Africa

A suicide survivor shares her story of how an online community helped her overcome anxiety and depression. Credit: Unsplash / Dan M

By Fairuz Ahmed
NEW YORK, Sep 28 2020 (IPS)

Romana Hoque had it all, a comfortable life, a happy family. Despite this, the 43-year-old second-generation immigrant from Indonesia living in the United States was depressed enough to contemplate suicide.

Hoque, in an exclusive interview with Inter Press Service (IPS), said despite her comfortable life, not being able to conceive resulted in her feeling so depressed that she tried to take her own life. She shared her story during September – set aside as a month for creating awareness of suicide prevention.

“For me, it was a blur. I studied at a top university in Singapore and had a beautiful life. But job stress and not being able to conceive a child used to burden me,” Hoque says.

“One attempt after another, and the hormone therapy led me to try to end my life. The cycle was brutal and vicious.”

She said she tried reaching out to family and friends, but many dismissed her concerns saying she would be alright.

“I had to put up a face that everything is going alright and act accordingly. I had no way of expressing myself. One night the pain was unbearable, and I decided to give up.”

Depression and mental health issues are linked to suicide. Globally, 79 percent of suicides occur in low- and middle-income countries; however, high-income countries have the highest rates of suicide. It proves that triggers can be varied, and having a successful life dreamt by many does not guarantee peace of mind. Societal pressure, judgement, and constant pressure could create triggers.

Also, men are three times more likely to commit suicide than women in wealthier countries, but in emerging countries, the rate is equal. With the need for a better, successful life, comes the need to prove and achieve. This paves the road for self-loathing and destructive behaviour among many. However, there is no specific pattern in suicides – just as there no pattern to mental health.

Someone, very close to you may seem fine, but deep inside there may lie a silent pain killing the person’s spirit, she says.

Hoque was admitted to the hospital for trying to end her life after taking sleeping pills in 2018. After a week in the hospital, she sought therapy. It took her a year of therapy and monitoring to finally let go of the negative thoughts and move forward.

“I had it all, money, a good job, and a loving family. But I think unless someone really understands what is going in inside, no one wants to talk about depression and triggers. I used to get asked on a regular basis when I will conceive and why I don’t have a child,” she said. “This was my struggle, and I was feeling less of a woman for not giving birth. I used to get paranoid that my husband will leave me for being barren.”

Finding support is crucial to overcome suicide triggers. Credit: UnSplash / Kai P

Social stigma, cultural norms, and expectations are a few factors that could push a person to the breaking point. Her support system and coping mechanism included extensive therapy, and she found surprising support online platforms. Social media was a crucial factor in helping her to recuperate and open-up.

Hoque started to read articles and people’s stories in various suicide prevention groups. After a few months, she found two online writing platforms called Fuzia and Medium. Later she joined a writers’ forum called Writers of Fuzia on Facebook.

Finally, after a long time, she could voice her thoughts. She could open up and be herself. She felt liberated.

“Sometimes the people who don’t know us are the best therapists,” she said with a smile. “I could write anything I want to. I could be silly. I could be open, and I could be myself. I joined countless discussions and even made friends with girls half my age. No one judged me; no one wanted anything from me. I felt free. I felt happy.”

For her recovery and mental healing, Hoque gives credit to Fuzia.

Another critical factor in the process of self-expression was anonymity. She used a fake name and a generic picture. She felt comfortable sharing with unknown people because she found that thousands of girls were experiencing the same feelings.

She was highly motivated to learn more about how people connect and how they are triggered. The piece of the puzzle that was missing was a place to vent.

Here, in Fuzia, no one really knew each other but still, they felt like sisters, like family. And they felt of belonging somewhere. There is a global audience of 4 million and opinions varied, as did perspectives. But somehow everyone connected and felt each other’s pain.

Her experience with Fuzia and having a group to relate to she later launched her own company helping youth and women become aware of the patterns and identify triggers for suicide. A little know-how and compassion can help others share their trauma and anguish. The inspiration for judgment-free sharing and listening gave her the backdrop to give back to society.

Married, unmarried, single, widowed, or single mothers, gays, lesbians, or bisexuals, young and old: all were equals in the social media platforms. In Fuzia, the online community’s tolerance was crucial, and there was no divide on religion or geographical identity. People were treated with dignity and respect.

The United Nations and partners have drawn attention to different aspects of mental health concerning children, the workplace, stigmatization of issues, and psychological first aid or ways in which to lend support to the distressed.

The link between suicide and mental health is well established in high-income countries; however, “many suicides happen impulsively in moments of crisis”, according to the World Health Organization.

“Experiencing conflict, disaster, violence, abuse or loss and a sense of isolation are strongly associated with suicidal behaviour,” WHO outlines in its list of key facts.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');

The post Judgment Free Online Platform Key to Helping Suicidal People, Says Survivor appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Civil society protest during the 3rd UN Financing for Development Summit in Addis Ababa in 2015. Credit: Civil Society FfD Group

By Tove Maria Ryding, Pooja Rangaprasad and Emilia Reyes
NEW YORK, Sep 28 2020 (IPS)

On 29 September, the world’s heads of state will come together (virtually) at an extraordinary meeting to discuss financing for development during the 75th UN general assembly. This will be crucial in the battle to address the Coronavirus crisis.

Our leaders will need to ask themselves this question: can we tackle a global recession while ensuring that basic human rights are protected, and the fight against poverty and environmental destruction are not completely run off the tracks?

The simple but harsh answer at this point in time, is that we cannot. The necessary global mechanisms and agreements are not in place, and unless governments urgently start working together to plug the gaps in the system, billions of people are likely to be heavily impacted by the Coronavirus crisis for years to come.

While the crisis is threatening up to half a billion people with poverty, the fortunes of the ultrawealthy are skyrocketing. Meanwhile, existing inequalities and discrimination, including those related to gender and race, are being reinforced by the Coronavirus crisis. National action is vital, but no country can address the global challenges alone.

Ahead of the heads of state meeting, a ‘menu of options’ for action has been published which includes key recommendations on debt, illicit financial flows, global liquidity and financial stability, among others. The heads of state must move from talk to action by agreeing to implement some of these recommendations and kickstart real intergovernmental negotiations to deliver new international frameworks and agreements.

At the top of the intergovernmental to-do list has to be debt resolution. The coronavirus crisis is creating a high risk of debt crises, especially in the Global South. And while the G20 response – to offer a standstill on bilateral debt to the poorest countries – has delayed the problem, it has done nothing to actually resolve it.

Even before the pandemic, there were clear warning signs that new debt crises were looming. This was alarming in light of the fact that we currently do not have an international mechanism to ensure that debt crises are resolved without undermining basic human rights of the people living in the impacted countries.

The good news is that the ‘menu of options’ includes concrete proposals for solutions, such as debt cancellations and an international UN debt workout mechanism. Now is high time for governments to get to work on these proposals.

Another top priority ought to be addressing tax havens, international tax dodging and other illicit financial flows. This problem has been causing a continuous bleeding of hundreds of billions of dollars annually from public budgets in both the Global North and South.

A core reason for this disaster is a deeply broken and outdated international corporate tax system. But here too, a clear and concrete proposal for a UN tax convention is part of the ‘menu of options’. Such a convention could pave the way towards new international tax and transparency rules to combat tax dodging. What is missing is an international alliance of progressive countries that can increase international pressure for progress and action.

A third, and related, top priority for governments should be to address the broader economic problems, which are exacerbating the impacts of the crisis. Governments ought to agree a date and preparation process for a crisis summit under the UN’s Financing for Development process, to be held at heads of state level as soon as practically possible.

The summit should follow up on previous commitments, which started with the Monterrey Consensus in 2002. Originally, governments had actually agreed to discuss a follow-up conference in 2019, but up to now have procrastinated and postponed the decision.

The sad reason for these delays is an old fight about control over economic decision-making processes. Countries in the Global South have been pushing for negotiations to start under the auspices of the UN, where all countries participate on an equal footing.

However, the countries in the Global North have blocked this and instead insisted that all decisions must be kept in opaque forums where they dominate the decision-making, including G20, IMF, the Paris Club and the OECD.

In 2014, when countries in the Global South wanted to start working on a UN debt resolution mechanism, constructive forces within the EU were drowned out by a small group of hardliners – and in particular the UK and Germany, and the EU ended up boycotting the process.

During a Financing for Development (FfD) summit in 2015 a group of countries in the Global North –with the UK and US in leading roles – put all their political muscle into blocking a proposal for a UN intergovernmental tax process put forward by the Global South countries.

This behavior has not only led to secret negotiations and unfair decisions that disregard the interests of the Global South, it has also led to a complete failure to develop effective solutions. By getting engulfed in a dirty fight to keep a large part of the world’s countries out of decision-making processes, many otherwise progressive European countries acted against the interests of their own people, including by increasing the influence of some of the most obstructive powers.

This includes the Trump administration, but also some of the OECD countries that are very aggressive tax havens. But the coronavirus crisis seems to be causing some governments to crawl out of the trenches, and the high-level meeting this month provide an important opportunity.

75 years ago, the UN was set up to “achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character”. In reality, the UN became the place where global agreements on human rights, sustainable development, peace and environmental protection are negotiated.

However, on economic issues, power-hungry developed countries have blocked UN cooperation. Unless we find fair and effective solutions to address economic and financial crises, it will not only undermine all the other UN objectives and agreements. It will also make the coronavirus crisis much longer and more disastrous than it has to be.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');

The post No More Excuses – Time for Global Economic Solutions appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Tove Maria Ryding is Tax Justice Coordinator, European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad); Pooja Rangaprasad is Policy Director, FfD, Society for International Development (SID) and Emilia Reyes is Co-convener of the Women’s Working Group on FfD

The post No More Excuses – Time for Global Economic Solutions appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Reverend June Major has gone on hunger strike twice to demand that the church take action against her alleged attacker who still practises as a priest

South Africa's defence minister was accused of misusing state resources for party political business.

The Islamic State group said it was behind the ambush on a convoy of government officials.

Israel Adesanya expertly picks apart Paulo Costa to retain his middleweight title and extend his perfect professional record to 20-0 at UFC 253 in Abu Dhabi.

When Gambian orphan Muhammed Sanneh arrived in Sicily aged 16, his life took an unexpected turn.

With three Mendys - Edouard, Benjamin and Nampalys - in the Premier League, BBC Sport Africa has managed to create a whole team.

One of the largest photovoltaic installations in Central America, with 320,000 solar panels, located in the center of El Salvador. Latin American countries are betting on solar energy as the central pillar of the energy transition, reinforced by the commitments made in the Paris Agreement on climate change. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS.

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Sep 25 2020 (IPS)

The economic recovery after the covid-19 pandemic, renewable energy, the gas situation, regulations and investment; mobility and transport, as well as new technologies and the progress of the Paris Agreement will be discussed at the Madrid Energy Conference from 28 September to 2 October.

Jeremy Martin, vice-president of the non-governmental Institute of the Americas (IoA), told IPS from its headquarters in the U.S. coastal town of La Jolla, California, that the second Madrid Energy Conference had to adjust its format to a virtual one, as all the meetings have done since March.

“But the goals and objectives are the same: to address the way energy is generated, distributed and consumed, as well as the investment needed in Latin America to drive the energy transition and its link to Europe,” explained the vice-president of the Institute organizing the conference.

The dialogue, the first edition of which was held in the Spanish capital in 2019, will bring together ministers and deputy ministers from various Latin American and Caribbean countries, as well as 20 company presidents and more than 400 delegates from international bodies, such as the intergovernmental International Energy Agency and the Latin American Energy Organization, and experts from both continents.

"Without a doubt, the pandemic and the crisis it has triggered have led to growing attention and calls to redouble efforts towards an energy transition that will help the world reduce CO2 emissions"
Jeremy Martin


The first day of discussions will focus on the relevance of the Paris Agreement, signed in 2015; the climate crisis in the context of the pandemic; and the situation of renewable energy in Latin America.

The second day will focus on financing the post-Covid recovery and the energy transition towards lower carbon models and mergers and acquisitions in the energy sector.

The third day will focus on energy storage in batteries and electricity transmission networks; mobility, transport and energy transition and intelligent transmission networks.

In the fourth group of sessions, speakers will discuss gas, the perspective of oil corporations and the role and impact of regulations on hydrocarbon companies.

The closing of the virtual conference will deal with energy digitization and artificial intelligence, carbon capture and storage (CCS), the gas generated by human activities responsible for global warming, and methane, whose polluting power is greater than that of CO, and the situation of hydrogen, seen as an alternative to fossil fuels, in Latin America and Europe.

As a result of the coronavirus pandemic which appeared in China at the end of 2019 and has spread rapidly throughout the world, nations have suffered economic recession, a fall in energy consumption and tourism, as well as thousands of deaths and job losses.

In response, countries have implemented packages of social and economic measures with different degrees of depth.

For Leonardo Beltrán, a Mexican non-associated researcher at the Institute of the Americas and a participant in the forum, the conference attracts the most relevant actors to consolidate the energy dialogue.

“There are opinion leaders, company executives who develop business and technology, and officials. The forum allows for the exchange of ideas, and a new vision can be developed, thus consolidating energy integration for the region,” he told IPS in Mexico City.

 

Domestic gas and its role in the energy transition will be one of the topics to be debated at the Madrid Energy Conference, which will virtually bring together senior representatives of governments, intergovernmental organizations, business and civil society organizations. In the picture, gas charge for residential consumption in a southern neighborhood of Mexico City. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

 

It will also allow us to analyze the progress of the Paris Agreement on climate change, signed in 2015, which for Beltran is crucial “now more than ever”, because of the consequences of the pandemic, such as the sharp slowdown in the global economy, the reduction in energy consumption, the contraction in tourism and the disruption of trade.

“Forced by the pandemic, we are seeing the effects of highly polluting industries, which have a large carbon footprint, and so the magnifying glass is being put on these sectors. The source of these emissions is fossil combustion,” he said.

The also former Undersecretary of Energy recalled that the Paris Agreement is linked to the efforts that its participating governments have to make and whose progress will be the subject of dialogue during the Conference. “Everyone has committed to reducing their footprint with short, medium and long term goals,” he said.

Beltrán considered that in global terms, Latin America can exhibit “ample room for maneuver” at the Conference due to its low carbon footprint and a clean energy matrix at increasing levels.

In addition, the European Union’s (EU) “Next Generation EU” plan, announced in June and worth $830 billion, can serve as a model for Latin America, with more than a third going to projects to increase energy efficiency, reduce dependence on fossil fuels and preserve nature. Financing will be subject to environmental requirements.

Martin agreed with the existence of the European alternatives from which the Latin American region can take upon.

“Again this year we will look at developments in Europe with a view to how they can contribute to policy and investment frameworks in Latin America”, he said.

“Without a doubt, the pandemic and the crisis it has triggered have led to growing attention and calls to redouble efforts towards an energy transition that will help the world reduce CO2 emissions,” Martin added.

The specialist stressed that in many Latin American countries the focus has been on how to manage hydrocarbons, with the lens on the energy transition.

European energy companies are investing heavily in the region, and the EU has set up lines of cooperation to help in the face of the pandemic.

Mechthild Wörsdörfer, director of Sustainability, Technology and Outlooks at the International Energy Agency (IEA) and a speaker at the conference, told IPS that “having a set of pre-existing policy objectives, programmes and delivery channels for financial services can help countries implement recovery measures more quickly.”

The official from the energy coordinating body of the major industrial countries said from Paris, the headquarters of the IEA, that they can also help ensure that these measures “are consistent with national objectives for medium- and long-term sustainability.”

Wörsdörfer also considered that the recovery plans for the economic crisis caused by the covid can be linked to the Paris Agreement through the measures that countries adopt to comply with the treaty, “to help select recovery measures that also allow climate and other sustainability objectives to be met.”

All of this will be discussed in this virtual edition of the second Madrid Energy Conference, which will analyze the challenges that the pandemic and post-pandemic have placed on a sector that was already subject to the special challenges of a historic transition in its sources, matrix and consumption.

Related Articles

• Crisis Hits Oil Industry and Energy Transition Alike

The post Intercontinental Energy Forum to Discuss Post-Covid Challenges appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Polish historian says he will serve part of the jail term of a boy, 13, convicted of blasphemy in Nigeria.

A letter from Roberto Savio to his friends
 
The creation of a Palestinian State remains a pipe-dream

By Roberto Savio
ROME, Sep 25 2020 (IPS)

After the fall of the Ottoman Empire at the end of WWI, The League of Nations mandated that Britain administer Palestine. The London administration was quite ineffective, in part, due to the contradictory promises which were made to the Arabs, to the Zionists and to France, the other colonial power which divided the territory with Britain.

Roberto Savio

But the conflict is much more ancient. It has now been thirty centuries since the first confrontations between the Philistines and the Hebrews, and the peace agreement promoted by US President Donald Trump between Israel and two ancient small Gulf monarchical dictatorships will certainly not resolve this millennial rivalry.

The Philistines settled in the region around 1200 BC. Toward the end of the 11th century BC, the Israelites succeeded in driving them out of much of their territory, but they remained independent along the coastal region. And although they never completely dominated the whole area, the demonym of this people comes precisely from the word peleset (Philistine) and hence the territory Filasṭin, Falasṭn or Filisṭin (Palestine).

Three thousand years later, the conflict seems to lack resolution. The Israelis have never accepted the existence of a Palestinian State.

For their part Palestinian leaders continue to employ inviable rhetoric, which has led to their losing many opportunities. The corruption of which they are accused, is based in reality, but Israel has a relatively dark history.

Arab Sultans and Sheikhs are people with a medieval mindset, those for whom religious fanaticism and money is uniquely important. Trump likes them, because in some ways they resemble him. The Israelis have worked out how to take advantage of all this so as to eliminate the possibility of a Palestinian state.

Result: Palestinians will have to live under Israeli control. They will be second-class citizens, and the internal arrangement of Israel will change as the ultra-orthodox Haredin have a higher population growth rate than Arabs or other Jewish factions.

Arabs are 20% of the population, while Haredin jewish sect already constitutes twelve percent of the population. At the time of the creation of the State of Israel, the Haredin were only 0.2%. These are medieval clans living in a special world. For example, they have won the right to not attend school, as they only study holy scriptures. They do not do military service and by law they do not work; they’re basically maintained by the State.

Benjamin Netanyahu survives thanks to the ultra-orthodox parties. The future of Israel is not a peaceful future. It is a country that is going to turn more and more toward the right, which will have to continue to use force against the Palestinians, who will become an exclusively internal problem, as they will be abandoned by other Arabs. They are going to live under appalling social and economic conditions, and we are going to see how Israel increasingly takes the apartheid path.

Netanyahu’s recent victories portend a dark future. One has visited the region too often now to offer a positive prognosis. Through all this, Trump motivates alliances with the Sunni religious fundamentalists led by Saudi Arabia, united against the Shiites, led by Iran.

Iran, the ancient Persian civilisation, is much more tolerant than the Sunnis. The problem is that it has been captured by a group of fanatics who took advantage of the unpopularity of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, leading to them seizing power from the Shah in 1979. They are unpopular, but they are holding their ground.

It should be remembered that the theocratic regime was installed with decisive help from the West.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned from exile in France to Iran on a plane provided by the conservative government of French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. Iran is another mistake made by the United States, a country whose foreign policy is always short-term, again failing to understand the reality on the ground.

Triggering an escalation to remove the Shah, employing the clergy, created a regime that eventually turned against the US, something Reza Pahlaví would have never done. It is the same mistake committed in Afghanistan, when they financed a movement against the Russian occupation, creating phenomena such as Bin Laden, which ended up turning in another direction.

By the way, this is the same mistake made by Israel when it supported Al Fatah at first, so as to weaken Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

The Mullahs are not at all popular, but they are maintained by the support of the peasants and by a powerful repressive apparatus. No doubt at some point they will be taken out in a bloody internal crisis, and Iran will return to normality.

In this respect I wish to stress three points:

a) Iran has top-level universities, great films, excellent architecture and a high level of scientific prowess:
none of which can be found in the Sunni world.
b) In Teheran there are synagogues and christian churches,
something that is lacking in the Sunni world.
c) Of all the terrorist attacks that have taken place to date in Europe and in the United States,
there has not been a single Shiite terrorist.
And we should bear in mind that Iran has been under sanctions for 40 years.

Moral: the political disaster which is the Middle East is one of governance, in which the ‘West’ and Trump carry many responsibilities. So too the Europeans who installed Kings, Princes, Emirs and Sheiks when they divided up the Ottoman Empire.

And Trump, with his son-in-law, who, despite being Jewish, is capable of reasoning in Arab terms, by reinforcing this World of petrodollars and of medieval thought.

Throughout this panorama the Palestinians remain a people without a homeland who lack nationality, and the Israelis have their answer prepared: they don’t accept the peace plan, and then do not have leaders who seek peace.

However, persisting in maintaining millions of people resentful and poor is not an intelligent play. It is also clear that in both intellectual and artistic circles there is little Israel support for such a formula.

Falling into this trap is best explained by Netanyahu’s efforts to maintain power at any cost, and so selling his soul to the far-right, also accompanied by a left which has become a merely symbolic force…

Publisher of OtherNews, Italian-Argentine Roberto Savio is an economist, journalist, communication expert, political commentator, activist for social and climate justice and advocate of an anti neoliberal global governance. Director for international relations of the European Center for Peace and Development.. He is co-founder of Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency and its President Emeritus.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');

The post Peace in the Middle East appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

A letter from Roberto Savio to his friends

 
The creation of a Palestinian State remains a pipe-dream

The post Peace in the Middle East appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Dina Ekanga is a Congolese 'nail' artist who was inspired by the Nkisi Nkondi sculptures of the Kongo people.

How inclusive is activism and discussions on climate change? Most environmental movements and organisations in the United States and Europe are primarily white and middle class, and hold vast amount of resources and set the agenda for policy work and ecosystem recovery. This dated photo shows a landslide in central Kenya that resulted after intense rainfall - one of the consequences of climate change. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 25 2020 (IPS)

Wrapping up Climate Week at the United Nations General Assembly, global leaders called for climate action that may be “ambitious but achievable” and called for climate measures that would “leave no one behind”. But some climate activists remain concerned about how this can be achieved.

“The environmental movements in the United States and Europe are primarily white and primarily middle class,” Tara Villalba, a Filipino climate activist in the U.S., told IPS. “These mainstream environmental organisations hold vast amounts of resources (in the form of land, money, other property, and influence), and they are in charge of how those resources are used in ecosystem recovery and in policy work: our solutions are not taken seriously.”

Villalba spoke to IPS following Thursday’s Climate Change Roundtable hosted by the U.N. Secretary-General, in the same week as a significant pledge made by China to achieve “carbon neutrality” by 2060.

“But the climate emergency is fully upon us, and we have no time to waste,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in his speech, as he also called for climate action efforts to “leave no one behind”.

While leaders, including the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson, applauded this effort by China, they also reminded listeners of the grave situation the world is in currently — at the meeting point of a climate crisis and a global pandemic.

“Most people did not imagine that the world would be afflicted in the way we have…we were woefully underprepared,” Guterres said regarding the pandemic. “But for climate change, nobody can say that we have not been warned, nobody can say that we’re not, now, capable of  making the preparation.”

European Union President Ursula von der Leyen shared how the pandemic has only highlighted the glaring holes in how we live and build.

“[The] corona pandemic has not lowered the threat of climate change,” she said. “On the contrary, it has made us aware of the fragility of our life on this planet.”

She added that recovery from this moment will require “substantial investment” to ensure that economies are moving forward.

“It will require a determined action to leave no one behind,” she said,  announcing the EU’s agreement to make Europe the first climate neutral continent in the world by 2050.

“The European leaders have decided to set up the next generation EU: this is a €750 billion recover and resilience fund that will invest in Europe’s green and digital transition for building a resilient and competitive economy,” she said. At least €275 billion has been budgeted for environmental and climate goals.

Despite these big promises and gestures, there are some who believe that a lot more work needs to be done to ensure those at the grassroots level are being included in the conversation.

“Our solutions are not taken seriously,” Villalba, who has worked in the climate movement for 15 years, told IPS. “Racism makes white people think that they are the best people to decide how to use those resources. Classism makes wealthy people decide they are the best decision makers and that power should be theirs. They want to “help” people like us but charity is not what’s needed. Power and wealth need to be redistributed so that we can all be less at-risk.”

She also painted a comprehensive, all-encompassing picture of how different social issues are intricately linked with climate justice concerns.

At the center of racism, and classism, she says is “an oppressive system that distributes resources.”

“Poor people and people of colour live with pollution. Poor countries have become the trash dumps of rich countries,” she said, drawing a parallel to a food chain where something as vast as climate change can trickle down to affect people on an individual level.

“Our work wears down our bodies faster because we cannot regenerate when we can’t sleep, eat, and live properly. But the people, communities and ecosystems that are being most severely impacted are where people of colour and poor people live and work and play,” she added.

Villalba, a single mother, is raising three children and is an organiser for housing justice: all factors that she says play into, or add to, the climate crisis.

“Many environmental activists assume people like me are not interested in climate activism. But we are. We have the most to lose – we lose our livelihoods and our families face risks first in ANY crisis – whether it is the COVID crisis or the climate crisis,” she said. “Fight because climate solutions MUST come from people like me. People who can barely make ends meet, and people who cannot meet all their needs to be able to live.”

Related Articles

• Scientists Draw up Guidelines to Help Agri-food Companies Align with 2030 Agenda
• ‘Waste is only Waste when you Waste it’ – Could Ecobricks be the Solution to Uganda’s Housing and Pollution Problem?
• Amazon ‘Women Warriors’ Show Gender Equality, Forest Conservation Go Hand in Hand

The post ‘Leave No one Behind’: How Inclusive is World Leaders’ Call to Climate Action? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The ex-defence minister was picked by the coup leader to head a transitional government until elections.

Credit: Forus International

By Pénélope Hubert
PARIS, Sep 25 2020 (IPS)

The year 2020 will most certainly mark a critical moment for the planet and future mobilizations. In a society shaken by Covid-19, people are gathering, regrouping and acting collectively for a sustainable world, an egalitarian future, and for global awareness on the climate emergency.

Activists and human rights defenders are sounding the alarm on the resurgence of forms of violence and poverty. It’s time for a turning point.

“Working for a global network means promoting a horizontal approach. From the fight for equality to climate justice, we are witnessing the rise of strong movements. Networks, grassroots organizations and citizens are redesigning the world for present and future generations”, says Sarah Strack, Director of Forus International, an innovative network empowering civil society for effective social change.

“We are at a crossroad. Are we going to adapt to a visibly changed world, or are we going to shut our eyes to what is happening? The time has come to promote new narratives, to think larger and to give visibility to collective solutions that bring the voices of communities to the forefront.”

The Global Week to Act4SDGS held on September 18-26, during the 75th General Assembly of the United Nations, called on people around the world to think about solutions to some of the world’s most pressing issues. This year, the #TurnItAround movement calls on individuals to shape priorities.

The basic question people are encouraged to think of is: what should change? What would you like to see more or less of? Every action counts: from public demonstrations for peace, to online campaigns on gender equality, to beach cleanups, museum exhibits and school art projects on sustainability topics.

“In Argentina, where we are used to protesting in the streets, the global pandemic has reshuffled the way we make our voices heard,” says Rolando Kandel, Director of the Argentinian platform for NGOs Red Encuentro (EENGD).

According to Red Encuentro, the pandemic has highlighted the importance of coordination between civil society organizations and governments, to respond dynamically to the needs of different communities which are facing new rights violations alongside an exacerbation of existing ones. As a result, they have launched a cycle of online conversations to impact public policies.

“Now that public space is largely off-limits, it’s important to use digital environments as a way to enhance, rather than curtail democracy,” says Rolando Kandel.

Online activism and virtual mobilization seem to be the new normal, but the risks are that vulnerable populations with little access to the internet can be left further behind. In Bolivia, in a tense political and social context ahead of the elections scheduled for October, Red Unitas tells us that violence against women persists.

“The situation of women in the context of the pandemic in Bolivia is extremely hard,” says Iris Baptista from Red Unitas. “Indigenous women are protesting the lack of healthcare in their communities and continue to fight for their rights. Now that we have been forced to shift our work online, it is not easy to reach all indigenous communities, we are adapting – resources are being sent by post, and we use telephones to maintain contact”.

Bolivia, like many countries, has struggled to combat gender-based violence and discrimination for years. Attacks against women have risen during the quarantine in Bolivia, where on average seven in 10 women say they have suffered some type of violence inflicted by a partner.

Bolivia has one of South America’s highest rates of women being killed because of their gender. The year 2020 was declared the Year of Fight against Femicide and Infanticide in Bolivia, even so, no effective prevention measures have been taken.

“During the quarantine the slogan “Stay at Home” was widely used. For many women and girls who are victims of violence that actually meant a very dangerous “Cállate en casa” (shut up at home),” Iris explained.

“The Unitas Network created the campaign “SIN VIOLENCIA ES MEJOR” (Better Without Violence), to raise awareness about the fact that women are doing most of the work during the pandemic, to fulfill their role as mother, wife and worker, yet they continue to face violence at home. We developed a series of creative videos for digital platforms called “The diary of a man in quarantine” which are reflections on violence against women and the distribution of domestic tasks across genders during Covid -19.”

Whether it’s about peace, gender, social justice or equality, your voice matters and your stories are relevant. Share them, invite your friends, create movement and mobilize so that you make your needs visible. Everyone’s future is the planet’s future, and it’s time to make your voice heard, so that history becomes collective rather than individual.

“We are resolved that civil society organisations, social movements and volunteers have a critical role to play in supporting community action and ensuring that those who are most often marginalized are not left behind through this challenging time,” states Action for Sustainable Development.

As part of the United Nations General Assembly, a SDG Action Zone provided space for deep conversations on inclusion, technology, urban and rural realities. From young climate activists to women leaders, sessions were built from the insights of local community activists, individuals and organizations working at the frontlines, often facing intersecting challenges.

If digital technology allows the dissemination of a message on a large scale, it is important to realize that this tool is not the only way to mobilize yourself, and to mobilize others around you. The current crisis is taking place beyond our screens, where realities are often shaped and presented according to individual interests, creating so-called “filter bubbles”.

In a world where governments can easily shape an image that meets your consumer or ideological criteria, it’s important to realize that you have a role to play in shifting conversations in the analog world.

“The pandemic has opened our eyes to the fact that we live on one planet. There is an increasing need for global solidarity and stronger collaborations,” says Adriana Aralica, from the Slovenian NGO platform, SLOGA. “Only together we can address upcoming challenges and ensure that everyone has a seat at the decision table.”

Let’s #TurnItAround !
For more information: communication.support@forus-international.org

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');

The post #TurnItAround: One Week to Mobilize for the Future appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Pénélope Hubert is part of the communications team at Forus International, described as an innovative global network empowering civil society for effective social change.

The post #TurnItAround: One Week to Mobilize for the Future appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Athletics legend Haile Gebrselassie explains how he was assisted by the ‘Leg of God’.

Forest restoration and rewilding must take centre stage, through programmes that also provide for community incomes. | Picture courtesy: Balipara Foundation

By Ranjit Barthakur
GUWAHATI, India, Sep 25 2020 (IPS)

We usually think of livelihoods and lives separately, however, it is now time to imagine a more integrated approach.

Consider these statistics:

• The 2019 UN-IPBES report—the most recent attempt to holistically assess the major threats to the world’s biodiversity, internationally and across stakeholders—estimates natural disasters caused by biodiversity loss and climate change cost the planet approximately USD 300 billion annually.
• In India, one-third of our GDP depends on nature, and another third is fairly dependent on nature—that’s more than 60 percent of the country’s GDP.
• Fifty-seven percent of our rural communities depend on forest ecosystems for their livelihoods

In essence, ecology is economy. Multiple studies have told us that ecological degradation will spur more droughts, desertification of once fertile soil, water and food insecurity, mass displacement of people, reduced crop yields, and more.

Livelihoods have an interdependent relationship with natural assets such as land, energy, waste, water, air, and carbon. In many cases, they require the use of these assets; on the other hand, protecting and enhancing these assets can increase the earning potential for livelihoods

In our work at Balipara Foundation, we are already witnessing what an ecologically degraded, climate unstable future might look like. When we resumed fieldwork in April—after a month-long lockdown due to COVID-19—our communities along the Bhutan-Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border told us story after story about how families were unable to buy seeds or had missed out on crucial planting windows for crops, because of the lockdown. A few months later, the agroforestry plots we had set up were partially swept away in fierce floods, the likes of which had not been witnessed by the local community in the past three decades.

Non-existent crops, fallow fields, sudden and destructive flooding, and subsequently dried up jobs, are effects that are likely to be amplified in the next decade, whether through climate change or emerging pandemics.

 

If we can build our ecology, we can build our economy

1. Livelihoods is no longer a matter of just creating jobs

Instead, it has to include managing our ecosystems. Natural resource use has historically been limited to extraction and use as material for consumption, or in other industries (eg, timber, food, fuel, building material, paper, clothing), rather than recognising nature as a service provider (eg, oxygen and carbon cycles, water and climate regulation, pollination, soil restoration). Rethinking how we use this ‘natural capital’ can help achieve a balance between ecology and economy. And, if we can build our ecology, we can build our economy.

Livelihoods have an interdependent relationship with natural assets such as land, energy, waste, water, air, and carbon. In many cases, they require the use of these assets; on the other hand, protecting and enhancing these assets can increase the earning potential for livelihoods. In practical terms, this means deriving our food and water needs through regenerative land and water resource management, satisfying our energy needs through hydrogen and solar-based fuels instead of fossil fuels, and satisfying our ever-increasing appetite for materials through reuse and recycling, instead of extraction.

2. Transitioning to an economy in tune with ecology is also good for business

Globally, we are looking at an employment opportunity of up to 395 million new jobs by 2030, if we invest in the sustainable use of degraded aquatic and terrestrial habitats, move to complete renewable energy use, and upgrade our infrastructure to minimise inefficiencies and emissions. Of this, using our lands and oceans (farming, fishing, forestry, and allied industries) more sustainably and regeneratively, in a way that enhances ecosystems, can create 191 million jobs globally and generate business opportunities worth USD 3.6 trillion.

Meeting emissions targets for both the 1.5 and 2-degree rise will also increase India’s net income by up to 25 times over the next few decades, both through minimising spending on climate-related damage (eg, repairing cyclone and flood damage, rehabilitating displaced people) and by reducing climate-driven loss in earnings of nature-dependent sectors (agriculture, forestry, and allied industries).

Well-designed agroforestry, adapted to local conditions and needs, can improve yields for farmers by up to 64 percent in developing countries while putting nutrients into the soil, stabilising water tables, and improving overall biodiversity.

3. It’s becoming a question of survival

Apart from the business case, moving to an integrated ecology-economy approach is a matter of survival in an increasingly uncertain future. Whether this is extreme weather events like flooding, fires, supercyclones, desertification, or water and food insecurity, an integrated approach will enhance resilience for rural communities, who are already experiencing the early waves of these losses.

For example, biodiversity loss in both pollinator species and crop varieties has led to increased vulnerability in agriculture globally, as well as India. Preserving local pollinator species (eg, indigenous bee species vs introducing the Western European honeybee) as well as heirloom seeds and wild varieties of crops can help farmers adapt more effectively to rising temperatures and changing growing conditions through a greater variety in crop options. This can help improve productivity while maintaining their income streams.

 

What can businesses do?

1. Build alternate livelihoods that invest in restoring natural assets

Livelihood programmes must move beyond the traditional focus on agriculture and livestock to include sustainable forestry, carbon sequestration, and payment for ecosystems services programmes (i.e. payment to communities or local stakeholders to protect/maintain at-risk ecosystems). This should be led by businesses whose value chains are heavily exposed to environmental or biodiversity-related risks, for example, agribusiness, mining, and construction, among others.

Forest restoration and rewilding must take centre stage, through programmes that also provide for community incomes—whether through direct payment for restoration and management of forests, or through establishing agroforestry in forest buffer zones, which communities can sustainably harvest.

2. Invest in nature-based solutions

Consumer businesses in India have the opportunity to invest in agroforestry and sustainable farming practices. Declines in crop yields due to soil nutrient depletion is a growing problem. Businesses that depend heavily on agricultural produce will see greater and longer-term pay-offs from investments in natural solutions, including organic farming and agroforestry models. Organic or sustainably grown produce also fetch greater prices in global markets, where conscious consumers are willing to pay more for produce that minimises their environmental impact.

3. Integrate ecological measures in corporate accounting

The time is ripe for a transformation in accounting systems, which integrates the full scope of profits and losses; not just financial gains, but environmental and social impact as well. Understanding the full value of what we stand to gain and lose is critical in encouraging effective changes in government policies and business practices. Including these measures will integrate previously externalised environmental costs into chains and reveal the ‘real’ cost of our current economic growth.

In doing so, practices that generate environmental and social instability will be rendered less financially attractive to investors. Measures correlating social, ecological, and economic indicators will help evaluate how sustainable a country’s or business’ growth is. It will also identify where losses are likely to occur and enable better policy and practice to minimise those losses.

 

What can the government do?

1. Draw up a green recovery plan

Countries around the world are debating their versions of the green new deal. India must break from carbon-centric Keynesian economics and adapt to the 21st-century net-zero vision for carbon neutrality: Investments in its rural communities for forest restoration coupled with agroforestry, sustainable fisheries and horticulture, organic and low-carbon handicrafts, recycling and upcycling industries, green jobs through renewable energy, and energy-efficient green infrastructure.

It should also look to upgrade existing infrastructure both to reduce energy inefficiencies and the environmental damage caused by these assets as they degrade over time.

2. Ensure that communities benefit from the afforestation schemes

While on paper India’s joint forest management and compensatory afforestation schemes empower communities to benefit monetarily from planting forests, in practice the profit-sharing pipeline is porous and ineffective, with communities involved in planting rarely benefitting.

Streamlining this through transparent, accountable processes and standards for compensation, as well as providing stronger protection to communities to leverage these programmes is critical in both incentivising forest restoration, and creating nature-centric socio-economic mobility among rural communities. Youth from these communities, in particular, could benefit from nature-centred opportunities at home, through technical training for afforestation and biodiversity management.

3. Implement standardised agroforestry policies across states

India took a step forward when it became the first country to introduce an agroforestry policy in 2014. Since then, however, few states appear to have benefited from this policy, if at all—information about the policy’s implementation on the ground is scanty. Formally implementing its policies for capacity building, decentralisation to community-level institutions such as Joint Forest Management Committees, streamlining regulations on harvesting, and transporting produce across states, will ease the transition from monoculture cultivation towards biodiversity-friendly agriculture. This must be incorporated in addition to India’s 33 percent commitment for forest restoration under the Paris Agreement and the Draft National Forest Policy 2018.

4. Integrate policies for a nature-centred policy

The World Economic Forum’s 2020 report on Global Risks indicates that biodiversity and climate-related risks are now widely acknowledged to be the risks with the highest likelihood and impact. India can no longer afford to have an isolated climate policy, or one that places business interests over environmental concerns—as the draft Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification 2020 does.

Perhaps the greatest and most immediate change we can make is a mindset shift: Nature is no obstacle to the goal of development. Rather, it is the underpinning powerhouse of our economy—and unlike other finite resources, can be regenerated to sustain futures. An integrated, interdependent approach that recognises ecology is economy is the most critical step we can take towards making nature, rural livelihoods, and our economy self-sustaining.

 

Ranjit Barthakur is the founder of the Balipara Foundation, where he drives community-based conservation and livelihoods in the Eastern Himalayas through cutting edge proprietary concepts such as Naturenomics and Rural Futures for sustainable social change and thriving habitats. He is a social entrepreneur with more than 40 years of experience in both the public and private sector in the areas of IT, hospitality, FMCGs, sports, and mainstreaming sustainability practices in organisations.

 

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

The post Ecology is Economy – ‘We Need an Integrated Approach Between Lives and Livelihoods’ appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Jens Martens
BONN, Sep 25 2020 (IPS)

Governments have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic with unprecedented intensity. They have taken far-reaching regulatory measures to contain the pandemic and mobilized financial resources on an enormous scale.

They have thus demonstrated that they are capable of action and need not leave the driver’s seat to the markets and the private sector if the political will is there.

In countless statements most governments have also affirmed that a return to business-as-usual after the crisis is not an option. Instead, the UN call to “build back better” has become a leitmotif of the multilateral responses to the COVID-19 crisis.

But does “building back” really lead to the urgently needed systemic change?

In the first phase, many COVID-19 emergency programmes contained certain social components that aimed to provide (more or less targeted) support for families in need, prevent unemployment and keep small businesses and companies financially afloat.

But aside from the fact that even these altogether huge amounts of money could not prevent the global rise in unemployment, poverty, and corporate bankruptcies, the temporary measures produced at best a flash in the pan effect that will quickly evaporate when the support ends.

The social catastrophe then comes only with a delay. Environmental considerations, on the other hand, played hardly any role in the first phase of COVID-19 responses. Most economic relief packages have been ecologically blind and ignored the structural causes and the interdependencies of the multiple crises.

It is therefore all the more important that now, in the second phase of policy responses, longer-term stimulus packages not only support economic recovery, but also promote necessary structural change, such as strengthened public social security systems, improved remuneration and rights of workers in the care economy, and the transition to circular economies, which seek to decouple growth from consumption of finite resources.

If used in the right way, such policies could offer the chance to become engines of the urgently needed socio-ecological transformation proclaimed in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

In response to the COVID-19 crisis, the World Economic Forum calls for “The Great Reset” to enable “stakeholder capitalism.” But pushing the reset button just restarts the game, without changing the rules of the game – or even the game itself.

The reset button clears the memory and reboots the (old) system, a system that has proven that it could not prevent the current crises, but rather has caused them.

Our Spotlight on Sustainable Development Report 2020 offers as an alternative an “8 R”-agenda for systemic change.

The eight sections do not provide a comprehensive reform programme. Rather, they illustrate in a nutshell eight issue areas where not only policy and governance reforms but also changes in the underlying narrative are long overdue:

1. Re-value the importance of care in societies: The pandemic has revitalized the idea that essential jobs exist. Care-giving jobs are at the top of that list, even though historically they have been hardly recognized, socially devalued and badly paid, with little or no benefits or protection.

A recognition of the essentiality of care should foster a process of transformation in the way in which it is socially addressed.

Democratically expanding horizons of equal care arrangements, allocating public resources to building care infrastructure and recognizing and strengthening community care arrangements are essential elements in any process of building a different way out of the current global crisis.

2. Re-empower public services: Around the world, frontline public service workers continue to receive praise and support for their vital role in responding to the COVID-19 crisis. Yet, these underfunded public services and brutal working conditions are not inevitable. They are the result of decades of deliberate erosion of our public services through budget cuts, privatization and understaffing.

We must make sure these services are well financed. We need a better global tax system to ensure corporations and the very wealthy pay their fair share and do not use their economic power to exercise undue influence over public policy. The remarkable wave of re-municipalization in more than 2,400 cities in 58 countries shows how possible – and popular – it is to bring services back into public control.

3. Re-balance global and local value chains: The COVID-19 pandemic exposed once again the vulnerabilities generated by commodity dependence and overreliance on global value chains. They reflect the dominant model of a global division of labour which disregards the massive externalities related to resource exploitation, environmental degradation, displacement of communities, and the violation of human rights and labour rights.

The current crisis offers the opportunity to rethink and remodel these unbalanced export-driven development strategies, shift the centre of gravity away from the global economy and take bold public policy and investment decisions to strengthen domestic circular economies.

Three cornerstones of the necessary economic transformation are the strengthening of sustainable local food systems, enhanced regional (or subregional) cooperation to overcome the constraints of limited domestic demand, and systemic reforms in international trade and investment regimes to widen the national policy space for transformation.

4. Reinforce the shift towards climate justice: Against the backdrop of increasing climate change impacts that inordinately affect the poor, especially in the global South, and a potential deepening of the development gap and global inequality as a result of these and other crises, a more just and equitable approach to addressing climate change has to be undertaken.

In particular, countries of the global North should start phasing out and shifting subsidies and investments away from fossil fuel exploration, extraction and production immediately and commit to transition rapidly to a 100 percent use of clean and renewable energy by 2030. They should scale up the provision of climate financing to at least US$ 100 billion by the end of 2020 and increase that rapidly between 2020 and 2030.

5. Re-distribute economic power and resources: The relief and recovery packages being put in place by governments and international institutions are a critical means for tackling the structural inequalities exposed and perpetuated by COVID-19. In designing and implementing these packages, governments have the chance to start disrupting the status quo and breaking up the concentration of corporate and elite power at the root of these inequalities.

However, most governments are currently failing to take this opportunity. Redistribution is absolutely crucial for a just recovery from COVID-19, for realizing human rights for all, and for achieving the SDGs. But on its own, redistribution is not enough – we also have to think about how we create wealth, resources and power in the first place. Crucial “pre-distributive” policy areas in this regard include labour and wage policies and financial and corporate regulation.

6. Re-regulate global finance: The coronavirus crisis and resulting economic lockdown have made clear that fundamental steps need to be taken in financial regulation and reform of the international financial architecture. At least to some extent, they have also created new political impetus for such steps. One essential element would be a sovereign debt workout mechanism.

This requires an institution that makes independent and binding decisions on sovereign debt restructurings based on objective criteria and is able to enforce it in an impartial manner. To address the problems of tax dodging facilitated by financial secrecy jurisdictions and an unfair global tax system, an intergovernmental tax body – with universal membership and a strong mandate– should be created under the auspices of the United Nations.

7. Re-invent multilateral solidarity: Mobilizing support for international cooperation and for the UN must start with bending the arc of governance back again – from viewing people as shareholders – to stakeholders – to rights holders. There are many global standards and benchmarks that could be developed to measure this progression. These should be at the forefront of pursuing substantive, rights-based multilateralism and distinguishing it from multilateralism in name only. The UN should be the standard bearer at the global level, not a neutral convenor of public and private engagement.

This requires predictable and sustainable public resources, currently undermined by tax evasion and illicit financial flows and detoured to servicing undeserved debt burdens. The necessary but not sufficient condition for multilateral solidarity, the fuel to change direction, is a new funding compact at national level and to finance an impartial, value-based and effective UN system.

8. Re-define the measures of development and progress: SDG target 17.19 of the 2030 Agenda urged the international community “to develop measurements of progress on sustainable development that complement GDP”. COVID-19 shows that this is not a statistical subtlety but a matter of life and death.

The example of the Global Health Security Index (GHSI), an analytical tool intended to identify gaps in epidemic and pandemic preparedness, shows that largely ignoring the social and environmental determinants of health and concentrating instead on the infrastructure, advanced technologies and liberalized regulatory frameworks, can lead to misinterpretations and misguided policy conclusions.

The still dominant development paradigm’s main message is that countries need to get richer, not more sustainable, and that to climb the ladder and become “developed” they should follow the advice—and example– of their richer peers. This mindset must be overcome once and for all.

The Spotlight Report is published by the Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND), the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR), Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), Global Policy Forum (GPF), Public Services International (PSI), Social Watch, Society for International Development (SID), and Third World Network (TWN), supported by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.

Spotlight on Sustainable Development 2020
Shifting policies for systemic change – Lessons from the global COVID-19 crisis
Global Civil Society Report on the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs
Beirut/Bonn/Ferney-Voltaire/Montevideo/New York/Penang/Rome/Suva, September 2020
www.2030spotlight.org

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');

The post Pushing the Reset Button will not Change the Game appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Key messages of the Spotlight on Sustainable Development Report 2020 as September 25 is the 5th anniversary of the adoption of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs.

 
Jens Martens is Director, Global Policy Forum, Bonn

The post Pushing the Reset Button will not Change the Game appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Magawa the African giant pouched rat has won a PDSA Gold Medal for his work detecting landmines.

A selection of the week's best photos from across the continent and beyond.