Africa

Paul Rusesabagina declined to enter any pleas in court but his lawyers denied the charges against him.

Mercy Baguma was found next to her crying baby - her case sparked criticism of Britain's asylum system.

Nigerian migrants arrive in Lagos from Libya. Nigeria has, in the last two years, evacuated thousands of its citizens from Libya and Lebanon after they suffered several forms of abuses, including enslavement. Trafficking has resulted in at least 80,000 Nigerian women being held as sex slaves and forced labour in the Middle East. Credit: Sam Olukoya/IPS

By Sam Olukoya
LAGOS, Nigeria, Sep 14 2020 (IPS)

“I need help, right now I cannot walk properly,” trafficking victim Nkiru Obasi pleaded from her hospital bed in a video she posted online.

The young Nigerian woman had been injured in the Aug. 4 Beirut blast, which ripped through the Lebanese capital, killing 190 people injuring a further 6,500 and damaging 40 percent of the city. However, it’s not her injuries keeping her in Lebanon but a restrictive and abusive system of migrant laws.

Obasi is just one of thousands of young Nigerian women trafficked to Lebanon with false promises of a better life. The Lagos-based New Telegraph newspaper quoted a source in the Nigerian embassy in Lebanon as saying that some 4,541 Nigerian women were trafficked to the country last year. The chair of Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, described the rate at which Nigerian women are trafficked to Lebanon as “an epidemic”.

After sustaining injuries in the blast, Obasi tried to return to Nigeria but she and four others were stopped at the airport under the exploitative Kafala system.

The system, which is widely practiced in Lebanon and other parts of the Middle East, prohibits migrant workers from returning to their countries without the permission of their employer.

“Lebanon’s restrictive and exploitative kafala system traps tens of thousands of migrant domestic workers in potentially harmful situations by tying their legal status to their employer, enabling highly abusive conditions amounting at worst to modern-day slavery,” according to Aya Majzoub, Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch. The rights organisation called for a revised contract that recognises and protects workers’ internationally guaranteed rights.

In late May, Nigeria attempted to repatriate 60 trafficked women from Lebanon but only 50 could return home. Anti-trafficking activists in the Middle East said the remaining 10 women were held back in Lebanon under the Kafala system.

The Kafala system operates alongside a system that enslaves trafficked women. In April, a Lebanese man posted an advert under the “Buy and Sell in Lebanon” Facebook group. “Domestic worker from Nigeria for sale with new legal document, she is 30 years old, she is very active and very clean,” the advert said in Arabic. The price tag was $1,000.

An outcry from Nigeria forced Lebanese authorities to rescue the woman while a man thought to be responsible for the Facebook post was arrested. The Lebanese Ministry of Labour said the man would be tried in court for human trafficking.

But this is not an isolated case. Many Nigerian women trafficked to the Middle East have spoken out about being sold as slaves.

In January, 23-year-old Ajayi Omolola appeared in an online video saying she and a few other Nigerian women were being held under harsh conditions and that their lives were at risk.

“When we are ill, they don’t take us to the hospital, some of those I arrived in Lebanon with have died,” she said.

Omolola said on arrival in Lebanon, her passport was taken away and she was “sold”.

“I did not realise that they had sold me into slavery,” she said, adding that she only realised the gravity of her situation when her boss told her she could not return to Nigeria because he had “bought her”.

Kikelomo Olayide had a similar account. On arrival in Lebanon from Nigeria she was taken to a market. “In that market, they call us slaves,” she said.

Roland Nwoha, head of programmes/coordinator of migration and human trafficking at Idia Renaissance, a Nigerian organisation working to discourage irregular migration and human trafficking, told IPS that even though Europe is a major attraction for Nigerians in search of a better future abroad, the Middle East is proving an alternative for many.

Nwoha explained that unlike the journey to Europe, which involves a dangerous land journey through the desert and an equally dangerous crossing of the Mediterranean Sea, traffickers fly their victims to the Middle East after procuring visas for them with the promise of good jobs.

The chair of Nigeria’s House of Representatives Committee on Diaspora Affairs Tolulope Akande-Sadipe said 80,000 Nigerian women are being held as sex slaves,and forced labour in the Middle East, especially in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.

Nigerian women trafficked to the Middle East “almost always end in labour and sexual exploitation,” Daniel Atokolo Lagos commander of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons said.

Gloria Bright, a Nigerian teacher who was promised a teaching job with a monthly salary of $1,000 in Lebanon, was held captive and made to work as a domestic worker upon her arrival. She posted an online video in which she pleaded for help and to be rescued. She said besides being made to work under very harsh conditions, her boss sexually harassed her. “At times he will ask me to massage him, he will hug me, he will kiss me,” she said.

Bright was fortunate to be rescued by Nigerian authorities before the Aug. 4 Beirut blast.

Dabiri-Erewa said the trafficking of Nigerians to Lebanon “is becoming a big embarrassment and it has to be stopped”. In an effort to stop the crime, Nigerian authorities have arrested several people, including Lebanese residents in Nigeria. A Lebanese is being investigated in connection with the trafficking of 27 women to Lebanon, two of whom have been rescued.

The Lebanese ambassador to Nigeria, Houssam Diab, says his embassy is assisting the Nigerian government to stop the trafficking of women to his country. He said the issuance of work visas to Nigerians has been suspended following cases of the abuse of Nigerian women at the hands of their Lebanese employers.

The ambassador said the Lebanese Ministry of Labour will work out a “legal and systemic way to make domestic staff to come into Lebanon legally without the fear of inhuman treatment”.   

Nigerian activists, like Nwoha, who are working against human trafficking say the Nigerian government has to do more to curtailing the activities of the traffickers. They said the government should make conditions at home better to stop Nigerians desperately seeking a better life abroad.

 

This is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Airways Aviation Group.

The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ) is pursuing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 8 with a special emphasis on Goal 8.7 which ‘takes immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms’.

The origins of the GSN come from the endeavours of the Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders signed on 2 December 2014. Religious leaders of various faiths, gathered to work together “to defend the dignity and freedom of the human being against the extreme forms of the globalisation of indifference, such us exploitation, forced labour, prostitution, human trafficking” and so forth.

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The post The Exploitative System that Traps Nigerian Women as Slaves in Lebanon appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The headquarters of strongman Khalifa Haftar's government are torched in his eastern base of Benghazi.

Tso Rolpa glacial lake at 4,580m has grown seven times in size in the past 60 years due to global heating. Credit: RASTRARAJ BHANDARI

By Mukesh Pokhrel
KATHMANDU, Sep 14 2020 (IPS)

A new report out this week warns that hundreds of glacial lakes in the Himalaya are in danger of bursting because global heating is melting the ice on the world’s highest mountains. However, on only two of them have there been mitigation measures to reduce water levels.

Those projects have been prohibitively expensive, and questions have been raised about their sustainability and whether they offer a long-term solution.

The water level of the Tso Rolpa glacial lake in the Rolwaling Valley was lowered 20 years ago after scientists warned that it was in imminent danger of bursting. The project cost $9 million at the time, most of it coming from The Netherlands.

Its sluice gate lowered the water level by only 3m, and scientists now say it needs to go down by a further 20m to reduce risk of it bursting. A network of early warning stations downstream also has not functioned as planned.

 

A sluice gate built 20 years ago reduced the level of the water by 3m, but it needs to go down by 20m to reduce the danger of a Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF). Credit: RASTRARAJ BHANDARI

 

The other project was a drainage channel and gate built on Imja Lake in the Mt Everest region in 2016 by the Nepal Army with support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) at a cost of $7.2 million.

The project located at 5,000m altitude was criticised at the time for being an expensive show-case on a popular tourist site near Mt Everest, and for wasting money on a lake that is relatively stable because it is buttressed by two side moraines of the Lhotse Nup and Nuptse Glaciers. Glacial lakes like Thulagi in Lamjung on the Hongu basin were said to be in much greater danger of bursting, and needed more urgent mitigation.

And it has emerged that four years after the project was completed and the water in Imja Lake lowered by 3.4m, the Nepal Army and its main contractor have yet to remove their excavators and other equipment from the site as per the contract — flouting guidelines of Sagarmatha National Park, which is a World Heritage Site.

Despite recent interventions by UNESCO and the national park, the Nepal Army has said it is technically not possible to take the equipment out because of altitude restrictions on its helicopters. The firm hired by the army, Krishna Construction, says its contract does not say anything about removal of equipment.

The Glacial Lake Inventory report launched at a webinar on Monday says that of the expanding glacial lakes in the Himalaya, 47 on the watersheds of Nepal’s three main rivers are at high risk of bursting, and causing catastrophic floods downstream. Of these, 42 lakes are on the Kosi River basin in eastern Nepal, three are on the Gandaki and two on the Karnali watersheds.

However, not all the lakes are located in Nepal. Of the 47 dangerous lakes, 25 are in Tibet and empty into rivers that flow down directly into Nepal. One of the high risk lakes is in Indian territory near Karnali.

This week’s report by the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and UNDP mapped 3,624 glacial lakes in the three river basins in Nepal, China and India, of which 2,070 are within Nepal’s boundaries. The other 1,509 are on the Tibetan Plateau in China and 45 are in India, but drain into Nepal.

 

 

The researchers evaluated the risk factors for the glacial lakes depending on the integrity of their moraine dams, topography of the surroundings and the risk of avalanche into the lakes, as well as downstream settlements and infrastructure and divided them into three categories.

Of the 47 dangerous lakes on the Kosi, Gandaki and Karnali basins, 31 were found to be at very high risk of bursting and causing damage. Twelve other lakes are at moderate risk and there are four lakes in the lower risk category.

The lakes are expanding because the ice fields feeding them are melting faster due to global heating, as well as increased deposition of soot particles on the snow. An ICIMOD assessment last year reported that even in the best case scenario, the Himalaya will lose one-third of its ice and snow during this century. But recent studies have shown that the melting is actually happening faster than previously thought, and is accelerating.

This has increased the number of glacial lakes in the Nepal Himalaya as well as their sizes. For example, remote sensing data in the report showed that there were 3,609 glacial lakes in Nepal’s three river basins with a combined area of 180sq km. By 2015, the number had grown to 3,696 and they covered a combined area of 195.4sq km.

Scientists have long noted that the rate of melting is higher in the eastern Himalaya than in the west, and the report confirms this. Interestingly, while the number of glacial lakes in the Kosi basin has gone down, their total area has increased by 14sq km – largely because supraglacial ponds have merged, or the lakes have drained without bursting.

The report has also recorded 26 glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) events in the Nepal Himalaya since 1977, but only 14 of them were on lakes located in Nepal. This emphasises the importance of trans-boundary early warning system – especially on lakes in Tibet upstream on the two Bhote Kosi rivers, Tama Kosi, the Arun and others.

This story was originally published by The Nepali Times

The post Nepal’s Glacial Lakes in Danger of Bursting appeared first on Inter Press Service.

These ELSA maps of Costa Rica show regions that are suitable for protection, management, and restoration in coordination with three different conventions: The Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDGs), United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Maps: Open Street Map and Carto

By Francis Francis Ogwal, Tom Okurut and Carlos Manuel Rodriguez
KAMPALA, Uganda, Sep 14 2020 (IPS)

The year 2020 was considered a “Super Year” for biodiversity. A string of interconnected events offered a unique opportunity to build a global coalition and international policy framework that recognized the central role of nature to all life on Earth.

At the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP 15), 196 governments were due to agree on targets that will shape action on nature for the next 30 years, while at the UN Climate Conference (COP 25) governments were to have the final opportunity to increase the ambition of their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to combat climate change.

As nature conservation could contribute over a third of climate solutions, these negotiations offered a golden opportunity to narrow down the gaps between these multilateral agreements that are critical for the future of the planet.

Instead 2020 has become a year in which nature has shown humanity that we have pushed the planet to its boundaries. UN Environment Programme’s Executive Director Inger Anderson warns that “nature is sending us a message.”

COVID-19, wildfires, locust invasions, and record heat waves show the catastrophic impacts of climate change and biodiversity collapse. And these are only harbingers of what is to come if humanity does not change course.

With both the UN Biodiversity Conference and UN Climate Conference moved to 2021, we have an opportunity to reflect, in a way unthinkable even six months ago, on individual, societal, and political norms of “business as usual”.

We must explore innovations that recognize the fundamental role of nature in everything from corporate bottom lines, to human well-being, to the survival of life on Earth.

What is known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution has brought with it incredible changes in technology that have the potential to transform societies. Approximately 2,200 satellites now circle the earth. Spatial data can produce maps of forest cover and loss, human settlements, city watersheds, and agricultural production.

Geospatial technology on the ground can complement this view, offering a means to map local and Indigenous knowledge of unique ecosystems. This is essential for addressing extinction, ecosystem destruction, and zoonotic diseases such as COVID-19.

Both Costa Rica and Uganda recognize the vast potential of spatial data to support the creation of a transformative post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework for the UN Biodiversity Convention, which also capitalizes on synergies with the UN Climate Convention.

Costa Rica is one of the world’s only country that has managed to reverse deforestation, and is pioneering a bold Decarbonization Plan. Uganda, a leading force for conservation in Africa, is playing a critical role in advancing the UN Biodiversity Convention. It is co-chair for the development of the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, playing a critical role in guiding the global community to the international commitments that are widely seen as an essential opportunity for governments to put biodiversity on path to recovery when the Framework is adopted at COP 15.

In partnership with UNDP, the National Geographic Society, University of Northern British Columbia, Global Environment Facility, and The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Costa Rica and Uganda are leading the way, along with additional pilots in Colombia, Kazakhstan, and Peru, to use spatial data to map ‘essential life support areas’ (ELSAs).

These are areas that conserve critical biodiversity and provide humans with food, water, and carbon storage. ELSAs can determine which regions should be prioritized for protection, management, and restoration.

In Costa Rica, UNDP and the Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE,), and the Center for High Technology (CENAT) have created an interactive web tool that generates ELSA maps based on the country’s targets for nature, climate change, and sustainable development.

MINAE plans to use ELSA maps to identify areas for inclusion in Costa Rica’s new Payments for Environment Services Programme (PES). This will help identify natural areas critical for carbon sequestration, natural beauty, water and food, and cultural heritage as well as compensating landowners who engage in protection, reforestation, or agroforestry.

MINAE’s National System of Conservation Areas (SINAC) will also use ELSA mapping to construct Costa Rica’s restoration, rehabilitation, recovery, reforestation, and regeneration strategy.

In Uganda, led by UNDP and Uganda’s National Environment Management Authority (NEMA), ELSA maps will show where actions to protect, manage, restore, and rehabilitate nature can support rangelands, forest regeneration, riverbank and lakeshore protection, and wetlands restoration.

Uganda’s policymakers are particularly interested in nature-based solutions for livelihoods, climate resilience and disaster risk reduction which is a key priority given the county’s recent disasters of landslides and flooding.

The ELSA approach can guide the development, implementation, and monitoring of progress for the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework in Costa Rica, Uganda, and other countries around the world.

While Target 1 relates to land and seas under spatial planning, ELSA can help to identify actions that capitalize on synergies across proposed Target 2, on protecting and conserving at least 30 percent of the planet; Target 7 on increasing contributions to climate change mitigation, adaptation, and disaster risk reduction from nature-based solutions; and Target 5 on controlling and managing invasive species.

Additional post-2020 Global Biodiversity targets that ELSA can contribute to include Target 9 on supporting the productivity, sustainability and resilience of biodiversity in agricultural and other managed ecosystems and Target 10 on ensuring that nature-based solutions contribute to regulation of air quality and water provision for human well-being.

Mapping essential life support areas will be key to identifying where nature-based solutions should shape commitments to the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. By using ELSA to run scenarios before entering negotiations or setting policy targets, countries can see what is achievable.

COVID-19 may have pushed the establishment of the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework and the final agreement on NDCs until 2021, but action on biodiversity loss must occur now. To halt the sixth mass extinction, at least 30 percent of the planet needs to be protected by 2030. A daunting task, but Costa Rica, Uganda, and their counterparts are leading the way.

Source: United Nations Development Programme

 

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The post Mapping Nature to Create a Global Biodiversity Framework appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Francis Ogwal, Natural Resources Manager (Biodiversity and Rangelands), National Environment Management Authority, Uganda; Tom Okurut is Executive Director, National Environment Management Authority, Uganda; and Carlos Manuel Rodriguez is Minister of Environment and Energy, Costa Rica

The post Mapping Nature to Create a Global Biodiversity Framework appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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World leaders have been urged to stay home in the first “virtual” UN General Assembly sessions in the 75-year history of the United Nations. The annual high-level sessions, with mostly pre-recorded video speeches, begin September 22. The UN says there will be “no marvelling at seemingly endless presidential motorcades on First Avenue and no “standing-room only” moments in the gilded General Assembly Hall, as the Organization’s busiest time of the year is reimagined in the time of COVID-19. Credit: Anton Uspensky, UN News

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 11 2020 (IPS)

Back in 1998, Senator Jesse Helms, a rightwing Republican from the US state of North Carolina, carried out a virulent one-man hate-campaign against the UN– and its very presence in New York.

A fulltime chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee– and a part-time UN basher—the late Helms publicly complained that providing funds to the UN is like “pouring money into a rathole”. Helms wanted the “Glass House by the East River” shipped out of New York — for good.

Fast forward to 2020.

There is widespread speculation that when US president Donald Trump addresses the General Assembly on September 22 –one of the few, or perhaps the only head of state, to do so “in person” in a virtually virus-locked down world body– he may either threaten to pull out of the UN (very unlikely), warn of possible cuts in financial contributions (likely), or downsize the US role in the world body (most likely).

But with a highly unpredictable US president, everything is up in the air.

Meanwhile, the cry to “de-fund the police”, triggered by anti-black violence by law enforcement officials in the US, has prompted a new hashtag “de-fund the UN”.

Asked for his comments, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters September 8: ”I have seen the hashtag.”

“I think we prove every day the worth in investing in the United Nations for the betterment of peoples everywhere and the value that it brings, whether it is helping during the pandemic… or what we’re doing all over the world, what we’re doing in our peacekeeping missions… So, we do our utmost to prove our worth every day by the work that we do,” said Dujarric.

Any proposed cuts – or attempts to “‘de-fund” the UN –will also likely be a retaliation against the failed US resolution last month in the UN Security Council against the resumption of sanctions on Iran.

Suffering a devastating defeat, the Trump administration was both isolated and humiliated when only one UN member state, the Dominican Republic, voted with the US in the 15-member Security Council, the most powerful body in the UN.

The vote was short of the minimum nine “yes” votes required for adoption—and 11 members, including Western allies such as France, Germany and the United Kingdom abstained, while China and Russia voted against the resolution.
Asked what the Security Council rejection would mean to the US on the world stage, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters: “Well, it’s disappointing, because privately, every world leader, every one of my counterparts tells me that America is doing the right thing.”

No one, he said, “has come to me and advocated for allowing Iran to have these weapon systems. And so, for them not to stand up and tell the world publicly at the United Nations, yep, this is the right thing, it’s incomprehensible to me. To side with the Russians and the Chinese on this important issue at this important moment in time at the UN, I think, is really dangerous for the world.”

Asked why there was no support from the European countries on the Security Council, he was blunt: “You’ll have to ask the Europeans that”

If the de-funding does happen, and since the US pays 22 percent of the UN’s budget, it will be devastating blow to a world body commemorating its 75th anniversary later this month.

As a hard-core unilateralist, Trump has been openly antagonistic towards multilateral institutions.

Since he took office back in January 2017, the Trump administration has either de-funded, withdrawn from, or denigrated several UN agencies and affiliated institutions, including the World Health Organization, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the UN Human Rights Council and the International Criminal Court (ICC), among others.

http://www.ipsnews.net/2020/08/trump-delivers-last-hurrah-empty-united-nations-will-still-make-sound/

And according to a report in the New York Times September 4, Trump is very likely to withdraw from the iconic 71-year-old military alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) — if he wins a second term as president.

The Times quotes former US officials as saying that such a move would be one of the biggest global strategic shifts in generations and a major victory for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

So, will the UN be far behind?

Norman Solomon, executive director of the Washington-based Institute for Public Accuracy, told IPS the Trump administration is a wrecking crew that seeks to undermine if not demolish any international institutions that do not serve Trump’s idiosyncratic whims or, more substantially, don’t serve narrow interests of U.S.-based corporations and the military-industrial complex.

While top leaders of the U.S. government have routinely seen the United Nations as primarily an instrument to be used to advance America’s geopolitical interests, during the last three-quarters of a century some have recognized the overlap between humanitarian and nationalistic goals.

“No longer”, he declared.

“The Trump regime has operated almost entirely from the basis of narrowly defined self-interest, to the point that it should be understood as the gravest threat not only to the UN but to the world as a whole”, said Solomon, author of “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death”

“When we evaluate international institutions, they should not be conflated. The United Nations and its potential are very far from comparable to NATO.”

The UN — while significantly and by some measures deeply flawed, and badly in need of power restructuring — has laudable aspirations, he argued.

“NATO, on the other hand, is far more of a threat to peace than a defender. Trump’s hostility to the concept of the United Nations is in many ways categorical, whereas his intermittent criticisms of NATO are inconsistent and largely a function of unhinged nationalism”, said Solomon.

During what are hopefully his last several months as president, he pointed out, Trump should be ostracized as much as possible by world leaders and civil society.

His so-called leadership is a toxic brew of greed, calculated stupidity and narcissistic prerogatives of supposed “American exceptionalism.”

Many U.S. presidents during the last 75 years have aspired to see the United States government work its will on the entire world, but Trump has taken such conceits to an extreme that requires complete rejection, said Solomon.

Ian Williams, President of the Foreign Press Association in New York and author of “UNtold: The Real Story of the United Nations in Peace and War”, told IPS the UN system is in the sad position where the US acts as if it hates the organization, but the other members do not love it enough to step into the gap.

Historically, the US prizes the organization’s dependence on Washington as was shown when the US rebuffed Swedish Prime Minister Olaf Palme’s 1985 proposal to restrict its contributions to 15%.

http://www.ipsnews.net/2018/12/time-end-cheque-book-diplomacy-un/

Since then the other powers could at any time have called the US bluff and met the shortfall- after all Ted Turner did, said Williams, a former President of the UN Correspondents’ Association (UNCA).

“But it goes beyond finance. The US’s lawless attitude has proved infectious. If the US and its ally Israel can defy resolutions, then why can’t Russia break the rules over Ukraine, or Beijing in the China Sea or India over Kashmir?”

He pointed out that previous US administrations have been constrained in their public disdain of international law and order because they needed the UN rubber stamp their positions, as indeed Trump tried over the snapback on Iran but the prestige behind that legitimizing power is a rapidly devaluing asset.

“It is perhaps make-or-break time. The UN’s figurehead, the Secretary General (SG), should invite President Trump to take his braggadocio and depart if he goes too far.”

If Trump loses in November, said Williams, then the SG will get some recognition and gratitude from the incoming administration.

“If he wins, the UN should have contingency plans for continuing without the US, while thanking the archaisms of the UN Charter that leave some counterweight to the unscrupulously expedient Russian and Chinese on the Security Council.”

At the worst, perhaps, realistically the General Assembly should set up and International Residual Mechanism to look after the collective obligations of the UN until such time as the members show signs of resuming their responsibilities effectively, declared Williams.

Barbara Adams, chair of the board of Global Policy Forum, told IPS: “Perhaps the rumoured threat from Trump will backfire and mobilize voices within the USA to generate something similar to the USPS effect (postal services)”.

Certainly, it will bring much international and domestic media attention and hopefully the UN will be able to stand up well to the scrutiny, she added.

“The S-G’s Nelson Mandela lecture was unusually forthright in addressing the systemic issues exposed by COVID. More recently he has been more outspoken, such as, that power is not given away, it has to be taken”.

Could it trigger a “be careful what you wish for” reaction domestically and among Member States whose multilateralism rhetoric is not matched by their actions?, she asked.

“Is this the shock needed to demand genuinely democratic global governance and begin the long overdue transition away from what it has become: a deal-making forum with people and countries represented by the executive branch that does not reflect their diversity and values – and push the UN back to its purpose – to lead the way towards sustainable peace, justice, and human rights”?.

Most concern reflects those fearful of the immediate consequences for the UN budget. Are they missing or ignoring the accompanying constraints from power dynamics in decision-making process?, noted Adams.

In 1985, she said, the Prime Minister of Sweden Olaf Palme proposed a ceiling of 10 per cent on the assessed contribution of any Member State.

In addressing the UNGA to commemorate its 40th anniversary he said: “a more even distribution of assessed contributions would better reflect the fact that this Organization is the instrument of all nations”. While this garnered some support, it exposed resistance in many US circles aware that it would reduce US political power and leverage at the UN.

Expressed differently but clearly by Ambassador Stephanie Power said: “Our ability to exercise leadership in the UN—to protect our core national security interests—is directly tied to meeting our financial obligations.”

The UN decision-making is often compared to the weighted voting setup of the IMF and the World Bank having a one country, one vote –as opposed to something closer to one dollar, one vote. This misses the point: there is weighted voting exercised through budgets, threats and self-censorship, declared Adams.

The post Will Trump Threaten to Pullout or De-fund the United Nations? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Lawmakers in Kaduna state want convicted rapists to be surgically castrated to prevent them raping again.

By Saul Escobar Toledo
MEXICO CITY, Sep 11 2020 (IPS)

The national occupation and employment survey prepared by INEGI, with figures updated to July 2020, shows an improvement that has occurred in the last two months. However, the employment situation, compared with the data existing before the pandemic still shows serious problems:

Saul Escobar Toledo

Of the 12 million who left the labor market since the beginning of April, 7.2 have already returned; the other 4,800,000 declared they needed a job, but they are not looking for one. In addition, another important portion of the workforce became part of the people characterized as ” absent with a labor link “, that is, those workers who did not attend their work centers but were not fired. It is not known if all of them have been paid their full wages and benefits and, above all, if these millions of absent will someday return to labor or will be laid off permanently.

INEGI registered an employed population of almost 50 million people (49.8) ; It should be noted, however, that the increase between June and July corresponded to the male gender, with an increase of 2.2 million people at the same time as there was a reduction of 750 thousand women .

Throughout these months, one of the sectors hardest hit has been that of the self – employed: 20% of them remained inactive in April; 16% in May; 10% in June and only 2% in July. Unpaid employees (which only receive tips or payments in kind) were also severely affected: 21% did not work in April, but in July were almost all toiling.

If we measure the phenomenon taking into account the informal workers ( who work on their own account or in the service of an employer), the figures are more dramatic: in April 10 million stopped working, in May 8, in June 5, in July still 3 million . If we accumulate all these figures, it gives us a total of 26 million, which would give an idea of the days / worker lost in recent months and the income that was not received. Some lost only a month, others two or three, and still in July many did not receive any income at all. The paralysis has affected mainly the female gender, but the number of victims is impressive.

Meanwhile, the rate of open unemployment was 5.4% in July, which yields a figure of 2.8 million persons. Here again, the rate is higher in women than in men (6.3% vs. 4.8%). By age, those most affected have been those between 24 and 44 years old, which represent more than 50% of the total. It must be emphasized that this rate has increased, not decreased, as it accounted for 4.7% in April.

Even more serious, the underemployment rate, although it fell in July compared to the previous month, is still 18.4%. This represents an increase of 3.21 times in April; 3.78 in May; 2.75 in June and 2.45 in July compared to the historical average prior to the pandemic. This means that new occupations have become more precarious, insecure s, worse paid and surely very poorly protected.

In short, we have several problems. The damage caused by economic paralysis and the pandemic : 1) affected formal workers who were laid off and have not found another job; or have not attended to their workplace and are living in uncertainty; or they have sought refuge in underemployment (and have lost income and benefits) . And 2) self – employed and informal workers who have had no income during several or all these months.

All this damage is a fact, has already happened but so far nothing has been done to restore it. As anyone can see, it is a large social debt. The repair of this immense gap in the economy of Mexican families cannot be solved with the social programs that were already planned. It is not possible to support an entire family with the elderly pension, or with student grants.

For example, the pension program for the elderly, which has the more substantial budget and covers a larger number of people. The amount of money delivered is not only insufficient today (around 600 dollars per older adult between January and June 2020, that is 100 dollars per month according to the Second Presidential Report).

Undoubtedly, the damage caused, the income that has not been replaced, will lead to an increase in poverty (between March and May the number of poor increased from 36 to 55% according to CONEVAL). The inequality also has increased. According to some studies, the wage bill suffered a drop of between 6.6 and 13.8% in the second quarter of the year calculated annually. This has resulted, naturally, in a reduction of consumption of around 20% (annually comparison, even with the rise in June and July).

A country with greater poverty and more inequality cannot be a desirable outcome for a government that has set out exactly the opposite. Above all, because in the face of these phenomena, the government has not proposed any special action.

On the other hand, the decrease in the family´s income points to a slower economic recovery due to the fall in purchasing power. The increase in minimum and contractual wages have not been able to remedy these losses and surely will not do so in the remainder of the year due to the magnitude of the economic slowdown.

The 2021 budget represents an opportunity to make up for something that Mexican families have lost; to prevent further impoverishment and to stimulate faster economic recovery. It has been argued, by the president of the republic, that a growth in government debt may be detrimental to an indeterminate tomorrow. However, the government do not want to recognize that the Mexican state has already contracted a huge debt with millions of families who have lost their income since March. Finding a formula to pay this social debt and at the same time avoid a financial crisis in the future is not impossible, nor is it a dead-end dilemma.

At the same time, the possibility of a progressive fiscal reform that serves to pay off this social debt and for a more vigorous economic reactivation cannot be ruled out for political reasons (the 2021 elections or the fear of a negative reaction from a privileged sector ) . The most surprising is that the government announced a reform of the pension system that precisely proposes an increase in employer contributions and requires increased public spending. This equates to an increase in taxes and an increase in the federal government debt. How, then, do you refuse to charge a greater tribute to the richest and most prosperous, and at the same time propose a scheme to favor big business (the companies that manage the pensions)?

A further reduction in public spending and investment (what they now call austerity) can only have the result that, once again, the cost of the crisis will be borne by the vast majority of the population. Its consequences would be equally negative for recovery of production, consumption, and prosperity of the country.

The government must face the most important question of all: give Mexicans the opportunity to overcome this crisis with the least possible losses. If they do not, all the architecture of the promised change will become fragile and maybe a mere rhetorical exercise.

 

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Degraded farmland is being restored in Mahbubnagar district of Telangana state in India. Investing in sustainable land management and reversing land degradation will help build economies post-COVID-19 and help poor people increase their incomes. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella Paul
HYDERABAD, India , Sep 11 2020 (IPS)

Investing in sustainable land management and land restoration will help build economies post-COVID-19 and help poor people increase their incomes as the destruction of global food chains by the pandemic provides a chance for ensuring diversity in production through ensuring the inclusion of local producers.

It also provides an opportunity to repurpose incentives for subsidies so that they deliver more common benefits for everybody without impacting the bottom line for the farmers, says Louise Baker the Managing Director of the Global Mechanism of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). Baker is the first woman to hold the position in the U.N. agency and was appointed by UNCCD’s Executive Secretary Ibrahim Thiaw in June.

Originally from England,. Baker joined the UNCCD secretariat in 2011 and had been serving as Chief of the External Relations, Policy and Advocacy unit since 2014.

In an interview with IPS, Baker talks about the current global status of land restoration and identifies the areas where more work is needed. She also candidly shares her own vision of a future where sustainable land management is considered a new normal and used widely by nations across the world to create employment and gender equity and to improve the quality of life of the poor. Excerpts of the interview follow.

Louise Baker Managing Director of the Global Mechanism of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

IPS:  How does it feel to be the first woman MD of Global Mechanism and what excites you about your new role?

Louise Baker (LB): It is exciting for me to move over to Global Mechanism.

I think, what’s interesting about my role is putting policy into action. If the countries use the policy, start writing projects, start doing it on the ground – kind of making it happen, then it feels like there is a momentum behind the work of UNCCD now and there is a sense of direction. So, I am excited that all the work I have been doing in policy, now I can see it on the ground, transforming people’s lives.

IPS: In the next 10 years, what would you like to change or like to see changed?

LB: I would see the cross-sectoral nature of land being taken seriously, not just in silos that says “this is an environmental issue or agricultural issue”, because it’s not. Its culture, agriculture, its land, its water, urban development, rural development, women …so I think it should find its place like climate does – find its place in multiple sectors. People need a more holistic approach. So, I would like to see that.

I would like a conversation around what we spend on issues that impact the land. We spend a lot, globally, on incentives in agricultural sector. We sponsor fertilisers, we sponsor pesticide, we provide inputs in the agriculture.  I think there is an opportunity to repurpose those incentives, those subsides so that they deliver more common benefits for everybody without impacting the bottom line for the farmers.

I would like to see – flagships. I would like to see things like the Great Green Wall of Africa. I would like to see the Ganges rehabilitated, I would like to see things that rub people’s imagination, I would like to see people inspired to do something about this.

I would also like to see, in terms of access to financing, the least developed countries getting a bigger share of the financing.

IPS: How can least-developed countries get enough financing?

LB: You quite often see the big financing processes – the countries that are able to write fabulous proposals, get the lion’s share of the money from the international processes. And those countries that are without the in-house capacity to wade through the difficult proposal writing processes, often don’t get the money they need. So, the people who are the least able to write the proposals are the ones who need it. An international effort to start the pipeline of bankable projects for countries who need it the most would be important and I think that goes across the private sector.

The public sector has got quite a high standard in terms of what it demands for financing – all these requirements and then you need to make a profit. So, it gets even more complicated to get incentivise, de-risk and get a pipeline of projects particularly in vulnerable communities for the private sector to take a risk on. So, I think ensuring the quality of those proposals and building the capacity of people to get those proposals in would be really important.

IPS: What is reverse land degradation and build back better? How can this help restore the economy impacted by the pandemic?

LB: In terms of the post-COVID-19 world, I think its critical that we do build back better. People who are most affected by COVID-19 – people who are in most precarious situations, people who don’t have fixed term jobs, don’t get a salary at the end of the month to get what they need and rely on natural resources to pay for what they need. There’s an opportunity I think for the first time in  terms of the incentives plans to build the economy back, to invest in these natural resource base, to invest in many countries for the survival of the poor people so they can increase incrementally their incomes.

It means things like value chains which were destructed during COVID-19 are shorter. You can work with local producers. Global value chains often cut out local producers, so you want to ensure diversity in your production, you want to ensure, for example, it’s not a value chain that is just producing food for export and there is no local production of food.

Q: What kind of returns can come from investing in sustainable land management and reverse land degradation?

LB: It’s very site-specific. In general, if you invest a dollar, the economic return is between $5 to $10 in the restoration economy. And that’s across the board, so it’s an average number.

But actually there are economic benefits in terms of the eco-system services provided: if you sustainably manage the land in a dryland area, you will get more water and therefore your crops will grow better and therefore you will not suffer from dried crops so much.

There is an economic benefit in terms of new value chains, that you can now grow crops in certain areas where you couldn’t before. And if you are smart about it then there are green products that you can sell to new value chains, local or international. For example, food like Moringa and Baobab are now considered “super foods” in many countries. And so, you can create a market and high-income jobs as you go down the chain. So, there’s marketing, packaging, design, production – it’s all tied onto the natural base. So, there is a return in the investment into the eco-system services. The big win is if you can leverage that into an economic opportunity that creates more jobs, creates different types of jobs.

IPS: How can land restoration empower the youth or contribute to gender equity?

LB: Young people are really enthusiastic about changing the world and they have got brilliant ideas to change the world but they need to be given the space to do it and the space isn’t necessarily being a farmer or what their grandparents did. They need to have their creativity, they need to bring in new technologies, new innovations like drip irrigation, drone technology, planting by drones, designs for groundwater recharge. new ways to working their new models. And I think that needs to be encouraged as well. In terms of gender, women hold valuable knowledge on land use and management, especially in the rural areas.

Therefore, using gender‐specific ways of documenting and preserving women’s knowledge should be central to sustainable management and restoration efforts. Increasing women’s presence in decision-making will play a pivotal role in closing the gender gap in land ownership and management and help create a land degradation neutral world that is gender responsive.

IPS: What is the global status of the promises made by the nations in the last UNCCD COP on land neutrality?

LB: Numbers or countries committing are still quite high. Barbados joined last week. And so, Barbados is committed to set up its target. Globally if you add up the other programmes’ voluntary contributions it’s a lot of land the countries have committed to move into sustainable management.  I think there’s still some work to do on the targets to identify geographically where the work will happen, and there’s quite a lot to do to ensure the benefits of land restoration is enjoyed by all segments of  society.

We are quite excited to work around gender. We have seen some very generous funding from the Canadians to work on mainstreaming gender into our work. So, I think there’s progress definitely, but there’s still a way to go.

The big challenge is – and we have spoken about capacity building in proposal writing – translating the targets into bankable projects. It’s a work that’s ongoing. A couple of countries -Armenia and Turkey – have actually gone through the process for some adaptation funding by GEF.

IPS: Women are disproportionately affected by climate change yet underrepresented at the decision-making table. Can your appointment be looked at a part of the growing trend of change the picture?

LB: The credit of my appointment goes to Ibrahim Thiaw – the Executive Secretary of UNCCD who has also recently appointed Tina Birmpili of Greece as the next Deputy Executive Secretary of UNCCD. I don’t think we are appointed because we are female, but of course I see this as an opportunity to do more work and contribute more to building of the momentum that UNCCD now has.

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