Africa

The Leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Yasser Arafat, arrived at UN Headquarters by helicopter. A view of the helicopter as it approached the North Lawn of the UN campus on 13 November 1974. But Arafat was denied a US visa for a second visit to the UN in 1988. Credit: UN Photo/Michos Tzovaras

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 23 2020 (IPS)

The coronavirus pandemic is beginning to transform the United Nations into an institution far beyond recognition.

The Secretariat building has been shut down since mid-March, and the UN campus will continue to remain a ghost town through end July– and perhaps beyond– with nearly 3,000 staffers, delegates and journalists working, mostly from home.

And most meetings, including Security Council sessions, are taking place via video teleconferencing (VTC) while “informal consultations” are done “remotely,” along with “virtual:” press briefings.

Last week the UN hosted a “virtual ministerial pledging conference” with hardly a minister in sight.

The deadly pandemic has, most crucially, grounded the upcoming session of the General Assembly, an annual event which usually attracts over 150 world leaders. And it has also upended the “live” commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the world body.

And so, perhaps for the first time in the 75-year history of the UN, most world leaders would be invited to address the General Assembly via pre-recorded video statements.

The message particularly to ostracized world leaders – and those “blacklisted” by the US — is clear: You don’t need a US visa to address the UN, come September.

Dr Palitha Kohona, a former Chief of the Treaty Section in the UN Office of Legal Affairs, told IPS the US has denied entry visas to certain individuals to attend meetings of the world body, including senior officials from Iran, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Venezuela, Russia, North Korea and Cuba, among others.

The US will be severely challenged if it seeks to justify its actions as being consistent with its obligations under the Headquarters Agreement with the UN. (HQ Agreement, 11 UNTS 1), he argued.

With the US in the present confrontational mood, and the real risk of an intractable conflict between the UN and the US, COVID-19 provides a convenient way out, with which the UN will be comfortable.

The members of the world body can now opt to address the organisation through video link, he said.

An entry visa will no longer be sine qua non for the purpose of entering the US and addressing the UN, said Dr Kohona, a former chair of the General Assembly’s Legal Committee and Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the UN.

Meanwhile, some key meetings, including those focusing on nuclear disarmament, women’s rights, indigenous peoples and biodiversity – have been postponed, plus the Conference of Parties (COP26) on climate change scheduled to take place late November in Glasgow, Scotland.

The beneficiaries, if they do exercise their right to address the UN, via video conferencing, would include leaders from Iran, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Venezuela, North Korea and Cuba, who are virtually designated persona non grata by the US– even as a growing new political confrontation continues between Washington and Beijing.

Last week Michael Pompeo, US Secretary of State, had an implicit warning: “the United Nations Human Rights Council (in Geneva), now comprised of Venezuela and recently, Cuba and China, has long been and remains a haven for dictators and democracies that indulge them. It is a grave disappointment to those genuinely seeking to advance human dignity.”

Dr. Simon Adams, Executive Director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), told IPS “I’m not an expert on US visa law, but banning foreign leaders from being able to attend the UN General Assembly would seem to violate the spirit of the UN headquarters agreement”.

The US and Soviet Union were on the brink of nuclear war in 1960, but Khrushchev was still allowed to attend the UN and bang his shoe on the desk, he said.

And Che Guevara, also no friend of the US, was allowed to speak to the UN General Assembly in 1964, although in that case someone tried to fire a bazooka at the UN in retaliation, he noted.

“However, with regard to the International Criminal Court (ICC), it is an independent court and is in a different category. While I think that the United States threatening sanctions against ICC officials is unethical and antithetical to international justice, I guess it is their legal right to do so.”

It just means that the United States has now joined a select club of countries, mostly ruled by dictators and atrocity perpetrators, that threaten ICC officials and their families for doing their jobs and upholding international law, said Dr Adams, who worked with Sinn Féin and former IRA prisoners in support of the Northern Ireland peace process.

In theory, he said, that means even North Korea’s Kim Jung Un could make a speech to the UN General Assembly this year–although given his recent bromance with the US President, he could probably get a visa anyway, he added.

“Personally, I think any leader of a UN member state should always be given the opportunity to address the annual General Assembly, unless they are currently under ICC indictment for war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide,” declared Dr Adams, a former member of the international anti-apartheid movement and of the African National Congress in South Africa.

Last week the General Assembly held its elections by secret ballot without a plenary meeting. Elections were held for 75th President of the General Assembly; new non-permanent members of the Security Council; and new members of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Volkan Bozkir from Turkey was elected President of the seventy-fifth session of the General Assembly. Credit: UN photo

Iftikhar Ali, a longstanding UN correspondent for the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP), who has covered General Assembly sessions since 1971, told IPS the upcoming “virtual high-level debate” with only a small number of diplomats present in the iconic General Assembly hall will be devoid of the excitement, colour and high expectations that has always generated by the physical presence of 100-plus world leaders.

No bilateral meetings between friends or foes, no receptions or dinners where discussions take place in a relaxed atmosphere that help ease tensions in parts of the world, he said.

Also absent will be hundreds of television cameramen and reporters from around the world who push and shove to get closer to action with nervous security men chasing them around, said Ali, who worked for the U.N. in Tehran and Kosovo and is a former President of the UN correspondents’ Association (UNCA) and Chairman of the Dag Hammarskjold Memorial Scholarship Fund from 1984-1993.

“In short, the crucial week-long high-level debate will make very little contribution to advancing the cause of international peace and security,” declared Ali.

In 1988, when Yassir Arafat was denied a US visa for a second visit to New York to address the General Assembly sessions, the United Nations delivered a resounding slap at the United States by temporarily moving the UN’s highest policy making body to Geneva in order to provide a global platform for the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

On his first visit in 1974, he avoided the hundreds of pro and anti-Arafat demonstrators outside the UN building by arriving in a helicopter which landed on the North Lawn of the UN campus adjoining the East River.

But since then several political leaders—mostly antagonistic towards the US or heading regimes under American sanctions– have either been denied visas or implicitly declared persona non grata.

As a result, heads of state from “rogue nations,” including North Korea’s Kim Il Sung and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, never addressed the UN while, more recently, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, have avoided the UN, even though they have a legitimate right to address the General Assembly, as leaders of UN member states.

When former Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, accused of war crimes, was refused a US visa to attend the high level segment of the General Assembly sessions back in September 2013, a Sudanese delegate told the UN’s Legal Committee that “the democratically-elected president of Sudan had been deprived of the opportunity to participate in the General Assembly because the host country, the United States, had denied him a visa, in violation of the U.N.-U.S. Headquarters Agreement.”

Asked if world leaders like Bashar al Assad and Kim Jong un could remotely address the General Assembly, UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters last week “arrangements are being finalised”.

“We do expect to have a virtual component, but you’ll have seen what the outgoing General Assembly President said in his briefing last week about this issue”.

“As we get closer to the specific arrangements, the General Assembly President and his office, including our spokeswoman, Reem Abaza, could provide you with more details. But we do expect that there will be some virtual component, and that format is still being decided among the Member States,” he noted.

Pressed further, Haq said he does not want to prejudge what is currently being discussed by Member States.

“We’re working for a mix of virtual attendance and then some limited physical attendance, and it’s been very clear that it will have to be limited,” he noted.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

The post Message to Ostracized World Leaders: You Don’t Need a US Visa to Address the UN appeared first on Inter Press Service.

President Peter Mutharika battles for re-election after irregularities voided last year's result.

The first black person to complete his studies at Eton was banned from the school in 1972.

Nigerian Dillibe Onyeama was the first black student to complete his studies at the elite British school.

By External Source
Jun 22 2020 (IPS-Partners)

For generations, elephants have been inextricably tied to the lands of Mondulkiri in Cambodia.

The people who call this place their home — the indigenous Bunong community — share a unique bond with the gentle giants of the land.

It is a relationship that has been tried and tested over the years and pressure to make ends meet has pushed some villagers to rent out elephants at high prices to companies with a record of mistreating animals.

Some villagers have even sold the elephants to companies. There is also a taboo about elephants giving birth within the community.

However, there are sanctuaries such as Mr Tree’s that attempt to breed, rescue and care for elephants which were either kept in captivity or were sold off.

To know more about the elephants of Mondulkiri and their stories, watch the video.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

The post A look into the lives of Cambodia’s gentle giants appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Photo: AFP

By Nilima Jahan
Jun 22 2020 (IPS-Partners)

The life of sex workers on the streets, hard as it is during normal times, has taken a worse turn after the coronavirus pandemic hit the country.

Many floating sex workers have been pushed into begging, as their regular means of income has almost disappeared.

They are also facing assault and harassment at the hands of local goons, law enforcers and other people, living on the streets.

Mukta, 40, a floating sex worker, shared how she was attacked and wounded while looking for clients near Golap Shah Mazar at Gulistan in the first week of April.

She said three young men availed her service and were about to leave without payment. When she asked for money, they berated her for sex work amidst the shutdown and then beat her mercilessly. One of them hit Mukta on her nose with a shard of blade.

“The wound required six stitches and I think the scar will never heal,” said Mukta, who now begs on the streets.

At least five other sex workers shared similar experiences with this correspondent.

They said they are compelled to come out on the street risking coronavirus infection as many of them have children to feed and families to support.

Mukta said for the last three months she could not pay the monthly fee of Tk 2,000 for her two kids, who live at a private shelter for sex worker’s children.

“The shelter in-charge has been calling and yelling at me for the money. How can I make her understand that I’m in such a condition that I am having to skip most of my meals?”

Aleya Begum Lily, general secretary of Sex Workers’ Network (SWN), a platform for 29 sex workers’ organisations, said, most of the around 1,02,000 sex workers including the 5,000 registered in the 10 brothels of the country are jobless now.

In the capital, there are almost 20,000 sex workers, of whom 8,000 sell sex on the streets, hotels and rented apartments, she added.

Those who lived in hotels or failed to pay house rent are now living on the streets, in the parks, mausoleums, railway stations or under the bridges, Aleya said.

A large number of sex workers, who work under brokers, have also been suffering due to a sharp decline in their clientele.

Nazma, who lived and worked along with five other girls at the capital’s Rayer Bazar area, was facing routine abuse at the hands of their drug addict broker.

“It was his responsibility to manage clients for us. Yet, he would hit me on my head as I couldn’t give him money [due to decline in business],” said Nazma.

“I escaped in April after a physical assault. Currently, I am begging and sleeping at the Gulistan Golap Shah Mazar,” she mentioned.

Drop-in-centres (DICs) for sex workers are also becoming difficult to run because of the pandemic, informed officials of Light House, an NGO funded by the international development agency Save the Children.

Across the country, Light House has 27 DICs, where sex workers usually stay from 9am to 5pm.

Md Zalkad Ali, coordinator of the NGO’s Chankharpul DIC, said, “It has been difficult to continue our work because of constant pressure to shift the office. Many [landlords and neighbourhood people] treat them [sex workers] as suspected Covid-19 positive cases since they have roam the streets and mingle with unknown men.”

“My landlord sent us a notice to vacate the flat immediately, and restricted the access of the sex workers. We disinfect the stairs, maintain social distance and hygiene, yet they have been harassing us in different ways,” he added.

Another DIC coordinator Rina in Gopibagh also mentioned getting an eviction notice during the shutdown.

They, however, managed the landlord by limiting the number of sex workers who can enter and use the facility at a time, she said.

Beforehand, 15-20 sex workers used the DIC per day, but now a maximum of ten people are allowed, she added.

Nazma said she and others like her now use the DICs only to take showers.

Though the registered sex workers living in the brothels received some aid from the government, the floating ones didn’t receive any, said Aleya Begum.

Of the 29 organisations under the Sex Workers’ Network, 19 were provided Tk 3,50,000 during April-May for distribution of food and other essentials among their members, Aleya informed.

“Few may have received some relief as a distressed woman but not as a sex worker,” she added.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

 

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The post Broke and broken, sex workers ending up homeless appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By External Source
Jun 22 2020 (IPS-Partners)

Ed Conway and Sajid Javid talk to the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund about the global economic outlook, the level of support it’s providing during the pandemic, how globalisation can help ease inequality and how she sees the shape of economic recovery.

Ascolta “MD of the International Monetary Fund – Kristalina Georgieva” su Spreaker.

The post MD of the International Monetary Fund – Kristalina Georgieva appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Sonja Davidovic, Delphine Prady and Herve Tourpe
Jun 22 2020 (IPS)

The practical challenge of quickly getting financial support in the hands of people who lost jobs amid the COVID-19 economic crisis has baffled advanced and developing economies alike. Economic lockdowns, physical distancing measures, patchy social protection systems and, especially for low-income countries, the high level of informality, complicate the task. Many governments are leveraging mobile technology to help their citizens.

Togo, a small West African nation of 8 million, was able to quickly distribute emergency financial support to half a million people in less than two weeks using mobile phones. The technology helped deliver benefits to women in particular, and it supported a transparent rollout of the program. Informal workers in Morocco are also receiving government help through their phones quickly and efficiently.

Social assistance and cash transfers

Many emerging and low-income countries are scaling up direct support to households and individuals because they cannot directly protect jobs. Missing data on employment status and blurry lines between corporations and individuals in the informal sector hinder the effectiveness of labor market policies. Therefore, governments bet on cash transfers when trying to boost their social protection systems, while trying to expand their coverage.

In sub-Saharan Africa, over 80 percent of measures announced since the beginning of the pandemic are in the form of transfers, and only 4 percent were labor market policies. Globally, 30 percent of all the initiatives taken by countries are cash transfers.

Typically, the delivery of income support targeted to the most vulnerable households relies on a robust national identification (PDF) system linked to socioeconomic information, and requires a variety of approaches in distributing cash to those most in need. Missing any one of these components in their immediate response to the crisis can generate difficult challenges (PDF): for instance, if a government cannot target beneficiaries due to the lack of socioeconomic information, it may have to choose between either spending more to cast a wider safety net or keeping the budget in check and excluding households in need of support.

Effective cash transfer mechanisms

Mobile money is as an effective and physical-distancing-friendly option to deliver cash transfers in large scale, given that ownership and use of mobile phones in emerging and developing economies is very high, and globally, there are 228 mobile money agents (the small retailers where customers can deposit or withdraw cash in and out of mobile accounts, buy phone airtime cards, etc.) per 100,000 adults compared to only 11 banks and 33 ATMs. Mobile money can therefore help rural and remote populations gain access to government transfer programs without traveling long distances or waiting in lines, or even having a bank account—a critical advantage in a world where 1.7 billion still don’t have access to formal financial institutions.

The pandemic has led many countries to strengthen their mobile money ecosystems and address specific constraints. Governments with more developed operations were able to react faster.

Ecuador doubled the number of licensed cash agents in two weeks. Malaysia expanded free mobile internet access. Nigeria partnered with mobile network operators to identify vulnerable informal workers in urban areas through airtime purchase patterns. Saudi Arabia reduced mobile usage fees to encourage mobile payments. Some years ago, Peru fostered the creation of a platform that allows transfers across three leading mobile operators and 32 banks.

Mobile money does have risks and limitations. People in rural and remote areas may lack mobile coverage, easy access to money agents, or simply electricity. Exchanging mobile money for cash can still be expensive. And digital and financial illiteracy are known to hinder adoption of digital mobile services.

In many countries, the pandemic has forced policymakers to react quickly to reduce regulatory weaknesses around mobile money issued by telecom or fintech firms, whose customers are often not protected by regulation in the same way as banks’ clients. It’s important to ensure that the risks of accelerating mobile money, including cyber-risks and digital fraud, don’t outweigh the benefits.

A mobile-money framework

Beyond the crisis horizon, many countries have sought to boost mobile payment platforms to reduce corruption, improve efficiency and budget transparency, and broaden financial inclusion, especially for the informal sector and women.

While scaling mobile cash transfers quickly to help alleviate the impact of the pandemic, governments should take a broad approach that goes beyond the technology and consider the whole ecosystem behind a robust and resilient mobile program.

A holistic approach should be considered by policymakers and the industry to integrate all the “building blocks” of a sustainable mobile-money platform, including stakeholders and design and policy elements that help maximize benefits against risks.

As countries move from crisis mode to a new normal, it’s a good time to also take note of the impediments they encountered in expanding support to people suffering the economic consequences of lockdowns. At the same time, they can build on solutions that worked best to make up for income losses, focusing on sustainable solutions instead of workarounds deployed at the height of an emergency. This should be part of broader government strategies to strengthen social protection systems in the medium term through technology.

 

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. Credit: Hope And Homes for Children.

By Larisa Abrickaja
LONDON, Jun 22 2020 (IPS)

As the world continues to struggle with the Covid-19 pandemic, the situation in institutions like prisons or care homes has shown how quickly overcrowded facilities can become a breeding ground for an infectious disease. But what about other congregate facilities like residential institutions for children, such as orphanages? What risks do they face? And how should governments be responding during – and after – this pandemic?

How has the pandemic affected orphanages?

The Covid-19 pandemic has had one significant impact on so-called orphanages – or residential homes for children. In the majority of cases, lockdowns and social distancing have meant that there are fewer staff taking care of institutionalised children, as those not living on site are not allowed to return – a measure to avoid the risk of infection. It goes without saying that poorly staffed facilities increases the risk of neglect and abuse.

The vast majority of children living in orphanages worldwide are not orphans - over 80 percent have a living parent. Evidence from different regions shows that many of the children will have been sent to institutions for child protection reasons; though not because of violence or neglect in the home, but because of socio-economic conditions in the family

Understanding that it’s not possible to provide adequate care during the current crisis, numerous institutions have either closed or stopped admitting more children, including in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Kenya and Ukraine. In cases where children have been sent back to their families, proper planning, support and monitoring have been rare. But there’s a glaring question here: if these children have families, what are they doing in orphanages?

 

Not quite orphans

The vast majority of children living in orphanages worldwide are not orphans – over 80 percent have a living parent. Evidence from different regions shows that many of the children will have been sent to institutions for child protection reasons; though not because of violence or neglect in the home, but because of socio-economic conditions in the family, such as low household income or substandard housing conditions – a result of families not receiving enough support to take care of their children. This is especially the case for children with disabilities who often require considerable assistance but for whom local authority support is rare.

The circumstances in which these contexts arise may differ, but they are all linked to financial difficulties. In Ethiopia, India and Guatemala, for example, many rural farmers facing drought and crop failure and with no means to support their family resort to placing their children in orphanages. Meanwhile across Africa and South Asia, the recent wave of privatisation of education often means that poor families cannot afford even the minimum cost of sending children to school, and are lured by so-called orphanages promising an education and better life for their children.

 

Foreseeable dangers made worse

The Covid-19 pandemic risks further entrenching this culture of institutionalisation. Concerns have been raised that many children will be abandoned or separated from their families as a result of increased poverty, poor health, family stress or domestic violence. In many cases, large numbers of children will be orphaned.

A likely global economic recession will also have an impact. Recent history shows us that economic stagnation can actually become the main reason for institutionalisation of children, as occurred in post-conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina in the mid-1990s, where the number of orphanages increased by more than 300 percent.

And history may repeat itself as a consequence of the current pandemic, even though research amply shows that institutional care is harmful for all individuals, in particular for children, causing long-term effects on their health and psychosocial development.

Particularly for children with disabilities, who are usually overrepresented in residential care, the risks posed by this pandemic are life-threatening, as many have underlying health conditions and weak immune systems, so they are more vulnerable to developing severe complications from contracting Covid-19 or because of neglect, as we’ve seen in recent cases in Belarus and Kazakhstan, respectively.

 

A more optimistic scenario

Notwithstanding these dire situations, the current pandemic also presents opportunities to move away from a culture of putting vulnerable children in institutions. International consensus is that children are better off in a family or a family-type setting, as the institutional nature of care means that even a small, clean and safe care home is still an institution which doesn’t allow children to establish long-term emotional bonds with a significant adult.

As a positive example, some countries where children have been released from orphanages at the start of the pandemic are now trying to avoid readmitting them to institutions after lockdowns end, as is the case in parts of India.

Experts agree that children can be best served through family reintegration, adoption, kinship care, foster care, kafalah, and other family-based care models – not forgetting that families may take different and diverse forms, including married and unmarried couples, single parents, same sex parents and others.

Investing to keep families together or ensuring family-type care is available is therefore crucial, and the current pandemic has already prompted some countries to take the first steps or accelerate ongoing reform. Bulgaria is investing 10 million euros in municipalities to expand their social support services and cover more vulnerable people, including children with disabilities.

Ukraine also announced plans to increase the number of social workers across the country from 3,000 to around 11,000 in order to help vulnerable families cope during the pandemic. In countries with poor social protection systems, national cash transfer programmes have previously shown to preserve families and support relatives caring for children, as we saw during the Ebola outbreak.

 

A call to action

The current public health crisis is a brutal reminder that residential care for children is not only a dated concept, but a dangerous one. More than ever now is the time to fundamentally rethink how to support vulnerable children living or at risk of being placed in an institution. Human rights advocates, for instance, are calling for “emergency deinstitutionalisation” and immediate provision of housing and support in the community for people with disabilities living in institutions.

What’s key is to stop the cycle of institutionalisation because, once established, orphanages are difficult to reform or replace. Governments must recognise that supporting vulnerable families and investing in communities is not only better for children, but cheaper for the governments too. Institutions can never – and should never try to – replace family-based care.

 

Larisa Abrickaja is Policy and Partnerships Manager at the Child Rights International
Network (CRIN).

The post Children in Out-of-Home Care: Lessons from the Pandemic appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The Ibrahim Malik public hospital in Khartoum, Sudan. Abortion is only legal in Sudan under very specific circumstances. As a result a number of women continue to access unsafe abortions. Courtesy: Abdelgadir Bashir

By Reem Abbas
KHARTOUM, Jun 22 2020 (IPS)

Omnia Nabil*, a Sudanese doctor, who worked in one of the largest hospitals in Khartoum, the country’s capital, was devastated to witness the deaths of 50 young women who had unsafe abortions during a space of just three months.

“I would see 16 cases of failed abortions on a given day. I would insert my hand and pull out syringes or leaves, unsanitary items that were inserted by midwives to induce a miscarriage,” Nabil told IPS.

For Sudanese women, getting an abortion is often a very lonely and dangerous process because it is only allowed in very specific cases.

Article 135 of the Criminal Law of 1991 legalises “miscarriage” only to save the mother’s life, if she is a victim of rape in her first trimester or if the foetus is dead. However, in all cases, women need their husband’s consent for the procedure.

Women who do not meet these requirements generally end up going to traditional midwives. But it places the women’s lives at risk. And if caught, it is an offence punishable with imprisonment of up to six years or a fine.

• This Northeast African nation of some 41 million people was ruled for 30 years by dictator Omar al-Bashir until he was removed from power by the country’s military in April 2019 after mass pro-democracy protests.
• Under Al-Bashir’s rule the country experienced decades of war and repression resulting in the current internal displacement of 2.1 million people. 

Sudan’s transitional government, formed in August 2019, allocated 40 percent of its parliamentary seats to women. This resulted in laws restricting freedom of dress, movement and work being repealed and female genital multination being criminalised. However, there have been no changes to the law on abortion.

Abortion – a dangerous and lonely procedure

But as international organisations working on reproductive health were slowly shut down in years prior to the transitional government being formed, small groups or networks of people have been working together to ensure that women are able to access safe abortions.

Because most women can’t access hospitals or healthcare facilities because they fear arrest, they end up having the abortions alone, or with little help. Sarah Ali* was one of them.

When Ali found out about her pregnancy, she struggled to find a nurse or doctor who would help her obtain an abortion.

“I was running out of options and a midwife working at a private hospital had agreed to help me, but was unable to find the pills. I was entering my 11th week when I received the pills sent in a package by Women on Web,” Ali, who no longer lives in Sudan, told IPS.

The pills, a combination of mifepristone and misoprostol, were sent by Women on Web, a Canadian non-profit organisation that “advocates for and facilitates access to contraception and safe abortion services to protect women’s health and lives”, according to its website.

• The organisation provides women with abortion pills within the first 10 weeks of their pregnancy, after an online consultancy, which allows those who have a problem accessing a safe abortion to have a medical abortion in their homes. According to the organisation, a medical abortion in the first 10 weeks is “very low risk of complications and resemble having an early miscarriage”.

“After the procedure, I was able to go back to the midwife for a check-up and make sure I didn’t get an infection,” said Ali.

There are no recent statistics on unsafe abortions in Sudan. However, according to Women Deliver, “An estimated 25.1 million unsafe abortions take place [globally] each year. Every year, approximately, 6.9 million women in developing countries are treated for complications from unsafe abortions, and complications from unsafe abortions cause at least 22,800 deaths each year.”

Nabil watched as women who had unsafe abortions and came to the hospital for help eventually died.

“They would usually die from what we call septic abortion, which is essentially an infected abortion process and even though I was pro-choice from early on, this tragedy inspired me to start the abortion network,” said Nabil, who has since left the country.

Underground networks help women access safe abortions

With a core group of doctors, doctors-in-training and supporters, Nabil created a network to obtain misoprostol for patients and supported them if they had future complications. The network was a small and deeply-secure structure.

“The work was dangerous. At some point, we had a patient in the hospital and the doctor treating her suspected that she was unmarried, she called the police and I had to help her and her partner escape,” said Nabil.

Knowing the risks, Nabil took her precautions. She had a separate phone and always used a fake name with patients seeking abortions.

The core team worked for years without getting caught and recruited younger doctors when those in the team had moved on to other jobs.

“We tried to support girls from lower-income households and offered them the pills at reduced prices relying on our acquaintances in the field. But in the end, we were unofficial and dependent on word of mouth, so you have to know someone to make the initial contact,” said Nabil.

In the last few years, the network’s capacity was reduced as more of its members moved on to other countries seeking better economic situations. Nabil continued to help from a distance and her close friend was the last one in the network, until he also left the country.

Shrinking space for service providers 

The last statistics on the use of misoprostol dates back to 2011, when DKT International, a health charity operating in Sudan and the largest non-government provider of reproductive health products and services at the time, published a report stating that 450,000 units of Misoprostol and 16,000 kits of MVA were used/sold that year.

DKT came under attack in 2012 when radical parliamentarians clashed with the Minister of Health over family planning, abortion equipment and the distribution of condoms.

But things became worse when the government shut down another international organisation working on reproductive health.

“This organisation had provided an important device called vacuum aspirator or NVA for abortion and miscarriage cases and it was registered in Sudan until the government stopped it. It is life-saving and important and now few doctors have it and can only do it under the table,” said Salma Habib* an activist working on SRHR issues here.

In the meantime, there is one doctor in Sudan who is willing to perform medical abortions and support his patients in taking misoprostol, but he has been banned from working here since 2006.

When Dr. Abdelhadi Ibrahim, a young Ob/Gyn specialist moved to Sudan from the UK in the 1997, young women patients started asking him to perform abortions.

Ibrahim estimated that he had provided safe abortions to at least 10,000 women over a period of seven years and helped many others restore their hymens to indicate virginity.

In 2006, Ibrahim was arrested and tried in a high-profile court case and was sentenced to six years in prison and his license was revoked by the Sudan Medical Council.

“Until today, I am fighting to get back my license. I won two law suits and the council continued to stall and now after the revolution, they just made appointments in the council and a committee should be formed to look into it, I must’ve visited the council’s building hundreds of times,” Ibrahim, who he has not worked in 14 years and was forced to sell some of his property to support himself, told IPS.

Abortion pills too costly for most women

In the meantime, prices of medical abortion pills have soared.

“Today, most women can not afford a safe abortion in Sudan. The pills could cost at least $142 to $214 or even more and the quality of the pills and their expiration date could be a problem because you are buying from the black market after all,” said Habib, who added that there are fake pills on the market also.

Most Sudanese women have to use traditional midwives as they can’t access the expensive pills. It places them at risk to unsafe abortions.

The procedures performed by midwives are often dangerous, but in addition the midwives often criminalise the behaviour of their patients.

“I know a girl who was circumcised by a midwife after an abortion and was told that this is to stop her from having sex again, it is clear that midwives could punish you or take advantage of your situation,” said Ali.

But as Nabil’s abortion network closed, parallel networks sprung up. Habib supports her network by accessing pills from Women on Web and from trusted sources inside Sudan.

“There are people working now, I don’t know many of them, but one of my former clients is now leading the same efforts and helping other women,” said Nabil.

*Names changed to protect identity. 

 

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ASC Kara's Kossi Koudagba - top scorer in Togo for two years in a row - has died of chronic malaria aged 25.

The Providencia Solar company, El Salvador. Latin America counts some of the globe’s most abundant and cost competitive renewable energy resources including hydroelectricity, solar, and wind. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

By Cecilia Aguillon
LA JOLLA, California, Jun 22 2020 (IPS)

The COVID-19 pandemic and crisis has led to increasing attention and clamor to redouble efforts toward an energy transition that would help the world reduce C02 emissions. In many countries of the region, how to manage hydrocarbons, but with an eye on the energy transition has only been accentuated. We believe clean hydrogen is part of that broader policy and reconstruction debate.

Clean hydrogen markets can be a key part of the economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, accelerate the decarbonization of Latin America’s electricity and transportation sectors, attract investment and create jobs. Indeed, the possibilities for oil and gas companies to produce and deliver hydrogen should facilitate and accelerate its adoption in Latin America particularly when combined with the region’s considerable renewable energy upside.

As the US Energy Information Administration notes, hydrogen is the most abundant element on the planet and the simplest. Furthermore, the EIA underscores that “hydrogen, like electricity, is an energy carrier that must be produced from another substance.”

Clean energy policies with clear objectives and successful implementation have resulted in renewable auctions that were over-subscribed throughout the region. The policies also engendered competition and electricity prices among the lowest in the world all the while injecting billions of dollars of direct investment into their economies

According to the US Department of Energy, most hydrogen today is produced from fossil fuels, specifically natural gas, but there is also increasing production from electricity including renewable sources such as biomass, geothermal, solar, and wind.

With regards to technology, most hydrogen is produced through steam methane reforming, a high-temperature process in which steam reacts with a hydrocarbon fuel to produce hydrogen. Electrolysis is also commonly used to produce hydrogen by separating H2O into oxygen and hydrogen. Hydrogen can be compressed, liquefied, transported and used at gasoline stations to fuel vehicles.

Latin America counts some of the globe’s most abundant and cost competitive renewable energy resources including hydroelectricity, solar, and wind. The elements that make the region a world-leader in renewables can facilitate a similar ascension for clean hydrogen production this decade. But it is important to note that in order to spur investment, economies of scale must be supported and enhanced through policy and market incentive programs.

Take the photovoltaic (PV) industry. PV has demonstrated that policies with a well-conceived implementation strategy greatly incentivizes the market and leverages steep cost reductions. Average PV prices in the United States dropped 89% from $359 USD per MWH in 2009 to $40 USD per MWH in 2019.

Over the last ten years, most countries in Latin America enacted clean energy targets and laws that include fiscal incentives and goals to achieve a determined percentage of their electricity mix from clean energy sources by specific timeframes. Using a reverse auction mechanism, solicitations were announced attracting bids from mostly wind and solar developers. A major energy auction in Mexico in 2017 delivered prices in the $20´s USD per MWH.

Clean energy policies with clear objectives and successful implementation have resulted in renewable auctions that were over-subscribed throughout the region. The policies also engendered competition and electricity prices among the lowest in the world all the while injecting billions of dollars of direct investment into their economies.

Latin America’s power sector is well-positioned to be the main driver for a clean hydrogen boom as the pace of solar and wind energy projects continues to accelerate. In some cases, their intermittent nature, however, creates mismatches in the supply and demand of electricity in the system which prompts grid operators to temporarily shut down generation when it exceeds demand.

This reduces return on investments. Reliable and cost-effective batteries are needed to address the problem. Hydrogen-based storage is emerging as a technically viable and effective solution, but more has to be done to foster a competitive industry.

According to IRENA´s latest report on hydrogen and renewables, the lowest average cost of producing hydrogen from wind is $23 USD per MWH. There is consensus that reducing the cost of storage will help maximize the use of renewable energy generation, reduce energy imports, and contribute to economic prosperity.

There are natural allies in this effort. Policymakers and regulators together with power companies and renewable energy investors are increasingly aligned with similar objectives and goals. Latin America does not have to start from scratch; there are important lessons from around the globe.

Clean hydrogen projects being developed in Asia, Europe, and the United States could lead to policies, programs, and robust industries. Lessons learned and best practices from early adopters can be harvested and adapted to develop successful hydrogen markets.

In Latin America, Chile could emerge as the clean hydrogen market leader since the country has surplus production of solar and wind electricity that could be leveraged for producing hydrogen. The government is already developing its post-pandemic stimulus package with a heavy focus on energy decarbonization by 2040 backed by aggressive policies targeting growth and further deployment of renewable energy and electric mobility.

The Energy Ministry is even working on a specific plan to develop a hydrogen market. In addition, the Chilean government is enlisting the participation of its power and energy sectors to join the effort. Chile´s success with solar and wind deployment along with its new decarbonization strategy can be a template for developing sustainable and robust hydrogen markets throughout the region.

For many countries in Latin America, one of the thorniest challenges to reduce emissions is in their transportation sector. Even highly-touted renewable energy markets such as Costa Rica have struggled to reduce fossil fuel consumption for transport. Hydrogen offers an important possible solution. Indeed, hydrogen can help decarbonize the fuel sector, most likely as a source for heavy duty transportation such as long-haul buses and trucks, trains, ships, and airplanes.

The current environment of low oil prices is providing many countries relief from onerous fuel subsidies. Indeed, in some markets such as Ecuador have begun to remove them entirely. It could be wise to consider applying some of these savings to promote the modernization of their public transportation infrastructure to accommodate the use of clean fuels and by extension, support economic development and reduction of CO2 emissions.

Moreover, national oil companies have had to shut down refineries due to the recent drop in fuel demand caused by the lockdowns in the fight to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. This forced shutdown could provide an opportunity to use the time to retrofit equipment and train workers on hydrogen fuel production.

Taking such measures in the near-term would allow for an important step towards diversification while transitioning to clean fuels. In some cases, oil and gas companies are able to obtain low-cost financing in addition to having the infrastructure, distribution channels, and know-how to produce fuels. As countries emerge from the pandemic and review policies and stimulus packages to reactivate their economies, governments should further consider designing road maps that include the promotion of clean hydrogen to decarbonize their power and transportation sectors.

Uruguay provides an example that public-private partnerships can work towards developing a local hydrogen market and one that can inform neighboring countries. The national oil company, ANCAP, together with the government, the national electricity company UTE, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and private investors are developing a pilot project to produce hydrogen using renewable energy to power trucks and buses, and to support green electricity through storage. This is to comply with the government´s goal of achieving 100% renewables by 2030.

In Uruguay, a comprehensive roadmap was enacted in 2010 with clear objectives and specific milestones that includes active collaboration of the various public agencies with specific roles to play to achieve the target. The policy also calls for regulations and standards that promotes the use of renewables throughout every sector of the economy making Uruguay a renewable energy leader in the southern cone. The inclusion of traditional energy sectors in the hydrogen pilot project could help the country achieve its decarbonization goal ahead of schedule.

As the example from Uruguay underscores, well-crafted policies and successful implementation of regulations are essential to attract foreign and domestic investments. The technology and resources to produce clean hydrogen are available. Scaling manufacturing to achieve cost-effectiveness is already taking place thanks to programs to promote hydrogen throughout the world.

The current investment profile and soaring amounts for renewable energy has shown the myriad actors and players – from Wall Street and private equity to multilateral agencies to local and international banks – willing to invest in renewable technologies particularly shown by the scale of deployment levels of wind and solar. Furthermore, the potential ability of oil and gas companies to produce and deliver hydrogen should facilitate and accelerate its adoption in Latin America.

Governments throughout the region should also consider direct participation in the clean hydrogen market. By serving as customers, governments can further support and develop critical mass for fast adoption through investment and modernization of state-own transportation infrastructure. Moreover, governments should consider fiscal incentives for heavy industry and traditional fuel suppliers to adopt the technology. Lessons learned from developing successful renewable energy programs should inspire political will to make clean hydrogen the next link in the chain to achieve zero carbon economies for this generation across Latin America.

Navigating the path forward from the COVID-19 pandemic coupled with the persistent threat of climate change makes clean hydrogen a possible solution for the day after and the region’s energy and economic recovery.

The post Latin America’s Potential Green Hydrogen Economy appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Cecilia Aguillon is Director of the Energy Transition Initiative at the Institute of the Americas in La Jolla, California

The post Latin America’s Potential Green Hydrogen Economy appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: Heifer International

By Pierre Ferrari and Cory Gilman
Jun 22 2020 (IPS)

There has been far less social progress in the United States in the last 155 years than many people would like to believe. In 2020, racism still seeps its way into every aspect of life; from unconscious bias and micro-aggressions in everyday interactions to domestic and international policy and enforcement.

As an organization with 76 years of history supporting smallholder producers, we have a responsibility to use our experience to name and break the barriers that have plagued Black, Indigenous and People of Color farmers. Fighting injustice in all its forms – hunger, malnutrition, poverty, income inequality, climate change and gender inequity – has long been a tenet of our work.

A farmer who participated in the Heifer International and Prentiss Institute 30-year partnership in Mississippi. Credit: Heifer International

We have worked to break down barriers that prevent the inclusion and success of marginalized groups in agriculture. Heifer International has assisted with land rights, helped farmers organize, provided technical assistance to increase their production and productivity, and improved access to capital and to markets. But good intentions do not equal positive impact. It is not enough to mean well. We have to do well.

Our mission cannot be fulfilled without recognizing how deeply agriculture is rooted in racism. It’s imperative to address how synonymous the origins of our food system are with the battle currently being fought – how the success of global agriculture has been sown with the blood and sweat of people of color.

In the United States, modern agriculture was built on the backs of enslaved people who were used as property and valued only as production units. They produced cotton, tobacco, sugar, indigo, rice, sweet potato, peanuts, watermelon and okra. This unrelenting free labor, coupled with simultaneous extraction of farming knowledge, directly led to America’s economic domination of the 18th century and pervasive industrialized agricultural ascendancy that remains today — facilitating an empire of production, processing and trade. When slavery finally became illegal, the tradition of Black exploitation for food-flow gain continued in the form of tenant farming, sharecropping and land grabbing.

In the 1930s, as minimum wage and other legislation was enacted to protect labor rights, the agricultural industry remained exempt and farmworkers (at the time, predominately African American) were excluded; this loophole was not modified until the 1980s. Simply put, our country’s designation as the ‘crop basket of the world’ would not have been possible without the unwilling sacrifice of Africans and African Americans.

But today, the Black community is disproportionately impacted by food insecurity, malnutrition, diet-related disease, lack of land ownership and largely exclusion from agriculture as a whole.

Farmer works in her peanut field in Zambia. Credit: Heifer International

The U.S.’s agricultural foundation follows a tradition of forced labor spanning huge expanses of time and place. Most of our favorite grocery items are a product of colonialism, widely available thanks to the almost standardized practice of one powerful predominantly white nation dropping anchor onto a foreign land, conquering and brutally subjugating its indigenous people, ravaging the soil with the compulsory workforce of human ‘property,’ and sending resulting agricultural goods back to its own and other wealthy countries at an enormous profit.

Farmer works in her familys sweet potato field in Malawi. Credit: Heifer International

The Dutch East Indies brought Arabica and sugar, British India produced tea and spices, German East Africa ushered in sesame and Robusta, French West Africa brought chocolate and peanuts and the Belgian Congo palm oil and sugar. When slavery was no longer condoned, oppressive conditions on stolen land remained. While each wave of colonialism has its own nuanced narrative, they all propagated from the same seed – racism.

This subjugation continues to play out, under new names but similar practices, all over the world. In many countries, racial, indigenous, ethnic or caste groups are deemed ‘less than’ – less worthy of basic safety and human rights, of fair pay and equal opportunity and of dignity. Considering 70% of the world’s hungry are or used as food producers, it’s a statistical certainty that what is on our plates stems from one of these groups.

Poverty is not an accident. When entire groups of people experience similar forms of socio-economic marginalization, that is by design. It is intergenerational. It is systemic, born of racially and ethnically driven oppression. It is intolerable.

Farmer and farm worker Sevia Matinanga (right) harvest sugar cane in Zambia. Credit: Heifer International

We cannot change the past, but we can actively acknowledge it. We must begin the more critical work of changing the course of the future, which means actively supporting communities of color in our local and global food system. There’s much to be done. Governments must enact policies to ensure full, inclusive and healthy participation in agricultural livelihoods and access. Organizations like Heifer International need even deeper commitment to social, economic and environmental justice on every level of our work, saying “no” to complicit systems and “absolutely” to accelerating the visions marginalized smallholder farmers have for their futures. Consumers can seek out black-owned agri-businesses and take a stand against corporations that source ingredients for unethical prices and in many cases, via actual forced and/or child labor. The world is ripe for real change, and we are ready for it.

The post Agriculture: Rooted in Racism appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Systemic racism in agriculture is painfully obvious. Why has it taken a new Civil Rights movement to clearly expose the sordid roots and present-day inequalities in food and farming?

The post Agriculture: Rooted in Racism appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Yasmine Sherif is Director, Education Cannot Wait

By Yasmine Sherif
NEW YORK, Jun 22 2020 (IPS)

To realize the concept of ‘build back better,’ we need a foundation. That foundation is education. This is an incontestable truth.

It has now been three months since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 as a global pandemic. The coronavirus has both exposed and exacerbated the global inequities that lay at the core of our frail social fabric as a human family. The World Bank estimates that 40-60 million people will be pushed into extreme poverty as a result of COVID-19. The World Food Programme cautions that the number of acutely hungry people could double globally from 135 million to 265 million. UNDP forecasts human development is set to decline this year for the first time since 1990. Meanwhile, the number of displaced populations has continued to rise to an unprecedented 79.5 million by the end of 2019, according to UNHCR’s annual Global Trends report, released on World Refugee Day today.

Yasmine Sherif

The most effective way of forcing children and youth into a life in extreme poverty and acute hunger, while also dismissing all their human rights is to deny them an education. Conversely, a quality education is one of the few absolutes that raises development indicators, strengthens the protection of human rights and enables the young generation to live a life of dignity, productivity and opportunity. As UN Deputy-Secretary General Amina J. Mohammed states in her interview in this month’s ECW Newsletter: “Indeed, a quality education and lifelong learning is foundational to all other aspects of human development and sustainable development.”

As long as education is considered a ‘lesser priority’ in crises, the vicious cycle of global inequity and its brutal consequences will continue to haunt humankind. We can no longer merely stitch together a shredded social fabric. We must lay a solid foundation to build back better, or as Desmond Tutu says: “Inclusive, good, quality education is a foundation for dynamic and equitable societies.”

We know that COVID-19 is further deepening the already existing inequalities across the globe. We know that the consequences are most severe for children and youth left furthest behind in conflicts and forced displacement. We know that those with disabilities and girls who are already disadvantaged because of their gender are the most vulnerable and will likely bear the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic. We know that they now risk plunging further down a precipice from where they may never have the ability to climb back. With this knowledge, education clearly must be a top priority in the COVID-19 response and recovery.

Before COVID-19, an estimated 75 million children and adolescents, of whom 39 million are girls, living in armed conflict and forced displacement contexts, were deprived a quality education. These numbers are now increasing, while funding is decreasing! A recent report by the Malala Fund estimates that 10 million secondary school-aged girls could drop out of school as a result of the pandemic. Meanwhile, a separate study, carried out by the Centre for Global Development, reinforced this concern, while noting that one third of NGOs fighting to prevent school-drop outs are facing the threat of layoffs because of funding cuts.

Yes, we are facing an unprecedented economic recession. Yet, the consequences of not investing in a foundation for those left furthest behind will eventually be even more severe. As UN Secretary-General António Guterres stated in his message on the International Day of Family Remittance, referring to World Bank projections, global remittances – a funding flow three times that of international aid – could plummet by $110 billion this year, limiting for millions a vital source of funding for health, education and livelihoods. In the same vein, the UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Chair of Education Cannot Wait’s High-Level Steering Group, Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown, warns that: “Failure by the G20 group of leading developed and developing nations to organize a global COVID-19 recovery plan is a potential death sentence for the world’s poor.”

COVID-19 and its consequences are stark reminders that we must now recognize that children and youth who are conflict- and disaster-affected, who are internally displaced or are refugees, can no longer wait until the crisis is over. At worse, we will be accomplices to reducing their humanity; at best, we will keep patching up a shredded social fabric – but we will not rebuild.

To end the spiral of global inequity, gender-inequality, racism and discrimination in all its ugly forms, especially towards girls, we must recognize that those left furthest behind are entitled to a solid foundation to build back better. Like the rest of us, that foundation starts with inclusive and equitable, quality education, from the first 1,000 days of a child’s life onwards.

The post The Foundation to Build Back Better: Education appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Yasmine Sherif is Director, Education Cannot Wait

The post The Foundation to Build Back Better: Education appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A municipal truck sanitizes the streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh in order to prevent COVID-19.

By External Source
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Jun 22 2020 (IPS)

One of the most densely populated countries in the world, Bangladesh exemplifies the triple blow that many emerging market countries have suffered from COVID-19: domestic slowdown caused by the disease and the efforts to contain its spread; a sharp decline in exports, particularly in the ready-made garment sector, and a drop in remittances. Its once robust economy has dramatically slowed in recent months.

To help Bangladesh during this crisis, the IMF has approved emergency loans totaling around $732 million. IMF Country Focus spoke with the IMF’s resident representative for Bangladesh Ragnar Gudmundsson about some of the specific challenges facing the country.

How has Bangladesh been affected by COVID-19?

Bangladesh has been severely impacted. Up until the crisis, the economy had been growing close to 7 percent a year on average over the past decade. We now project 2 percent for 2020—a drop of 6 percentage points from 2019.

The economic impact has been felt in three main avenues: first, a drop in domestic economic activity, after the shutdown announced on March 26 (now gradually being lifted); the second is a decline in exports of ready-made garments, which represent more than 80 percent of Bangladesh’s exports and have been strongly impacted (overall exports fell by 83 percent year-on-year in April).

Finally, there has been a fall in remittances from Bangladeshis living mostly in Middle Eastern countries, affected not just by the pandemic but also by the decline in oil prices.

What is the outlook for the future?

We are still expecting a pick-up in activity toward the end of 2020 and in 2021, with growth climbing back to around 6 percent.

Of course, that depends on the domestic economy starting to recover. But there is so much uncertainty and it is very difficult to ascertain with precision the recovery’s speed or extent. We still expect that the country would quickly come back to previous growth rates, if global economic conditions are supportive.

Credit: UNDP Bangladesh/Fahad Kaizer

The UN Development Programme with the support of UK Aid, is rolling out emergency support for 50,000 poor urban families in Bangladesh in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

What particular challenges has Bangladesh faced during this crisis?

Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries in the world, and this is a huge challenge when you are trying to contain the impact of a pandemic like COVID-19. Another challenge is limited health infrastructure.

The capacity of the health system is really being put to the test, and requires considerable support from development partners. It is estimated that the country needs about $250 million for clinical equipment, testing, and contact tracing, just to respond to the initial impact. This amount will need to be mobilized with external support.

How are IMF resources expected to be used?

IMF resources, in the form of loans under the Rapid Credit Facility (RCF) and Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI), will be channeled through the budget to help the government meet its new spending needs in health and social protection; to meet balance of payments needs; and to catalyze additional donor support. Financing from other international institutions and donors has been approved.

How can it be ensured that the money is used transparently?

Bangladesh recognizes the importance of transparency, accountability, and good governance. The government is committed to using the crisis resources transparently and effectively, and to carry out an audit of COVID-19 related expenditures within 12 months of the end of the crisis.

The country has also committed to amending existing rules so as to provide information on the beneficial ownership of companies that are awarded procurement contracts.

What will be the effect on Bangladesh’s debt?

Before the crisis, Bangladesh was in a very good position, with a low risk of overall and external debt distress. We anticipate that all the crisis-related borrowing will raise the public debt-to-GDP ratio to about 41 percent of GDP over the coming years, from 36 percent at the end of 2019

Even so, debt should remain sustainable. In a way, this is a testament to the sound economic and fiscal policies implemented in recent years, with limited aid dependency, prudent borrowing and, up until the crisis, adherence to a deficit ceiling of 5 percent of GDP.

Over the medium term, the government needs to mobilize more resources domestically to fund additional spending for health, education, infrastructure, and social protection.

What is being done to protect the country’s large vulnerable population?

Since March, several stimulus measures were deployed to sustain economic activity and protect the most vulnerable. There is a package of about $600 million to support the wages of workers in the ready-made garment sector, provided in the form of subsidized loans to companies so that they can pay wages for three months.

This is very important because the ready-made garment sector is responsible for much of the recent progress in incorporating women into formal economic activity.

Additionally, takas totaling about $150 million will be provided as cash assistance to about five million families displaced by the pandemic. There are also measures to protect the homeless and for food distribution. Cash allowances for the elderly, widows, and disabled individuals are also being expanded.

Amid the crisis, how can the country continue to address climate change concerns?

Climate change is a priority for Bangladesh’s development objectives, as it is one of the countries most vulnerable to extreme weather events. Increased investments in adaptation have made the country more resilient to natural disasters.

Cyclone Amphan, a few weeks ago, was perhaps less devastating than initially feared because of better early warning systems and more investments in embankment infrastructure and shelters.

As efforts to promote a green recovery take hold, Bangladesh is also well placed to attract foreign investment that will contribute to climate change mitigation.

The post Helping Bangladesh Recover from COVID-19 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Etinosa Yvonne's photographs challenge stereotypical representations of women during the pandemic.

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Militants blow up their car at a military checkpoint and detonate bombs at a military official's house.

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The UK's new hard-nosed approach to African aid is greeted with cynicism, writes the BBC's Andrew Harding.