Africa

By Metropolitan Emmanuel Adamakis, Moscow, Rabbi David Rosen, Jerusalem,Dr. Nayla Tabbara, Beirut, Dr. Vinu Aram, India and Rev. Kosho Niwano, Tokyo
MOSCOW, JERUSALEM/BEIRUT/NEW DELHI/TOKYO, Oct 18 2019 (IPS)

On the 8th of October, the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned that the organisation is running out of money by the end of October – “member States have paid only 70 percent of the total amount needed for [our] regular budget”.

This is the same institution, whose Charter first took effect on October 24, 1945, after a world war where an estimated total of 70–85 million people perished (i.e. about 3% of the 1940 world population).

The United Nations was created to “reaffirm faith … in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small… and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom…”

It is often forgotten that the purposes of the United Nations, are in alignment with the values of all faith traditions. It is also forgotten that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was predicated upon the values shared by all faith traditions.

As faith leaders, we have our temples, mosques, churches, synagogues and countless related institutions – and pulpits – which, as history has proven time and again, are impossible to replace. Indeed, our religious institutions significantly predate most member states of the United Nations.

Our faiths call upon us to believe in that which is transcendental and otherworldly, and to serve every living being to live in peace and dignity. Through centuries of existence, we have learned to appreciate the value of coming together on what we agree, to serve all regardless of any, and all, differences.

And in the countless efforts to do so, we appreciate and respect the challenges of convening the diversity of Divine creation around a set of shared values and purposes.

That is why we appreciate and respect the United Nations system.

The United Nations was created, is maintained, and serves, governments (and those with observer status). Governments are critical rights’ holders of members of their respective societies. Governments themselves know that to uphold the rights and serve their peoples – even within national boundaries – requires transcending their own singular capabilities.

There is a humility – and a grandeur – of human spirit, which is impossible to capture in any institution. Yet it is precisely that humility and grandeur which is required by “we the peoples” – as stated in the UN Charter – to appreciate and honor an institution built to represent and serve 193 governments and political representations.

The World Health Organization, a specialized agency of the UN, led the charge in the eradication of smallpox; UNICEF, the UN division focused on child welfare, says it has helped save the lives of more than 90 million children since 1990.

Over the last two and a half decades, the UN has assisted in efforts to help more than 1 billion escape extreme poverty, 2.1 billion people access improved sanitation facilities, and 2.6 billion people access improved sources of drinking water. These accomplishments matter for billions of people.

As people of faith, and as pragmatists who lead respective institutions, we must ask ourselves: who else is willing and able to serve these very same responsibilities – at comparable scale? Our faith institutions have long served those needs. But the lesson learned time and again, is that our religious institutions, also, are necessary, but insufficient.

Our faiths call upon us, in different ways, essentially, “to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security…” – the very same words of the UN Charter.

Precisely because we are faith leaders, from all faiths, from different corners of the world, with the longest legacy of serving communities, we can say with utter conviction, that our world needs a United Nations.

Today, perhaps more than ever – as winds of war and countless conflicts continue to sweep our shores, as massive fires scorch or flood our ecosystem, as the largest number of displaced people ever, stand at the gates of many of our nations while multitudes perish seeking life – today, the need for this unique multilateral space, is a moral imperative.

As leaders representing the only platform of all faith institutions, from all over the world, we, members of Religions for Peace, on the eve of our own 50th year, humbly – and yet determinedly – and with one voice, call upon the governments who owe their dues, to uphold the rights of all peoples, by honoring the commitment towards the only world institution that represents – and serves – the peoples of the world.

The post Religious Leaders’ Plea to Member States: Honour Your Commitment to the UN appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The authors represent RELIGIONS FOR PEACE—the world’s largest and most representative multi-religious coalition from several faiths, including Judaism, Orthodox Christianity; Islam; Hinduism and Buddhism

The post Religious Leaders’ Plea to Member States: Honour Your Commitment to the UN appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Africa Investment Forum 2018

By Farhana Haque Rahman
ROME, Oct 18 2019 (IPS)

Headwinds are blowing amid IMF warnings of a “synchronised slowdown” in global economic growth, yet Africa’s investment drive is still gathering pace, supported by intense international competition in development finance.

Despite the global slowdown, 19 sub-Saharan countries are among nearly 40 emerging markets and developing economies forecast by the IMF to maintain GDP growth rates above 5 percent this year. Particularly encouraging for Africa is that its present growth leaders are richer in innovation than natural resources.

While Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank, admits to sleepless nights over the “headwinds” to African growth – primarily the US-China trade war – he remains excited over the continent’s prospects as the AfDB gears up for its annual Africa Investment Forum.

The November 11-13 gathering in Johannesburg follows major milestones achieved in 2019, notably the coming into force of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, described by Adesina as a “phenomenal development”.

In May, 54 of Africa’s 55 countries became signatories to the initiative which aims to eliminate 90 percent of tariffs on goods and significantly reduce non-tariff barriers. The free trade area means to integrate Africa into a unified market with a population of over one billion and output of $1.3 trillion.

The AfDB does not gloss over the enormous challenges ahead, however, noting that 120 million Africans remain out of work, 42 percent of the population live below the $1.25 poverty line and about one in four in sub-Saharan Africa are undernourished. Africa is also most vulnerable to the global climate crisis, although it is the world’s least contributor to carbon emissions.

Akinwumi Adesina

Under Adesina, appointed in 2015 and backed by his native Nigeria for a second term, the AfDB has responded to such challenges by scaling up investment in five priority areas dubbed the High 5s: electricity and energy; food; industrialisation; integration, and improving the quality of life.

At the UN climate crisis summit in September, Adesina announced the AfDB would double its climate financing to emerging economies to $25 billion from 2020-2025. Half would be aimed at helping governments adapt to the impacts of climate change, such as droughts and rising sea levels.

“Poor countries didn’t cause climate change, they shouldn’t be holding the short end of the stick,” the AfDB president said.

The bank will invest $20 million to help fund the Sahel’s new Desert to Power solar scheme, with Adesina seeing renewable energy as a driver of economic development and replacing all of Africa’s coal-fired power stations.

During his term the bank has increased the renewable power share of its energy portfolio to 95 percent from about 60 percent. Off-grid solar-powered energy is seen as key to connecting the 50 per cent of African households without access to electricity.

Last year’s inaugural Africa Investment Forum generated $38.7 billion in “investment interest” in infrastructure projects, and the multilateral lender is setting a target of $60 billion this year to close what it sees as Africa’s “infrastructure gap” amounting to $108 billion. As an investment marketplace which attracts heads of state, the AfDB says it will work at the Forum in conjunction with all commercial banks across Africa, as well as development finance institutions, global sovereign wealth funds and pension funds.

China’s presence at the Forum is sure to come under close scrutiny given Beijing’s focus on Africa, with President Xi Jinping’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative pledging $60 billion in financing for projects across the continent. China’s trade with Africa has soared over the past 20 years from about $10 billion to close to $200 billion. In a reflection of shifting balances of power, an analysis by Quartz found that nearly twice as many African leaders attended the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Beijing in September than the UN General Assembly in New York two weeks later.

Not to be outdone, Russia has invited over 50 African leaders to its first Russia-Africa summit in Sochi in late October, the culmination of a strategic push that marks Moscow’s re-entry into the continent, with its focus on military deals and oil and gas contracts. With trade and investment replacing aid, US and European multilateral lenders are also directing more funds towards Africa.

The Africa Investment Forum may also enjoy the glow of more favourable headlines for the continent in recent weeks: Mozambique held relatively peaceful presidential elections in mid-October, which followed the signing in August of a peace deal between the ruling Frelimo party and former civil war rivals Renamo; and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was awarded the Nobel peace prize for his role in resolving the border conflict with Eritrea, as well as promoting peace and reconciliation in Ethiopia and the wider East African region.

Farhana Haque Rahman

Mozambique sees itself on the brink of substantial investments following its discovery of huge gas reserves while, as commentators noted, Abiy’s first official state visit outside Africa after coming to office last year was not to the traditional western capitals or even Beijing, but to Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, major investors in his ambitions to transform Addis Ababa.

With foreign investors and multilateral institutions gathering at the door, the AfDB’s president is addressing fears that Africa is piling up debt and mortgaging its future.

“What’s important is that African countries get into deals that are transparent with terms of engagement that are clear,” he told Bloomberg in September.

“If there were cases where some folks got away with deals in the past because others aren’t around the table to help negotiate well — that’s changing. I don’t think any African nation should trade away its future for immediate gains. We want fair and transparent transactions.”

Farhana Haque Rahman is Senior Vice President of IPS Inter Press Service; a communications expert, she is a former senior official of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

The post Africa’s Investment Drive Gathers Pace appeared first on Inter Press Service.

An aerial view of settlements in the middle of the desert in the surrounding area of Timbuktu, North of Mali. Courtesy: UN Photo/Marco Domino

By Issa Sikiti da Silva
BAMAKO, Mali/COTONOU, Benin , Oct 18 2019 (IPS)

Abdoulaye Maiga proudly displays an album showing photos of him and his family during happier times when they all lived together in their home in northern Mali. Today, these memories seem distant and painful.

“We lived happily as a big family before the war and ate and drank as much as we could by growing crops and raising livestock,” he tells IPS.

“Then the war broke out and our lives changed forever, pushing us southwards, finally settling in the region of Mopti. Then we went back home in 2013 when the situation stabilised,” Abdoulaye explains.

In 2012, various groups of Tuareg rebels grouped together to form and administer a new northern state called Azawad. The civil strife that resulted drove many from their homes, with communities often fleeing with their livestock, only to compete for scarce natural resources in vulnerable host communities, according to the United Nations.

• In Mali, three-quarters of the population rely on agriculture for their food and income, and most are subsistence farmers, growing rainfed crops on small plots of land, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the U.N.

After the security situation began to improve in 2013, many returned home to rebuild their lives and livelihoods.

But soon it was the turn of the expanding Sahara Desert, drought and land degradation that became the next driver of their displacement.

“As time went by, the land became useless and we found ourselves having no more land to work on. Nothing would come out that could feed us, and our livestock kept dying due the lack of water and grass to eat, ” Abdoulaye recalls.

“Drought across the Sahel region, followed by conflict in northern Mali, caused a major slump in the country’s agricultural production, reducing household assets and leaving many of Mali’s poor even more vulnerable,” FAO says.

“We used to move up and down with our livestock, looking for water and grass, but most of the times we found none. Life was unliveable. The Sahara is coming down, very fast,” Abdoulaye says emotionally.

In the end, the Maiga family had to leave their home and broke up; Abdoulaye and his brother Ousmane heading to Benin’s commercial capital Cotonou in 2015, after a brief stint in Burkina Faso, as the rest of their family headed for Mali’s capital, Bamako.

Malian girls stand in the shade in Kidal, North of Mali. Photo MINUSMA/Marco Dormino

Threatened with creeping desertification …

The U.N. says nearly 98 percent of Mali is threatened with creeping desertification, as a result of nature and human activity. Besides, the Sahara Desert keeps expanding southward at a rate of 48 km a year, further degrading the land and eradicating the already scarce livelihoods of populations, Reuters reported.

The Sahara, an area of 3.5 million square miles, is the largest ‘hot’ desert in the world and home to some 70 species of mammals, 90 species of resident birds and 100 species of reptiles, according to DesertUSA. And it is expanding, its size is registered at 10 percent larger than a century ago, LiveScience reported.

The Sahel, the area between The Sahara in the north and the Sudanian Savanna in the south, is the region where temperatures are rising faster than anywhere else on Earth. 

The cost of land degradation is currently estimated at about $490bn per year, much higher than the cost of action to prevent it, according to UNCCD recent studies on the economics of land desertification, land degradation and drought.

Roughly 40 percent of the world’s degraded land is found in areas with the highest incidence of poverty and directly impacts the health and livelihoods of an estimated 1.5 billion people, according to the U.N.

In a country where six million tonnes of wood is used per year, reports say Malians are mercilessly smashing their already-fragile landscape, bringing down 4,000 square kilometres of tree cover each year in search for timber and fuel.

Lack of rain has also been making matters worse, especially for the cotton industry, of which the country remains the continent ’s largest producer, with 750,000 tonnes produced in the 2018 to 2019 agriculture season. Environmentalists believe Mali’s average rainfall has dropped by 30 percent since 1998 with droughts becoming longer and more frequent.

… and conflict for resources

Paul Melly, Chatham House Africa consultant, tells IPS that desertification reduces the scope for agriculture and pastoralism to remain viable.

“And of course, that may lead a few disenchanted members of the population, particularly young men, to be attracted by alternative livelihood options, including the money that can be offered by trafficking gangs or terrorist groups,” he says.

Ousmane echoes Melly’s sentiments, saying: “The temptation is too much when you live in desertification-hit areas because you don’t get enough food to hit and water to drink.

“That’s where the bad guys start showing up on your door[step] to tell you that if you join them, you will get plenty food, water and pocket money. The solution is to run away, as far as you can to avoid falling into that trap.”

Consequently, Ousmane and Abdoulaye sold the few remaining animals the family had so they could leave the country.

In Burkina Faso they hoped to find work in farming. 

However, they were not always welcomed.

“We could feel the resentment from locals, so I told my brother we should leave before it gets ugly because there were already some tensions between local communities over what appeared to be land resources,” he says.

Chatham House’s Melly confirms this: “There is no doubt that the overall context, of increasing pressure on fragile and sometimes degrading natural resources, is a contributory factor to the overall pressures in the region and, thus, potentially, to tension.”

 Like elsewhere on the continent, severe environmental degradation appears to be among the root causes of inter-ethnic conflicts.

Using the Darfur region as a case study, the Worldwatch Institute says: “To a considerable extent, the conflict is the result of a slow-onset disaster—creeping desertification and severe droughts that have led to food insecurity and sporadic famine, as well as growing competition for land and water.”

What is being done?

Projects such as the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification’s Land Degradation Neutrality project aimed at preventing and/or reversing land degradation are some of the interventions to stop the growing desert. 

• Another large that aims to wrestle back the land swallowed by The Sahara is the Great Green Wall (GGW), an eight-billion-dollar project launched by the African Union (AU) with the blessing of the UNCCD, and the backing of organisations such as the World Bank, the European Union and FAO.
• Since its launch in 2007, major progress has been made in restoring the fertility of Sahelian lands.
• Nearly 120 communities in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have been involved in a green belt project that resulted in the restoration more than 2,500 hectares of degraded and drylands, according to the UNCCD.
• More than two million seeds and seedings have also been planted from 50 native species of trees.

Everyone, including terrorists are equal in the face of the expanding Sahara

But there remain gaps and many in Mali still remain affected. 

Community leader Hassan Badarou spent several years teaching Islam in rural Mali and Niger. He tells IPS Mali has a very complex situation.

“It is not easy to live in these areas. People there face double threats. It is double stress to flee from both armed conflict and desertification. And such people need to be welcomed and assisted, and not be seen as a threat to locals livelihoods.

“That is why we used to preach tolerance and solidarity wherever we went, to avoid a situation whereby local communities would feel that their meagre resources are under threat from newcomers. There should be a dialogue, an honest and frank dialogue when communities take on each other over land and water resources,” he advises.

Against the expanding Sahara, all are equal. Fadimata, an internally displaced person from northern Mali, tells IPS that climate change is affecting everyone in the Sahel, including terrorists.

“I saw with my own eyes how a group of heavily-armed young men came to a village, looking for food.

“They said they wanted to do no harm, but wanted something to eat. Of course we were very scared, but the villagers ended up putting something together for these poor young men. They sat down and ate, and drank plenty of water and left afterwards. I think it is better that way than to kill villagers and steal their food, livestock and water.”

Related Articles

• Mali Heading Closer to Civil War
• Armed Groups in Northern Mali Raping Women

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Lille's in-form Nigeria international striker Victor Osimhen is named September's French Ligue 1 Player of the Month.

A former law lecturer seems an unlikely choice to win the hearts of young Tunisians voters who want jobs.

A selection of the week's best photos from across the continent.

A 25 year-old tuberculosis patient is treated at her home in Funafuti, the main island of Tuvalu in the South Pacific. Credit: UNDP Tuvalu/Aurélia Rusek.

By External Source
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 17 2019 (IPS)

A staggering 1.5 million people died from tuberculosis (TB) last year, the UN health agency said on Thursday, in an appeal for far greater funding and political support to eradicate the curable and preventable disease.

Caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis, TB commonly causes persistent coughing, fatigue and weight loss. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) and its latest Global TB Report, around 10 million people developed TB in 2018 and three million sufferers “are not getting the care they need”.

Countries where people suffer most are China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, and South Africa.

Although the 2018 TB toll was marginally better than in 2017, the burden remains stubbornly high among poor and marginalized populations, particularly those with HIV

Highlighting some good news, WHO also pointed out that Brazil, China, the Russian Federation and Zimbabwe – all of which have high TB burdens – achieved treatment coverage levels of more than 80 per cent, in 2018.

Nonetheless, although the 2018 TB toll was marginally better than in 2017, the burden remains stubbornly high among poor and marginalized populations, particularly those with HIV.

One of the reasons for this is the cost of TB care, with data showing that up to four-fifths of TB patients in so-called “high-burden” countries spend more than 20 per cent of their household income on treatment.

Drug resistance remains another obstacle, WHO maintained, with 2018 seeing an estimated half a million new cases of drug-resistant TB. Only one in three of these people was enrolled in treatment, it added, while also recommending that multidrug resistant TB should now be tackled with fully oral regimens “that are safer and more effective”.

 

Stronger systems and better access to care are key: Tedros

Insisting that the world must accelerate progress if it is to reach the Sustainable Development Goal of ending TB by 2030, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that in practice, this required “strong health systems and better access to services. That means a renewed investment in primary health care and a commitment to universal health coverage.”

Following last month’s commitment by Heads of State at the UN in New York to make healthcare available to all and address communicable diseases like TB, HIV and malaria, WHO highlighted the value of “comprehensive” national campaigns that could diagnose and treat several ailments at a time.

The UN agency cited “better integrated” HIV and TB programmes that have led to two-thirds of people diagnosed with TB now knowing their HIV status, for which they are now taking treatment.

WHO also welcomed the fact that seven million people were diagnosed and treated for TB last year – up from 6.4 million in 2017.

This was “proof that we can reach global targets if we join forces together, as we have done through the ‘Find.Treat.All.EndTB’ joint initiative of WHO, Stop TB Partnership and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria”, the WHO Director-General said.

 

‘Breaking the trajectory’ of TB epidemic

Echoing that message, Dr Tereza Kasaeva, Director of WHO’s Global TB Programme confirmed that WHO is working closely with countries, partners and civil society on innovations “to break the trajectory of the TB epidemic”.

According to WHO, there is massive and chronic underfunding for TB research estimated at $1.2 billion a year. On top of this, the shortfall for TB prevention and care is estimated at $3.3 billion in 2019.

This is despite the fact that about one-quarter of the world’s population has latent TB, meaning that people have been infected by TB bacteria but are not yet ill with the disease, so they cannot transmit it.

Priority needs include a new vaccine or effective preventive drug treatment, rapid diagnostic tests and safer, simpler, shorter drug regimens. The World Health Assembly-approved Global TB Strategy aims for a 90 per cent reduction in TB deaths and an 80 per cent reduction in the TB incidence rate by 2030 compared with 2015 levels.

The strategy established milestones for 2020 of a 35 per cent reduction in TB deaths and a 20 per cent reduction in the TB incidence rate compared with 2015.

 

This story was originally published by UN News

The post Tuberculosis Infections Declining, But Not Fast Enough Among Poor, Marginalised: UN Health Agency appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Police discovered more than 70 men and boys in shackles when they raided the private Islamic school.

By African Development Bank
ABIDJAN, Côte d’Ivoire, Oct 17 2019 (IPS-Partners)

In just a few weeks, the second edition of the annual Africa Investment Forum will kick off in Johannesburg, South Africa, with development finance institutions determined to tackle the continent’s infrastructure investment challenges and advance Africa’s economic transformation agenda.

Africa Investment Forum 2018 broke the mold for regional investments and offered lessons about what can be done when multilateral development and finance institutions decide to pull their resources together to deliver as one.

“When we laid out our vision to tilt the flow of capital into Africa by convening the first transaction-based investment forum, many thought it would all amount to building castles in the air. One year down the road, the verdict is undisputed. Africa’s investment opportunities are proving to be seriously attractive,” said Akinwumi Adesina, President of the African Development Bank, convener of the Forum.

The inaugural forum powerfully demonstrated the Bank’s convening power and ability to rally key development institutions, global and regional investors around the common objective of fast-tracking Africa’s economic transformation.

The collective resolve to tackle head-on Africa’s annual infrastructure investment gap, estimated at between US$130 billion and US$170 billion, was on full display during the opening ceremony.

“The inaugural Africa Investment Forum witnessed an extraordinary level of engagement. The conversation moved from talking about investment to advancing deals towards financial closure. 2019 will validate and redefine the perception of investor confidence regarding the African Continent,” said David Makhura, Premier of Gauteng province in South Africa.

Heads of key partner institutions include Patrick Dlamini, CEO, Development Bank of Southern Africa, Professor Benedict Oramah, President, the Africa Export-Import Bank, Dr. Bandar M. H. Hajjar, President, Islamic Development Bank; Admassu Tadesse, President, Trade and Development Bank. The Forum’s founding partners also include Alain Ebobisse, CEO, Africa 50; Mallam Samaila Zubairu, CEO, Africa Finance Corporation.

For Alain Ebobisse, CEO of Africa50, the continent is brimming with opportunities that are waiting to be seized. “The Africa Investment Forum not only brings together investors and stakeholders to initiate deals but can help close transactions that would otherwise take months or years. In infrastructure, this makes a significant difference since the financial and opportunity costs of project delays are high.”

Africa’s development challenges need a swift, bold, and robust response. Of the world’s 20 countries with the least access to electricity, 13 are in Africa. Investment in the region of $43-55 billion per year is needed until 2030-2040 to meet demand and provide universal access to power.

“The audacity showed in South Africa last year, and the results in terms of investment and deals closed will live long in the investor community’s memory,” Adesina tells global investors on the hunt for yields and opportunities.

“We will be reaching for new heights. Already, a robust pipeline of deals valued at billions of US dollars, in energy, cross-border infrastructure, agriculture will be tabled for discussed in the boardroom sessions,” he said.

Last year’s Forum attracted 1,943 participants representing 87 countries and brought together 400 investors from 52 countries. The innovative investment marketplace, brings together heads of state, project sponsors, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and other institutional investors.. Policymakers, private equity firms, and other key senior government officials will also be present.

Africa Investment Forum 2019 will run from 11-13 November in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Contact: Nafissatou Diouf, Manager, Communication and External Relations Department, African Development Bank, email: n.diouf@afdb.org

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Bernardine Evaristo explores living as a woman of colour in her novel Girl, Woman, Other.

In rural Sri Lanka women are tasked with fetching and carrying water for the entire household, sometimes walking miles with pots and bottles balanced on their heads. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

By Jemimah Njuki
NAIROBI, Oct 17 2019 (IPS)

Climate change has a disproportionate impact on women and girls. This is clear when it comes to water, for instance. The Global Commission on Adaptation Report launched at the United Nations General Assembly last week states that the number of people who may lack sufficient water, at least one month per year, will soar from 3.6 billion today to more than 5 billion by 2050.

In many developing countries, gender roles and expectations have made women and girls bear the brunt of looking for water. Currently, women in sub-Saharan Africa spend an average of about 200 million hours per day collecting water, and a whopping 40 billion hours per year. As the impacts of climate change worsen, the burden on women and girls who are still responsible for over 70% of the burden of collecting water in Africa.

Currently, women in sub-Saharan Africa spend an average of about 200 million hours per day collecting water, and a whopping 40 billion hours per year. As the impacts of climate change worsen, the burden on women and girls who are still responsible for over 70% of the burden of collecting water in Africa
While most analysis of climate change recognise the impact on and role of women, many reports and programs fail to recommend practical ways to support women and to address the gender barriers that they face in responding to climate change.

And even more fail to put real resources to address gender inequalities. Now, the implementation of this new Global Commission on Adaptation report is a huge opportunity for improvement and ensuring that gender equality is at the centre of all future climate adaptation investments.

There are three ways in which this report can put women, and gender equality at the core of the three revolutions that the report proposes: revolution in financing, revolution in planning and revolution in knowledge.

First, for the revolution in financing, the Global Commission on Adaptation report recommends a 1.8 trillion USD fund needed to help the world adapt but none of this is directed to specific women lead initiations.  That should be rectified. Governments and donors should make specific investments to women led, and women inclusive funds to enable women adapt to climate change.

Women are already making efforts to pool their own funds together to support each other. For example, in Uganda,  the Women’s Empowerment for Resilience and Adaptation Against Climate Change,  a community of 1,642 women-led associations, representing more than 250,000 women, have pooled together their individual savings to generate a fund of close to USD 3 Million.

Women involved in this initiative borrow from this pool of savings to invest in innovative, scalable and replicable activities that catalyze action towards a low-carbon and highly resilient future.

Over 200,000 women have access to clean water, 250,000 earn income from income generating activities including bee keeping, over 1800 use solar energy while 34,000 energy-saving stoves have been constructed in thousands of households, reducing deforestation by 8%. Investments that help replicate such successes across the globe will economically empower women while conserving the environment and reducing the impacts of climate change.

Second, for the revolution in planning, government and other implementing agencies must make gender equality central to the planning process for climate change adaptation across the key systems that are the focus of the report- food, natural environment, water, infrastructure, cities, and natural disaster management.

This will require gender analysis for all proposed interventions in the different sectors, gender budgeting to ensure resources are allocated to gender responsive and gender specific actions, and monitoring and evaluation systems that measure impacts of interventions on different groups and on gender equality.

Studies by Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN show that a gender analysis of many climate-smart agriculture practices shows that they require relatively high investments in time and/or labour (e.g. building stone bunds and terraces) which can increase women’s labour burden.

A gender analysis can therefore inform the design and implementation of climate adaptation innovations. On gender budgeting, studies show that in countries like Nepal and Bangladesh, gender budget statements for climate change have led to more targeted investments on gender and climate change.

And third, on the knowledge revolution, a coalition of global organizations working on gender and climate should develop global guidelines on integrating gender concerns in climate adaptation and build capacity and accountability mechanisms to implement and monitor their application across countries by governments, private sector, global organizations and community-based organizations working on climate adaptation.

Organizations such as the World Health Organization, the International Labour Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization have been developing global guidelines on health, on labour standards and on agriculture. Such guidelines have been shown to have positive impacts.

An evaluation of the FAO voluntary guidelines on the responsible governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forests enacted in 2012 found that five out of six countries evaluated had included principles of responsible governance of tenure in policies, laws or activities, as a result of the guidelines.

It’s time to move beyond the analysis of women’s vulnerabilities to climate change and their roles in climate adaptation. Governments and donors must put their money where their mouths are – real investments on gender equality in the climate adaptation agenda.

 

The post Governments, Donors and Investors Must Put Their Money Where Their Mouths are on Gender and Climate Change appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Dr Jemimah Njuki works on issues of gender equality in the rural economy including on agriculture and climate resilience. She is an Aspen New Voices Fellow.

The post Governments, Donors and Investors Must Put Their Money Where Their Mouths are on Gender and Climate Change appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The body of a man, believed to be Kenyan, was found in a garden in Clapham in June.

Etienne Eto'o, the son of African football legend Samuel Eto'o, will not play at this year's U-17 World Cup in Brazil after he was left out of Cameroon's final squad.

Senegal deny reports of age-cheating as their 21-man squad for the Fifa Under-17 World Cup in Brazil later this month is announced.

The International Organisation for Migration says that in Bangladesh victims of human trafficking are either abducted or lured with promises of a better life. Credit: Rafiqul Islam Sarker/IPS

By Rafiqul Islam
DHAKA, Oct 17 2019 (IPS)

After his father passed away two years ago, the burden of caring for a six-member family rested on the shoulders of the now 19-year-old Farhad Hossain. He had no clue how he would support his family and pay for the education of his four younger siblings. 

Capitalising on Hossain’s plight, a neighbour offered him a “promising job” abroad in Iraq.

Hossain, a resident from Kishoreganj district, Bangladesh, believed that going abroad was the only way for him to earn enough money to advance in life. So, he sold a piece of land and gave Taka 300,000 ($ 3,750) to the neighbour. 

“Few days later, I, along with some 14 Bangladeshis, were flown to Iraq. And when we reached Baghdad airport, two Bangladeshis received us and took us to a den in the desert,” Hossain told IPS over phone from Iraq.

The next day, he said, a gang of human traffickers, including Bangladeshis and Iraqi nationals, detained them in a house and started beating them, seeking a ransom. “We were forced to call to our family members via phone informing to give them the ransom money otherwise they would kill us,” Hossain said.

“But, my family’s [financial] circumstances was not so good [and they couldn’t afford] to pay the money the traffickers demanded. They did not give us food and even water regularly. They beat us three times in a day. I suffered such torture for six months. And when my mother sent the traffickers another amount of Taka 200,000 ($ 2,500), they released me. But many remained detained there,” he said.

Upon release Hossain was able to find work at a petrol station near Baghdad. He earns Taka 25,000 or $315 a month now and sends some of this home to his family.

Zahid, who works as a bellhop in Dhaka, has a similar story of trafficking. Last year, one of his relatives convinced him to go to Malaysia, where he was promised a job and told that he didn’t have to pay large sums to migrate. So Zahid, a resident of Dhaka’s Gopalganj district, paid the relative Taka 50,000 (about $ 625) so he could leave the country via irregular means.

Zahid and about 100 people, mostly youth, embarked from Cox’s Bazar, the location of the Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh. They were to travel a treacherous journey by boat to Indonesia and then on to Malaysia.

After a few days, they reached the shores of Indonesia. Zahid told IPS that instead of travelling onwards to Malaysia, they were kidnapped and taken to a jungle where the traffickers demanded a ransom, threatening to kill them if their families did not pay up. They were frequently beaten by traffickers, Zahid said.

More than a month passed before local law enforcement agencies rescued them and deported them to Bangladesh.

“The damage has already done. My husband returned home. That is why we are not interested to talk about the issue any more,” Zahid’s wife told IPS, wishing not to be identified as they both still remain fearful.

• In 2018, about 8.9 million Bangladeshis migrated internally and around 730,000 left the country through regular channels to work abroad — 12 million Bangladeshis are currently employed abroad.
• But unknown numbers migrate each year through irregular channels, risking exploitation and abuse at the hands of smugglers and traffickers, according to the U.S. State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report 2019.
• However, official data shows that over a five-year period from 2013 to 2018 over 8,000 people from Bangladesh, including women and children, were victims of human trafficking — a crime that places migrant workers at risk to physical and mental abuse, harassment, forced labour, forced and illegal marriages, sexual exploitation, illegal trade and in some cases, death.

“Due to unemployment problems and economic inequality existing in the country, a trafficked person doesn’t take much time to calculate their future financial gains and swallow the offer of the traffickers. The victims are either abducted or lured with promises of a better life by providing a lucrative job or marriage offers and false proposals to visit holy places. It is critical for all stakeholders to join hands and work together to combat human trafficking,” Sharon Dimanche, Deputy Chief of Mission for the International Organisation for Migration, Bangladesh, said in a recent statement.

• According to the U.S. Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report 2019, Bangladesh is on the Tier 2 Watch List for the third consecutive year.
• A Tier 2 ranking means that the country has not met standards of the U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000 but has made significant efforts to do so.
• To be on the Tier 2 Watch List means is the ranking is similar to Tier 2 but the number of human trafficking victims is significantly high or significantly increasing in that country.

Human trafficking is illegal in Bangladesh.

The 2012 Prevention and Suppression of Human Trafficking Act criminalises sex and labour trafficking, prescribing penalties of five years to life imprisonment and a fine of not less than Taka 50,000 ($ 610).

But Shariful Islam Hasan, head of BRAC Migration Programme, told IPS, “The accused do not get punishment in most of the trafficking cases.”

The figures confirm this. Only around 4,446 trafficking cases have been filed under the Act since 2012. Out of an approximate 4,758 arrests there have been only 29 convictions, according to the Human Trafficking Cell of the Bangladesh Police.

“Trafficking is a transnational crime. The existing laws are good enough to prevent trafficking. But we need to implement the laws strictly to bring the traffickers under custody. And, raising awareness is the key issue where we should give intensive emphasis,” Dr Nakib Muhammad Nasrullah, a professor of Law, University of Dhaka, told a recent function observing the World Day Against Trafficking in Persons 2019.

However, officials say that the Bangladesh government has taken various initiatives to counter-trafficking like formulating policies, strengthening task forces, and the formulation of various committees such as:

• GO-NGO National Coordination Committee to Combat Human Trafficking,
• Committee to Monitor the National Plan of Action for Combatting Human Trafficking 2018-2022,
• the Rescue, Recovery, Repatriation and Integration (RRRI) Task Force, and
• Vigilance Task Force and Counter-Trafficking Committees (CTC) at district, sub-district and union levels.

Recently, United Nations agencies in Bangladesh established a national migration network to ensure coordinated U.N. country-wide support to the Bangladesh government in implementing the Global Compact on Migration and other relevant policies. 

“People desperately want to go abroad seeking jobs. That is why sometimes they go abroad through illegal channels and become victims of human trafficking. But, the law enforcing agencies here are working sincerely to prevent trafficking incidents,” Alamgir Hossain, additional superintendent of police and spokesman of the Armed Police Battalion, told IPS over phone

—————————————–The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ) is pursuing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 8 with a special emphasis on Goal 8.7 which ‘takes immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms’.

The origins of the GSN come from the endeavours of the Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders signed on 2 December 2014. Religious leaders of various faiths, gathered to work together “to defend the dignity and freedom of the human being against the extreme forms of the globalisation of indifference, such us exploitation, forced labour, prostitution, human trafficking” and so forth.

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The post Beaten and Tortured for a Ransom, Lured by the Promise of a Livelihood appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

This is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Riana Group.

The post Beaten and Tortured for a Ransom, Lured by the Promise of a Livelihood appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Ugandan farmer Judith Bakirya is going back to basics by planting trees and restoring the land.

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By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 17 2019 (IPS)

When the six much-ballyhooed high-level UN meetings concluded late September, there were mixed feelings about the final outcomes.

And civil society organizations (CSOs), who were mostly disappointed with the results, are now gearing themselves for two upcoming key climate summit meetings: COP25 in Santiago, Chile in December and COP26 in Glasgow, UK in late 2020, along with the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Women’s Conference scheduled to take place in September 2020 in New York.

But perhaps the most politically-significant event in 2020 will be the 75th anniversary of the United Nations which will take place amidst continued threats against multilateral institutions, rising right-wing nationalism, growing authoritarianism and widespread disinformation.

The anniversary will also take place in the shadow of one of the worst financial crises facing the world body – as Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that “the situation remains dire. And without immediate action, I can no longer guarantee the smooth functioning of the Organization.”

“I urge you to help put the United Nations on a solid financial footing,” he pleaded last month before the 134 members of the Group of 77 developing countries, plus China.

Sesheeni Joud Selvaratnam, Sustainable Development Goals and Agenda 2030 lead at ActionAid, told IPS the United Nations is marking its 75th anniversary next year against a backdrop of rising global hunger, the climate crisis and an unravelling of progress towards social justice and equality.

“It’s not too late to get the Sustainable Development Goals back on track, but the 2020 global summits must see political will and leadership that translates into real action on the ground.

“States turning up and making commitments at the High-Level Political Forum and UN General Assembly isn’t enough. Governments must be held accountable to their citizens on implementing and delivering on their promises by 2030, and ensuring the most vulnerable are not left behind,” said Selvaratnam.

Jens Martens, executive director of Global Policy Forum (New York/Bonn), told IPS the summits have put the UN back at the centre of the global debates on future justice.

At least, many Heads of State and Government have recognized the climate emergency and the importance of sustainable development by participating in the summits.

“They have launched countless new initiatives to implement the SDGs. This is of course better than the destructive policies of Trump, Brazil’s Bolsonaro & Co,” he noted.

But, being present at the summits, making nice speeches, dating Greta Thunberg, and expressing understanding for the concerns of young people is not enough, he added.

“As long as governments do not change fundamentally the framework conditions of sustainable development, this will remain symbolic policy and sometimes pure actionism.”

The summits were once again summits of announced actions. But the world does not need more hypocritical promises and announcements, he pointed out.

“It needs political decisions that make fiscal policies fairer, bring global economic and monetary policy into line with SDGs and human rights, and rapidly accelerate the exit from the fossil fuel economy”, said Martens, who has coordinated the international Civil Society Reflection Group on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

In an oped piece for IPS last week, Kul Gautam, a former UN Assistant Secretary-General said: Everybody says UN needs reforms. But the kind of reforms that are proposed by Member States are often timid and inadequate, and in the case of those proposed by some, e.g. the Trump administration, they are actually harmful and contrary to the multilateral ethos of the United Nations.

Such proposals are unlikely to command broad-based support, he warned.

It is time for the Secretary-General himself to take the initiative and commission a high-level panel to propose a more predictable and sustainable funding of the UN, said Gautam.

The 75th anniversary of the UN in 2020 is a perfect occasion for the S-G to present a bold proposal for a more sustainable funding mechanism for the UN in keeping with the ambitious Sustainable Development Agenda for 2030 that the UN has championed so boldly, he declared.

Teresa Anderson, climate policy coordinator at ActionAid, told IPS 2019 has seen an unprecedented uprising of ordinary citizens around the world, inspired by young people, taking to the streets to demand action on the climate crisis.

“They have exposed the failure of the richest polluting countries at the UN climate action summit to respond with the ambition needed to address the scale of the climate emergency.

“Ahead of the climate summit in Santiago this December, we’re demanding meaningful financial support to address the injustice of climate change. Important proposals to support countries dealing with climate-induced ‘loss and damage’ are on the table”, she added.

It’s critical that the world does not turn its back on the vulnerable countries left to pick up the pieces after climate disasters, Anderson declared.

The September summits covered several issues on the UN agenda, including Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Climate Action, Universal Health Care, Financing for Development (FfD), Nuclear Disarmament and Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

Still, what is particularly annoying, Martens told IPS, is that the UN provided an exposed stage at the summits for billionaire Bill Gates and numerous representatives of transnational corporations.

The last few decades have shown that the market-based solutions these corporate actors have propagated have not solved the global crises, but rather aggravated them, he noted.

Martens said the more than 300 representatives of civil society organizations (CSOs) which met parallel to the SDG Summit at the People’s Assembly have rightly stated in their declaration: “We are saddened by the persisting lack of political will and leadership to even begin to address these issues. This is not good enough. This is failure.”

Jesse Griffiths, Head of Programme, Development Strategy and Finance Overseas Development Institute, told IPS “I did a blog for our website on the Dialogue – available here.”

“My main concern would be that while it was important that the level of attention to the issue was raised – this was a high-level event with heads of state involved – the event itself had been structured so that no concrete outcomes could be made.

This has been a problem of the FfD process itself – the FfD Forums that are held every year could in theory agree what needs to be done to put us on track to finance the SDGs, “but in practice they merely take stock of where we are, and have so far produced no real concrete outcomes”, he added.

“I fear this state of paralysis will continue until we have another high-level summit to follow up from Addis Ababa in 2015,” said Griffiths.

According to Guterres, the summit did produce several positive initiatives. “Let me be specific about just a few”, he told at the conclusion of the meeting.

He said 77 countries – many in the industrialized world – had committed to net zero carbon emissions by 2050. And they were joined by 10 regions and more than 100 cities – including several of the world’s largest.

He also pointed out that 70 countries announced they will boost their National Determined Contributions by 2020, while well over 100 leaders in the private sector committed to accelerating their move into the green economy.

More than 2,000 cities committed to putting climate risk at the centre of decision-making, creating 1,000 bankable, climate-smart urban projects.

UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric provided the final figures: a total of 195 speakers participated, including the Holy See, the State of Palestine and the European Union. Uzbekistan was the only country that did not speak.

Among the speakers — 82 Heads of State and 43 [Heads of Government].

There were 16 women speakers, which was 8.2 per cent only of all the speakers, and that is slightly lower than last year, when there were 19 women speakers or about 9.8 per cent.

To put matters into perspective, on the first day of the General Debate, he said, there were two female Heads of State and one Head of Government, compared to 29 male Heads of State and five male Heads of Government.

The longest speech at the General Debate was 50 minutes [from Pakistan] and the shortest speech from the President of Rwanda, Mr. [Paul] Kagame.

“We also had the Climate Action Summit and six other major meetings at the UN during the time of the General Debate.”

In addition, from 23 through 30 September, 1,674 bilateral meetings were held at the UN. And, as of 30 September, 566 other meetings, including those of regional groups [and] UN system entities, were held during the high level debate.

And, for our part, said Dujarric, “we issued 137 readouts from the Secretary General’s bilateral meetings.”

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

The post UN’s 75th Anniversary Shadowed by Right-Wing Nationalism, Widespread Authoritarianism & Budgetary Cuts appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Meeting the family of a young Gambian who ran away to seek his fortune in Europe.