Africa

By SWAN
Apr 10 2020 (IPS-Partners)

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has announced it is “launching initiatives” to support cultural industries and cultural heritage, sectors hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“COVID-19 has put many intangible cultural heritage practices, including rituals and ceremonies, on hold, impacting communities everywhere,” the organization stated April 9. “It has also cost many jobs, and across the globe, artists … are now unable to make ends meet.”

UNESCO’s Director-General Audrey Azoulay. Credit: UNESCO/Calix

Governments ordered the lockdown of museums, theatres, cinemas and other cultural institutions (along with schools) as infections from the new coronavirus spread around the world in March and April – resulting in 95,000 deaths as of April 9. (The victims have included cultural icons such as playwright Terrence McNally and musicians Manu Dibango, Ellis Marsalis Jr, and John Prine.)

Many arts businesses will find it economically difficult to recover, officials have acknowledged. Bookshops too have had to close their doors, while publishers have largely postponed the publication of books. Numerous international visual-art, literary and music events have been cancelled as well, including the UNESCO-sponsored International Jazz Day main concerts, which were scheduled to take place in South Africa April 30.

The UN had already launched measures to assist the estimated 1.5 billion students affected by school closures, but this is the first time its cultural agency has directly addressed the impact on the arts.

“UNESCO is committed to leading a global discussion on how best to support artists and cultural institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond, and ensuring everyone can stay in touch with the heritage and culture that connects them to their humanity,” stated UNESO’s Director General Audrey Azoulay on Thursday.

The agency (whose headquarters in Paris remain closed, in line with French lockdown rules) will convene a virtual meeting of the world’s culture ministers on April 22, to discuss the impact of COVID-19 in their countries and to “identify remedial policy measures appropriate to their various national contexts”.

UNESCO’s Paris headquarters are closed during France’s lockdown. Credit: SWAN

This follows an emergency online meeting of education ministers hosted on March 10, and a meeting of science ministries’ representatives on March 30. Earlier this month, the organization introduced a “CodeTheCurve” Hackathon to “support young innovators, data scientists and designers across the world to develop digital solutions to counter the COVID-19 pandemic”. The Hackathon will run until April 30, in partnership with IBM and SAP, UNESCO said.

For culture, the organization said it was launching an international social media campaign, #ShareOurHeritage and initiating an online exhibition of “dozens of heritage properties across the globe”, with technical support from Google Arts & Culture.

It will give information via its website and social media on the impact of COVID-19 on World Heritage sites, which are partly or fully closed to visitors in most countries because of the pandemic.

Children around the world will be invited to share drawings of World Heritage properties, giving them the chance to “express their creativity and their connection to heritage”, UNESCO added.

On World Art Day, 15 April 2020, the organization will partner with musician and Goodwill Ambassador Jean Michel Jarre to host an online debate and social media campaign, the “ResiliArt Debate”. This will bring together “artists and key industry actors to sound the alarm on the impact of COVID-19 on the livelihoods of artists and cultural professionals”, UNESCO said.

The Eiffel Tower is one of many World Heritage sites closed to the public during the pandemic. Credit: SWAN

It remains to be seen how these initiatives will help the cultural and creative sectors, which provide some 30 million jobs worldwide. Many artists have reported dire circumstances, but many are also using their creativity to deal with the situation.

Since the health crisis started, artists have been providing online concerts, sharing artwork digitally and taking other steps to reach out to audiences, as “billions of people around the world turn to culture for comfort and to overcome social isolation”, to use UNESCO’s words.

“Now, more than ever, people need culture,” said Ernesto Ottone Ramirez, assistant UNESCO director-general for the sector.

“Culture makes us resilient. It gives us hope. It reminds us that we are not alone,” he added.

For an earlier article on the impact of COVID-19 on cultural and creative industries, please see: http://www.ipsnews.net/2020/03/arts-culture-trying-keep-lights-amid-covid-19/

Follow SWAN’s founder on Twitter: @mckenzie_ale

The post Unesco to Support Cultural Sector Hit by COVID-19 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Wuhan City. Credit: UNESCO

By Manuel Manonelles
BARCELONA, Apr 10 2020 (IPS)

We have long speculated on the moment when the shift of global leadership from the United States to China would take place. From Washington to Beijing for the political power, from New York to Shanghai for the economic one. It seems that we are witnessing it now.

Some saw the Beijing Olympics (2008) and especially its opening ceremony as an attempt by China to display this new reality. Others saw it later, with the creation of the Asian Investment and Infrastructure Bank (2015), as opposed to the Bretton Woods system (IMF and World Bank) that for decades has been a fundamental pillar of North American hegemony.

A certain truce came with Obama and Xi Jinping, with some sort of a de facto confirmation of a new bipolar global regime. A regime that, even if temporary, could punctually have some positive effects for global governance, such as the two leaders’ pact on climate change that made the Paris Agreement feasible, also in 2015.

However, with the arrival of Trump and his “Make America Great Again”, the escalation of this quarrel for global leadership increased in both speed and visibility. The most relevant examples, so far, are the trade war between the two countries -with the World Trade Organization as a hostage-; or the open battle over the control of 5G, with the Huawei controversy at its the core.

Manuel Manonelles.

Others examples are less obvious to general opinion, but a matter of debate in specialised settings. An example is the full-fledged offensive that China has made to increase its presence and influence in the multilateral system. Obtaining important first-level positions, but also second level postings key to influence these institutions, in the face of the neglect of the early years of the Trump administration.

One case is that of Geneva, where the US administration has vacated for more than three years the position of ambassador of this key place, the city with most diplomatic activity in the world. Three long years has taken to the State Department to realize the space that China and other powers were gaining by taking advantage of the US “empty seat” policy.

They did so by appointing a new high political-profile ambassador in November last year. However, the positions of the battles for the future of the WTO or the leadership of the International Telecommunication Union (key in the management of satellite orbits, the management of radio space or digital world governance) were already well advanced at that time.

History is capricious, and again the unexpected ends up precipitating Copernican changes. No one expected the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914 with the chain of fatalities that would follow.

Nor could be expected that a clumsy press conference on the afternoon of November 9, 1989 would lead to the Berlin Wall immediate collapse; something that none of the Western intelligence agencies had anticipated.

Then, between November and the beginning of last December something happened in the Huanan market, in the city of Wuhan. It seems that the first case occurred on November 17. But it was not until December 31 that an “outbreak of an unknown pneumonia” in this city was reported to the World Health Organisation.

The Huanan market was closed down on January 1. The following day the new virus was confirmed, with the technical name of SARS-CoV-2. On January 16, Japan reported the first case, on the 17th, Thailand did.

The 21st was Taiwan and the United States. On the 24th, France reported the first three cases within the EU, the number of countries increased as the first border closures took place, especially in countries bordering China.

On January 30 the WHO declared an International Public Health Emergency, the same day that Italy reported its first case; the next day it was Spain at the same time that the virus was already spread in India, Russia, the Philippines or Australia. On March 11 the WHO declared the global pandemic and, while the world trembles, global leadership transits.

On March 20, while the White House or Downing Street were still flirting with denialism in relation to COVID-19, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced a plan to support 82 countries in their fight against this virus.

Two weeks later, as the virus wreaked havoc on hospitals on both coasts in the United States, and the British Prime Minister was admitted to the ICU, 18 countries in central and western Africa had already received hundreds of tons of Chinese donations of medical supplies, and 17 more were waiting to receive them in a matter of days. Pakistan, South Korea, Spain or Italy are other countries that have received help. In the latter, this help was not only of material, but accompanied by experts and medical staff.

Putin’s Russia also took advantage of the pandemic in the first weeks to project its role as international power; by sending military personnel to Italy – in a context of astonishing silence and blockage of the European institutions- or aid in health supplies to his “friend” Trump.

And even as COVID-19 spreads through Moscow and other cities and regions of the Federation these rather symbolic activities continue. Turkey also tried, by responding to Spain’s NATO urgency request, but soon changed its policy once they realised how the situation was deteriorating in Ankara and Istanbul.

It is too early to evaluate the full scope of COVID-19. In fact, no one can really assert at this point what the evolution and global impact of the pandemic will be, neither in terms of public health, nor in its humanitarian, social or economic dimensions.

The outlook is not good, and particularly worrisome is the uncertain effect that this pandemic will have in less developed countries, considering how it is affecting higher-income ones.

However, it is quite clear that this will be a turning point in terms of global governance and hegemony. Once again, the arbitrariness of history precipitates change. The strategists, the intelligence agencies, the think tanks that for years have debated and conspired from Langley through Georgetown, Xijuan or Gouguan had not foreseen what would end up igniting in a provincial market in Wuhan.

But what does seems plausible is that, in the midst of such drama, we are witnessing the hanging over of global hegemony.

 

The post Hegemony Shift in Times of COVID-19 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Manuel Manonelles is Associate Professor of International Relations, Blanquerna/University Ramon Llull, Barcelona

The post Hegemony Shift in Times of COVID-19 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Courtesy: WaterAid/ CS Sharada Prasad/ Safai Karmachari Kavalu Samiti

By External Source
NEW DELHI, Apr 10 2020 (IPS)

In addition to healthcare professionals, there is another group of people at the frontlines of the global crisis caused by COVID-19. They put their lives at risk every day and play a critical role in preventing the spread of the virus, by ensuring our streets, parks, public spaces, sewers, septic tanks, communities, and public toilets are kept clean and hygienic.

They are our often-overlooked sanitation workers. These five million public health and safety workers—who continue to work through the COVID-19 pandemic—are unprotected, stigmatised, unappreciated, and seen as people to be shunned.

One of the biggest challenges they face is that they have no information about affected households, nor about those who are at high risk. If they contract the virus, they have very little recourse to health safety nets, insurance, or access to already overflowing public health facilities.

This is particularly stark for women sanitation workers, who make up more than 50 percent of urban sanitation workers.

 

What needs to be done to ensure the health and safety of these essential workers?

 

Provide protective equipment

While we recognise that frontline staff in hospitals and health facilities face a dire shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE), the need of the hour is also to find ways to provide sanitation workers with the following necessities: masks (at the very least, double-layered stitched cloth masks), rubber gloves, aprons, protective footwear or boots, sanitiser, and soap.

In Maharashtra, the government has allowed all Urban Local Bodies to use the Fourteenth Finance Commission funds to purchase PPE for sanitation workers, and allowed sanitation workers to work in shifts. In Telangana, self-help groups (SHGs) have been roped in to produce masks for sanitation workers.

Provide financial support

This can be done both at individual and organisational levels.

• Protection of salaries: An advisory has been issued by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs stating that the salaries of sanitation workers must be protected if they are unable to report to duty due to lockdown.
• Allocation of CSR funds to organisations that work with sanitation workers: The Ministry of Corporate Affairs has declared that CSR funds may be utilised for activities related to COVID-19 including preventive healthcare, sanitation, and disaster management.

While such efforts by government at national, state, and city levels are welcome, they do not reach all the five million sanitation workers in India.

 

Offer support at a local level

Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) should ensure that sanitation workers who work in their localities have proper PPE. If required, funds can be collected at a local level to ensure that workers have proper safety gear. RWAs can also support the sanitation workers’ organisations to ensure that all sanitation workers are provided health insurance and regular health checks. MPs, MLAs, and municipal councilors have annual funds available for development in their respective constituencies and can be encouraged to allocate amounts from these for the welfare of sanitation workers.

 

Provide access to food and boarding facilities

In Chennai, sanitation workers are provided free meals at Amma Canteens. Local communities could also pool resources to ensure that sanitation workers have access to food and other supplies. This will ensure that they do not have to worry about providing for their families while they are at their jobs.

In terms of helping them self-isolate, to keep their families safe, state governments should explore the option of providing sanitation workers with boarding in designated hostels and residential facilities. The Delhi government has undertaken a similar step, wherein hotel rooms have been rented for doctors who do not want to go home for the fear of infecting their families with COVID-19.

Finally, it is important to raise the profile of sanitation workers—just like we do with all the other health workers—and pay them their due respect, acknowledging their importance as frontline warriors.

Because, just as the nation’s health workers tirelessly work to save lives, our sanitation workers have also been working in every ward and mohalla to ensure that we remain safe and healthy. It is time for all of us to recognise this.

 

The authors are members of the National Faecal Sludge and Septage Management (NFSSM) Alliance.

 

Abhinav Akhilesh is a director with a leading consulting firm in India, in the human and social services practice. 

Meera Mehta is a Professor Emerita at CEPT University, Ahmedabad, and executive director of its Centre of Water and Sanitation (C-WAS)

Zara Juneja is a consultant, working with partners across the urban WASH and communities sectors in India. 

 

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

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Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

By External Source
Apr 10 2020 (IPS)

The World Health Organisation (WHO), in its quest to find efficacious therapies to treat COVID-19, plans to conduct a multi-arm, multi-country clinical trial. The trials have yet to begin, but ten countries have already signed up. Only one of them, South Africa, is on the African continent.

Of course, the WHO isn’t the only organisation trying to find treatments or even a vaccine for COVID-19. The United States National Institutes of Health maintains an online platform that lists all registered, ongoing clinical trials globally.

Africa’s virtual absence from the clinical trials map is a big problem. The continent displays an incredible amount of genetic diversity. If this diversity is not well represented in clinical trials, the trial findings cannot be generalised to large populations


On March 26, a quick search of the platform using the term “coronavirus” revealed 157 ongoing trials; 87 of these involve either a drug or a vaccine, while the rest are behavioural studies. Only three are registered in Africa – all of them in Egypt.

This low representation of African countries in clinical trials is not unusual. Poor visibility of existing sites, limited infrastructure and unpredictable clinical trial regulatory timelines are some of the key issues hindering investments in this area.

Africa’s virtual absence from the clinical trials map is a big problem. The continent displays an incredible amount of genetic diversity. If this diversity is not well represented in clinical trials, the trial findings cannot be generalised to large populations.

The same goes for the outcomes of the COVID-19 studies. They too may not be relevant for people in African countries unless conducted locally. This is because responses to drugs or vaccines are complicated and can be influenced by, among other things, human genetics: different people will respond differently to different drugs and vaccines.

More countries on the African continent must urgently get involved in clinical trials so that the data collected will accurately represent the continent at a genetic level.

Time is of the essence. The usual approach, of developing site or country specific protocols, won’t work. Instead, African governments need to look at ways to harmonise the response towards COVID-19 across the continent. Now, more than ever, African countries need to work together.

 

Centres of excellence

Africa does have clinical trial infrastructure and capabilities. But the resources remain unevenly distributed. The vast majority are in Egypt and South Africa. That’s because these countries have invested more heavily in research and development than others on the continent.

Traditionally, clinical trials are conducted at centres of excellence, which are sites that have the appropriate infrastructure and human skills necessary to conduct good quality trials. These can be located at a single university or research organisation, or work can be split between a few locations.

But setting up these centres requires significant time and financial investment. Most that I am aware of on the continent have developed over the years with heavy support from external partners or sponsors. In many cases, African governments have not been involved in these efforts.

Once such centres are set up, the hard work continues to maintain these centres and to ensure they’re able to attract clinical trial sponsors. They require continuous funding, the establishment of proper institutional governance and the creation of trusted, consistent networks.

Usually African scientists leading clinical trial sites can apply for funding to conduct a trial; if the site is well known the scientists may be approached by a sponsor such as a pharmaceutical company interested in conducting a trial.

Clearly this approach takes time and usually benefits well-known sites or triallists. So what alternatives are available in the face of an epidemic that’s moving as fast as COVID-19?

 

How to change direction

Key stakeholders should work together to expedite the rollout of trials in different countries. This would include inter-country collaborations such as working with different governments and scientists in co-designing trials; and providing harmonised guidelines on patient management, sample collection and tracking and sharing results in real time.

African governments, meanwhile, should provide additional funding to clinical research institutions and clinical trial sites. This would allow the sites to pull resources together and rapidly enrol patients to answer various research questions.

Because of the uneven distribution of skills and resources the continent should also adopt a hub-and-spoke model in its efforts. This would involve countries that don’t have much capacity being able to ship samples easily across borders for analysis in a centralised well-equipped laboratory, which then feeds back data to the country of sample origin.

Governments should also form a task force to quickly engage with key pharmaceutical companies with drug candidates for COVID-19. This team should establish the companies’ appetite for collaborations in conducting relevant trials on the continent.

Through all of this, it is necessary for stakeholders to identify and address key ethical issues that may arise. Ethics should not be compromised by haste.

 

Beyond COVID-19

Every country’s epidemic preparedness kit should contain funds set aside for clinical trials during epidemics or pandemics.

This would require governments on the continent to evaluate their role and level of investment in the general area of clinical trials. This will augment the quality and quantity of clinical trials in the face of the constant challenge of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases as well as a steady rise in non-communicable diseases.

On top of this, clinical trial centres, clinical research institutions and clinical triallists on the continent should strive to increase their visibility in the global space. This will make them easy to find in times of crisis, and enhance both south-south and north-south collaborations.

The African Academy of Sciences is currently building an online platform to facilitate this visibility and encourage greater collaboration.

 

Jenniffer Mabuka-Maroa, Programme Manager, African Academy of Sciences

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post Few Clinical Trials are Done in Africa: COVID-19 Shows Why this Urgently Needs to Change appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Evelyn Wanjiru has found a way to mark the Christian festival without setting foot in a church.

Sahle-Work Zewde is Ethiopia's first female president. Since coming to power in 2018, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has reorganised the cabinet to ensure that 50 percent of the government’s top ministerial positions have been given to women. Never before in Ethiopia have so many high-ranking government positions been held by women. Courtesy: UN Photo/Evan Schneider

By James Jeffrey
YORK, United Kingdom, Apr 10 2020 (IPS)

Recent gains by women in the Ethiopian political landscape offer a chance to improve gender equality around the country and put an end to long-standing societal iniquities.

Since coming to power in 2018, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has reorganised the cabinet to ensure that 50 percent of the government’s top ministerial positions have been given to women.

Sahle-Work Zewde became the country’s first female president, while Aisha Mohammed became the country’s first defence minister. Never before in Ethiopia have so many high-ranking government positions been held by women.

In 1991, the share of seats held by women in the Ethiopian parliament was under 3 percent. Today it stands at 38 percent, almost twice the ratio of women in the United States Congress.

But, at the same time, stark gender disparities persist all around the country. The hope is that improved representation in the federal government will tangibly affect and improve the status of Ethiopia’s more than 50 million women and girls.

“There is strong evidence that as more women are elected to office, there are more policies enacted that emphasise quality of life and reflect the priorities of families, women and minorities,” Katja Iversen, president of Women Deliver, an international organisation advocating around the world for gender equality and the health and rights of girls and women, tells IPS.

“Studies also show that women are more likely than men to work across party lines, help secure lasting peace, and prioritise health, education and other societal priorities key to the wellbeing and prosperity of both constituents and societies at large.”

At the same time, there are concerns that Ethiopia’s most recent female politicians are not in elected positions rather are making up a quota. 

“The women who are in power are more loyal to the prime minister than the public that is why they find it difficult to act—for fear of disappointing the person who put them there,” Hadra Ahmed, a freelance Ethiopian journalist, tells IPS.

“We can only say women are in politics when they are represented as candidates and as decision makers,” she adds.

Women in Ethiopia have long faced systemic inequities. The discrepancies begin early and often persist throughout Ethiopian women’s lives. Nearly twice as many men than women over age 25 have some secondary education. Women often face more economic constraints than men, including less access to credit and limited market access.

“Ethiopians strongly believe that women can never be as good as men and this is specially heart breaking when it comes from your mother [or] a well-educated person that you probably look up to [such as] your teacher,” Ahmed says.

“And the whole system tells you that you are not as capable through different policies like affirmative actions that lower the passing grade rather than helping girls to study and making sure they make it to school in time.”

Female genital mutilation rates remain high, with 74 percent of girls and women aged 15 to 49 years of age experiencing FGM, according to UNICEF. Child marriage still occurs, with about 58 percent of Ethiopian females marrying before they turn 18.

Eighty percent of Ethiopia’s population resides in rural areas and women provide much of the agricultural labour in these communities, while shouldering the majority of child-rearing duties.

But the contributions of women can go largely unrecognized. Fathers or husbands often restrict access to resources and community participation. One in three women experience physical, emotional or sexual violence, according to USAID.

“Ethiopian society practices negative social norms that reinforce inequality and perpetuate deep power and gender imbalances,” Dinah Musindarwezo, director of policy and communications for Womankind Worldwide, a global women’s rights organisation working in partnership with women’s rights organisations and movements, tells IPS.

“The perceptions and attitudes that women should belong to the kitchen and men in the board room are widely spread across the world. Although we have seen changes and progress towards women participating in public sphere including in political leadership, we are seeing less progress of men entering the kitchen and taking leadership in care work. Globally, women still perform majority of unpaid and domestic work.”

Ethiopia is no exception, Musindarwezo says, illustrated by the widespread expectation that women should not only be the primary childcare providers but they should also perform the majority of unpaid and domestic work.

In Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, life for the majority of women follows a traditional course, centred on family and agriculture. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

In 2017, Ethiopia ranked 121 out of 160 countries on a Untied Nations gender equality index based on various social, health and political factors.

“If you look at the experience of other countries like India, the media representation of strong women is what helped women become stronger in the society,” Ahmed says. “Seeing a stronger version of us somewhere pushes us to be better. Assigning to women a quota in government positions and exploiting them in these positions will not solve anything.”

Iverson says that in order to make sure women’s political participation is not only symbolic, governments must also fully commit to gender equality through equal pay, affordable childcare, gender sensitive budgeting and auditing, and paid parental leave.

Parental leave—including paternity leave—has proven a significant “norm changer” in improving women’s participation in the workforce, Iverson says. When men take paternity leave, she explains, it both affirms that caregiving is everyone’s responsibility, helps improve pay equity, and makes it easier for more women to be successful and climb the career ladder.

Despite the Ethiopian government’s bold moves to empower female politicians, the country’s fraught political realm—which can be dangerous for anyone, regardless of sex—still poses many hurdles for women to overcome, especially given the pernicious influence of social media.

“Women politicians face unique forms of online and offline attacks and deliberate actions to discourage their participation in politics,” Daniel Bekele, commissioner of the Ethiopia Human Rights Commission, said during the keynote speech at the “Women’s Political Participation and Election in Ethiopia: Envisioning 2020 and Beyond for Generation Equality” national conference at the end of 2019.

“This reflects how patriarchal [our] society is in its functions.”

Musindarwezo notes that in addition to having women in political leadership, it’s just as important to create an environment that is conducive for women to be effective leaders.

“Often times we expect women to magically address all the issues especially gender issues without removing structural barriers they face,” Musindarwezo says. “Women political leaders face barriers such as their voices being overshadowed by political parties’ voices, limited access to adequate resources they need to make a difference and being held to different standards to those of men. Women leaders often face biased public criticism, harassment and intimidations just because they are women.”

Bekele says that Ethiopian women face particular challenges in times of elections that seriously impact and discourage their participation. Ethiopia is due to hold an all-important national election this year, but currently it has been delayed due to the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak.

“There must also be implemented legal protections for women including laws against gender-based violence, policies regarding sexual harassment, and accessible justice systems for accountability,” Iverson says. “Countries must ditch discriminatory laws that are holding women back and enact legal frameworks that advance gender equality at work, in society and at home.”

Those at Women Deliver note how, to Ethiopia’s credit, it has brought in a new law that annulled previous legal provisions that gave authority to a husband over a couple’s assets and whether his wife could work outside of the home.

As a result of the legal change, spouses are now equal with regard to the administration of assets, and a husband cannot unilaterally prevent his wife from working. The World Bank estimates that this law has enabled an increase in the participation rate of women in productive sectors.

Despite continuing challenges for Ethiopian women, change is afoot beyond the political level. In the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, Setaweet is the country’s first feminist research and training company, which offers tailor-made gender equality services for schools, agencies and corporate companies. Its flagship project is a feminist curriculum for secondary school students dealing with femininity and masculinity, healthy relationships and positive self-images.

“Women are powerful agents of change, and their participation at all decision-making levels is a prerequisite for politics and programs that reflects societies and are effective, sustainable and inclusive,” Iversen says.

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The post A Gender-equal Ethiopian Parliament can Improve the Lives of all Women appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

In 1991, the share of seats held by women in the Ethiopian parliament was under 3 percent. Today it stands at 38 percent, almost twice the ratio of women in the United States Congress. Experts say when women are better represented in government office, the gains are likely to spill down and improve the lives of all women.

The post A Gender-equal Ethiopian Parliament can Improve the Lives of all Women appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By External Source
AMMAN, Apr 10 2020 (IPS-Partners)

We find this to be a difficult time in the history of humanity. COVID-19 has brought about ever-increasing tragedies of death and deprivation all the while inflaming our social and economic problems. The time has come to form a humanitarian consensus – strong and active – to face the challenges and dangers that threaten humankind and its future onour small planet.

As a group of Muslim scholars and thinkers that share in the ethical commitment and humanitarian obligation towards others, we call on all individuals wherever they may be to take part in the blessed efforts of international, regional and national organisations and carry out their human, ethical and religious duty to overcome a deadly pandemic that has affected humankind, our ways of being, world economies and indeed a majority of life systems, and afflicted the impoverished with the additional suffering of a livelihood constricted and constrained.

With a view to reviving the ethical and humanitarian responsibility towards others as the governing and organizing principle of human behavior and activity, and out of the belief that the concept and practice of Zakat, or the giving of alms, entails good formankind and with respect to the conference that the Arab Thought Forum planned to hold on the subject of the ‘Universalism of Zakat – Dimensions and Institutional Manifestations’ in Ramadan of 1441H, we issue a call of support to the initiative made by Prince El Hassan bin Talal under the heading ‘Solidarity and the Awakening of the Human Conscience’ and a call to action for the establishment of an international institution for Zakat and human solidarity, an undertaking that His Royal Highness called for many a year ago.

In all its reverberations and consequences, the present calls for reform from within. We must find inner peace and security, seek the soundness of our hearts andresuscitate acollective consciousness that leads us tothereinforcement of values that elevatethe dignity of Man above polychromatic nationality,religion, color and gender.

Reason and human existence today face monumental challenges –in awe of a miniscule organism, intelligence has stood befuddled.An egalitarian pathogen perseveres in its mightand obliges us to underline the potential of human sufferingto bring people together further than the vocabulary of interests andgains. In truth, each of us harbors the feeling that the threat to humanity is one. And, that truth ought to marshalour capabilities and give rise to thoughtful reflection on the meaning of our collective humanity in all its strengths and weaknesses whilst it uncovers for us novel spaces of convergence and joint action.

The good of an individual lies in hishumanityand his humanitya cornerstone of human solidarity around which all of our shared values revolve. An imperative that beckons us to recognize our shared responsibility towards future generations, the injunction to give serious thought to the challenges facing humanity is a corollary of the belief in the dignity and the rights of Man.

These arduous times are a test ofthe humanityof Man and his humilityjust as they are a test ofthe truth, rituals and fruits of faith: Will we fail or will we succeed? WeMuslimscarry the flag of a mercifuland compassionate religion. An international institution for Zakat and human solidarity should be preceded by interpretive jurisprudential activity on the issues of our time such as Zakat and social solidarity. Zakat could be a starting point from which mercy – which God Almighty rendered as the principal purpose behind the sending of His Messengers – is realised. The revival of our human and ethical duty towards others is in effect a revival of the common sense that God has endowed us with. A revival as such would be a faithful representation of the true religion of God in all its doctrines and fundamental parameters.

We thus refer to a fatwa byMuslim scholars that permits nay applauds accelerating the payment of the Zakat owed over the course of one or two years to the impoverished and even favors the rapid payment of Zakat over waiting for thestart of the holy month of Ramadan to give alms.The value of that Zakat in the Muslim world this year alone is estimated in excess of four hundred billion dollars–a tremendous sum which if collected in the current circumstances,where curfews and shutdowns have meantinterruptions to the livelihoods of many, may salvage the faith, lives and dignity of the needy.

The ability of the mind to innovate, invent and face challenges is resounding. The problems that arise from a knowledge alien to the idea of a balance with nature can be addressed through the integration of the natural and social sciences. An opportunity to exhibit the extent of our involvement in the deft management of a crisis and showcase our collaborative efforts to realise the common good and blunt the effects of poverty, destitution and illness on people, the present brings to the fore the role of networking and coordination, the obligation to learn from others and the importance of working together to rebuild the trust that remains lostand that which has weakened between the young and the old and the rich and the poor.

We find it vital to emphasise the role played by faith in strengthening our capacity for hardship and our ability to persevere in the face of that hardship as well as the role played by faith in encouraging supportfor and the alleviation of the suffering and pain of others. “We shall certainly test you with fear of hunger, and loss of property, lives and crops. But [Prophet], give good news to those who are steadfast” – the Qur’an (The Cow 2:155).

We view Man as a part of nature rather than asa creature outside of God’s natural creation. Man is thus entrusted with the care of the Earth and the creatures that inhabit the Earth: “We offered the Trust [of reason and moral responsibility] to the heavens, the earth, and the mountains; yet they refused to undertake it and were afraid of it; but mankind [undertook to] bear it” – the Qur’an (The Joint Forces 33:72).

We call for a reconciliation betweenhumankind and nature. Mankind must develop a sense of responsibility towards the environment and begin to protect the environment. A balance between the requirements of modern civilization and the preservation of life must be found: pollution of all stripesand encroachments of all kinds must be curtailed, natural resources must be carefully managed, and troves of buried ore must be maintained and preserved. Institutional responsibility thus lies in the increase of funds made available for the purposes of scientific research in our contemporary societies

The here and now is a truly encouraging moment for the humanitarian side of religion to come to the fore and a moment conducive for the development of a civilizational discourse anchored in the shared values of humanity. In its entirety, humanitymustunite and bring repertoires of knowledge together and synchronize the endeavor to find a way out of the global catastrophe that we all face regardless of race, colorand belief.

We are all children of a civilization united by common bonds of a far greater kind than the differences – cultural, racial or other – that divide us: “People, be mindful of your Lord, who created you from a single soul, and from it created its mate, and from the pair of them spread countless men and women far and wide”– The Qur’an (Women 2:1). We must come to sense the moral responsibility that we hold for the disasters caused by Man, or those natural disasters that come as a consequence of the actions and conduct of Man, as the Holy Quran says,“Corruption has appeared throughout the land and sea by [reason of] what the hands of the people have earned so He may let them taste part of [the consequence of] what they have done so that they may return [to righteousness]” – The Quran (The Byzantines 30:41)

In the sake of Allah/God

Signatories:

1- El Hassan Bin Talal, President and patron of the Arab Thought Forum
2- Abdullah Gül, Former President of Turkey
3- The International Union For Muslim Scholars (IUMS), on their behalf
Shaikh Dr. Ahmed Abdul Salam Raissouni, President of IUMS and Shaikh Dr. Ali Al-Qardaghi, Secretary General of IUMS
4- MajelisUlema Indonesia (Indonesian Ulema Council) on their behalf Dr. Anwar Abbas, Secretary General
5- Arshad Hurmuzlu,Former Adviser to the President of Turkey
6- Khalil Al-Khalil, Former member of Shura Council – Saudi Arabia
7- Shaikh Abdullah Azzi, Yemen
8- Shaikh IkrimaSabri, Imam of Al Aqsa Mosque – Jerusalem
9- Haji AllahshükürHummatPashazade, Shaik ul-Islam and Grand Mufti of the Caucasus, and Secretary General of Baku International Centre for Interfaith and inter-Civilization Cooperation – Azerbaijan
10- Dr.HichemGrissa, President of Ez-Zitouna University, Tunisia
11- Shaikh Abdel Karim Khasawneh, Mufti of The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
12- Professor Mohammed Abdel Haleem, University of London
13- Imam YahyaPallavicini, President of the Religious Islamic Italian Community; ISESCO Ambassador for Dialogue among Civilisations, Member ECRL European Council of Religious Leaders and Co-Coordinator of the European MJLC Muslim and Jewish Leadership Council.
14- Dr. Sayed Zafar, President of Zakat Foundation of India
15- Prof. Azza Karm, VRIJE University, Amsterdam
16- Imam IzzeddinElzir, Imam of Florence
17- Dr. Mohamed Hussein El Zoghbi, Federação das AssociaçõesMuçulmanas do Brasil – FAMBRAS (Union or Islamic Associations in Brazil)
18- BAZNAS, Republic of Indonesia; on their behalf: Prof. Dr. BambangSudibyo, MBA, CA, Chairman of BAZNAS and the Vice-Chairman Dr. Zainulbahar Noor
19- Dr. Mohammad Abu Hammour, Secretary General of the Arab Thought Forum

The post The Declaration of the Human Solidarity Initiative Against the Coronavirus Pandemic appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Extending restrictions until the end of April will create an economic disaster, the opposition says.

Residents in Johannesburg discuss the challenges they face two weeks into South Africa's lockdown.

By Jemimah Njuki
NAIROBI, Apr 10 2020 (IPS)

As of April 8, there have been 1.5 million reported cases of coronavirus and over 83,000 deaths. Most of these deaths are of men. Italy, for example, has so far had 71 percent of all case deaths attributed to men while Spain, another major global hotspot, has seen 65 percent of all deaths being men.

While the mortality rates for men are higher, women are disproportionally affected by the social and economic impacts of the pandemic. Indeed, there is evidence that pandemics affect men and women in different ways, and COVID19 is no different.

Women comprise seven out of ten health and social care workers and contribute US$ 3 trillion annually to global health, half in the form of unpaid care work. Health workers continue to be exposed to the virus due to lack of basic protective equipment

Women are facing higher risks of infection compared to men due to their large numbers in the health sector. The health and social sector, with its 234 million workers, is one of the biggest and fastest growing employers in the world, particularly of women.

Women comprise seven out of ten health and social care workers and contribute US$ 3 trillion annually to global health, half in the form of unpaid care work. Health workers continue to be exposed to the virus due to lack of basic protective equipment.

The care work burden which disproportionality falls on women has increased with the pandemic. In addition to women making up most of health-care workers, women are overwhelmingly the primary caretakers in their families.

As schools have closed, as COVID 19 measures, which require services and activities mainly done by women, such as requirement for water, women have found themselves with a bigger workload.

Gender based violence has increased as families find themselves in lockdowns with low economic security and feeling of helplessness. For example in France, domestic violence cases went up by 30% during the lockdown, while calls to the domestic violence line in Argentina went up by 25%.

New research has shown the multiple pathways between pandemics and gender based violence. Recently, UN chief António Guterres called for measures to address a “horrifying global surge in domestic violence” directed towards women and girls linked to lockdowns.

The economic impact of COVID-19 has hit women harder, as more women work in low-paying, insecure and informal jobs. Disruptions, including movement restrictions, are likely to compromise women’s ability to make a living and meet their families’ basic needs, and access much needed sexual and reproductive health and maternal health services.

In addition to understanding these kinds of gender differences at times of pandemics like COVID-19, research can play a much more long-term role.

Indeed, it can play a critical part in documenting and studying the long-term impacts of the pandemic and suggesting ways to ensure that systems protect women and girls during pandemics. This is how.

First, research can help understand, test and scale interventions that build the economic and social resilience of women and girls, as well as provide evidence on how programs can be designed to cope with and minimise the gendered impacts of future pandemics.

For example, unconditional and conditional cash transfers that aim to shift power imbalances by targeting women are likely to be important design features for reducing gender based intimate partner violence. While these have been studies out of pandemics, research during pandemics can help understand the impacts and potential adaptations of these programs.

Second, while the focus with COVID 19 has been on the negative impacts on women’s workloads  and women’s rights, pandemics can bring much desired shifts in gender roles and responsibilities.

The key question is how to sustain these changes long after the pandemic has passed.  Understanding how short-term pandemic-induced changes in gender roles and responsibilities can be sustained over a long time can generate evidence on pathways to equitable role sharing within households.

For example, the Spanish flu disproportionately affected young men, which in combination with World War I, created a labor shortage gap that was filled by women, entrenching women’s right to work.

Third, research can provide insights that inform a more gender sensitive and effective response to epidemics. While there has been a focus on the role of social sciences in understanding and managing pandemics, there has not been enough application of a gender lens to this research.

For example, understanding how men and will be affected in different ways before pandemics occur, how proposed management and response measures will affect them and can be designed to have positive outcomes, and even understanding the power dynamics and how they will affect response are all key areas of research.

And finally, research and researchers can play a role in ensuring the collection and analysis of age and sex disaggregated data both so that the needs and realities of men and boys, women and girls women’s do not fall through the cracks.

As we address the very immediate needs of different groups in the pandemic, let us also invest in long term gender research that ensures there is no disproportionate impact of pandemics, especially on women and girls and that their voices are heard.

 

Dr Jemimah Njuki is an Aspen News Voices Fellow and writes on gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. Follow her @jemimah_njuki

The post Gender and COVID-19: Where Can Research Help? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The Confederation of African Football (Caf) says it is using the suspension of football due to the coronavirus pandemic to complete outstanding payments for match officials.

By Dorothy Tembo
GENEVA, Apr 10 2020 (IPS)

With the novel coronavirus COVID-19 having reached the African continent, countries are getting ready to manage the spread of the virus and ensure that their fragile health systems can cope. Images from China and Europe give many reasons for concern.

In addition to the health challenges posed by COVID-19, Africa is already feeling the effect on its economies. With industries shutting down in Asia, America and Europe demand for raw materials and commodities is declining, but it is also hampering Africa’s access to industrial components and manufactured goods (including medical equipment).

Initial actions in Africa have focused on slowing viral contagion with measures, including the closing of borders. These actions come as the continent has been making bold moves to increase economic integration, with African Union officials recently swearing in the first-ever Secretary-General of the newly created Secretariat of the African Free Continental Free Trade Agreement.

The coronavirus could represent a risk for the continental project but leaders could also turn it into an opportunity for stronger collaboration. If leaders fast-track specific policies, it may also represent an opportunity if certain policies are fast-tracked. Quick gains could be achieved by consolidating the regional integration initiatives they are already implementing.

The closing of borders, for instance, can send a very different signal depending on how governments do it. Where leaders of neighbouring nations close borders together, as those of Portugal and Spain have done, it is a symbol of partnership in the fight against a pandemic.

Reducing flows of people while keeping borders open for goods signals continued faith in the importance of economic activities and trade in providing the goods people need to continue their daily lives. In Africa, such collaboration will be crucial, especially for the continent’s sixteen landlocked countries.

The crisis may also provide African leaders with an opportunity to look at regional value chains differently. Reliable regional supply chains characterize North America, Asia and Europe.

In Africa, however, integration in international markets mostly entails integration in global, not regional, value chains – with Africa providing the raw products for processing elsewhere around the world.

Dorothy Tembo

Opportunities for creating regional value chains exist, notably for making motor vehicles or in aerospace activities in Northern Africa. But designing regional strategies may mean agreeing on which component of the value chain is produced where, and can involve trade-offs that policymakers do not always find it easy to make.

But the exceptional nature of the pandemic could provide fertile ground for regional collaboration by policymakers in the fields of pharmaceuticals, disinfectants, diagnostic testing equipment or protective garments. Such decisions will have to be taken and implemented very rapidly.

African leaders can also act in unison in the fight against the economic consequences of the pandemic. Nobody knows how much the pandemic will affect global GDP, but any impact is sure to be significant.

Estimated losses in GDP growth for the world as a whole – but also for Africa as a region – currently hover around between 1.5 and 2 percentage points. Those figures are most likely to be revised to include even greater losses.

The travel industry has been the first to be impacted. Airlines around the world are struggling, and tourism has been hit hard. The blow will not go unnoticed in African countries like Tunisia, Egypt and Kenya – where tourism represents around 14%, 11% and 10% of GDP respectively. For underperforming regional airlines, this could spell disaster.

Shutdowns in China and Europe, notably in the apparel, machinery and footwear subsectors, will significantly hit global supply chains – with consequences for Africa. Traditionally reliable sectors in Africa – like the cut flower industry – could also take a pummeling.

In countries that impose lockdowns, large parts of the services sectors are likely to suffer dire outcomes. The hospitality, sports and recreation sectors, and large parts of retailing, are among those most affected by partial or full lockdowns.

The drastic drop in oil prices – triggered by events independent of the coronavirus pandemic but now reinforced by the negative demand resulting from it – is set to compound these economic shocks. Oil exporters like Nigeria will see their revenues shrink.

Rwanda’s e-commerce booms as the first E-commerce Service Centre sets up in Kigali, bringing Rwandan businesses to domestic and international markets with minimal investment and risk. Credit: ITU

Faced with this outlook, African policymakers may want to ask themselves how long businesses in their countries can survive in the absence of or with significantly reduced revenues and what the scale of job losses may be.

For many micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), with fewer assets to ride out the storm, the survival rate may only be counted in weeks. That is why small businesses, more than larger businesses, will tend to go out of business or cripple their capacity to be competitive.Yet, because MSMEs employ around 70% of the workforce in most countries, shedding workers will only aggravate the economic downturn brought on by the pandemic.

Knowing how small businesses act as a lynchpin connecting the pandemic to a broader economic recession, governments around the world have scrambled to reduce the operational stresses on them.

They have introduced policies meant to help MSMEs cope with short-term financial risks and long-term business implications. This will, it is hoped, reduce layoffs, prevent bankruptcy, encourage investment and help economies get back on their feet as soon as possible.

These measures include concessional financing; tax reductions and grants; employment incentives; technical assistance; and indirect measures.

Low-interest loans and other concessional financing, aimed at easing short-term liquidity issues, have been among the most popular policy measures announced to date. But the experience of the 1970s oil price shock shows that this can have a limited impact in the supply-shock, low-interest rate environments that exist today.

Instead, the most effective way to prevent bankruptcies may be measures aimed at reducing costs for MSMEs – such as tax breaks. Investment in digital trade and investment facilitation must also continue – countries with such facilitating policies will be first off the mark in the post-crisis period.

All of these measures require funding. Countries with fiscal space will find it easier to introduce them than those without it. Unfortunately, global debt levels have continued to increase after the financial crisis over a decade ago.

Though the bulk of global debt is held by the industrialized world, its increase has been more important in the developing world over the past decade. Concerted action among leaders may therefore be necessary in order for efforts to support small and medium sized businesses not to have negative repercussions on financial markets.

History shows us that cross-border collaborations often arise during or after significant crises. The First World War prompted the creation of the International Labour Office; the United Nations was formed in the aftermath of the Second World War. The construction of the European Union was also a reaction to that conflagration.

The African Union has already recognized that Africa will be stronger if countries are more integrated and unified with the birth of the African Continental Free Trade Area. A similarly strong commitment to joint action by leaders on the continent would undoubtedly benefit the fight against the coronavirus pandemic and its economic consequences for Africa.

These actions should include a recommitment to the Sustainable Development Goals, to multilateralism and a pledge to help those that will be most affected by the economic downturn: small businesses, women, young people and vulnerable communities.

The International Trade Centre (ITC) with its mandate to build the competitiveness of small businesses in developing countries, emphasizing women-owned businesses and people at the base of the economic pyramid, stands ready to support these efforts.

The post The Cost of Coronavirus in Africa: What Measures can Leaders Take? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Dorothy Tembo is Executive Director ad interim, International Trade Centre (ITC)

The post The Cost of Coronavirus in Africa: What Measures can Leaders Take? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A selection of the best photos from across the continent this week.

South Africa sees an unexpected slow-down in the daily rate of infections, writes Andrew Harding.

Fears are growing that gorillas, orangutans and others apes could contract the virus.

By PRESS RELEASE
NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 9 2020 (IPS-Partners)

The Government of Kenya, the United Nations and humanitarian partners have launched today a Flash Appeal requesting $267.5 million to respond to the most immediate and critical needs of10.1 millionpeople.

Cabinet Secretary for National Treasury and Planning, UkurYataniKanacho, said: “When times are challenging you get to know your friends better. I would like to commend the Kenya United Nations Country Team and humanitarian partners for being real friends and fighting with us shoulder to shoulder as we fight this deadly pandemic”.

The Appeal is seeking to mobilize emergency funding for UN agencies and NGOs to complement the Government’s preparedness and response efforts for the next six months. The funds will be used to support public health responses to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country and provide targeted humanitarian assistance and protection to the most vulnerable and at-risk communities

From the current UN Development Assistance Framework to Kenya 2018-20, the UN family has redeployed US$ 45 million to support Kenya in its response to the COVID 19 pandemic. The UN has also deployed over 70 staff and volunteers to assist the Government of Kenya.

Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Devolution and ASAL, Eugene Wamalwa, said during the launch: “This Flash Appeal is much appreciated.Coming on the heels of several natural disasters since 2016 this appeal aims to bring humanitarian relief at a time where we are all stretched to the limit fighting COVID-19”

The COVID-19 outbreak in Kenya is occurring in a context of significant chronic vulnerabilities as well as increased humanitarian needs as a result of back-to back droughts, ongoing floods and a locust upsurge.

“We believe Kenya is at an important tipping point and that together we can move this into the right direction. We are confident that together we can flatten the COVID-19 curve and diminish thethreat in Kenya while continuing to strengthen our health systems, and economy. We thank the UN and all our partners for their support,”Chief Administrative Secretary for Health Dr Rashid Aman said.

The UN and NGO partners response is focused towards saving lives and preventing loss of livelihoods.

In addition to the immediate and direct public health emergency response, the Flash Appeal has prioritized the continue delivery of basic essential services as well as the protection of livelihood assets and food support to the most vulnerable communities.The response is about ensuring access to essential health care, education, protection, services for women children and vulnerable communities,including people with HIV, displaced populations, people in high concentration areas in urban and peri-urban areas, refugees, and people affected by floods and the locust upsurge.

“We will stand in full solidarity with the Government and people of Kenya in the fight against COVID 19,”said the UN Resident Coordinator in Kenya, Siddharth Chatterjee. “This Flash Appeal is a clear expression of our solidarity as we mobilize support to accelerate our COVID-19 response in Kenya in lockstep with the Government,” he added.

The continuity of humanitarian operations will be critical and would rely on the Government’s support to facilitate internal movement of humanitarian supplies and workers in case of a lockdown; facilitate the operation of humanitarian flights between Nairobi and the refugee camps and vulnerable communities; fast-track and facilitate custom procedures to bring in relief supplies ; and facilitate humanitarian access to particularly vulnerable hotspot areas including refugee camps and urban settlements.

The humanitarian community will comply strictly to the regulations put in place by the Government to contain the spread of COVID-19 and only personnel who have complied with quarantine requirements and are trained in safe/physical distancing and equipped with personal protective equipment (PPE) will be deployed.

The post Un and Partners Request $267.5 Million to Respond to Humanitarian Needs Arising from COVID-19 Pandemic in Kenya appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM / ROME, Apr 9 2020 (IPS)

The Coronavirus, COVID-19, makes its deadly round across the world. People fall sick and die, communities and entire nations end up in its deadly grip and try to cope with it. Everything is changing, and changing fast and we all have to deal with it together, even if many of us are being physically apart. Humans are social beings. Our mental and physical capacities are created around that fact and crave for support and compassion.

Some of us benefit from social security, relative wealth, access to health care and a home of our own, others lack all of this. COVID-19 brings already existing social ills and inequalities to the surface. The general and the personal are getting mixed up. A collective state of mind becomes part of our intimate sphere of existence. While an imposed quarantine isolates us from others, we become subjects to conflicting information, wild rumours, and apocalyptic prophesies, combined with an awareness of the injustice of unequal suffering and worries about what the future might hold in store. What happens to our bodies affect our minds, and vice versa. We might feel as we are awake within a nightmare, a state of mind that has been described by several imaginative authors.

In Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Year of Solitude the plague comes to the small town of Maconde, which in Márquez’s novel serves as an archetype for countless other Latin American rural towns. However, this plague is not a plague of the body, but of the mind. It makes it impossible for people to sleep and accordingly it also makes them unable to dream. As the plague extends and ultimately affects everyone in Maconde, people do not starve because they can work day and night. They do not suffer since they cannot dream and have thus lost their ability to imagine another existence. To save other communities from the ”illness of insomnia”, the town’s most influential leader, José Arcadio Buendía, decides that it has to be restricted ”to the perimeter of the town. So effective was the quarantine that the day came when the emergency situation was accepted as a natural thing and life was organized in such a way that work picked up its rhythm again.”1 However, at its final stage the plague proves to be deadly. The victims soon lose their memory, their sense of reality and worst of all – their compassion.

One of the lessons learned from this fable might be that we humans cannot subsist without our dreams, hopes and imagination. Furthermore, we all depend on one another. The weak on the strong, the old on the young, and the entire humanity depends on a natural environment we have abused in a horrifying manner.

The imposed quarantine many of us are subject to might hopefully remind us about differences between the rich and the poor – that wealth and class are always an issue and might determine our ability to cope with the pandemic. A Brazilian story may illustrate this fact:

The first death from COVID-19 in Rio de Janeiro was a domestic worker who tried to get treatment for her breathing problems. However, she was sent back home unattended. When her health deteriorated further and she on the 16th of March returned for treatment, she told the hospital staff that her employer had become ill after returning from Italy. It was found that he had been suspected of being infected by the Coronavirus, something he had not told his employee. He had early on been hospitalized and tested positive. His 63-year-old employee died the day after she was admitted to a hospital.2

Similar cases have occurred in other areas of Latin America and the Caribbean, where maids, gardeners, drivers, nurses, hotel staff and other people in the service sector have by employers and clients been infected with COVID-19. This have made several Latin Americans inclined to label COVID-19 as a ”rich man’s disease”. Many of the original COVID-19 cases have been people returning from visits to Spain, or Italy, as well as tourists coming from these countries, or businessmen returning from trips to other European countries, or China. Such patients have generally received excellent and expensive care, while poorer victims of COVID-19 who caught their infection from them have often been left unattended and furthermore forced to suffer the disease under conditions of poor housing, insecure income and deficient, or non-existent health care. Similar stories are told from other parts of the world, where we also witness how migrant workers are desperately trying to return to their homes to avoid becoming locked-in within huge cities, far away from their loved ones. How citizens in war-torn areas of Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan and Syria now are further threatened by the pandemic, as well as the homeless refugees amassed and stuck in camps in border areas of Turkey and Bangladesh. Medical doctors are warning that once the pandemic is spreading from wealthy regions and privileged social classes into poorer strata of society, issues of quarantine, loss of income and inadequate healthcare are going to be paramount and insurmountable for poor nations.

Like the people trapped in Maconde many of those quarantined within affluent societies may be affected by a loss of their sense of reality, while becoming numbed by figures and statistics. Living in wealthy nations and/or secluded within upscale neighbourhoods may make them forget the plight of the less fortunate.

Let us hope that this pandemic will serve as a reminder that we all share this earth and it is our common interest to take care of it together. That many of us might come out of our quarantine with an improved, more compassionate view of the world and our fellow human beings. That this global affliction makes us realize that the best way to mitigate future disasters is to preserve our natural resources in a sustainable manner and guarantee equal education and healthcare for all. This can be done and for our own survival we have to achieve it.

1 García Márquez, Gabriel (1978) One Hundred Years of Solitude. London: Picador, p. 45.
2 https://apublica.org/2020/03/primeira-morte-do-rio-por-coronavirus-domestica-nao-foi-informada-de-risco-de-contagio-pela-patroa/

Jan Lundius holds a PhD. on History of Religion from Lund University and has served as a development expert, researcher and advisor at SIDA, UNESCO, FAO and other international organisations.

The post COVID-19 and Hope for a Compassionate Future appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Taiwan rejects accusations by the UN health body's head that racist slurs against him originated there.

The region's economy will shrink for the first time in 25 years because of the coronavirus, the bank predicts.

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Apr 9 2020 (IPS)

Within weeks, the Covid-19 epidemic was classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as an epidemic of international significance, triggering a pre-agreed WHO response. By the end of the first week of April, more than 1.3 million people had been confirmed as infected, with over 65,000 deaths across the world.

Anis Chowdhury

Many governments of developing, especially poor countries are unsure what to do, fearing the likely economic consequences of the ‘lockdowns’ increasingly adopted by Western economies. Indeed, lockdowns may shut down businesses relying on daily turnover and eliminate incomes for daily rated workers.

Meanwhile, most East Asian and some other governments have acted early to trace, test, isolate and treat the infected without lockdowns. Yet, most measures recommended have been criticized as beyond the means of the most vulnerable societies and populations.

Early action crucial
Early measures have required ‘physical distancing’ and other precautionary measures — at work, at home and in the community, at relatively low cost. People also need to be prepared to live differently for a long time to come as part of a ‘new normal’, at least until everyone can be effectively vaccinated.

‘All of government’ approaches are urgently needed everywhere to provide effective leadership to ‘whole of society’ efforts to contain the spread of viral infections. While this is no conventional war, only whole of society mobilization efforts can help mitigate major economic disruption and damage.

This should not only involve public health and police authorities, typically those empowered by draconian lockdowns. But repressive measures are unlikely to secure needed public support for effective enforcement and implementation, and adoption of needed behavioural and cultural changes.

Health authorities must provide publics with much better understanding of the threats faced and the rationale for policy responses to secure compliance. Public appreciation of the challenges involved is crucial for policy compliance and effective implementation.

Physical distancing, social solidarity
Kerala state in southwestern India, with a population of 35 million, has become “a model state in the fight against Covid-19”. Its Left Front-led government was among the first to introduce precautionary state-wide measures against the novel coronavirus threat.

Through appropriate and effective early actions, it has successfully slowed the spread of infection in the state, largely by promoting physical distancing and mainly sanitary precautionary, measures, and providing better protection for health staff well before the hugely disruptive and draconian lockdown imposed in India in late March.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

The Kerala state government invited religious leaders, local bodies and civil society organizations to participate in policy design and implementation, considering its specific socio-economic conditions, including urban slum environments.

It has communicated effectively in different languages to educate all, including migrants, and to prevent stigmatization of those infected, even opposing the term ‘social distancing’, which has caste connotations, with ‘physical distancing and social solidarity’.

Returning migrants
Despite Kerala’s long-standing achievements in education, health and science, highly educated Keralans tend to migrate to work out of state, if not abroad, seeking more lucrative employment. The state was still recovering from the devastating floods and nipah virus epidemic of 2018 when tens of thousands began returning after losing jobs in the Middle East.

Kerala is also the destination for a large number of Indian internal migrants. With the nationwide lockdown, non-residents, equivalent to almost 5% of Kerala’s population, have returned, causing a surge of new infections.

Such unusually high movements of people have made the state more vulnerable. Despite some controversy, the state appears to have handled the migrant issue very well, especially compared to other state governments and the central government.

There has also been a close connection between Kerala and Wuhan, a popular educational hub offering affordable quality medical and other courses; the first three positive Covid-19 cases detected in India involved returned university students in Wuhan.

The state health department promptly went into action, setting up a coordination centre on 26 January. Recognizing there was no time to be lost, the Kerala state government set up mechanisms to identify, test, isolate and treat those infected, quickly earning an excellent reputation.

Less disruptive, less costly, more effective
Some key features of Kerala’s response, undertaken by a government with very limited fiscal resources, are hence instructive.

*All-of-government approach: involving a range of relevant state government ministries and agencies to design measures to improve consistency, coordination and communication, and to avoid confusion.

*Whole-of-society approach: wide community consultations, including experts, to find the most locally appropriate modes of limiting infections, along with means to monitor and enforce them.

*Social mobilization: communities were provided essential epidemiological information to understand the threat and related issues, ensure compliance with prescribed precautionary measures, and avoid panic.

*No one left behind: adequate supply of essential commodities, particularly food and medicines, has been ensured, especially to protect the most vulnerable sections of society.

To make things worse, Kerala has been discriminated against by the central government’s disaster relief fund on specious grounds. The largely agricultural state has modest fiscal resources of its own as state governments in India have limited fiscal rights and resources.

Credible leadership
The Kerala government has set up 18 committees and holds daily evening meetings to evaluate the situation, issuing media updates about those quarantined, tested and hospitalized .

At these meetings, the state Health Minister and Chief Minister calmly explain what is going on, including what the government is doing. They thus provide credible leadership on the difficult issues involved, securing strong public participation for its mass campaign of containment.

Kerala’s approach has proven less disruptive, less costly and more effective than most others. After recording its first COVID-19 case on January 30, its infection and death rates have been kept relatively low despite much more tracing and testing.

The post Kerala Covid-19 Response Model for Emulation appeared first on Inter Press Service.