Africa

Ethiopia's Abiy Ahmed hailed Ambo as "our New York", but now residents complain of police brutality.

A company in Benin harvests water hyacinths which can be used to soak up oil.

African football body Caf is to maintain the schedule of all its competitions despite the outbreak of coronavirus, which was labelled a pandemic on Wednesday.

By Vani S. Kulkarni and Raghav Gaiha
PHILADELPHIA and NEW DELHI, Mar 11 2020 (IPS)

About 15% of the world’s population lives with some form of disability, of whom 2-4% experience significant difficulties in functioning. Disability is part of the human condition, and almost everyone will be temporarily or permanently impaired at some point in life, and those who survive into old age will experience increasing difficulties in functioning. Here the focus is on empirical validation of whether disabilities are associated with economic hardships through loss of employment and consequently impoverishment in rural India. The motivation stems from continuing neglect of health in the budgetary allocations –including the allocations for 2020-21.

Vani S. Kulkarni

For lack of more recent data-the NSS does not cover disabilities- we use the two rounds of the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) panel data for 2005 and 2012. An intuitive methodology is used to overcome reverse causality between poverty and disability by comparing poverty outcomes in 2012 and prevalence of disability in 2005. Priority in time of the latter allows us to make unambiguous comparisons between poverty and disability in rural India. The sequence of empirical analyses summarised below is: (i) factors associated with disability; (ii) relationship between rural employment and disability; and (iii) between poverty/or a welfare metric and disability in rural India. The central argument resting on these building blocks is that disabilities are likely to rise; they are associated with loss of long duration employment; and thus with rise in poverty.

The prevaence of dsability is 9.70 % in the rural population in 2012. Of the disabled, more than half (51.3 %) suffer from 2-4 disabilities. Persistence is also largest in this range of disabilities (about 31 % remain in it between 2005-2012).

Shares of those suffering from 1 disability are largest in the age-group 31-50 years, followed by 51-60 years. In the case of 2-4 disabilities, the largest share is found among those 31-50 years old, 51-60 years old and then among the older group,61-70 years. Shares of those suffering from >4 disabilities rise from those 31-50 years old to 61-70 years and then decline. Within the youngest (15-30 years), about 98 % do not suffer from any disability which declines among older age-groups (just under 50 % among the oldest >70 years). In the older age-group (31-50 years), a vast majority do not suffer from any disability, and small proportions suffer from a single and multiple disabilities. A similar pattern is observed among those in the age-group, 51-60 years, with substantially lower proportions without any disability and larger proportions suffering from single and multiple disabilities. Among the older, 61-70 years, the proportion without disability is considerably lower, but those with single and multiple disabilities rise,with about 30 % suffering from >4 disabilities. As aging grows rapidly, the burden of disabilities is likely to surge. But at the same time, high prevalence of disability among a large segment of the working age group is likely to have deleterious employment effects.

Employment in rural areas is disaggregated into four categories: no employment, <240 hours in the previous year (ie, previous to 2012), part time employment >240 hours, and full time employment (at least 250 days and at least 2000 hours).

Raghav Gaiha

As those suffering from disabilities are a small fraction of the rural population, it is not surprising that in each duration of employment the share of those not suffering from any disability is markedly higher than that of the disabled. Specifically, their shares are higher in short and longer duration of employment while those of the disabled mere fractions. What is indeed striking is that among the disabled, the proportion of not employed is just under half, and markedly lower in part-time and full –time employment.

Instead of using a poverty cut-off (the World Bank uses several), we have used terciles of per capita expenditure (at constant prices). The bottom tercile denotes extremely poor, the next middle class and the third affluent.

As non-disabled households are a huge fraction, it is not surprising that their shares are highest in each tercile. In the non-disabled households, the proportions are almost equally distributed among the terciles. In the lowest disability group (<0.31) at the household level, the proportion in the first tercile is lowest, and highest in the second and third terciles. The highest disability group (>0. 60), however, offers a contrast. Their proportion in the lowest tercile is highest compared with other disability groups but slightly lower than the proportion in the second tercile. Their proportion in the third tercile not just within this disability group but also across all other disability groups is lowest. Thus highly disabled are largely confined to extreme poverty with most restricted prospects of becoming affluent through barriers to long duration employment (including but not limited to discriminatory practices in hiring the disabled).

Ironically, while the SDGs assign high priority to preventing and overcoming disability, officially adopted by 193 countries including India, the FM’s budget for 2020-21 is not just a missed opportunity for growth stimulus but almost cruel to those experiencing persistent health deprivation by cutting the health outlay.

(Vani S. Kulkarni is Lecturer in Sociology, University of Pennsylvania, USA; and Raghav Gaiha is (Hon.) Professorial Research Fellow, Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, England, and Research Affiliate, Population Studies Centre, University of Pennsylvania, USA).

Adapted from: Disabled and Extremely Poor, The Hindu, 6 March, 2020.

The post Rural Poverty, Employment and Disability appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Ida Karlsson
STOCKHOLM, Mar 11 2020 (IPS)

There has been a significant increase in arms exports from the United States and France, according to a new report. The flow of arms to the Middle East has increased, with Saudi Arabia being the world’s largest importer.

More than a third, 36 percent, of all weapons traded worldwide are now manufactured in the United States. Major arms transferred from the United States went to a total of 96 countries.

The largest exporters of weapons in the last five years were the United States, Russia, France, Germany and China. Together they accounted for 76 percent of all arms exports in 2015–19

Russia is still the second-largest arms exporter in the world but the country’s sales have dropped over the last five years. France has established itself as the third-biggest arms dealer, according to a report published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Sipri, which analyzed trends over the past five years.

The largest exporters of weapons in the last five years were the United States, Russia, France, Germany and China. Together they accounted for 76 percent of all arms exports in 2015–19.

France had the highest increase in arms exports among the top five countries. French arms exports reached their highest level since 1990, which accounted for 7.9 percent of total global arms exports.

US, German and Chinese arms exports also rose, while Russian arms exports fell. Russian arms exports accounted for 21 percent of the total arms exports.

”Russia has lost traction in India – the main long-term recipient of Russian major arms – which has led to a sharp decline in arms exports,” says Sipri researcher Alexandra Kuimova. 

With its increase in exports, the United States is widening the gap between itself and Russia.

The Sipri report shows that countries in the Middle East have been stepping up their weapons import by 61 percent compared to the years before, with Saudi Arabia being the biggest importer worldwide.

”Half of the US arms exports in the past five years went to the Middle East, and half of those went to Saudia Arabia,” says Pieter D. Wezeman, senior researcher at Sipri.

All in all, European countries accounted for more than a quarter of the global arms trade. International arms trade grew by more than 5 percent between 2015 and 2019, according to the report.

The post US and France Significantly Increase Arms Exports appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A polio vaccinator administers the oral polio vaccine to a child in Pakistan. The country remains one of three in the world where polio is yet to be eradicated. Credit: Zofeen T. Ebrahim/IPS

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Pakistan, Mar 11 2020 (IPS)

Dr. Rana Muhammad Safdar, the coordinator for Pakistan’s National Emergency Operations Centre for Polio Eradication, has sleepless nights thinking about what needs to be done for his country to eradicate polio.

“Not only me but the entire team is having sleepless nights thinking how best and how quickly we can reach the finish line,” he told IPS. “It’s always painful to hear a child getting paralysed for life from a vaccine-preventable disease.”

Last month, over 39 million children under the age of five were vaccinated across Pakistan. And a little more than 180,000 children were missed because their parents refused to have them vaccinated. While the number of missed children is marginal in comparison to those who were vaccinated, it has caused concern.

“The proportion of children missed in the last two campaigns due to refusals is very small (0.5 percent) but where clustered these can still provide the virus with the opportunity to survive longer and re-infect areas that we clean through so much hard work,” Safdar lamented.

The Pakistan Polio Eradication Programme began 26 years ago with the “largest surveillance network” in the world — an army of 260,000 polio vaccinators going door to door to administer oral polio vaccine (OPV) to children under five. Yet the country is only one of three in the world, along with Afghanistan and Nigeria (Nigeria has not reported any wild polio virus cases for a year, however there have been cases of vaccine-derived poliovirus in the West African nation), that has not eradicated the virus.

Last year, for the first time, Pakistan reported 25 positive Wild Poliovirus 1 (WPV1) cases across the country. Since the start of the year 23 new cases have been reported, with more expected to be recorded later this year.

The issue is so sensitive that every small gain by anti-vaccine groups takes the vaccination campaign two giant steps back. A video shared on Twitter last year, claiming that polio drops had some toxic ingredient making children sick, went viral and led to a round of refusals for months afterwards.

The reason for refusals include the same misconceptions that vaccination teams have been facing the past several years and include unfounded beliefs that; the programme is a western-funded campaign with some hidden agenda, polio drops are given to Muslim children to cause infertility and to stem the population of the Muslim community, it has some ingredients that are forbidden for Muslims, and that it causes paralysis.

Abrar Khan, a 29-year-old teacher, contracted polio when was just three. He’s no public health specialist, but Khan has an encyclopedia of knowledge about the virus. Five years ago he was a polio ambassador with the government’s Polio Eradication Initiative.

And he still makes it a point to visit homes in his locality of Baldia Town, in Karachi’s District West, that are marked by polio workers with an “R” because the family refused to have their children vaccinated. “I tell them it is their right to refuse; I try and convince them but even if they say yes to me, I have no way of knowing if they got their child vaccinated,” he told IPS in a phone interview.

He said people were more concerned about the other more common diseases their children where battling with, as well as the failing healthcare system. “One way to win these people over would be to provide better quality healthcare,” said Khan.

Swaleha Ahmed*, who asked for her real name not to printed because she holds a senior position within the polio programme, told IPS that if the government were to provide for the needs of young children, including paying for their healthcare, education and basic needs, “all those parents who hide their kids when polio workers visit their homes will come forward and get their kids registered to avail this childcare fund”. 

Ahmed, who has been with the programme for some 17 years, pointed out that because the campaign was so old, complacency has set in. And as parents continue to refuse to all their children to vaccinated, it was discovered that some vaccinators in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), where the virus originated and is circulating, were wrongly marking refusals as having been vaccinated.

“It happened in KP in the very remote areas where these workers have to walk miles in knee deep snow only to be told by families that they do not want their kids to be administered drops,” she said.

But the programme is trying to overcome this.

“We are telling polio workers that if they get refusals, it will not make a dent on their daily wages nor will they have to go again as someone else will be sent in their place if they face resistance,” said Ahmed. “They are also warned that if they are found to fake the process and mark the kids without first giving them drops, they can lose their jobs.”

But there is growing fatigue for this campaign from the side of parents as well. Nasik Abbas,who works as a supervisor in Tarnol, some 20 km from the federal capital, Islamabad, has been involved in the polio campaign for over 13 years. “Parents are now annoyed by the regular knocking at their door,” he told IPS.

Hifza Tahir, who works in Islamabad’s Bahria Town has been facing another dilemma. “They turn me away saying they will get their kids vaccinated from the hospital.”   

Ahmed said the working hours and ways of working for polio vaccinators, some 62 percent of whom are women, needed to be reevaluated.

“We should not bind these workers by time and attendance. We are dealing with kids and their parents. So we should give the workers flexi times in which they must cover the required number of homes,” said Ahmed. In some cases, she said, it would make more sense to visit the house later in the day when the decision maker, usually a father, was home from work, or early morning before the kids went to school. 

Ahmed, however, admitted that despite the challenges the polio programme has come a long way. “Today, the polio workers are better trained to deal with parents, have an ID card to prove their identity, are provided security and everything is documented,” she said.

The campaigns will continue with another round of special vaccination in high risk districts this month followed by a nationwide campaign in mid-April, said Safdar.

“Our efforts from December 2019 till April 2020 will push the virus back to 2017-18 levels and from thereon we will further push it towards zero polio by focusing on routine immunisation, improving basic health services, malnutrition as well as ensuring safe water and sanitation,” he said.

Related Articles

• As Donors Ramp up Polio Funding, Worries of Comeback Persist

The post Why Pakistan Isn’t Taking that Final Step towards Polio Eradication appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Secretary-General António Guterres poses with women who comprise part of the leadership team, including Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed (centre left) and Chef de Cabinet Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti. Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 11 2020 (IPS)

The United Nations claims it has reached one of its primary goals relating to women’s rights in the world body: gender parity at senior levels of management and in the highest echelons of the Organization.

Leading the way, besides the UN Secretariat, is UN Women, ‘the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women’, created by the UN General Assembly back in July 2010.

Katja Pehrman, UN Women’s Senior Advisor on Gender Parity and the Focal Point for Women in the UN System, told IPS that 85% of UN Women at senior management (at D1 level or higher) are female.

“Achieving gender parity at the top level is indeed a major accomplishment and takes place for the first time in UN’s history,” she pointed out, as the UN commemorated International Women’s Day (IWD) on March 8.

Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, “is truly leading by example, and this achievement comes at an opportune time as we are celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, where the goal of equal representation of women and men was established”.

As the Secretary-General also has made clear, she pointed out, the parity agenda is not merely about numbers but also about transforming the organizational culture. Only that can guarantee sustainable results.

As part of its strong mandate, and through the network of 350 Gender Focal Points, UN-Women helps to guide the UN system on how to build a more inclusive and equal work environment in support of gender parity, she noted.

“This happens through the Enabling Environment Guidelines for the UN system which were published last year and include recommendations on standards of conduct, family-friendly policies, recruitments and flexible working arrangements,” she declared.

Florencia Soto Nino-Martinez, UN Associate Spokesperson, told IPS “We have full parity in (the ranks of) Under Secretaries-General (USGs) and Assistant Secretaries-General (ASGs) in the Secretariat and the Funds and Programmes – 90 men and 90 women”.

“This represents a first step for full gender parity in 2028 at all levels of the UN which remains our basic objectives,” she said.

In the UN hierarchy, the Secretary-General is the chief administrative officer (CAO), followed by the Deputy Secretary-General, Under-Secretaries-General (USGs), Assistant Secretaries-General (ASGs) and Directors (D-1 level and higher).

Guterres told delegates on March 9 that in January this year “we achieved gender parity – 90 women and 90 men – in the ranks of our full-time senior leadership, two years ahead of the target that I set at the start of my tenure, and we have a roadmap for parity at all levels in the coming years”.

Still, he complained that “women in parliaments are still outnumbered three-to-one by men, women still earn just 77 cents for every dollar earned by men, and unpaid care and domestic work remain stubbornly feminized the world over”.

In some areas, he said, progress towards gender equality has stalled or even gone into reverse.

“Some countries have rolled back laws that protect women from violence; others are reducing civic space; still others are pursuing economic and immigration policies that indirectly discriminate against women,” Guterres said.

Outlining some of the steps he plans to take in the future, the Secretary-General said: “I have reminded the entire senior leadership team about the special measures we have in place to advance parity throughout the system”.

If a male candidate is hired in an office or department that has not yet achieved gender parity, and where an equally competent female candidate had been identified, an explanation must be sent to my office detailing the reasoning for the decision prior to final selection being made, he declared.

Ian Richards, President of the 60,000-strong Coordinating Committee of International Staff Unions and Associations (CCISUA), told IPS the biggest problem remains the low representation of women in the field.

“Women certainly face greater challenges than men in certain field locations, particularly regarding access to relevant healthcare, and there is a lot the UN can do to improve the field working environment,” he said.

But the Secretary-General’s proposal– now before the General Assembly– to only fire men during downsizing exercises is not the way forward and is legally and ethically dubious, he added.

There needs to be a change in how the field is marketed.

“There are plenty of women in the field making successful careers at every grade yet the overall impression remains that the field is mainly for men.”

He said women in the field need to be held up as role models so that others follow. Human Resources needs to listen to their experiences and understand what the challenges are and how they can be overcome.

Aside from having better diversity on the frontline, said Richards, a key reason to have more women in the field is because those who rise to the top of the UN are more likely to have passed through the field on their way up.

Looking at it from another angle, a surefire way to get better gender equality in the field would be to make it compulsory for all staff who want to get to senior positions to take up at least one prior assignment in the field, with no opt-puts according to gender.

“But it wouldn’t be to the taste of everyone,” declared Richards.

The United Nations-wide Gender Parity Strategy, launched in September 2017, sets targets for equal representation of women and men, with specific commitments leadership and accountability; senior management; recruitment and retention; creating an enabling environment; and field operations.

Maria Fernanda Espinosa of Ecuador, only the fourth female to be elected as President of the General Assembly in its 74-year history of overwhelmingly male Presidents. Credit: United Nations

While the UN secretariat and the UN’s affiliated agencies have made progress on gender parity and gender empowerment, the 193 member states have lagged far behind.

In its 74-year history, the General Assembly has elected only four women as presidents – Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit of India (1953), Angie Brooks of Liberia (1969), Sheikha Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa of Bahrain (2006) and Maria Fernanda Espinosa of Ecuador (2018)

And that’s four out of 74 Presidents, 70 of whom were men.

The 15-member Security Council’s track record is probably worse because it has continued to elect men as UN Secretaries-General, rubber-stamped by the General Assembly.

And that’s zero out of nine male UN chiefs (Trygve Lie of Norway, Dag Hammarskjold of Sweden, U. Thant of Burma (now Myanmar), Kurt Waldheim of Austria, Javier Perez de Cuellar of Peru, Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt, Kofi Annan of Ghana, Ban Ki-moon of South Korea and, currently, Antonio Guterres of Portugal).

You can find more about the UN’s gender parity strategy at the UN here: https://reform.un.org/content/gender-parity-strategy

A few additional sources of information:

• • UN Women produced the biennial Secretary-General’s Report on the Improvement in the Status of Women. Available:

https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2019/07/improvement-in-the-status-of-women-in-the-united-nations-system-2019

• • In 2019 UN Women produced the ‘Enabling environment guidelines for the United Nations system’ in support of the ‘Secretary-General’s system-wide strategy on gender parity’. Available:

https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2019/02/supplementary-guidance-on-the-enabling-environment-guidelines-for-the-united-nations-system

• • The recent UN resolution A/RES/74/128, ‘Follow-up to the Fourth World Conference on Women and full implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the outcome of the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly’, reiterated the political commitment to gender parity, including recognizing the role of UN Women and calling on the UN system to use the Enabling Environment Guidelines (see especially para 30-23). Available:

https://undocs.org/en/A/RES/74/128

• • The goal of the equitable distribution of positions between men and women at the UN Headquarters was enshrined in the Beijing Platform for Action (see especially 913c). Available:

https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2015/01/beijing-declaration

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

The post UN Reaches 90:90 Gender Parity in Senior Leadership Transforming Organizational Culture appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Mar 11 2020 (IPS)

The US is currently still in a stock market bubble which, if history is any guide, is likely to end, as argued by Thomas Palley. While President Trump would, of course, like to sustain it to strengthen his November re-election prospects, the Covid19 black swan is already showing signs of pricking the bubble

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Meanwhile, US business investment has declined for many years. As shares of GDP, corporate profits or even market capitalization, such investment has been in decline for at least four decades. Clearly, ‘neo-liberal’ economic policies have failed to decades-long trend.

Financialization ‘unreal’
Julius Krein has underscored some dangerous financialization trends. Global stocks are now worth almost US$90 trillion, more than world output. Including equities, bank deposits, (government plus private) debt securities, etc., the total value of financial assets rose from US$118 trillion in 2004 to over US$200 trillion in 2010, more than double world output then.

Half of Americans own no stocks, while just ten per cent own over 80 per cent of equities, and the top one per cent has almost 40 per cent. With no increase in real investments, more funds in financial markets have served to worsen wealth inequality.

‘Capital returns’ in 1980, in the form of share buybacks and dividends, were about two per cent of US GDP, when real investment was close to 15 per cent. By 2016, real investment had fallen to around 12 per cent of output, while capital returns had risen to about 6 per cent.

Ironically, in an age of ostensible globalization, rising capital returns has become increasingly national in some economies, rather than involving cross-border capital flows, which fell from US$12.4 trillion in 2007 to US$4.3 trillion, i.e., by 65%.

The rise of finance, at the expense of the real economy, over the last four decades has slowed productive investments and economic growth, ending the post-war Keynesian Golden Age quarter century. Meanwhile, as profit rates declined, debt has increased.

Inflating stock market bubbles
Since the 1980s, as Palley has shown, ‘engineered’ US stock market bubbles have obscured lessons from preceding busts, explaining them away as Schumpeterian creative destruction. While each new bubble may retrieve some of the preceding loss, it never fully restores earlier economic gains.

Investors buy stock, expecting to sell at higher prices. Such purchases push up share prices, drawing new investors into the price appreciation spiral. The share price bubble continues to inflate until faith in ever rising prices ends, with the bubble imploding when enough buyers start selling.

Each new stock market bubble seduces share market punters to invest ever more, to gain even more, while obscuring public understanding of the economic malaise. And when prices fall, many shareowners hold on to their stocks, hoping for prices to recover, to make more, or at least, to cut losses.

Thus, stock market dynamics resemble Ponzi frauds, with earlier investors profiting from new investments. Handsome gains draw in more investments until even these are insufficient to meet rising expectations. Changes in market sentiments can slow the bubble’s growth, or cause reversals, even collapse.

Along the way, all investors feel richer, triggering wealth effects and market exuberance, typically irrational. When downturns occur, many are too embarrassed to admit to losses, especially if they have induced others, relatives and friends, to invest.

Thus, the dynamics of stock market speculative bubbles are akin to a collectively self-inflicted fraud as most retail investors lack the ‘inside’ information needed to make sound portfolio investment judgements.

Promoting stock market addiction
The US Federal Reserve’s apparent commitment to the stock market since Alan Greenspan was in the chair, and its growing, albeit varying influences on financial asset prices has been seen as giving the green light to speculation, enabling serial asset price bubbles over at least three decades.

Despite its balanced official mandate, unsurprisingly, US Fed leadership is widely believed to favour Wall Street, while mainstream economists view asset price inflation as the unavoidable price of overcoming recession, sustaining economic growth and the bubble’s wealth effect.

Unlike the Roosevelt era, when economic policy and war achieved full employment and improved labour conditions, decision-making in recent decades has been seen as better serving capital, with the bias justified by insisting that the interests of capital and labour are ‘joined at the hip’.

With 401K (a US employer sponsored retirement savings plan allowing employees to invest a portion of their salaries before taxes) and other investments in the stock market, widespread ‘middle class’ addiction to stock price inflation has also been economically and politically self-deluding.

But despite the sustained US stock market bubble after the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, the US ‘middle class’ continues to be economically squeezed, with relatively few having benefited significantly.

This stock market addiction is rooted in an illusion promoted by Wall Street, their enablers in the public authorities, and their cheerleaders among mainstream economists and the business media who identify the notion of shared prosperity with stock market indices.

But the history and dynamics of stock market bubbles imply that they simply cannot be the basis for shared prosperity, as suggested by all too many emerging markets’ governments. Sadly, wishful thinking to the contrary perpetuates the mass delusion promoted and perpetuated by those who stand to gain most.

Stock market bubbles serve to obscure the dangers of neoliberal financialization for the economy. Demystification of obfuscating narratives can not only improve public understanding of the problems, dangers and challenges involved, but also inform the reforms needed to address them.

The post CORRECTED VERSION: Stock Market Bubble Threat appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A review decides that Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's conviction can be taken to a fresh appeal.

Football's world governing body Fifa postpones its Congress, scheduled to take place in June, in Ethiopia by three months owing to the outbreak of the coronavirus.

Electric motorsport series Formula E wants to expand both the number of races and drivers in Africa, says the sport's founder Alejandro Agag.

Credit: Pîxabay.

By Esther Ngumbi and Brian Lovett
ILLINOIS, United States, Mar 11 2020 (IPS)

Institutions of higher education have a responsibility to lead by example and to provide current, high-quality information to the people and communities that support them. This responsibility is no clearer than during a public health and information crisis like the one presented by this novel coronavirus.

State and local governments in particular should be able to rely on Universities for guidance on protective evidence-based precautionary measures, whether it’s cancelling events, closing schools or formulating public health postings.

The University of Washington officially announced that it would cancel its in-person classes due to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak that has affected more than 70 people in the state. Some 50,000 students are expected to take their finals and attend classes remotely.

How prepared is our education system to deal with coronavirus? It is undeniable that the educational system of today is built on a foundation of in-person community/group-based learning. How can we ensure that the rush to complete this transition to online courses does not exacerbate barriers and leave students behind?

Universities are faced with the sobering reality that the virus will continue to spread, buoyed by a botched national testing and appearance-focused denial from the top down. Across the nation, many universities are formulating plans to follow a similar approach, including developing contingency plans like moving classes online, canceling travel, and issuing websites, warnings and guidelines on how to deal with this novel virus.

We are not the only country preparing in this way and already globally, nearly 300 million students are out of school due to precautions over the spread of coronavirus, and this number is expected to continue to rise.

As we read the news and see the alerts on campuses in particular, with one of us being an Assistant Professor who is teaching an in-person class, it is starting to sink in that this class may soon have to move online. I realize that anytime soon, my students may not be able to attend in class in person. Professors are already exchanging tips and resources on how to transition courses online.

Some courses may weather the transition fine, but we still wonder how prepared is our education system to deal with coronavirus? It is undeniable that the educational system of today is built on a foundation of in-person community/group-based learning. How can we ensure that the rush to complete this transition in the face of a pandemic does not exacerbate barriers and leave students behind?

What does this new normal mean to the underprivileged, especially to people of color and underrepresented minorities, who may not have access to the internet to attend or listen to lectures, should in-person classes be moved online?

Unfortunately, services, such as free access to library computers and other typical university technology support will also be inaccessible to prevent the spread of the viruses.

Small business-as-usual tweaks to a curriculum will not be tenable solutions. This challenge requires solutions that consider underprivileged students first when planning transitions away from the traditional classroom, and this transition must be supported by intense empathy for students.

Like any new normal, the anxiety that comes along is high. It is high for students, faculty members, administrators, and university chancellors. We must recognize that, like us, our students are scared for themselves, for their vulnerable loved ones and for the continuity of their education.

As important, applicable and exciting as we all believe our classes are, we need to adjust our deadlines and expectations in line with our new reality. No line in a syllabus is worth upholding if it will increase student anxiety during a growing global pandemic.

The truth is, there are more questions than answers.

One thing for sure is that no matter the outcome, this moment will shape our education system. Like any change, new models by which education and classes are delivered to students will arise.

Those with power in academia, from a university president to a teaching assistant, have an opportunity to lead us through this crisis with a vision that at its core accessible and empathetic. These decisions cannot be made lightly, as what we do now will certainly shake the foundation upon which our educational system is built upon.

 

Dr. Esther Ngumbi (@EstherNgumbi) is an Assistant Professor at the Entomology Department and African American Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. She is a Senior Food security fellow with the Aspen Institute.

Dr. Brian Lovett (@lovettbr) is a recent PhD from the University of Maryland Department of Entomology. His work has contributed to the advancement of transgenic mosquito-killing fungi for malaria prevention.

The post Is Our Academic System Ready for a New Coronavirus Normal? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Blasian - black and Asian - couples now exist in South Africa... but they don't always have an easy time.

Victims say places like beauty salons have become hunting grounds for fixers, middlemen in sex and human trafficking. Courtesy: Ignatius Banda

By Ignatius Banda
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Mar 10 2020 (IPS)

Similo Ntuli* looks like a ordinary, fashion-savvy woman in her twenties. As a hairdresser and beauty therapist in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second-largest city, Ntuli has her finger on the pulse of the latest styles and trends. But she also has, what she admits, are dark secrets.

“I have become suspicious of young rich women whose source of income cannot be explained,” she says. And she knows what she is talking about.

“I have been to Dubai (in 2018) where I was invited to work for some rich guys but what I saw made me think twice about how I want to make my money,” she tells IPS on condition of anonymity .

“The grossest sexual fantasies you can imagine can get a young girl money that is unthinkable here in Zimbabwe,” she says.

Ntuli says she was introduced to contacts or clients in the Near East by “a fixer” in Bulawayo. But she says she had to leave Dubai in a hurry after the demands to perform “despicable sex acts” proved unbearable.

Lobbyists in Zimbabwe are concerned by what they see as the weak enforcement of the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, also known as the Palermo Protocol. It came  into effect on Dec. 25, 2003 and seeks to prevent, suppress and punish the trafficking of persons.

Zimbabwe may be a signatory, along with 184 members of the U.N.,  but activists here say that enforcement efforts against organised human and sex trafficking remain inadequate as the true factors driving this are not being addressed.

Zimbabwe is facing its worst economic crisis in decades and activists say that the lack of safety nets, awareness campaigns and legal recourse for exploited women has continued to expose them to exploitation.

“The rate at which foreigners come to the country exposes the young women to trafficking. Recently, Zimbabwe adopted the mantra that it is ‘open for business’ and potential investors in their quest to partner with Zimbabwe have been frequenting the country,” Fadzai Traquino, national director of Women in Law in Southern Africa, tells IPS.

She explains that because of the current economic climate perpetrators are able to take advantage of vulnerable young women, offering them “job opportunities”, explaining that those women who accept such opportunities often do so out of desperation.

“And so it becomes difficult to curb the pandemic as women are opting for these opportunities to secure financial and economic security,” Traquino says.

And, as Ntuli points out, there remain gaps in how human and sex trafficking crimes can be reported.

“I think people, including the police in Zimbabwe, have become cynical. I think its because of the economic crisis. Someone who I told my story to asked what I thought I was doing going to Dubai. I cannot even approach law enforcement officers on this matter as I feel I know what their reaction would be,” Ntuli says.

In 2019, the United States State Department issued the Trafficking in Persons Report noted that Zimbabwe “does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking”, while local researchers say more needs to be done if young women such as Ntuli are to come forward and report cases for justice to be served. Ntuli admits that she is unaware if there is any legal recourse open to her as a victim of sex trafficking.

“Educating vulnerable people about human trafficking for sexual exploitation is one piece to addressing the problem. As the Palermo Protocol mandates, governments need to deal with the root causes of trafficking for sexual exploitation, and these are grounded in gender inequality and discrimination,” says Tsitsi Matekaire, the global lead of End Sex Trafficking at Equality Now, an NGO that advocates for the protection and promotion of the human rights of women and girls.

“Governments must ensure that women and girls are supported to reach their potential, free from the impact of discrimination and poverty, and create more equal societies so that they are not vulnerable to sex trafficking in the first place,” Matekaire tells IPS.

“Governments must ensure that victims of human trafficking for sexual exploitation are properly supported to rebuild their lives after the traumatic experience, whether they have been trafficked within the country or where trafficked to another country,” she adds.

The International Criminal Police Organisation’s (INTERPOL) Vulnerable Communities unit has noted the importance of training local enforcement agents on how to conduct victim interviews in cases of human trafficking and child sexual exploitation.

In responses to IPS’ enquires, the police organisation used the example of a successful INTERPOL-assisted raid of sex trafficking in West Africa in January, where local police were provided with specialised training to bust a trafficking ring. 

While Zimbabwe has made efforts to address human and sex trafficking, Traquino says more still needs to be done.

“The Government of Zimbabwe has demonstrated overall increasing efforts to meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is not has not fully reached the required level of commitment in tackling human trafficking at large,” she tells IPS.

“There is more that can be done to conscientise young economically vulnerable woman. The state has not taken advantage of the platforms that the youth are mostly found at, particularly Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and various other social media platforms. Sensitising young women about the risks of trafficking on the [social media] platforms that they frequently visit can be effective as the message reaches them directly,” Traquino says.

The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ), which actively supports the U.N. Sustainable Development Goal 8 of decent work and economic growth, has focused much of its work on eliminating modern slavery. It acknowledges that the “legal system is failing — human trafficking is illegal everywhere but it is growing everywhere”.

“As a consequence something has to change — we need new laws — governments are obliged to protect their citizens,” GSN states.

Gillian Chinzete, senior programmes officer with the Harare-based NGO Girls and Women Empowerment Network, also believes African governments and respective legislatures must be pressured to act.

“This will help in ensuring effective implementation of policies,” she tells IPS.

“Communities have little or no information about human trafficking. Human trafficking cases are hidden from the general communities,” Chinzete adds.

*Not her real name.

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The post Current Laws Cannot Protect Zimbabwe’s Women from Sex Trafficking appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Young women in Zimbabwe are becoming increasingly vulnerable to sex trafficking because of the country’s economic climate and because of the lack of enforcement of international legal instruments.

The post Current Laws Cannot Protect Zimbabwe’s Women from Sex Trafficking appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Rangers found the carcasses of a female and her calf in a village in north-eastern Kenya.

The Government of Kenya, the European Union & the United Nations unite to accelerate Kenya’s Big 4 development agenda and the SDGs. Credit: Barbara @EUinKenya

By PRESS RELEASE
NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 10 2020 (IPS-Partners)

The United Nations, European Union and its Member States, and Government of Kenya met, for the first time, to explore ways they can combine efforts to best support the Government of Kenya in achieving its national priorities as outlined in Vision2030, MTPIII and the Big Four agenda.

Over a two-day retreat in Gigiri, Nairobi, the EU and UN committed to:

– working towards a common framework for regular engagements with the Government of Kenya in support of common priority areas such as the devolution process, digitalization agenda, public private partnerships, support for transition to a sustainable green economy and youth and job creation, ensuring that no-one is left behind;
– put measures in place to further harmonize technical assistance to the Government of Kenya in support of national development priorities;
– support Kenya in establishing an Integrated National Financing Framework and rally partners for the sustainable financing of Kenya’s development agenda, including the Big Four agenda.

Mr António Guterres, UN Secretary-General, has stated that there are serious threats to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the United Nations, especially its development system, must be effectively reformed in order to be able to limit the impact of those threats. The reform of the United Nations development system involves a set of far-reaching changes in the way the UN development system works to help countries around the world in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The EU, and its Member States are strong supporters of this UN reform in order to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of UN development cooperation with Kenya, and all around the world.

Siddharth Chatterjee, UN Resident Coordinator to Kenya stated at the retreat: “As the UN Reforms are rapidly taking shape, we will be defined by how we address the SDGs through a “business unusual” approach. We have to innovate, take risk, leverage and reinforce each other to succeed. That is at the heart of the UN’s repositioning agenda. We are deeply thankful for the strong partnership with the EU and its Member States, and would like to applaud the Government of Kenya for its leadership of this important agenda”

H.E Simon Mordue, EU Ambassador to Kenya, praised the government’s commitment and the UNs’ reform efforts thus far, adding that “We need to act as one, which means enhancing and fully exploiting the full range of synergies of the EU, UN and indeed the Kenyan government and moving to financing coupled with sustained policy dialogue. This will allow us to unleash the full potential of our development support for the benefit of Kenya and her population”.

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About the UN in Kenya: Since 1963 the Government of Kenya and the United Nations are partnering to spur the Country’s social economic development. In 1996, the United Nations Office at Nairobi (UNON) was established, becoming one of four major UN office sites and the UN’s headquarters in Africa. Kenya has been a top advocate of Agenda 2030 and was a member of the High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons who advised the United Nations Secretary General on the global development framework beyond 2015, adopted as Agenda 2030 including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Today there are 23 UN agencies operating from Nairobi, which are delivering as one support to Kenya in line with the USD1.9 billion UN Development Cooperation Framework (2018-2022) which was developed under the co-leadership of the Government and UN in consultation with key stakeholders. For more information: www.kenya.un.org/

About the EU in Kenya: The EU and its member states are a major development supporter of Kenya with over 4.5 billion euro in development assistance to Kenya for the period 2018-2022. EU and its Member States are strong supporters of UN reform in order to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the UN’s development cooperation with Kenya, and all around the world, in order to ensure the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development are attained. For more information: https://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/kenya/1376/about-eu-delegation-kenya_en

The post The United Nations, European Union and its Member States take strides to enhance their strategic partnership to help Kenya accelerate the attainment of the SDGs appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Kenya's Sports Ministry bars travel to international events for Kenya's sports competitors for at least the next month.

Slash-and-burn clearing in the rainforest in the state of Acre, next to Amazonas. Credit: Mario Osava / IPS

By N Chandra Mohan
NEW DELHI, Mar 10 2020 (IPS)

Brazil is one of the world’s largest producers and exporters of coffee, sugar, beef, soya, cotton, and ethanol but due to its environmental and water footprint it ranks low on sustainability. Brazilian agriculture’s contribution to the loss of rainforest is a case in point – the Amazon lost as much as 3,465 square miles of forest due to fires last year – triggering widespread international outrage over the lax environment policies that allowed all of this to happen. Its large commercial cattle herd is also a source of greenhouse gas emissions. Brazil’s challenge is to make its model of agricultural development more environment-friendly.

For sustainable agriculture, Brazil has a score of 64.2 — out of a scale of 0 to 100, where 100 represents the greatest progress towards meeting a performance indicator — that gives it a lowly rank of 51 out of 67 countries in the third edition of the Food Sustainability Index (FSI), developed by the Economist Intelligence Unit and the Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition in Italy. In Latin America, Argentina, Mexico and Colombia have higher scores than Brazil. The FSI is based on the three pillars of sustainable agriculture, nutritional challenges and food waste. Being an agricultural powerhouse therefore hardly implies greater sustainability.

Brazil’s agricultural sector grew rapidly – an average of 4.1 percent per annum between 1991 and 2015 — by extending the arable land frontier and through productivity improvements. Net forested area diminished by almost one million hectares between 2010 and 2015 according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development- Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations’ Agricultural Outlook 2019-28. The sector is dominated by large commercial and export-oriented enterprises. Scale economies contributed to lower production costs and a leading position in global trade. Brazil thus became the world’s third largest exporter of agricultural products, with exports reaching $79.3 billion in 2017.

N Chandra Mohan

Productivity changes are integrally related to the role of government agricultural research institutions, sometimes through collaboration with the private sector, like the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, EMBRAPA. For sub-level FSI indicators of sustainable agriculture like public support to R&D, Brazil is among the top 5 out of 67 countries. EMBRAPA played a significant role in transforming agriculture in the midwest or Cerrado region by introducing technologies from abroad like nitrogen fixation and no-tillage practices and livestock breeds and adapting them locally to produce more cotton, soybeans, maize and cattle.

As a leading agricultural power, the Brazilian model has lessons for the South, especially for countries relying on small holder farms to feed their growing population. Although large scale agribusiness enterprises dominate, the 4.4 million family farms who occupy less than 25 percent of agricultural land are still important in Brazil, thanks to several institutional measures. Comprehensive family farming programmes provided credit, insurance and marketing support. Family farms also contributed in part to school feeding programmes in the country. From 1999 to 2018, there was also a dedicated Ministry of Agrarian Development for family farmers.

The successful performance of Brazil’s family farms is reflected in the fact that they are responsible for 70 percent of domestic food consumption. They account for 87 percent of cassava, 70 percent of beans, 34 percent of rice and 21 percent of wheat that is consumed in Brazil. Family farms also account for 60 percent of milk and 50 percent of poultry (http://www.brazil.gov.br/about-brazil/news/2018/06/brazilian-family-farmers-are– the-worlds-8th-largest-food-producer). With annual revenues of $55.2 billion, the sector would rank Brazil 8th in the world in food production if the country relied only on family farmers for supply.

For such reasons, Brazil’s agricultural expertise has many takers in the South. Brazil’s president was the chief guest at India’s Republic Day celebrations on January 26 this year. Several agreements were signed during his visit that included collaboration for ethanol production, sharing of best practices in crop and livestock health, deepening cooperation in agriculture research between the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and EMBRAPA, setting up cold chains and terminal markets for fruits and vegetables with state- of-art facilities, among others, according to the India-Brazil joint statement issued during the Brazilian President’s visit.

India is also keen to set up farmer producer organisations that will have collective strength for better access to quality inputs, technology, credit and marketing to improve small farmer incomes in various states. In this regard, it can benefit from the highly successful Microbacias 11 programme in the Brazilian state of Sao Paolo. In fact, couple of years ago, a team from India did visit Sao Paolo to learn from Microbacias 11 to improve the competitiveness of smallholder farmers in the state of Jharkhand as part of a South-South Exchange Programme. The upshot is that while Brazil must respond to climate change imperatives to make its agriculture more sustainable, as a leading global player it obviously has much to offer countries of the South.

(N Chandra Mohan is an economics and business commentator)

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The post Brazil: Low on FSI but Much to Offer the South appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The high court dismisses the public protector's findings over a donation to President Ramaphosa.

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