Africa

Kenya follows Malawi in sending casual farm workers to fill a labour shortage on Israel's farms.

A state of emergency is declared in the country after massive blast at an industrial area.

Philip Mpango has not been seen in public since late October, sparking rumours about his health.

Indigenous Peoples from Alianza Ceibo fight to counter environmental degradation and protect more than 2 million hectares of primary rainforest in four provinces and 70 communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Credit: Alianza Ceibo

By Marcos Athias Neto
NEW YORK, Dec 7 2023 (IPS)

The triple planetary crisis of climate crisis, biodiversity loss, and pollution is a threat to the well-being and survival of millions of people around the world. Corruption, in its many forms, worsens these multiple crises.

From illegal logging and wildlife trafficking to bribery in environmental permits, to lax enforcement of regulations, corruption inflicts severe damage on our already affected fragile ecosystems.

In the forestry sector alone, close to 420 million hectares of forest have been lost between 1990 and 2020 as a result of deforestation enabled by corruption.

Climate change interventions are currently worth US$546 billion and, although difficult to measure accurately, Transparency International estimates suggest anywhere between 1.4 and 35 per cent of climate action funds have been lost to corruption, and only in 2021, over 350 land and environmental defenders were murdered.

UNDP has been recognizing and championing Indigenous Forest Defenders like Nemonte Nenquimo, the Indigenous Waorani activist from Ecuador, co-founder of the Alianza Ceibo— UNDP Equator Prize winner of 2014, named among the 100 most influential people of 2020 by the Time Magazine. There are 275 Equator Prize winners many of whom are defending land rights.

Anti-corruption is a development financing issue.

Corruption siphons off funds from urgently needed climate financing and the green energy transition. Effective, transparent, and inclusive governance mechanisms and institutions are prerequisites for combating corruption and will help not only ensure that financing achieves its maximum impact, but also contributes to the trust required for the releasing of additional funds.

If we can tackle corruption, we can improve our efforts to successfully protect our environment. However, we must act now, and we must work together. Anti-corruption tools, including those powered by digital advancements, have the potential to help countries reach their climate goals.

Resources lost in illicit financial flows and to corruption each year can be used in targeted investments in governance, social protection, green economy, and digitalization. This is the ‘SDG Push’ scenario which would prevent as many as 169 million people from being driven into extreme poverty by 2030.

Governance mechanisms must be in place

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is working to promote the investment of over $1 trillion of public expenditure and private capital in the SDGs. A portion of these investments are likely to be directed towards climate finance.

In Sri Lanka and Uganda, UNDP is using data and digital monitoring tools to tackle illegal environmental practices and promote integrity and transparency in environmental resource management.

UNDP has also recently launched its Energy Governance Framework for a Just Energy Transition to contribute to achieving more inclusive and accountable energy transitions. In Eswatini, UNDP is supporting inclusive national dialogues to identify mini-grid delivery models and clarify priority interventions for an inclusive and integrated approach to off-grid electrification.

A mini-grid delivery model, determined by the national government with active multi-stakeholder engagement, is the cornerstone of a country’s over-arching mini-grid regulatory framework. It defines who finances, builds, owns and who operates and maintains the mini-grids.

Technology must be promoted

To ensure that crucial financial resources are used for their intended purposes and are not manipulated by corruption, we must ensure that transparency mechanisms exist. With appropriate safeguards in place, technology can be a game-changer for addressing corruption. Big data analytics, mobile applications and e-governance systems are valuable tools in the prevention, detection and investigation of corruption.

In Ukraine, a new e-platform supported by UNDP is increasing transparency in procurement. UNDP in partnership with the EU and the National Agency on Corruption Prevention has also developed a new basic online course to train anti-corruption officers.

Partnerships against corruption must galvanize global efforts

UNDP and the Oversight and Anti-Corruption Authority of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Nazaha) are jointly launching a new global initiative for measuring corruption at the 10th Session of the Conference of the States Parties to UN Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC), hosted by the United States in Atlanta from 11 – 15 December 2023.

The objective of this new partnership is to strengthen international cooperation to fight corruption and enable countries to track and monitor progress on tackling corruption. This new initiative will develop evidenced-based indicators to evaluate progress and efforts of countries to end multiple forms of corruption.

It will identify policy recommendations and reforms to enable countries to achieve national anti-corruption objectives, as well as address the SDG16 targets for reducing corruption and illicit financial flows.

UNDP remains committed to being united against corruption and to advance the spirit and letter of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption by driving new efforts to measure corruption, with our partners from the UN and beyond.

The Anti-corruption Day is commemorated on 9 December, along with the 20th Anniversary of UNCAC.

Marcos Athias Neto is UN Assistant Secretary General and Director of UNDP’s Bureau for Policy and Programme Support.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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With COP23 underway, researchers and activists are pointing at the plight of climate migrants. On November 30, a few hours before the COP23 was officially inaugurated, long, serpentine queues could be seen outside Expo 2020, the venue of the COP23. Standing under the blazing sun, besides delegates and media personnel, were hundreds of migrant workers, […]

Tigray's state athletics federation tells the BBC that 76 athletes were killed during the bloody conflict in the Ethiopian region.

Three programmes were announced at COP28 including a greening and forest partnership. This picture shows an example of landscaping for urban spaces and high-rises in Singapore.

By Umar Manzoor Shah
DUBAI, Dec 6 2023 (IPS)

In the spirit of global cooperation and environmental commitment, COP 28 launched a groundbreaking initiative aimed at transforming the building and construction sectors. Titled ‘Buildings and Construction for Sustainable Cities: New Key Partnerships for Decarbonization, Adaptation, and Resilience,’ the initiative marks a turning point in addressing the environmental challenges posed by the construction industry.

Three major frameworks were announced at the launch: Buildings Breakthrough, Cement Breakthrough, and the Forest and Climate Leader’s Partnership’s Greening Construction with Sustainable Wood initiative. These frameworks seek to catalyze collaboration between governments and stakeholders, providing a comprehensive solution for mitigating climate change, adapting to its impacts, and building resilience in the sector.

The sector accounts for nearly 40% of global energy-related CO2 emissions and 50% of extracted materials, which highlights the urgency of the initiative. Additionally, the sector generated one-third of global waste, highlighting the critical need for coordinated efforts to guide its transformation.

The global leaders and representatives, during the event, highlighted the urgency of the building and construction sector’s transformation. Their shared commitment to sustainability, resilience, and decarbonization set the stage for a new era of international collaboration, offering hope for a future where cities are built with a conscious effort to mitigate climate change and adapt to its inevitable challenges. The success of this initiative hinges on the continued dedication of nations, organizations, and communities to work together toward a sustainable and resilient future for all.

The COP28 panel at the launch of the ‘Buildings and Construction for Sustainable Cities, New Key Partnerships for Decarbonization, Adaptation, and Resilience’ commitment. Credit: Umar Manzoor Shah/IPS

Maimunah binti Mohd Sharif, the Executive Director of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, emphasized the sector’s role in greenhouse gas emissions and stressed the importance of accelerating the transition to more sustainable practices.

“The way we build our cities now will determine future emissions. Housing and buildings are also at the core of resilience. We need to accelerate the transition to regenerate the material. We need to ensure that the sector is decarbonized along with a lifecycle and increasingly resilient to natural disasters,” she said.

Stafen Wanzel, Deputy Director General of International Climate Action at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action for Germany, echoed the sentiments, focusing on the pivotal role of cement and steel in achieving net-zero and resilient buildings. “Germany pledged 20 million euros for an international climate initiative to fund advancements in building materials, showcasing their commitment to holistic approaches that consider the energy, environment, and climate nexus,” she said.

Ditte Juul-Jorgensen, Director General of the ENER European Commission, reinforced the need for action to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. She highlighted the potential to design and construct buildings more efficiently, using greener materials, and improving energy efficiency. This, she argued, aligned with the global commitment to triple renewables and double energy efficiency, essential for staying on track with the Paris Agreement’s targets.

“Today’s initiative is a necessary contribution to our work to mitigate climate change and to mitigate emissions, and it is completely aligned with the global pledge for tripling renewables and doubling energy efficiency. To respect our 1.5 degrees as agreed in Paris, this initiative is really part of it,” she said.

Abdel Khalek Ibrahim, the Assistant Minister for Technical Affairs at the Ministry of Housing Utilities in Egypt, emphasized the initiative’s global scope. With over 500,000 informal areas, Egypt faces the challenge of balancing housing demand with green climate resilience.  He said that the Egyptian government established a national council for green housing and urbanism to formulate a roadmap for gradually transforming housing to be more resilient and energy efficient. “We need to think about how to strike a balance between housing demand and green climate resilience, as Egypt has more than 500,000 informal areas.”

Ali Zaidi, assistant to the President and National Climate Advisor of the USA, highlighted the transformative potential of the initiative for people’s lives. Focusing on building codes and transitioning from fossil-based to electricity-based heating, the U.S. emphasized a worker- and community-centered approach. Zaidi stressed the importance of grants, design standards, and enforcement to facilitate the sector’s transformation.

“Buildings are the places where we worship, where we live, play, and breathe. There will be a visible difference in the lives of so many people in the coming time. This is the opportunity we must deliver for our citizens. This transformation we are making here must be worker-centered and community-centered,” Zaidi said.

Jo da Silva, Global Sustainability Director for ARUP, discussed the challenges faced by her organization in driving change amid diverse jurisdictional rules. While acknowledging the success keys in Europe, Asia, and the U.S., she emphasized the unique opportunities in Africa, where 80% of the buildings needed in the next two decades are yet to be built. Da Silva urged governments to create a level playing field, facilitating collaboration rather than competition, to unlock the full potential of innovation and industrialized construction in the sector.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Credit: UNICEF/UNI463720/El Baba

By Jan Egeland
OSLO, Norway, Dec 6 2023 (IPS)

The pulverising of Gaza now ranks amongst the worst assaults on any civilian population in our time and age. Each day we see more dead children and new depths of suffering for innocent people enduring this hell.

Across the Gaza Strip, almost the entire population – 1.9 million people – have been displaced. Nearly two in three homes are now damaged or destroyed. Amid relentless air, land and sea attacks, thousands of families are forced to relocate from one perilous zone to another.

Today, more than 750,000 people are crowded into just 133 shelters. Tens of thousands live on the streets of southern Gaza, where, under bombardment, they are forced to improvise basic shelters from whatever they can get hold of.

The winter rains have arrived and so have infectious diseases, just as public health services have been utterly paralysed. Many of my own NRC staff members now live on the streets. One of them does so with her two-month-old baby.

Credit: NRC – Norwegian Refugee Council

Our colleagues in Gaza ask themselves a simple question: how is it that these atrocities are beamed across the world for all to witness, and yet so little is done to stop them?

Countries supporting Israel with arms must understand that these civilian deaths will be a permanent stain on their reputation. They must demand an immediate ceasefire in Israel and Gaza. Only a cessation of hostilities will allow us to ensure effective relief to the two million who now require it.

Severe restrictions on aid access have aggravated the situation, leading to starvation among Gaza’s population, intensifying an already dire humanitarian crisis. We have been forced to halt nearly all of our aid operations due to the bombardment, the chaos, and the panic.

There must be accountability for those responsible for the killings, the torture, and the atrocities committed in Israel on October 7th.

The killing of thousands of innocent children and women, the siege on an entire civilian population, and the trapping of bombarded civilians behind closed borders in Gaza are also crimes under international law.

There must also be accountability for this, from political and military leaders as well as those who provided arms and support. This military campaign can in no way be described as ‘self-defense.’

We again demand that all hostages are immediately and unconditionally released. Neither the lives of innocent children, women or men, nor the ability of aid workers to access the vulnerable, should be used as bargaining chips.

The situation in Gaza is a total failure of our shared humanity. The killing must stop.

Jan Egeland is a Norwegian diplomat political scientist, humanitarian leader and former Labour Party politician who has been Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council since 2013. He served as State Secretary in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1990 to 1997 and as United Nations Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator from 2003 to 2006.

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Credit: Forus

By Bibbi Abruzzini and Nina Sangma
NEW DELHI, India, Dec 6 2023 (IPS)

We, a global coalition of over 50 civil society and human rights organizations from over 30 countries have co-developed the “Civil Society Manifesto for Ethical AI”, a groundbreaking initiative aiming to steer AI policies towards safeguarding rights and deconolonising AI discourse. We question, and we are not the only ones: whose voices, ideas and values matter in AI ?

“If Silicon Valley was a country it would probably be the richest in the world. So how genuinely committed is Big Tech and AI to funding and fostering human rights over profits? The barebones truth is that if democracy was profitable, human rights lawyers and defenders including techtivists from civil society organizations wouldn’t be sitting around multistakeholder engagement tables demanding accountability from Big Tech and AI. How invested are they in real social impact centred on rights despite glaring evidence to the contrary?,” asks Nina Sangma, of the Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact, a regional organization founded in 1992 by Indigenous Peoples’ movements with over 40 members across 14 countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

We are currently at a critical juncture where most countries lack a comprehensive AI policy or regulatory framework. The sudden reliance on AI and other digital technologies has introduced new – and often “invisible” – vulnerabilities, and we have just seen the tip of the iceberg, literally melting from the effects of climate change.

Some things we have already seen though: AI is still a product of historical data representing inequities and inequalities. A study analyzing 100+ AI-generated images using Midjourney’s diffusion models revealed consistent biases, including depicting older men for specialized jobs, binary gender representations, featuring urban settings regardless of location, and generating images predominantly reinforcing “ageism, sexism and classism”, with a bias toward a Western perspective.

Data sources continue to be “toxic”. AI tools learn from vast amounts of training data, often consisting of billions of inputs scraped from the internet. This data risks to perpetuate harmful stereotypes and often contains toxic content like pornography, misogyny, violence, and bigotry. Furthermore, researchers found bias in up to 38.6% of ‘facts’ used by AI.

Despite increased awareness, the discourse surrounding AI, like the technology itself, has predominantly been shaped by “Western, whiteness, and wealth”. The discrimination that we see today is the result of a cocktail of “things gone wrong” – ranging from discriminatory hiring practices based on gender and race, to the prevalence of algorithms biases.

“Biases are not a coincidence. Artificial intelligence is a machine that draws conclusions from data based on statistical models, therefore, the first thing it eliminates is variations. And in the social sphere that means not giving visibility to the margins,” declares Judith Membrives i Llorens, head of digital policies at Lafede.cat – Organitzacions per la Justícia Global.

“AI development isn’t the sole concern here. The real issue stems from keeping citizens in the dark, restricting civic freedoms and the prevalence of polarisation and prejudice on several dimensions of our societies. This results in unequal access, prevalent discrimination, and a lack of transparency in technological processes and beyond. Despite acknowledging the potential and power of these technologies, it is clear that many are still excluded and left at the margins due to systemic flaws. Without addressing this, the global development of AI and other emerging technologies won’t be inclusive. Failure to act now and to create spaces of discussion for new visions to emerge, will mean these technologies continue to reflect and exacerbate these disparities,” says Mavalow Christelle Kalhoule, civil society leader in Burkina Faso and across the Sahel region, and Chair of the global civil society network Forus.

The Civil Society Manifesto for Ethical AI asks, what are the potential pitfalls of using current AI systems to inform future decisions, particularly in terms of reinforcing prevailing disparities?

Today, as EU policymakers are expected to close a political agreement for the AI Act, we ask, do international standards for regulating machine learning include the voice of the people? With the Manifesto we explore, challenge, disrupt, and reimagine the underlying assumptions within this discourse but also to broaden the discussion to incorporate communities beyond the traditional “experts.” Nothing about us, without us.

“We want Artificial Intelligence, but created by and for everyone, not only for a few,” adds Judith Membrives i Llorens.

From the “Internet of Cows” to the impact of AI on workers’ rights and on civic space, developed by over 50 civil society organisations, the Manifesto includes 17 case studies on their experiences, visions and stories around AI. With each story, we want to weave a different path to build new visions on AI systems that expand rather than restrict freedoms worldwide.

“The current development of AI is by no means an inevitable path. It is shaped by Big Tech companies because we let them. It is time for the civil society to stand up for their data rights,” says Camilla Lohenoja, of SASK, the workers’ rights organisation of the trade unions of Finland.

“Focusing on ethical and transparent technology also means giving equal attention to the fairness and inclusivity of its design and decision-making processes. The integrity of AI is shaped as much by its development as by its application,” says Hanna Pishchyk of the youth group Digital Grassroots.

Ultimately, the Manifesto aims to trigger a global – and not just sectorial and Western-dominated dialogue – on AI development and application.

Civil society is here not just as a mere token in multistakeholder spaces, we bring forward what others often dismiss, and we actively participate worldwide in shaping a technological future that embraces inclusivity, accountability, and ethical advancements.

Bibbi Abruzzini, Forus and Nina Sangma, Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP)

IPS UN Bureau

 

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School of fish and coral. Credit: UNDP Seychelles

By Midori Paxton
NEW YORK, Dec 6 2023 (IPS)

As COP28 delegates focus on the first Global Stocktake, there is no doubt that the race to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions is vital.

But while electric vehicles and solar power uptake have seen visible and welcome progress in particular, the transition to a thriving future on a healthy planet requires much more than decarbonization alone.

Don’t get me wrong. Decarbonization is a must. It has to be done. But focus on just one lane of what must be a systemic transition to a liveable planet is dangerously myopic.

Water vapor, for example, is overlooked as a highly significant greenhouse gas. It is the most abundant greenhouse gas, and responsible for about half of greenhouse heating effects. Recent research published in the International Journal of Environment and Climate change highlights that the quantities of water vapor in our atmosphere are affected by a breadth of environmentally damaging human activities, beyond fossil fuel emissions.

The oceans are the world’s biggest carbon sink and a weather and climate regulator in their own right. Harm to ocean ecosystem functions due to ocean acidification, toxic “forever chemicals” and microplastic pollution has led to reductions in phytoplankton photosynthesis by as much as 50 per cent since the 1950s. Phytoplankton photosynthesis underpins almost all marine animal life by generating most of the oxygen and food that provide other organisms with the chemical energy they need to exist.

This has knock-on implications deeply interlinked with climate action: reduced phytoplankton leads to higher concentrations of dissolved carbon dioxide in ocean surface water, further accelerating ocean acidification and allowing evaporation and atmospheric water vapor concentrations to increase, increasing humidity, precipitation and temperature as an additional climate change feedback loop.

Importantly, if we achieve net zero carbon by 2050, we could still face catastrophic climate change if ocean ecosystem health is overlooked. In addition to the consequences of global heating, ocean acidification and the collapse of the marine ecosystems could lead to the loss of most seals, birds, whales, fish, and food supply for three billion people.

Take another example: deforestation. In the past 300 years or so, 1.5 billion hectares of forest have been removed – an area roughly one and a half times the size of the US. Scientists have shown that ecosystems damaged by humans are more vulnerable to wildfires, which add to atmospheric carbon dioxide and cause excessive atmospheric heat to pass back to the ocean, releasing more water vapor and further increasing greenhouse gases.

Similarly, the increasing severity of devastating floods in recent years is not only linked to climate change but often also the result of forest and vegetation loss, land conversion, intensive land management and river straightening. Anthropogenic climate change is making extreme weather events more frequent and more severe, while human activity is also eroding the resilience of the environment to absorb these impacts.

Any narrow focus on something that is systemic is inherently problematic. Our planet’s multivarious ecosystems are deeply interconnected dynamic systems within which human activity is interwoven. We cannot silo our environmental challenges, nor our responses to them. Successful climate mitigation can be only achieved in the wider context of terrestrial and marine ecosystem health and social impact, measuring progress in lockstep with planetary health metrics and the sustainable development goals.

This is why it is beyond time to rethink our relationship with nature. Without a shift in how we value our natural environment and our relationship to it, we will always be trapped in a race against time to clean up after ourselves, treating only the symptoms of a dysfunctional relationship with our natural world, rather than the cause.

A revaluation of how humanity interacts with nature will bring the sea change we need. Protecting nature is too often falsely considered a trade-off against economic development, when the fact is that one helps the other: the collapse of ecosystem services would cost $2.7 trillion annually by 2030. The truth is that thriving, protected ecosystems are an exceptionally powerful development asset.

Not only is the protection of nature an absolute prerequisite for the success of climate action, but policies that preserve natural land could also increase global real GDP in 2030 in the order of trillions of dollars. This includes benefits through carbon sequestration, and through the multiple benefits that natural lands, waters and oceans provide.

The economic case for protecting nature by the World Bank found that restoring 350 million hectares of land could generate about $170 billion per year in net value by sequestering up to 1.7 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually and through watershed protection, improved crop yields and forest products.

As we race towards net zero, we must look with equal urgency at nature’s protection to ensure we decarbonize alongside progress towards ecological health and social stability on a superhighway of durable transition. Only change that accounts for humanity’s relationship with nature at a systemic level, its climate and its ecosystem health, will truly be a transition to thriving future on a liveable planet.

Midori Paxton is Director, Nature Hub, United Nations Development Programme

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Klimt: Life and Death, Wikipedia

By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Dec 6 2023 (IPS)

A dark cloud is hovering above human existence. It is a fairly illusory cloud haunting our minds and wellbeing, but also an actual, menacing, mostly invisible cloud that covers the Earth’s entire atmosphere. Saturated by greenhouse gases, this global threat increases with every year, threatening all life on Earth, causing increased flooding, extreme heat, draught, wild fires, rising sea levels, food and water scarcity, as well as diseases and mounting economic loss. This misery, caused by human greed, thoughtlessness, and self-aggrandizement, trigger human migration and armed conflicts.

If global temperatures keep rising and reach 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, people will, worldwide and simultaneously, face the fatal and multiple impacts of climate change. A 2-degree rise in global temperatures is considered to be a critical threshold. In 2023, the average global temperature was on a third of all days at least 1.5 Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels, and the year is ending up as the hottest on record and – the year 2024 is expected to be even hotter.

Climate change poses a particular threat to children and youth and may potentially derail their normal development; affecting physiological systems, cognitive abilities and emotional skills in ways that may be irreversible. The emerging problems are manifold and the effects of these looming calamities make children and young people increasingly frustrated. Many youngsters feel threatened and betrayed by the behaviour of ruthless entrepreneurs and financiers, as well as poor and often corrupt governmental response to a disastrous climate change. Rampant climate anxiety motivates some young people to take action, not only through a recent surge in marches and the emergence of various environmental movements, but also in the form of violent and occasionally misdirected protests.

One of several means to draw attention to the threat of climate change are activists’ attacks on famous artworks. Since early 2022, artworks have been attacked all over Europe and the US. Mashed potatoes have been thrown on a Manet painting, chocolate cake smeared on statues, tomato soup on Van Gogh’s magnificent depiction of sunflowers, and oil-like substances thrown on several other paintings, like Klimt’s Death and Life. That painting is found in the Leopold Museum in Vienna, which presents some works form the dispersed Lederer art collection. The Lederer was a Jewish art collecting family, who among others financially supported the now renowned artists Klimt and Schiele. In 1938, the Gestapo expropriated all of Lederer’s possessions. Some of the confiscated Klimt paintings were by Nazi authorities stored in a castle, burned down by a German army unit just before the Soviet Red Army appeared. Seventeen Klimt paintings and frescoes perished in the fire, one of the few salvaged artworks was Klimt’s Death and Life, now smeared with a black substance

The spokesperson for one of several climate activist groups, Just Stop Oil, that attacks works of art has declared: “If things need to escalate then we’re going to take inspiration from past successful movements and we’re going to do everything we can.” What he meant by “successful movements” was among other incidents when a lady in 1914 slashed a Velasquez painting with a meat cleaver, protesting the arrest of the defender of women’s rights, Emeline Pankhurst. The enraged woman explained: “I have tried to destroy the picture of the most beautiful woman in mythological history as a protest against the Government for destroying Mrs. Pankhurst, who is the most beautiful character in modern history.”

Angry members of Just Stop Oil shouted, as they were hindered from attacking paintings at the National Gallery in London: “What is worth more, art or life?” A member of the group stated after throwing soup on a van Gogh painting: “The cost-of-living crisis is part of the cost of oil crisis. Fuel is unaffordable to millions of cold, hungry families. They can’t even afford to heat a tin of soup.” A somewhat awkward statement by someone who demonstrated disrespect of food by throwing it on a masterpiece of world art. Another declared: “We’re not killing anyone, climate change will.”

Supporters of “climate action groups” have defended them by saying that so far, no piece of art has been “permanently destroyed”. However, it is at best a half truth. In May last year, a self-declared “environment activist” tried at the Louvre to smash the glass protecting Mona Lisa. When he was hindered from concluding his deed, he succeeded in smearing cake on the painting. Last month, two women did with hammers smash the glass protecting the same Velasquez painting that was slashed in 1914, screaming that they were intending to rip it to pieces once more.

Another member of Just Stop Oil defended the various actions of the group and warned that they could worsen: “The function of art is for people to be able to understand the world that they live in and reflect on the human condition, but big art isn’t fulfilling that function. That’s the reason for us to be in museums: to tell people that we are in the middle of an emergency, and it is the time now for you to face that emergency.”

She was right by stating one of art’s essential functions. Artistic works have existed for almost as long as humankind and is an expression of humans’ creative and imaginative abilities, involving technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, and conceptual ideas. Art helps us to perceive the beauty of the world we live in, the happiness we find among other human beings, in nature and animals, in all creation. It inspires reflection, willingness to act, imagination and innovative thinking. How can defenders of the preservation of nature and human rights imagine that the destruction and profanation of art may amend climate change? I assume that the enclosed mind of such activists, like ISIS fanatics, believe that their specific message and destructive actions take precedence over everything else, not the least other people’s feelings and intention to defend the very same values those fanatics, in their twisted minds, declare they are supporting.

I understand the frustration, but not the means. Like spoke-persons for Just Stop Oil, leaders of ISIS could declare that their destruction of World Heritage was to grab the world’s attention by assuring extensive media coverage and international condemnation from those they considered to be their opponents and antagonists.

Instead of destroying art, “climate activists” would probably benefit from supporting and using it as a means to overcome humans’ tendency to value personal experience over scientific facts, assuming that everything will be alright by not acting in time. Art can be a persuasive means to popularize and make understandable data-based representations, making them vivid and accessible. Art can engage viewers and hopefully stimulate them to make an effort to hinder the worlds’ sloping down towards Armageddon.

Artistic endeavours to depict, present and make us aware of the dangers of climate change is increasingly becoming more common and engaging. This “Climate Change Art” assumes a wide array of forms and expressions. Often with an engaging, awareness raising component of personal commitment.

Crotchet Coral Reef https://crochetcoralreef.org/exhibitions/

The Institute for Figuring (IFF), which in 2003 was founded in Los Angeles by Margaret Wertheim and her twin sister Christin, is a non-profit organization generating projects at the intersection of art, science and mathematics. One IFF project is the so-called Crochet Reef, which all around the world engages professional artists, scientists and groups of amateurs. The Crotchet Reef has become one of the largest participatory art and science endeavours in the world. By creating giant installations mimicking living coral reefs and crocheted out of yarn and re-used plastic, harvested from debris in the Pacific Ocean, the project engages associations which members are learning and applying mathematics, science, handicraft, environmentalism, and community art practice, while promoting awareness of the effects of global warming. Project creations have all around the world been successfully displayed in galleries and museums.

More modest activities, but nevertheless quite extensive, are various happenings, like those of Eve Mosher, who draw a blue “high-water” line around Manhattan and Brooklyn, indicating areas that would be underwater if climate change predictions are realized. She has since drawn high-water lines around Bristol, Philadelphia and coastal cities in Florida. In 2018, Xavier Cortada placed signs in front yards throughout Miami, indicating each property’s height above sea level to illustrate how sea level rise would flood the owner’s land.

A sophisticated, renowned and multifaceted artist is the Danish-Icelandic Olafur Eliasson, who creates large-scaled installations employing elemental materials such as light, water, and air temperature to enhance the viewer’s experience and create an awareness of humans’ intimate connection with nature, how its changes are influencing us, both in a positive and negative manner. Eliasson has founded a “laboratory for spatial research” that engages a large team of architects, engineers, craftsmen, and assistants, working together to conceive and construct large-scale sculptures, installations and other artwork, highlighting what happens to and on our living planet.

Awareness of the dangers faced by or planet, its ecosystem and organic lifeforms, including humans, is on the rise. At all levels of human existence an ever-increasing creative power is making itself evident; in art, literature, religion and science. To vanquish the threats to our planet we have to leave destruction behind us and become more creative, more willing to cooperate with one another, more tolerant, more respectful. Destroying art, our common human cultural heritage, is an entirely wrong way towards a brighter future and just like the emissions of greenhouse gases it must immediately come to an end.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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By Ong Kar Jin and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Dec 6 2023 (IPS)

Greater government reliance on consulting companies has greatly enriched them while also undermining state capacities, capabilities, national economies, progress, governance and legitimacy.

The Big Con
Over recent decades, policy consultancy has gradually gained more public attention. With the COVID-19 pandemic, consultancies were paid billions, with meagre results, leaving even less for millions of others desperately struggling to cope.

Ong Kar Jin

In The Big Con: How the Consulting Industry Weakens our Businesses, Infantilizes our Governments and Warps our Economies, Mariana Mazzucato and Rosie Collington explain how consultancies persuade governments and corporations to use their services, with problematic consequences.

Many argue that governments and corporations need such expertise as they cannot be expected to be good at everything, let alone familiar with the latest trends and challenges. Others argue consultancies provide much-needed second opinions, especially when organisations have lost their capacities and capabilities.

The Big Con argues their clients rarely get what they most need. Heavy dependence on consultancies also compromises accountability and retards needed innovation. Consequently, governments allow their capacities and capabilities to deteriorate, with consultancy firms profitably filling the gap.

‘Voluntary’ dependency
The Big Con provides many examples of problems arising from becoming “overly reliant on expensive contracts”. These include McKinsey’s role in France’s bungled vaccine programme, and Deloitte’s in the UK’s botched Test and Trace programme.

Consultancy firms have taken over many public services in France. The trend began in 2007 when Nicolas Sarkozy became president, promising to “make the French state cost-efficient”. His government gave 250 million euros ($269m) in contracts to management consultancies like McKinsey, Deloitte and the Boston Consultancy Group (BCG).

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Under Emmanuel Macron, consultancy firms received 2.4 billion euros ($2.6bn) in government contracts in 2018. They have become involved in various public services, including France’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout and controversial pension reforms.

The UK spends more on consultants than all countries other than the US. Rather than have its National Health Service involved in its test-and-trace programme, ministers and civil servants turned to consultancies. At one point, over £1m was spent on consultants daily, with some ‘senior’ advisers billing over £6,000 per diem!

One consultant confessed, “It just seemed like every project had loads of wandering Deloitte people … the sheer volume of them that were around created the situation of these zombie emails just arriving all the time … taking our attention away from actual work.”

As its bankruptcy proceedings started in 2016, Puerto Rico hired McKinsey to advise a US federal oversight board. The team, led by recent US Ivy League graduates, was to prepare an ‘aspirational vision’ for the US island territory. Its recommendations included privatising state-owned enterprises, ‘rightsizing’ job cuts, and reducing social, especially labour protection.

While consultancies are often touted as involving experienced experts, most client governments, especially from developing countries, often host young graduates of reputable institutions, mainly adept at using the latest jargon and making impressive presentations.

Losing capacities and capabilities
Most governments have not tried hard to enhance their capacities and capabilities, e.g., to develop their public information and communications (ICT) or digital technology expertise. Instead, they ‘outsource’, depending on consultancies, even for sensitive strategic policy matters.

A book review suggests, “One also cannot help but gain the impression of the big consultancies as vultures, feasting on calamitous challenges like Covid-19, Brexit and climate change. Meanwhile, they pose as disinterested and expert helping hands.”

Management consultants are increasingly widely used by both governments and corporations, giving the impression of expert authority for mooted reforms. As a British minister noted, governments have been ‘infantilised’ by relying on management consultants.

The Big Con notes, “The more governments and businesses outsource, the less they know how to do.” Consultancies have eroded government and business capacities and capabilities. The presumption seems to be that clever young consultants, coming from abroad, know much better than experienced employees, and “knowledge can be purchased, as if off a shelf”.

So why have governments accepted all this? As the book’s title implies, successful consulting requires gaining customers’ confidence, e.g., persuading them that consultants have the answers, regardless of whether this is true.

Some decision-makers also simply want to be able to pass on responsibility for policy solutions, as it is generally politically easier to blame an external party, e.g., consultants, than to take responsibility. This is especially useful if policy recommendations are likely to be unpopular, e.g., involving downsizing or cuts.

Growing con
The Big Con notes that a con gains momentum with seeming success. The authors argue the bigger the consultancies and their scope of work, the weaker governments become. As governments lose confidence in their own abilities, consultancies become the default solution.

Some governments have become so taken with consulting that they have set up ‘internal’ consultancy arms, e.g., Malaysia set up PEMANDU, PADU and other entities for this purpose. This is part of a wider trend of increasing corporatisation of public institutions to pursue ‘efficiency’.

Perhaps urged by major donors, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has championed ‘entrepreneurship’, ‘impact investing’ and ‘accelerating social enterprises’ in recent years. It now has labs, team leads, and strategic innovation units, all spouting corporate buzzwords.

This turn reflects growing faith in what Daniel Greene terms the ‘access doctrine’, i.e., the belief that poverty and other social problems can be simply overcome by new technologies and technical skills, regardless of their complexities. Policymakers increasingly embrace and proselytise such technical fixes, ensuring consultants’ status as the cult’s new high priests.

Threatened by fiscal austerity and criticisms of being obsolete, public institutions increasingly embrace the access doctrine. They shift resources to foster ‘startups’ or ‘accelerating innovation’ to retrieve legitimacy and secure much-needed resources as public spending is threatened by fiscal austerity.

By redefining poverty as a problem of technology access, consultants reframe problems as seemingly more manageable for staff, politicians, other decision-makers, donors and others. The technological fix fetish has provided a powerful rationale for cutting social protections, replacing them with upskilling programmes and entrepreneurship ‘boot camps’.

Neoliberal consultancies
With the counter-revolution against Keynesian macroeconomics and development economics, policymakers embraced ostensibly market and private solutions from the 1980s.

As state-owned enterprises were privatised, the public sector was expected to function like businesses. Governments embraced ‘performance-related pay’ and cost-benefit analyses to promote private sector values in the public realm.

After Margaret Thatcher became UK prime minister in 1979, her party chairman declared: “The management ethos must run right through our national life – private and public companies, civil service, nationalised industries, local government, the National Health Service.”

Such policies were mimicked in many developing countries, either for access to concessional finance or voluntarily, as the Washington Consensus gained hegemony in policymaking circles. The consultancy cult’s osmosis into public institutions in recent decades as well as its more novel recent iterations are their consequences.

The book ends with a call to change the role of consultancies, arguing they have caused the public sector to become less capable and innovative. Investing in public sector expertise will be necessary to retrieve the space ‘voluntarily’ ceded to ‘the big con’.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Pro-Africa financial infrastructure could help Africa feed the world. Africa is home to an estimated 60 percent of the world's uncultivated arable land. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
DUBAI, Dec 6 2023 (IPS)

Although long profiled as the face of climate change, a high-risk continent with a pipeline of unbankable green projects, there are areas where Africa is leading the world. The 1987 accidental discovery of the first deposit of natural hydrogen during a water drilling campaign in Bourakebougou village, Mali, is today proving that Africa can export viable green solutions.

Naturally occurring or geological hydrogen is low-carbon and cheap and can be used for transportation, heating, and power generation. A growing number of countries, including Oman, New Caledonia, Canada, Russia, Australia, Japan, Germany, New Zealand, France, and Switzerland, have now joined the scramble for natural hydrogen, and this could trigger an energy revolution.

Senegalese chef Pierre Thiam told delegates at the ongoing COP28 Summit in Dubai, UAE, that with the right support, Africa will be the hub for green projects.

“Today, fonio is on the market in the United States, providing a stable source of income for hundreds of smallholder farmers despite the climate crisis.”

“The grain does not need much to grow and is often referred to as ‘the lazy farmer’s crop’ for whatever the weather; as long as you have put the seed in the ground, it will grow.”

Fonio is an ancient drought-tolerant, gluten-free, nutritional powerhouse that can be used like any other grain and has had its roots in the arid Sahel belt for over 5,000 years. Since 2017, Yolélé, which roughly translates to ‘let the good times roll’, is Thiam’s U.S.-based West African food company, which has been collaborating with smallholder farmers in sharing the ancient West African grain in the United States and is now expanding internationally.

With the right financial structures, Thiam says the ground is ripe for such innovative initiatives. While Africa contributes the least to climate change yet suffers the worst consequences, it also represents 20 percent of the global population, attracting less than three percent of global investments, particularly into green energy.

Despite immense green energy potential and growing political goodwill, Africa still lags other regions on many green growth dimensions. The climate finance architecture must now work for Africa, for the risks are enormous and the size of investment needed is over 200 billion dollars in energy alone by 2030.

“At the African Development Bank (AfDB), we really see the lack of climate finance as the biggest impediment towards accelerating development on the continent. Just to put it into context, the level of financing gap will be 2.8 trillion by 2030 just to implement 51 African countries Nationally Determined Contributions, representing each country’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” said AfDB’s Yamadjako Audrey-Cynthia, Principal Climate Finance Officer and Africa Green Bank Initiative Coordinator.

According to AfDB, to close Africa’s climate financing gap by 2030, approximately USD 213.4 billion will need to be mobilized annually from the private sector to complement constrained public resources. Africa received USD 4.2 billion in private climate finance in 2019–2020, or 14 percent of total climate finance flows of USD 29.5 billion. It requires USD 242.4 billion a year on average until 2030—$2.7 trillion over 2020–30—to implement the climate action expressed in the latest NDCs.

Speaking during a session titled ‘Green Banking and a Renewed Climate Finance Architecture for Africa’ at the ongoing COP28 Summit, she spoke of the huge financing need on the continent, which is also an investment opportunity, for Africa is the next green investment frontier. AfDB turns these gaps into investment opportunities by looking into practical solutions at the local level to develop a bankable pipeline of green projects, as quite often, existing projects need to be better structured.

“We also need de-risking instruments such as blended financing—one of several tools to mitigate risk and facilitate financing for private sector-led projects—at the local level to make these projects attractive for the private sector to invest in. We are proactively mobilizing and scaling up climate finance for green infrastructure in Africa. Importantly, we also work at the local level to build the climate financial architecture through green investment vehicles embedded in existing commercial banks so that we do not re-invent the wheel,” she observes.

A report titled ‘Developing Green Banking Ecosystems’ authored by Jean-Paul Mvogo, a nonresident senior fellow at Africa Center, reveals that “financing mobilized to face Africa’s climate challenges represented roughly one-tenth of its needs, fueling a feeling of climate injustice and also depriving Africa of a growth capable of providing work for the hundreds of millions of young people who will enter the labor market in the next two decades.”

Stressing that “one solution to increase green financing for Africa lies in the implementation of strong and proactive policies that: address systemic constraints hindering the absorption capacity of African countries in terms of green projects and their financing; attract new categories of national and international investors; and ensure the optimal allocation of these new resources.”

Africa will also require about $1.3 trillion annually to meet its sustainable development needs by 2030—and thus to achieve green growth. Most of this finance is expected to be met through private finance. To meet these needs and given the current levels of public climate finance, private climate finance should increase by about 36 percent each year until 2030. Africa has great potential and self-interest to achieve green growth.

In a powerful signal of support during COP28, African and global institutions, together with the governments of Germany, France, and Japan and philanthropies, have already pledged over USD 175 million to the Alliance for Green Infrastructure in Africa (AGIA). The landmark initial pledge will help to rapidly scale up financing for transformative climate-aligned infrastructure projects across the continent.

The new pledges will also advance AGIA towards its first close of USD 500 million of early-stage project preparation and development blended capital. The Alliance is a partnership of the African Union Commission, the African Development Bank, Africa50 and other partners. It works to unlock up to USD 10 billion in private capital for green infrastructure projects and to galvanise global action to accelerate Africa’s just and equitable transition to Net Zero.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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In Africa, the average amount of time spent collecting firewood is 2.1 hours, which robs women and girls of hundreds of hours every year. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
DUBAI, Dec 5 2023 (IPS)

Across the African continent, many first-born children in poor and vulnerable households do not go to school as they spend their school days collecting biomass fuel. The regional average of the amount of time spent collecting firewood is 2.1 hours, robbing women and girls in particular of hundreds of hours in a year and crippling their capacities to engage in learning and productive activities.

“I was one of those children that arrived to school late every day or not at all. I grew up in Limuru, Central Kenya, near the Kinare Forest. Every day, I would rush to the forest first thing in the morning to collect the firewood needed to prepare porridge and then dash to the neighbor’s house to borrow fire,” Njambi Muigai, a climate activist and COP28 delegate, told IPS.

“I would carry a dry firewood and light it up at the neighbor’s fireplace and rush back home with the burning firewood to light our cooking place. In the evening, I would repeat the same routine. Discussions around climate, clean energy, and women’s empowerment must find space in such high-level forums if there is to be any meaningful progress towards net zero.”

Muigai was speaking on the sidelines of a session dubbed ‘Electrifying Cooking: A Just Journey Toward Net Zero’ at the ongoing COP28 Summit in Dubai, UAE. As climate change increasingly becomes the most pressing issue facing humankind today, countries are urged to pursue ambitious climate actions towards net zero—the cutting of greenhouse gas emissions to as close to zero as possible, with any remaining emissions re-absorbed from the atmosphere by ecosystems such as oceans and forests.

Scientific evidence shows that to avert a climate catastrophe, already signaled by an increase in climate-induced disasters such as fatal floods and crippling droughts, global temperature increase needs to be limited to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

UN’s research shows that currently, the Earth is already about 1.1°C warmer than it was in the late 1800s, and emissions continue to rise. To keep global warming to no more than 1.5°C, as called for in the Paris Agreement,  emissions need to be reduced by 45 percent by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050.

Speaking during the event, COP28 CEO Adnan Z Amin, who also served as the founding Director General of the International Renewable Energy Agency, made a strong case for electrifying cooking and its place in accelerating climate action towards net zero.

“One of the major priorities for COP28 is in the broad area of energy, and within that, to increase access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all by 2030. This represents an important strategy in our efforts to reach our global net-zero goal. Evidence shows that one of the most reliable paths to reaching the goal is based on electrification without decreasing the use of renewable energy,” he said.

He stressed that despite progress made towards access to electricity over the last decade, improved access to modern cooking remains overlooked. Nearly a billion people, or 940 million, in Sub-Saharan Africa lack access to clean cooking fuels and technologies. The rampant use of biomass for cooking has negative consequences for health, gender, climate, and the environment.

A clean cooking report shows that in sub-Saharan Africa, a staggering 29 countries have access to clean cooking at a rate below 20 percent, with half of the nearly one billion people without access to clean cooking concentrated in five countries such as Nigeria, Ethiopia, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Uganda.

Indoor air pollution from biomass is one of the top 10 risks for the global burden of diseases, according to the World Health Organization. Household air pollution is responsible for an estimated 3.8 million premature deaths globally.

“This is a problem in Asia and Latin America, but the numbers are particularly concerning in Africa. Four of the five families in Africa use primitive cooking stoves made of wood. A woman spends up to four hours a day collecting firewood, and she is robbed of her time. WHO says half a million women die prematurely due to respiratory diseases caused by primitive cooking. The women cook while pregnant, which affects health in the womb, and they cook with babies on their backs, causing lung problems for the babies,” said Dr Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency.

“Europe is a neighbor of Africa; in my culture and in many of our cultures, neighbors help each other in times of trouble. I cannot believe that these numbers are unfolding in front of our eyes. This, to me, is the most important gender issue, a big injustice that can easily be solved.”

“Not only are half a million women dying prematurely in Africa alone from biomass pollution as they walk long distances in search of firewood, but they also have to cross borders and contested territories, placing them in harm’s way.

“If half a million people were dying per year in war, we know what we would do, and this is happening every single year. For me, coming from the global south and being an African woman, it is even more depressing because it is as if the world is saying that because they are dying in Africa, it is not as important as if they were dying in another part of the world. There are all these social aspects that determine how we move forward.”

Nigeria’s Damilola Ogunbiyi, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General Chief Executive Officer for Sustainable Energy for All and Co-Chair UN-Energy, Sustainable Energy for All, said that “if half a million people were dying in a war, we would know what to do, and this is happening every single year.”

Observing that coming from the global south and being “an African woman, it is even more depressing because it is as if the world is saying that it is not as important as if they were dying in another part of the world. There are all these social aspects that determine how we move forward.”

She spoke about prevailing misconceptions about the source of harmful emissions. An analysis of Nigeria shows that despite the 45 gigawatts of diesel and petrol generated, the biggest emissions are actually from the cooking sector. Stressing that clean cooking is as important, if not more important than electrification, as it buys women time to engage productively in society, lifts people out of poverty, and accelerates the growth of a country’s GDP.

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#ActOnThe Gap, the COP28 Gender Responsive Just Transitions and Climate Action Partnership was lauched at the climate negotiations in Dubai. Credit: Umar Manzoor Shah/IPS

By Umar Manzoor Shah
DUBAI, Dec 5 2023 (IPS)

Women bear the brunt of the climate crisis, and inclusion at both the highest level and in the community is key to mitigating its impact. Today, the announcement of the COP28 Gender Responsive Just Transitions and Climate Action Partnership put women at the centre of climate solutions—with a collective endorsement that symbolized a paradigm shift in global commitment.

Gender Equality Day at COP28 saw ministers and high-level officials convene for a high-level dialogue to advance gender-responsive just transitions to support the implementation of the Paris Agreement. During the event that Razan Khalifa Al Mubarak, a UN Climate Change High-Level Champion, was leading, the COP28 Presidency announced the new partnership.

During the panel discussions on its importance, in which many distinguished world leaders participated, Dr Jeanne d’Arc Mujawamariya, Minister of Environment for the Republic of Rwanda, painted a poignant picture of the intersectionality between climate change and gender. She emphasized the requirement of the Paris Agreement to create high-quality jobs.

“The harsh reality is that women, constituting the majority of humanity, bear the brunt of climate change impacts. There are dire consequences of climate change being faced by my own country, Rwanda, grappling with floods and untimely rains, rendering streets impassable and schools inaccessible,” Mujawamariya told the conference.

The Minister underscored the urgent need to build a resilient future for women, urging investments in education, decision-making positions, and gender-responsive financial mechanisms.

“When a woman is a victim, the entire family suffers,” she added.

Sigrid Kaag, the Minister of Finance for the Netherlands, asserted that the catalyst for genuine change lay in anchoring climate action and gender-responsive budgeting. Kaag made it unequivocally clear that this was not merely an environmental concern but a matter of fundamental rights, underscoring the gravity of the agenda at hand.

Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyer, the co-chair of C40 cities, brought the municipal lens into the discourse. Speaking on behalf of nearly 100 cities, she expressed the collective engagement of mayors in the lives of their residents, over 50 percent of whom were female. Aki-Sawyer detailed the Women for Climate initiative, a testament to the proactive involvement of women in finding solutions to climate challenges. However, she acknowledged the systemic hurdles, emphasizing the need for dedicated spaces and resources to enable women to develop and implement these solutions.

Andrew Mitchell, the Minister of State in the United Kingdom’s Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, injected an international development imperative into the dialogue.

“It is vital that we promote gender equality to ensure that this is a just and effective transition. We know that when women participate in the management of natural resources, it results in better governance and conservation, and when they are better represented in national parliaments, tougher climate change policies tend to be adopted. The evidence is clear, yet women are not given the chance to play their part. Women suffer disproportionately from climate change and conflict,” Andrew said. His call to endorse the gender-responsive pledge served as a rallying cry to collectively ascend the metaphorical mountain of challenges that lay ahead.

Celeste Drake, Deputy Director General of the International Labour Organization (ILO), took the stage, weaving a narrative around the ILO’s birth from conflict and its steadfast commitment to social justice.

Drake elucidated the profound impact of climate change on women and work, projecting statistics that forewarned of substantial job losses due to heat stress.

“ILO estimates that by 2030, more than 2 percent of the total working time will be lost because of heat stress. It is equivalent to 80 million full-time jobs. We need to create more inclusive jobs for our women and girls. The ILO estimates that effective climate policies could create, by 2035, about 12 million jobs in Nigeria and 50 million jobs in America.

But the question is, will those jobs be available to men and women equally? Will these jobs be gender responsive?” Drake asked. Drake dissected the complexities of women’s compounded inequalities in the labor market, emphasizing the need for intentional, gender-responsive transitions. She called for dismantling barriers and proactively ensuring that women had active access to training, skilling, and reskilling.

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Indian migrants in downtown Yerevan. According to the Migration Service of Armenia, more than 37.000 Indians entered Armenia only in the first nine months of 2023. Credit: Lilit Gasparyan/IPS

By Lilit Gasparyan
YEREVAN, Armenia, Dec 5 2023 (IPS)

Every evening, the smell of Indian food takes over Yerevan’s northwestern district of Halabian. Indian workers who left early in the morning are back home.

“We work in construction,’’ Sahil, 23, tells IPS from the yard of a humble one-storey house. He left his family in Punjab – a state in northern India- two and a half months before, bound for Yerevan with two other friends.

The analyst points to “fundamental differences” between foreigners and locals. “It's about faith, culture, mentality, lifestyle... Besides, our society is also a very conservative one. I think integrating will be difficult for them”

“We heard there was a high demand for labour and that the pay is good. We get 5000 AMD a day (US$12,5). In India, you can live comfortably with that money,” says Sahil.

However, considering the minimal consumer basket is around US$200 one can barely get by with such a salary.

“We all share rooms and cut costs to a minimum. That way I can send at least $150 to my family in India every month,” explains Sahil, before stressing that he has a work permit from the Migration Service of Armenia.

Armenia has become a popular destination for Indian people seeking work opportunities. According to the Migration Service of Armenia, more than 37.000 Indians entered Armenia only in the first nine months of 2023.

20-year-old Koma Mera works as a cleaner in one of Yerevan’s most popular gyms for $12,5 a day. “I have three sisters and one brother. I miss them a lot, but we had financial problems, so I’m here now,” Koma tells IPS sitting on her bunk bed, just after she had spoken to her mother on a video call.

After paying the rent for the accommodation and covering the household expenses, she sends the remaining money to India so that her younger siblings “do not miss anything back home.”

“Living in other countries would be too expensive, so I came to Armenia. It’s a great country for making money, that’s why you find so many Indians here. When I see them in the streets I feel I’m not alone,” adds the young migrant.

Nonetheless, Koma believes things would be easier if the locals changed their attitude towards them.

“There are good people here, but also those who are rude to us,” she explains. “When I sit down at work, they make such a face to tell me that I must keep working. Moreover, Armenians do not sit at the table with us during the lunch break,” says the Indian woman.

 

An Indian man prepares a meal in the kitchen of his apartment in Yerevan, Armenia, shared with fellow Indians. Typically, they head out for labor work early in the morning, returning around 8 pm. Credit: Lilit Gasparyan/IPS

 

Low-paid and low-skilled

Nested in the Caucasus region, Armenia is a tiny and almost mono-ethnic country with a population of about 3 million. According to the latest population census (2011), only 2% belong to other ethnic groups, such as Yezidis and Assyrians.

Nonetheless, the picture might be different after the 2022 census is finally released, revealing the increase in the number of foreigners receiving residence status. According to the Statistical Committee’s data, figures almost doubled in just one year, reaching more than 16,000 people as of 2022.

In conversation with IPS, Migration Service of Armenia officials disclosed that only this year 2,100 Indian citizens have applied to get residence status based on work activity in Armenia.

A flexible visa regime since 2017 has opened the country to foreigners, with students opening the path mainly due to the low cost of university studies. Workers followed suit and, today, Indians are the second biggest group after Russians and before Iranians.

But the labour market is small. The Statistical Committee of Armenia´s data from 2022 revealed that about 13 % of the labour force is unemployed.

 

20-year-old Koma Mera talks to her mother in her rented room in Yerevan. She is one of the 2,100 Indian citizens who, as per the Armenian Migration Service, have applied for residence status based on work activity in Armenia. Credit: Lilit Gasparyan/IPS

 

During a briefing with journalists on November 20 in the National Assembly of Armenia’s Minister of Economy, Vahan Kerobyan, said that Indian migrants in Armenia are mostly low-paid, low-skilled professionals and mainly work in construction, agriculture, and services.

“I came from Gegharkunik Province (eastern part of Armenia) to work in construction here in Yerevan. I´m ready to work for 10,000 AMD per day but the employer says he can hire an Indian man twice as cheap for the same job,” Narek, an Armenian man in his 50s who didn´t want to disclose his identity told IPS.

From his office in downtown Yerevan, political scientist and analyst Vigen Hakobyan shares his take with IPS.

“All four sides of Yerevan are under construction, hence the high demand for workers in the sector since last year. Armenians generally refuse to do that work because they say that the pay is low’’ explains the expert.

“They (Indians) also drive taxis, make deliveries and clean. Most of them return to India after earning money. Nonetheless, Armenians have the impression that foreigners have entered their homes and have no intention of leaving. There’s a certain level of mistrust towards them,” stresses Hakobyan.

The analyst points to “fundamental differences” between foreigners and locals. “It’s about faith, culture, mentality, lifestyle… Besides, our society is also a very conservative one. I think integrating will be difficult for them,” concludes the analyst.

 

Deepali Shah paints mehendi on a girl’s hand. What was once a hobby has become a source of income for her. Credit: Lilit Gasparyan/IPS

 

A feel of home

This surge of Indian migrants has also paved the way for scammers and human traffickers. There have been reports of individuals being offered fake jobs in Western countries before getting stranded in Armenia.

However, things are very different when people can travel safely, rely on a decent job and enjoy stability.

It’s already seven years since Parangesh Shah and Deepali, an Indian couple in their late 40s, arrived in Armenia. Parangesh, a diamond processing specialist, was transferred to the Caucasus country by his company in India.

“We didn’t even know where Armenia was. We hadn’t heard about this country before,” Deepali tells IPS from her Indian-style home.

She has set up a small business out of her hobby in Armenia. She makes traditional Indian drawings on the skin with henna. They are called “mehendi”, and their price ranges from $2,5 to $125 depending on the volume and complexity of the work.

“When I came here, I made a mehendi on the hand of one of my friends. I posted a picture of it on social media. Soon after, many girls contacted me and asked me to draw beautiful mehendis on their hands. Now I have many clients, and mostly Armenians,” she says.

A lot has changed during their years in Armenia. Today, they are even invited to local weddings and dance to traditional songs. The couple says they could have never imagined that Armenia would become a “little India” for them.

“It’s so beautiful here! Besides, Indians work in shops, deliver food, do home repairs…” says Deepali. “It almost feels like being back home”.

 

By Marty Logan
KATHMANDU, Dec 5 2023 (IPS)

If I asked you to name the world’s most deadly diseases I’m guessing that you might say HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, cholera, maybe even COVID-19. In fact, those have all been major killers throughout human history – and some like TB continue to be so, especially in low-income countries.

But there is one group of diseases that is responsible for the deaths of more than two-thirds of people on earth. Let that sink in for moment. For every three people who die, two are killed by these illnesses, which are known as non-communicable diseases, or NCDs.

You probably know about many of them. NCDs include cancers, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and strokes, lung diseases and mental and neurological illnesses. As the name implies, what sets NCDs apart is that they cannot be passed from one person to another.

Today we’re speaking with Maisha Hutton, executive director of the Healthy Caribbean Coalition, about the growing impact of NCDs on that region. For example, they are responsible for 80% of deaths in the Caribbean, and 40% of all premature deaths. Before COVID-19, one in three children in the region was overweight or obese – a major contributor to developing NCDs — which is one of the highest rates in the world; it might be even higher now, says Maisha.

Besides describing what NCDs look like in the Caribbean and what societies there are doing to tackle the epidemic, Maisha explains why it’s not fair, or correct, to label NCDs as ‘lifestyle diseases’. That’s because the environments where people live have been carefully designed to promote NCD risk factors including alcohol and tobacco use, physical inactivity and unhealthy diets.

A quick note about some terms that Maisha mentions: PAHO is the Pan American Health Organization. GDA, traffic light, and octagonal — or stop sign — are different types of warning labels for food packages. GDA stands for guideline daily amount (or guideline daily allowance).