Africa

Devastated by hunting and logging, the chimps now face threats from coronavirus, says conservationist.

By Heike Kuhn
BONN, Apr 29 2020 (IPS)

Do you recognize this man? You do, of course. It is the silhouette of Beethoven, the famous composer and pianist‎, well known all over the world. The year 2020 marks his 250th anniversary and the UN city of Bonn, Germany is very proud of its famous son, born here, next to the river Rhine. The calendar for 2020 shows many festivals, musical events, and exhibitions, attracting tourists and people appreciating classic music from all around the globe. We all immediately recognize his famous Fifth Symphony with the sound known worldwide of ‘da-da-da-daaaa’. As Europeans we honor his Ninth Symphony, this having been chosen as the European anthem.

Whoever is driving through the city of Bonn can see the profile of Beethoven on traffic lights as they turn green. Everyone understands that the message of a green traffic light is “Go ahead, you are free to drive”. For me, seeing the green traffic light connected to the silhouette of Beethoven, I have special reflections I would like to share with you. In a nutshell: Beethoven, being a great composer, becoming slowly deaf, but nevertheless not stopping his composing of masterpieces – a great attitude!

What caused this idea in me? For several years now I have done work in development policy on the rights of persons with disabilities. Persons with disabilities are the biggest majority in the world as about one billion people are counted as living with a disability, with a rising tendency due to longevity. Today we count 80 per cent of persons with disabilities as inhabitants of developing countries, where life is often much harder for vulnerable groups. Since 2006, persons with disabilities are protected by a special UN treaty, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, signed by 163 countries and the European Union. However, in many places they still have to fight or appeal for their rights. This has to change and all of us have to be part of this cultural alteration – the sooner, the better.

Getting back to Beethoven: His pieces of music are famous, on all continents. His extraordinary musical talent became obvious at an early age and he was intensively taught by his father. Born in 1770 in Bonn, he moved to Vienna at the age of 21, spending the rest of his professional life there. In Vienna, he worked together with Haydn, soon establishing a reputation in the Austrian capital, performing in the salons of the Viennese nobility which offered him financial support. However, when the 19th century started, his hearing began to deteriorate, turning him almost completely deaf by 1814, when he gave up performing and appearing in public.

But his deafness did not prevent him from continuing his work: The famous Ninth Symphony, one of the first examples of a choral symphony, was created by him from 1822 to 1824. This masterpiece is regarded by many musicologists as Beethoven’s greatest work and considered as one of the supreme achievements in the history of western music. The words derive from a poem written by the German poet Friedrich Schiller, the famous “Ode to Joy” with some text additions by the composer himself. This musical masterpiece stands as one of the most often performed symphonies of the world. At an early stage of European integration the Ninth Symphony was chosen as the anthem of Europe. A great choice!

Try imagining – a deaf composer is able to create a symphony this valuable, using nothing else but his existing knowledge of the sound of music and the pure imagination of vocal and instrumental tones. Not allowing deafness to hold up your great talent, but pursuing your way with all your power, creativity and verve, is fantastic!

This is why I have always been impressed by Beethoven. And I am even more impressed these days, when the Ninth Symphony in March 2020 rang out during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic in Italy, Spain and Germany. Women and men, sang out from their balconies, sending out a signal of hope to the world. The choice of this symphony reminds us, in times of crisis, what is most relevant: fellowship and solidarity. Music acts as an effective remedy against despair and loneliness, to counter the crisis. So put on the music and enjoy, despite everything, playing tribute to a talented deaf composer showing us the way out of desperation, simply by staying active and motivated.

So when the green traffic light appears, just take note of the lesson: Whatever occurs in your life, keep on going ahead, as no disability will ever be strong enough to limit your special talent.

The post Remembering Beethoven – a Genius with a Disability appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The post Governments Cautioned Not to Use COVID-19 Lockdown to Cause Harm appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Nteranya Sanginga

By Nteranya Sanginga
IBADAN, Nigeria, Apr 29 2020 (IPS)

Africa’s frailties have been brutally exposed by the coronavirus pandemic. The virus has reached nearly every country on this continent of 1.3 billion people and the World Health Organization warns there could be 10 million cases within six months. Ten countries have no ventilators at all.

Governments are fighting the pandemic with weak health systems where lockdowns are especially punitive in the absence of a welfare state. Many people subsist on daily earnings, living off the informal economy in densely crowded living conditions that make a mockery of ‘social distancing’. Collapsing commodity prices in international markets and capital outflows from emerging markets are hitting economies.

But so too Africa’s strengths are on display. Valuable lessons have been learned from past epidemics, such as the Ebola outbreak in 2014, and governments are responding with strict measures. Far from the stereotyped image of the Third World calling for help from richer countries, people are demonstrating their resilience, generosity, civic spirit and boundless ingenuity.

Africa’s young population gives hope too. With a median age of less than 20 years, the continent may suffer relatively fewer fatalities than other nations with more ageing populations. The pandemic is underscoring what many have cautioned for years – that Africa’s economies need to depend less on exporting raw materials and do more to tackle the urgent issues of food insecurity, youth unemployment and poverty.

Developing agriculture is key to addressing these challenges. Youth brings energy and innovation to the mix, but these qualities can be best channelled by young Africans themselves carrying out results-based research in agribusiness and rural development involving young people. Youth engagement is key.

As a research-for-development non-profit, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) works with various partners across sub-Saharan Africa to facilitate agricultural solutions to hunger, poverty and natural resource degradation. IITA improves livelihoods, enhances food and nutrition security and increases employment as one of 15 research centres in CGIAR, a global partnership for a food secure future.

Throughout the pandemic, IITA is helping sub-Saharan food systems by monitoring food prices and strengthening access to agricultural technologies and markets..

Before the coronavirus surfaced, IITA had launched a three-year project known as CARE (Enhancing Capacity to Apply Research Evidence) to build an understanding of poverty reduction, employment impact, and factors influencing youth engagement in agribusiness, and rural farm and non-farm economies. The project was funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and provided 80 research fellowships for young African scholars, with an emphasis on young female professionals and students aiming to acquire a master’s or doctoral degree.

Grantees were offered training on research methodology, data management, scientific writing, and the production of research evidence for policymaking. They are mentored by IITA scientists and experts on a research topic of their choice and produce science articles and policy briefs about their work.

How is Africa going to feed a population set to double by 2050? As CGIAR says: we are at a crossroads in the world’s food system and cannot continue our current trajectory of consuming too little, too much, or the wrong types of food at an unsustainable cost to natural resources, the environment and human health.

Here in sub-Saharan Africa, agriculture contributes to nearly a quarter of GDP and smallholder farmers make up more than 60 percent of the population. Young people are finding careers in agribusiness and IITA aims to strengthen their capacity to inform future action plans for local communities and up to national governments, the business sector and international community.

Dolapo Adeyanju, a IITA grantee, illustrates how Africa is capable of generating more youth engagement in policy research, whether on policy, start-ups, agribusiness, development initiatives or leadership. A Nigerian national, Ms Adeyanju is a master’s student at the University of Nairobi working in collaboration with the University of Pretoria, focusing on the impact of agricultural programs on youth agripreneurship in Nigeria.

“Policymakers cannot operate in a vacuum,” she says, stressing the need for appropriate policies to be based on relevant evidence derived from research results and recommendations.

Development of effective policies will enable African young people who are already taking advantage of agricultural research to make a life out of farming. IITA’s CARE project will help make up for the deficit of youth-specific research, and the support of IFAD ensures that young Africans will have a voice in how they can contribute to this effort.

Africa was not well prepared for a crisis of this magnitude in COVID-19. Universities have been closed, borders shut, and trade has plummeted. The pandemic has exposed decades-long underinvestment in vital sectors, as well as demonstrating the importance of scientific and educational collaboration. The immediate focus will naturally be on the direct response to the disease in terms of medical research, equipment and health care. But as the pandemic pushes through, Africa must keep its eye on long-term development needs. IITA will play its role in equipping the next generation to advance agriculture and feed the people of Africa.

 

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The post Pandemic Lays Bare Africa’s Deficits, but Youth Will Grow the Future appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Nteranya Sanginga is Director General of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture

The post Pandemic Lays Bare Africa’s Deficits, but Youth Will Grow the Future appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: SIPRI

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 29 2020 (IPS)

China and India, which went to war back in 1962 largely over a disputed Himalayan border– and continue a longstanding battle for military supremacy in Asia– have set a new record in arms spending.

For the first time, the world’s two most populous nations, accounting for a total of over 2.7 billion people, are now among the top three military spenders, ranking behind the United States.

In its latest report on global military expenditures, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) says the five largest spenders in 2019, accounting for 62 per cent of expenditures, were the United States, China, India, Russia and Saudi Arabia, in descending order.

China’s military expenditure reached $261 billion in 2019, a 5.1 per cent increase compared with 2018, while India’s grew by 6.8 per cent to $71.1 billion.

Total global military expenditure rose to $1.9 trillion in 2019, representing an increase of 3.6 per cent from 2018 and the largest annual growth in spending since 2010.

“These numbers would be staggering in any context, but in the middle of a global pandemic we have even more reason to be alarmed,” said Tori Bateman, Policy Advocacy Coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee.

“Instead of spending trillions on preparing for destructive wars, the United States and other countries across the globe should be protecting and providing for their people by investing in public health,” he noted.

Dr. Natalie J. Goldring, a Senior Fellow and Adjunct Full Professor with the Security Studies Program in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, told IPS military spending by China and India likely reflects both their mutual rivalry within the region and their individual quests for power in the global context.

The two countries also faced a border standoff in 2017.

She pointed out that the SIPRI data indicate the extent to which many countries, especially the United States, have profoundly misplaced budget priorities.

Unfortunately, many national leaders seem to see military spending as an indicator of national prestige, said Dr Goldring, who is a Visiting Professor of the Practice in Duke University’s Washington DC program and also represents the Acronym Institute at the United Nations on conventional weapons and arms trade issues.

“From the perspective of those of us who support decreasing military spending, heads of state bragging about their countries’ military prowess often reflects toxic masculinity”.

President Trump is a prominent example of this phenomenon, she declared.

Credit: SIPRI

Asked about the record spending by the two Asian giants, Siemon Wezeman, Senior Researcher at SIPRI’s Arms and Military Expenditure Programme, told IPS: “The main reasons are: perception or even reality of threats.”

China, he pointed out, looks with suspicion and worry at its surroundings and its interests further away (including resources on which China is dependent from the Middle East and Africa; markets and protection of export transport lines on which it is also dependent).

This includes a worry about US power and intentions.

India, at war with Pakistan, has internal conflicts and fears a big and growing China hovering at the contested Chinese-Indian border, he noted.

China, being allied with Pakistan, friendly with Myanmar, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, also sees India’s unhealthy interest in the Indian Ocean, said Wezeman.

“They both think of themselves as major powers, and China even as a superpower.

And both seem to believe that any major or superpower status is partly based on military might,” he noted.

So, both are building up significant military forces not only for home defence but also for potential operations away from the homeland, armed with high-tech weapons from an expanding local arms industry – all expensive, said Wezeman.

Certainly for China, he argued, the military and the People’s Armed Police, (which we count as enough military-trained and equipped to be included in our estimate of China’s military spending) are a cornerstone of government control over the population.

According to SIPRI, the United States once again dominates the rest of the world in its military spending, accounting for 38 percent of global military spending in 2019, more than the next nine countries combined.

Reacting to the latest SIPRI report, 39 U.S.-based think-tanks, non-profits, and faith-based organizations released a statement calling on the U.S. government to reduce military spending, according to the American Friends Service Committee.

Meanwhile, China accounted for 14 percent of the global total military expenditures in 2019. India (3.7 percent), Russia (3.4 percent), and Saudi Arabia (estimated at 3.2 percent) were closely bunched in third, fourth, and fifth places.

Global military expenditure was 7.2 per cent higher in 2019 than it was in 2010, showing a trend that military spending growth has accelerated in recent years,’ said Dr Nan Tian, SIPRI Researcher.

‘This is the highest level of spending since the 2008 global financial crisis and probably represents a peak in expenditure.’

Asked about the negative impact of the coronavirus crisis on future military spending, Dr Goldring told IPS no one knows what the full consequences of the coronavirus will be.

She said economists warn of the prospect of a global depression, while also arguing that many countries are already experiencing recession.

The Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently warned that the coronavirus is likely to return in the fall, and that it may be even more difficult to manage than is currently the case.

“It’s time for countries to reevaluate their priorities. Otherwise, although military spending and arms transfers may decrease as a result of the economic effects of the coronavirus, these decreases are likely to only be temporary.”

“The coronavirus tests countries’ willingness to put their people’s needs first. Unfortunately, we’ll only be able to determine in retrospect whether that has happened, as we examine the extent to which countries reallocate funds from military spending to meet people’s critical needs, including their needs for food, water, shelter, health care, and physical safety.”

“This is no time for business as usual,” said Dr Goldring

Wezeman said: “We don’t like to predict the future. Everyone agrees now that the covid-19 crisis will result in a severe economic crisis already this year”.

He said the International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects gross domestic product (GDP) to go down in many states or at least grow much less than expected just a few months ago.

“This will impact on government income and on spending priorities – while health care, social spending, investments to get the economy going again are probably in many states going to be a higher priority than defence.”

That is what happened, he said, in recent economic crises such as in 2008-2009 and the late-1990. In some states, cuts have already been made (e.g. Thailand, Malaysia).

However, military spending does not only depend on the economy — other issues are part of the decision on how much to spend, especially threat perceptions, that may be found in some states are more important than other government spending posts, he noted.

While some funds in military spending are more flexible (mainly on acquisitions of equipment) that can be cut fast, mostly spending is quite fixed (salaries and pensions make up a very large part of military spending in most states) and thus the cuts or reduced growth in military spending can only be implemented over a few years, Wezeman declared.

*Thalif Deen is a former Director, Foreign Military Markets at Defense Marketing Services (DMS);
a Senior Defense Analyst at Forecast International; and military editor Middle East/Africa at Jane’s Information Group.

The post China & India Ranked World’s Biggest Military Spenders Trailing US appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Josef Benedict
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Apr 29 2020 (IPS)

May 3rd marks World Press Freedom Day around the world. During this COVID-19 pandemic, a robust media environment is critical: access to life-saving information is key in the fight against the virus. As governments impose a range of restrictions in attempts to curb the pandemic, journalists help hold authorities to account by providing analysis, engaging in debate about government actions, and creating a space for dialogue about the future we all hope to see.

However, civic freedoms are under assault across the world. Data released by the CIVICUS Monitor in its People Power Under Attack report — which rates and tracks respect for fundamental freedoms in 196 countries — shows that compared to the previous year, twice as many people are living in countries where the freedoms of association, peaceful assembly, and expression are being violated.

In Asia, the percentage of people living in countries with closed, repressed or obstructed civic space is now at 95 percent. There has been growing intolerance for dissent in this region and states are increasingly using restrictive laws or intimidation tactics to muzzle activists and critics. In the past year, numerous Asian governments – from Pakistan to Hong Kong – used excessive force to disrupt protests, while civil society organisations critical of the authorities faced smear campaigns or were forced to shut down.

This has made the Asian region an extremely repressive and dangerous place for journalists and media outlets to operate. Many seeking to expose human rights violations and corruption by those in power, or who try to amplify voices critical of the state, often put themselves in harm’s way.

Journalists are also being criminalised in many countries in Asia for their reporting. In the Philippines, Maria Ressa, executive editor of news website Rappler, which has published extensively on abuses in President Duterte’s ‘war on drugs,’ has faced baseless cases of tax evasion and libel. In Myanmar, authorities have repeatedly targeted journalists, while in Cambodia, Prime Minister Hun Sen has attempted to silence the few remaining independent journalists and media outlets in the country. Cambodian Radio Free Asia journalists, Yeang Sothearin and Uon Chhin, continue to face fabricated espionage charges since 2017 for their reporting, despite the lack of any credible evidence against them.

Even in a country like India, where the press has played a crucial role in protecting the country’s democracy since its independence, journalists now feel under attack. Kishorechandra Wangkhem, a journalist from Manipur, spent a year in prison under the draconian National Security Act for posting a video on social media criticising the ruling party.

Governments are also increasing the use of censorship to block the flow of news in the Asian region.

The Chinese Communist Party is the main perpetrator as it continues to expand its censorship regime, blocking critical media outlets and social media sites. In Bangladesh, the authorities have blocked Al Jazeera and numerous other news portals and websites critical of the state. While in countries like Singapore, the authorities have targeted independent news websites such as The Online Citizen, to suppress its critical reporting. States also have used internet shutdowns to block reporting, for example, in places like Indian-administered Kashmir, in Chin and Rakhine states in Myanmar, and in West Papua in Indonesia.

Across Asia, journalists are also facing physical attacks, threats and intimidation from the authorities and other non-state actors. Afghanistan remains one of the most dangerous countries for journalists. Dozens of journalists have been attacked by security forces and members of armed groups. Ten journalists were shot dead in 2019 by unknown gunmen and some were abducted by armed groups.

In the Philippines there is a culture of impunity around attacks and killing of journalists, with perpetrators rarely held to account. In 2019, radio journalist Eduardo Dizon, who often reported on corruption, was shot dead while on his way home in Kidapawan City after hosting a daily news commentary show. He sustained five gunshot wounds when two gunmen on a motorcycle stopped beside his car at a corner and shot him.

Journalists are also going missing. Shafiqul Islam Kajol, a leading Bangladeshi photojournalist and newspaper editor, is believed to have been forcibly disappeared on 10 March, a day after defamation charges were filed against him by an influential ruling party lawmaker.

These threats to press freedom are being exacerbated as we combat the COVID-19 pandemic. As governments attempt to control the narrative, combat misinformation and silence criticism, journalists are in the firing line.

In February, Chinese freelance journalist Li Zehua went missing. He had traveled to Wuhan from Beijing to report on the COVID-19 outbreak and had posted a video saying that a local neighbourhood committee had not carried out the basic countermeasures promised by authorities and had also tried to cover up information about infected cases in the community.

In the Philippines, two journalists were charged in early April for spreading “false information” about the country’s COVID-19 crisis. While in Cambodia, police arrested a journalist, Sovann Rithy, for quoting the country’s prime minister who spoke about the economic consequences of COVID-19. The authorities also revoked the license for Rithy’s news site.

Most recently, in a blatant attempt to use the pandemic to intimidate a leading media outlet in India, Siddharth Varadarajan, founding editor of The Wire, was charged for reporting on a government minister violating the country’s coronavirus lockdown. These cases highlight a worrying trend that must be checked before it deteriorates further.

Therefore, it is crucial now more than ever for us to push back on these attacks and restrictions to press freedom. Individuals and their communities cannot protect themselves against disease when information is denied to them. The protection of the media is a protection of the public’s right to information. As we mark this important day for press freedom, we must ensure that journalism thrives and plays its essential role of informing the public and holding officials accountable.

• Josef Benedict is a Civic Space Researcher with CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance. He covers Asia-Pacific.

The post World Press Freedom Day: The Assault on Media Freedom in Asia Worsens During COVID-19 Pandemic appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By External Source
Apr 29 2020 (IPS)

MEDIA WORLDWIDE is facing crises on multiple fronts, exacerbated by the COVID19 pandemic. Reporters without Borders released its 2020 World Press Freedom Index on April 21st, noting that the Coronavirus is being used by authoritarian governments to implement “shock doctrine” measures that would be impossible in normal times.

The index shows a “clear correlation between suppression of media freedom in response to the Coronavirus pandemic, and a country’s ranking in the Index.” Of the 180 countries and territories in the index, Iran (ranked at 173) censored their Coronavirus outbreaks extensively. Iraq, at 162, punished Reuters for an article that questioned official pandemic figures, and Hungary (ranked at 89) has just passed a coercive Coronavirus Law.

The long-term risks of suppressing press freedoms have been exposed by the pandemic. As the death toll mounts amidst an economic crisis of unprecedented proportions, promoting transparent reporting is a global necessity. Yet, several countries stand accused of acting too late in warning the world about the timing and extent of the threat.

The World Press Freedom Index illustrates the oppression of journalists from North to South and a pandemic in its own right seems to have fomented.

 

 

In Myanmar, Voice of Myanmar’s editor was arrested recently and charged with terrorism for interviewing a representative of the Arakan Army, a rebel group fighting for regional autonomy.

Even the president of the world’s most powerful democracy has described the press as “the enemy of the people.”

Ultimately, the freedom of the press can only be guaranteed by a coordinated global effort, public awareness and a focus on the long-term advantages of a more critical world.

This year’s World Press Freedom Day aims to do just that, under the theme of “Journalism Without Fear or Favour.” It calls for awareness on specific issues about the safety of journalists, their independence from political or commercial influence, and gender equality in all aspects of the media.

In the words of Albert Camus, “…without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad.”

 

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Rights groups say coronavirus restrictions are leaving vulnerable trans people even more exposed.

Online retailer Jumia is struggling, a year after its debut on the New York Stock Exchange.

Andrés Chambouleyron is non-resident fellow at the Institute of the Americas

By Andrés Chambouleyron
BUENOS AIRES, Apr 28 2020 (IPS)

Electricity demand normally depends on such variables as retail electricity rates, daytime temperature, time and day of the week, economic activity and consumer type (i.e. residential, commercial, industrial, etc.).

During the period of the COVID-19 pandemic however, there have been dramatic quarantine policies enacted aimed at controlling the virus but with dire economic impacts. The extent of those economic impacts on energy have been widely reported in terms of fossil fuel consumption but what about the electric sector? Has there been a similar reduction in demand and consumption? Moreover, will it be permanent or more temporary?

A residential user will normally consume electricity between 6 pm when they come home after work and 8 am when they leave again peaking at 8 – 10 pm during dinner time. Commercial or industrial electricity demand by contrast will follow the economic activity of each sector during the hours of a typical business day.

The daily aggregate demand curve of both types of users will normally show a two-hump shape with peaks during noon and the evening hours when users go back home after their workday. Also, weekly demand curves will show peaks during weekdays and valleys during weekends reflecting high (low) business activity.

By adding up average daily consumption during a month one should see a curve with ups and downs reflecting high activity during weekdays and low activity during weekends as reflected in the graph below.

This shows total (daily) electricity consumption in Argentina between March 1 and April 22 in 2019 (grey backdrop behind) in contrast with total consumption during the same period in 2020 and broken down by distributors (blue curve) and large users (yellow curve) before and after the mandatory lockdown imposed by Argentina’s government on March 20, 2020.

The lockdown included all economic sectors with very few exceptions: manufacturing and sales of food and basic consumer goods and services.

 

 

From the simple observation of the graph above one can see that electricity consumption for both distributors and large users fell after the lockdown imposed on March 20, 2020. More precisely, by taking the difference between the average daily demand of the 10 working days after and those before lockdown, consumption by distribution companies fell by 18.2% and for large users by 32.4% (-20% totally). This reduction is starker after breaking down consumption by large users into 3 groups: food, retail sales and services, manufacturing and oil, gas and mining as shown in the following graph:

 

 

The difference between the average daily consumption of the 10 working days after and 10 before lockdown shows manufacturing demand falling by 50.6%, Food, Retail Sales and Services by 15.3% and Oil, Gas & Mining by 3.8%.

By taking the difference in consumption of the same number of (only) working days before and after lockdown we control for several variables. On the one hand retail rates, and on the other economic activity for we know that the latter takes on different values between working days and weekends.

Also, by using a relatively reduced number of working days (10 before and after) we control for another important variable that affects electricity demand: temperature. One can safely assume that temperature did not substantially change in the 20 days that we take as sample to assess the impact of lockdown on electricity demand. Indeed, the average temperature in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area fell from 21.6°C during the 10 days before lockdown to only 21.5°C after lockdown (-0.1°C).

Having now controlled for temperature, retail rates, economic activity and working days can we safely conclude that the mandatory lockdown caused a reduction in electricity consumption of the magnitudes already shown? Not yet.

The analysis is still incomplete because we need to know the trend that electricity consumption had before the 20 days under study. In other words, if electricity consumption was already falling at a rate of 10% before our 20 – day sample and continued falling at 10% after lockdown, can we conclude that lockdown caused that fall?

The answer is obviously not, absent the lockdown consumption still would have fallen by 10% and therefore lockdown would have had no impact on it whatsoever. To take that effect into consideration we need a control sample. Ideally, the control sample should show the exact same underlying variables that our test sample but – for the lockdown.

There are two possible ways of doing this, one is to project counterfactual consumption values beyond March 20, 2020 assuming no lockdown but with the same underlying variables (temperature, retail rates, economic activity, working days, etc.) as in reality. The other (much simpler) is to use the difference in consumption of the 10 working days after and before March 20,2019 and compare it with the actual reduction in 2020.

For the sake of simplicity, herewith the latter approach whose results that are shown as follows:

 

 

The table shows the actual 2020 reduction in electricity consumption but adjusted for what happened the same 20 days in 2019. For instance, after lockdown we observe a reduction in consumption by Distribution companies of 18,2% however this consumption was already falling by 1,7% during the same days the year before so the net impact of lockdown is the difference, –18,2% – (– 1,7%) = – 16,5% and the same for the rest of the sectors.

This approach should work well as long as there are no substantial differences in temperature and retail rates during both periods, which is the case.

In sum, after controlling for several relevant variables, the impact of mandatory lockdown in the consumption of electricity in Argentina was substantial, ranging from -48,4% in manufacturing to -32,5% in large-scale users to only -8% in Oil, Gas and Mining.

How much of that reduction will be permanent and how much of a more temporary nature? It’s hard to say however most of activities that do not involve the gathering or crowds will go back to normal as soon as the lockdown is lifted, the others (i.e. movies, concerts, restaurants and bars) may see a permanent reduction due to the change in social habits and norms.

 

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Excerpt:

Andrés Chambouleyron is non-resident fellow at the Institute of the Americas

The post Electricity Demand During Lockdown: Evidence from Argentina appeared first on Inter Press Service.

For many people agriculture is the only means of survival, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Marco V. Sánchez Cantillo
ROME, Apr 28 2020 (IPS)

Many uncertainties haunt the world’s campaign to counter the COVID-19 pandemic, but one thing is now sure: Global economic activity will suffer greatly, with large-scale consequences for the incomes and welfare of all, but especially for the most vulnerable food import-dependent countries.

In the absence of timely and effective policy responses, this will exacerbate an already unwelcome increase in the number of people who don’t have enough to eat.

Last year The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, the SDG2 monitoring report that the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) produces in collaboration with other UN partners, warned that economic slowdowns and downturns helped explain rising undernourishment levels in 65 of the 77 countries that recorded such rises between 2011 and 2017. The International Monetary Fund has just slashed its global gross domestic product forecast by a huge 6.3 percentage points, making FAO’s analysis all the more relevant as part of a worldwide toolkit to prevent the health crisis from triggering starvation.

In January, the IMF anticipated global GDP would expand by 3.3 percent, but in April, when much of the world was shutting down to contain contagion, it issued a new forecast of minus 3.0 percent. Sub-Saharan Africa, a region that is home to the world’s highest hunger rates and where the average age is around 20 years, must now brace for its first recession in a quarter of a century.

Analyzing data of food supply since 1995, linked to FAO’s statistical development of the prevalence of undernourishment (PoU) indicator, and correlating them to past local economic trends in countries that are net food importers, we find that millions of people are likely to join the ranks of the hungry as a result of the COVID-19-triggered recession.

That number will vary according to the severity of GDP growth contractions, ranging from 14.4 million to 80.3 million depending on the scenario, with the latter figure a truly devastating contraction of 10 percentage points in all 101 net food-importing countries’ GDP growth.

The actual outcome could be worse if current inequalities in access to food are worsened – something that absolutely should not be allowed to happen.

The world is not facing food shortages, which is why FAO has from the pandemic’s outset advocated that all countries must do their best to keep food supply chains alive. With the new estimates emerging from a strictly economic analysis – based on food supply and availability and not other central pillars of food security – FAO is emphasizing that all countries must also foster measures to protect people’s ability to access food that is locally, regionally and globally available.

The nexus between undernourishment and economic performance was already driving the world away from the goal of eradicating hunger by 2030. FAO’s global PoU number has been rising since 2015, albeit slowly, ending decades of decline. It is now around where it was in 2010, and undernutrition affects one in nine people globally, with much higher rates in large swathes of Africa and Asia.

Governments are rolling out unprecedented fiscal and monetary stimulus to conserve economic capital and support safety nets for the newly unemployed. Many countries lack the tools to deploy such liquidity injections and public spending commitments. The international community must facilitate their capacity to act, while these countries must exert fiscal responsibility and objectivity to reallocate their own resources along with assistance to the most urgent needs that the COVID-19 pandemic has created. Health is the first priority, but sufficient and healthy food is a central part of the health response to the pandemic. Inadequate action will also severely weaken vulnerable populations for years to come. This would make prospect of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals all the more difficult.

So not only must efforts focus on keeping food supply chains alive, but it’s imperative to focus on food accessibility for all. Governments have an opportunity to tackle this issue head on by targeting the required official stimulus packages to the poorest and undernourished. Tools such as cash and in-kind transfers, new credit lines, safety nets, food banks, keeping school-lunch programmes alive can be useful.

Keep in mind that emphatically focusing on “have nots” will have a doubly positive effect, both helping those most in need and maximizing the impact of public resource outlays on maintaining the dynamism of demand.

There could be a third positive effect as well: Minimizing outright hunger in ways that avoid food insecurity and malnutrition will reduce the long-term scars inflicted by the recession, fostering more vitality and less dependence in the future. Indeed, insofar as possible stimulus measures that tackle the current menace to food access should be designed with a view to start building the resilience of food systems to safeguard them against economic slowdowns and downturns in the future.

The post Understanding the Hunger Surge Caused by the COVID-19 Recession to Mitigate It Before It Is Too Late appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Marco V. Sánchez Cantillo Deputy-Director, Agricultural Development Economics Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

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The ex-PM and presidential hopeful Guillaume Soro was tried for embezzlement in absentia.

An international aid group warns that vulnerable countries need urgent help to avoid major outbreaks.

The two officers in Paris were filmed using an extremely offensive word for North Africans.

The authorities look at whether an apparent spike in deaths in the north is down to coronavirus.

Khetsiwe Tofile a small-scale vegetable farmer in her garden in Malkerns, Eswatini. Even during the COVID-19 lockdown she has been able to get her produce to market and continues to earn an income. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi/IPS

By Mantoe Phakathi
MALKERNS, Eswatini, Apr 28 2020 (IPS)

Nobukhosi Cebekhulu (68) and Khetsiwe Tofile (64) are small-scale vegetable farmers who are producing from their permaculture home gardens in Malkerns, Eswatini.

Proud that they are able to make a small contribution towards a healthy nation during the COVID19 pandemic, both women say they are happy that they can still continue to produce and sell vegetables without leaving their homes.

IPS found them waiting for transport outside Tofile’s home with basins of lettuce to be collected by the Guba Permaculture Training Centre.

“We don’t go to the shop to buy inputs but we use seedlings that we produce and share among ourselves,” Cebekhulu told IPS adding: “Our produce is collected from our homes and taken to the market.”

According to Cebekhulu, they are part of the Guba programme which introduced them to skills of producing food in a way that is rebuilding and strengthening the physical ecology around them. Guba is based in Malkerns – a small bustling town of farmland nestled at the heart of Eswatini’s middleveld – and promotes a regenerative lifestyle.

Run on a 100-percent solar system, Guba harvests rainwater for sanitation and irrigation, produces its own compost and seedlings. Guba runs a 12-month permaculture training programme building practical skills and knowledge for improving homestead food security and crop resilience.

Cebekhulu and Tofile were part of the 2014 class of 25 farmers who learnt to build a fence using scrap material and alien evasive plants. They were also taught to produce their own seeds, make compost and pesticides (they make the latter by mixing wild garlic, chillies, onion, soap and warm water) that are not harmful to the environment.  

“This doesn’t kill the pests but it chases them away,” Cebekhulu said. “Pesticides aren’t good for our health and the environment. They’re also expensive.”

While Guba initially supported the farmers to produce enough for their families, Tofile told IPS the centre later trained them on business management so that they could sell and generate an income. The farmers come from 10 chiefdoms within a radius of 20 kilometres from the centre.

“Guba collects the produce and sells it on our behalf,” Tofile said. “That’s why we don’t have to worry about leaving home during this period (COVID19 partial lockdown).”

Guba director, Sam Hodgson, said the year-long permaculture adult training programme is a response to the nutrition and poverty challenges in Eswatini. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi/IPS

Eswatini’s nutritional challenges

According to Guba director, Sam Hodgson, the year-long permaculture adult training programme is a response to the nutrition and poverty challenges in Eswatini.

Although 20 percent of Eswatini’s rural population experienced severe and acute food insecurity according to the 2019 Vulnerability Assessment Committee Report,  the country is making progress in meeting its nutritional needs. According to Musa Dlamini, the monitoring and evaluation officer at Eswatini Nutrition Council, children under five years old with stunting stands at 25.5 percent.

“This is still high because we have to be less than 20 percent in terms of the WHO [World Health Organisation] standards,” Dlamini told IPS. “We’ve made progress though because the figure dropped from around 30 percent in previous years.”

In the same age group, children with wasting are at about 2 percent and underweights are at 5 percent, which is acceptable in terms of WHO standards.

“We use children under 5 to measure nutrition in the country,” said Dlamini.

He said COVID19 might reverse progress though following the fact that people might lose their source of income during the partial lockdown period. Already, 63 percent of the total population of 1.3 million are poor, according to the United Nations World Food Programme.

Guba participants spend two to three days a month at the centre after which they apply what they have learnt at their homes. They acquire skills to harvest water, make compost, mulching, plant perennial species of trees and design their production cycle according to the four seasons. 

“We encourage the farmers to use material that they already have at home,” Hodgson told IPS. “That’s why we don’t expect them to buy new fencing material or tools. We’re adding value to the agriculture they’re already practising.”

Adapting to climate change

Hodgson said this programme is helping farmers acquire skills to cope with erratic rainfall as an adaptation strategy to climate change.

According to Dr. Deepa Pullanikkatil, a consultant based at the Coordinating Assembly of NGOs (CANGO) and co-director at Sustainable Futures in Africa, permaculture helps farmers to adapt to changing climate using sustainable farming practises which mimic nature.

“The practise produces healthy organic crops which can improve their incomes thereby enhancing their adaptive capacity,” Pullanikkatil told IPS.

She said, in permaculture, farmers harvest and conserve water, which is an adaptation strategy particularly because the country is experiencing erratic rainfall patterns due to climate change. Farmers also use low or no tillage methods and composting which are all great for soil fertility. Low tillage frees up time and it is less costly than hiring labour or tractors.

“This also has co-benefits to climate mitigation because of permanent crops, trees grown in the farm and low tillage practices contribute to carbon sequestration,” she said.

Garden farming equates healthy nutrition

Guba also supports the farmers with eating habits that promote a healthy lifestyle such as cooking that retains nutrients and adjusting the composition of the plate according to the right amount of starch, protein and vegetables.

The Barilla Centre for Food and Nutrition (BCFN) also promotes healthy and sustainable dietary patterns and sustainable ways of producing food. According to the Food Sustainability Index, created by the BCFN and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), sub-Saharan Africa is home to the world’s hungriest populations. It also states that when it comes to countries addressing nutritional challenges “best practices might be found in smart regulation, whether that means educating consumers on healthy eating, discouraging unhealthy consumption patterns or requiring foods to contain certain vitamins and minerals”.

“What we’ve learnt about our farmers is that after participating in our programme, they visit the clinic less often because of the health benefits from the food they eat and how they eat it,” said Hodgson.

From garden to market

Guba also realised that one of the farmers’ challenges was money to pay school fees for their children and cater for other needs. Therefore, the centre decided to train some of the interested farmers to produce for the market. Hodgson described Guba as “an ethical middle-man” that supports the farmers to produce high-quality organic vegetables and sells it on their behalf to surrounding restaurants.

“We collect, repack and deliver,” said Hodgson. “This area (Malkerns) has a large middle-class population and many restaurants who buy the fresh produce that is delivered on the same day of harvest.”

This project earned about $1,100 from the sale of vegetables. Each farmer makes about $200 per month.

During the COVID-19 partial lockdown, which the Government introduced in March, all Guba restaurant customers had to close overnight. In response to this sudden loss of market, Guba opened a farm stall at the centre.

“After four weeks of operating the farm stall, three days a week. We’re doing well. Sales are increasing and customer feedback is very positive,” said Hodgson. 

This means Guba continues to buy produce from the farmers even during the COVID19 period thus keeping their income stream open and, at the same time, supplying fresh produce to the local community. 

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Excerpt:

During the COVID-19 partial lockdown in Eswatini, garden farmers say they are proud that they are able to make a small contribution towards a healthy nation during the pandemic.

The post COVID-19 – How Eswatini’s Garden Farmers are Keeping the Vegetable Supply Flowing appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By N Chandra Mohan
NEW DELHI, Apr 28 2020 (IPS)

The defining images of South Asia’s battle against Covid-19 are hundreds of thousands of migrants, many with children on their shoulders, trudging from New Delhi, Kathmandu or Dhaka to their far-flung villages. They are daily wage earners engaged in construction, small enterprises, plying rickshaws or street selling in the informal sector. With lockdowns and economic activity shut down to combat the virus, these migrants lost their low-paying jobs and were forced to flee to their rural homes. Those who remained in these cities face food insecurity, rising joblessness and risk falling deeper into poverty.

South Asia faces a major livelihoods crisis as the bulk of migrant employment in India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh is informal. India has roughly 80% of its people or 200-odd million workers in the informal sector engaged in non-agricultural activities. This is the third disruptive shock faced by the informal sector after currency notes were suddenly withdrawn from circulation in November 2016 and a Goods and Services Tax introduced in July 2017. The share of the informal sector is higher at 91% in Bangladesh, followed by 78% in Nepal and 71% in Pakistan according to the International Labour Organisation.

“Covid-19 is likely to reverse many years, if not decades, of gains in poverty reduction and will widen inequalities further,” Dr Nagesh Kumar, Director and Head of South Asia, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific told IPS. South Asia thus cannot afford to have the worst of both worlds: a viral pandemic with rising joblessness and poverty that heighten risks of social unrest. Migrants must be brought back to work in the cities, especially in the informal sector, as the rate of unemployment has hit 26% in India. Pakistan expects 12.3 to 18.5 million people will be jobless with a “moderate to severe” Covid-19 outbreak.

As South Asian economies do not have the fiscal space to move towards a universal social protection to cover migrants, governments must save livelihoods by restarting the economy. India, for its part, has begun to gradually ease up agriculture and industry in non-Covid-19 affected zones. Others in the region too face similar compulsions. Garment exports of Bangladesh and Pakistan have been impacted by closed borders. Tourism has dried up, hitting smaller economies like Nepal. As people are advised to stay at home, retail outlets and restaurants experience fewer footfalls, affecting the region’s services sector.

The bad news is also that South Asian migrants abroad, especially in West Asia, are facing serious challenges of supporting themselves and want to return home. The South Asia- Gulf corridor has been one of the world’s fastest growing migration corridors. But times are a-changing. Oil futures collapsed below zero for the first time on April 20!
Oil-producing countries are employing more local labour than migrants. Travel restrictions are also being imposed, with prospects of returning conditional on medical certificates. Post Covid-19, the nightmarish prospect is for return migration that can only deepen the gloom in the region.

“These factors portend a far bigger and long-lasting crisis in the South Asia-Gulf corridor, even more than during the Gulf war and global economic crisis” stated Dr S Irudaya Rajan, Chair Professor, Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs Research Unit on International Migration at the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram to IPS.

Remittances have been an important source of foreign exchange, equivalent to 25% of Nepal’s gross domestic product. In the Indian state of Kerala, the share of remittances is higher at 30% of GDP! Lower remittances will devastate their economies. The ranks of the jobless would swell when these migrants return.

With declining remittances, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh would also register higher imbalances in goods and services trade with the rest of the world than otherwise. Financing this gap will be a serious policy concern as foreign direct investment inflows are declining in these Covid-19 times. So, too, are portfolio investments that rise in
good times and fall in bad times. Research has established that remittances augment savings and investments of recipient households and help in poverty reduction. If such inflows reduce as expected over the near-term, they would worsen distributional outcomes in South Asia.

In the war against Covid-19, South Asia is persisting with national lockdowns — with the most severe one in India to a less restrictive one in Pakistan — to buy time by checking the virus’s transmission. This strategy will be efficacious if it is utilised wisely to beef up public health infrastructure. This is the best time to close the gaps in healthcare provision so that there is greater resilience to disasters. However, the fear is that “if Covid-19’s spread is not contained, due to herd immunity or high temperatures, a HUGE human security catastrophe may engulf the region” warned Commodore Uday Bhaskar, Director, Society for Policy Studies in Delhi.

 

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By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Apr 28 2020 (IPS)

The Covid-19 pandemic is now widely considered more threatening than any other recent viral epidemic. Most believe that many more have been infected or even died than officially confirmed.

Despite available information, some national leaders believed that the epidemic would not affect them. Others believed that promoting ‘herd immunity’ would protect populations by exposing them to the virus, triggering human immune systems to produce antibodies.

Flattening the curve?
The principal strategy adopted by most governments is to ‘flatten the curve’, so that countries’ health systems can cope with new infections by tracing, testing, isolating and treating those infected until such time that an approved vaccine or ‘cure’ is available to all.

But this is easier said than done. Vulnerability to infection and capacity to respond depend on many factors including healthcare system preparedness, experience and ability in managing viral outbreaks besides the specific challenges raised by Covid-19.

Government capacity to respond depends crucially on system capacity and capabilities — e.g., authorities’ ability to speedily trace, isolate and treat the infected — and available fiscal resources — e.g., to quickly enhance testing capacity and secure personal protective equipment.

But funding cuts, privatization and other types of rent-seeking in recent decades — in the face of rising costs, not least for medicines — have constrained and undermined most public health systems, albeit on various different pretexts.

Early action without lockdowns
Physical distancing, mask use and other precautionary measures as well as mass testing, tracing, isolation and treatment have checked the epidemic without lockdowns. Such measures have been quite successful so far in much of East Asia, Vietnam and the Indian state of Kerala.

Physical distancing and other precautionary measures, such as wearing masks in public areas, will be critically necessary until a vaccine is affordably available to all. Even the availability of a cure will not obviate the need for prevention offered by a vaccine.

Precautionary measures must be appropriate and affordable. To minimize the risk of infection, authorities can encourage and enable, if not require, changes in social interactions, including work and other public space arrangements, including offices, factories, shops, public transportation and classrooms.

Lockdowns: enforced, extended physical distancing
Since Wuhan, many governments have resorted to various types of ‘stay-in-shelter’ ‘lockdowns’ to enforce physical distancing for protracted periods to try to ‘circuit-break’ transmission. They buy precious time, for complementary interventions, allowing health authorities to check and reverse the spread of infections.

Anis Chowdhury

Besides enforcing extended physical distancing through lockdowns, appropriate complementary measures are needed for lockdowns to work. Testing, treating and quarantining the infected need to be complemented by tracing to identify those more likely to be infected.

But it has to be acknowledged that lockdowns are only part of an array of measures available to authorities to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic. Lockdowns are blunt measures of last resort, often due to the failure, inadequacy or delay of precautionary ‘early actions’. And ‘if you only have a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail’.

A lockdown was deemed necessary to deal with the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan, and the surrounding three provinces, after other measures to deal with the novel epidemic seemed ‘too little, too late’. But in most other situations, adequate appropriate early precautionary measures may well have proved enough.

Lockdowns should not be economic knockouts
Depending on context, lockdowns have many other effects as well. Good planning, implementation and enforcement of movement restrictions and provisioning for all adversely affected are crucial, not only for efficacy, but also for transitions before, during and after.

Nonetheless, lockdowns typically incur huge economic costs, distributed unevenly in economies and societies. Governments must therefore be mindful of the costs, including of disruptions, and also of how policies affect various people differently.

The effectiveness of a lockdown has to be judged primarily by its ability to quickly ‘flatten the curve’ and ensure no resurgence of infections. Success should not be measured by duration, enforcement stringency or even by unsustainable declines in new cases.

Most ‘casual’ labourers, petty businesses reliant on daily cash turnover and others in the ‘informal’ economy will find it especially difficult to survive extended lockdowns. Although they need more relief support than most, they are often difficult for governments to reach.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Those living in cramped conditions, e.g., urban slums, cannot realistically be expected to practice consistent physical distancing, but will nonetheless need to be enabled to sustainably practice other precautionary measures within their modest means, e.g., using washable masks.

Governance, mobilization, leadership
To enhance efficacy and minimize disruptions, an ‘all of government’ approach at all levels needs to be developed, involving much more than public health and police enforcement authorities.

Human resource, social protection, transport, education, media, industry, fiscal and other relevant authorities need to be appropriately engaged to develop the various required transitions and to plan for the post-lockdown ‘new normal’.

Another condition for success is ‘whole of society’ mobilization and support. Government transparency and explanations for various measures undertaken are important for public understanding, cooperation, support and legitimacy.

The authorities must also realize how measures will be seen. Singapore’s apparent early success, for example, was not what it seemed as it had overlooked official disincentives for possibly infected migrant workers to cooperate.

Appropriate enhanced public health and other relevant communications and education will often need to be quickly developed to succeed. The efficacy and consequences of a ‘lockdown’ and related measures are contingent on public appreciation of the challenges and the ability of societies to respond appropriately with socio-economic, cultural and behavioural changes.

While the Covid-19 crisis is undoubtedly exceptional and full social mobilization is needed, such special ‘wartime’ measures must not be abused, e.g., by the temptation to bias implementation of measures for political advantage. Success can thus be greatly enabled by legitimate, credible and exemplary leadership, government and otherwise.

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Credit: CPJ

By Yegi Rezaian
WASHINGTON DC, Apr 28 2020 (IPS)

In 2014 my husband and I were arrested in my native country, Iran, for the crime of working as journalists. I spent 72 days in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, all of them in solitary confinement.

What I lived through during that time, years ago, compels me to speak out now in support of journalists who are behind bars at a moment when their communities need them most, during a public health pandemic where access to information is essential to combating the deadly virus.

Journalists will not provide the cure for coronavirus, but explaining the destructive rampage it’s on and ways to reduce the disease’s ability to spread, is an essential service that would be in the national security interests of every country that instead has journalists languishing in jail.

After our home was raided by security agents and we were taken, blindfolded and handcuffed, I was immediately placed in a tiny cell that was infested with cockroaches. I was given a set of prison clothes that had not been washed after the previous owner finished with them; I could smell her, whoever she was, the moment I put them on.

My cell had no toilet or sink, and I only had access to them when my guards felt like giving it to me. I was not allowed to shower for the first twelve days of my captivity.

Obviously, there is no good prison in the world. Short of execution, long term imprisonment is the most severe form of punishment, and in most parts of the world it’s intended, at least in part, to demean the people being held.

For political prisoners, which jailed journalists almost unanimously qualify as, a stripping of dignity is invariably a key part of the process.

In prison I had no way of maintaining good hygiene or avoiding malnutrition. There was no access to vitamins, clean water or fresh air. Psychological pressure leads to stress levels that are unimaginably higher than the ones we experience in our normal lives.

In such an environment, rest doesn’t come easy. Attempting to sleep on the ground, with only filthy blankets as cover and the lights that were turned on 24 hours a day made it nearly impossible.

Imagine the increased risks posed by such circumstances with a fast moving and lethal virus on the loose in confined spaces. One becomes immuno-compromised by default the moment they are imprisoned.

In prison there are no adequate medical supplies or doctors to administer them. If a country is being decimated by the coronavirus right now, as Iran, China and Turkey are for example, the risks for prisoners increase exponentially. Especially in overpopulated public wards.

It is a disheartening irony that those prisoners currently being held in solitary confinement, as I once was, may actually be safer than those in general prison populations.

In the confined spaces of prison, one’s mind works over time. You are constantly worried about your loved ones in the outside world and they for you. With a pandemic spreading day by day, the sense of hopelessness imprisoned journalists are experiencing today for me is palpable.

Adding to that strain is the decision, however wise it may be, by most prisons to indefinitely suspend in person visits to inmates.

At a time when journalists could be helping to slow the spread of the virus by educating the public, too many are languishing behind bars, at least 250 according to the latest figures from the Committee to Protect Journalists where I work.

Many of them are ill and are not provided adequate access to healthcare. All of them are colleagues unjustly imprisoned for their work.

The imperative to ensure the safety of fellow journalists no matter where they are or what they cover drives my work at CPJ. In the current circumstances that means protecting their health, too.

This is why I join with colleagues from around the world in asking leaders to release journalists they are holding in prison. Doing so would be good for the world at a time when cooperation at all levels of society is desperately needed.

 

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Excerpt:

Yegi Rezaian is Advocacy Associate at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)

 
The international community will commemorate World Press Freedom Day on May 3—which was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly back in December 1993, following a recommendation by the UNESCO's General Conference.

The post As Coronavirus Spreads, No Journalist Should be Sidelined in Prison appeared first on Inter Press Service.

What Africa countries are doing to help people to eat amid the lockdowns.