involved in the killings.

Soon after the murders it also emerged that Kuciak had been threatened by Kocner.

There have been rumours of Kocner’s connection to organized crime for decades and it is alleged that his links to politicians and state officials at the highest levels, including Fico, Prosecutor General Dobroslav Trnka, and other judicial figures, meant that he could act with impunity.

He also allegedly used contacts to obtain information on people which he could then use to blackmail them.

Prosecutors in the Kuciak murder trial have argued that he did the same with the journalist. They said Kocner eventually ordered Kuciak’s killing to stop him reporting on the businessman after he had failed to uncover any information he could use to discredit the journalist.

The trial, which is set to run at least until February, has made international headlines and is being closely followed by press freedom watchdogs and international media groups.

Among the local journalism community, though, some have spoken of both hope and fear over what it could mean for their future work.

“It is alarming,” said Lukas Fila, publisher of the Slovak daily Dennik N.

He told IPS: “Government members, top prosecutors, judges, and police officers were involved in one way or another with the alleged perpetrators of these crimes. Journalists were being spied on by former members of the intelligence services. A former policeman and soldier carried out the murder. We could go on. It is now evident that working as a journalist in Slovakia is not safe.

“On the other hand, the trial provides some hope. We have learned things that we cannot unlearn. If anything can return a feeling of safety, it is only severe punishment for all those involved not only in the murder, but also all the other crimes that have surfaced as a result of the investigations.”

The court hearings are in their early stages and those following them are so far reluctant to speculate on the outcome.

In an editorial just before the start of the trial the Sme daily suggested that Kocner would probably not be found guilty. But some journalists who spoke to IPS said that the proceedings over the initial few days of hearings had led them to believe he may actually be convicted.

Whatever happens, the outcome of the trial will be, one way or another, a watershed in Slovak history.

“This is a fundamental moment which will show whether the country can clearly deal with and punish crimes designed to silence journalists uncovering the truth based on facts and whether journalists can freely do their work without fear for their lives,” one Slovak journalist told IPS.

Underlying the reticence some journalists have speaking openly about the threats to their community, the journalist, who has more than two decades of experience in Slovak media, added: “After a series of scandals and the exposure of links between dubious individuals and judges, prosecutors and police, trust in the judiciary is weak.

“For this reason, this is an equally important trial for the judiciary. We need to know that justice exists in Slovakia, and that the justice system is capable of, and determined to, act against ‘big fish’.”

Others expressed concern about what might happen if Kocner is not found guilty.

Fila said there could be “a real threat to the lives of journalists, police officers, and prosecutors, and a degree of public outrage, which could have enormous political consequences”.

“It remains to be seen which way history will go. It may be remembered as a moment when the country gained new hope, or when frustration rose to previously unseen levels,” he said.

Valcek pointed out, though, that even if Kocner was not convicted, he might not escape punishment for other crimes. He is currently also on trial over alleged forgery of promissory notes and is facing separate allegations of tax fraud.

“Kocner could end up like Al Capone – not convicted of murder, but eventually jailed for economic crimes,” said Valcek.

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The post Slovak Journalist’s Trial a Fundamental Moment to Prove if Country can Punish Crimes Designed to Silence Journalists appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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Credit: Mahila Housing Trust

By Bijal Brahmbhatt
AHMEDABAD, India, Jan 17 2020 (IPS)

As global temperatures continue to rise, vulnerable populations around the world are facing increasingly complex climate risks – with ongoing droughts in Zimbabwe and floods devastating Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta.

From flooding and cyclones to heatwaves and droughts, the stresses and shocks inflicted by growing climate extremes are severe. And they cannot be tackled by one-track solutions, especially in resource-poor developing countries.

Instead, players in the global development space should take a more integrated approach when helping strengthen communities most at risk from climate shocks, to ensure that the interrelated challenges they face are addressed in their entirety.

For instance, in developing countries, rural poor families are often drawn to urban areas in search of better prospects, but often end up living in slums in a vicious cycle of perpetual poverty.

As well as putting greater strain on infrastructure, this displacement exposes them to unsanitary conditions – leaving them more vulnerable to illnesses and climate stresses, and often unable to work or improve their circumstances as a result.

So, for resilience-building solutions to be impactful and work for the whole community, either/or solutions will not suffice. Approaches that are either technical or social might be effective in strengthening one aspect of climate resilience – such as building flood defences, or improving access to potable water – but not more complex, interrelated issues.

It is only by integrating both social and technical approaches to resilience-building that more comprehensive, sustainable solutions can be constructed.

Developing a hybrid model is one way to achieve this, which is precisely what India-based Mahila Housing Trust has done with its mission to empower women in poor communities across South Asia to build resilience against increasing climate pressures.

Founded as an autonomous non-profit in 1994, Mahila Housing Trust has evolved into an agile social enterprise – aided in recent years by mentoring and support from the Global Resilience Partnership.

Using a combined social-technical approach to development, Mahila Housing Trust bridges the gap between poor women within high-risk contexts and mainstream institutions.

Through this hybrid model, it helps women improve their living conditions, build resilience against climate stresses and develop the leadership skills, knowledge and confidence necessary to participate in local governance.

Meanwhile, it ensures its commercial viability by training women to become agents of resilience solutions – from green energy and heat-mitigating technologies, to health interventions such as improved access to drinking water and better sanitation facilities.

The not-for-profit side of Mahila Housing Trust delivers back-end support to its empowerment and resilience-building programmes, while the enterprise side ensures the organisation and its beneficiaries are able to generate funding and income.

This hybrid model has also enabled Mahila Housing Trust to launch “Awaas Sewa” – a social enterprise dedicated to the development and implementation of innovative climate-resilient technologies.

The enterprise identifies, pilots, rates and validates new solutions, then teaches women leaders how to market them – building resilience amongst poor communities and generating a turnover at the same time.

Operating across seven cities in India, Nepal and Bangladesh, the enterprise has so far trained more than 1,500 women leaders to become “climate-saathis”, or climate partners.

In these roles, the women have conducted energy audits and helped families in more than 100 informal settlements to invest in energy-saving and climate-resilient solutions – such as heat-resistant modular roofing.

By converting this network into a sustainable enterprise, these women leaders now earn an income through promoting and selling energy-efficient, climate stress-combatting solutions – helping 27,000 others in their communities become more resilient in the process.

Plus, if women in the community need financial support to purchase and install these solutions, Mahila Housing Trust also has women-led credit cooperatives, which provides financing for climate-resilient technologies.

Yet this commercial aspect is only one small component of the organisation’s model; its sustained results so far have only been achieved through building partnerships across all different levels and sectors.

Strengthening the resilience of poor communities requires a bespoke, holistic approach that directly engages people on the ground. Maintaining a focused yet collaborative approach, Mahila Housing Trust works closely with a multidisciplinary team of partners in a united effort to improve the living conditions in poor urban communities.

With the goal of empowering women to improve their circumstances at the very heart of Mahila Housing Trust’s work, its partnerships mean the organisation can develop cross-cutting resilience solutions that address urbanisation, livelihoods and climate resilience all at once.

By adopting such an integrated approach, rather than just strengthening climate or economic resilience, development players can forge wholesale resilience amongst even the most vulnerable communities.

The post Empowering Women in Poor Communities & Building Resilience Against Climate Pressure appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Bijal Brahmbhatt is Director, Mahila Housing Trust

The post Empowering Women in Poor Communities & Building Resilience Against Climate Pressure appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A company in Pokhara has enlarged household digesters into an industrial scale plant that uses climate-friendly technology that could ultimately be scaled nationwide to reduce Nepal’s balance of trade gap.

By Kunda Dixit
KASKI, Nepal, Jan 17 2020 (IPS)

Nepal’s future may not be in hydropower, as most assume, but actually in the dung heap. A new industrial-scale biogas plant near Pokhara has proved that livestock and farm waste producing flammable methane gas can replace imported LPG and chemical fertiliser.

Over the past 30 years, Nepal has become a world leader in spreading locally-designed household biogas digesters. There are now 300,000 of them, helping reduce deforestation, improving people’s health and lifting women out of drudgery and poverty.

Now, a company in Pokhara has enlarged household digesters into an industrial scale plant that uses climate-friendly technology that could ultimately be scaled nationwide to reduce Nepal’s balance of trade gap.

Biogas has a three-fold advantage. It reduces greenhouse gas emissions, and is therefore climate friendly. It allows us to manage raw waste. And it can slash our import bill for LPG and chemical fertiliser

Kushal Gurung’s grandfather was in the British Army, and he also applied for recruitment but failed the eyesight test. So, he set up Gandaki Urja in Pokhara that works with wind, solar and hydropower, but he believes Nepal’s best option for sustainable growth lies in energy from waste.

“Nepal must abandon fossil fuels, but even among renewable energy sources biogas has a three-fold advantage. It reduces greenhouse gas emissions, and is therefore climate friendly. It allows us to manage raw waste. And it can slash our import bill for LPG and chemical fertiliser,” says Gurung. “It is a win-win-win.”

A tipper truck has just arrived from Gorkha at Gandaki Urja’s biogas plant at Kotre near Pokhara, which with its dome digester looks like a nuclear reactor. The truck tilts its container to empty 5 tons of smelly poultry waste into a pit where rotting vegetables and cow dung from a farm in Syangja are all being mixed before being fed into the 4,000 cubic meter digester that is kept inflated.

In the absence of oxygen, bacteria already in the cow dung go to work to break down the waste into methane, carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulphide. The impurities are removed by filters to produce 200 cylinders of bio-CNG a day which are sold to big hotels and restaurants in Pokhara.

Customers pay a deposit for the cylinders and pressure regulators, and usually use up about two cylinders a day. The cost per kg for the bio-Compressed Natural Gas (bio-CNG) is the same as the state subsidised Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG). However, customers prefer the biogas because it saves them up to 30% cost because it has higher calorific value than LPG, and there is no residue that goes waste.

“So far, the customers are satisfied, and we see demand growing in the future as word spreads,” says Ashim Kayastha, Director of Gandaki Urja.

Half the plant’s revenue comes from bio-CNG and the other half from the effluent which is dried and sold as organic fertiliser. The plant can produce up to 11,000 tons of fertiliser a year and is sold to surrounding farms.

The future of bio-CNG depends on scaling up the technology since any municipality generating more than 40 tons of biodegradable waste per day could have its own biogas plant. Nepal imports 500,000 tons of chemical fertiliser a year, and if each of 100 municipalities produced 5,000 tons of organic fertiliser Nepal could slash its import bill.

This could also significantly reduce the country’s annual import of Rs33 billion worth of LPG from India which grew four-fold in the past 10 years, making up 2.5% of Nepal’s total import bill. But to scale up, industrial biogas needs the same government incentives as hydro, solar and wind power.

At the moment hydropower investors enjoy a 100% corporate tax holiday for 10 years, and 50% for the next five years. There is only 1% tax on imports of equipment for solar, wind and hydropower, there is no such provision for the equipment for industrial scale biogas. Instead, there is a tax on interest, and also VAT on bio-CNG.

 

 

“The government should look at this not only as an energy project, but at its multifaceted benefits,” says Kushal Gurung of Gandaki Urja. “There is a waste-to-energy and fertiliser angle, too. If we want to make Nepal fully organic in the next ten years, projects like these need to be prioritised.”

Gandaki Urja got a boost from an unlikely source, Business Oxygen (BO2) in Kathmandu which helps entrepreneurs running Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to scale up by injecting equity and providing technical assistance.

Says Siddhant Pandey of BO2: “We are always on the lookout for climate investments, and we realised that bio-CNG would be an incredible adaptive resilience investment. It would displace imports of LPG and fertiliser. It was going to be clean, no carbon footprint, and it made business sense because it met our internal return on investment expectation.”

The challenges are ensuring reliable sources of raw material and building knowhow for the technology within Nepal.

Says Pandey: “The Pokhara plant is a drop in the ocean, it can abe replicated in all 7 provinces. We know it is scalable, and it depends how proactive provincial governments will be.”

 

This story was originally published by The Nepali Times

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