Africa

Hala al- Karib spoke at the Open Debate on Women, Peace and Security at the United Nations, on Wednesday, October 25.

By Hala al-Karib
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 30 2023 (IPS)

I had the privilege to speak at the UN Security Council open debate last week on Women, Peace, and Security (WPS), an important opportunity to reflect on the urgency of this work and why women’s rights must be central to addressing any conflict or crisis.

Sadly, my country, Sudan, which is currently going through one of the most gruesome atrocities in Africa, illustrates the consequences of failing to do so. The current violent conflict in Sudan is a result of decades of violence against civilians, violence that has impacted nearly every aspect of women’s lives.

During this time, mass atrocities, including sexual violence, rape, and other forms of gender-based violence, have been used against my people. These atrocities took place under former president Omar al-Bashir, who led a militarized regime reliant on the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and armed militias like the Janjaweed in Darfur, which later became the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The mass protests led by women and youth that began in December 2018 and led to the fall of al-Bashir were, in part, a direct response to how women’s bodies and voices have been systematically under attack for over 30 years.

In 2019, the Security Council celebrated Sudan’s transition and heard from Sudanese women such as Alaa Salah, whose voice was one of many calling for freedom, peace, and justice. Al-Bashir was forced out of office by this women-led movement.

The transition between August 2019 and October 2021 saw popular support for inclusive civilian governance, increased attention to women’s rights and space for women’s civil society, and the adoption of a National Action Plan on WPS. Most important, is the space that women activists and rights defenders have managed to occupy and reflect on our demands as Sudanese women.

The transition, however, was short-lived, and further change did not come. Violence continued against civilians in Darfur and the women and youth protestors across the country. Transition authorities failed to address systemic violence, discrimination against women, and the impunity that has plagued Sudan. Perpetrators, in some instances, were appointed to top government positions.

The subsequent military takeover illustrates how only paying lip service to the Women Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, without insisting on women’s rights and women’s meaningful participation in peace and political processes, is not enough to overcome the repressive, patriarchal, and dangerous status quo.

War erupted again in April, this time reaching Khartoum. The gendered nature of the conflict became obvious mere hours after the fighting began. The first case of gang rape was reported at noon on April 15 inside a woman’s home in Khartoum. Alerted by her screams, neighbors started gathering, and the perpetrators, identified as RSF soldiers, quickly fled. The same day, two other women were gang-raped inside their homes in the same area.

From that day on, reports of sexual violence and kidnapping flooded human rights and women’s organizations. Women were subject to brutal atrocities, torture, and trafficking by the RSF in greater Khartoum and Nyala in South Darfur.

The RSF’s brutality was in full display in El Geneina city in West Darfur, where they raped women from Masalit and other native African tribes in front of their families, whom they then killed. More than 4 million women and girls are now at risk of sexual violence in Sudan, and countless others have been slaughtered.

Both the SAF and RSF have committed serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. While calling on both parties to end such acts, UN experts have expressed concern at consistent reports of widespread violations by the RSF, including subjecting women and girls to enforced disappearance, sexual assault, exploitation and slavery, forced work, and detention in inhuman or degrading conditions.

Fear of stigma and reprisals means that we do not even know the full scale of violations. This pattern of widespread, ethnically motivated attacks, including sexual violence, could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. In my view, the targeted attacks on specific communities in El Geneina also poses a serious risk of genocide.

Life after experiencing violence and torture at the hands of the RSF is unbearable—a number of these women and girls have died by suicide. Moreover, women’s access to health care, especially comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care, is limited, in part due to the lack of skilled medical service providers and attacks and occupation of hospitals.

This war has also resulted in millions of women losing their livelihoods and savings, limiting access to food and essential health care. Women and children are also the majority of the displaced and in dire need of humanitarian assistance.

Yet lack of funding and denial of humanitarian access and security and administrative impediments imposed by the SAF, both pose serious challenges to reaching those in need. Further, humanitarian delivery is rarely informed by women’s views despite their prominent role in the response.

The suffering of women in Sudan mirrors the suffering of women across Africa—we are being treated as collateral damage rather than as agents of our own lives. The fundamental premise of the Women Peace and Security agenda is that relegating women—and their rights—to the margins of decision-making further entrenches women’s exclusion and prolongs violence. This must change now.

As I addressed the Security Council this week, I urged its members to:

• Demand an immediate cessation of hostilities and the adoption of a comprehensive ceasefire in Sudan that will end all violence targeting civilians, ensure the safe passage of civilians, and halt the destruction of critical civilian infrastructure.
• Reiterate that the full, equal, meaningful, and safe participation of Sudanese women and civil society is critical to any de-escalation efforts or building future peace, and further, all efforts must place respect for human rights at its center. We repeat our demand for the meaningful representation of women, including feminist movements, at 50%, at all levels, from beginning to end. We further call on the UN to ensure women’s equal and direct representation in any peace processes it supports.
• Call on all parties to ensure safe and unhindered humanitarian access in line with international law. Urgently fund the Humanitarian Response Plan and the Regional Refugee Response Plan. Direct more resources to local civil society, including women’s groups.
• Pursue accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity by calling for, and/or initiating independent and impartial investigations based on the principle of universal jurisdiction. Hold all parties accountable for any acts of sexual violence, and strengthen the existing sanctions regime to include sexual and gender-based violence as a stand-alone designation criteria.
• Update and strengthen the mandate of the United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS) so that the mission is directed to take all possible actions to support protection of civilians and human rights, maintain all existing WPS-related provisions, and meaningfully consult with civil society.
• Condemn any threats or attacks against women human rights defenders and peace activists, and remove any restrictions on civic space or their right to continue their essential work.

The current conflict in Sudan is a result of the failure to uphold women’s rights and women’s participation in shaping my country’s future. I urged the international community not to repeat this mistake in other crises, where you have the power to do things differently and demanded them to stand with courageous women human rights defenders in crises around the world and show them you will not abandon them.

Show solidarity with Palestinian women, who have suffered the world’s longest occupation and, today, an escalating crisis in Gaza, and support their calls for an immediate ceasefire.

Support the calls of Afghan women to hold the Taliban accountable for gender apartheid. Show the women of Ethiopia, Myanmar, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen and so many other conflicts around the globe that their rights are not dispensable.

And demand that the UN take a principled stand by ensuring that women’s rights, and women’s full, equal and meaningful participation are always a fundamental part of any peace process it supports. Uphold the central principle of the WPS agenda, which is that there can be no peace without protection of women’s rights.

Hala al-Karib is a Sudanese women’s rights activist and the Regional Director of the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA). Twitter: @Halayalkarib

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The two students were taken from a kibbutz where they were on an agriculture internship.

A farmer tends to his tomatoes. Because of the risks in the agricultural sector, including climate change, many farmers were not able to get finance. Now several non-profits have come into the market to assist. Credit: Geoffrey Kamadi/IPS

By Geoffrey Kamadi
NAIROBI, Oct 30 2023 (IPS)

Smallholder agricultural enterprises in Africa face a lot of challenges getting loans from financial institutions like banks due to the stringent requirements they can hardly fulfil. Investor confidence is usually lacking, given the risks involved in this sector of the economy.

Climate change has not helped matters either. Prolonged droughts and unreliable rainfall patterns have made them less resilient. And since a paltry 1.7 percent of climate finance goes to small-scale agriculture (according to the Climate Policy Initiative), small-scale farmers are left particularly vulnerable.

However, innovative financial solutions targeted at these farmers are transforming the sector in tangible ways in Africa. Organisations like Root Capital are working with small-scale agricultural enterprises using a financial model that is accommodative to their unique needs while addressing the climate change component on the ground.

Root Capital is a nonprofit that supports agricultural enterprises working directly with small-scale farmers. On the other hand, Mercy Corp – an international NGO – through its venture capital arm, supports entrepreneurs who are developing transformative technologies, innovative business models and effective climate adaptation resilience solutions which are usually tech-enabled.

Users of these technologies are in 35 most climate vulnerable countries, according to Scott Onder, the chief investment officer at Mercy Corp. In Kenya, for example, the NGO has partnered with Safaricom, the largest mobile network operator in the country through its DigiFarm product.

The product bundles together a range of solutions for smallholder farmers, helping them become more productive, increase their yields and grow their income.

Batian Nuts Ltd, an edible nuts processing enterprise based in Meru County in central Kenya has seen its operations expand, ever since it started working with Root Capital. This enterprise exports macadamia nuts internationally but also deals in peanuts processing for the local market. It has a base of 8,000 small-scale farmers.

“We chose to work with Root Capital because their interest rates are below what you would normally get from the financial market, plus their terms are very accommodative to a start-up like ours,” says James Gichanga the co-founder of Batian Nuts Ltd.

He explains that commercial banks require considerable collateral, such as parcels of land or other assets, which they do not have.

On the other hand, Root Capital will provide the finances they need, based on the commitment made by the overseas buyer of their produce. The buyer need only provide a letter of intent, committing to purchase macadamia nuts from Batian Nuts Ltd, and “Root Capital will give us money based on that alone,” says Gichanga.

In other words, the buyer of farm produce based in the US, Europe or Asia and the borrower (it could be a coffee cooperative in, say, Rwanda) – or Batian Nuts Ltd in this case – signs an agreement with Root Capital. And when the time comes for payment, the buyer pays Root Capital directly.

“We take our principal interest and then pass the rest of the payment to the coffee cooperative,” explains Elizabeth Teague, the senior director of Climate Resilience at Root Capital.

Even though this type of financing has existed before, their innovation involves applying it to the smallholder agricultural context. This, explains Teague, is a way of mitigating risk without requiring collateral from smallholder farmers.

In addition, they provide small and medium sized agricultural enterprises with technical assistance through a programme known as “agronomic and climate reliance advisory.”

Prior to its partnership with Root Capital, Batian Nuts Ltd used to handle between 300-400 tonnes of produce per year. However, since 2017 when the collaboration begun, the business has more than doubled this capacity to 1,000 tonnes, and its workforce has grown from 26 permanent employees to 55 currently. Its seasonal workforce has increased as well from a couple dozen to 160, who are engaged seven months in a year.

Investors have traditionally shied away from putting their monies in small-scale farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, due in large part to higher cost and risk involved, thus creating an estimated USD 65 billion financing gap for small businesses in the region, according to Teague.

“And then climate change exacerbates that and makes it even riskier for investors,” she adds.

Root Capital works with a network of 200 businesses and 500,000 farmers in Africa, Latin America, and Indonesia.

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African Lawmakers seek to learn from best practices on how to hold their respective Governments accountable in the implementation of the Addis Ababa Declaration on Population and Development and the International Conference on Population and Development commitments. Credit: APDA

By Aimable Twahirwa
KIGALI, Oct 30 2023 (IPS)

Asian and African parliamentarians have committed to accelerate the implementation of a people-centered development agenda as the African continent continues to face rapid demographic change with several challenges, such as youth unemployment and gender inequities.

During the African and Asian Parliamentarians’ Dialogue towards ICPD30 and AADPD10, which took place in October 2023 in Kigali, Rwanda, lawmakers shared measures their countries have undertaken by adopting new legislation seeking to provide opportunities for the youth while empowering women as a critical step for reaping the demographic dividend in Africa.

Official estimates show that young people between 18 years and 35 years of age make up more than 70 percent of the population in Africa,  where women account for more than 50 percent of the continent’s combined population.

According to Professor Kiyoko Ikegami, the Executive Director of the Japan-based Asian Population and Development Association (APDA), a basic condition for building global partnerships is to use legislation to promote transparency, accountability, and good governance for the people.

Whereas Africa is expected to account for more than 90 percent of the future increase in world population, Ikegami stresses the need to boldly implement those changes as well as respond to newly emerging needs in the population structure.

In 1994, the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), held in Cairo, Egypt, set a bold new vision of the relationships between population, development, and individual rights and well-being.

Its framework for action, endorsed then by 179 governments at the global level, affirmed that inclusive, sustainable development is not possible without prioritizing human rights, including reproductive rights; empowering women and girls; and addressing inequalities as well as the needs, aspirations, and rights of individuals.

As stakeholders are now set to celebrate the 30th anniversary of implementing ICDP resolutions, Ikegami emphasizes the need for African and Asian nations to consolidate views on how countries should specifically carry out parliamentary activities for the global review process.

Professor Kiyoko Ikegami, the Executive Director of the Japan-based Asian Population and Development Association (APDA), says lawmakers play a critical role in enacting policies that advance sustainable outcomes guiding people-centered development. Credit: Aimable Twahirwa/IPS

“As the representative body of the people, lawmakers play a critical role in enacting policies that advance sustainable outcomes guiding to people-centered development progress,” Ikegami told IPS.

Although nearly 30 years since the landmark conference in Cairo, people-centered development has enabled numerous gains in different parts of Africa; experts still believe that the long-term solution to the pending population issues still requires elected representatives to be actively engaged in formulating and implementing appropriate policies and programmes.

“Lagging regions in Africa have employed various policies and instruments to put in place the comprehensive needs of people and communities, but there are several reasons why some countries can still do better,” she said.

Some participants at the African and Asian Parliamentarians’ Dialogue in Kigali emphasized the need to take lessons from experience towards implementing ICDP’s commitments stressing the lack of effective monitoring strategies.

Kwabena Asante-Ntiamoah, country representative in Rwanda for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) pointed out that demographic change is one of the key challenges in Africa, where there is unprecedented growth of the youth population.

“This current demographic structure with a large youthful population, he observed, can be leveraged for socio-economic transformation, with the right investments,” he said.

Jeanne Henriette Mukabikino, chair of the Rwandan Parliamentarians’ Network on Population and Development (RPRPD), told IPS that considering the current population growth, Africa should utilize its youthful population potential for its socio-economic progress.

Both Asante-Ntiamoah and Mukabikino are convinced that Africa’s young population brings many opportunities for economic growth despite deepening inequality within and across the continent.

Apart from conflicts and climate change, such as cyclones and droughts, which continue to contribute to food insecurity in Africa, some lawmakers see hope in positive trends at a time when Africa and Asia are working together to tackle global issues of population and development.

Donatille Mukabalisa, Speaker of Rwanda’s Chamber of Deputies, is convinced that the demographic dividend presents a unique opportunity for Africa to drive economic growth and poverty reduction. Credit: APDA

However, some lawmakers believe that despite progress made by several African countries in addressing population and development issues, these efforts are still threatened by multifaceted challenges, backsliding on the rights and choices of women and girls, and the polarization of the sexual and reproductive health and rights agenda.

The 2022 UNFPA’s State of World Population 2022 report indicates that nearly half of all pregnancies, totaling 121 million each year throughout the world, are unintended.

The report urges policymakers, community leaders, and all individuals to empower women and girls to make affirmative decisions about sex, contraception, and motherhood and to foster societies that recognize the full worth of women and girls.

Dr Celestin Fiarovana Lovanirina, member of the National Assembly of Madagascar, told IPS that with such a large population of young people, supportive policies and programs on inclusive youth development are critical more than ever.

“As legislators, we have a responsibility to make laws in a move to address such kind of issue that is presently affecting our population,” he said.

During the three-day parliamentary dialogue, which featured multiple sessions covering topics such as the ICPD30 review process and Addis Ababa Declaration on Population and Development (AADPD10), some participants shared experiences of their countries where for example, adopting a new law on minimum legal age of marriage for girls has been critical to harnessing the demographic dividend.

Latest estimates by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) show that in many parts of Africa, women and girls are still vulnerable to a disproportionate range of risks, particularly to their sexual and reproductive health.

The UN agency’s report shows that in most cases, girls are subject to child marriage, female genital mutilation, and limited education and are denied equal opportunities.

Experts point out that with more people in the labor force and fewer children to support, a country has a window of opportunity for rapid economic growth if the right social and economic investments and policies are made in health, education, governance, and the economy.

Madina Ndangiza, a member of the Rwandan parliament, shared her experience in adopting new laws to ensure that girls and boys enjoy the dignity and human rights to expand their capabilities.

“We believe that education is a cornerstone to protecting girls from child marriage … at 21 young girls are supposed to have graduated from university and are healthier to make their choice and participate more in the formal labor,” Ndangiza told delegates.

On the sidelines of the parliamentary dialogue, some lawmakers agreed that the lack of an implementation plan of policy has been a hindrance to many countries needed to capture demographic dividends.

However, Ikegami pointed out that beyond the current situation, most African and Asian countries are also experiencing a demographic transition which they should use to their advantage.

“This dialogue serves as a platform of exchanges between African and Asian lawmakers to assess how their framework legislation should create an enabling environment for decision-making, to harness the growing population to accelerate the achievement of development aspirations,” she said.

While the aging population is the most emerging issue in Asia, Ikegami points out that youth unemployment is an issue that might be a concern for Africa.

“Context and realities are different at each continent and country’s levels, but we are trying to create opportunities for lawmakers to learn from each other,” she said.

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By Anwarul K. Chowdhury
NEW YORK, Oct 30 2023 (IPS)

I thank the United Nations Asia Network for Diversity and Inclusion (UN-ANDI) for inviting me to present the keynote speech on this special occasion for the observance of the United Nations Day.

I commend wholeheartedly the UN-ANDI and its dedicated team for their work, particularly its recent survey report on racism and racial discrimination despite the constraints of the global Covid pandemic of last few years. I am proud to be associated with the conceptualization of UN-ANDI in late 2019.

As the first ever effort to bring together the diverse group of personnel from Asia and the Pacific in the UN system, UN-ANDI needs all our support and encouragement.

In my decades of work for the United Nations, both representing my country as well as representing the organization, I have seen many faces of the world body – positive and not so positive, spirit-uplifting and also frustrating, focused and determined and also confused and politicized.

But the most enduring experience for me about the work of the United Nations in its 78 years of existence has been its contribution to making a positive difference in the lives of the millions of people of our planet.

Over the years, the United Nations has been tested time and again by conflicts, humanitarian crises and poverty and deprivation, but has always risen to live up to the challenges in a determined and inclusive way. It has been rightly called the “indispensable common house of the entire human family.” Respected global peace leader and philosopher Daisaku Ikeda describes it as the “Parliament of the World.”

It is worth reminding us that without attracting attention, the United Nations and its family of agencies and entities are engaged in a continuing gigantic endeavour against enormous odds to improve every aspect of people’s lives around the world. It is also worth remembering that the UN’s inspirational norm-setting role covers a very broad range of areas.

In my personal association with the application of my country, Bangladesh for membership of the United Nations in 1972 and since then, in my fifty-one years of collaborative involvement with the UN, I can affirm with great pride that all major aspects of Bangladesh’s development architecture reflect the stamp of the UN.

Last Tuesday, as we observed the UN Day, I received many “Happy UN Day” text messages. I did not have the intellectual and moral energy to join them. So, reflecting the current realities, I responded by saying “A not-so-happy UN Day in a conflict-ridden world where the UN is found to be helpless.” That helplessness pains me immensely.

The progressive British newspaper Guardian in its editorial on 26 October echoed that perception by saying that “The United Nations marked its 78th birthday on Tuesday but had little cause for celebration.” It went on to say that “On the same day, Israel called for António Guterres to resign over his remarks on the Israel-Hamas war, and accused him of ‘blood libel’.”

The well-meaning peoples of the world should not be cocooned in our own isolation without recognizing and understanding the reality where we are at this of time. In the most unbecoming manner and forsaking all diplomatic decency, the Israeli Permanent Representative to the UN turned on the Secretary-General at the open session of the Security Council is inconceivable and totally unacceptable.

The earlier Guardian editorial appropriately wrote that “But 10 years ago, it would have been hard to imagine the contempt radiating from the Israeli Ambassador’s announcement that UN representatives would be refused visas because ‘the time has come to teach them a lesson’. That surely reflects the UN’s reduced status.”

The conservative Wall Street Journal went even further the day before on 25 October in its editorial board’s opinion to say that “This is how the UN makes itself a fellow traveler in the advancing march of global disorder.”

We need to revisit the operational credibility of our much-cherished world body. What was needed in 1945 to be enshrined in the UN Charter is to be judged in the light of current realities. If the Charter needs to be amended to live up to the challenges of global complexities and paralyzing intergovernmental politicization, let us do that. It is high time to focus on that direction. Blindly treating the words of the Charter as sacrosanct may be self-defeating and irresponsible. The UN could be buried under its own rubble unless we set our house in order now.

I am often asked, during ‘questions and answers’ segment following my public speaking, if I want to recommend one thing that would make the UN perform better, what would it be. My clear and emphatic answer always has been “Abolish the Veto!” Veto is undemocratic, irrational and against the true spirit of the principle of sovereign equality of the United Nations.

In an opinion piece in the IPS Journal in March 2022, I wrote that “Believe me, the veto power influences not only the decisions of the Security Council but also all work of the UN, including importantly the choice of the Secretary-General.”

The same opinion piece asserted that “I believe the abolition of veto requires a greater priority attention in the reforms process than the enlargement of the Security Council membership with additional permanent ones. Such permanency is simply undemocratic. I also believe that the veto power is not ‘the cornerstone of the United Nations’ but in reality, its tombstone.”

Abolishing the veto would also release the election of the Secretary-General from the manipulating control of the veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council.

I would also recommend that in future the Secretary-General would have only one term of seven years, as opposed to current practice of automatically renewing the Secretary-General’s tenure for a second five-year term, without even evaluating his performance.

After choosing nine men successively to be the world’s topmost diplomat, I strongly believe that it is incumbent on the United Nations to have the sanity and sagacity of electing a woman as the next Secretary-General.

Also, I am of the opinion that a formalized and mandated involvement of and genuine consultation with the civil society would enhance the UN’s credibility. The UN leadership and Member States should work diligently on that without fail for a decision by the on-going session of the General Assembly.

Transparency and accountability are essential in the budget processes of the UN and personnel recruitments at all levels. Two other areas which need more scrutiny are extra-budgetary resources received from Member States and consultancy practices including budgetary allocations for that by the organization. Special attention in these areas is needed to restore the UN’s credibility and thereby effectiveness and efficiency for the benefit of the humanity as a whole.

The international community has reached a fork in the road. One path is to resign ourselves to the idea that an effective multilateral system is beyond our grasp, with the potential for reversion to the dangerous, anarchic world order that the United Nations was set up to improve upon. The other path, also rocky but considerably more hopeful, leads to global solidarity based on shared principles, objectives, and commitments, on oneness of humanity and on a global security architecture that has a chance of commanding the genuine respect as well as the true acceptance and adherence of all States.

Let me conclude by asserting that, all said, I continue to hold on to my deep faith in multilateralism and , my belief and trust in the United Nations as the most universal organization for the people and the planet is renewed and reaffirmed!

This opinion piece is the enhanced version of the keynote address by Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury, former Under-Secretary-General and High Representative of the United Nations at the virtual observance of the United Nations Day (24 October) by the United Nations Asia Network for Diversity and Inclusion (UN-ANDI) on 27 October 2023.

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María José Valenzuela, Director of the Environment of the Chilean municipality of María Pinto, stands next to Mario Rojas, caretaker of the Miyawaki project, a pilot experience of this technique that works with little water and only requires irrigation for the first two years. A native forest has been created that improves the biodiversity of the area, in a municipality that defines itself as sustainable. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

By Orlando Milesi
SANTIAGO, Oct 30 2023 (IPS)

A return to nature is the main solution being promoted by communities and municipalities to avoid the water shortage that threatens to leave Santiago, the capital of Chile, home to more than 40 percent of the 19.5 million inhabitants of this South American country, without water.

The water supply in Greater Santiago depends on the Maipo River, whose waters run for some 250 kilometers from the Andes Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, near the port of San Antonio, some 130 kilometers north of Santiago."We must move towards greener or nature-based solutions in the conservation, restoration and protection of ecosystems involved in the water cycle. Wetlands, swamps, headwaters forests, native trees. This generates a greater impact in terms of water supply, in less time and at a lower cost. " -- Gerardo Díaz

In the Andes mountains, the Volcán, Yeso and Colorado rivers are tributaries of the Maipo River. The Maipo ranks ninth among the 18 most water-stressed rivers in the world and is the only South American river in this ranking.

Chile is experiencing an unprecedented drought that has dragged on for 15 years, caused by climate change and other phenomena such as El Niño and La Niña.

This year 2023 there was more rainfall. The Maipo even flooded and caused turbidity in the water and all the outlying districts were threatened with a total lack of supply for three days. But the authorities warn that the drought is not over and are preparing contingency plans to cope with its increasing effects now that the southern hemisphere summer is approaching.

Of the groundwater wells measured in Santiago and its surrounding region, 72 percent show a significant decline because extraction exceeds the natural recharge capacity.

In the basin, the current water gap – the difference between available water supply and demand – is 63.5 cubic meters per second. But by 2050, the water gap will be 92.1 cubic meters per second, if demand does not increase.

This water stress is caused by the high summer temperatures and rainfall that is scarce and concentrated in a short period of the winter, which has been happening since the onset of the current drought in 2008.

 

Gerardo Díaz of the Chile Foundation mans a stand set up at the Mapocho Station Cultural Center in Santiago, during a public event to educate and raise awareness about the need to take care of household water. Banners explain the water crisis and illustrate ways to deal with it. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

 

According to Water Scenarios 2030, an innovative initiative promoted by the Chile Foundation, in a collaborative effort with different stakeholders, water efficiency would contribute 73 percent of water within the set of solutions for this basin, while the conservation and protection of its ecosystems would contribute 18 percent.

The incorporation of new water sources would contribute nine percent to the solution, but requires an excessively high investment, says the study led by the Chile Foundation, a public-private organization dedicated to working for sustainable development.

These studies indicate that in the basin there are 35 percent more groundwater rights granted than the natural recharge capacity of the aquifer. This overexploitation has repercussions on the availability of groundwater in the present and the future.

Gerardo Díaz, head of projects at the Chile Foundation’s sustainability department, told IPS that no solution has been ruled out, but said “we are focusing on looking at how nature and strengthening natural water systems can help us resolve the crisis we are in.”

IPS visited several localities in Greater Santiago, which is made up of 52 municipalities, to observe some nature-based solutions and the water improvement they bring.

 

Fabian Guerrero, director of the San Mateo Park in the Chilean municipality of Curacaví, walks through the 14-hectare open space in the center of town that was once a garbage dump where the trees have signs identifying their species and the trails are marked for visitors. Five compost bins operate on site to receive organic matter that is turned into compost to nourish the gardens, trees and seedlings. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

 

Miyawaki technique to grow trees in rural municipality María Pinto

In the rural municipality of María Pinto, with a population of 14,000 people, located 40 kilometers from the center of Santiago, a technique created by Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki, which accelerates the growth of native forests by up to 10 times, was successfully implemented for the first time in Chile. Trees are planted at low density in soil fertilized with nutrients.

It is a method of ecological restoration based on the potential natural vegetation of a given area, reproducing in an accelerated manner the landscape that would exist if there had been no human presence and turning it into a refuge for native biodiversity and its many different forms of life.

“We are carrying out an ecological restoration of the hillside to replace a 40-year-old radiata pine plantation that dried out due to a plague,” María José Valenzuela, the municipality’s environmental director, told IPS.

The restoration was carried out on one of the seven hectares of the San Pedro Sports Field and involved numerous volunteers from the Liceo Polivalente, a municipal high school, who called themselves Forjadores Ambientales (roughly, environmental creators).

Forests generate conditions for greater water infiltration for the trees, which are also fog trappers. And they help to prevent rainwater from running off quickly and to infiltrate the soil instead.

“Global warming is manifesting with more fog and that is something that is noticeable,” Valenzuela explained.

Campo San Pedro also points to a problem with the hillsides in the center of this long narrow country, which arises from monoculture farming.

The Miyawaki lot now has 3500 trees of 10 native species on 500 square meters.

It functions as a laboratory of sclerophyllous forest, typical of Chile, where the Miyawaki technique provides an example for recovery of the remaining forests in central Chile. This kind of forest is characterized by species with hard evergreen leaves that enable them to withstand droughts.

“Many monoculture farms after exploiting the wells leave hills converted into deserts, with infertile soil due to so many agrochemicals and all the times they were plowed and not covered,” explained Valenzuela, a civil engineer specializing in sustainability and social ecology.

She was alluding to the repeated abandonment of hillsides in central Chile that are dedicated to monoculture, mainly avocado and fruit trees, and then deserted when they become wastelands due to lack of water.

In Chile, agriculture accounts for more than 60 percent of water consumption, in a country with a dynamic agro-export sector that expanded with few controls.

And as in most of Chile’s rural areas, the municipality is full of “loteos”, the name given locally to divisions of land without infrastructure services or regulatory plans. Added to this are the sale of water rights and the excessive use of water by digging irregular wells to fill swimming pools or maintain lawns.

In this country, water has been largely privatized after water rights were separated from land tenure during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990). This resulted in water rights being traded on the market as a commodity, restricting public access to water.

 

Nearly 40 percent of Chile’s population lives in the Maipo River basin, because it is home to Greater Santiago and its 52 municipalities. A new study warns that it is under maximum pressure, while the inhabitants have little awareness about the stress of their drinking water supply. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

 

Ecological recovery in Curacaví

In the rural municipality of Curacaví, 53 kilometers from downtown Santiago and home to 33,000 inhabitants, the community mobilized in 2018 to recover 14 hectares of hillside that had turned into an open-air landfill.

Alarmed by a fire, in January of that year local residents removed 50 tons of garbage and organized themselves in the San Mateo Park to reforest and plant, to date, 5,000 native trees.

Fabian Guerrero, general director of the park, told IPS that the municipal government provides them with 40,000 liters of water per week. It also supplies machines to remove the soil, and to use guano (the excrement of seabirds) and organic matter to prepare a Miyawaki forest with native species planted at high density in a small space.

“We have drip and sprinkler irrigation techniques to use water efficiently. In the park there are organic vegetable gardens, compost bins, trails and guided tours for students and families, to whom we teach how and which trees to plant, in which location, which one gives more shade or withstands more sunshine,” he told IPS.

The community won seven reforestation projects and their dream is two other initiatives: to have their own water, with a dam or pond, and to create a nursery with all kinds of trees, medicinal plants, vegetables and flowers.

“We plan to create a green lung so that people see this place as a space for family recreation, connected to nature, a place to come and reflect and learn about trees. We aim for education and for people to learn to take care of the trees,” said Guerrero, a computer programmer who describes himself as a “passionate organic farmer and nature lover.”

Local residents can plant and harvest in the organic community vegetable gardens, and they can also sponsor trees.

 

On Las Industrias Avenue, in the south of the Chilean municipality of San Joaquín, a section of the Permeable Pavement project was built, consisting of concrete in a grid pattern that allows water to drain and infiltrate the soil. The project was tested in a sloped bike path area where water can be captured to go directly into the soil. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

 

Water supply initiatives in San Joaquín

The municipality of San Joaquín, population 94,000 located 12 kilometers southwest of the capital, is one of the poorest in the Greater Santiago area.

It is promoting water projects and protecting two parks and will create a third, called the Victor Jara Flood Park, which will be ready by 2025.

“It is the bank of the Zanjón de la Aguada, a canal that is very problematic for Santiago because it received industrial runoff and stank,” said environmental engineer Claudia Silva, in charge of environmental management and control for San Joaquín.

The Flood Park has underground sections and is designed so that, in case of heavy rainfall, it can receive and contain the water. It includes plans for a swimming pool and vegetation on its banks capable of withstanding a flood.

A Rain Garden was created in Mataveri, a street that flooded every time in rained. It consisted of removing cement structures to channel water to plants grown there. And Permeable Pavement, with a reticular pattern, was installed in a bicycle lane to capture water that previously drained into the sewer and thus facilitate its infiltration into the ground.

 

The Victor Jara Flood Park, to be completed in 2025, covers the municipalities of San Miguel, San Joaquín and Pedro Aguirre Cerda and is promoted by the government of the Metropolitan Region of Santiago. It has underground sections and is designed with plants suitable for areas with heavy water runoff. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

 

The Water Scenarios 2030 study found that another cause of the water crisis is the dispersal of the governance process, with more than 52 institutions at the national level involved in water management.

Díaz also criticized the fact that the measures adopted are heavily oriented towards new sources of water through desalination or accumulation in reservoirs.

“Our view is that we must move towards greener or nature-based solutions in the conservation, restoration and protection of ecosystems involved in the water cycle. Wetlands, swamps, headwaters forests, native trees. This generates a greater impact in terms of water supply, in less time and at a lower cost,” he said.

According to the Chile Foundation expert, the first step is to implement solutions based on nature and then move forward in demand management to reduce water consumption through greater efficiency in agriculture and irrigation of green areas, among other aspects.

“And finally, we must move towards new sources such as the use of treated wastewater or desalination to close the water gap. But nature-based solutions and demand management should address more than 50 percent of the territorial gap in the basins analyzed,” he asserted.

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Credit: Collectif Arc-en-Ciel/Facebook

By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Oct 27 2023 (IPS)

In response to lawsuits brought by LGBTQI+ activists, the Mauritius Supreme Court has issued two landmark judgments striking down the criminalisation of consensual sex between adult men as unconstitutional. Its reasoning turned upside down the argument used by anti-rights forces to attack LGBTQI+ activists in many African countries: it acknowledged that criminalisation is the foreign import rather than gay sex, and a relic of colonialism it’s high time to shake off.

A damning colonial legacy

As in so many other Commonwealth states, criminalisation of consensual sex between men in Mauritius dated back to the British colonial era. Former colonies inherited criminal provisions targeted at LGBTQI+ people and typically retained them on independence and through subsequent criminal law reforms long after the UK had changed its laws.

That’s exactly what happened in Mauritius, which declared independence in 1968 but retained Criminal Code provisions criminalising homosexuality dating from 1838. Section 250 of this law punished ‘sodomy’ with penalties of up to five years in prison.

Around the Commonwealth, same-sex sexual acts remain a criminal offence in 31 out of 56 states, often punishable with harsh jail sentences, and in three cases – Brunei, north Nigeria and Uganda – potentially with the death penalty.

Even if extreme punishments are unlikely to be applied, as was the case in Mauritius, they have a chilling effect. Legal prohibitions stigmatise LGBTQI+ people, legitimise social prejudice and hate speech, enable violence, obstruct access to key services, notably healthcare, and deny them the full protection of the law. As a result, LGBTQI+ lives remain shrouded in uncertainty and fear.

Conflicting trends

Only in two Commonwealth states – Rwanda and Vanuatu – were same-sex relations never criminalised. In others, decriminalisation has come over time. A few – Australia, Canada, Malta and the UK – began processes leading to decriminalisation in the 1960s and 1970s, followed by New Zealand in the 1980s and the Bahamas, Cyprus and South Africa in the 1990s.

As some of these states went on to make further progress, notably in equal marriage rights, civil society activism continued to fuel the decriminalisation trend in the 2010s, starting in Fiji, with nine countries following over the next decade. Four more – Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Singapore and St Kitts and Nevis – followed suit in 2022.

The visible backlash against LGBTQI+ rights in Commonwealth states such as Ghana, Kenya and Uganda, where small gains in rights and visibility are bringing a disproportionate anti-rights response, tend to grab the headlines. The struggles of LGBTQI+ people in these countries are vital. But this shouldn’t obscure an overall trend of progress.

There are conflicting processes at play, with a tug of war between forces struggling for the realisation of rights and those resisting advances in the name of tradition and a supposedly natural order. In this struggle setbacks are inevitable – but in the long term, the side of rights is winning.

A rights-ward trajectory

Things started to change in Mauritius in the mid-1990s, when the issue of healthcare for LGBTQI+ people was first raised in the National Assembly in relation to HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment. The country’s first public Pride event was held in 2005, and soon afterwards, in 2008, the Employment Rights Act banned discrimination based on sexual orientation. In 2012, the Equal Opportunities Act came into force, mandating protections in employment, education, housing and the provision of goods or services.

In October 2019 LGBTQI+ rights activist Abdool Ridwan Firaas Ah Seek, backed by his LGBTQI+ organisation Collectif Arc-en-Ciel (Rainbow Collective), filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of section 250. Two similar challenges had been filed the previous month, including one by Najeeb Ahmad Fokeerbux of the Young Queer Alliance, alongside three other plaintiffs.

On 4 October 2023, the Supreme Court delivered its historic decisions. In the Ah Seek case, it ruled that the constitution’s ban of discrimination based on sex includes sexual orientation, and that the prohibition of sex between consenting adult men was discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional. In the Fokeerbux case, it sustained the plaintiffs’ argument that the sodomy provision treated gay men as criminals and their sexuality as a crime and disrespected their relationships.

Legal and social change

Having decriminalised same-sex relations, Mauritius now places 54 out of 197 countries on Equaldex’s Equality Index, which ranks countries on their LGBTQI+-friendliness. The island nation scores 58 out of 100 points, a measure of all that remains to be done, even though it ranks far above the African region as a whole, which averages 28 points.

Outstanding issues in Mauritius include full protections against discrimination, marriage equality and adoption rights and recognition and protections for transgender people.

Mauritius scores higher for its legal situation than it does for public attitudes towards LGBTQI+ people. A recent survey showed that tolerance towards LGBTQI+ people has increased but there’s still work to be done. For the LGBTQI+ rights movement, it’s clear that while legal advances help normalise the existence of LGBTQI+ people, changing laws and policies is not enough.

A welcome opportunity for visibility came three weeks after the Supreme Court ruling, when the Pride march returned to the streets of Mauritius after a two-year absence. But the opportunity was also seized by an anti-rights group to stage a demonstration against advances in LGBTQI+ rights.

Who’s next?

The Mauritius Supreme Court ruling was welcomed by United Nations human rights experts and agencies, which encouraged the state to continue along the reform path and called on the 66 countries that still criminalise gay sex – almost half of them in Africa – to follow suit.

The landmark Mauritius court ruling is part of a global trend that’s likely to continue. Civil society’s successes should offer further inspiration for advocacy efforts elsewhere. But given the potential for backlash, there’s also a need to protect and defend rights and take violations of LGBTQI+ people’s rights seriously wherever they occur.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

 

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