Africa

Community Efforts Boost Wastewater Treatment in El Salvador

By Edgardo Ayala
CHIRILAGUA, El Salvador, Nov 7 2023 (IPS)

Neither the central government nor most of El Salvador’s 262 municipalities have had the capacity to install enough wastewater treatment plants to prevent it from being discharged directly into the environment.

As a result, most of the rivers are polluted to such a degree that only 12 percent of them have good quality water, and the pollution translates into gastrointestinal and other diseases among the 6.7 million inhabitants of this Central American country.

But there are some towns and cities that are making efforts to keep running the treatment plants they have managed to set up, with financial support from international institutions.

 

 

One of these municipalities is Chirilagua in eastern El Salvador, along the Pacific Ocean in the south, the only ocean that bathes the coast of this Central American isthmus country.

The municipality operates a wastewater treatment plant built in the surrounding area as part of a 40-unit housing project called La Española that houses 40 families affected by Hurricane Mitch, which caused death and destruction in Central America in October 1998.

The project was largely financed with funds from the government of the southern Spanish region of Andalucía.

“The benefit is to the environment and to the families living around here, because the less the environment is polluted the healthier the population is,” Eduardo Ortega, in charge of the plant’s maintenance, told IPS.

The treatment plant filters the sewage that arrives at the station, using various processes, including ponds filled with volcanic soil and gravel.

“The aim is to keep the treated water from polluting the San Roman River,” said Edwin Guzman, head of the Environmental Unit of the municipality of Chirilagua.

Close to the municipality is another rural settlement also built by Spanish aid funds for survivors of Hurricane Mitch, called Flores de Andalucía, which includes its own treatment plant.

With greater capacity, this station also receives sewage from El Cuco, a fishing village three kilometers to the south on a beach that due to population growth has become a town with modest stores, hostels and restaurants that receive tourists attracted by its gray sand beaches and gentle waves.

In El Salvador, only 8.52 percent of wastewater receives some type of treatment, and much of the waste is dumped into the different bodies of water, polluting ecosystems and harming people’s health. Now some communities and municipalities have managed to install treatment plants that are run by local residents and improve their lives.

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The salinity of the water in coastal Bangladesh contributes to high blood pressure. Credit: Rafiqul Islam/IPS

By Rafiqul Islam
DHAKA, Nov 7 2023 (IPS)

Since her childhood, Parveen Begum, 52, has been adding extra salt while eating her meals. However, she did not know that this contributed to high blood pressure.

Recently, she suffered severe headaches, forcing her to go to a physician, and when the doctor checked her health, he she had hypertension.

“I could not take my daily meals without taking additional salt, which helped develop the chronic disease in my health. Now I have to take medicines for blood pressure regularly, putting an extra financial burden on my family,” said Parveen, a resident of Musapur at Raipura in Narsingdi district.

Rabeya Begum, 50, is a resident of the saline-prone Ashabaria village of Rangabali in the Patuakhali coastal district. Like many others, she and her family members often drink saline water since freshwater sources are affected every year due to coastal flooding, cyclones, and storm surges. Salinity instruction has reached the aquifer in her locality.

Local people face scarcity of drinking water during the dry season as salinity reaches an acute level that time, so they are compelled to drink saline water, Rabeya said.

“I felt symptoms of high blood pressure like headache and chest pain. So, I checked it and found blood pressure. But there are not enough facilities for screening blood pressure in our remote village,” she said.

Like Parveen and Rabeya, a huge number of people have been suffering from high blood pressure, also called hypertension, in Bangladesh, but most of the cases remain undiagnosed. High blood pressure is a chronic disease and a silent killer, too.

More than 4.5 crore people, or 25% of Bangladesh’s total population, have high blood pressure, according to recent research by Bangladesh’s National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).

Hypertension or high blood pressure develops when the pressure level in one’s blood vessels reaches 140/90 mmHg or higher. A healthy lifestyle, quitting tobacco, and remaining more active can help lower blood pressure.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), around 1.28 billion adults aged 30–79 years worldwide have hypertension, with two-thirds of them living in low- and middle-income countries. An estimated 46 percent of adults with hypertension are unaware of their condition. Only less than half of adults (42 percent) with hypertension are diagnosed and treated.

Undiagnosed Hypertension

Undetected high blood pressure could add to the health burden in Bangladesh. Many people are not on medication as they are unaware of their condition. According to a survey, more than half of hypertensive patients are ignorant of their condition.

Experts say early identification and improved hypertension screening can reduce the high global burden of untreated high blood pressure.

According to a 2022 study, hypertension is common in elderly people, and undiagnosed hypertension increases with age. The risk of undetected hypertension was high among people aged 33–35. Overall prevalence of undiagnosed hypertension among men and women was similar. Men aged above 50 had lower levels of awareness and participation in early detection initiatives.

The study revealed that the prevalence of hypertension is significantly higher among the residents of Bangladesh’s coastal and eastern regions.

It suggested that early detection and screening are urgent for checking the prevalence of undiagnosed hypertension. The study suggested the authorities should take robust health promotion measures in the coastal and northern regions of Bangladesh.

Dr Mahfuzur Rahman Bhuiyan, programme manager of the High Blood Pressure Control Programme at National Heart Foundation Hospital and Research Institute, said it would be possible to reduce the risk of high blood pressure by 50 percent if people avoid the intake of extra salt while taking meals.

He recommended screening people to identify those with high blood pressure.

Hypertension Amplifies Risk of Heart Diseases

Hypertensive heart disease is a long-term condition that worsens with time. In Bangladesh, around 68 percent of deaths are caused by non-communicable diseases, with hypertension accounting for 15–20 percent.

According to the first Global Report on Hypertension 2023, released by the WHO, about 273,000 people die of cardiovascular diseases each year in Bangladesh, while around 54 percent of these fatalities are attributable to hypertension.

The report also reveals that half of the people having hypertension are not even aware of their condition, and the rate of those receiving medical treatment for hypertension is alarmingly low, merely 38 percent.

“Hypertension is one of the leading causes of deaths associated with non-communicable diseases. The prevalence of heart diseases can be reduced to a great extent by keeping hypertension under control,” Prof Sohel Reza Choudhury, Head of the Department of Epidemiology and Research at the National Heart Foundation, told a webinar recently.

National Professional Officer at WHO Bangladesh Office Dr Farzana Akter Dorin, suggested strengthening the primary healthcare system and ensuring free hypertension medicine to cut the risk of developing heart diseases among people.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Air strikes on Rafah city in the southern Gaza Strip have caused widespread damage. Credit: UNICEF/Eyad El Baba
 
The unprecedented and unfathomable savagery that was inflicted by Hamas on 1,400 innocent Israeli civilians and off-duty soldiers has shaken to the core every human being with a conscience. Beyond that, it has also rattled the prevailing conditions between Israel and the Palestinians, making it impossible to return to the status quo ante. This incomprehensible massacre offers, though under horrifying circumstances, an unprecedented opportunity to bring a gradual end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This unparalleled breakdown resulting from Hamas’s savagery has fundamentally changed the dynamic of the conflict and created a new paradigm that could lead to a breakthrough of historic proportions to reach a permanent peace agreement based on a two-state solution.

By Alon Ben-Meir
NEW YORK, Nov 7 2023 (IPS)

There are five measures the Israeli government, along with the US and Saudi Arabia, should put in place to move the peace process forward.

First, Israel must limit its ground invasion to northern Gaza, as a large-scale war will inevitably inflict massive destruction and thousands of casualties on both sides, especially Palestinian civilians, and put the lives of the hostages at a much greater risk.

More than anything else, it is a dangerous illusion for anyone to assume that a large-scale invasion will capture or kill all of Hamas’ leaders and senior operatives and prevent it from ever reconstituting itself both as a resistance movement and as a political entity.

Many of Hamas’ leaders have not lived in Gaza for years, or have recently fled. Most of Hamas’ commanders and ‘foot soldiers’ are embedded in the civilian community and a massive complex of tunnels while lying in wait for the ground invasion, in order to kill and injure hundreds if not thousands of Israeli soldiers.

They know full well that they will sustain massive casualties and destruction, but they will only technically lose the war and can still reconstitute themselves regardless of the immense losses they might sustain.

Israel simply cannot eradicate a religious movement or obliterate an ideology. And to suggest, as Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant recently stated, that “we will wipe them [Hamas] off the face of the earth,” is an illusion. Even if Israel manages to decapitate every senior Hamas leader, it will be only a question of time when a new generation of Palestinian leaders will rise.

If Israel reoccupies Gaza to prevent Hamas from reconstituting itself, it will be sheer madness, a quagmire from which Israel cannot exit without incurring massive casualties. Moreover, Israel will have to care for 2.2 million Palestinians, coupled with a relentless insurgency by Palestinian militants bent on killing and maiming Israeli soldiers.

The urge for revenge and retribution following the massacre of 1,400 Israelis is perfectly understandable, and in the minds of many, revenge is the only way to assuage the unbearable pain that so many Israelis are living with. But then the inevitable death of hundreds of young Israeli soldiers, should Israel decide to an all-out invade Gaza, will only add to the national tragedy and offer no solution.

The better path for Israel is to pursue targeting killings, and engage in a limited invasion into northern Gaza, keep Hamas’ leaders on the run, and cut off the flow of money, while focusing on releasing the hostages. Israel must make it publicly and unequivocally clear that its fight is against Hamas and not against innocent Palestinian people.

Furthermore, Israel ought to facilitate the delivery of all the basic necessities, especially drinking water, medicine, food, and under strict monitoring by UN observers, fuel to generate electricity and feed generators. But since Israel cannot eliminate Hamas, it can only weaken it to a point where it is effectively inoperative by providing an alternative that will dramatically improve the lives of the Palestinians and offer them a promising path for the future.

Second, Israel should come to terms with the inevitability of a Palestinian state and inform the US and Saudi Arabia that it is willing to negotiate a peace agreement with the Palestinians in the West Bank based on a two-state solution. I expect that the current Netanyahu government will fall and sooner perhaps rather than later, there will be a new government in Israel and a new Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

They should begin to engage, under the auspices of the US and Saudi Arabia, in a peace process accompanied from the onset by a process of reconciliation, both government-to-government and people-to-people, to mitigate the pervasive hatred and distrust between the two.

An Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement in the West Bank that would lead to a dramatic improvement in the living standard of the population and a growing sense of security will be the most potent weapon against Hamas. Hamas will have to choose between joining the peace process by first recognizing Israel’s right to exist, or remaining under blockade.

The Palestinians in Gaza will be well aware of the changing fortune of their brethren in the West Bank and will not accept a continuing life of despondency and despair in Gaza. Hamas being on the run and with depleting resources to deliver what the people need will be hard pressed to change direction, or else face the wrath of the people. Hamas’ claim that Israel is the cause of their suffering will no longer resonate.

In the final analysis, the creation of an independent Palestinian state will be strengthened and peacefully sustained through the establishment of an Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian confederation, once a Palestinian state is first established.

Indeed, given the interspersed Palestinian populations in the West Bank, Jerusalem, Israel proper, and Jordan, the geographic proximity of the three states, their unique religious affinity to Jerusalem, and their intertwined national security, it is not only possible but necessary to establish such a confederation where all three countries will collaborate on a host of issues to serve their national interests.

Some will say that this is a glaringly naïve proposal and, in any case, this is the wrong time to talk about a two-state solution. Naïve or not, I challenge anyone to tell me what is the alternative? Where does Israel go from here?

The Palestinian problem will not simply disappear; they are not going anywhere and they are more determined today than any time before to unshackle themselves from the occupation. The unfolding tragedy and its inescapably horrifying consequences made the need for a solution ever more urgent. And if not now, then when?

Third, the development of a major economic program is critical to sustaining any Israeli-Palestinian peace in the West Bank. What is needed is a sort of a Marshall Plan for the West Bank to be financed by the Gulf states, the US, and the EU. Such a program should be at the center of the peace process to relieve the people of their economic hardship. The West Bank is in desperate need of better infrastructure, schools, and hospitals. Such national projects would also provide job opportunities for the tens of thousands of unemployed youths.

Moreover, since the Palestinian refugees have and continue to play a major role in the search for a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a solution to the Palestinian refugees must be found based on resettlement and/or compensation.

A solution to this and other conflicting issues, including the future of Jerusalem and the Israeli settlements, which have stymied peace negotiations in the past and remain contentious issues, can be and in fact must be resolved.

The inevitability of coexistence and the inescapable need for a peace agreement based on a two-state solution, coupled with a commitment by a new Israeli government, the Palestinian Authority, and the US’ determination to that end, will facilitate a solution to these conflicting issues, however intractable they may seem at this juncture.

Fourth, Saudi Arabia should play a front and center role, at the urging of the US. Saudi Arabia, which has been negotiating normalization of relations with Israel behind-the-scenes and has linked normalization to the establishment of a path that will solve the Israeli Palestinian-conflict, should publicly state so once the war ends.

This will not only assure the Palestinians that they will not be abandoned, but it will also send a clear message to the Israelis that they now have a historic opportunity not only to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but open up the door wide to normalization of relations between Israel and much of the Muslim world.

The Saudis and every Arab state in the region know that as long as there is no solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, instability will continue to rattle the region, making normalization of relations with Israel tenuous at best. Moreover, Israel must remember that regardless of how the Saudis and other Arab states feel toward the Palestinians, in any violent confrontation between Israel and the Palestinians, as demonstrated in the current conflagration, they will always land on the Palestinians’ side.

And even though the Israel-Hamas war started because of the horrific massacre of Israelis, the Arab public throughout the region and beyond is sympathizing with the Palestinians. It is the death of thousands of innocent Palestinians in Gaza that is capturing headline news now, not the indescribably horrendous massacre of Israelis.

Thus, the greater the casualties and destruction inflicted on Gaza, the harder it will be for the Saudis to resume negotiations over the normalization of relations with Israel. Normalization can serve as the conduit for Israeli-Palestinian peace, which will be deferred for years if not lost for the foreseeable future unless Israel weighs carefully what will happen next if the war spins completely out of control.

But then again, it is up to Israel and the US—which will have a say on this matter as Israel today cannot simply say NO to the US—to ensure that the war does not cripple the prospect of normalization between Israel and other Arab states.

Fifth, the US paying lip service to the idea of a two-state solution must now be acted upon. Successive American administrations have demonstrated consistent support of Israel and the US became the de facto guarantor of Israel’s national security. No US president, however, has demonstrated in words and deeds the US’ commitment to Israel’s security and prosperity more than President Biden.

His visit to Israel in the moment of unprecedented national grief and his dispatch of formidable American forces to the region, including two aircraft carriers to deter Israel’s sworn enemies and prevent the escalation of the war, sent an unambiguous massage that has not been lost on Iran and Hezbollah.

Although Israel is receiving annually $3.8 billion in military aid from the US, at no time in recent memory has Israel found itself so dependent on the US for additional military aid and political backing. Israeli National Security Minister Ben-Gvir’s statement earlier this year that Israel is “not another star on the American flag. We are a democracy and I expect the U.S. president to understand that,” is no less stupid than his boss Netanyahu, who stated in March that “Israel is a sovereign country which makes its decisions by the will of its people and not based on pressures from abroad, including from the best of friends.”

Now the Israeli government recognizes how indispensable America is, forcing it to listen carefully to what President Biden is recommending, which is clearly against waging an all-out ground invasion without very diligent consideration of what comes next, which will otherwise be catastrophic by any account.

Thus, President Biden is now in a position, more than any of his predecessors, to exert significant influence over Israel. There is no better time for the US to formulate a plan that would begin a peace process and stick to it regardless of what transpires on the ground. By providing Israel all it needs to protect itself and maintain a military edge over its adversaries and now to prevail in this war, the US becomes complicit to Israel’s conduct in Gaza.

This is also applicable to the occupation of the West Bank, which is inconsistent with the US’ formal position. Therefore, the US should make it clear to Israel that given America’s unflagging support, it is seen as a party to the occupation which must end.

It is time for the Biden administration to translate the lip service that the US has customarily been paying to the two-state solution into a plan of action. Upon his return from Israel, President Biden reiterated that the two-state solution is the only realistic option.

And however far-fetched this may seem to Israelis and Palestinians at this juncture, President Biden must begin to press the issue and pave the way for serious negotiations, albeit he has to wait for Netanyahu’s exile from the political scene, which may well happen sooner than later.

The breakdown in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can dawn a historic breakthrough to reach at last a peace agreement. There is no need for even one more Israeli or Palestinian child to die on the altar of misguided leadership on both sides. The Israeli and the Palestinian publics must rise in unison pour into the streets by the hundreds of thousands and scream:

Enough is Enough.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University (NYU). He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Tandahara women tend to the new Casuarina plants. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

By Manipadma Jena
PURI, India , Nov 7 2023 (IPS)

The sun is high in the noon sky—humidity unrelenting at 95 percent in this Indian sea-coast village. The monsoon has been deficient; rice paddies are yellowing on the edges from the salty surf misting in on them. Waves now break barely 200 metres from the farms and homes.

Sixty-year-old Bengalata Rout heads for the Casuarina “forest wall” off the shoreline, trees that the women in the 108-household village Tandahara planted after the 1999 Super Cyclonic Storm decimated their mud-walled thatched-roof huts leaving their fertile farms salt-poisoned.

That year, 33 years ago, they planted the trees on the village boundary, a good distance away from the shoreline; today, on a stormy night, the sea crashes against the tree trunks, threatening to run amok into their homes.

Tandahara, sitting on the Bay of Bengal, is one of the last villages in the eastern Indian State Odisha, some 20 kilometres from Konark Sun Temple, UNESCO’s designated heritage site that is itself showing the impacts of seas closing in.

The ‘Big Storm’ Discovery

“When the big cyclone hit us, the Casuarina shelter belt that was standing from before, planted by the government, lay battered,” Rout told Inter Press Service (IPS) as we walked toward the Casuarina forest. “We immediately realised had it not been standing there between the sea and our village we would have been wiped out.”

And it was a life-changing discovery for these rural women.

The category-5 storm, carrying wind speeds of 160 miles hourly that made landfall over Odisha in October 1999, killed more than 10,000 people, mostly owing to 20 ft high storm surges that brought water 16 to 20 miles inland.

But Tandahara had not lost a single life. Losing no time, every woman volunteering, even the children clamouring to pitch in, they sorted themselves into ten groups of ten members with a mix of young and old. Saplings were requested from government and non-profits who came to help. Planting was done; the men lent a hand, but the women took it upon themselves to make sure the saplings survived.

“It was challenging. The soil had salted up, and the young plants struggled to survive,” said Kanaka Behera, 32, one of the younger women. “And the water we got in our village had turned a bit saline also.”

“We thought, for our cooking and drinking, we fetch groundwater from a shallow dug pit; why not get the sweet water for the plants, too? But that was a kilometre inland from our village, more distance from the plantation in the opposite direction. We will do it, we decided and dug the pit wider to get more water,” Behera added.

“For months till the plants survived, we would be up before the sun, lining up our buckets around the water pit where water replenishes naturally overnight. Then the real arduous work began,” said middle-aged Bena Mallika dressed in a bright green sari. Some ten of them would fill the buckets and hand them to ten others who relayed them to more waiting women till the saplings, one-and-half kilometres away, were sloshed and glistening. Only by noon, they were done, exhausted but triumphant, having carried one thousand buckets to the plants. They did this every alternate day. Meticulously, around each baby tree, they gouged a six-inch wide circular channel with their bare hands to hold the sweet water for longer and create an oasis of nutrition.

Bengalata Rout, the women’s group leader, poses amidst the Casuarina forest the women planted after the 1999 Super Cyclonic Storm. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

The women’s group poses on the narrow strip of beach that’s all that’s left between the village boundary and the advancing sea. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

Clusters of betel-vine bowers shelter behind the protective wall of Casuarina trees. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

Climate Events More Frequent, Intense, and the Sea Keeps Getting Closer

But growing tree shields is a daunting exercise against a wounded, intermittently raging ocean. It is a handful of strong-willed women pitted against climate events getting more frequent and more intense from a rapidly warming sea. Odisha has encountered 10 cyclones in a span of 22 years from 1999 to 2021, with frequency rising over earlier decades, according to data from the Odisha State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA), which works to reduce disaster risk.

More broadly, the Indian subcontinent has witnessed more than 478 extreme events since 1970, whose frequency has accelerated after 2005, IPS had earlier reported.

But another phenomenon, more insidiously devastating, is creeping in on Tandahara.

Sitting on a cemented platform under the shade of an ageing banyan tree, there are several elders who share how the sea has moved closer. Remembering over five decades back, 70-year-old Tahali Kalia Gopal Behera narrated to IPS, “When I was 18, we youngsters went to the sea to catch the red beach crabs. We carried our lunch and left home in the morning, returning only in the evening. Those days, the sea was more than 3 kilometres away.”

“The sea has eaten away 20 hectares of our village land,” Bidyadhar Bhuyan, another elderly man, said.

Of Odisha State’s over the 480-kilometre coastline, a high 79 percent has experienced drastic modification.

The State’s coastline change trend shows 21 percent has been subject to erosion, and 51 percent is impacted by accretion. Based on 26 years of satellite images, the 2018 study by the National Centre for Coastal Research of Earth Sciences Ministry remains the latest using such extensive data.

Odisha’s Puri province, where sea-front villages like Tandahara face the brunt, experienced the highest accretion on 110 km of its total 140 km shore length, this study said.

Coastal accretion is the gradual increase or acquisition of land by the sea. It occurs through washing up sand, soil, or silt. Erosion is the gradual washing away of land along the shoreline.

While erosion-accretion phenomena are natural, climate disasters and persisting low-pressure events that cause turbulent seas are increasing ecological imbalance, according to an OSDMA expert.

“When I married and came to the village, there were sand dunes stretching all the way,” remembered 46-year-old Mallika. “Now there’s hardly any beach left for dunes to stand; only the shore sands are rising higher.”

So close is the sea now that this year, 2023, even without any major low-pressure event, sea-water ingress has cut a 100-metre channel into pastureland on the village outskirt, Bhuyan added.

Oxford University research from across 52 sites worldwide on ‘nature-based solutions’ said coastal forest walls, mangroves and coral reefs cause waves to break before they hit the shore or ingress towards human habitats, lowering both the force and height of the swell and in the process reducing the likelihood of the sea breaching over into people’s land.

The study found that natural habitats were 2-5 times more cost-effective than engineered structures, like the geotextile tube installed in another affected district in Odisha, which was in tatters within 10 years. These (like Tandahara’s bio-wall) can help to protect from climate change impacts while slowing further warming (by carbon sequestration), supporting biodiversity, and securing ecosystem services, researchers widely believe.

Of Bulls, Goats and Other Challenges

As the Bay of Bengal became a hotspot for tropical storms and waves inched closer to Tandahara, coating salty mist day and night on everything, their staple rice crops began failing. Employable males migrated out.

Left behind with children and ageing parents to make ends meet were again the women. They began goat-keeping. The 108 households have no less than 500 goats today.

One adult goat weighing 15kg can easily fetch up to INR 8000 (USD 96.3), extra during festive seasons.

Handsome returns, yes, but also the biggest daily menace to women’s Casuarina walls.

“Until saplings are at least 5 feet tall and out of reach of the ever-hungry goats, we need to protect them. We patrol in groups of three, morning and afternoon,” elderly Harkamani Swain said.

A woman goat herder confines her grazing cattle to the grass on the farms’ boundaries, away from the fresh Casuarina plantations, to avoid cash penalties. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

In the afternoon, with household chores done, women retreat to relax and bond under the cool forest’s shade. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

Every morning, taking turns, one group meets at the village temple to decide on patrolling responsibilities. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

Cyclone Phailin in 2013 wrought maximum damage and loss of life as rural settlements had only mud-walled, thatched-roofed homes. A woman stands desolately, having lost her home and belongings to the storm in Bhubaneswar. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

Rout walks on purposefully; it’s difficult to keep up with her, traversing over uneven abandoned paddy fields. She is going to check if any goats or the village bull have walked in to nibble at the new saplings planted under the government’s forestry scheme earlier in August this year when rains came.

If she espies the bull amidst the plants, she’ll holler, and the women will rush and help chase it out.

“If cattle destroy the plants, their owners have to pay a 100 rupees (USD 1.2) penalty, Rout explains, sighing in relief on seeing no intruder. “To get a hungry bull off the plantation requires more than one woman. If a help call is shouted out, but the group member whose house is closest does not respond, they are charged 100 rupees as well,” she explains how strict community rules have helped them grow the tree wall.

Seeing their zeal, in 2000, the forestry officials mentored them to form a village Forest Protection Committee. They were provided, one-time and free of cost, several large party-sized ironware pots worth 60,000 rupees (USD 722.8) to rent out to village events and maintain bank funds.

“Were this active group not been looking after the coastal forest, even when the government plants and sometimes waters them too, they would not remain alive beyond a month. There is a strong sense of ownership instilled within them. With them, we have a true partnership,” a local supervisory-level government forest official told IPS, wishing not to be named as they were not allowed to speak to the media.

Green Walls Provide Direct and Indirect Income for an Entire Village

When forest officials came with saplings this monsoon, the nearby beach was littered with dead Casuarina stumps and branches left from an earlier storm and proliferating beach creepers. The women’s group offered to clear the large stretches. In return, they got to take home the dead wood.

“With the thinner branches, we were able to repair seaside fences,” Kanaka Behera told IPS. The official would otherwise have hired contractors’ men on wages. “We take ownership of the storm walls. We will patrol till the saplings are grown.”

Dead trees get used for roof beams of thatched cattle sheds and for firewood, fulfilling needs in rural households. Odisha government, since the 2013 Phailin storm, has provided concrete-roofed, brick-walled disaster-resilient houses within 5 km of high tide.

Under the thick canopy of Casuarinas, a rotting pile of hay lies in a corner. The women can grow two mushroom crops here from early July to late August. The dense thicket obstructs damaging rain directly falling on the delicate fungi; high humidity is just right for bountiful harvests, which income goes into the group’s bank account, used when members need funds urgently.

Rout points further afield at over 25 green net-cloth-covered betel vine bowers just behind the Casuarina thicket. The 8-feet high square bamboo bowers, locally called ‘bareja’, are shading structures creating a green-house environment for better quality betel leaves. It can fetch a good income but is a fragile cultivation. “Those ‘barejas’ stand because this thick line of Casuarinas stands against strong winds that can easily bring the structures down and deprive a quarter of our village households of their livelihood,” she said.

Most afternoons, with household chores and afternoon meals done, the women leave the village behind to sit in the quiet under the trees. Sometimes, they laugh together, sing even if tunelessly, as the birds call from the branches, used to their presence.

“These trees are today like our grown-up sons; they stand strong here, ready to protect us, giving us confidence and moments of contentment,” says the elderly Bengalata Rout, whose only son Ritu, 40 years old, is working as a computer clerk thousands of kilometres away in Surat in western India, holding on to a deeply grooved tree trunk. A widow, she lives with her daughter-in-law and two little grandsons.

Powerful Agents of Change United in Fighting More Than Just the Storms and Seas

The water from the borewells in Tandahara became progressively so salty that children, no matter how thirsty, would often refuse to drink. Water carried from the small groundwater pit never sufficed. Forced to drink increasingly salty water, stomach upset, nausea and skin irritation have become chronic.

Bonding together for the tree barrier has, over the years, given the women of Tandahara a sense of unity and empowerment, and they are changing the collective traditional mindset of the village as well.

Post-pandemic, taking the poor drinking water issue into their own hands, the traditionally village-bound women marched to the local-level government officer with bottles of the salty water they got from hand pumps and asked the officer to drink it. The officer was shocked at the confrontation from a group of village women but finally admitted the water was undrinkable and ordered water tankers to deliver to the village.

Water is, however, supplied only in April and May, peak summer months when local water turns saltier. Again, it is limited to daily just two buckets per household, even for large families. On repeated visits by the women, administration higher-ups even visited the village five months back, promised piped water, but work is yet to begin, said 29-year-old Gouri Padhi, who has been in school up to class ten and is more educated than the others.

 

Looking Ahead

“Communities already have the agency to adapt and make decisions in the face of change,” said the Global Resilience Partnership Report 2023, but often need support in the form of appropriate data, knowledge, information, and resources to further strengthen adaptation and resilience actions.

“As climate and other shocks become more frequent, severe and overlapping, it is urgent to become smarter and faster when it comes to building resilience,” Dina Esposito, Assistant to the Administrator for the Bureau for Resilience and Food Security, told IPS via email. “At USAID, we’re bringing innovative solutions, such as shock response monitoring systems, to build resilience and to measure impact so that we can learn and adapt as we go.”

For the women of Tandahara, resilience is found in their collective efforts to save their village.

While murmurs are growing stronger among elderly men to step back from the advancing sea and resettle their homes at a safe distance. Two neighbouring villages have already left, illegally squatting on forest land, they point out.

“True, whenever the winds wail, my heart palpitates with dread; I think today all will end. When the government mobile alerts shriek, we flee to the two-storied storm shelter with our cattle. But we will not abandon our ancestral village,” Rout says firmly. “We will do whatever it takes to make it safer, but we will not leave,” she echoes her group’s stand on this crucial issue. Many of the younger generation youth listening nod in agreement.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Excerpt:

For more than 33 years, a group of strong-willed women from the village of Tandahara, India have kept their homes and village safe and plan to continue despite the unrelenting impacts of increasingly severe weather.
 

The move is in response to one of the heaviest nights of airstrikes in Gaza since the conflict began.

Afghan women carry stories of sorrow and resilience. Credit: Learning Together

By External Source
Nov 6 2023 (IPS)

“When the sun rises in the morning, I see the light but I don’t feel like I’m having a bright day. I think about how different these days are from our past days”.

These are the words of Sharifa, 48, an Afghan mother of five as she recounts her life story wrought by the Taliban when they regained power two years ago. Tears streamed down her face as she narrated her story in the two-room house of her family in the Dasht e Barchi Qala area, far from the capital city Kabul.

Sharifa lost her job as a cleaner because Afghan women were no longer allowed to work under the Taliban. Her two young girls had to stop school for the same reason.

“Will we have a future?” she asked. “We live in a country where all women and girls are deprived of all their legal rights, and we don’t know what will happen tomorrow”, her final concern is, “we are worried about the future of our children”.

To Sharifa and millions of Afghan women, the return of the Taliban, the extremist Islamic group that took over power in August 2021 portended nothing but misery for them.

“I think about the future, on the outside I may seem alive, but inside I feel dead”, she says, with tears streaming down her face.

For the past five years, the family led a quite peaceful and happy life without worries in the Dasht e Barchi Qala area in Afghanistan. Sharifa describes her husband as a kind and compassionate person.

After she lost her job, her husband became the sole breadwinner for the family of seven. It became necessary therefore, for their eldest son who had dropped out of school due to lack of money to work and bring in supplementary income.

Sharifa’s own education was cut short at the tenth grade due to the demands of raising a family. Given that situation, she was determined to do all in her power to provide adequate education to her five children – two boys and three daughters.

“I was a mother who, with all the problems and challenges in life, wanted all my children to have a higher education so that they could serve their country and family in the future”.

But all her hopes came crushing when the Taliban took power. It became clear that female students above the sixth grade could no longer continue their education. Women were also asked to stay home and cease working. Only the university was not banned.

But the saddest part for Sharifa was the loss of her daughter, the eldest of her children. At 24, she had completed 12th grade, and despite of the prohibition placed on girls’ education, was still plowing ahead with great determination to go the university.

Little did she know that the enemies of girls’ education were lurking around the corner. A bomb blast hit the Kaj educational centre in Kabul at precisely the time she was busy writing the university entrance examination. The educational centre held 500 students, 320 of them girls.

The blast had devastating consequences. Fifty female students were killed and 130 injured. Among the dead was Sharifa’s daughter.

“When I heard that the educational center was attacked, I was shocked, and rushed to the scene bare-footed to look for my daughter”, she said.

Dozens of families lost their loved ones that day but to their consternation, when they arrived at the scene, the dead and the wounded had already been transferred to hospitals. The Taliban had barred people from entering the centre except for ambulances.

The ISIS took responsibility for the attack, which was condemned widely around the world. Taliban officials also strongly condemned the attack and promised that the perpetrators would be punished, but nothing has been done since.

Sharifa says that the day she received her daughter’s body for burial, was the bitterest and most painful day because all her wishes were also buried with her daughter.

“From that day until today, I only breath, but I don’t feel alive”, she says.

In the midst of the grief however, Sharifa continues to demand for women’s rights and calls for support from the international community and the UN, to stop the Taliban from oppressing Afghan women.

“The women of Afghanistan have the right to play an active role in their society, in all different sectors, social, cultural, economic, and political fields”, Sharifa demands.

Excerpt:

The author is an Afghanistan-based female journalist, trained with Finnish support before the Taliban take-over. Her identity is withheld for security reasons

Joe Biden expelled Uganda from the Agoa trade deal last week after it passed a new anti-homosexuality law.

Bridges and roads have been destroyed by the downpours making it hard to reach affected people.

Pupils eat their school lunch in Rwanda. Photo provided by WFP.

By Paul Virgo
ROME, Nov 6 2023 (IPS)

Of the many things one might associate with a modern teenager, passion for wholegrain food is probably not the first that comes to mind. An innovative school-meals project in Rwanda, however, has young people singing its praises.

“Eating wholegrain maize makes our bodies strong and healthy,” said Julienne, a 15-year-old student at Kibirizi primary school in the Nyamagabe district in the south of the country.

“It is very tasty and nutritious.”

Aside from the success of the project itself, what makes it especially worthy of attention is the potential for it to be a model to replicate elsewhere. In fact, fortified whole maize meal is now enjoyed by 180,000 school children in Burundi and another 60,000 in Kenya, with exciting scale-up prospects in all three countries
Tiina Honkanen, WFP

Julienne is one of thousands of Rwandan students who have been getting school meals as part of a UN World Food Programme (WFP) project in which fortified refined maize meal has been replaced by a fortified wholegrain version.

The fortified wholegrain maize meal is used to make “kaunga”, a sort of stiff porridge that is served with beans and vegetables in schools.

It is an exciting trial for WFP, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020 for its efforts to provide food assistance in conflict zones and to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war, to integrate wholegrains into school meals.

Food is usually fortified to reduce micronutrient deficiencies in the people who eat it by adding vitamins and minerals to the refined versions of staple grains.

Fortification of wholegrain flours, where virtually all the grain remains in the processed product, has largely been unchartered territory up to now.

But it is potentially a promising way to increase the micronutrient content while maintaining the health benefits of wholegrains, which provide more protein, fibre and micronutrients than refined foods.

Wholegrain foods also have a cost advantage over refined versions because a higher yield is extracted from the raw materials.

So getting people to acquire a taste for wholegrains is a good way to boost nutrition and food security.

The WFP project in Rwanda, which was launched in 2021 in partnership with The Rockefeller Foundation, is doing precisely that. The Rockefeller Foundation has also enlisted the help of a local partner, Vanguard Economics, to support the project.

The WFP Country Office has reported a big shift in student preferences thanks to the programme, with 97% saying they preferred the wholegrain versions to the refined equivalent because they liked the rich taste.

It also led to parents asking where they can buy the product on the market.

“The more nutritious foods children eat, the more active they are, and they perform better in school too,” said Faustin, Julienne’s father.

“I like the taste of the wholegrain maize and I would like to add it to the food we eat at home so that Julienne’s siblings can also enjoy it”.

WFP buys the fortified wholegrain maize meal from the same miller it got the fortified refined maize meal from.

“Before the pilot (project), fortified maize meal, purchased from a local supplier, was already a main component of school lunches along with fortified rice, fresh vegetables from school gardens, beans, fortified oil and iodized salt,” said WFP’s Tiina Honkanen.

“Together with The Rockefeller Foundation, we saw that if we could work with the existing WFP supplier miller to fortify the wholegrain maize meal instead of the refined flour, we could further increase the nutritional value of the school lunches, combining the benefits of both fortification and wholegrain, without having to change the school meal.

“We did not try to introduce a completely new product but focused on a food that was already being eaten”.

The project also helps the local economy. WFP supports smallholder farmers to improve their quality and yields and connects them to viable markets to sell their supply. Such is the case for a number of WFP-supported maize farmers, who sell their maize to the WFP supplier miller who produces the fortified wholegrain maize meal.

“Before, getting buyers was not so smooth. What excites me most is knowing that WFP buys [the end product] to distribute in school meals,” said Immaculée, a farmer from Nyaruguru district of Rwanda.

“It feels good to know that your produce is reaching children in your very own community.”

Aside from the success of the project itself, what makes it especially worthy of attention is the potential for it to be a model to replicate elsewhere. In fact, fortified whole maize meal is now enjoyed by 180,000 school children in Burundi and another 60,000 in Kenya, with exciting scale-up prospects in all three countries.

“The pilot demonstrated that the substitution (of refined foods with wholegrain versions) can be feasible, budget-neutral and be well accepted by students and the school community,” said Honkanen.

Palestinians being displaced amid threats by Israeli settlers in Nablus area. (October 2023). Credit: UN OCHA
 
The unprecedented and unfathomable savagery that was inflicted by Hamas on 1,400 innocent Israeli civilians and off-duty soldiers has shaken to the core every human being with a conscience. Beyond that, it has also rattled the prevailing conditions between Israel and the Palestinians, making it impossible to return to the status quo ante. This incomprehensible massacre offers, though under horrifying circumstances, an unprecedented opportunity to bring a gradual end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This unparalleled breakdown resulting from Hamas’s savagery has fundamentally changed the dynamic of the conflict and created a new paradigm that could lead to a breakthrough of historic proportions to reach a permanent peace agreement based on a two-state solution.

By Alon Ben-Meir
NEW YORK, Nov 6 2023 (IPS)

Since the 1967 Six Day War, many efforts have been made to reach a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians through mediation conducted by an impartial mediator, face-to face negotiations, international conferences, offering incentives, back-channel talks, interim agreements (in particular the Oslo Accords), and occasionally by an influential party exerting pressure on both sides, especially the US.

None of the above approaches nor several others to reach a peace agreement have worked. The failures to reach an agreement are fundamentally attributed to the fact that both sides claim exclusive ownership to the entire land from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River, albeit they blame each other for failing to make the necessary concessions to reach a peace agreement.

While the prospect of a two-state solution was viable following the 1993 Oslo Accords, the outlook for such a solution became progressively dimmer as Israel moved to the right-of-center. Prime Minister Netanyahu, who was bent on sabotaging the Oslo Accords when he served as prime minister between 1996 and 1999, and has been in power for most of the past 15 years, made it clear repeatedly that there will be no Palestinian state under his watch.

The idea of a two-state solution was steadily losing traction in Israel, the occupation of the West Bank was normalized, and a de facto apartheid state was created, which became a way of life for most Israelis and Palestinians.

The changing dynamic of the conflict

It is well known in conflict resolution that sometimes it takes a major breakdown that precipitates an extraordinary crisis to change the dynamic of a conflict. The shockingly unexpected and devastating Yom Kippur War in 1973, which subsequently led to a peace agreement between Egypt and Israel, offers a potent example.

As such, it made it simply impossible to return to the status quo ante. Indeed, neither Israel nor the Palestinians, including Hamas, will be the same following this most heinous and unprecedented massacre and Israel’s retaliation that has already exacted (as of this writing) more than 8,700 Palestinian casualties—not to speak of the unimaginable death and destruction that will occur as Israel undertakes its ground invasion of Gaza.

This unfolding horror should have been expected because of what was happening on the ground in the West Bank and Gaza over the past few years, especially in the last 10 months since the formation of the most extremist right-wing coalition government in Israel’s history (as I pointed out in my article published on October 3, 2022). Indeed, it did not take a prophet to augur what would happen next.

The increasingly violent flareups in the West Bank have been claiming hundreds of Palestinian lives, mostly under the age of 30, each year (so far this year over 300 West Bank Palestinians have already been killed, as of the time of writing, over 100 since October 7 alone). The frequent night raids, evictions, incarcerations, demolition of houses, and gross human rights abuses became the norm.

Despair, depression, and hopelessness swept much of the Palestinian population, akin to the gathering of a ferocious storm that successive Israeli governments led by Netanyahu chose to brush off. Moreover, it is the psychological dimension of the conflict that has now come into full display, exposing decades-old mental and emotional trauma the Palestinians have been experiencing to which the wright-wing Israelis were oblivious and which was bound to manifest in an unprecedented way.

The Palestinians’ resentment and hatred of Israel were intensifying. Since the new government could not formally annex Palestinians territories, it has resorted to intimidation and harassment of the Palestinians under the watchful eye of the criminal Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, who gave the settlers free reign to rampage Palestinian communities in order to ‘encourage’ them to leave.

The Netanyahu government’s intent to slowly annex much of the West Bank became abundantly clear. Needless to say, none of the above can justify under any circumstances Hamas’ heinous attack on Israeli civilians. Hamas must pay for it dearly, and pay they will.

But such unthinkable carnage happened because of the perilous “strategy” that successive Israeli governments pursued that enabled Hamas and prevented the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. This also explains why Netanyahu consistently refused to negotiate with any prospective unity government between the PA and Hamas.

The creation of Hamas

Israel created Hamas to counter balance the secular national Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) movement led by Yasser Arafat, which was intended to divide the Palestinians into two camps and prevent the creation of a Palestinian state. The creation of Hamas by Israel, which has been confirmed by many top Israeli military and civilian officials over a number of years, is unquestionable.

Former Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, who was the Israeli military governor in Gaza in the early 1980s, told a New York Times reporter that he had helped finance Hamas as a “counterweight” to the secularists and leftists of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Fatah party, led by Yasser Arafat, stating “The Israeli Government gave me a budget and the military government gives to the mosques.” And among many others, Avner Cohen, a former Israeli religious affairs official who worked in Gaza for more than two decades, told the Wall Street Journal in 2009 that “Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel’s creation.”

In a 2015 interview, Bezalel Smotrich, the current finance minister who is also in charge of Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), stated “The Palestinian Authority is a burden, and Hamas is an asset” [emphasis added]. And in an article published in the New York Times on October 18, 2023, entitled “Netanyahu Led Us to Catastrophe. He Must Go.,” author Gershom Gorenberg stated that “Bringing Gaza back under the Palestinian Authority was apparently never part of the prime minister’s agenda. Hamas was the enemy and, in a bizarre twist, an ally against the threat of diplomacy, a two-state solution and peace.”

Indeed, no Israeli prime minister has pursued this disastrous policy of divide and conquer more vigorously than Netanyahu. Although he maintained the blockade over Gaza, he allowed the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars from Qatar and other countries into Hamas’ coffers, knowing full well that more than 50 percent of these funds were used by Hamas to buy and manufacture weapons, including tens of thousands of rockets, and build a massive network of tunnels with command and control while readying itself for the next war.

Gorenberg further stated that “In 2019, for instance, Netanyahu explained why he allowed the Hamas regime in Gaza to be propped up with cash from Qatar rather than have it depend on a financial umbilical cord to the West Bank. He told Likud lawmakers that ’whoever is against a Palestinian state should be for’ the Qatari funding…” Yuval Diskin, head of Shin Bet from 2005-2011, stated in January 2013 that “If we look at it over the years, one of the main people contributing to Hamas’s strengthening has been Bibi Netanyahu, since his first term as prime minister.”

And in a more telling statement from someone who has been deeply immersed in Israeli politics and governance, Ehud Barak stated in August 2019, “His strategy is to keep Hamas alive and kicking… even at the price of abandoning the citizens [of the south] … in order to weaken the PA in Ramallah…”

Netanyahu’s ill-fated “strategy” was an illusion. He believed that he could control the monster that he nurtured over the years, which instead came back to slaughter hundreds of innocent Israelis who have been relying on their government for protection and were tragically let down.

They have been betrayed by a prime minister who has been fixated on bolstering Israel’s security in the West Bank while weakening the security of the southern front along the Gaza border. And while Netanyahu was sparing no efforts to ‘reform’ the judiciary, Hamas was planning, training, acquiring weapons, and perfecting the technique to wage an assault against Israel more daring than anyone could have possibly imagined.

It all happened under Netanyahu’s watch. And worse yet, how is it possible that the world’s most renowned intelligence agency, Israel’s Mossad, failed to detect the planning of an attack of such magnitude that it took perhaps more than a year to prepare? And why did Netanyahu ignore the warning of Egypt’s Intelligence Minister General Abbas Kamel, who personally called Netanyahu and warned him that Hamas was likely to do “something unusual, a terrible operation” only 10 days before the attack?

I do not suggest or even imply that Netanyahu knew what was going to happen but chose to ignore it, but rather that he was simply dismissive of what Hamas is capable of and believed that he had a good handle on what was happening in Gaza. He was preoccupied with passing legislation that would subordinate the Supreme Court and the appointment of judges to elected politicians, which would have destroyed Israel’s democracy and allowed him to assume authoritarian powers, to which he badly aspired.

Although the Palestinians on the whole, be they in the West Bank or Gaza, are innocent civilians, the extremists among them have committed many egregious acts of violence against Israel. The Palestinian leaders missed many opportunities to make peace, and made countless mistakes that aggravated their own situation.

Moreover, by threatening Israel’s very existence, extremist groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad allowed successive Israeli governments to make a strong case against the Palestinians by portraying them as an irredeemable mortal enemy that poses the greatest danger to Israel’s national security and hence, the Palestinians cannot be a party to peace.

With these perspectives established by the Israeli government, maintaining the occupation became the state policy, however unsustainable it has been deemed by any keen and informed observer.

What’s next

That said, once the war is over and the dust settles, a growing majority on both sides will come to recognize one irreversible fact. Co-existence is not one of many options, it is the only option, be that under conditions of peace or perpetual violent enmity. The two-state solution has come back to the table, as it has always been the only viable option. Both sides must now face this bittersweet reality.

The question is what will happen now that Israel and Hamas are engaged in fierce fighting on the ground that will surely exact an immense toll on both sides. I maintain that whether Israel limits its ground invasion of Gaza to its northern part, or continues its targeted bombing of Hamas’s encampments while seeking to decapitate as many of its leaders as possible, or simply stops the fighting, which is unlikely, and focuses on releasing the over 240 hostages, nothing will change in any substantial way the irreversible new paradigm that has bitterly awakened both sides to their miserable, unsustainable status quo.

To be sure, what option the Israeli government will choose to bring an end to the conflict will only define the length of time that that might take, the extent of difficulties in the negotiation, the modalities of the negotiating process, the level of public and international pressure to find a solution, and the likely intermittent violence. But none of these issues will change the fundamental point of departure that point to the endgame of a two-state solution, regardless of how many more hurdles might be encountered.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University (NYU). He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Women were reduced to cheerleaders in Zimbabwe's recent 2023 general elections. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

By Farai Shawn Matiashe
BULAWAYO, Nov 6 2023 (IPS)

Zimbabwe’s recent election has exposed weak gender policies both at the political party and governmental levels as women were sidelined despite the fact that they make up more than half of the 6.5 million electorate.

Zimbabwe held its presidential, parliamentary and local municipality elections on August 23 and 24.

Only 22 women were elected for the 210 National Assembly seats out of the 70 women contested against 637 male candidates, according to the Election Resource Centre.

The number of women who contested the National Assembly seats shows a decline compared to the previous election in 2018, where the number of women who competed against men was 14 percent.

In the 2023 election, the total number of women was 11 percent.

The 22 women who were successfully duly elected as Members of Parliament represent a meagre 10 percent of women in the National Assembly, meaning only 30 percent of the women who contested won, according to the Women’s Academy for Leadership and Political Excellence (WALPE).

This figure has fallen from the 25 women, 11.9 percent, who won seats in the 2018 elections.

“There is a lack of political will on the part of our political leaders to promote gender equality,” says WALPE executive director Sitabile Dewa.

“The political environment in Zimbabwe is characterised by violence, patriarchy, fear, harassment and marginalisation of women in electoral processes. These challenges are some of the major impediments to women’s ascendancy to leadership positions at all levels of government within the country.”

Dewa tells IPS that for Zimbabwe to close the gender gap, political party leaders must walk the talk on equality through genuinely and sincerely levelled the electoral field to allow women, young women and women with disabilities to freely, actively and fully participate as both candidates and voters.

A video went viral recently after a Zanu PF campaigner used derogatory names to refer to Judith Tobaiwa, a female candidate for Kwekwe Central, a constituency located 215 kilometres from Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital.

Expensive nomination fees were also a barrier to many aspiring female candidates.

In the 2023 general polls, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission raised the nomination fees beyond the reach of many women who are already disadvantaged economically as compared to their male counterparts in the country.

Presidential candidates paid USD 20,000 while parliamentary candidates parted away with $1000 and $100 for council candidates.

In contrast, in 2018, presidential candidates paid USD 1,000, while legislators paid USD 50.

Linda Masarira of the opposition party Labour, Economists and African Democrats (LEAD) is one of the aspiring presidential candidates who struggled to raise the USD 20,000 nomination fees needed by ZEC this year.

While seats for the National Assembly were shared between CCC and Zanu PF, those from the smaller parties and female candidates who ran as independents failed to win any seats from the plebiscite, showing difficulties outside the main political parties.

All these figures fall short of the 30 percent minimum threshold set out in the 1997 Southern African Development Community (SADC) Declaration on Gender and Development, Zimbabwe’s Constitution, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5, which seeks to promote gender equality and empower all women and girls, according to WAPLE.

In June, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) announced 11 presidential candidates, and there were no women.

Two female presidential candidates, Elisabeth Valerio of United Zimbabwe Alliance (UZA) and Masarira, were blocked by ZEC on petty issues of late payment of nomination fees.

Both female presidential candidates took their matters to court.

Valerio won her case, and ZEC was forced to accept her nomination papers.

But Masarira lost the case.

Incumbent Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu PF) was controversially declared the winner of the hotly disputed contested election with 52.6 percent against his biggest rival Nelson Chamisa of Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) with 44 percent of the vote.

The opposition has since rejected the election as the polls were marred by voter intimidation, ballot paper delays in opposition strongholds like Harare, Bulawayo and some parts of Manicaland Province and rigging by the electoral body in favour of the ruling Zanu PF.

Multiple observer reports, including SADC, declared the elections not credible, not free, and not fair.

The recently reelected leader has appointed just six women out of 26 cabinet positions.

The gender gap is manifesting in Mnangagwa’s appointment of cabinet ministers.

When Mnangagwa announced his cabinet ministers in September, only six were women out of 26 positions, representing 23 percent.

“It is going to be a mammoth task for Zimbabwe to achieve 50/50 gender balance as enshrined in the Constitution,” says Masarira.

She says this is because the country does not have a “Gender Equality Act to operationalise” some sections of the Constitution.

“Secondly, there is selective application of the Constitution by political parties and the government itself, especially when it comes to issues to do with gender balance, gender equality and non-discrimination,” Masarira says.

Kembo Mohadi, the vice president who was forced to resign in 2021 amid a sex scandal, bounced back as Mnangagwa’s deputy.

Alleged recorded calls of Mohadi soliciting sex from married women who are his subordinates were leaked to the local media. Mohadi has not been charged with any sexual offence and has refuted the audio saying he was a victim of a political plot and voice cloning.

“Mr Mnangagwa is obviously not bothered by Mohadi’s sex scandals or anyone for that matter,” says Gladys Hlatywayo, a CCC senior official.

“In fact, we have always known that the sex scandals were never the reason why he was forced to resign and were a mere cover-up to a political motive. The message that Mr Mnangagwa is sending by reappointing Mohadi is that he does not care at all about women’s rights issues,” she tells IPS.

Dewa says Mahadi’s reappointment as Zimbabwe’s Vice President shows that President Mnangagwa is not willing to consider the welfare and well-being of women.

“Mr Mohadi’s re-appointment stinks in the face of justice for all survivors of sexual abuse by men. It is an indictment on the highest office of the land that women’s rights are of no importance,” she says.

“The office of the Vice President demands the highest levels of integrity and moral probity by its occupants.”

The 2013 Zimbabwean Constitution introduced a women’s quota system, setting aside 60 out of 270 parliamentary seats for women.

This proportional representation provision, which was set to expire in 2023, was extended for two additional electoral cycles by an amendment made to the Constitution by Mnangagwa’s regime last year.

Some women prefer these proportional representation seats as compared to the contested ones.

Dewa says there is a need for a complete overhaul of the current electoral system to promote gender equality in politics.

“The electoral voting system must be changed from the first past the post to proportional representation, with a list in zebra format, as this guarantees gender equality. Citizens must vote for political parties, not individuals, as this also insulates women from political violence and vote buying,” she says.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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