Africa

Mr Yohei Sasakawa, chairman of the Nippon Foundation and Sasakawa Health Foundation and WHO Goodwill ambassador. Credit : Crystal Orderson / IPS

By Rafiqul Islam and Crystal Orderson
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Dec 11 2019 (IPS)

Leprosy is not a curse but should be detected and treated early, Bangladeshi Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, has told delegates at a gathering in her country’s capital to discuss the elimination of the disease.

“In the past, it was thought that leprosy was a curse. But it was not a curse at all. The disease is caused by bacteria (Mycobacterium Leprae). We should fight it through research,” Hasina said, adding that the discrimination against leprosy sufferers should end. She called upon all concerned to work together so that Bangladesh could be leprosy-free before 2030.

Prime Minister Hasina, who spoke in Bengali at the National Conference 2019 on Zero Leprosy Initiatives by 2030, also committed her government to proper treatment for leprosy sufferers.

To achieve these targets, the country’s National Leprosy Programme, in collaboration with the Nippon Foundation and Sasakawa Health Foundation in Japan, has worked tirelessly to convene the conference, bringing together hundreds of health workers, medical professionals and district officers to discuss the issue under the theme “Zero Leprosy Initiatives”.

Certain areas in Bangladesh are particularly leprosy-prone, including its northern region and the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Prime Minister Hasina said.

Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister of Bangladesh.

“If we can give special focus to these areas, I do believe it would be quite possible to declare Bangladesh a leprosy-free country before 2030,” she added.

“Leprosy patients must be considered on humanitarian grounds. If we all take a little responsibility in this regard, they will get recovery from this disease … I think we can do so,” Prime Minister Hasina said.

Distribute drugs free of cost

The prime minister said many Bangladeshi pharmaceutical companies export medicines, and she called upon these companies to produce drugs for leprosy locally and distribute those among leprosy patients free of charge.

The prime minister also warned that no-one could fire leprosy patients from their jobs but rather should arrange treatment for them.

End stigma and discrimination

The Chairman of the Nippon Foundation and World Health Organization (WHO) Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, Yohei Sasakawa, says leprosy is not only a medical issue but also a social issue “because of the stigma and discrimination that the disease attracts”.

He said: “We have an effective cure for leprosy, and it is essential that every person with the disease has access to the cure and is diagnosed and treated in a timely fashion. With timely diagnosis and treatment, a patient can be cured without disability.

“This conference presents us with an opportunity to re-focus efforts on leprosy and aim at an ambitious target: zero leprosy by 2030,” Mr Sasakawa added.

The WHO Representative to Bangladesh, Dr Bardan Jung Rana, told delegates that leprosy has caused immense human suffering when those affected remained untreated.

“With the aim of a leprosy-free world, WHO is committed to providing technical and strategic guidance, strengthening country-level capacity and delivering interventions through appropriate technology at affordable costs,” said Dr Jung Rana.

Leprosy a treatable disease

Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease affecting mainly the skin, the peripheral nerves, the mucosa of the upper respiratory tract, and the eyes. Leprosy is curable and treatment has been available through the WHO free of charge to all patients worldwide since 1995.

The history of leprosy dates back centuries in Bangladesh. Different Christian missionary organizations used to provide leprosy services in various high endemic areas in the country. In 1965 the government sector implemented leprosy services through three public hospitals.

Eliminating leprosy in Bangladesh

Despite its efforts to eliminate leprosy as a public health threat, Bangladesh’s leprosy burden ranks fourth-highest in the world. Four thousand new cases are detected annually – an average of 11 to 12 cases per day over the last 10 years. Every year an estimated 3000 leprosy sufferers are affected by complications that require specialized treatment in hospital.

Although the the number of leprosy cases are declining, more than one-third of leprosy patients are facing the threat of permanent and progressive physical and social disability. The human suffering resulting from the physical deformities and related social problems are immense.

Activists and community workers in Bangladesh welcomed the government’s commitment to ensure proper treatment for leprosy sufferers.

Delegates at National Conference 2019 Zero Leprosy Initiative by 2030, Dr Sr Roberta Pignone, PIME sisters (middle). Credit : Crystal Orderson / IPS

Stop pushing Leprosy in a corner

Dr Sr Roberta Pignone, Project Director of the Missionary Sisters of Mary Immaculate (with the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME) Sisters) in Khulna in the south of Bangladesh, told IPS: “It is good to listen to the prime minister and health officials and hear what they say they will do in the future to eliminate leprosy.” She added: “Leprosy is always pushed in a corner. It is good to hear that the government is aware of the disease. If the prime minister speaks to the nation, they will listen.”

The PIME Sisters have been working with leprosy since the mission opened its doors in 1986. “Sometimes leprosy is neglected and this conference shows that the government is committed to deal with leprosy,” says Dr Sr Pignone. “It is time to accept that leprosy is in the country and to deal with the situation.”

The Nippon Foundation and the Sasakawa Health Foundation of Japan organized a national conference on leprosy in Dhaka on December 11 under the theme “ZeRo leprosy initiative”.

The post Bangladesh Can Be Leprosy-Free Before 2030 Prime Minister Tells National Zero Leprosy Conference appeared first on Inter Press Service.

From left to right: Augustine Njamnshi an environmental legal expert, Tosi Mpanu Mpanu, a negotiator from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Mohammed Nasr, the the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) Chair. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu
MADRID, Dec 11 2019 (IPS)

As the 25th session of climate negotiations draw to an end this week, the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) have been calling on the world to consider the continent as a special case in terms of implementation of the Paris Agreement and climate finance.

• The Paris Agreement is an agreement reached at the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP 21) in Paris, France, where the world’s nations undertook a determined course to reduce climate change. Among the commitments was to reduce the increase in global temperatures.

“We have been pushing for Africa to be given special considerations given the climate-related calamities already bedevilling the continent vis-à-vis the negligible amount of greenhouse gases emitted,” Ambassador Mohamed Nasr, the AGN chair and the Head of Environmental Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Egypt, told journalists at COP25 in Madrid.

He said that that the Paris Agreement, which was passed in 2015, had little understanding or acknowledgement for Africa’s special circumstances.

• The argument is that the African continent emits a mere 4 percent of the total greenhouse gases emitted globally, yet climate-related impacts are enormous, and science has shown that the situation is only going to worsen in the near future.

“This discussion has taken some time from 2015 until last year when it became clear that the issue has to be taken forward in a more constructive approach,” said Nasr.

Natural disasters

• In 2011, for example, the Horn of Africa region experienced a severe drought that claimed over 260,000 lives, making it one of the worst mass atrocities ever experienced in the region, according to the United Nations Dispatch.
• Another drought followed five years later in 2017, and in the first six months of 2019 there was another devastating drought in the region affecting more than 15.3 million people according to the United Nations.

Immediately after the drought, the Horn of Africa region expected a short rainy season, which usually begins in April. But this didn’t occur and instead the entire region is currently experiencing heavy downpours, which meteorological experts say is due to the warming of the Indian Ocean.

• So far, the region has had more than 300 percent above average rainfall, and this has resulted in floods, mudslides, and the collapse of buildings – which has caused the deaths to hundreds of people, while displacing thousands of households in the region.
• And when the floods eventually end, the region is expected to become a hotspot of waterborne diseases and other climate-related diseases such as malaria.
• At the same time the southern part of the continent is experiencing what farmers say is the worst drought they can remember.
• And earlier this year, Cyclones Idai and Kenneth, whose intensity and occurrence was attributed to  climate change, swept through Southern Africa affecting more than 2.2 million people in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi.

“Science has already warned that Africa was going to be the most impacted by climate change, and some of the disasters we are witnessing are just but a tip of the iceberg,” Augustine Njamnshi, a Cameroonian environmental legal expert, told IPS.

“We need funds to help our people develop resilience to these disasters, we need to give them appropriate technologies to enable them adapt, and we also need to consider that some of the problems they are experiencing are not their own making, and therefore it is injustice for them,” Njamnshi said.

A U.N. report indicates that African countries are paying between 2 to 9 percent of their GDP on adapting to climate change, a phenomenon caused by the developed world and Asian Tigers. And according to Dr James Murombedzi, a policy expert at the U.N., most of these expenditures are never budgeted for.

Climate Science

According to Nasr, AGN recognises last year’s scientific report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which warned that on average Africa will be impacted at least 2° Celsius more than the rest of the world.

“This means that if the global temperatures rise by 1.5° Celsius, then Africa will experience 3.5, and this is a clear reason why the continent must never be treated the same way as the rest of the world,” said Nasr.

Africa Commitment to Paris Agreement

Nasr points out that despite the calamities, Africa has been at the forefront of combatting climate change, noting that African countries have submitted some of the most ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

• Under the Paris Agreement, all parties were supposed to submit their NDCs, which are a set of interventions prepared by countries to contribute to the reduction of Green House Gas (GHG) emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

“We need special financial and technical support and motivation so as to implement the NDCs in a more sustainable manner,” he said.

Africa’s Natural Resources dilemma

The experts noted that Africa is endowed with natural resources in relation to oil, gas, coal among other minerals.

“We know that the mining is one of the highly emitting industries. But at the same time we know that oil and gas are very important resources for wealth. Yet, there is a call from the international community that we should not invest in such resources,” said Nasr.

“This puts Africa in a huge dilemma because as much as we are ambitious, the socio economic indicator on the continent is very low, hence the need for special supports so as to develop in a sustainable manner,” he said.

According to Tosi Mpanu Mpanu, a senior negotiator for the Democratic Republic of Congo, it becomes an emotional issue because the continent is suffering the impacts of climate change, which it has not contributed to, and yet it has natural resources which countries are being asked not to use.

“But it is important that we put our emotions aside and instead use objective tools, and those tools are what science says. All we need is to receive means of implementation such as financial resources, technology transfer and capacity building – which are contained in the convection,” said Mpanu Mpanu, the former AGN chair.

Recommendations from last week’s technical sessions are already being presented to high-level government decision makers. Once approved, they will form a basis for climate action for the continent.

Related Articles

• African Politicians Asked to Develop Legal Instruments to Fight Climate Change
• Climate Summit Kicks Off, Caught Between Realism and Hope

The post Why Africa is Seeking Special Considerations on Climate Finance appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A Rohingya woman and her child at a refugee camp in Bangladesh. Credit: Kamrul Hasan/IPS

By IPS UN Bureau
NEW YORK, Dec 11 2019 (IPS)

Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has arrived at the Hague to defend Myanmar at the International Court of Justice, against charges of genocide of the Rohingya people, as brought on by the Gambia.

Gambia’s Minister of Justice Abubacarr Tambadou on Tuesday said in his opening remarks: “All that the Gambia asks is that you tell Myanmar to stop these senseless killings.”

As the world awaits Suu Kyi’s moment of facing ICJ on Wednesday to “defend the national interest” of Myanmar, IPS’ exclusive reporting over the past several months from the frontlines of one of the gravest genocides of the decade is available here:

• 1.

Rohingyas: Lurching from Crisis to Crisis

• Rohingya refugees aren’t just suffering from effects of the violence, but also health implications that the crisis has led them to

2. Q&A: An Uncertain Future Ahead for Rohingya in Bangladesh
Masud Bin Momen, permanent representative of Bangladesh to the U.N. talks about challenges of addressing the Rohingya refugee crisis in the host country

3. Marooned in Bangladesh, Rohingya Face Uncertain Future
Women face the gravest brunt of the crisis, with their maternal and reproductive health facing issues, and many trafficked into sex-work

4. Myanmar Rohingya Face “Textbook Example of Ethnic Cleansing”
Rohingya refugees share accounts of horrific violence they faced that experts say are hallmarks of a genocide, and should be addressed accoridnlgy

5. Refugee Camps “bursting at the seams” in Bangladesh
As the crisis unfolded, authorities struggled to place the refugees in proper homes, and many lived in makeshift camps

6. Rohingya Crisis Stokes Fears of Myanmar’s Muslims
How the Rohingya Muslims live their lives in Myanmar, and are often failed by authorities there when facing racial discrimination

The reporting has been made possible with the support of UNESCO.

Rohingya women line up for aid. Credit: Sohara Mehroze Shachi/IPS

A Rohingya refugee woman carries relief supplies to her makeshift shelter. Credit: Umer Aiman Khan/IPS

Girls taking religious education lessons at a Madrasah in the camps. Credit: Kamrul Hasan/IPS

A group of Rohingya children emerge from a nearby religious school in Kutupalong camp. Credit: Naimul Haq/IPS

Rohingya people alight from a boat as they arrive at Shahparir Dip in Teknaf, Bangladesh. Credit: IPS

The post A Reflect on Why the Current Case Against Myanmar in ICJ Is Crucial appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Algerian students put their lives on hold as they call for a poll boycott and complete political change.

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp says he loves that his side are "so smart" as they beat Red Bull Salzburg 2-0 to reach the Champions League last 16.

How did Mohamed Salah score his toughest chance of the night at Red Bull Salzburg? Jurgen Klopp does not know.

By Kaveh Zahedi and Van Nguyen
BANGKOK, Thailand, Dec 10 2019 (IPS)

“The 2030 Agenda is coming to life”, declared the Secretary General at the opening of the first SDG Summit, a quadrennial event for the follow up and review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. As leaders from Asia – Pacific took the floor, they highlighted country progress of SDG implementation and reaffirmed commitment to achieve the 2030 Agenda. Statements reflected different approaches across the region. Yet all converged on one priority: accelerated actions and transformative pathways.

Kaveh Zahedi

Because we are not on track.

Earlier this year, our Asia Pacific SDG Progress Report emphasized the region will not achieve any of the 17 SDGs by 2030 at the current pace of progress. While less people in Asia and the Pacific are living in extreme poverty (Goal 1), the poorest are harder to reach. They are more vulnerable to stresses and shocks as progress in reducing inequality has stagnated (Goal 10). Our region’s stubborn reliance on fossil fuels (Goal 7) continues to anchor countries to the grey economy of the past, shroud crowded cities with smog (Goal 11), and put millions of lives at risk (Goal 3). Communities living in low lying coastal areas are seeing their homes being swept away by rising sea levels (Goal 11) as climate actions have yet to take effect (Goal 13).

Business as usual is simply not an option.

Accelerating progress is essentially not about advancing on a single or a cluster of goals. Transformations are needed in the underlying systems behind the 17 Goals. Six entry points identified in the Global Sustainable Development Report 2019 offer a clear pathway to trigger change and multiply the impacts of our actions.

They resonate greatly with the development challenges of Asia – Pacific.

Investing in human well-being and capabilities such as increased public spending in Asia – Pacific to match the global average in the area of education, health and social protection, can lift over 328 million out of extreme poverty by 2030. It will also allow us to build resilience of the most vulnerable populations against external shocks, as revealed in ESCAP’s 2018 Social Outlook for Asia Pacific.

Increased investment to achieve energy decarbonization and universal access to energy would allow our region to reduce energy-related carbon dioxide emission by almost 30%; and avoid nearly 2 million premature deaths by 2030, as shown in ESCAP’s Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2019.

The entry point of promoting sustainable urban and peri-urban development is ever more critical as our region became majority urban for the first time in human history in 2019. The Future of Asian & Pacific cities Report 2019 shows that 1.2 billion new residents will move to Asian-Pacific cities by 2050. They will all need decent jobs, affordable housing, transportation, and clean water and sanitation.

Van Nguyen

We have the tools to support this transformation, with the four levers identified in the Global Sustainable Development Report 2019.

Governance, particularly effective, transparent, accessible and inclusive institutions, is fundamental to drive the implementation of the Goals. Countries gathering at the 6th Asia-Pacific Forum for Sustainable Development declared that the delivery of the SDGs relies on the whole-of-society approach.

Multi-stakeholder partnerships and participation are key success factors.

Sound economic policies and finance are key to fast track progress. ESCAP’s Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2019 estimates that the annual additional investment of 1.5 trillion to achieve the SDGs by 2030 in Asia-Pacific is affordable if countries develop sound tax policy, efficient public spending and private sector engagement.

Empowerment and inclusion, the epicenter of individual and collective action, was found to contribute to reducing inequality and accelerating the progress towards a broad array of the SDGs, according to the 2019 research Accelerating progress: An empowered, inclusive and equal Asia Pacific.

Emerging technologies and innovations have the potential to change lives on an unprecedented scale. One such example is the use of big data applications in forecasting and early warning of extreme weather events, such as during the super typhoon Mangkhut in 2018, documented in the ESCAP’s Asia-Pacific Disaster Report 2019. Such good practices need to be scaled up.

The SDG Summit concluded with a political declaration which calls for a “decade of action and delivery for sustainable development”. Since then, we have seen over twenty commitments for actions for Asia-Pacific by Governments, civil society organisations and the private sector across the 17 Goals registered on the SDG Acceleration Platform. This has given us hope as we move into the year of 2020. The region is arriving at this critical juncture in the path towards sustainable development. We know where we want to be. It is time to deliver on our pledge.

Kaveh Zahedi, Deputy Executive Secretary for Sustainable Development, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)

Van Nguyen, Sustainable Development Officer, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)

The post Accelerating SDG Progress in Asia – Pacific appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: WaterAid

By Andrés Hueso
LONDON, Dec 10 2019 (IPS)

This year’s Human Rights Day advocates for everyone to stand up for their rights and those of others.

Yet this will feel like a distant reality for the millions of sanitation workers in developing countries who are forced to work in conditions that endanger their health and even their lives.

“The human rights of millions of sanitation workers, in particular informal workers, have been violated for a long time, despite the critical importance of their role,” Léo Heller, the Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, said in his World Toilet Day statement last month.

“Amid stigma, low pay, informality and hazardous working conditions, many of them lose their lives while they are at work and very often, it is the omission of governments to comply with their human rights obligations that gives room for those unacceptable situations.”

There is particular concern over the discrimination against manual scavengers, people that are socially (and sometimes institutionally) designated to do sanitation work because they belong to the lowest rungs of the caste hierarchies in South Asian countries.

They clean latrines, empty septic tanks and unblock sewers by hand, and sometimes have to immerse themselves in human waste. In India, despite the fact that manual scavenging was outlawed in 1993, hundreds of thousands of families are still trapped in it.

Meenadevi, a woman from the state of Bihar, started working as a manual scavenger 25 years ago with her mother-in-law, who died on the job. “Initially, I used to feel nauseated, but now I am used to the foul smells,” she says. “Poverty leaves you no option.”

The stigma and risks facing sanitation workers is also prevalent in many parts of the world, as a recent report by International Labour Organisation, WaterAid, World Bank and World Health Organisation shows.

Few developing countries have policies, guidelines and enforcement mechanisms to protect the health, safety and dignity of sanitation workers; especially when their work is informal, they lack recognition and social protection.

In Burkina Faso in West Africa, where only 22.6 per cent of the population have access to basic sanitation, there is little regulation, particularly for the manual emptiers, who use ropes to lower themselves into pits and septic tanks, usually with no protective equipment, and are exposed to deadly asphyxiating gases.

Wendgoundi Sawadogo works as a manual emptier in the capital city, Ouagadougou, for local households who contact him directly for his services.

“You have no paper to show that this is your profession,” he says. “When you die, you die. You go with your bucket and your hoe without recognition, without leaving a trace anywhere or a document that shows your offspring that you have practised such a job. When I think of that, I’m sad. I do not wish any of my children to do this work I do.”

Credit: WaterAid

Sanitation and decent work are both human rights, and one human right cannot come at the expense of another. In the push towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal 6 and bringing sanitation services to everyone by 2030, we cannot neglect Sustainable Development Goal 8, which requires decent conditions for all workers, including sanitation workers.

They are central to solving the sanitation puzzle and protecting their rights is not just a moral imperative, but also the only way to build up a workforce that is able to deliver sanitation services at the scale required.

National and municipal governments need to take decisive action and put in place urgent measures to protect the human rights of sanitation workers, including laws and regulation to eliminate manual scavenging, recognise sanitation work and gradually formalise it, increasing the protection of the workers.

For example, municipalities can increase the use of machines and protective equipment so that workers are not directly exposed to human waste, ensure that subcontractors keep similar standards, and celebrate their contribution to society.

It is also important that the workers access training and support to organise themselves so that they are able to claim their rights in a balance dialogue with authorities.

Finally, every citizen has some degree of responsibility over other citizens’ rights. The plight of sanitation workers is in large part due to the fact that many consider them second-class citizens, and many others ‘flush and forget’ what happens down the (sewer) line.

We all need to both acknowledge and feel outraged by the injustice committed against sanitation workers – and hold to account those with the power to address it.

The post Human Rights? But Not for Sanitation Workers appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Andrés Hueso is Senior Policy Analyst – Sanitation, WaterAid.

The post Human Rights? But Not for Sanitation Workers appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Geneva Centre
GENEVA, Dec 10 2019 (IPS-Partners)

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights“: the words of the first Article of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights are perhaps the most resonant and cited of all international agreements ever signed. Year after year, we commemorate the Human Rights Day, celebrating human rights, insisting that they are inalienable entitlements to all people, not gender nor age-specific, not particular to any ethnic or religious group. And yet, the Geneva Centre’s Chairman Ambassador Ghazi Jomaa underlines, the international community is still confronted with its chronic problems and human rights abuses, oftentimes aggravated by protracted conflicts, expanding poverty, accelerating climate change impacts and beyond. Furthermore, he observes that ideologies anchored in hate and prejudice continue to undermine human rights worldwide and attack our shared humanity. In such times, it has become vital to promote mutual understanding, tolerance and compassion, leading to empathy and celebration of diversity, which are the true gateways to lasting peace.

The theme of this year’s Human Rights Day is Youth Standing Up for Human Rights, a tribute to the 30th Anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of a Child – and a further occasion to defend all these boys and girls that keep falling victims of conflicts and wars, forced labour and trafficking, homicide and abuse. The Geneva Centre’s Chairman insists: violations of children’s rights and human rights are more than personal tragedies. They are alarm bells warning of a much bigger crisis, a crisis that threatens the future of the world’s largest ever seen generation of children and adolescents.

In this regard, the Geneva Centre continues to stress the need to empower children and youth, to ensure equal access to education, to justice, to employment opportunities and, above all, to full participation in society, with the young voices being heard at all levels. In the recent panel debate “Enhancing Access to Justice for Children” held by the Centre in September 2019 at the UN, it was reiterated that if young age is no barrier to experiencing the worst disregards of human rights, then young age should never be seen as an obstacle for obtaining justice and reparation.

Chairman Ghazi Jomaa reaffirms that as adults, we imperatively need to listen to youth with due respect, value their experiences, encourage them to fully participate in the various domains of society. For, inevitably, it will be in their trajectory to see human progress over the next years rise or fall.

As it was observed during the World Conference “Religions, Creeds and Value Systems: Joining Forces to Enhance Equal Citizenship Rights” organized by the Geneva Centre on 25 June 2018 at the UN in Geneva, youth have to be empowered to shape their own futures and mitigate a perceived sense of powerlessness, to fill the vacuity in their lives wherever it exits.

The Geneva Centre is proud to announce the upcoming launch of an eponymous two-volume publication on the World Conference, which compiles the words of wisdom of 35 eminent personalities, including world religious leaders, visionary statesmen and prominent academic experts. Moreover, in his message to the World Conference, the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres appealed to the participants “let us defend our common humanity. Let us unite for equal rights for all without discrimination”. On this Human Rights Day, the Geneva Centre’s Chairman echoes these inspiring words, and underlines that the continuous work towards respect for all human rights should always involve the young generation. After all, youth is the hope and the key to a more just and peaceful world.

The post The Chairman of the Geneva Centre, Ambassador Ghazi Jomaa, calls upon Empowering the Youth to Stand Up for Human Rights appeared first on Inter Press Service.

In Ecuador, indigenous-led protests compelled the government to reconsider an austerity package agreed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that included public sector wage cuts and fuel price hikes. Credit: Conaie.

By Ignacio Saiz
NEW YORK, Dec 10 2019 (IPS)

Human rights advocates should be as concerned with the economic injustices giving rise to recent worldwide demonstrations as with the repressive responses to them. 

In recent weeks, an extraordinary wave of mass protests has swept the globe. While their specific causes and contexts vary, many can be seen as part of a worldwide revolt against extreme inequality and the unjust economic and political systems driving it.

A common weave running through many of the protests is widespread indignation against austerity – the package of debt-reduction policies that scores of governments are now implementing.

In Ecuador, indigenous-led protests compelled the government to reconsider an austerity package agreed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that included public sector wage cuts and fuel price hikes.

Chile has seen million-strong protests against low wages, costly social services and the most extreme levels of economic inequality of any OECD country.

In Lebanon, a third of the population is estimated to have taken to the streets since the latest round of austerity; while Iraq has been rocked by mass protests against high unemployment, ailing public services and economic mismanagement.

These events follow large-scale demonstrations earlier this year against austerity in countries including Argentina, Honduras, Egypt, Sudan and Zimbabwe.

What has often begun as a spontaneous stand against fiscal injustice has burgeoned into a mass mobilization against the structural inequities underpinning it: political systems seen as corrupt, captured and unaccountable, and economic systems seen as generating inequality by privileging private profit over the public good

Many of the protests have been triggered by a specific fiscal measure–a tax on messaging apps in Lebanon or an increase in Santiago metro fares–perceived as emblematic of attempts by governing elites to foist the burden of national belt-tightening on ordinary working people and the already disadvantaged.

But what has often begun as a spontaneous stand against fiscal injustice has burgeoned into a mass mobilization against the structural inequities underpinning it: political systems seen as corrupt, captured and unaccountable, and economic systems seen as generating inequality by privileging private profit over the public good.

Demonstrations in Chile and Lebanon, for example, have continued far beyond the repeal of the offending measures or even the resignation of senior government figures, insisting on a more fundamental economic and political overhaul.

Another alarmingly common feature has been the repressive response of the authorities, who in most cases have addressed the protests as a threat to public security rather than a clamor for social justice.

From Quito to Cairo and from Santiago to Baghdad, security forces stand accused of excessive use of force, killings, ill-treatment and arbitrary arrest of demonstrators.

It is somewhat understandable, then, that where prominent international human rights actors have spoken up about these protests, it has largely been with respect to these abuses. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, for example, has sent a team to Chile to investigate breaches of international standards related to the use of force by security personnel.

A recently-concluded Inter-American Commission on Human Rights mission has gathered numerous testimonies of similar alleged abuses in Ecuador. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have done important work documenting excessive force against protestors in Baghdad, Beirut and elsewhere.

Abuses by the security forces have also been the primary if not sole focus of investigations by national human rights institutions such as the Instituto Nacional de Derechos Humanos in Chile or the Ecuadorian Defensoría del Pueblo.

Each of these organizations has, to different degrees, acknowledged that the protestors’ socio-economic grievances are also human rights concerns. But the economic and social rights dimensions of these crises have generally been relegated to the background and are yet to meaningfully inform their analysis and recommendations.

While the acute repression of civil and political rights in the wake of these protests clearly merits urgent scrutiny, the chronic denial of social and economic rights motivating them must also be addressed as a central human rights concern.

International human rights standards apply equally to governments’ use of fiscal policy as to their use of force.  Where austerity policies result in widening gender or racial disparities, push people into poverty or lead to avoidable backsliding in access to health or housing, they also breach international legal obligations on economic, social and cultural rights.

To relegate these violations to the margins of human rights concerns serves only to perpetuate the lack of accountability that has brought millions out on the streets.

The mass mobilizations against extreme inequality, like those against the closely-related crisis of climate change, beg a holistic approach to the human rights claims underpinning them. They should also prompt human rights actors to rethink their traditional agnosticism with regard to economic systems, and adopt a more frontal critique of neoliberal economic orthodoxy.

The protests demand that we call out the ravages of neoliberalism as human rights deprivations, challenge the fallacies sustaining this ideology and envision rights-centered alternatives.

Recent developments have consolidated the normative and methodological foundations for such a critique. For example, earlier this year the UN Human Rights Council adopted Guiding Principles for Human Rights Impact Assessments for Economic Reform Policies, which set out the human rights standards that should anchor economic policymaking, including fiscal adjustment.

These are informed by the practical experience of civil society organizations such as CESR in assessing austerity and its human rights impacts in numerous countries, as well the work of progressive economists bringing a human rights lens to challenge dominant economic paradigms.

Such efforts have focused on fiscal policy as a critical entry point for addressing structural injustice, as reducing inequality and fulfilling human rights are simply not possible without a radical redistribution of resources, wealth and power.

Systemic approaches to economic and social rights accountability are also targeting the responsibilities of international financial institutions and corporate actors in maintaining the unjust economic status quo. CESR’s efforts have been aimed at the IMF, whose complicity in prescribing austerity has fanned the flames of crises in many of the countries where protests have erupted.

For example, just last month the IMF pressed Lebanon to apply even more regressive adjustment measures, minimizing concerns about the potential for social tensions. Ongoing initiatives to codify the binding human rights obligations of business actors and overhaul the rules of international corporate taxation are equally critical fronts for systemically hard-wiring corporate accountability.

Of course, a truly “eco-systemic” human rights practice needs to go beyond normative elaboration and international policy reform. A challenge for those working internationally is to build stronger links between norm development, policy critique, context-specific advocacy and movement building, supporting the efforts of national human rights activists who are drawing attention to the structural and social rights dimensions of the crises.

We can likely expect more protests of this kind in 2020, as fiscal contraction spikes, the global economy slackens, and traditional spaces for civic engagement shrink.

There is a clear message emerging from the streets that human rights actors should get behind: there can be no democracy without economic and social justice. For this reason, any durable resolution to the current unrest must have economic and social rights accountability at its core.

The post Human Rights and the Global Protests: Addressing Systems as Well as Symptoms appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Ignacio Saiz is Executive Director, The Center for Economic and Social Rights

The post Human Rights and the Global Protests: Addressing Systems as Well as Symptoms appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Seven years ago Nigeria's Peter Olayinka was earning $100 a month in Albania now he is taking on the likes of Inter Milan, Barcelona and Borussia Dortmund.

They were accused of abusing authority in a car manufacturing embezzlement scandal.

Some 700 homes have been swept away, power stations have been flooded and mining has been affected.

By Vladimir Popov and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
BERLIN and KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 10 2019 (IPS)

China’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 14%. Since then, its growth rate has declined by more than half to 6.6% in 2018. The five-year moving average growth rate is at its lowest since reforms began in 1978, although annual growth briefly fell lower during 1979, the year of the Tian An Men incident.

China’s growth slowdown
Economists have suggested various factors slowing China’s growth, including its lower population growth and ageing population. These demographic factors are real, but their significance has been exaggerated.

Vladimir Popov

The working age population and employment both grew at 2% annually at the end of the 20th century, but such growth started to decline early this century before ceasing in 2014. These factors can only explain up to two percentage points of its annual GDP growth rate decline.

Also, the advantages of economic backwardness have been exhausted: it is easier to catch up from a low base, while growth tends to slow in fast-growing economies approaching the technological frontier, especially as cutting-edge innovation is more difficult and costly than copying existing technologies, whether for free, or even by buying patents and copyrights.

Is rapid growth sustainable?
Developed economies rarely grew for extended periods at the pace of the East Asian ‘miracle’ economies ‘catching up’. After all, only five economies have successfully gone from ‘developing’ (i.e., less than a fifth of US per capita income) to ‘developed’ (over half the US level) status.

These were Japan and the first-generation newly industrialized economies (NIEs) during the 1950s-1980s, namely South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong (HK) and Singapore, although HK’s limited industrialization is moot and clearly past.

Marked growth slowdowns have only occurred in Japan and HK, after their per capita incomes were over half the US level, whereas the other ‘tigers’ have continued to grow, eluding the supposed ‘middle-income trap’.

As China’s per capita GDP (at purchasing power parity, i.e., even in comparable prices) is still under a quarter of the US level, a similar growth slowdown in China may still be a couple of decades away.

Exchange rate competitiveness
China’s growth slowdown also appears to be due to political choices. Many argue that its growth for four decades has been due to deliberate exchange rate depreciation, promoting exports and discouraging imports, thus rapidly accumulating foreign exchange (forex) reserves.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

China’s exchange rate competitiveness may thus have been an unexpected outcome of efforts to achieve currency stability by informally pegging the renminbi (RMB) to the US dollar, following the example of the Hongkong dollar from 1983. This was deemed especially necessary following the Tian An Men incident and the failure of various earlier multiple exchange rate arrangements.

But as China’s rapid export-oriented growth with low wages was also due to rapid forex accumulation, keeping its exchange rate low, and raising exports, savings and investment. From around 2005, however, China gave in to US-led international pressures to let the RMB appreciate.

The real exchange rate of China’s RMB – the ratio of Chinese to international prices, as measured by the ratio of its dollar GDP at the official exchange rate to its purchasing power parity GDP – rose during 2003-2013, especially in 2006-2011, except for a brief re-peg right after the 2008 financial crisis started.

The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) tried in August 2015 to move towards a floating exchange rate regime, precipitating a 3% fall in three days against the US dollar. China’s central bank quickly abandoned the attempt, spending over a trillion dollars of forex reserves over the next two years alone to prop up the RMB.

Ironically, the August 2019 PBoC decision to let its currency sink below the RMB7/USD ‘psychological threshold’, consistent with greater exchange rate flexibility, has been portrayed by the Trump administration as currency manipulation although it does not meet US Treasury criteria.

Real exchange rate of Chinese renminbi, 1990-2017 (%)

Source: World Development Indicators

Improving wellbeing, not growth
The US – long dominant in the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the G7 and the G20 – accused China of ‘currency manipulation’ to gain ‘unfair’ advantage in international trade, causing ‘global imbalances’, including the huge US current account deficit with China.

China’s exports as a share of GDP peaked at 35% in 2005, before beginning to fall. The 2008-2009 Great Recession saw RMB appreciation suspended briefly as China opted for a large domestic stimulus package, which accelerated the transition to greater domestic consumption and lower savings as wages rose with high employment and labour force utilization rates.

As the world experienced strong contractionary tendencies, China’s growth slowed from 14% in 2007 to a still high 9% in 2009. As domestic consumption rose, savings, investments and growth inevitably declined. The investment share of GDP peaked at 45% in 2013, before declining.

China also slowed forex accumulation, before stopping completely in 2010, resuming RMB appreciation. Its real exchange rate appreciated fastest during 2006-2011, ‘over-shooting’ and causing RMB over-valuation until its recent depreciation in response to US trade belligerence.

Hence, China has stopped relying on exchange rate competitiveness and low real wages for rapid export-oriented growth for well over a decade, resulting in rising real wages, higher domestic consumption, and perhaps slower growth.

This article draws upon: Slowdown of growth in China: Circumstances or choice? published by the Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute, Berlin.

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The EU's gift of 250 camels to boost Mauritanian border security has been mocked online.

Credit: UNOSSC

By Jorge Chediek
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 10 2019 (IPS)

Climate change is the defining challenge of our time, and developing countries are recognized as hotspots for climatic risks. Through solidarity, peer-to-peer learning and collective self-reliance, developing countries are collaborating among themselves to address the threat.

Good practices in South-South cooperation are viable pathways to accelerate progress on the SDGs. Developing countries can benefit significantly from Southern solutions that can address both climate change as well as multiple other crosscutting development challenges through South-South collaboration.

At stake, if we don’t act together, are recent gains in the fights against poverty, hunger and disease, and the lives and livelihoods of millions of people in the global South.

Despite international commitment to climate action, there is much work to do. Achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and related frameworks such as the Paris Agreement on Climate Change will require engagement from all stakeholders, at all levels and in all countries, leveraging their diverse and unique advantages.

“We need more concrete plans, more ambition from more countries and more businesses,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said during the 2019 Climate Action Summit in September. “We need all financial institutions, public and private, to choose, once and for all, the green economy.”

The Secretary-General took the opportunity of the Buenos Aires High-Level Conference on South-South Cooperation to emphasize that crosscutting South-South collaboration is central to implementing the Paris Agreement.

Southern populations, including those in the least developed countries, landlocked developing countries, and small island developing States, have been those most intensely affected by a changing climate. As such, adaptation and mitigation are not new practices in the South.

Jorge Chediek – Credit: UNOSSC

The International Bamboo and Rattan Organisation – working together with China and the Netherlands – is fostering the industrial use of low-emission climate-resilient bamboo in Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda. India has been leading the world in its pursuit of enhanced solar energy capacity through the International Solar Alliance.

BioInnovate Africa is developing a gel fuel from local organic fruit waste as an affordable and low-carbon emission alternative to firewood and charcoal. In Latin America, cities are working closely together – Santiago´s resilience office is working with its Mexico City counterpart to prepare risk maps for their respective communities.

Scaling up of South-South and triangular cooperation, as a complement to North-South cooperation, is vital for impactful climate action.

Increasingly the countries of the South are looking to the United Nations system for support to expand and capitalize upon the potential of their successes. Over 20 UN entities, including UNOSSC, are collaborating with China to ensure the sustainability, the ‘greening’, of the Belt and Road Initiative.

The India-UN Development Partnership Fund, among 40+ projects, is supporting 7 Pacific island countries to develop climate early warning systems, together with relevant UN counterparts.

UNOSSC is leading and coordinating the implementation of the South-South Cooperation Action Plan of the UN Secretary-General’s Climate Change Engagement Strategy.

In this context, UNOSSC has created the South-South Galaxy global knowledge sharing and partnership-brokering platform, enabling sharing of home grown, contextually appropriate solutions in the spirit of mutual respect and understanding.

I look forward to co-hosting the annual High-Level Forum on South-South Cooperation on Climate Change during the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Madrid on 11 December and call on all development partners to join forces for advancing this important agenda together.

At the Forum we will showcase how bioeconomy and successful South-South and triangular cooperation contribute to the achievement of Nationally Determined Contribution targets in developing countries; we will discuss bamboo as substitute for plastics; and we will scale-up city-to-city partnerships to share evidence-based demand-driven good practices.

It is now time for the global community to move from ambition to action. The United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation stands ready to engage with all partners to ensure that South-South and triangular partnerships are supported towards building an equitable and sustainable future.

https://www.unsouthsouth.org/climate/

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Excerpt:

Jorge Chediek is Director of the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC) and Envoy of the United Nations Secretary-General on South-South Cooperation

The post South-South Cooperation Offers Solutions to Urgent Climate Challenges appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Tropical Cyclone Idai made landfall on Mar. 14 and 15, destroying some 90 percent of Beria, the capital of Sofala province, Mozambique, according to reports. A majority of those affected are living in makeshift camps as they try to rebuild. A Global Humanitarian Overview (GHO) 2020 report claimed climate change, “unexpected spread of infectious disease” and regional conflicts were the main reasons pushing millions of people into spaces for humanitarian needs, and why the numbers of those in need was “unprecedented”.  Credit: Andre Catuera/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 10 2019 (IPS)

The world had an unexpected number of people in crisis this year, which exceeded projected numbers the United Nations had expected, with climate change being one of the key crises that led to “needs to unprecedented levels” according to a new report. 

The observations were made in Global Humanitarian Overview (GHO) 2020, which was released last week by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). According to the report, at the time of the GHO 2019 launch, 93.6 million people were targeted for assistance, despite 131.7 million being in need. By November 2019, the 117.4 million were targeted as opposed to the 166.5 million in need.   

The report claimed climate change, “unexpected spread of infectious disease” and regional conflicts were the main reasons pushing millions of people into spaces for humanitarian needs, and why the numbers of those in need was “unprecedented”.  

“Climatic shocks, the unexpected spread of infectious disease, and the impact of protracted and often intensifying conflicts have combined to drive needs to unprecedented levels this year,” Zoe Paxton, with the Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, told IPS. 

“The current state of geopolitics means conflicts are becoming more protracted and intense. Combatants display growing disregard for international humanitarian law,” said Paxton, adding that a combination of issues affecting those caught in conflict situations: displacement, hunger, psychosocial trauma, and loss of their livelihoods, education facilities and health services. 

“That’s in addition to the direct impact of fighting, bombing and other violence affecting their physical safety and security,” she said. 

Perhaps one of the crucial ones remains the issue of climate change, with more frequent drought, floods, and tropical cyclones. Paxton says these concerns disproportionately affect already poor and vulnerable populations.

“Eleven of the 20 countries most vulnerable to climate change have appealed for humanitarian aid in each of the past seven years,” she told IPS. “We need to do better in prioritising climate change adaptation as part of humanitarian response.”

Paxton added that other factors that contribute to climate concerns are slow economic growth and debts of countries.  In 2019, she said, almost 60 million people in need of humanitarian assistance were from 12 of the 33 countries “in, or at risk of, debt distress,” she said. 

Mental health concerns 

One of the other pressing issues that appeared in the report is the mental health concern of those in need. The report says one in five people in conflict areas have some kind of a mental health condition. 

An increase in “highly violent conflicts” — from 36 last year to 41 this year — is leading to humanitarian concerns such as loss of livelihoods, sexual violence, hunger, while exacerbating mental health concerns.  According to a World Health Organisation report from June, of people who have lived in conflict for the past 10 years, about 11% are expected to have moderate or severe mental conditions. 

While mental health is mentioned in the report, it remains underreported or under-documented in some regions. For example, in Afghanistan, the report noted that “at least 11 percent of the population is estimated to have a physical disability, while an unknown number of people are suffering from mental health issues as a result of their constant exposure to conflict”.

Meanwhile, children are likely to bear the brunt of it the most. The report estimates that 24 million children currently living in some kind of conflict will experience some variation of a mental health condition which would require support. However, challenges remain in addressing this need. 

“Though there is increasing focus on mental health, the vast majority of survivors do not have access to care,” Dr. Mark van Ommeren, who authored an analysis of mental disorders in conflict settings, told IPS. “Whether or not support is made available is often dependent on the interest of individuals within donor agencies or individuals within agencies on the ground.”

In his foreword, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock acknowledged the importance of addressing mental trauma as an issue. “We increasingly understand the need to deal with mental trauma as well as people’s physical health,” he wrote. “We are getting ahead of more crises by taking anticipatory action.”

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