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Children eating lunch in the João Baptista Cáffaro School cafetería. Itaboraí, Brazil, 45 km from Rio de Janeiro. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

By Jo Becker
NEW YORK, Apr 24 2020 (IPS)

Children may escape the worst symptoms of Covid-19 and suffer lower mortality rates, but for millions, the pandemic will have devastating effects.

The choices that governments make now are crucial for children. Governments can both lessen the worst effects of the crisis on children in the months to come, and also put policies in place that will improve children’s lives long after the pandemic is over.

School shutdowns in 192 countries have left more than 90 percent of the world’s student population – more than 1.5 billion students – out of school. Many schools have moved online, but nearly half the world has no access to the internet, leaving many students even further behind
The pandemic has highlighted huge fault lines in many countries’ protections for children, including the lack of emergency action plans for large-scale school shutdowns, the overuse of detention, and insufficient safety nets for low-income families.

School shutdowns in 192 countries have left more than 90 percent of the world’s student population – more than 1.5 billion students – out of school. Many schools have moved online, but nearly half the world has no access to the internet, leaving many students even further behind.

The problem isn’t limited to low-income countries: last week in Phoenix, a high school principal found three students huddled under a blanket in the rain, trying to access their school’s wifi to complete their assignments.

As the global death toll — currently more than 190,000 – continues to rise, so will the number of children left without one or both parents. Orphaned children are particularly vulnerable to trafficking and other forms of exploitation. During the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, for example, girls who lost family members resorted to transactional sex to meet their basic needs, leading to a sharp increase in teenage pregnancy.

Even when countries are not in crisis, children are at greatest risk of violence in their own home. The United Nations secretary-general recently reported a “horrifying” surge in domestic violence linked to Covid-19. Family stresses related to the crisis – including job loss, isolation, excessive confinement, and anxieties over health and finances—have escalated violence between partners and against children.

Despite the increased risks, child abuse is less likely to be detected during the pandemic. Teachers – often the first to identify signs of abuse – have far less access to children, and many child protection agencies have cut back or eliminated home visits to avoid spreading the virus.

Massive global job and income losses are likely to increase rates of child labor and child marriage. The International Labor Organization projects that by mid-2020, nearly 200 million jobs could be lost globally from the crisis.

Before the pandemic, an estimated 152 million children were already engaged in child labor and 12 million girls married each year before their 18th birthday. Without government support to families struggling to meet their basic needs, these numbers will rise.

Children are also more vulnerable to online sexual exploitation, as they spend more time online and may be anxious or lonely due to school shutdowns and stay-at-home orders. Europol has documented an increase in online offenders seeking child sexual abuse material online and attempting to initiate contact with children through social media.

Millions of children are institutionalized or detained, often in crowded conditions where Covid-19 prevention measures such as frequent handwashing and “social distancing” are nearly impossible. UNICEF has warned of outbreaks in these facilities and called for a moratorium on new admissions and the urgent release of children who can be returned to their families or other appropriate care.

Governments that make smart policy choices now will not only protect children during the immediate crisis, but also benefit children significantly over the long term. Expanding internet access will transform education for many children, enhance their access to information, and strengthen their ability to organize and express themselves.

Transferring children out of institutions and detention centers will limit transmission of the virus, and also help countries transition to family-based alternatives for children, which are proven to be healthier, often cheaper, and for children in the justice system, linked to lower recidivism rates. Expanding networks of kinship and foster care can provide homes and critical support for children left without parents.

The economic crisis should prompt governments to strengthen social protection measures, such as cash transfers, to help low-income families hit hardest by the pandemic and enable them to meet their basic needs without resorting to child labor or child marriage. Hotlines and public education campaigns can help protect children at risk of violence in the home or online sexual exploitation.

The pandemic demands government leadership to protect children from the worst impacts of Covid-19. It also offers the chance for policymakers to put measures in place that will benefit children long after the pandemic ends.

 

The post Why Covid-19 Choices Are Critical for Children appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Jo Becker is the children’s rights advocacy director at Human Rights Watch

The post Why Covid-19 Choices Are Critical for Children appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Agricultural markets or mandis have few buyers due to the coronavirus lockdown across India. Credit: Neeta Lal/IPS

By Neeta Lal
NEW DELHI, Apr 24 2020 (IPS)

Heartbreaking images of Indian farmers standing amidst swathes of rotting vegetables, fruits and grain have been flooding newspapers and TV screens lately. Crashing prices and transport bottlenecks due to the 40-day coronavirus lockdown in India, on till May 3, have driven some to set their unsold produce ablaze.   

As a nationwide lockdown has confined a record 1.3 billion Indians to their homes since Mar. 24, one of the hardest hit communities has been that of Indian farmers.

Crops set ablaze and farmer suicides

“We take our produce to the mandi (market) but there are hardly any buyers these days. I was forced to sell four quintals of chilli at Rs 10 per kg as against a normal price of Rs 40. But I was desperate to clinch the deal, else the transportation cost of bringing all that produce back would have broken my back,” Lekhi Ram, a smallholder farmer from Khairpur village of west Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, told IPS over the phone.

Unable to harvest his crop in time, Ram’s neighbour, also a smallholder, set his fields on fire. Unexpected rain and hailstones last week decimated whatever little was left. “The leftover vegetables were fed to the sheep and goats,” said Ram. 

March and April mark the peak harvesting season in India when crops like wheat, chickpea, barley, flax seed, pea, potato, mustard plant, cotton and millet are reaped and sold. But the current pandemic means this cannot happen.

“We were hoping to reap a rich harvest of rabi (spring) crops due to a good spell of rains. But God clearly had other plans,” Balbir Singh Rajewal, President of the Bharatiya Kisan Union in Punjab, a representative organisation for small farmers that protects their interests, told IPS. “Urban demand has been minimal during the lockdown. Even online grocery stores, whose orders we normally can’t cope with, have stopped calling.”

Farmer suicides have been reported from some villages.

• A farmer in the southern Indian state of Karnataka committed suicide last week after being unable to sell his harvest because of the lockdown.
• Rambhavan Shukla, another farmer from Jari village in Uttar Pradesh killed himself by hanging himself from a tree over non-availability of labourers for harvesting his wheat crop.  

Nearly 700 million people of the country’s 1.3 billion rely directly or indirectly on an agriculture-derived livelihood.

• Agriculture and allied sectors sector contribute 16.5 percent to the country’s $2.6 trillion GDP, according to the Indian government’s Economic Survey 2019-20.
• As per International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) statistics, the share of agriculture in India’s total workforce was 43.9 percent in 2018. 
• The ILO warned last week that about 400 million workers engaged by the informal economy, which accounts for a staggering 90 percent of the country’s total workforce, risk falling deeper into poverty during the ongoing crisis.

Farmers unions ask government to do more

A report released by the World Bank stated that the pandemic will reinforce inequality in South Asia, urging governments to ramp up action to protect their people, especially the poorest and most vulnerable, including through temporary work programmes.

According to Jagdish Singh, President, Bhartiya Kisan Union, Madhya Pradesh, a representative body of 0.3 million farmers, bureaucratic apathy has hurt farmers most.

“We didn’t get any combined harvesters from Punjab due to transport restrictions due to which we weren’t able to harvest our grain on time. Lack of farm labour and bad weather last week only made things worse.”

Singh rues the state government made no efforts to operate local mandis to enable farmers to sell whatever grain they were able to harvest.

“Through our own efforts, we’ve been running a mandi in the town of Satna [Madhya Pradesh] to sell pulses, mustard and wheat while observing social distancing norms. This helped many families to get some money for sustenance. There are many districts across Madhya Pradesh where there are no corona cases. Why isn’t the government operating markets there?”

Grain farmers with larger land holdings are experiencing greater struggles under the combined effects of low demand and acute paucity of migrant farm labour. This has severely interrupted agricultural patterns especially harvesting activities in the northwest northern breadbasket states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana where wheat and pulses are grown, said Rajewal.

Food stocks may help weather the storm…

In southern Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, for farmers who cultivate cash crops like cotton, onion and bananas, transportation has proved to be an issue.

According to Pravin Paithankar, president of the Maharashtra Heavy Vehicle and Inter-State Container Operators’ Association, as urban areas are reporting more coronavirus cases than rural ones, truck drivers and container operators are preferring to stay in their villages.

“They won’t be back until May-June,” Paithankar told IPS.

Immediately after the nationwide lockdown was announced, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman declared a 1.7 trillion Rupee (about $22 billion) package, mostly to protect vulnerable sections (including farmers) from any adverse impacts of the pandemic.

However, with most Indian farm households being small and marginal farmers, and a significant part of the population being landless farm labourers, this amount is woefully inadequate, according to Rajewal.   

• Of the total agricultural workforce in India, 45.1 percent are cultivators (farmers with land or self-employed in agriculture) and the rest, 54.9 percent, are agricultural labour (or landless), as per the Pocket Book of Agricultural Statistics of 2017.

The current crisis will also have a domino effect on agricultural output during the kharif (winter) season as good quality seeds, fertilisers and other inputs are not available, a senior official of Uttar Pradesh’s food, civil supplies and consumer affairs department who did not wish to be named told IPS. 

Given how the unfolding crisis has hit the farming community, the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee, an umbrella organisation of over 250 farmer unions across the country, urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to procure the entire wheat produced in the country to protect farmers.

Despite the turbulence within the rural economy, however, there’s optimism that India’s food security won’t suffer. The country maintains substantive buffer stocks of wheat and rice and its granaries are overflowing with nearly 60 million tons of food grain, according to the Food Corporation of India.

However, keeping supply chains functioning seamlessly will be vital for future food security, warn experts, for which farmers must have continued access to markets. Indian Institute of Technology (Gandhinagar) scientists who analysed 150 years of drought data have highlighted in a report that 2 to 3 million deaths in the Bengal famine of 1943 were due to food supply disruptions—not lack of food availability.

According to the Food Sustainability Index, created by the Barilla Centre for Food and Nutrition and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), among other middle income countries India has an above-average score of 65.5 out of 100 when it comes to sustainable agriculture.

…and what about post-COVID-19?

Meanwhile, experts say in the post-COVID-19 scenario existing food and agriculture policies must be repurposed to factor in pandemics. In an essay, Containing COVID-19 impacts on Indian agriculture, Dr. Arabinda Kumar Padhee and Dr. Peter Carberry argue that development of export-supportive infrastructure and logistics would need investments and support of the private sector to boost farmers’ income in the long run.

The duo also suggest that India, being trade-surplus on commodities like rice, meat, milk products, tea, honey, horticultural products, should seize the opportunities by exporting such products with a stable agri-exports policy. India’s agricultural exports were valued at $38 billion in 2018-19 and can rise up further with conducive policies.

“The Government of India has now increased its focus on nutrition (besides food)- security and raising farmers’ income rather than enhancing farm productivity. Changing consumer behaviour with suitable programs and incentives is already in the agenda.

“For all these to happen, the existing landscape of policy incentives that favour the two big staples of wheat and rice has to change. Designing agricultural policies, post-COVID-19 scenario, must include these imperatives for a food systems transformation in India,” wrote the experts.

 

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The post COVID-19: India’s Harvests also Locked Down appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

As a nationwide lockdown has confined a record 1.3 billion Indians to their homes since Mar. 24, one of the hardest hit communities has been that of Indian farmers.

The post COVID-19: India’s Harvests also Locked Down appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Greenpeace activists in front of the Prime Minister’s office in Warsaw, Poland. "We need to build a Green Welfare State". Credit: Maks Zieliński

By Savio Carvalho
LONDON, Apr 24 2020 (IPS)

In our current COVID 19 context of suffering and fear, that may sound like a strange and spooky quote. But let’s be clear: what we have achieved so far in the present is not – and shouldn’t be – indicative of what we can achieve in the future.

And, as Arundhati Roy reminds us, crisis moments can be portals to a different world.

There is enough scientific evidence to show that we have been living on borrowed time. We have not only inflicted unrestrained damages to the planet but also crossed planetary boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed.

Over the past century, as a civilisation, we have focused on un-sustained growth, power and profits, and in the bargain, we have meandered from our values, our humanity and our inner longing for peace and harmony.

We have heard it said multiple times, that we are living in an “unprecedented” situation. The same was said for the world wars and the 9/11 attack. What is unprecedented can either become the new normal or an opportunity to change and create something new.

And in the situation of COVID 19 which has infiltrated and impacted the entire planet, the world must now put aside their differences and come together to work towards the one unified goal of finding medicines and a vaccine – and giving access to them to all.

And we must do more than that. We must build a new world order. We are not at war with the virus. But we are in a situation as global and as groundbreaking as the two world wars. And there are lessons we can learn.

World War I led to fundamental changes in politics, economics and society. Aside from the gravely high human costs, the war resulted in new territories, where boundaries and political maps were redrawn, especially in Europe.

The war destroyed empires, created new nation-states and encouraged independence movements. The power of autocracy and the upper class was diminished, if not destroyed. It wasn’t all positive change, for sure. But fundamental change it was.

World War II also resulted in significant changes, and some called 1945 “the year zero”. The war led to the creation of the United Nations, thereby resulting in increased collaboration and peaceful cooperation amongst nations.

Another collaborative achievement that came out of WWII was the Bretton Woods Conference, a gathering of over 700 delegates from 44 allied nations who agreed to create institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development to enhance international economic cooperation.

Again, those institutions were not perfect (and in recent decades these institutions became avenues in which the developed world imposed cruel economic conditionalities on poorer countries). But they were new institutions born out of the zeitgeist and values of their time.

The COVID 19 crisis is not a world war, but just like the wars, it has led to a collective, global shock, a shock that is now urging humankind to live a life based on values and principles which work for people and the planet.

During this time when we have closely experienced the unimaginable, we have gained renewed respect and admiration for our front line essential workers, a greater appreciation for human kindness towards self and the community, as well as a deeper appreciation for nature – birds and fish are returning to areas they have abandoned; cities are seeing a drastic drop in air pollution and nitrogen levels; there is less dependence on fossil fuel; the destructive capitalistic economic model of extract and grow at any price is literally on its knees.

Yet, despite growing global social movements fueled by the people and citizens – such as Fridays for Future, the Fight Inequality Alliance or urban movements for change worldwide – our world leaders have sadly and continuously let us down.

But these are all the more reasons why this is the time to push the reset button – also for multilateralism and global institutions! This is the time to create something different, based on our human values of peace, dignity, and harmony with nature while respecting planetary boundaries.

Taking a leaf from the pages of history, now is the right time for the people and citizens to call for a world order that reflects these intrinsic human values. Now is the time to give birth to a new world order based on the principles of solidarity that COVID 19 have surfaced as key values for all of us all over the world.

As the United Nations marked 24th April as the International Day of Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace, this is the perfect moment to get the ball rolling, and work in close collaboration and coordination for a global call to action. Such global call will lay the foundations for the creation of the new world order.

Citizens must push their leaders to show real statesmanship by working together, and be bold and forge a new path, no matter how difficult it may be. This new governance for people and our planet must be based on human values and not profits.

We need global governance that puts equality, peace, dignity, democracy, and sustainable economics all at its very core. Public good should triumph over private profits.

This pathway would involve tackling climate change, developing a green and just economy via a just transition, ensuring food sovereignty, as well as investing to promote small localised agriculture, localised green energy production, and sustainable transport and cities.

Financial assistance, incentives, technical support and grants should be provided to emerging economies whilst at the same time incentivising developed economies to make the necessary shifts towards this new path for people and the planet. Corporations need to be fully accountable to people and planet, and trade needs to serve the public good.

The new world order can start with new institutions – like after the last two wars. Or it can be a re-founding of the United Nations. What is key is that we need global institutions with teeth. We need for health care, social protection and the environment global governance at least as powerful as the World Trade Organization is on trade.

We need global institution(s) that have the ability to hold governments and corporations to account if they fail to deliver on global agreements such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or the Paris Agreement, able to provide financial support and incentives to not breach 1.5 degrees of warming threshold and ensure protection and restoration of biodiversity on land, forest and oceans.

A clean, sustainable and green economic system should be a centrifugal force of the new world order – not captured by corporate greed or entangled by complex bureaucratic procedures – and move at a lightening speed for the planet and its people.

Let the last day of this pandemic be the first day of the beginning of a new world many have been dreaming of. Because as illustrated in The Alchemist, when we really, really want something, the universe will conspire to help us achieve it.

The time to hit the reset button is NOW.

 

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Excerpt:

Savio Carvalho is a Global Campaign Leader at Greenpeace International. Twitter: @savioconnects

 
And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it
                                                                                                               ― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

The post Why the International Day of Multilateralism Must Start a New World Order appeared first on Inter Press Service.

President Cyril Ramaphosa announces plan to reopen the economy but warns of new infections.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) estimates that more than 1.5 billion children from more than 190 countries are at home because of the global coronavirus lockdown. Credit: Naimul Haq/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 24 2020 (IPS)

Soon schools in Timor-Leste, Ukraine, and Kosovo, where some 6.5 million children are currently at home, will hopefully start teaching their children once again — albeit online. 

A learning platform, originally designed to assist refugee and displaced children, was launched this week to address the current global crisis affecting children who are out of school as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

Timor-Leste, Ukraine, and Kosovo are the first three countries to adopt the programme for their schools, which includes programmes such as online books, videos, and additional material and resources for children with special needs and their parents.

“Timor-Leste, Kosovo and Ukraine, where approximately 6.5 million learners have been affected by school closures, were the first to identify a need; gain necessary approvals; and access relevant content to support the roll out of the Learning Passport in their markets,” United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Chief of Education Robert Jenkins told IPS.

The platform that was designed to assist refugee and displaced children was launched this week to address the current global crisis affecting children who are out of school as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

The programme, called “Learning Passport” was launched to “help children continue their education from home during the pandemic,” Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the Secretary-General António Guterres, said at a press briefing on Monday. 

“It was scheduled to start as a pilot programme this year, but it has now been scaled up to become available in all countries with a curriculum that can be taught online,” he added. 

It was designed in partnership between UNICEF, Microsoft and the University of Cambridge. 

According to the latest estimate by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), 1.57 billion children from more than 190 countries are impacted because of the global coronavirus lockdown. 

Reality for refugee children

Meanwhile, Jenkins said that under the current lockdown the refugee children are likely to face increased risk.

“The needs of refugee children are even more acute,” Jenkins told IPS this week, adding that children who are displaced have limited access to a host of services such as testing and treatment.

On top of all these factors, measures taken to address the pandemic such as lockdowns and school shutdowns are affecting their safety and education.

“We are seeing that some displaced children – many of whom rely on school for their one nutritious meal a day and access to clean water – are going without the basics,” says Jenkins.  “Moreover, displaced children are likely to face an increased risk of neglect, abuse, gender-based violence and child marriage as families are left with even more socioeconomic hardship.”

For a community already living under hardship, this is only further exacerbating the problem, says Jenskins. He voiced concerns that many who have been restricted to go to school might never return to school once the lockdowns are lifted. 

18 months in the making

The ‘Learning Passport’ has been in the making for 18 months, and was scheduled to be launched this year for the education of refugee children. Once the pandemic broke and schools started being shut down, the programme went through an expansion process in order to address this new and urgent need. 

Jenkins added that UNICEF is working with teams on the ground in different countries to “identify specific gaps and needs; validate the above criteria; and identify and map”.

Brad Smith, President of Microsoft, has said that the solution should be exactly how the problem is: one with no borders. He also highlighted that the programme will be effective with collaboration of public and private sectors. 

A continuing gap

One gap that remains, however, is that the programme is accessible only to those who have access to the internet. Only 30 percent of low-income countries have been able to ensure digital training for students, as IPS reported last week. 

Neither Microsoft nor UNICEF, however, were able to give details on how this would address the digital divide that excludes many children who don’t have access to to the internet or digital technology, in mainly low socio-economic countries. 

“For children and youth who do not have access to an internet connection there should be solid plans in place to ensure the continuity of learning – through radio programmes, television and textbooks,” Jenkins said. “Teachers, parents and trusted community members must be able to guide children through their learning and check on their progress.”

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By Rochelle Jones
BRISBANE, Australia, Apr 23 2020 (IPS)

Feminist responses to COVID-19 have been swift, insightful, and numerous.

There have been webinars (so.many.webinars), twitter threads, illustrations, press releases and policy recommendations, and online house parties. Analysis pieces cover everything from the gendered impacts of COVID-19 to how to work remotely to the role of neoliberal capitalism.

Most strikingly, feminists have mobilized on a massive scale to generate our own autonomous resources for daily acts of solidarity and survival and to respond politically, collectively, and powerfully to this moment.

Many of these actions are coming from within communities and movements in some of the hardest hit and less privileged places, and especially amongst Black, LBTQI+, disability, migrant, land & labour movements. Some of the responses are localised, while others are global.

Feminist solidarity right now is the 'engine room,' driving some of the most innovative and needed action taking place today. Our movements are literally resourcing each other during this pandemic -- with emergency funds, information provision, art, love, time, sharing of experience, documentation of impact, and more -- sharing, connecting, analysing, strategising and imagining new feminist realities more than ever before

Feminist solidarity right now is the ‘engine room,’ driving some of the most innovative and needed action taking place today. Our movements are literally resourcing each other during this pandemic — with emergency funds, information provision, art, love, time, sharing of experience, documentation of impact, and more — sharing, connecting, analysing, strategising and imagining new feminist realities more than ever before.

Sex worker communities have been particularly impacted by COVID-19. As Red Umbrella Fund (RUF) describes, “as ever, [sex workers] are situated at the crosshairs, experiencing this new catastrophe in all its multiplicities… human rights violations in all its forms including insecure housing, income disparity, food scarcity, unequal access to healthcare and other public services, and violence” but have responded with “resiliency and agency.”

This resiliency and agency has translated into self-led initiatives to support sex workers in every region of the world. For instance, Aprosmig (Association of Sex Workers in Minas Gerais) in Brazil are leading a campaign to provide shelter, food, cleaning products, and money for sex workers and the homeless.

In Berlin, Karada House, a Queer collaborative art space, has pivoted to providing emergency relief through “LGBTQIA+ & WOMXN RELIEF FOR COVID-19,” with direct financial assistance, pre-cooking and delivering meals, and even matching people together to talk in order to relieve mental stress.

In the United States, SUSU: a black feminist giving circle is dispersing rapid response funds to Black feminists who are “living/caring/healing/responding and beyond to COVID-19.” Black empowerment and democracy collective Cooperation Jackson is repurposing its “fab lab” for community production to turn out 3-D printed and hand-sewn masks, with plans to “post videos to teach others how to make them, modeling the DIY [do-it-yourself] culture—which is a core part of the black radical tradition.”

Feminist activists in Kenya are taking to Twitter to raise funds for queer and trans people affected by COVID-19. They are also driving resources to groups like #MutualAidKe, which distributes food, sanitation supplies, educational supplies, and money. #MutualAidKe underscores its mission, quoting Toni Morrison, “The function of freedom is to free someone else.”

Global Women’s Strike (GWS) and Women of Colour GWS, which have campaigned for financial recognition for unwaged caring work for decades, have joined with the Green New Deal for Europe to urge governments everywhere to provide a Care Income, starting now.

In many cases, feminist movements are doing this whilst still resisting attacks on their rights. In Poland, for example, the government decided that the middle of a global pandemic is a good time to debate a ban on abortions of fetuses with serious abnormalities, and another bill that could ban sex education.

The debate was thankfully postponed for now, but protestors creatively responded to the COVID-19 lockdown rules by standing two metres apart holding placards or displaying them on their cars and bicycles.

All this amazing, risky work, whilst at the same time setting up a solidarity crowdfunding campaign to support activists and people affected by intersectional discrimination in Poland, and who are in a difficult economic situation due to COVID-19.

This is ALL autonomous resourcing in action.

But how is this even possible? Amongst all of the personal, political and economic hurdles people are facing with COVID-19 (layered upon the multiple challenges feminist organising already faces), how is it that feminist movements have been inspired and able to achieve this incredible response over such a short term?

Firstly, the constituencies that feminist movements belong to and serve are worst hit by the pandemic, so there is an urgent need for feminist analysis, solidarity actions and responses. As Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) has noted: “The ability to isolate, work from home, homeschool your children, stockpile your shelves, access healthcare, and financially (and psychologically) put your life back together after the pandemic is class, gender, race, age, and geography dependent”.

Nearly everyone is hit financially by the crisis, but state support, which varies vastly from one country to another, is always reserved to particular categories of workers, freelancers, citizens, with millions – often women and gender diverse people – falling short of fitting these categories.

Second, feminist movements have been able to respond so quickly because it is what they do. Feminist and other social movements are used to relying on each other, pulling a rabbit out of a hat and co-creating collective momentum and power to resist and disrupt oppressions, advocate for change and importantly – care for each other.

That’s certainly not to say that this is our lot in life. Feminist movements and agendas deserve MUCH more than the meagre resources made available to us. The COVID-19 pandemic is yet another example of the work that feminist and other social movements do.

Third, feminist and other social movements have been connecting, documenting, supporting, analysing, and theorising within and across borders to plan for and design a new world for decades. The COVID-19 pandemic may have added to the complexity of the moment, but we’re not starting at square one.

With the feminist ‘engine room’ kicking into high gear and driving these innovative and needed actions in a context that is both unique and extremely challenging, it demonstrates the power of autonomous resources to yield real ownership, influence and impact.

But – the sheer existence and breadth of feminist responses to COVID-19 also demonstrates the urgent need to transform our ailing and unfair systems that leave so many in peril. When civil society is again left scrambling to plug all the holes in a sinking boat, we should be turning to the architecture of the boat itself.

This is a moment that highlights system failures around wealth distribution and should draw our collective gaze toward structural transformation of the way resources are generated and distributed in society – the kind that feminist movements have been calling for and are best positioned to lead.

 

Rochelle Jones has been researching and writing about women’s rights and international development for over fifteen years. She is currently Organisational Learning and Strengthening Coordinator at AWID

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Locust swarms in East Africa pose additional challenge in the continent's fight against coronavirus.

The pair were found drinking in a bar which had defied orders to close to halt the spread of Covid-19.

As famines of “biblical proportions” loom, Security Council urged to “act fast”. Credit: United Nations

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

The UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), described as an integral part of its highly-ambitious development agenda, may be in deep trouble.

Aimed at addressing some of the global challenges the world faces– including extreme poverty and hunger, inequalities in incomes and gender, climate change and environmental degradation– the SDGs now seem threatened by a world economy facing a brutal recession.

With a 2030 deadline,the SDGs are in near disarray, as the coronavirus pandemic has decimated the economies of both rich and poor countries—even as warning signs reflect a possibly massive rise in poverty and hunger worldwide.

The slump in the global economy has triggered a recession in several donor nations, including Japan, the US, UK, France, Germany and China, among others.

In its most recent report released April 14, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that the world is facing its worst downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the global economy would contract by 3.0 percent in 2020.

This was a significant reversal from early this year when the IMF predicted the world economy would outpace 2019 and grow by 3.3 percent in 2020.

Ambassador Mona Juul of Norway, President of the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), told delegates April 23 that COVID-19 shows “it is more important than ever to focus on the implementation of the SDGs.” Therefore, issues such as resource mobilization, illicit finance, debt and women’s empowerment must be priorities,” she said.

Still, at the United Nations, several lingering questions remain: What are the new obstacles facing the implementation of SDGs? Will they survive an uncertain future?

Will donor nations help rescue the development agenda? Andwill the General Assembly be forced to push back the 2030 deadline?

Tariq Ahmad, Oxfam America’s Senior Policy & Research Advisor told IPS: “We are seeing COVID-19 wreak havoc on the global economy, which is felt acutely in the homes and communities of the most vulnerable among us”.

The economy downturn, he said, paints a dismal picture of what resources will be available to finance the SDGs. This crisis could push half a billion more people into poverty unless urgent and drastic action is taken.

A recent Oxfam brief has called for an Economic Rescue Plan For All, suggesting how the world could help finance UN’s estimated needs while the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has called on governments to mobilize at least $2.5 trillion dollars to support developing economics in order to tackle the pandemic and prevent a global economic collapse.

And a new study by the UN University’s World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) predicts that the COVID-19 pandemic could increase global poverty by as much as half a billion people, or 8% of the total human population. This would be the first time that poverty has increased globally in thirty years, since 1990.

In its annual Global Report on Food Crises, an international alliance of UN, governmental and non-governmental agencies, said, at the end of 2019, 135 million people across 55 countries and territories experienced acute food insecurity.

But the coronavirus pandemic is expected to make the situation worse and negatively impact on hunger and food insecurity, specifically in the developing world.

Jens Martens, executive director of Global Policy Forum, (a civil society think tank based in New York and Bonn), told IPS the COVID-19 pandemic not only has serious consequences for the health situation in many countries of the world but it will also have a massive impact on the implementation of almost all SDGs.

“The looming global recession will dramatically increase unemployment, poverty and hunger worldwide,” he said.

The situation, he pointed out, is even more serious because the macroeconomic situation in many countries of the global South had already deteriorated before the outbreak of the virus.

A vicious circle of debt and austerity policies have threatened socio-economic development from Argentina to Lebanon, he warned.

“The food situation had also deteriorated in many countries, even before COVID-19, for example, due to the locust plague in East Africa”.

Without effective multilateral counter-measures, Martens argued, inequality between rich and poor countries will increase considerably.

“COVID-19 is thus also a global wake-up call for international cooperation and solidarity”, he declared.

Keep critical food supply chains operating to save lives during COVID-19, urges a new UN-backed report. Credit: United Nations

In a report released April 20, the World Food Programme (WFP) said the COVID-19 pandemic could almost double the number of people suffering acute hunger, pushing it to more than a quarter of a billion by the end of 2020.

The number of people facing acute food insecurity stands to rise to 265 million in 2020, up by 130 million from the 135 million in 2019, as a result of the economic impact of COVID-19, according to a WFP projection.

Ahmad said one of the ways to free up vital resources to tackle the issues of hunger and poverty would be to cancel the debt of developing nations.

For example, Oxfam also jointly warned of the risk in West Africa, of 50 million people threatened by hunger and malnutrition in the coming months.

Meanwhile, Ghana is spending 11 times more on servicing its debts than it is on health. The costs of the debt burden are paid by the poorest people, in cuts to government services, while women are the hardest hit.

Aid is a critical ingredient to help finance the response. Of the estimated 2.5 trillion USD need, the UN estimates a need of 500 billion in new official development assistance (ODA).

In a soon to be released report, Oxfam estimated almost 300 billion of this should be provided by traditional northern donors. And there are still some fundamental flaws in the current system that prevent aid from supporting local responders on the front line of care.

“This crisis is the time for bold and visionary choices for our collective future. It’s time for donors to profoundly transform their aid to build a world that is free from poverty, that is more equal, feminist and sustainable. COVID-19 could set back the fight against poverty by decades – we must now act and build a better future,” he declared.

Asked if the 193-member UN General Assembly should postpone the 2030 deadline to achieved SDG targets, Martens said postponing the deadline for achieving the SDGs because of COVID-19 would send out completely the wrong signal.

On the contrary, he said, the coronavirus crisis shows how important these multilateral goals are, and how fatal it was that governments have not taken their implementation seriously enough since 2015.

Key SDG targets like the development of social protection systems, universal health care and a functioning public infrastructure must be given top priority. Only in this way can the current crisis be overcome and future crises prevented. This also requires effective policies of global solidarity, said Martens.

“What we need now is a Solidarity Summit under the auspices of the United Nations to deal with the social and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in an integrated manner”, he declared.

Asked about the postponement, Ahmad said “pushing back the SDG deadline won’t help pull anyone who is facing poverty or hunger – instead we need to see sweeping action across the globe to help offset some of this crisis’ worst impacts on the world’s most vulnerable”.

The challenge here is not time, it’s political will, he noted.

“This is an unprecedented daunting global challenge, but we must meet it both with urgent action that saves lives now and interventions that create a more fair system going forward, like the cancellation of debt for developing nations, and other support to help families stay healthy and safe until they are able to earn a living again.”

Even before COVID-19, he said, “we were dangerously behind on meeting many of the SDGs, but if this moment has taught us anything, it’s that we are able to make massive shifts in how we all live and cooperate to tackle a joint challenge – we must see the same approach taken to meet the Sustainable Development Goals.”

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

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PRESS RELEASE

By Amnesty International
Apr 23 2020 (IPS-Partners)

The Bangladesh authorities should rescue and welcome Rohingya refugees currently stranded at sea, Amnesty International said today. Other governments must fulfil their shared responsibility to carry out search and rescue efforts, in line with their international obligations to protect life, and allow safe disembarkation of refugees and asylum seekers at sea.

Two fishing trawlers carrying an estimated 500 Rohingya women, men and children are currently in the Bay of Bengal after being pushed away by Malaysia, which has imposed restrictions on all boats in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The two trawlers are headed towards Bangladesh a week after an earlier vessel carrying nearly 400 Rohingya refugees arrived there on 15 April. Monitors also believe there could be another vessel still at sea with hundreds more Rohingya stranded, further highlighting the need for governments in the region to get involved in search and rescue operations if needed.

“In contrast to the cruel indifference demonstrated by other governments, who have actively pushed away boats, Bangladesh has maintained its positive record of giving sanctuary to people who have lost their homes and suffered horrific crimes,” said Biraj Patnaik, South Asia Director at Amnesty International.

“We hope that Bangladesh will continue to welcome Rohingya refugees in these difficult times. The international community has an obligation to help the Bangladeshi authorities in this task, including in supporting efforts to set up quarantine centres and provide refugees the immediate medical assistance they require to recover from the journey and to protect them against the spread of the COVID-19 virus.”

Amnesty International last week called on Southeast Asian governments to launch immediate search and rescue operations for potentially hundreds more Rohingya refugees languishing at sea.

Malaysia has actively brought one vessel to shore but launched aggressive military patrols to scare others with Rohingya refugees away while Thailand has remained silent about the growing crisis, not saying whether it has pushed back boats or if it will assist any boats carrying refugees found near its coast.

The situation revives troubling memories of the 2015 Andaman Sea crisis when an untold number of Rohingya people were not rescued and hundreds lost their lives.

In February 2020, the Taskforce on the Bali Process – which included the participation of Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia and Myanmar – “emphasized the primacy of saving lives at sea and not endangering the life and safety of persons in responding to irregular maritime migration.”

The COVID-19 pandemic, Amnesty International said, cannot be a pretext for governments to abandon their responsibilities towards refugees.

“All countries in the region have a responsibility to ensure the seas do not become graveyards for people seeking safety. Bangladesh cannot be left to address this situation alone. The fact that it is upholding its own obligations is not an excuse for others to abandon theirs,” said Biraj Patnaik.

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Excerpt:

PRESS RELEASE

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Coronavirus pandemic threatens crises-ravaged communities, UN appeals for global support. Credit: United Nations

By The Rev. Liberato C. Bautista
NEW YORK, Apr 23 2020 (IPS)

Since the founding of the United Nations in 1945, space for multilateral policy development and commitment has grown. Its growth in the global health field augurs well as we find ways to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Multilateralism is a difficult word, often misconstrued to be about the global and not the local and daily life. Perception plays a major role in how the public perceives multilateralism. This is in part due to the complexity of modern global challenges, which are well beyond the capacity of any one state or even a small group of states to resolve by themselves.

The novel coronavirus pandemic may yet change this perception.

As the saying goes, all politics is local. My rejoinder to this is that one’s local is another’s global. The local and the global are simultaneous realities. United Methodist connectionalism is akin to multilateralism.

As a church, we address social issues central to the multilateral agenda, including health, migration, peace, climate, and concerns about global poverty, trading and commerce, sustainable development, social justice, women, children and gender justice, human rights, indigenous peoples, and more.

Holistic health, healing and wholeness are intrinsic to Methodism and its Wesleyan roots. John Wesley attended to both the care for the soul and for the biological body with his abundant tips and remedies for ailments during his time.

Throughout the United Methodist connection, we are doing advocacy on public health policies at national legislatures and multilateral settings. We are in global mission together for sustainable development and humanitarian assistance, building capacity for peoples and communities to manage their healthcare needs.

Our numerous United Methodist-affiliated clinics, hospitals, colleges and universities around the world are training medical, health, social work and pastoral care professionals.

The Rev. Liberato Bautista. Credit: Marcelo Schneider, World Council of Churches

Human rights intrinsic to health, healing and wholeness

Global pandemics such as the novel coronavirus respect no sovereign boundaries or national allegiances. The coronavirus ravages all peoples across races and social classes, but its effects are more devastating on vulnerable populations everywhere and on struggling low- and middle-income economies around the world.

To mitigate the virulent spread of COVID-19, we are called by national authorities to stay at home, wash our hands, stay in place and practice physical distancing. These public health directives imply that we have houses to stay in, water to wash our hands, and some space where we can move around and still maintain six feet distance from each other.

When Philippine government officials issued the directive for Filipinos to stay at home, Norma Dollaga, a United Methodist deaconess and justice advocate from the Philippines, reacted through her Facebook page: “Stay at home. That’s for those who have homes. How about the homeless?”

The reality is that the human rights to health, housing and water, along with human mobility, have long been imperiled in many places around the world prior to COVID-19’s onslaught. Moreover, the health crisis has been used as an excuse in other parts of the world to grab power or tighten national security laws that are assaulting civil liberties and violating democratic rights.

Neither pandemic nor political or economic exigency can derogate from the enjoyment of fundamental human rights.

That the outbreak of COVID-19 started in Wuhan City in China has resulted in undue rise in racist and xenophobic acts especially against people of Chinese origin, or Asians in general. This is on top of an ongoing surge of populism and xenophobic nationalism around the world.

Health is wealth, fund it robustly

If health is wealth, it behooves peoples and their governments to protect it. Health care workers who are on the front line against this pandemic should have all the resources they need without begging for them.

A war may have been declared in the eradication of the novel coronavirus pandemic. But it is looking more like the deployment of war rhetoric and not the funding that real wars have received.

National budgets are moral documents. Health is the true common wealth that we must invest human and budgetary resources to. Yet we know that defense spending today far outweighs the puny investments from national coffers that health care urgently needs and strategically deserves.

Global collaboration is indispensable

The role of the U.N. in forging global cooperation is crucial, in times of crisis or calm. Global cooperation in the surveillance of emerging viruses and bacteria is necessary if pandemics are to be mitigated and diseases eradicated.

Coordinating this global collaboration and leading the development of a vaccine to treat the COVID-19 disease gives the public good reason to trust global institutions like World Health Organization. Think of the eradication of smallpox — and the ongoing programs to eventually eradicate polio and malaria — as examples of how global cooperation benefits us in our local daily lives.

To triumph over COVID-19, comprehensive cooperation is needed on many fronts — medical, pharmaceutical, healthcare workers, mental health providers, healthcare facilities. Public and private coordination is necessary in ensuring that the supply chain for much needed testing kits, ventilators, as well as personal protective equipment like N95 face masks, gloves, gowns, aprons, face shields and respirators remain unbroken.

A successful multilateral response requires a “whole-of-government,” “whole-of-society” and evidence-based public health approach. Mitigation works best when countries share expertise and scientific knowledge about threats to health, to climate, to populations and to peace and security.

Social inequalities imperil public health

The Commission on the Social Determinants of Health established by WHO in 2005 elaborated on the disastrous effects of social inequalities on people’s health. The intersections of physical, mental and social health, healing and wholeness are abundantly clear.

The commission’s 2008 final report stated: “The social determinants of health are the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age. These circumstances are shaped by the distribution of money, power and resources at global, national and local levels.

The social determinants of health are mostly responsible for health inequities — the unfair and avoidable differences in health status seen within and between countries.”

The U.N. commemorates its 75th anniversary this year. It is an auspicious time to reaffirm support for its mandates, especially the securing of health for all peoples and the planet. A healthy population makes for a healthy planet.

Nongovernmental organizations, including faith-based organizations like our United Methodist representations at the U.N., are in a kairos moment to help achieve the U.N.’s mandates.

COVID-19 may have been virulent and will forever change the rules of social etiquette and socialization. But the novel coronavirus has done what multilateral negotiations have not done — pause globalization and its unbridled pursuit of profit and capital.

When the world reopens from the ravages of the virus, we have a momentous task not to return to, but to transform, global and local arrangements to protect humanity and the planet, at least from the ravages of pandemics and social inequalities.

It comforts me that not all contagions are deadly. Some are beneficial. Love and kindness are. So are hospitality, mercy and justice.

*This article 0riginally appeared in UM News”. The link follows: https://www.umnews.org/en/news/collaboration-can-help-eradicate-covid-19

 

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Excerpt:

Rev Liberato C. Bautista is assistant general secretary for United Nations and International Affairs of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society. He also serves as president of the Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations.

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