Africa

On March 2020, over 330 students, women champions, government officials, NGO members and community members from around Kampot and Kep gathered in an effort to plant 3,000 mangroves and conserve Cambodia’s coastline. The local activity took place as part of a larger mangrove planting and marine exhibition under Action Aid’s 100,000 Mangroves campaign, supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) under the project ‘Strengthening Climate Information and Early Warning Systems in Cambodia’. The campaign aims to plan 100,000 mangroves in eight community fisheries by May 2020, and raise awareness of the importance of marine ecosystems. Credit: ManuthButh/UNDP Cambodia

By Claudia Ituarte-Lima
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada, Mar 24 2020 (IPS)

We are living in a critical time. As we face existential environmental challenges from climate crises to the mass extinction of species, it is difficult sometimes to see solutions and new ideas. This is why we all need to celebrate and give visibility to creative and courageous efforts of people and organizations striving towards a healthy planet for all.

I write today about the key role played by National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) in the Global South in our collective fight against climate change. The time has come to empower NHRIs.

Their unique position mandated by law yet independent from the government can make an urgent needed bridge between legal and policy advances, and ground-up efforts such as youth and women movements, thereby contributing to the enjoyment of the right to a healthy environment.

I have recently had the chance of learning real-world success stories by brave NHRIs working in some of the most challenging contexts. While being a member of the facilitators’ team of a series of webinars* for technical staff and decision-makers working in NHRIs and prior face-to-face interaction with them, it became crystal clear that strengthening the skills and capacities of NHRIs can contribute positive outcomes for both human rights and the environment.

In Mongolia, for instance, the NHRI with the support of civil society organizations and environmental researchers has recently developed a draft law for safeguarding the rights of environmental defenders.

The NHRIs have also intervened in a variety of sectoral issues from pesticides and agriculture in Costa Rica, to mining in South Africa and the connections between coal mining and transportation in Mongolia. The Morocco NHRI has prompted other African NHRIs and civil society organizations to actively participate in international climate negotiations.

Business and human rights was a key issue raised by our NHRIs colleagues.

Nazia, 38, proudly shows off her home-grown tomatoes in Nadirabad village, Pakistan. She participated in kitchen gardening training offered under the joint UNDP-EU Refugee Affected and Host Areas (RAHA) Programme in Pakistan. Credit: UNDP Pakistan

The significant legal, institutional and financial obstacles that national duty bearers face to investigate transnational corporations and their responsibilities concerning their impacts to a safe climate has not proved insurmountable for NHRIs.

The Philippine’s NHRI has a mandate to promote human rights which, creatively interpreted, allowed it to investigate the climate change and human rights nexus beyond its national borders.

The systemic nature of climate change justified a national inquiry rather than a field visit. Because climate change is an existential issue not only to Filipino people but globally, the Philippines national inquiry on climate change turned into an inquiry with strong global dimensions.

It included public hearings in the Philippines, New York and London, virtual hearings and expert advice from the former UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and environment, academics from different parts of the world and the Asia-Pacific regional network of NHRIs.

A major comparative advantage presented by the NHRIs is their unique position in working hand in hand with right holders in addressing environmental – human rights gaps facing the most vulnerable populations.

Costa Rica NHRI has found, for instance, that women, girls, men and boys and elder living in coastal areas become especially vulnerable to climate change because their access to clean drinking water and fish become scarce.

The South African NHRI together with food sovereignty civil society organizations has developed a draft climate charter, to be presented to the parliament, with a more holistic approach to the current climate policy.

In recent years, the awareness of the linkages between human rights and climate change has greatly increased. The legal recognition of the right to a healthy environment in more than 150 countries, together with judicial decisions, and academic studies on the safe climate dimension of this right has grown rapidly. NHRIs can be instrumental in translating them into results and action, including under difficult circumstances.

Their role in advising duty bearers, working together with right-holders helps to understand and act upon systemic environmental challenges. Their synergies with environmental human rights defenders can also contribute to more effective investigation and advocacy, not least in the context of informal and unregulated business activities where it is especially difficult to collect data and hold businesses accountable.

Time has come for the international community to do more to support NHRIs in the Global South, a key player often overlooked in climate and biodiversity talks, debates and funding. Due to the intrinsic connections between human rights and environment, the NHRIs need to be further supported to perform their innovative roles in safeguarding life-support systems at various jurisdictional scales, including advocating for the global recognition of the right to a healthy environment by the United Nations.

* The series was organized by the Global Alliance for National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI), UNDP, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and UN Environment. A final report with key messages from the webinar series is available on the UNDP website.

The post Why Empowering National Human Rights Institutions Helps on the Quest for Healthy Earth? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Claudia Ituarte-Lima, Stockholm University, Sweden and University of British Columbia, Canada

 

Claudia Ituarte-Lima is researcher on international environmental law at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, and affiliated senior researcher at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. She is currently a visiting researcher at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, University of British Columbia. She holds a PhD from the University College London and a MPhil from the University of Cambridge.

The post Why Empowering National Human Rights Institutions Helps on the Quest for Healthy Earth? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Olympic superstar Eliud Kipchoge talks about the works he is reading whilst in isolation to protect from coronavirus - including one with a rather ironic title.

Health workers are at the frontlines in the fight against the new Corona Virus. Credit: John Njoroge

By Mutahi Kagwe and Siddharth Chatterjee
NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 24 2020 (IPS)

Many soldiers have seen first-hand the horrors of war and, terrifying though it often was, they knew who they were fighting, and could recognise their enemy.

The COVID 19 or the new Corona Virus is different. In this virus we have an enemy which is invisible and sometimes deadly, and the task is harder.

About a century ago the Spanish flu pandemic killed an estimated 50 million people, more than the combined total casualties of World Wars I and II. Our understanding of disease transmission and treatments is far ahead of our position in 1918, but this new coronavirus has shown the limits of our ability to deal with major disease outbreaks.

Advice to protect ourselves is clear: wash your hands well and often, self-isolate if you feel unwell, maintain social distance by avoiding crowded and public spaces and, if your symptoms worsen, contact medical services. Only by following this advice rigorously can we hope to stem the tide of new infections.

For now, however, the virus is spreading and, on the frontline between a nervous public and those responsible for directing national responses, the healthcare workers on whom we all depend can easily be forgotten.

During the Ebola outbreak six years ago, the World Health Organisation estimated that health workers were between 21 and 32 times more likely to be infected with Ebola than people in the general adult population. In West Africa more than 350 health care workers died while battling Ebola.

Mutahi Kagwe

Doctors, nurses, carers and paramedics around the world are facing an unprecedented workload in overstretched health facilities, and with no end in sight. They are working in stressful and frightening work environments, not just because the virus is little understood, but because in most settings they are under-protected, overworked and themselves vulnerable to infection.

The risk to doctors, nurses and others on the front lines has become plain: Italy has seen at least 18 doctors with coronavirus die. Spain reported that more than 3,900 health care workers have become infected,

We need a whole-of-society resolve that we will not let our frontline soldiers become patients. We must do everything to support health workers who, despite their own well-founded fears, are stepping directly into Covid-19’s path to aid the afflicted and help halt the virus’s spread.

In sub-Saharan Africa as elsewhere, pressure on the healthcare workforce will intensify in the coming months. A recent survey of National Nurses United (NNU) members in the US, revealed that only 30% believed their healthcare organization had sufficient inventory of personal protective equipment (PPE) for responding to a surge event. In some parts of France and Italy, hospitals have run out of masks, forcing doctors to examine and treat coronavirus patients without adequate protection.

Siddharth Chatterjee

The situation in poorer countries will be worse. Demand has far outstripped supplies. In Kenya to enable health workers to do their jobs safely we will dedicate resources to providing gowns, gloves, and medical grade face masks, and also arm them with the latest knowledge and information on the virus. As partners the Government of Kenya, the United Nations and the international community are determined to explore every avenue to ensure all the possible support for the health workers.

Evidence indicates that coronavirus can survive on some hard surfaces for up to three days, but it is also easily killed by simple disinfectants. Health workers need the back-up of ancillary staff to increase the frequency and rigour of cleaning light switches, countertops, handrails, elevator buttons and doorknobs. Such measures can give much-needed reassurance to stressed care givers and protect the public too.

Like soldiers, health workers also face considerable mental stress. It is often forgotten that as humans, they feel the sorrow of loss when their patients succumb to the virus. They too have families, and so will also naturally be fearful that the virus might reach those they love most.

Whenever possible we will ensure that healthcare workers have access to counselling services so they can recharge before moving on again, given that this could be a long, drawn out battle.

We need to also use accurate information as a means of defence. Misinformation can cause public panic, suspicion and unrest; it can disrupt the availability of food and vital supplies and divert resources – such as face masks – away from health workers and other frontline workers whose need is greatest.

Covid-19 will not be the last dangerous microbe we see. The heroism, dedication and selflessness of medical staff allow the rest of us a degree of reassurance that we will overcome this virus.

We must give these health workers all the support they need to do their jobs, be safe and stay alive. We will need them when the next pandemic strikes.

Mr. Mutahi Kagwe is the Minister of Health in Kenya and Siddharth Chatterjee is the United Nations Resident Coordinator to Kenya.

The post Health Workers Are the Frontline Soldiers Against Covid-19. Let’s Protect Them appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 24 2020 (IPS)

The economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic is hard to predict as events are still unfolding, and estimates vary dramatically. UNCTAD estimates lost output in the order of US$1 trillion, just over a third of Bloomberg’s expectation of US$2.7 trillion in losses. The OECD expects global economic growth to halve from already anaemic levels.

Dire consequences for achieving the already failing Agenda 2030 for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are inevitable. Developing countries are particularly vulnerable, with meagre resources available for the new threat and its consequences.

As resources are urgently needed to cope with the pandemic, their ability to spend on other development priorities will be even more constrained. As with previous economic and health crises, poor and vulnerable sections of the population will be worse affected.

Ahead of the forthcoming G20 leaders’ virtual emergency meeting, the UN Secretary-General warned that current national responses to the coronavirus pandemic “will not address the global scale and complexity of the crisis”.

Anis Chowdhury

Millions could die without a more “coordinated global response, including helping countries that are less prepared to tackle the crisis”, as “global solidarity is not only a moral imperative, it is in everyone’s interests”.

Impact on developing countries
Besides the direct socio-economic impacts of the Covid-19 crisis, the pandemic will affect developing countries otherwise via: global value chain and tourism disruptions, falling commodity prices and foreign direct investment, as well as the consequences of capital flight and a stronger dollar.

Analysts project reduced investments in global value chains, energy, mining, and other sectors, as well as falling travel and tourism in African countries due to reduced Chinese demand for raw materials as its economy slows further. Sub-Saharan Africa is also expected to lose up to US$34 billion in export revenue due to reduced global demand, especially collapsing oil prices.

Commodity prices have already fallen sharply, and exporters expect more problems due to falling demand as the global economy slows. Heavily indebted developing countries are in a particularly difficult situation as their exports decline with falling global demand, and import and debt service costs rise due to weaker currencies as money flees to ‘safe havens’.

The Institute for International Finance estimates that around US$67.45 billion has flowed out of emerging countries since late January, an amount larger than emerging market capital outflows in the aftermath of the 2008-2009 global financial crisis and the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis.

Impacts on working people
A new International Labour Office report projects almost 25 million jobs could be lost worldwide, and workers could lose some US$3.4 trillion in income by year’s end.
Without paid sick leave, workers in the informal economy cannot afford to stay home.

Lockdowns will disproportionately hurt low-income households, casual workers and the poor, especially where social protection is grossly inadequate. Many lack the means to stockpile food or seek medical treatment.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Malnutrition, poverty and hunger induced health stresses compound vulnerability and feed vicious cycles of disease, destitution and death. As the Ebola epidemic revealed, poverty worsens contagion, which can, in turn, deepen poverty.

Studies of 11 sub-Saharan African, South and Southeast Asian countries found that without universal health coverage, poor people respond to health shocks with impoverishing ‘distress sales’ of their limited assets and by taking on more usurious debt.

Urban slums and refugee camps can become virus hotspots. For the world’s more than 65 million displaced people, who have fled war and persecution, and live precariously, the risks posed by the pandemic are dire.

By disrupting economic activity and cutting incomes, the pandemic is a new cause of impoverishment, besides limiting the ability of vulnerable households to escape from – and stay out of – poverty.

Support measures lack coordination
As of 9 March 2020, ‘donors’ (including governments, multilateral organizations and private funders) had pledged or given an estimated US$8.3 billion – directly to countries and to the WHO – for COVID-19 responses.

This included US$15 million from the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund to help vulnerable countries, not very much as the organization struggles with its own persistent underfunding.

Meanwhile, the World Bank announced US$12 billion in immediate support, while the International Monetary Fund (IMF) made available about US$50 billion in emergency financing for low income and emerging market countries, and “stands ready” to use its US$1 trillion lending capacity to help countries coping with the pandemic.

Concessional support from the IMF and the World Bank usually comes with onerous “one-size-fits-all” policy conditionalities, typically favouring influential shareholders.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust have set up a US$125 million coronavirus drug fund, while Michael Bloomberg’s US$40 million plan seeks to stem the coronavirus spread in developing countries. Philanthropic support is typically oblivious of national development priorities, and may ‘distort’ public health or social protection.

These funds are inadequate, given the scale and complexity of the problem, especially as an early end to the pandemic remains highly unlikely. Different modes of pandemic control need to be considered to minimize the scale of disruption and threat.

Crucially, multilateral coordination remains seriously lacking beyond the valiant efforts of the WHO in the face of persistent criticisms and its own financing problems. The UN should show how slow progress on the SDGs has made us all much more vulnerable to the pandemic and its various consequences.

It will be important for the UN to play a stronger coordinating and leadership role, e.g., with the UN Sustainable Development Group (UNSDG) rapidly assessing the adverse impacts and funding needs of the Covid-19 pandemic in relation to Agenda 20.

The post Stronger UN Leadership Needed to Cope with Coronavirus Threat appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The authorities suspect the dead are migrants from Ethiopia and that they died of asphyxiation.

Writers who were supposed to be at the now cancelled PEN World Voices Festival. (Courtesy of PEN America)

By SWAN
Mar 24 2020 (IPS-Partners)

With the spread of the Covid-19 disease, the arts and culture sectors have seen a flood of cancellations and postponements, affecting artists around the world and putting the global 2,000-billion-dollar creative industry at risk.

Concerts, book fairs, film and literary festivals – including the famed Cannes Film Festival – and a range of other events have had to move their dates or cancel outright, while bookshops, museums and cinemas have been forced to close their doors.

The sectors, which employ some 30 million people worldwide, will be among those hit hardest by the pandemic, according to analysts, and individual artists are already fighting to maintain their livelihood.

“Everyone is impacted and suffering,” says American jazz singer Denise King. “As a member of the artist/musician community, I’ve gone from a fairly heavy touring and gig schedule … to nothing. To face this sudden loss of income is devastating. Many artists like myself are scrambling to come up with creative ways to generate income.”

With some 210,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 worldwide, and 8,778 deaths by March 19 (about three months after the outbreak in Wuhan, China), both wealthy and low-income countries are affected, but vulnerable states are particularly at risk, according to the UN. Along with the health sector, culture and other areas will struggle to recover.

In the Caribbean, several festivals have announced postponements. The popular Calabash literary festival in Treasure Beach, Jamaica, will now take place in September 2020 instead of May, while the national Bocas Lit Fest in Trinidad and Tobago is similarly postponed.

“We watched and waited to make this decision,” stated Calabash co-organizers Justine Henzell and Kwame Dawes, who stressed that there was no other option given the travel restrictions.

Jamaica was among the first in the region to order lockdowns and to restrict travel from several affected countries. The minister of culture, gender, entertainment and sport, Olivia “Babsy” Grange, announced the closure of cultural and sport facilities, including museums, galleries, and stadia run by the government, on March 13, with effect from the following day.

She said the closures were “in keeping with the government’s strategy to prevent the spread of Covid-19 in Jamaica and to minimise the potential health impact on the country”, and she urged those in the cultural, sport and entertainment sectors to “take all necessary precautions and follow the guidance of the health authorities”.

The island had 13 confirmed cases of Covid-19 as of March 19, and the government has been commended by World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus for its response to the pandemic. But officials are aware of the fiscal effects of the crisis.

The Caribbean economy is strongly tied to tourism, including cultural tourism, with the sector representing around 14% of the region’s total GDP, while the arts and culture fields employ thousands of workers.

UNESCO HQ shuttered. Credit: AD McKenzie

According to the United Nations agency UNESCO (which has had to close its doors in Paris), the cultural and creative industry sectors generate annual revenues of US$2,250 billion and global exports of more than US$250 billion.

These industries currently provide nearly 30 million jobs worldwide and employ more people aged 15 – 29 than any other sector, the agency said in a 2018 report, “Reshaping Cultural Policies”. Nearly half of the people working in the cultural and creative industries are women, the report showed.

For states such as France, which is the most visited country in the world with 90 million tourists annually, the shuttering of the cultural sector is unprecedented in peacetime.

The Paris Book Fair, or Livre Paris, was the first major event to announce its cancellation. Normally attracting about 160,000 visitors each year, the Fair was scheduled for March 20-23 and was set to put Indian literature in the spotlight. But when France banned events with gatherings of 5,000 or more people in early March, there was no choice but to cancel.

“Everyone is going to lose a lot of money. Some of us won’t survive,” an independent Paris-based publisher, who asked not to be named, told SWAN. “Those who do manage to keep going will have to push back their planned publications.”

The owners of some bookshops had hoped to stay open, arguing that people need material to read when in confinement, but they too have had to pull down the shutters, although newsagents can remain in operation.

The Louvre, the world’s most visited museum, first closed its doors for a few days at the beginning of March because staffers invoked their right to walk off the job if they felt at risk. It reopened, but soon it and all museums, galleries and cinemas had to close because of the government’s decree on March 16, putting the population in lockdown.

“We’re at war” against the virus, French President Emmanuel Macron said in a televised address, ordering the confinement. Since March 17, only places offering essential services are allowed to be open, and residents may leave their home for brief periods only after filling in a form, on their honour, called the “attestation de déplacement dérogatoire”.

With confirmed Covid-19 cases above 10,000 in France, the organisers of the prestigious Cannes Film Festival said on March 19 they had decided to postpone the event. The festival had earlier announced that American director Spike Lee would head the competition jury – the first person of African descent to have this role – and he is expected to be present for the new dates.

“The Festival de Cannes cannot be held on the scheduled dates, from May 12 to 23. Several options are considered in order to preserve its running, the main one being a simple postponement, in Cannes, until the end of June-beginning of July 2020,” the festival team stated.

The organisers said they would make their final decision known following ongoing consultation with the French government and Cannes City Hall.

In the United States, where the government has been widely criticised for being slow to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic, cultural events are being cancelled one after the other as well.

PEN, the international association of writers, said it was with “heavy hearts” that it had decided to cancel the 2020 PEN America World Voices Festival scheduled for May 6 – 12.

“We were hoping that this awful public health crisis might ebb by May, and that we could emerge with the exciting events we had curated for audiences in New York and Los Angeles. It’s now plain such plans are neither realistic nor safe for our participants and our audiences,” stated Suzanne Nossel, CEO, PEN America, and Chip Rolley, director of the festival.

“We join the ranks of cultural institutions in New York, Los Angeles, and across the country that will temporarily go dark this spring,” they added. “The World Voices Festival was founded in the wake of 9/11 to provide a beacon for writers and audiences from around the world and to build bridges across borders as an antidote to cultural isolationism. As a new and unexpected isolation is thrust upon us, we regret deeply that we won’t be able to shine that light or foster those vital in-person connections.”

The organisation said it was “seeking new means” to bring directly to audiences the “words, ideas, and artistry” of the writers who’d been invited, including Arundhati Roy and Colm Tóibín. This might be done “through a variety of digital means”, including a new podcast set to launch soon.

The branch of PEN in England, English PEN, meanwhile said it was “with great sadness” that the organization had decided to postpone or cancel all its events “at least until 30 April 2020 following the latest public health advice from the government”. The group announced the creation of an Authors Emergency Fund on March 20, to “help support authors impacted financially by the growing health crisis”.

In the face of the pandemic, not all is doom and gloom in the cultural sector, however. Singers such as John Legend and Chris Martin have been streaming concerts via their social media accounts, as part of the “Sessions: Together, At Home” series – an initiative launched by the Global Citizen Festival and the World Health Organization.

In addition, some publishers are offering significant discounts on their books, while others have made stories, poetry and textbooks available online. From confinement, one can also view many of the world’s art masterpieces via museum web platforms and see films that festivals have decided to stream for free.

King, the jazz vocalist, said she will present a performance on FB live, and she called on the public to assist at-risk artists in whatever way they can.

“We have to hold each other up,” she told SWAN. “Perhaps this virus serves as way to help us focus on what really matters and to reconnect.”

This article is published with permission from Southern World Arts News and editor A. D. McKenzie.

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The post Arts, Culture – Trying to Keep the Lights on amid Covid-19 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Manu Dibango, the 86-year-old African jazz legend, dies in Paris after catching the coronavirus.

Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 24 2020 (IPS)

When US President Donald Trump repeatedly characterized the fast-spreading COVID-19 as a “Chinese virus” last week, it prompted some white supremacists to resurrect an age old ethnic slur against Chinese and East Asians: the “Yellow Peril” which, in a bygone era, was touted as a xenophobic threat to the Western world.

But Tendayi Achiume, UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination and Xenophobia, is highly critical of the racist interpretation to a disease which has claimed over 16,500 deaths worldwide and accounted for more than 378,000 infections, with the epicenter shifting from China to Europe.

Singling out Trump, she said: it’s dismaying, however, “to witness State officials—including the President of the United States—adopting alternative names for the COVID-19 coronavirus”.

“Instead of using the internationally recognized name of the virus, these officials have adopted names with geographic references, typically referring to its emergence in China,” said Achiume, who is Assistant Professor of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law.

“This sort of calculated use of a geographic-based name for this virus is rooted in, and fosters, racism and xenophobia. In this case, it serves to isolate and stigmatize individuals who are, or are perceived to be, of Chinese or other East Asian descent”, she added.

Meanwhile, white supremacist groups in the US have justified the label, mostly in Facebook postings, by arguing that if diseases like German measles (1814), Spanish flu (1918) and Lyme disease (1975), are widely accepted, why not a “Chinese virus”?

Asked for her response, Achiume told IPS it’s disingenuous to try and make this an issue of semantics, where defenders of racialized disease-names point to historical examples of related naming practices.

“We have individuals today who are being attacked and abused on racial and ethnic grounds, in part because their attackers are emboldened by xenophobic leaders stoking intolerance on the basis of national origin”.

She said this is not a time for semantics.

“We are facing a global pandemic that requires leaders to defend and protect the dignity of all people, irrespective of race or ethnicity”, declared Achiume, who is also a research associate of the African Center for Migration and Society at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa.

According to the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), one of the primary TV channels in the US, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has, in an intelligence briefing last month, revealed plans involving white supremacist groups allegedly attempting to “weaponize the coronavirus” to attack non-whites and minorities—through infected saliva, spray bottles and laced items.

And in a report on Yahoo News, Hunter Walker and Jana Winter write: “Violent extremists continue to make bioterrorism a popular topic among themselves,” reads the intelligence brief written by the Federal Protective Service, which covered the week of Feb. 17-24.

“White Racially Motivated Violent Extremists have recently commented on the coronavirus, stating that it is an ‘OBLIGATION’ to spread it, should any of them contract the virus.”

Matthew Lee, a health policy researcher and a doctoral candidate in sociomedical sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, points out that during disease outbreaks, attacks on marginalized groups are not an exception, but the norm.

This racism and xenophobia are additionally stoked by discourse that casts the bodies and behaviors of Chinese Americans and other Asian Americans as suspicious, and even at fault, for spreading disease, he noted.

“While viruses and other pathogens do not discriminate between hosts based on race, ethnicity, nationality or immigration status — stigma and misinformation certainly do,” Lee added.

Achiume said irresponsible, discriminatory State rhetoric is no minor issue.

As noted by the World Health Organization in 2015: ‘disease names really do matter to the people who are directly affected … certain disease names provoke a backlash against members of particular religious or ethnic communities … This can have serious consequences for peoples’ lives and livelihoods’.

“These consequences have already become a reality. Over the past two months, people who are perceived or known to be of Chinese or other East Asian descent have been subject to racist and xenophobic attacks related to the virus. These attacks have ranged from hateful slurs to denial of services to brutal acts of violence,’ she added.

COVID-19-related expressions of racism and xenophobia online have included harassment, hate speech, proliferation of discriminatory stereotypes, and conspiracy theories.

Not surprisingly, she argued, leaders who are attempting to attribute COVID-19 to certain national or ethnic groups are the very same nationalist populist leaders who have made racist and xenophobic rhetoric central to their political platforms.

“Political responses to the COVID-19 outbreak that stigmatize, exclude, and make certain populations more vulnerable to violence are inexcusable, unconscionable, and inconsistent with States’ international human rights law obligations”.

“Furthermore, political rhetoric and policy that stokes fear and diminish the equality of all people is counterproductive. To treat and combat the spread of COVID-19 effectively, individuals must have access to accurate health advice and sufficient healthcare without fear of discrimination,” she declared.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

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Olympic superstar Eliud Kipchoge visits his farm - on his own - as he trains in isolation

Sungai Nibung village chief Syarif Ibrahim (second from left) leads by example in planting mangrove trees in Kubu Raya regency, West Kalimantan province.

By Kanis Dursin
JAKARTA, Mar 23 2020 (IPS)

Samsul sounded very happy last Monday (Mar. 16) when recounting his experience of catching crabs worth more than $60 in a single day. 

“I hauled over 12 kilograms of crabs on that day, which I sold to local traders,” Samsul told IPS during a phone interview from Sungai Nibung, a fishing village inside a protected mangrove forest in Kubu Raya regency, in the West Kalimantan province on Borneo Island. The island is a 90-minute flight north of the country’s capital Jakarta.

But that was some time ago.

Decades of overfishing and rampant use of fish bombs, poison, and trawls, combined with the rapid conversion of land into oil palm plantations in neighbouring villages, had severely depleted crab, shrimp and fish stocks in the area, resulting in dwindling catch and declining incomes for local residents.

To help make ends meet, Sungai Nibung residents would cut down mangrove trees to sell as firewood, often playing cat and mouse with law enforcers as the mangrove forests were protected areas.

But in 2017, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry in Jakarta set aside 3,058 hectares of mangrove forest for the community to manage under a village forest scheme. Village residents were allowed to cultivate the mangrove forest to improve their economic circumstances but were not allowed to cut down mangrove trees.

Since then many fisherfolk like Samsul not only continue to have an income, but some have even doubled theirs.

“I have been a fisherman since childhood. Prior to 2017, my income was around $6 gross per day. Now, I take home an average of $18 daily,” Samsul, a father of two, said.

Muhammad Tahir, 47, another Sungai Nibung resident and a colleague of Samsul, also had a similar story.

“My income was uncertain before but now I get an average of $242 gross per month. With that income, I was able to send my second child to study at a university in [the provincial capital] Pontianak and my youngest to a junior high school. On top of that, we can also now save around $6 monthly,” the father of four told IPS.

• West Kalimantan’s minimum wage is currently around $140 per month. It was approximately $133 a month in 2019.  

Sungai Nibung, a fishing village located inside a protected mangrove forest in Kubu Raya regency, West Kalimantan province.

Dividing the mangroves for profit

Syarif Ibrahim has been the head of Sungai Nibung village since 2005. He told IPS that the village residents decided to divide the community forest, locally known as hutan desa, into zones for development, conservation, and sustainable agriculture.

“The development zone covers an area of some 1,800 hectares and is designated as fishing grounds, with 400 to 600 hectares of conservation area dedicated to mangrove research and education activities. The sustainable agriculture zone has some 600 hectares for dry-land paddy field and horticulture plants,” Ibrahim said.

“We also agreed that rivers and tributaries in the development zone are closed for fishing for three consecutive months at different times of the year to allow crabs, fish and shrimps to breed and replenish the stock,” Ibrahim said.

Riansyah, a Planet Indonesia Foundation activist who assisted villagers in the area with understanding sustainable fishery, said the first closures ran from August to October 2017, involving five rivers and tributaries.

“Since then, 11 of the village’s 21 rivers and tributaries have been closed and opened alternately for fishing at different times of the year. Each closure lasts for three months,” said Riansyah, adding that five rivers and tributaries were scheduled to be closed in the next round of closures from March 22 to June 22 this year.

During the closures, two fisherfolk are assigned daily to patrol the rivers and tributaries to ensure no one violates the agreement, Riansyah told IPS.

Entering its third year, the open-closed fishing system has proven to improve local people’s economic condition as reflected in both Samsul’s and Tahir’s experiences.

But more importantly, Sungai Nibung residents have learned to save the mangrove forests from destruction. In the conservation zone, for example, fishing is strictly prohibited except in designated areas. Local residents, including fishers, have also learned about the important role mangroves play for coastal ecosystems.

“Now fishers here know mangroves are very important for the sustainability of crab, shrimp and fish in the village and have agreed to stop using fish bombs, poison, and trawls,” Ibrahim told IPS.

According to the Food Sustainability Index, created by the Barilla Centre for Food and Nutrition and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), Indonesia has a score of 61.1 out of 100 when it comes to sustainable agriculture, where 100 is “the highest sustainability and greatest progress towards meeting environmental, societal and economic Key Performance Indicators”. This is just below the average of 65 of other middle income countries.

Saving the mangroves for climate mitigation and sustainable food supply

But aside from the conservation and ensuring that fish stocks are allowed to replenish before fishing, residents have also participated in various mangrove campaigns, planting over 32 hectares of the village forest with mangrove trees since 2017, according to Riansyah.

West Kalimantan, with around 100,000 hectares of mangroves, is home to 75 percent of Indonesia’s mangrove species. Aside from Kubu Raya, mangrove forests are also found in other areas such as Ketapang, Kayong Utara, Mempawah, Sambas and in Singkawang municipality.

According to an international paper, mangroves capture four times more carbon than rainforests and store captured carbon in the soil beneath its trees. This ability to mitigate climate change is a key to a sustainable food system.

The FSI also notes that addressing deforestation is important for countries across the globe adding that, “climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies will be essential in creating a more sustainable food system since agricultural activities make a significant contribution to climate change, accounting for up to 30 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, according to some estimates.”

Asep Sugiharta, director of Essential Ecosystem Management at the ministry of environment and forestry, told IPS that Indonesia recorded 3.3 million hectares of mangrove forests in 2019, almost 23 percent of the world’s total mangrove forests. At least 252,071 hectares are found in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo Island.

“At least 2.6 million hectares of the country’s total mangrove forests are located outside conservation forests and only 0.7 million hectares are in conservation forests,” Sugiharta told IPS during an interview in Jakarta.

• Indonesia recorded annual greenhouse gas emissions of 2.4 billion tons of CO2 equivalent (GtCO2e) in 2015, around 4.8 percent of the world’s total global emission for that year, according to the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).  
• Indonesian President Joko Widodo has pledged to cut emissions by 29 percent without international support and 41 percent with international cooperation by 2030, compared to a “business as usual” scenario.

Environmental benefits aside, the open-closed fishing system has given new optimism to Samsul, particularly when it comes to the future of his two children.

“I was not able to finish my elementary education due to dire poverty. With the success of the open-closed system, I am optimistic my income will continue to grow and thus I can send my two children to higher education,” Samsul said. “More than that, I was told the system would ensure the sustainability of the coastal ecosystem for our great grandchildren.”

Meanwhile, village head Ibrahim breathed a sigh of relief that Sungai Nibung residents have bought into the idea of sustainable food production.

“The challenging part was changing people’s paradigms. The villagers were so used to fishing anywhere throughout the year in the mangrove forest, taking big and small crabs, shrimps, or fish. Now, they have started thinking about their sustainability.”

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The post Fisherfolk Fix Both Food and Climate by Closing Fishing Grounds appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Shloka Nath
MUMBAI, India, Mar 23 2020 (IPS)

Over the past few years, worsening air quality in India—and in north India specifically—has awakened policy makers and civil society to take urgent action.

There have been some efforts to address air quality, specifically the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), which was launched in January 2019 with the aim of improving air quality standards by 20-30 percent over the next five years. While this has been a positive step, we not only need a more ambitious agenda, but also a strong compliance framework that ensures accountability to the targets we have set.

With growing congestion in cities—a trend which is only likely to increase—we need to also look at the transport sector, especially at a time when infrastructure investments such as the Mumbai Coastal Road Project do little to factor in environmental impacts. It is no surprise that fewer cars on the road mean less traffic, less time on the road, and therefore less air pollution exposure.

Air pollution, both outdoors and in households is the second most serious risk factor for public health in India, after malnutrition, contributing to 6.4 percent of all healthy years of life lost

Despite how much needs to still be accomplished, we have come a long way in the past few years. We are now in a place where we are starting to get the science and technology right, in terms of monitoring air quality and understanding the impact it has on our lives. We have more data and evidence than ever before; now we must focus on enabling its use to identify and implement solutions.

The fight for the right to cleaner air in India is unique and important because it is not championing one solution, or one approach. That a diverse cross-section of players has chosen to stand up and take action underlines the fact that no one is protected, and everyone has a responsibility.

What we need today is greater urgency and action to ensure clean air in our homes, villages, and cities. The development sector, especially foundations and philanthropists, have a unique role to play given their varied expertise and backgrounds.

 

To start with, here are the four most important ways Indian philanthropists can get involved

 

1. Pinpoint the problem

The current lack of effective monitoring and measurement is a peculiar issue within air pollution, and it is also one of the areas where funders can play a meaningful role. This can take a few forms:

a) Monitor air quality

In India, according to estimates, we require around 4,000 continuous monitoring stations to give us an accurate picture of the air pollution problem—2,800 in the urban areas and 1,200 in the rural areas. Currently data, when available, comes from a little over 600 manual stations and less than 100 continuous monitoring stations.

Funding a data gap like this could go a long way in starting to solve the air quality issue in India, because better data generation means better informed people and policies. More importantly, it is a fundamental human right of any citizen to have access to information on the quality of air they are breathing.

b) Identify pollution sources

Mumbai’s air pollution problem is a good case in point. The relatively clear skies of today’s Mumbai create the perception among residents that air quality can be a low priority. Yet, a study released by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) in December 2019, stated that Mumbai’s air has the highest concentration of PM10 out of 24 cities in peninsular India.

In many parts of the city, Air Quality Index (AQI) readings frequently register 24-hour averages of between 120 and 300, classified anywhere between unhealthy and hazardous.

Worse still, is that we don’t have a clear enough picture on what’s causing these numbers. We know the pollutants—the result of construction, road works, waste burning, industrial activity, fires, vehicular emissions, and so on—yet, attributing exact data around source contributions is complicated.

The information needs to be analysed in real time and requires more monitoring infrastructure for more granular data collection.

c) Assess health and economic impacts

The Global Burden of Disease analysis released in November 2017, for instance, identified air pollution, both outdoors and in households, as the second most serious risk factor for public health in India, after malnutrition, contributing to 6.4 percent of all healthy years of life lost (Disability Adjusted Life Years) in 2016. According to the World Bank, India lost over 8.5 percent of its GDP in 2013 due to air pollution. Anumita Roychowdhury of the Centre for Science and Environment says, “If you add up the number of years we are losing because of illness, because of the productive time, all of these are coming at huge economic costs.”

Today, we know that there are health and economic consequences of poor air quality, but we don’t have a comprehensive picture, one that allows us to truly assess the impact and to mobilise action accordingly.

 

2. Engage the public

a) Elevate impactful stories

People are at the heart of the air pollution epidemic. We need to increase communication efforts to drive citizen engagement through impactful storytelling. Here, philanthropy can play a crucial role in increasing public awareness by supporting targeted campaigns that spread information around the health impacts of air pollution. Importantly, we must encourage communication that showcases how short-term investments in clean air have a long-term effect on reducing expenditure on healthcare in the future.

b) Advocate for policy change and regulation

There is still a lot of work left in terms of getting the right message to the right audience set. We need an increased effort in communicating not just the problems that arise as a result of air quality, but what the solutions are. This would help bridge the disconnect between the work specialists are doing in the field and the actionable insights that arise from it, which can influence decision makers.

Citizens too, need to be better informed so they know how to demand that their elected officials make clean air a priority. These efforts—bringing data and evidence from specialists to decision makers and growing public demand for clean air—can together play a role in policy change and more effective regulation.

c) Build movements

Lastly, there is still a great need to create consistent, crisp, and relatable public messaging around the effects of air pollution. Not only would this help avoid confusion around the problem, it would also increase the urgency for action.

Take for instance, the Save the Tiger campaign. They focused their communications on just one number—1,411, which was the number of tigers left in the world. This was enough to inspire urgency and action.

Compelling messaging like this does not exist in the air quality debate right now. There is a need for innovative communication strategies to reach the masses—we need to leverage social media, influential personalities, and the press—so that people are empowered with the right knowledge and tools for action. This will allow the air quality crisis to grow into a movement.

 

3. Enable solutions

a) Strengthen enforcement capabilities

Many parts of India are experiencing air pollution at hazardous levels. Yet, pollution control measures are at best reactive and ad hoc. The courts, and now the central and state governments, have set up various committees, designed action plans and schemes, and issued prohibitory orders in order to address the crisis at hand. But these measures to regulate and control emissions are incomplete.

This is where philanthropy and policy can go hand in hand. Directing funding to address specific problems has limited impact if the lessons learned are limited to grant recipients, and not disseminated for the greater good. Foundations are often in a prime position to impact policy because of their influence and networks.

There is a need to support a variety of efforts, including analysing and recommending policy, providing technical assistance to government bodies, and strengthening enforcement capabilities.

b) Boost innovation

There are many ways in which philanthropy can boost innovation, some of which include supporting:

• The design and implementation of financial products that incentivise retro-fitting polluting technologies
• Urban plans that reduce transportation pollution
• Research and development for alternate large-scale uses for pollution in the air, or agricultural residue which is otherwise burned and causes pollution

4. Organise collaboration

Lastly, donors can play an important role in facilitating collaboration, be it between implementing organisations, academics, practitioners, government departments, the public and private sectors, and so on.

Doing so involves not only working towards getting a larger community of diverse stakeholders involved, but also helping them to collaborate at local and other levels of administration. For example, the NCAP is not connected to the work of the pollution control board in every state—bridging this gap would enable resources to be pooled together, instead of having people working in silos, on overlapping or similar issues.

Similarly, donors can collaborate—for instance, a foundation with expertise in air pollution can work with another focused on maternal and newborn health, given the inter-linkages between both areas.

The general adage for philanthropy is that donors shouldn’t limit themselves to issues they can influence during their lifetimes. We are learning that we need to let go of our compulsion to see the change we seek. But in the case of the air quality crisis, the opposite is true.

Provided we choose to step into the ring, this is a fight we can most definitely win in our lifetimes. The time for us to act together is now, because every breath we take depends on it.

Know more:

• Learn about what AQI is and how it is measured.
• Understand how air pollution is linked to impaired judgement, mental health problems, poorer performance in school, and higher levels of crime.
• View this one-page infographic on why climate change is important for Indian philanthropy.

Do more:

• See how the world’s most polluted air compares with your city’s.
• Check out the India Climate Collaborative, an India-focused collaborative that seeks to direct funding and visibility towards climate action in India.

 

 

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

The post Air Pollution: A Problem We Can Solve in Our Lifetime appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Shloka Nath is Executive Director, India Climate Collaborative

The post Air Pollution: A Problem We Can Solve in Our Lifetime appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Security forces are trying to retake the town where militants raised their flag at an army base.

Photojournalists stage a demonstration demanding the safe return of Shafiqul Islam Kajol, in front of the National Museum in Dhaka, on March 18, 2020. PHOTO: COLLECTED

By Sushmita S. Preetha
Mar 23 2020 (IPS-Partners)

A barrage of fireworks light up the smoggy skies of Dhaka and I feel as if I’m in the opening scenes of a dystopian film.

There’s anxiety and despair all around about what’s to come—those who have been following the developments in other parts of the world know there’s no way to avoid the impending crisis in our healthcare system as it scrambles, without any preparation, to tackle what may soon become a tsunami of patients showcasing symptoms of the coronavirus. The streets are uncharacteristically empty, and the rickshaw puller, for whom self-quarantine would mean the loss of his daily wages on which his family of five depend, asks me if I know how much these pyrotechnics cost.

Our conversation is silenced by the loud explosions. Yes, I remind myself, celebrations must go on—priorities are priorities, after all—and I know better than to mention the unmentionable, even in a private conversation with a rickshaw puller, even on social media and particularly in opinion pieces published in The Daily Star. The nagging thought that I’m trapped in a dystopia returns as, with each firework that sounds like a gunshot, my mind finds itself ruminating over the fate of photojournalist Shafiqul Islam Kajol, who has been missing since March 10, 2020. The coronavirus crisis and the resultant chaos and mismanagement have understandably taken over the news, and while we worry about what will happen to our loved ones if the virus spreads beyond control, Shafiqul’s son has been living an unimaginable nightmare of his own, not knowing where his father is and whether he is still alive.

Kajol is the editor of a fortnightly magazine called Pakkhakal, with past experience in working as a photojournalist with Dainik Samakal and Banik Barta. He “disappeared” a day after a case was filed against him and 31 others, including the editor-in-chief of daily Manabzamin, under the Digital Security Act by lawmaker Shifuzzaman Shikhor, a former aide to the prime minister. They were accused of “deteriorating the law and order” by publishing a report with “false information” and circulating it on social media.

The report in question, published in Manabzamin, simply stated that Jubo Mohila League leader Shamima Nur Papia, during police interrogation, had shared the names of 30 MPs, bureaucrats and businessmen who used to frequent her prostitution and extortion racket. The report itself did not name any of these lawmakers and others, but it was later shared by some, including Shafiqul, on social media with a list of names.

Shafiqul was last seen at his office in Hatirpul at 6:51 pm on March 10. A CCTV footage from outside his office, verified and shared by the Amnesty International, on March 22, shows several unidentified men keeping a track on his motorbike for at least three hours before he was last seen. Between 5:59 pm and 6:05 pm, three men are seen approaching his motorbike separately and meddling with it. At 6:19 pm, Shafiqul walks out of his office with another person but does not take his bike with him. He comes back alone after a while and leaves the area on his bike at exactly 6:51 pm.

Mysteriously, following his disappearance, his Facebook posts from this year have also disappeared. In fact, the last post that can still be accessed on his page dates back to November 27, 2019. According to a report by Prothom Alo, many of the missing posts involved the arrest of Jubo Mohila League leader Shamima Nur Papia. The report further added that Shafiqul was known to be on good terms with many activists and leaders of Jubo Mohila League (Prothom Alo, March 17).

Shafiqul’s son, Monorom Polok, claims that he collected his father’s call list from Grameenphone, according to which, Shafiqul spoke to two Jubo Mohila League leaders shortly before he disappeared. One of these two women told Prothom Alo that she had spoken to Shafiqul at 6:30 pm about where he was and when he would return, and about setting up a time to meet to discuss his latest Facebook posts. The second woman on his call list denied speaking to Shafiqul but admitted that she had sent him a text and that she, too, had wanted to meet to talk about his social media posts.

For almost a week, Shafiqul’s family pleaded with the police to file an abduction case, but both the Chawkbazar and New Market police stations refused to take the case, each insisting it fell under the other’s jurisdiction. The case was finally lodged with the Chawkbazar police station on March 18 following a suo moto move from the High Court asking the police why it had not filed a case yet.

Why was there such a delay in filing a case? It would be easy enough to dismiss it as bureaucratic ineptitude of our law enforcement agencies, but was there something more sinister in the reluctance of law enforcers to file and pursue the case? When there is a CCTV footage that clearly identifies men who were following Shafiqul and tampering with his motorbike, why hasn’t the police been able to apprehend them yet—in the 12 days he has been missing (as of this article going to print)? Why is Shafiqul’s son having to collect call lists when it’s the police who should be following leads and questioning all those who may have crucial information on Shafiqul since they were the last to speak to him?

It’s ironic that our law enforcers can go to any lengths when they have to track down a dissident using their sophisticated surveillance mechanisms but cannot bring themselves to track a missing person, even when there is a CCTV footage identifying the suspects!

Where did Shafiqul go? What could have happened to him? No one claims to know anything, but if what happened to Bangla Tribune correspondent Ariful Islam is an indication of how journalists who ruffle the feathers of the political elite are treated, we have reasons to be deeply worried. On March 14, Ariful was dragged from his home in the middle of the night, beaten, stripped and threatened with “crossfire” by Senior Assistant Commissioner (RDC) Nazim Uddin and two magistrates as part of a mobile court raid (which was later declared “illegal” by Kurigram municipality mayor Abdul Jalil, following widespread criticism). It is now clear that Ariful was targeted for his investigative reports about the activities of Kurigram Deputy Commissioner (DC) Sultana Pervin. As he was being humiliated and tortured, Nazim told him, “So, you are a journalist! We will teach you what journalism is, you dared to write against our DC”—and “You will be put in a crossfire. Your time is up. Recite the kalima.”

Ariful’s description of that night is chilling, to say the least, and offers a window into those unknown, untold stories of men disappearing into the night only to appear—if they appear at all—as dead bodies in so-called shootouts or after “falling ill” while in custody, with some rare exceptions. Ariful is no doubt lucky that his story was picked up by the media right away and that he had the backing of a powerful media outlet, which protected him from further harassment and mistreatment.

But what about those who aren’t so fortunate, those like… Shafiqul?

That freedom of expression is no longer an inalienable right in Bangladesh is not breaking news. According to Article 19, a UK-based human rights organisation, in February 2020 alone, there were at least 50 incidents of violations of freedom of expression—four involved serious bodily injuries, nine assaults, one abduction, five destruction of equipment, two defamation cases and one involved gender-based violence. Despite widespread criticism of the Digital Security Act which essentially authorises state agencies to pick up whoever they want without so much as a warrant or approval of any authorities, under various vague and misleading sections of the law, more than 1,000 cases have been filed under the Act since October 2018—sometimes for as little as disapproval of government decisions on social media. The systematic way in which freedom of expression has been, and continues to be, throttled has created an environment of fear, uncertainty and self-censorship which has caused irreparable damage to the democratic fabric of this country. The disappearance of Shafiqul Islam is one more nail in the coffin of the free press.

And so you and I keep silent in a cowardly bid to protect ourselves from the virus that has seeped deep into our psyche and political systems. As for a dystopian future, haven’t we been living in one for a long time anyway?

Sushmita S Preetha is a journalist and researcher.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

The post One more nail in the coffin of free press appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Kazimir Malevich, Children on the Grass, 1908 (Pushkin Museum State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow).

By External Source
Mar 23 2020 (IPS-Partners)

SARS-CoV-2 or COVID19, now declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organisation, has begun to wreak havoc in large parts of the world, with other parts waiting in anticipation. We are in a real struggle, which needs total mobilisation; a struggle that needs to put life before profit. We will only win this struggle – as China has already done – if our people are united and disciplined, if governments earn our respect by their actions, and if we act in solidarity across the globe.

Global debt is at $250 trillion, with corporate debt already enormous. On the other hand, there are trillions of dollars swirling around stock markets and in tax havens. As economic activity contracts, corporations will line up for bailouts; this is not the best use of precious human resources in this time. In the midst of this, that financial markets remain open is a failure of imagination. The drop in the value of stocks – in the markets from the Hang Seng to Wall Street – is merely a way to intensify global social anxiety, since the health of the stock market has come to be seen – erroneously – as an indicator of economic health in general.

Long-term quarantines and shutdowns have taken place in large parts of the world, certainly in Europe and North America, but increasingly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Economic activity has already begun to shudder to a halt. Estimates of the net losses are not possible to make, and even the major international institutions are adjusting their numbers every day. An UNCTAD study on 4 March, for instance, said that the slowdown of manufacturing in China will by itself disrupt the global supply chain and decrease exports by $50 billion; this is only one part of the loss. The total losses are – as yet – beyond calculation.

The IMF has pledged to use $1 trillion to help countries stave off economic disaster. Already about twenty countries have come to the IMF to request assistance; Iran, which had stayed away from the IMF for the past three decades, has now requested IMF help. It would be an auspicious change in the IMF’s policy, unprecedented in history, if not for the shameful refusal to help the people of Venezuela under the pretext of not recognizing the Venezuelan government. The IMF must not require any adjustments or strings for the provision of these bridge loans. The rejection of a loan to Venezuela is a sign of great political failure by the IMF.

International solidarity from China and Cuba is exemplary. Chinese and Cuban doctors have been in Iran, Italy, and Venezuela, while they have offered their services and expertise around the world. They have developed salves and medical treatments that prevents the fatality rate for those afflicted with COVID19, and they want to distribute this – without any patent or profit – to the world’s people. The example of the Chinese and Cubans in this period must be taken seriously; thanks to this example, it is easier to imagine socialism in the midst of this coronavirus pandemic, than it is to live under the heartless regime of capitalism.

European countries, now the focus of the pandemic, are seeing their weakened health systems collapse after decades of under-funding and neo-liberal austerity. European governments, as well as the European Central Bank and the EU, allocate the bulk of their resources on trying to safeguard the financial and business sectors from a sure economic debacle. The adoption of timid actions aimed at strengthening the capacities of States in the face of the crisis – targeted renationalisations, temporary public control of health service providers – or of palliative measures – limited exemptions from the payment of rent and housing mortgages – do not represent a decisive commitment to provide for basic guarantees for labour and safeguarding the health of the working class that is most exposed to the devastating effects of the pandemic: healthcare workers, women that are caregivers, employees of the food industry and basic services companies, etc.

This is a partial repudiation of the neoliberal prescriptions that have dominated the world for the past fifty years. The IMF must take cognizance of this, since it has otherwise participated actively in cannibalising resources in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and creating institutional deserts in country after country. Strengthening the state and redistributing wealth in favour of the masses should be the global orientation.

Scientists tell us that this struggle against the virus could last for the next thirty or forty days. That is why it is essential that each country and each government take measures to prevent the death of multiple thousands of people.

The movements, unions, and parties that make up the International Assembly of Peoples propose that a programme of structural change be formulated and implemented to allow us to win this struggle and reshape the world. This programme must include:

1. Immediate suspension of all work, except essential medical and logistical personnel and those required to produce and distribute food and necessities, without any loss of wages. The State must assume the cost of the wages for the period of the quarantine.
2. Health, food supply, and public safety must be maintained in an organised manner. Emergency grain stocks must be immediately released for distribution amongst the poor.
3. Schools must all be suspended.
4. Immediate socialization of hospitals and medical centres so that they do not worry about the profit motive as the crisis unfolds. These medical centres must be under the control of the government’s health campaign.
5. Immediate nationalization of pharmaceutical companies, and immediate international cooperation amongst them to find a vaccine and easier testing devices. Abolishment of intellectual property in the medical field.
6. Immediate testing of all people. Immediate mobilization of tests and support for medical personnel who are at the frontlines of this pandemic.
7. Immediate speed-up of production for materials necessary to deal with the crisis (testing kits, masks, respirators).
8. Immediate closure of global financial markets.
9. Immediate gathering of the finances to prevent the bankruptcy of governments.
10. Immediate cancellation of all non-corporate debt.
11. Immediate end to all rent and mortgage payments, as well as an end to evictions; this includes the immediate provision of adequate housing as a basic human right. Decent housing must be a right for all citizens guaranteed by the state.
12. Immediate absorption of all utility payments by the State – water, electricity, and internet provided as part of a human right; where these utilities are not universally accessible, we call for them to be provided with immediate effect.
13. Immediate end to the unilateral, criminal sanctions regimes and economic blockades that impact countries such as Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela and prevent them from importing necessary medical supplies.
14. Urgent support for the peasantry to increase the production of healthy food and supply it to the government for direct distribution.
15. Suspension of the dollar as an international currency and request that the United Nations urgently call a new international conference to propose a common international currency.
16. Ensure a universal minimum income in every country. This makes possible to guarantee support from the state for millions of families who are out of work, working in extremely precarious conditions or self-employed. The current capitalist system excludes millions of people from formal jobs. The State should provide employment and a dignified life for the population. The cost of the Universal Basic Income can be covered by defence budgets, in particular the expense of arms and ammunition.

To add the signature of your organisation to this declaration, please send an email to secretaria@asambleadelospueblos.org by Thursday, March 26, 2020

The post In Light of the Global Pandemic, Focus Attention on the People appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

International Assembly of the Peoples and Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research

The post In Light of the Global Pandemic, Focus Attention on the People appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: Mohamed Fofanah/IPS

By Isabel Ortiz and Thomas Stubbs
NEW YORK and LONDON, Mar 23 2020 (IPS)

Austerity policies pushed by international financial institutions have weakened public health systems, despite current financial support packages, condemning many people to die.

As health systems of East Asia, Europe, and the Americas buckle under the strain of coronavirus, developing countries are expecting an even higher human toll. Decades of austerity promoted by international financial institutions (IFIs) such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and regional development banks have weakened public health systems, impeding the ability of governments to respond to the pandemic.

The IMF pledged $1 trillion, and the World Bank a further $12bn, in immediate funds to assist countries to cushion the impact of Covid-19. Yet, these organisations are implicated in decades of brutal austerity and privatizations that damagedpublic health systems in the first place. And it is in regions with fragile health public systems where outbreaks spread the fastest, witnessed most acutely during the 2014 West African Ebola outbreak.

Governments across the globe have implemented spending cuts and the commercialization of health services since the 1980s, advised by IFIs during regular surveillance missions or as part of their lending programmes. Austerity policies are criticised for prioritising short-term fiscal objectives over longer-term social investments such as health.

Isabel Ortiz

Under IMF guidance, for example, governments reduced health budgets, cut or capped public sector wages, and limited the number of doctors, nurses, and other public health staff. In the name of efficiency, governments – often advised by “development” banks – decreased the number of hospital beds, closed public services, and underinvested in health research and medical equipment. This undermines the ability of health systems to cope with infectious disease outbreaks, leaving billions of people highly vulnerable during pandemics.

What is worse, governments were discouraged from raising alarm to the debilitating impact of scarce funding for public health. With the publication of “From Billions to Trillions: Transforming Development Finance Post-2015” and related documents, IFIs reassured governments of a simple solution to declining budgets: private sector delivery of public goods and services. This advice came despite multiple failures in public-private partnerships and privatizations over the last decades – for example, the US private health model is the world’s most expensive health system, but it has low effectiveness, leaving millions of Americans without health coverage.

From Lesotho to Sweden, public-private partnerships on health were costlier to citizens and resulted in poorer service delivery than public health systems.

So who benefits from these policies? IFIs have not prioritized public health issues, but fiscal or private sector objectives instead. Macroeconomic or business interests were often considered over the public good, and people’s welfare was an afterthought. This has already resulted in higher morbidityand millions of avoidable deaths, with many more yet to come.

A recent report shows how IMF-induced austerity cuts are negatively impacting about 75 percent of the world population– a total of 113 countries in 2020 – despite urgent health and developmental needs. Spending cuts apply to 72 developing countries and 41 high-income countries, many of which have already been suffering decades of adjustments. Another study shows how 46 countries prioritised debt service over public health services at the beginning of 2020, when coronaviruswas spreading.

Despite contributing to the crisis, IFIs now aim to become part of the solution by making new funds available. While laudable, the World Bank’s $12bn financial package represents a smokescreen to the public relations disaster related to its flagship Pandemic Emergency Financing (PEF) bonds. PEF bonds were designed with markedly stringent pay-out criteria to reduce the risk of losses for private investors – who have so far made annual yields of up to 14 percent, funded by the aid budgets of Germany, Japan, and Australia. Ultimately the bonds have diverted aid from crucial investments in public health systems of developing countries.

At its core, the reckless actions of IFIs represent the absence of effective global governance for health. Decades of IFIsundermining public health systems highlight how desperately the world needs global leadership and a coordinated response.To that end, the G20 has scheduled a virtual Summit over Covid-19. But will G20 leaders have the foresight to permanently abandon outdated austerity policies and urgently invest in universal public health systems?

Thomas Stubbs

Given the coronavirus emergency, even the IMF is advising governments to ramp up public health expenditures. This needs to be more than just a short-term measure, to then later return to a situation where millions are excluded from healthcare. The building blocks of global health security should be based on prevention and universal public health systems, especially in countries with underdeveloped healthcare.

The United Nations, in particular the World Health Organization (WHO), is more capable than IFIs to coordinate universal public healthcare systems, but the WHO currently lacks resources to move beyond monitoring and surveillance. The US Trump Administration recently cut contributions to the organisation, instead funnelling trillions of US dollars on restoring short-term confidence in the markets. European countries could have given meaningful aid in solidarity to East Asia and developing countries, where thousands are infected of Covid-19. But, from the outset of the crisis, they instead adopted inward-looking responses that often entrenched or intensified authoritarian and populist nationalism.

How many more people need to die? While we are now reaping the consequences of austerity policies imposed around the world, the coronavirus pandemic also offers an opportunity to redress public health gaps and do things differently. State intervention is necessary to address the magnitude of the Covid-19 pandemic, develop long-term public health, and realize the right to health of populations everywhere. It is time for world leaders to abandon myopic austerity policies and instead focus on building robust public health systems for all.

Dr. Isabel Ortiz is Director of the Global Social Justice Program at the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, Columbia University, and former director of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and UNICEF.

Dr. Thomas Stubbs is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Royal Holloway, University of London, and a Research Associate in Political Economy at the Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.

The post Fighting Coronavirus: It’s Time to Invest in Universal Public Health appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: UN Photo/Lamphay Inthakoun

By Rita Ann Wallace and Cynthia S Reyes
NEW YORK and TORONTO, Mar 23 2020 (IPS)

In January of this year, Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, shocked much of the world when they announced they would be stepping down from their roles as senior royals.

Much of the world, that is, except members of their loosely knit online supporter group the “Sussex Squad”, who had been following their doings closely. In the prior two months, one part of the “Squad” had planted over 30,000 out of a targeted 100,000 trees in their honor. And therein lies a tale.

On World Children’s Day, 20 November 2019, a group of 11 women, mostly women of color, and connected only by a wish to counter the tabloid and social media negativity around Harry and Meghan, launched “Sussex Great Forest”, a Twitter- and Instagram-based campaign to plant trees around the world.

The goal was modest: plant 10,000 trees by 6 May 2020, the first birthday of Harry and Meghan’s son Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor. The target was met and surpassed in one week.

The initiative started with a Twitter Direct Message conversation in July 2019 among four women on how to counter the tsunami of online and tabloid vitriol aimed especially at the former Meghan Markle, a bi-racial American.

This negativity was due in part to the racism and xenophobia which have become a well-documented feature of post-Brexit Britain, and in part to the tendency of Britain’s notorious tabloid media to scandalize even the couple’s most mundane doings.

The group of four soon grew to 11 women, from various countries – USA, UK, Canada, Jamaica, Guyana, Ghana, South Africa – unknown to one another except by their twitter handles. They included an author; an anesthesiologist; a restaurateur; an insurance broker; an IT professional; an accountant; a UN retiree; and others.

As women of color, all of us were disturbed by the misogynoir confronting Meghan, and wanted something positive to trend on social media to replace the hateful hashtags.

Credit: UN Photo/Logan Abassi

We decided planting trees in the couple’s names was a fit with Prince Harry’s known passion for conservation; Duchess Meghan’s work to empower women; and in keeping with all the latest recommendations on climate action.

An online campaign in support of a couple whom others are determined to drag publicly had to be done in stealth. We brainstormed and communicated only through Twitter direct message chats. We created the @sussexgtforest handle on both Twitter and Instagram, invited known Harry and Meghan supporters to follow, and closed the accounts to all others.

We set a launch date of World Children’s Day, which also coincided with UK National Tree Week. We set up campaigns on tree planting organizations which had good reputations and good scores with Charity Navigator and its equivalents.

We chose UK-based International Tree Foundation and Tree Sisters; US-based One Tree Planted; and Kenya-based the Green Belt Movement.

Visuals are important for an online campaign, so we encouraged supporters who were going to plant trees themselves to do so early and take photos so we would have content on our pages on launch day.

Students and parents at a primary school in Malawi, with funding from two donors, planted 50 trees and sent us pictures. People in dozens of other countries planted trees in their yards or in pots and sent photos. Those who were donating online to the tree-planting charities also sent screenshots of their receipts.

Ahead of our launch, we pitched our story to one journalist on the royal beat. He was interested, and promised to do a piece on launch day. On the day, we opened up the Twitter and Instagram accounts, and pushed out our content with an ask to join the movement and plant trees for Harry, Meghan, Archie, and the planet.

The response was immediate and overwhelmingly positive. People donated to the charities and spread the word. Our campaign was picked up by traditional media and dozens of stories ran. The campaign got a boost when Harry and Meghan heard about our effort and acknowledged us from their Instagram account.

At the end of only a week, we had exceeded our 10,000-tree goal – five months ahead of schedule.

Jubilant, we set a new goal of 100,000 trees; and to date over 60,000 have already been planted or donated. We have recently added two more tree planting charities – US-based Trees for the Future and National Forests Foundation.

We think there are several lessons to be drawn from this about how individuals and small groups can use social media for good:

• 1. Don’t be deterred by the size of your Twitter or Instagram following, or the lack of financial resources to create and upkeep a website. The tools of activism are mostly free. Get involved in the conversations online about the things which interest you, and in a short time you will be part of a network of like-minded people. Social media is about engagement, not numbers of followers.

 

• 2. Don’t be deterred by national and geographic boundaries, which are meaningless online. A global campaign can start from a computer in Maputo as much as from one in Montreal. Use the opportunity to bring diverse perspectives and skills to your undertaking.

 

• 3. Assess your potential, and if necessary, start small, with a manageable goal, and use your success at a smaller target to propel you forward.

 

• 4. Publicize your efforts. Speak up about your campaign in your chosen forums.

 

• 5. Use sub-groups to help expand your network and get feedback on tactics. We received helpful suggestions from outside the core group that helped us improve the initiative.

 

6. Your cause must be trustworthy. We collect no money ourselves, and deliberately chose charities that donors could verify for themselves – all funds go directly to them. We also aim for transparency, providing regular updates and responding promptly to questions.

Our 6 May deadline is now only weeks away. We are trying to close the gap between 60,000 and 100,000 trees – and doing so at a time of global crisis.

But our love for the Earth, and our wish to show support for Harry and Meghan, continue to propel us forward. We do believe we will be able to meet our target in time for a great birthday present for Archie, as representative of his generation: better hope for the planet.

But whether we get to 100,000 trees or not, we will still have accomplished multiple times our initial goal – without a website or any of the normal tools many people think are necessary for a climate activism campaign.

The power of social media had been used to fan hate against Harry and Meghan. “Sussex Great Forest” recognized social media’s power for good, harnessing its capacity to connect strangers and galvanize them to take positive action on something they feel passionately about.

The post Women & Climate: Planting a Global Forest in a Connected World appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Rita Ann Wallace, a Media Consultant in the UN, and Cynthia S. Reyes, an author and former senior journalist with Canada’s national broadcaster, are two of the 11 co-founders of the “Sussex Great Forest” Global Tree Planting Campaign.

The post Women & Climate: Planting a Global Forest in a Connected World appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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