Africa

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Liu Bolin (China), Guernica, 2016

By External Source
Sep 18 2020 (IPS-Partners)

US President Donald Trump and his ‘war council’ – led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – have amplified their aggression against China. What began as a trade dispute in the 1990s has now escalated into the United States making an existential challenge against China.

The threat against China is made not for irrational reasons, but for perfectly rational ones, which are laid out below in our Red Alert no. 9 (also available as a separate download from our website). These have to do with the emergence of China as a major economic and technological power. What most rankles the US ruling class is that the various hybrid war techniques to weaken or overthrow the government are simply not available. The only means at the disposal of the United States to hold on to its power – chillingly – is armed force.

Red Alert no. 9. The US-Imposed Hybrid War on China

Is the United States trying to impose a war on China?

For the past several decades, the US has conducted a trade war against China. There are two key issues that worry the United States: first, a trade imbalance that benefits China, and, second, the growth of the Chinese technology sector. Techniques that the US has used against China include: pressuring China to revalue its currency against the dollar, pressuring China to prevent ‘piracy’ on intellectual property in order to slow down its domestic intellectual property developments, and pressuring China to slow down or cease its Belt and Road Initiative.

The US has now begun a war against the Chinese economy. The attempt to isolate Huawei and ZTE from their suppliers and their markets will have a debilitating impact on the growth potential of the Chinese economy. The US has sanctioned roughly 152 companies that make chips and other products for Huawei and ZTE. Increased bans – through the US government’s Clean Network initiative – would prevent US companies from using Chinese cloud services and undersea cables, and it would ban Chinese apps from appearing on app stores. The US government has increased pressure on other countries to join in this campaign.

The US government has increased its military pressure along the eastern rim of China. This includes the 2017 revival of the Quad (Australia, India, Japan, and the US), the creation of the US’ Indo-Pacific Strategy (its key document from 2020 is called ‘Regain the Advantage’), and the development of a range of new weaponry, including cyberweapons. This military power has come alongside hostile rhetoric against China, with attention focused on Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Taiwan, and the depiction of the coronavirus pandemic as a ‘China virus’. Evidence is not as important here as the use of older racist and anti-Communist ideas to demonise China.

Liu Xiaodong (China), Wedding Party, 1992.

Why is the US increasing its pressure against China?

China’s technological advances could result in a generational advantage over the West. China’s scientific and technological developments came because of the country’s investment in higher education and in its ability to transfer technology from firms that entered the country to manufacture goods. In 2018, Chinese scholars for the first time published more scientific articles than their colleagues in the US, and Chinese firms filed more patent applications than US firms. Chinese tech firms have now produced products that appear to be ahead of US, European, and Japanese products. Examples for this include 5G, BeiDou (a better mapping technology than GPS), high-speed trains, and robots.

Faced with US pressure, China has crafted an independent trade and development agenda. Since the world financial crisis, China began diversifying its economy from reliance upon the US and European markets to build up its own internal market and to increase engagement with the Global South. The immediate projects that developed included the Belt and Road Initiative, the String of Pearls Initiative, the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and the China-Community of Latin American and Caribbean States Forum. The Chinese government has also begun to pay more attention to the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN). These moves come alongside a remarkable poverty eradication programme.

Currently, China is highly dependent on imported energy – such as gas from ASEAN nations, Australia, and Qatar. The China-Russia 6000kms ‘Power of Siberia’ pipeline will bring 38 billion cubic metres of natural gas, a substantial increase to meet the demands for the 90 billion cubic meters consumed by China. In 2014, Russia’s multinational energy corporation Gazprom and the China National Petroleum Corporation signed a $400 billion for a thirty-year deal.

Increasingly, China has attempted to build institutions outside of Western-controlled trade and development architecture, including the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (founded in 2014). As part of this, China has committed to de-dollarisation; China has proposed to hold its reserves and to conduct trade in currencies other than the US dollar. This is a long-term but inevitable development, and one that threatens the overall role of the Wall Street-Dollar complex. China’s cooperation with Russia is most advanced in this arena, with about 50% of Russia-China trade conducted in roubles and yuan (Russia owns about 25% of the global yuan reserves). Both Russia and China are divesting themselves of their dollar reserves. In January 2020, Russia sold $101 billion, or 50%, of its dollar reserves and moved $44 billion into Euros and $44 billion into yuan. The yuan, however, represents only 2% of global currency reserves.

Against the eastward expansion of NATO and the emergence of the Quad, China and Russia have crafted a military and diplomatic Eurasian security bloc. This is evident in the arms deals and the military exercises, but also in diplomatic coordination. For example, Russian and Chinese foreign ministry spokespersons Maria Zakharova and Hua

Chunying said in late July that they would join efforts in combatting the information war against China and Russia. Chinese diplomats have taken a more forthright attitude in their statements; they have been dubbed the ‘wolf warrior diplomats’, an allusion to a popular film where a Chinese soldier from an elite Wolf Warrior troop defeats a group of terrorists led by an ex-US Navy Seal.

Clearly, the US has found that Chinese leadership has been unwilling to go the Gorbachev road – namely, to surrender the Chinese model to the will of the United States. There is no possibility that the Communist Party of China will dissolve itself. The Chinese middle class – possible fodder for a ‘colour revolution’ – does not have any appetite to overthrow the government. It is content with the direction of the government and sees that its government has improved living standards and has been able – unlike Western governments – to tackle the Coronavirus pandemic (as we write about in a series on ‘CoronaShock’). A Harvard University study shows that the government led by the Communist Party of China has increased its approval from 2003 to 2016, largely because of the social welfare programmes and the fight against corruption pushed by both the Communist Party of China and by the Chinese government. The overall approval stands at 93%.

Zhong Biao (China), Paradise, 2007.

What contradictions does the US war project face?

Chinese economic developments – such as the country’s capacity to outspend the US in development aid to outbid Western firms in trade deals – has produced alliances between China and key capitalist sectors in countries that have otherwise been secure US allies. Examples of this are amongst sections of the capitalist class in the Philippines and Sri Lanka, where Chinese investment has been welcomed.

The Chinese state has intensified its intervention in the tech sector inside China, with a $14 billion private and public fund to support tech developments. Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) – China’s top chip company – had an initial public offering (IPO) in Shanghai which netted $7. 5 billion. As a consequence of such funds and its own scientific developments, China will soon be able to bypass the US chip firms.

China’s economic capacity continues to exert pressure on fragments of capital in different countries. For instance, Australian mining companies rely upon China to buy iron ore from Australia. These companies lobby Canberra not to take too hostile a position against China. Roughly one third of Australia’s total exports go to China; these include soy, barley, meat, fruits, gas, and the raw minerals. The Australian government is forced to acknowledge these concerns, even though it has a longer-term perspective than the short-term profit concerns of the mining conglomerates. China has already hedged its bets, increasing purchases of soy and meat from Argentina and Brazil, and it will likely buy more mined goods from Brazil (Brazil’s Vale is using massive ships to carry mined goods to China).

The US military is stretched thin between the conflicts in Venezuela and Iran, and now in China. The US Navy has had four secretaries in a year, part of the chaos in the Trump administration. As a consequence, the US Navy has complained about the lack of ability to handle so many theatres of war at the same time. China has developed sophisticated defence mechanisms, such as cyber warfare techniques that have the ability to shut down US communications, starting with their satellites, and such as their Dongfeng missiles, which are capable of hitting the US navy ships that are in the South China Sea.

The eighth century Chinese poet Li Bai wrote of the ugliness of war; as far as war is concerned, nothing has changed over the centuries.

Soldiers smear their blood on the dry grass

While generals map the next campaign.

Wise people know winning a war

Is no better than losing one.

The post Wise People Know That Winning a War Is No Better Than Losing One appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Dedicated to Soni Prashad, 1929-2020, who spent her life looking for a better world.

The post Wise People Know That Winning a War Is No Better Than Losing One appeared first on Inter Press Service.

According to the United Nations, school closures resulting from the pandemic have affected 1.6 billion learners across more than 190 countries. It is estimated that some 23.8 million more children would drop out of school and an additional 5.6 million child marriages can be expected because of the coronavirus pandemic. Education Cannot Wait has appealed for more funding to provide an education for 30 million refugees, 40 million displaced children, and 75 million children in conflict zones - of whom 39 million are girls. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS

By IPS Correspondents
BONN, Germany/UNITED NATIONS, Sep 18 2020 (IPS)

Aryan is a 15-year-old girl from Afghanistan who lives with her family in a shelter in an undisclosed country in Europe. She doesn’t go to school. But she is hugely creative. And it shows in how she occupies her time during the day — writing poetry and making bracelets and earrings that she hopes to sell online one day.

Her mom is creative too. Though her creativity stems more from necessity and a need to care for her family. At the height of the COVID-19 lockdowns when Aryan’s mother couldn’t find a supply of protective masks for her family to wear, she made them out of socks.

Aryan likens the COVID-19 lockdowns to a war, one without the dropping of bombs.

But she says life is more difficult for those without a place to live, with no home and no shelter.

She thinks specifically of what is happening on the border of Greece and Turkey. In the refugee camps, particularly Moria, which is located on the Greek island of Lesbos.

“How crowded and cold it is there, how can people be so blind to forget the children, how their toys can become infected from dirty water and from garbage all around,” she says.

Not just a health crisis but an education crisis also

Aryan is sadly just one of the world’s 40 million displaced children. Her story is just a chapter of the larger story faced not only by refugee children but also the 75 million children living in conflict zones. Children whose lives have become more complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the United Nations, school closures resulting from the pandemic have affected 1.6 billion learners across more than 190 countries.

“We are facing an economic and a health crisis, which has now become an education crisis. And the people who are hardest hit are the 30 million refugees, the 40 million displaced children, the 75 million children in conflict zones. And we know from the reports that we’ve just heard … despite all our efforts the situation is just getting worse and not better and we have to do more,” former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Gordon Brown said yesterday Sept. 17.

Brown was speaking at a webinar on the sidelines of the 75th Session of the U.N. General Assembly hosted by Education Cannot Wait (ECW) — a multilateral global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises — titled “The Future of Education is Here for Those Left Furthest Behind”. He was joined by education advocates, leaders and politicians, as well as teachers from around the world. 

Seeing young children from Moira, forcibly on the move, must be catalyst for supporting their education

Brown, chair of the ECW high-level steering group and also the U.N. special envoy for global education, brought attention to the current situation in Moria, which was devastated on Sept. 8 by a fire.

According to Human Rights Watch, the destruction in the largest refugee camp in Europe left some 13,000 refugees and asylum seekers without shelter and services.

Greek authorities have been attempting to move people to a new camp, while Germany has offered to give shelter to some of the refugees and asylum seekers.

But Brown had raised the tragic situation of the camp two years ago.

“I highlighted the tragic situation of three young teenagers who couldn’t get [an] education or any resources at the Moria camp in Greece. Young people who were driven to try suicide themselves. Losing hope, desolate, they tried to take their own lives. And I appealed for more funds to help the refugees there and in the other camps nearby,” he recalled.

“A few weeks ago, when I was trying with others to get money into this camp for help with education, we had one of the worst fires we have seen. Today we are seeing hundreds of people moving from that area into other camps in the area but worried about their future,” Brown said.

He said that if there was anything to persuade people to do more and commit to the education of children in conflict it was seeing young children from Moira, forcibly on the move “having to find a new camp for themselves but still in need of the education and the help and the support that we haven’t been able to give so far,” Brown said, emphasising that this was the mission and task at ECW and to ensure that millions of people and displaced refugees have a better future.

ECW has reached 2.6 million children, raised an additional $23.6 million

Brown said that its inception a few years ago, ECW has created several million places for young people to receive an education when they are either displaced or in refugee situations. He also stressed that ECW has been the catalyst for other organisations to come together and do more.

Working with 75 partner organisations globally, ECW has so far provided $662.3 million for supporting education in emergencies.

In August, ECW launched its 2019 annual results report tiled Stronger Together in Crisis, showing that in 2019 alone the fund provided education to 2.6 million vulnerable children, raising $252.8 million from private and public donors. In total, since its inspection ECW has raised $600 million.

Thursday’s event, which hosted a new donation feature in partnership with Zoom and online fundraising platform Pledgeling, raised an additional $23.6 million to support vulnerable children and youth, particularly those affected by conflict, forced displacement and protected crises. The aid will focus on the most marginalised, including girls, refugees and children with disabilities, ECW said in a statement. Within the first few minutes of the meeting 4 donors had already pledged over $12,000.

But Brown pointed out that ECW will require $300 million in the coming year to provide the service needed for children.

ECW director, Yasmine Sherif, said despite the gains made over the years, “education is still not here for a large part of children and youth affected by conflict and crisis and forced displacement”.

She said ECW wanted to make education a reality for all the 75 million children in conflict zones, more than half of whom — some 39 million — are girls.

She also pointed out that the type of education delivered was also very important “to make sure that we deliver quality education, an education that is relevant”.

She explained that it was important that the curriculum thought what was relevant and important to learn in the 21st century but also addressed the specific needs of children or young people who had grown up in a country of violence or had been uprooted from their homes and forced to flee.

“There needs to be a holistic approach and to look at all the needs and the potential that they have because of what they have gone through,” Sherif said.

The global crisis in education – the stakes are far higher with COVID-19

A staunch supporter of ECW, and U.K. Minister for Overseas Territories and Sustainable Development at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, Baroness Liz Sugg said that while there was already a global crisis before the pandemic, the stakes are “far, far higher” now.  

“Where conflicts rage, access education is not just crucial for the future of each individual child but for the reintegration, for economic development, and for building that sustainable peace we really want to see,” Sugg, who is also the U.K. Special Envoy for Girls’ Education, said.

She added that just because every country is facing economic instability at the moment, is not an excuse for inaction on education. 

16-year-old Catherine from South Sudan said that the most difficult part of the COVID-19 pandemic was not being able to attend school. “Before, I was out of school for one and a half years because I am an orphan,” she explained.

Catherine’s concerns about being able to attend school again are valid. According to a recent U.N. policy brief on the impact of COVID-19 on education, countries with low human development are facing the brunt of school lockdowns, with more than 85 percent of their students effectively out of school by the second quarter of 2020. It was also estimated that some 23.8 million more children would drop out of school and an additional 5.6 million child marriages can be expected because of the coronavirus pandemic. Women and girls will ultimately bear the brunt of the worst impacts of the pandemic.

Ministers from Burkina Faso, Somalia and Ethiopia also highlighted the plight of many of their refugee children. 

Abdullahi Godah Barre, Minister of Education and Higher Education in Somalia, said 68 percent of the country’s children were out of school. 

Ethiopia’s Minister of Education Dr. Eng. Getahun Mekuriya discussed how, with one of the largest refugee populations in Africa, the country is addressing the current crisis. In the refugee camps, Mekuriya said, there is heightened food insecurity, inability to pay rent, among other issues — further exacerbated by the pandemic, which in turn has grave effects on education. 

The Ethiopian government has created a distant learning plan which is helping children to learn through television, radio and other digital platforms. 

“An estimated 5.1 million primary and secondary school children received this service,” Mekuriya said, adding that technology access and connectivity still remains a challenge for many in the community. 

U.N. Education chief calls for reimagining of education

Henrietta Fore, Executive Director of the U.N. Children’s Fund, which hosts the ECW secretariat, called for a reimagining education — “of changing our way of thinking, of rewriting our story”.

“We really have to refresh our thinking about what education can be,” she said.

She shared her recommendations on what the steps forward ought to focus on:

• Quality: to ensure young people are taught fundamental skills, entrepreneurial skills to have as tools if they don’t have the chance to go higher education.
• Universality: “All children need this,” she said, “it doesn’t matter if you’re in an urban or rural world. We’ve got to come up with hybrid solutions.”
  
• Promoting humanitarian cases: “Humanitarian spots are harder,” she said, “Those who are living in and fleeing from conflict are hard to find, hard to settle — it can be hard to get them to a learning space.”
  
• Safety: Schools are also safe spaces for children, and she said it’s crucial to help them create that space for themselves
  

Despite the concerns and the high number of students the crisis is affecting, leaders were hopeful. Dag-Inge Ulstein, Norway’s Minister for International Development, said there is light ahead on the road. 

“The story about how humanity handled COVID-19 is being written now, and education will have a central place in the conclusion,” he said. “Let it not become the story of a lost generation, nor of a community that abandoned its promise to leave no one behind when push came to shove.” 

Brown echoed these sentiments. “I know that everybody will share the same aim, let us build a better future for this generation of young people. Let them have the education they need. They are more talented and with more potential than the underfunded education systems we’re providing them with at the moment. Let’s make sure that we can see the talent of a new generation realised and fulfilled,” Brown said.

But until then, life for Aryan remains a nomadic one.

Today, Aryan is sitting outside the shelter her family have been staying at. Her backpack full with her belongings.

She has found out that the family have to move. “This is how the situation of most refugees are running like this. Having their backpack, their suitcase, moving around, from place to another place,” she says in a video she has made for GlobalGirl Media — a digital journalism training and platform dedicated to providing content by, for and about girls and young women, globally.

“I can describe my situation like kicking the ball, and its very difficult. It’s very difficult.”

 

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The post Helping Make Education a Reality for the 75 million Children in Conflict Zones appeared first on Inter Press Service.

While women have come a long way since the adoption of the Beijing Platform for Action nearly 25 years ago, they still lag behind on virtually every Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). Credit: UN Women, India

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 18 2020 (IPS)

When the United Nations was dominated by men, holding some of the highest positions in the staff hierarchy, women staffers were overwhelmingly administrative secretaries seen pounding on their Remington typewriters seated outside their bosses’ enclosed offices.

A legendary story circulating in the 1960s recounts the plight of a woman candidate being interviewed for a job. She had superlative credentials, including work experience as a political analyst, and was armed with a post-graduate degree from a prestigious university in the US.

The male UN director from human resources, however, had one final question at the end of the interview: “But can you type?”

Mercifully, that was a bygone era. But since then, the UN has made significant progress trying to conform to an age-old General Assembly resolution calling for gender parity system-wide.

As Secretary-General Antonio Guterres tweeted last week: “The #COVID19 pandemic is demonstrating what we all know: millennia of patriarchy have resulted in a male-dominated world with a male-dominated culture which damages everyone – women, men, girls & boys.”

As the UN commemorates its 75th anniversary, the world body claims it has achieved 50:50 gender parity in the higher ranks of its administrative hierarchy.

But it still falls short of reaching “full parity at all levels” of the Organization —even as two recent staff surveys in New York and Geneva raised several lingering questions, including the largely system-wide absence of women of color, widespread racism in the Organization and the lack of equitable geographical representation of staffers from the developing world.

In a letter to staffers on September 2, Guterres singles out the efforts made shortly after he took office: ”Nearly four years into this effort, I can report that we have come a long way”.

In 2019, for the first time in United Nations history, he said; “we reached parity in the Senior Management Group and among Resident Coordinators. On 1 January 2020, and well ahead of schedule, we attained this milestone by reaching parity among all full-time senior leaders, comprising 90 women and 90 men at the level of Assistant and Under-Secretaries-General.”

“In addition to the commitment to reach parity and diversify in our senior leadership by 2021, I have committed to achieving parity at all levels of the Organization by 2028”.

“We are on track to meet this target, but progress is uneven and inconsistent. Our greatest challenge is in field missions, where the gap is the largest and the rate of change is slowest”, he added.

Prisca Chaoui, Executive Secretary of the 3,500-strong Staff Coordinating Council of the UN Office in Geneva (UNOG), told IPS that in the past, despite the existence of competent women in the UN, it has largely been the reality that when women do achieve career progression, it tends to be mostly women belonging to certain geographical groups or regions.

“There are concerns that implementation of the UN’s Gender Parity Strategy may follow a similar pattern. It is crucial that this important initiative ensures a diverse gender parity that includes women from the global South, women of colour, and women from developing and underrepresented countries,” she noted.

The Organization can do better at bringing the valuable and creative talents of diverse women together to help bridge the gender gap. This can only help the UN better deliver on its mandate – especially in these challenging times.

“Gender and geographic diversity should not be mutually exclusive. We can implement the Gender Parity Strategy while ensuring improved geographical representation and diversity,” Chaoui declared.

Meanwhile, the lack of geographical diversity is reflected in the absence of staffers from some 21 member states, according to the latest December 2017 figures released in a report to the UN’s Administrative and Budgetary Committee.

The 21 “unrepresented” countries among staffers, mostly in the developing world, include Afghanistan, Lao People’s Democratic Republic Saint Lucia, Andorra, Liechtenstein, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines., Angola, Marshall Islands, Sao Tome and Principe, Belize, Monaco, Timor-Leste, Equatorial Guinea, Nauru, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Palau United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar and Vanuatu.

Ian Richards, former President of the Coordinating Committee of International Staff Unions and Associations, and an economist at the Geneva-based UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), told IPS that last year Guterres asked the UN’s member states at the General Assembly to let him change the staff regulations to allow the quotas and promotion and recruitment bans based on gender that he had been seeking for a while. But they refused his request.

“It seems they felt it went against Article 8 of the UN Charter on non-discrimination and Article 101 on merit”.

However, this year, while the pandemic and Covid-19 recovery efforts drew attention elsewhere, it seems he made the changes anyway, albeit through a type of executive order called an “administrative instruction”, complained Richards.

Firstly, is the executive order legal if it contradicts the staff regulations? he asked. Lawyers have apparently been looking at this. And, secondly, is it wise to provoke our member states by disregarding their instructions at a time when some are trying to cut our funding? There seems to be some disquiet.

“We all want to advance gender balance and we are all impatient. But I hope our efforts to do so doesn’t backfire because of this”.

A further question is why aren’t the General Service staff included?. They are staff like everyone else and form the backbone of our organization,” asked Richards.

Currently, the UN has a global staff of about 34,170, according to the latest figures from the Chief Executives Board for Coordination.

While the Secretariat staff in New York is estimated at over 3,000, the five largest UN agencies worldwide include the UN children’s agency UNICEF (12,806 staffers), the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (9,740), the World Health Organization (8,049), the UN Development Programme (7,177) and the World Food Programme (6,091).

Purnima Mane, a former UN Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), told IPS it is indeed heartening to hear that the UN has reached gender parity among its senior leadership.

The Secretary-General further promises that steps will be taken to ensure parity at all levels of the organization by 2028 which is most welcome, she said.

“It is also heartening to note that there is attention to the reality that it is not just about numbers but also about a shift in organizational culture. There obviously needs to be transparency on what this shift implies in terms of its goals, how they will be achieved, and how success will be measured.”

While equitable recruitment is one way to measure gender parity, number of male and female staff obviously cannot be the sole measure of success in achieving gender equality, she argued.

“Parity in numbers is one, critical part of ensuring gender equality in the UN but it needs to be matched with efforts that address the quality of work life. Recognizing the demands on the lives of women and men today and building flexibility in work life policies is a key part of ensuring this quality and equality,” she added.

Attention will have to be paid to other critical areas of work life, such as parity in retention, rate of promotion, salary, benefit package including adequate and flexible work arrangements especially those related to maternity (and paternity) leave, and support and mentoring of women, Mane said.

Targets will not only need to be set for each of these areas but also reported on to ensure transparency and accountability that gender parity is successful in a comprehensive and meaningful way, in the long run, she declared.

Ben Phillips, author of ‘How to Fight Inequality’ and former Campaigns Director for Oxfam and for ActionAid, told IPS there is a growing unity amongst grassroots groups across the world fighting intersecting inequalities.

That is what ‘we the peoples‘ really means. It is that united push that is driving a long-overdue reckoning across institutions of every kind, said Phillips who co-founded the Fight Inequality Alliance.

 

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Sierra Leone women's international footballer Rashidatu Kamara aims to complete her college degree after equal pay boost.

Three years into an escalating insurgency, the president admits the "resource curse" is to blame.

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

The military officer had just been sentenced for murder when relatives hauled him out of the dock.

Some former combatants in Colombia, have now turned to farming following the historic 2016 Peace Agreement. “The capacity of philanthropic individuals and organizations may be small compared to the United Nations and its 193 Member States, but what we lack in size we make up for in independence.” Credit: UN Verification Mission in Colombia/Marcos Guevara

By Marcel Arsenault
NEW YORK, Sep 17 2020 (IPS)

The promise of the United Nations, as articulated 75 years ago, is a global system capable of managing global issues. As UN leadership knows, that promise is needed now more than ever in a multipolar world with increasingly complex challenges. This mission must be fulfilled, but is not possible without the collaboration of broad-based coalitions made up of innovative thinkers from all sectors of society working together.

When Colombian small scale farming entrepreneur Socorro resolved to give up growing coca for the drug cartels—despite the inherent personal risks and challenges she had to navigate in doing so—she needed something to substitute her income.

Socorro thought of fish farming, but since she lived in remote, rural Colombia, feed costs were simply too high. Socorro turned to an unlikely source for a solution: a philanthropist-backed coalition that combined ex-combatants from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) with government agencies, foreign donors, civil society, universities, and the United Nations.

This coalition emphasizes a networked and market-driven approach to reincorporation of ex-combatants into civilian life, and aims to help rebuild communities impacted by the war in the process.

Through their collaboration, they had discovered that the nutritional needs of the fish could be met with locally occurring plants and agricultural byproducts. That knowledge—and the expanded circle of partnership—allowed Socorro and others in her community to make a good living and her coca substitution to be sustainable.

This one small example represents something much larger: how individuals across the globe can marry vision, resources, and coordination to support an important step towards the implementation of an internationally recognized peace agreement and winning the global fight against transnational organized crime.

It is also a microcosm of global governance that delivers effective solutions on the ground through collaboration. Philanthropy played a key role in this success, and this lays the foundation for other solutions to pressing global problems.

Because the fact is, while the world has indeed become more peaceful over the long run, we are in a dangerous moment. A mix of urgent global challenges, some acute like the Covid-19 pandemic and others chronic like climate change, are running straight into a rising tide of nationalism and xenophobia that makes all of these problems even more difficult to solve.

The world’s challenges are complex and interconnected, and getting more so by the day. Humanity keeps building, but we are missing architecture that is up to the task.

By architecture, I do not mean a building plan. I mean a global system for designing, implementing, and updating a multitude of plans. And philanthropy can play a major role in that system.

The capacity of philanthropic individuals and organizations may be small compared to the United Nations and its 193 Member States, but what we lack in size we make up for in independence.

We can take a genuinely global perspective, look at problems on their own terms, and iterate our way towards a measurable solution. And, when we find something that does work, we can systematize it and partner with governments to operate at scale. Just as venture capital can effectively “de-risk” investments for public markets, philanthropists can de-risk solutions to global problems for governments and international organizations.

The time is right, if not overdue, to move beyond individual plans, policies, and institutions and form a cohesive effort that is global, cooperative, and built around delivering real solutions to real problems.

That is why I am pleased to be co-sponsoring the UN75 Global Governance Forum. Along with a coalition of partners, including our co-Chairs Ban Ki Moon, Gro Harlem Brundtland, Madeleine Albright, Ibrahim Gambari, Mary Robinson, and Aya Chebbi, we are exploring ways to invigorate the world’s system of global governance and showcasing successful examples of organizations already doing so through inventive collaborations.

This type of initiative is needed now more than ever. Through more than 40 years in business and 15 in philanthropy, it has become clear to me that, if we continue to be haphazard in how we develop this system, we won’t get past where we are.

Covid alone has exposed the tragic limits of the system as it currently exists, and laid bare the urgent need—and promise—of a global system where a pandemic is seen for what it is, and is stopped dead in its tracks. As a business guy, I know a thousand to one payoff when I see one. I also know that other opportunities will come along, and billions in investment could save trillions in losses.

The United Nations cannot deliver this payoff on its own. A system that can truly match the complexity of the modern world can only come into being with the active participation of all of us, including philanthropists, civil society leaders, the private sector, government, the United Nations, and even civilians.

Now is the time for change, and I am hopeful that the UN75 Global Governance Forum (September 16-18) will be a window into what that change will look like.

 

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The post Philanthropy’s Role in the Missing Global Architecture appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Marcel Arsenault is the co-Founder, CEO, and Chairman of One Earth Future, an incubator of peace programs around the world, a member of the Giving Pledge, and Founder and CEO of Real Capital Solutions.

The post Philanthropy’s Role in the Missing Global Architecture appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By PRESS RELEASE
NEW YORK, Sep 17 2020 (IPS-Partners)

World leaders today committed to expand education in emergency aid for children and youth impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic – girls and boys already suffering the brunt of armed conflict, forced displacement, climate-change induced disasters and protracted crises – with a focus on the most marginalized, including girls, refugees and children with disabilities.

The new political and financial pledges were made during today’s global, high-level event “The Future of Education is Here for Those Left Furthest Behind”, organized by Education Cannot Wait (ECW) on the margins of the 75th Session of the United Nations General Assembly. The event was co-hosted by Canada, Colombia, Germany, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America.

Two dozen political leaders, policymakers, influencers and youth advocates took the stage during the event, including education ministers from Burkina Faso, Colombia, Ethiopia and Somalia, as well as youth and teachers from the Greek islands, Lebanon, the State of Palestine, Syria, Uganda and Venezuela. They stressed the urgent need to collaborate and redouble efforts to avoid losing hard-won gains and reversing the progress recorded in recent years in political commitment and financing for education in emergencies and protracted crises.

Dr. Maria Flachsbarth, German Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, announced an additional contribution of 8 million euros (US$9.5 million) to ECW in 2020, commending the Fund’s rapid response to the COVID-19 pandemic in recent months. “Thanks to ECW, partner countries have received urgently needed support very quickly. For many countries, it was the only support they received,” she said. “I hope that other partners will also commit more funding, because solidarity and cooperation are more important now than ever before if we want to ensure that we leave no one behind,” she added.

Working with a broad range of partners, ECW has disbursed over $60 million in emergency grants in 35 crisis-affected countries since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with an emphasis on reaching the most marginalized children and youth, including refugee, internally displaced and host communities girls and boys. ECW’s COVID-19 response encompasses the full scope of needs of a child’s well-being, including mental health and psychosocial support, and improved access to water, sanitation and hygiene and nutrition. Participants to the meeting stressed the importance of such a holistic approach to achieve education outcomes in crises.

“The United States strongly believes that education can be lifesaving and life-changing. That is why we are continuously striving to ensure that a focus on education is better incorporated into crisis responses around the globe and ensuring that the education provided also supports each child’s broader well-being,” said Carol Thompson O’Connell, Acting Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, U.S. Department of State, as she announced an additional contribution of $5 million to ECW.

More than 1.5 billion learners worldwide had their education disrupted at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. As the coronavirus continues to upend entire communities, the economy, and social and education systems, children and youth who were already living in crisis settings are at particular risk of falling behind and being further marginalized. Out-of-school girls face increased risk of sexual violence, child marriage and early pregnancies. Children and youth living in extreme poverty, precarious conditions and forced displacement may never return to school – this is particularly true for refugee children and youth, and even more so for adolescent refugee girls.

“The story about how humanity handled COVID-19 is being written now – and education will figure in the conclusion. Let it not be the story of a lost generation – nor of a community that abandoned its promise to ‘leave no one behind’ when push came to shove. Let it rather be the story of a global community that came together to ensure that the right to learning was upheld for all – also for the COVID Generation,” said Dag-Inge Ulstein, Norway’s Minister for International Development, as he announced an additional contribution of NOK 20 million ($2.2 million) to ECW.

Today’s new financial pledges to ECW add to the recent contribution of the Netherlands of 6 million euros ($6.9 million) announced at ECW’s High-Level Steering Group meeting on 11 September, bringing the total funds mobilized by ECW in just four years of operations to over $650 million.

“We must stand by those left furthest behind and move with unprecedented speed, determination and commitment to financing an innovative idea and approach in the multilateral system, in the United Nations, that has proven to work. Education Cannot Wait is no longer a start up fund, but has now turned into a full-fledged global fund, reaching 4.5 million children and youth in crises and forced displacement. ECW enables us all to bring hope to those left furthest behind when they most need us,” said The Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown, United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education and Chair of the Education Cannot Wait High-Level Steering Group.

Since its inception in 2016, ECW has reached an estimated 4.5 million children and youth with inclusive, quality education in some of the worst humanitarian crises worldwide, half of whom are girls. Building on these achievements, ECW is appealing to public and private donors to urgently mobilize an additional $300 million to respond to the pandemic and other emergencies and protracted crises in the coming months.

“We are grateful to all our partners and stakeholders who form Education Cannot Wait. All results are your results. Today, I want to thank Germany, the United States, Norway and the Netherlands for additional generous financial contributions to Education Cannot Wait – announced during the UN General Assembly week – which allows us to continue with speed during the pandemic,” said Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait. “At ECW, we believe that crises always lead to new opportunities. It is the choice we make that determines the outcome. We must all chose to give it our all and make Sustainable Development Goal 4 a reality for those left furthest behind. The future of their education must be now.”

Today’s event was also an opportunity for ECW to roll out a new donation feature in partnership with video communications platform Zoom and online fundraising platform Pledgeling. During the event, the audience was invited to make and view live donations to support Education Cannot Wait’s work for children and youth caught in conflict and crises across the globe, raising over $14,000 in just two hours. Donations can still be made at www.pledgeling.com/ECW or, in the US, by texting ‘ECW’ to 707070.

 

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Excerpt:

With new contributions from Germany, the United States, Norway and the Netherlands, the total funds mobilized to date by Education Cannot Wait surpass US$650 million.

The post Education Cannot Wait Mobilizes an Additional US$23.6 Million to Increase Support for Vulnerable Children and Youth – Already Affected by Armed Conflict, Forced Displacement and Protracted Crises – Now Doubly Hit by COVID-19 Pandemic appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The UNAOC Young Peacebuilders is a peace education initiative that is designed to support young people in gaining skills that can enhance their positive role in issues of peace and security and in preventing violent conflict. Credit: UNAOC

By Nihal Saad
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 17 2020 (IPS)

Last year, we paid tribute to the 20th Anniversary of the 1999 Declaration of the Program of Action on a Culture of Peace. Today, we need to ask ourselves if we had genuinely carried out our moral responsibilities to transition from a culture of hatred and violence to a culture of tolerance and peace.

Did we live up to the commitment we made in 1999 that every one of us needs to consciously make peace and nonviolence a part of our daily existence? I think not.

Given today’s global context, the COVID 19 pandemic has laid bare the world’s vulnerabilities, divisions, falsehoods and brutal inequalities. The ugly truth is that there is no such thing as “we are in the same boat”.

Theoretically, or virtually, maybe we are. But in real life this is a myth or as the UN Secretary General put it few months ago “while we are all floating on the same sea, it’s clear that some of us are in superyachts while others are clinging to the floating debris.”

Since this global human crisis took its toll on all of us – the forces of division and hate too have been exacerbating the lives of vulnerable communities including religious and ethnic minorities, migrants, women, children and youth.

Even old people and those with disabilities were not spared. It is especially appalling to witness a surge in hate speech, xenophobia, racism and despicable forms of discrimination. These evil forces sow fissures and holes in the fabric of our societies triggering a viscous circle of violence.

However, there is always a reason to be optimistic. Last December, the General Assembly adopted 3 resolutions on the Culture of Peace . Res A/74/476 emphasized the importance of fostering interreligious and inter-cultural dialogue.

This powerful tool, which has been often overlooked, is at the core of the work of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations which is particularly committed to promoting inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue as a soft power tool for combating intolerance, negative stereotyping, and incitement to violence against persons based on religion or belief.

In this context, today provides an opportunity not only to renew our commitment to the Declaration and the program of action on a culture of peace, but also to commit to taking results-oriented action towards uprooting all forms of discrimination and eliminating inequalities through promoting diversity and broadening the space for intercultural and interreligious dialogue.

In this context, I would like to give a quick overview of the work of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations :

1. As per the mandate received by the Secretary-General in the aftermath of the attacks against mosques that took place in March 2019 in Christchurch, New Zealand, UNAOC elaborated the United Nations Plan of Action to Safeguard Religious Sites: In Unity and Solidarity for Safe and Peaceful Worship, which was launched by the Secretary-General on 12 September 2019. The Plan is anchored in relevant United Nations General Assembly, Security Council and Human Rights Council resolutions, as well as key religious sources. It provides a framework for action with specific recommendations addressed to all relevant stakeholders to better prevent, prepare and respond to possible attacks against religious sites. More importantly, the Plan emphasizes the need to foster intercultural and interreligious dialogue to build inclusive and resilient societies.

A Global Communications Campaign, aimed at underscoring the role of individuals, particularly youth and the global faith community, in the protection of religious sites, will be launched soon.

2. Over the past year and since the pandemic started, we broadened our outreach to the religious leaders and faith-based organizations heeding the call of the UN Secretary General on religious leaders to support the UN actions in addressing the challenges posed by the pandemic through promoting solidarity unity and compassion. The High-Representative for UNAOC and the Special Advisor for the Prevention of Genocide issued a joint call for “Solidarity, Unity and Compassion”re-affirming the need to strengthen interfaith and intercultural dialogue as well as standing up against stigma and polarization.

3. In our capacity as rotating co-Chair of the United Nations Interagency Task Force on Religion and Development, a statement was issued on 18 April by the IATF with the endorsement of the forty members comprising the IATF Multi-Faith Advisory Council calling on religious leaders and FBO to extend their support and – within their respective spheres of influence and authority – promote and advocate with Member States and other stakeholders for the Global Humanitarian Response Plan for COVID-19 and to help implement the Plan so that essential humanitarian relief operations can reach populations in the most fragile and vulnerable contexts.

4. In support of the document on Human Fraternity co-signed by His Holiness Pope Francis and His Eminence the Grand Imam of Al Azhar Sheikh Ahmed el Tayeb in Feb 2019, we co-organized and supported the initiative “Prayer for Humanity” on 14 May 2020 spearheaded by HH Pope Francis and HE the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar and the UN Secretary General. Many eminent religious figures across the faith spectrum as well as prominent politicians joined the initiative.

5. Adhering to a whole-of-society approach that includes support to grassroots and youth-led organizations through our multiple programs such as the Intercultural Innovation Award (IIA), a flagship project with BMW Group which supports the development of innovative and impactful projects by grassroots organizations that encourage intercultural dialogue and contribute to peace, prosperity and building more inclusive societies. Those projects ranged from Srilanka and Myanmar to Canada, Latin America and the MENA region.

6. Under our Young Peacebuilders programme, a training and advocacy program, we have successfully trained young women and men from MENA and Europe and enhanced their competencies on conflict transformation and conflict resolution, mediation, promotion of non-violent activism, overcoming negative stereotypes, prejudices and polarization as drivers of violent extremism conducive to terrorism. The tailor-made blended curriculum allowed programme participants to work on specific issues related to peacebuilding and prevention of conflict and radicalization in their respective communities.

Moreover, we are very pleased to be joining forces with other leading UN entities such as UNESCO , the UN Office on Counter Terrorism and UNCCT in a number of projects .

With UNESCO and UNCCT we are gearing up to launching the project Intercultural dialogue and socio-emotional competencies for peacebuilding” (a Videogames Project) that supports young people in designing concrete game-based methodologies that develop relevant competencies for intercultural dialogue and social and emotional learning to prevent violent extremism in selected countries in South Asia.

Under the aegis of #YouthWagingPeace, UNESCO MGIEP, UNAOC and the Sri Lanka Commission for the UNESCO brought together and built the social and emotional, critical media and project management skills of 35 young leaders from South Asia (India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Myanmar), who are working on the ground to prevent violent extremism through education. The young civil society leaders designed 30 community-wide activities to be implemented in 6 countries directly impacting over1,000 community level stakeholders.

Under the Youth Solidarity Fund, UNAOC selected and provided seed funding to five youth-led organizations, whose projects focus on: Promoting religious pluralism, cultural diversity and peaceful coexistence in Africa

UNAOC continued to encourage exchanges and collaboration between young civil society leaders from different cultures and faiths under its Fellowship Programme.

Concluding, it is never too late to reverse course. Fulfilling goal 16 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development “building peaceful, just and inclusive societies,” is more imperative now than ever before. Allow me to re-iterate that words like dialogue, tolerance, diversity and respect mean little if not supported by concrete broad range of actions under an international umbrella of sincere cooperation from state and non-state actors.

 

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The post The Culture of Peace: Change our World for the Better in the Age of COVID 19 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Nihal Saad is Chief-of-Cabinet, United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC)

The post The Culture of Peace: Change our World for the Better in the Age of COVID 19 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Controlling the loss and waste of food is a crucial factor in reaching the goal of eradicating hunger in the world. Credit: FAO

By Mario Lubetkin
ROME, Sep 17 2020 (IPS)

Concern about food loss and waste has become an increasingly important focus of attention when discussing ways to eliminate hunger which, according to the latest FAO report, already exceeds 690 million people.

The Rome-based international organization estimates that 14 percent of food, valued at $ 400 billion a year, is lost because: it spoils; it is spilled before it becomes a final product or when it is on retail; consumers discard it; it is removed from sale as it does not meet all the quality standards; the date indicated on the product is not legible; or the item has expired.

There are several reasons why food loss occurs along the food chain for example, dairy, meat or other products can spoil during transport due to improper transport or inadequate cold storage systems.

Food losses are higher in developing countries in the south, such as in Sub-Saharan Africa at 14 percent, and South and Central Asia at 20.7 percent, while in developed countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, the average loss is lower and does not exceed 5.8 percent.

The main losses affect roots, tubers and oil crops (by 25 percent), fruits and vegetables (by 22 percent), and meat and animal products (by 12 percent.)

Mario Lubetkin. Credit: FAO

The Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Qu Dongyu, recalled the importance of this issue that “means wasting scarce natural resources, increasing the effects of climate change and losing the opportunity to feed a growing population in the future.” Moreover, urging the public and private sectors to promote, leverage and scale-up policies, innovation and technologies.

The Chief Economist at FAO, Máximo Torero, related this debate to the effects of COVID-19 that has revealed the vulnerability of food systems “which must be more solid and resilient.”

In this regard, the Chief Economist recalled that the United Nations designated 29 September 2020 as the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste, which “shows how this neuralgic issue is becoming increasingly important.”

Reducing food loss and waste can lead to important benefits, such as increasing the amount of food that is available for the most vulnerable, the reduction of greenhouse gases, the reduction in the pressure from land and water resources, as well as an increase in productivity and economic growth.

Other measures that can help reverse the current trends include: technological and operational innovation; finding solutions for post-harvest management; more adequate food packaging; more flexible regulations and standards on aesthetic requirements for fruits and vegetables; and government policies aimed at reducing food waste.

In addition, guidelines to redistribute surplus good-quality food to those in need through a food bank and the establishment of new alliances, even outside the food sector for example, with the main actors in the climate field can also contribute to positive change.

Nutritious food is the most perishable one, and therefore the most vulnerable to loss. Not only food is lost, but its safety and nutrition is impaired

Lawrence Haddad
Executive Director of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition

Decreasing the levels of food waste also has a direct impact on the improvement of the most negative effects of climate change.

Reducing food losses by 25 percent would offset the environmental damage that future land use for agriculture would cause. This means not destroying forests to produce more food, and avoid devastating consequences that contribute to climate change and the loss of biodiversity.

Strategies and effective interventions such as: technological innovation efforts; new regulations of food production and safety policies; and efforts to package food correctly and in a healthy way, occupy more time in the agendas of governments, parliaments, local authorities, the private sector and civil society.

One of the many examples of successful agricultural innovation used in different parts of the world, such as in Kenya and Tanzania, is solar power technology for cooling milk. This innovative solution helps to avoid the loss of milk without generating the additional emission of greenhouse gases. This same technology allows Tunisia to save three million liters of water per year.

Lawrence Haddad, the Executive Director of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), recalled that “nutritious food is the most perishable one, and therefore the most vulnerable to loss. Not only food is lost, but its safety and nutrition is impaired.”

According to recent reports, three billion people cannot afford healthy diets, 13 percent of adults are obese and 39 percent are overweight, while in 2017, 4.5 million deaths related to obesity were recorded worldwide.

Nutrition is another component of the same debate. The move to healthy diets around the world would help control the increase in hunger, while leading to huge savings.

This shift is estimated to, almost entirely, offset the health costs associated with unhealthy diets, which are estimated to reach $ 1.3 billion a year by 2030.

Meanwhile, the social cost of greenhouse gas emissions related to the food sector, estimated at $ 1.7 billion, could be reduced by up to three quarters.

While specific solutions will vary from country to country, and even within countries themselves, general responses consist of interventions throughout the entire food supply chain, in the food environment and in the political economy that makes up the trade, public spending and investment policies.

The 2020 State of Food Security and Nutrition Report (SOFI) suggests that governments should incorporate nutrition into their approaches to agriculture to make efforts to reduce cost-increasing factors in food production, storage, transportation, distribution and marketing, for example, by reducing inefficiencies and food loss and waste; and to support small local producers to grow and sell more nutritious food and ensure their access to markets.

It also proposes giving priority to children’s nutrition as the category with the greatest needs (191 million children under the age of five have growth problems and 38 million suffer from obesity according to SOFI’s 2019 data).

Therefore, it is necessary to promote a change in behaviour through education and communication and integrate nutrition into social protection systems and investment strategies at the national level.

Communication is another component that must be included in this great effort to reduce food loss.

As stated by Geeta Sethi, Global Lead for Food Systems at the World Bank, “combating food loss and waste with accurate information and objective data at the national level represents an attempt to create a food system that benefits the health of the planet and human beings.”

“In order to know what are the policy priorities of a country and what investments and interventions are necessary accordingly, we need good data and information”, she added, recalling the technical platform recently launched by FAO for the measurement and reduction of food losses and waste (SDGs/DATA.)

China, through its president, Xi Jinping, made a strong call in August to address the issue of food waste that he described as “shameful”, “shocking” and “distressing”, which was followed closely by the country´s different communication systems, such as the main television channels and the different video platforms, announcing sanctions for those who encourage poor nutrition or disproportionate intake.

This issue has been a permanent subject of reflection for Pope Francis, who has denounced the “mechanisms of superficiality, negligence and selfishness” that underlie the culture of food waste, and has recalled that “in many places, our brothers and sisters do not have access to sufficient and healthy food, while in others, food is discarded and squandered. It is the paradox of abundance.”

“Family, schools and the media have an important role in education and awareness. No one can be left behind in the fight against this culture that is suffocating so many people, especially the poor and vulnerable people in society,” added the Catholic Pontiff.

He also highlighted that “if we wish to build a world where no one is left behind, we must create a present that radically rejects the squandering of food”, since “together, without losing time, by pooling resources and ideas, we can introduce a lifestyle that gives food the importance it deserves.”

The post A World Without Hunger Is Also About Protecting Food appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Mario Lubetkin is Assistant Director General at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

The post A World Without Hunger Is Also About Protecting Food appeared first on Inter Press Service.