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On residential streets of Caracas with little traffic it is possible to see cars that have been abandoned by their owners for years. They probably migrated from Venezuela or cannot afford to repair and sell their vehicles. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez / IPS

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Oct 23 2023 (IPS)

Diego has just enrolled to study journalism at a university in the Venezuelan capital and, with 2,000 dollars that his family members managed to gather, has bought his first car, a small 2007 Ford that can take him to class from his home in the neighboring Caribbean port city of La Guaira.

Tomás, an experienced physiotherapist who sold Diego the car, is leaving for Spain where a job awaits him without delay, “so I’m quickly selling off things that will give me money to settle there, such as furniture, household goods and appliances, but for now I sold only one of my two cars,” he told IPS."The vehicle fleet in Venezuela - a country that now has 28 million inhabitants - is about 4.1 million vehicles, with an average age of 22 years, and 25 percent of them are out of service. The loss of purchasing power of the owners has caused most of them to delay the maintenance of their vehicles and the replacement of the spare parts that suffer wear and tear, such as tires, brakes, shock absorbers and oil." -- Omar Bautista

“This Ford Fiesta was my first car, I loved it very much, but it doesn’t make sense for me to hold on to two vehicles. I’m keeping a 2011 pickup truck that is in good condition, just in case I don’t do well and I have to return,” added the professional who, like other sources who spoke to IPS, asked not to disclose his last name “for safety reasons.”

The migration of almost eight million Venezuelans in the last 10 years, and the general impoverishment of the population, have led to the deterioration of what was once a shiny fleet of vehicles, with one out of every four vehicles left standing now due to lack of maintenance and leaving much of the rest aging and on the way to the junkyards.

In the basements of parking lots, and in the streets of towns and cities, thousands and thousands of vehicles are permanently parked under layers of dust and oblivion, because their owners have left or because they do not have the money to buy spare parts and pay the costs of repairs.

Along the streets of any Venezuelan city can be seen old rundown vehicles with no sign that the necessary repairs will be made. The impoverishment of the population is at the root of this decline. CREDIT: RrSs

Aging vehicle fleet

Omar Bautista, president of the Chamber of Venezuelan Automotive Manufacturers, told IPS that “the vehicle fleet in Venezuela – a country that now has 28 million inhabitants – is about 4.1 million vehicles, with an average age of 22 years, and 25 percent of them are out of service.”

“The loss of purchasing power of the owners has caused most of them to delay the maintenance of their vehicles and the replacement of the spare parts that suffer wear and tear, such as tires, brakes, shock absorbers and oil,” Bautista said.

Moreover, in contrast to the immense oil wealth in its subsoil, gasoline in Venezuela is scarce and, after more than half a century being the cheapest in the world, it is now sold at half a dollar per liter, a cost difficult to afford for most owners of private vehicles or public transportation.

The country needs some 300,000 barrels of fuel per day and for several years it has had less than 160,000 barrels, according to oil economist Rafael Quiroz, who added that interruptions in the work of Venezuela’s refineries are frequent.

There is almost no residential building that does not have at least one vehicle in storage waiting for its owners to return from abroad. They are part of the 1.5 million vehicles that are permanently parked in the country. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez / IPS

Not enough money

The minimum wage in Venezuela is four dollars a month. Most workers receive up to 50 dollars in non-wage compensation for food, and the average income according to consulting firms is around 130 dollars a month.

Luisa Hernández, a retired teacher, earns a little more giving private English classes, but “the situation at home is very difficult. I can’t afford to pay for the repair of my Toyota Corolla, but a mechanic friend agreed to do the work, and I can pay him in installments,” she told IPS.

Mechanics have their finger on the pulse of the situation. “People leave and the cars often sit idle for years, and then the owners end up selling them, from abroad. Quite a few of those I have gone to pick up and have fixed them, to sell them,” Daniel, who runs a garage in the capital’s middle-class east side, told IPS.

He said that “many people do not sell their cars before leaving the country, thinking that they’re just going abroad to ‘see how it goes’. But they stay there and then decide to sell their vehicle before it further deteriorates and depreciates.”

Another mechanic, Eduardo González, told IPS that “There are people who go away and leave their cars in storage and from abroad they contact us so that from time to time we can check them and do some maintenance. Or they entrust their vehicle to a relative. There are people who travel and come back, but most of them end up selling.”

This situation “has favored buyers, who can get cars at a low price. But the problems come later, because that very used car will require spare parts and maintenance, and that is expensive and often the parts are difficult to get,” added González.

The same difficulty is also a concern for owners of cabs, buses and private vans that transport passengers, as well as cargo trucks.

“At least half of the truck fleet in the region is affected by the shortage and scarcity of spare parts,” said Jonathan Durrelle, president of the Chamber of Cargo Transportation of Carabobo, an industrial state in the center of the country.

Large and small buses for passenger transport in Venezuelan cities, including Caracas, as well as cargo vehicles, also suffer from the lack of sufficient revenue, as well as spare parts, to keep them in proper working condition. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez / IPS

Industries have closed down

Elías Besis, from the Chamber of Spare Parts Importers, attributed this to the closure of companies that “years ago manufactured 62 percent of the spare parts needed in the country, and now that production has plunged to two percent.”

Thousands of manufacturing companies closed down in Venezuela during the eight years (2013-2020) in which the country was in deep recession, suffering a loss of four-fifths of its GDP according to economic consulting firms.

Financial and banking activity has also declined, as has the vehicle loan portfolio, which peaked at 2.3 billion dollars in 2008 and plummeted to just 227,000 dollars by late 2022, according to economist Manuel Sutherland.

Vehicle assembly plants, of which there were a dozen until recently, also closed their doors. In addition to selling to hundreds of dealerships, they used to export vehicles to the Andean and Caribbean markets.

Their production peaks were recorded in 1978, with 182,000 new vehicles – Venezuela then had 14 million inhabitants and 2.5 million vehicles – and in 2007, when 172,000 cars were assembled.

In 2022 only 75 vehicles – trucks and buses – were assembled, and in the first six months of this year just 22.

Newer vans and cars drive through middle and upper class neighborhoods, but are part of the “bubble,” the small segment of the population less impacted by the deep economic crisis that Venezuela has suffered over the last decade. CREDIT: Motorpasión

Farewell to the bonanza

The result of this scenario is the aging and non-renewal of the vehicles circulating on Venezuela’s roads.

The new ones, Daniel pointed out, “are SUVs, crossovers and off-road vehicles that cost a lot of money and can only be bought by those who live in the bubble,” the term popularly used to refer to the segment of high-level officials and businesspersons whose finances are still booming in the midst of the crisis.

In addition, in view of the almost total closure of automotive plants, individuals are opting to import new vehicles directly from the United States, favored by the elimination of tariffs for the importation of most models.

For that reason, said Bautista, “there is no shortage of new vehicles, what there is is a shortage of consumers with the necessary purchasing power and conditions to buy new vehicles.”

These consumers were part of the hard-hit middle class – nine out of 10 families in that socioeconomic category had fallen below the middle class by 2020 according to the consulting firm Anova – and they no longer buy new or newer cars because they have swelled the legion of migrants, selling or leaving behind their main assets.

Since the days of the oil boom (1950-1980), Venezuelans developed a sort of sentimental relationship with their vehicles, associating them with comfort and enjoyment that favored cheap gasoline and a network of paved roads that made it easier to travel to places of recreation.

In middle class and even lower middle class families, it was quite common to change cars every two years and to give one to their children when they turned 18. They were helped by credit facilities, and were encouraged to buy cars in cities where public transportation has always fallen short.

They have had to say goodbye to their easy past on wheels, like migrants have said farewell to their country and homeland. Or at least “see you later”.

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Trucks carrying humanitarian aid wait to cross into Gaza from Egypt through Rafah. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

By an IPS Correspondent
NEW YORK, Oct 23 2023 (IPS)

Amnesty International (AI), one of the leading human rights organizations, has accused Israeli forces of continuing “to intensify their cataclysmic assault on the occupied Gaza Strip.”

AI says it has documented unlawful Israeli attacks, including indiscriminate attacks, which caused mass civilian casualties and must be investigated as war crimes.

Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, said Israeli forces, in their stated intent to use all means to destroy Hamas, have shown a shocking disregard for civilian lives.

“They have pulverized street after street of residential buildings killing civilians on a mass scale and destroying essential infrastructure, while new restrictions mean Gaza is fast running out of water, medicine, fuel and electricity”.

Testimonies from eyewitness and survivors highlighted, again and again, how Israeli attacks decimated Palestinian families, causing such destruction that surviving relatives have little but rubble to remember their loved ones by, said Callamard.

Families sheltering in an UNRWA school. Credit: UNICEF/Hassan Islyeh

AI said it spoke to survivors and eyewitnesses, analysed satellite imagery, and verified photos and videos to investigate air bombardments carried out by Israeli forces between 7 and 12 October, which caused horrific destruction, and in some cases wiped out entire families.

Here the organization presented an in-depth analysis of its findings in five of these unlawful attacks. In each of these cases, Israeli attacks violated international humanitarian law, including by failing to take feasible precautions to spare civilians, or by carrying out indiscriminate attacks that failed to distinguish between civilians and military objectives, or by carrying out attacks that may have been directed against civilian objects.

“The five cases presented barely scratch the surface of the horror that Amnesty has documented and illustrate the devastating impact that Israel’s aerial bombardments are having on people in Gaza. For 16 years, Israel’s illegal blockade has made Gaza the world’s biggest open-air prison – the international community must act now to prevent it becoming a giant graveyard”.

“We are calling on Israeli forces to immediately end unlawful attacks in Gaza and ensure that they take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians and damage to civilian objects. Israel’s allies must immediately impose a comprehensive arms embargo given that serious violations under international law are being committed.”

Since 7 October Israeli forces have launched thousands of air bombardments in the Gaza Strip, killing at least 3,793 people, mostly civilians, including more than 1,500 children, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza. Approximately 12,500 have been injured and more than 1,000 bodies are still trapped beneath the rubble.

In Israel, more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians, have been killed and some 3,300 others were injured, according to the Israeli Ministry of Health after armed groups from the Gaza Strip launched an unprecedented attack against Israel on 7 October. They fired indiscriminate rockets and sent fighters into southern Israel who committed war crimes including deliberately killing civilians and hostage-taking. The Israeli military says that fighters also took more than 200 civilian hostages and military captives back to the Gaza Strip.

“Amnesty International is calling on Hamas and other armed groups to urgently release all civilian hostages, and to immediately stop firing indiscriminate rockets. There can be no justification for the deliberate killing of civilians under any circumstances,” said Callamard.

Hours after the attacks began, Israeli forces started their massive bombardment of Gaza. Since then, Hamas and other armed groups have also continued to fire indiscriminate rockets into civilian areas in Israel in attacks that must also be investigated as war crimes.

Meanwhile in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, at least 79 Palestinians, including 20 children, have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers amid a spike in excessive use of force by the Israeli army and an escalation in state-backed settler violence, which Amnesty International is also investigating.

Amnesty International is continuing to investigate dozens of attacks in Gaza. This output focuses on five unlawful attacks which struck residential buildings, a refugee camp, a family home and a public market. The Israeli army claims it only attacks military targets, but in a number of cases Amnesty International found no evidence of the presence of fighters or other military objectives in the vicinity at the time of the attacks.

Amnesty International also found that the Israeli military failed to take all feasible precautions ahead of attacks including by not giving Palestinian civilians effective prior warnings – in some cases they did not warn civilians at all and in others they issued inadequate warnings.

“Our research points to damning evidence of war crimes in Israel’s bombing campaign that must be urgently investigated. Decades of impunity and injustice and the unprecedented level of death and destruction of the current offensive will only result in further violence and instability in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” said Callamard.

“It is vital that the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court urgently expedites its ongoing investigation into evidence of war crimes and other crimes under international law by all parties. Without justice and the dismantlement of Israel’s system of apartheid against Palestinians, there can be no end to the horrifying civilian suffering we are witnessing.”

The relentless bombardment of Gaza has brought unimaginable suffering to people who are already facing a dire humanitarian crisis. After 16 years under Israel’s illegal blockade, Gaza’s healthcare system is already close to ruin, and its economy is in tatters.

Hospitals are collapsing, unable to cope with the sheer number of wounded people and desperately lacking in life-saving medication and equipment.

Amnesty International is calling on the international community to urge Israel to end its total siege, which has cut Gazans off from food, water, electricity and fuel and urgently allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.

They must also press Israel to lift its longstanding blockade on Gaza which amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s civilian population, is a war crime and is a key aspect of Israel’s system of apartheid.

Finally, the Israeli authorities must rescind their “evacuation order” which may amount to forced displacement of the population.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Families flee their shattered neighbourhood, Tal al-Hawa, to seek refuge in the southern Gaza strip. Credit: UNICEF/Eyad El Baba

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 23 2023 (IPS)

The widespread use of American weapons by Israel, which has killed thousands of civilians in Gaza, has triggered accusations of war crimes against the United States.

But US has always escaped these charges in contemporary military conflicts –particularly in the killing fields of Afghanistan and Iraq –and also in the use of American weapons in Yemen where thousands have been killed.

The United Nations once described the deaths and destruction in the eight-year-old civil war in Yemen as “the world’s worst humanitarian disaster”.

The killings of mostly civilians have been estimated at over 100,000, with accusations of war crimes against a coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), whose primary arms supplier is the US.

And now, the killings of Palestinians in Gaza have come back to haunt the Americans in a new war zone. But still, the US is unlikely to be hauled before the International Criminal Court (ICC).

“If U.S. officials don’t care about Palestinian civilians facing atrocities using U.S. weapons, perhaps they will care a bit more about their own individual criminal liability for aiding Israel in carrying out these atrocities,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), an American non-profit organization that advocates democracy and human rights in the Middle East.

“The American people never signed up to help Israel commit war crimes against defenseless civilians with taxpayer funded bombs and artillery,” she noted.

According to DAWN, U.S. law requires that United States monitor and ensure that weapons and munitions it provides to Israel are not used to commit war crimes in Gaza.

The advocacy group reminded both Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III in a letter sent last week.

“Failure to comply with end-use monitoring requirements not only breaches U.S. laws but also could expose U.S. officials to prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for aiding and abetting war crimes,” warned DAWN.

In a separate letter to ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan, DAWN asked the Prosecutor urgently to issue a public statement reminding the parties to the conflict of the ongoing investigation there and send an investigative team to the Gaza region of Palestine to document and investigate potential crimes under the Rome Statute.

Mouin Rabbani, Co-Editor, Jadaliyya, an independent ezine produced by the Arab Studies Institute, told IPS the United States is in violation of international law, as well as its own domestic legislation, by providing weapons to Israel in the full knowledge that these are being used for the express purpose of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

www.jadaliyya.com

“I would go further and state that it is providing them to Israel for precisely this reason. This is because the US is determined to see Israel achieve its objectives in the Gaza Strip; Washington recognizes that Israel does not have the military capacity and political will to physically occupy the Gaza Strip for a prolonged period and eradicate Hamas and other groups, and has instead — with unqualified US support — adopted as its primary objective the systematic destruction of the Gaza Strip and mass killings of Palestinian civilians”, he pointed out.

As for international law and domestic US legislation, these are as irrelevant as Palestinian lives in this context. That’s how the US-designed rules-based international order works and was designed to work, he said.

“US legislation, the laws of war, and international law more generally, are rigorously applied to rivals and adversaries, while the US and its partners are free to violate them with total impunity, Rabbani argued.

It would be fair to say that ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan is the personification of this system — fearlessly prosecuting official enemies and adversaries with rabid zeal, but more docile than a dead canary when similar or greater crimes are committed by states his government and its Western partners support without qualification, said Rabbani.

If there’s one thing US officials complicit in Israel’s war crimes don’t have to worry about, it is prosecution by the ICC, he declared.

Asked about US weapons in killings in Gaza, Matthew Miller, Spokesperson for the State Department told reporters last week that American weapons cannot be deliberately used against civilians.

“Of course – and one of the tragedies of war –is that there are always civilian deaths. It is one of the great tragedies of war, and what we try to do is work to minimize civilian deaths to the greatest extent possible,” he said.

Asked if there is “any concern among the administration that by supplying this military assistance, the US might be involved in any possible war crimes against civilians”, Miller said: “No, I would say that we have made very clear that we expect Israel to conduct its operations in compliance with international law.”

“That is the standard we hold – uphold – that’s the standard we hold ourselves to; it’s the standard we hold our partners to; it’s the standard every democracy ought to be held to. And we will continue to work with them and continue to deliver messages to them that they should conduct their military operations in – and to the maximum extent possible to protect civilians from harm,” he declared.

According to the Washington-based Stimson Center, Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. military assistance since the Second World War, amounting to more than $158 billion over the past seven decades– not adjusted for inflation.

In recent years, U.S. assistance to Israel has been outlined in a 10-year memoranda of understandings, the most recent of which was signed in 2016 and pledges $38 billion in military assistance between FY2019-FY2028.

Dr Ramzy Baroud, Palestinian journalist and author, told IPS asking the US to clarify the End Use Monitoring (EUM) measures, or Israel’s compliance with the use of American weapons in its war against Gaza, may give the impression that Washington lacks awareness of how US weapons, and US tax payers money are being used.

https://ramzybaroud.net/

“Never before in the history of the US’s relationship with the Middle East has Washington been so directly involved in an Israeli war. The closest was the 1973 war, and even then, the US involvement arrived a week later, and was hardly as direct,” he said.

Every statement made by top US officials, starting with Biden, to Blinken to Sullivan, to all others, indicate that the US is a party in the war, not an outsider, a benefactor, and certainly not a mediator. They even sat in on meetings to discuss Israeli war plans on Gaza. They cannot claim ignorance, Dr, Baroud pointed out.

“In the past, Israel has violated the US’s rules on the use of US arms against civilians, and repeatedly so. Much has been written about this subject, particularly in terms of Israeli violation of the Lehy Laws.”

But what is happening right now is a whole different reality. By sending massive arm shipments, aircraft carriers, and even soldiers to Israel, the US has become a party in the world, therefore it is responsible for the unprecedented war crimes in Gaza, he argued.

“The fingerprints of US weapons are on the body of every Palestinian killed in Gaza, from the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, to UN schools, to every house and every street.

We don’t demand clarification regarding the use of these weapons. We know precisely how they are being used. We demand accountability from war criminals, whether in Tel Aviv or Washington,” he noted.

Meanwhile, a report on Cable News Network (CNN) October 22 said the death toll in Gaza since October 7 has risen to 4,651, with more than 14,245 wounded, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Christian citizens bury victims of Israel's bombing of the Greek Orthodox Church in Gaza. Credit: Hany Al-Shaeir/IPS

By Hisham Allam and Naureen Hossain
CAIRO & UNITED NATIONS, Oct 22 2023 (IPS)

The ongoing violence in the Gaza Strip has resulted in a humanitarian crisis described as “catastrophic” – and even as aid arrived, strikes intensified.

According to the health ministry in Gaza, Israeli attacks have killed 4,385 Palestinians and wounded 13,650 more since October 7. The victims include 3,983 children and 3,300 women. In the West Bank and East Jerusalem, another 64 Palestinians have been killed and 1,230 injured by Israeli forces in the same period, as reported by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Palestinian rockets and other attacks have claimed the lives of 1,300 Israelis and injured 4,562 more, while nearly 200 remain captive, according to OCHA. The conflict has also forced about one million Palestinians in Gaza to flee their homes, more than half of whom are staying in UNRWA facilities across the territory.

A convoy with aid entered Gaza for the first time on October 21 since the outbreak of hostilities on October 7.

Martin Griffiths, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, welcomed aid and said he was confident that this would be the start of a “sustainable effort to provide essential supplies – including food, water, medicine, and fuel – to the people of Gaza, in a safe, dependable, unconditional and unimpeded manner.

Trucks carrying 60 metric tons of World Food Programme emergency food were among the first humanitarian convoys to cross the Rafah border between Egypt and Gaza. Credit: WFP

“Two weeks since the start of hostilities, the humanitarian situation in Gaza – already precarious – has reached catastrophic levels. It is critical that aid reaches people in need wherever they are across Gaza and at the right scale.

“The people of Gaza have endured decades of suffering. The international community cannot continue to fail them.”

UNRWA, the United Nations agency that helps Palestinian refugees, says that more than half a million people are staying in crowded shelters in Gaza, especially in the south. They have left their homes because of the war and have nowhere else to go.

The shelters do not have enough food, water, hygiene, and cleaning items, and they are not clean enough. The UNRWA says that this is a health problem, and it makes the people who live there feel more stressed and scared. Some of them have gone back to where they came from, even though it is still dangerous.

The water crisis in Gaza is also affecting the UNRWA shelters, as many of them do not have any water supply at all. The agency says that fuel is urgently needed to operate water pumps and desalination plants, but it is scarce and expensive due to the blockade and the war.

UNRWA Director of Communications Juliette Touma noted during a UN briefing last week that the organization was concerned about shortages of water.

“We are very concerned about the spread of water-borne diseases,” Touma said. The influx of people in shelters and facilities such as hospitals means that the latter have been over-extended to accommodate them while resuming regular operations.

“We call for the siege to be lifted so that UNRWA and other sister and humanitarian agencies can bring in much-needed supplies,” Touma said.

On October 20, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited the gate to Gaza (Rafah Crossing) and spoke about the humanitarian crisis in the enclave. He said, “We have a situation where trucks carrying vital supplies are stuck at the border while the people in Gaza are suffering from a lack of water, electricity, food, and medicine. We need to end this deadlock urgently.”

The next day, several trucks entered Gaza with aid, following a previous agreement between the USA, Egypt, and Israel.

Guterres praised the efforts of the Egyptian Red Crescent and other Egyptian entities that are helping the people in Gaza, along with the United Nations. He said, “It’s important that we have consistent support, with a sufficient number of trucks allowed to cross every day.”

A large convoy of humanitarian aid from Egypt is waiting to enter Gaza through the Rafah crossing, according to a volunteer from the National Alliance for Civil Development Work. The convoy consists of 120 trucks carrying 1,000 tons of food and meat, 40,000 blankets, 80 tents, 46,000 pieces of clothing, and 290,000 boxes of medicines and medical supplies.

A volunteer, Ahmed Magdy, said that the convoy had been delayed for days and that only limited trucks were allowed to pass. He expressed his disappointment and frustration at the situation, especially after the bombing of Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza and the shortage of medical resources in most of the hospitals in the Strip. He said that the Egyptian civil society organizations are eager to deliver their aid to the people of Gaza, who are suffering from Israeli aggression.

According to the Palestine Red Crescent, 20 trucks of humanitarian aid have arrived in Gaza and will be distributed according to the Emergency Committee’s lists. However, the organization warned that the supplies are not enough to meet the needs of the region and that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza continues.

While IPS was interviewing Hisham Mahna, spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza, the Jerusalem Hospital affiliated with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society received a notice of immediate evacuation from the Israeli army and a threat of shelling. More threats continued over the weekend, with Palestinians saying they had received renewed new warnings from Israel’s military to move from north Gaza to the south of the strip.

According to Hisham, the hospital houses more than 400 patients, including critically ill patients and others in the intensive care unit, in addition to 12,000 displaced civilians who have taken refuge in the hospital as a safe place, in addition to the medical staff.

“We appealed to the Israeli authorities at all levels to stop the repeated attacks on hospitals, to highlight the dire humanitarian situation inside the hospital for patients and displaced people, and to avoid a repeat of the Al-Ahli Hospital tragedy,” Mahna told IPS.

Ahmed El-Beriem, a Palestinian journalist and volunteer coordinator at UNRWA shelters in the Gaza Strip, tells IPS that most of the population of Gaza has been displaced to the south, which is what Israel had planned from the beginning of the war to force Gazans to leave through the Egyptian border.

“The tents provided by UN agencies are no longer enough. There are more than half a million displaced people without shelter. As for schools, the classrooms are full to the brim, with most of them reaching a density of 70 people in a room that does not exceed 25 square meters.”

El-Beriem says that the cemeteries in the Gaza Strip are filled to the brim. There is no more room, which forced the municipality to dig mass graves, each of which contains between 100 and 200 dead.

“Since the beginning of the war, the people of Gaza have been living without water or electricity. The water provided by aid organizations is limited, and diseases are widespread in the refugee camps.”

He says, “You can barely breathe clean air. The displaced people are scattered in schools, in gardens, in the courtyards of mosques, and in the corridors of hospitals.

Security has become a rare commodity. People here do not have the luxury of sleeping. You never know when the shelling will come. Israel is firing shells over the heads of civilians day and night. They are shelling hospitals, mosques, churches, residential towers, crossings, and everything.”

On the other side of the border, a field coordinator with the Egyptian Red Crescent, Mohamed Jamal, said they have received hundreds of tons of aid for Gaza at El-Arish Airport in Egypt’s northern Sinai. However, he said they are still waiting for the border to open to deliver the aid. “We are still waiting for any breakthrough in the situation and the opening of the crossing,” Jamal told IPS.

He said the international aid includes medical equipment, medicines, food, blankets, and clothing from various countries and organizations. Jamal said the Egyptian Red Crescent was coordinating with other countries and the Palestinian Red Crescent to assess the needs of the people in Gaza and provide them with the necessary relief supplies.

According to UN Women, the recent outbreak of violence and destruction in Gaza has forced nearly 493,000 women and girls to flee their homes. The violence has also left many women without their male partners, as about 900 women have become widows and heads of households.

Sarah Hendriks, UN Women Deputy Executive Director, ad interim, said: “UN Women urges an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and unrestricted access to humanitarian aid, including food, water, fuel, and health supplies, which are vital for the survival of women and girls in the Gaza Strip.”

The World Food Programme (WFP) has been providing food and cash assistance to 522,000 Palestinians each day since the start of the crisis, even as stocks run dangerously low. Due to the widespread destruction and insecurity, the replenishment of supplies has proven to be difficult, nigh impossible.

The call for an end to the siege has been made more pertinent and urgent after the bombings of a UNRWA school in the Al-Maghazi refugee camp and the Al Ahli Anglican Episcopal Hospital on October 17, resulting in casualties in the hundreds. Guterres condemned the strikes in a statement issued that same day, also emphasizing that under international law, hospitals and medical clinics are protected under international law.

Since the start of the crisis, 26 healthcare facilities have been damaged by the fighting, according to the World Health Organization. Facilities such as hospitals have already been overwhelmed with the patient care they provide during such crises, as well as serving as shelters for displaced peoples.

The UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths spoke at the Security Council to call for the involved parties to respect international humanitarian law. He also called for a ceasefire so that humanitarian efforts could step in. Following the hospital bombing on Tuesday, he noted that medical personnel and facilities are protected under international law.

“It’s imperative that the wounded and the sick receive the medical care they need,” he said. “It is imperative that the parties respect their obligations under international humanitarian law, and it is our collective responsibility – we are all involved in this, we are not observers, we are all involved – in using all our influence to ensure that this is the case.”

Some Member States have extended their support to the people of Palestine and the relief effort. The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia contributed USD 20 million and USD 2 million, respectively, to UNRWA’s relief funding. Contributions have also come from Jordan, Ireland, and Iceland.

There have also been statements that call out or even condemn the Israeli military forces in their operations against Hamas.

A spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights stated that the continued attacks and siege of Gaza have demonstrated “daily indications of violations of the law of war and international human rights law.”

Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, has warned that the Palestinians face the “grave danger of mass ethnic cleansing” should the war continue and has stated that Israeli forces’ military operations go “well beyond the limits of international law.”

In the 15-member council, a resolution that would have condemned all violence against civilians in the Hamas-Israel conflict was vetoed by the United States. Russia and Britain, two other permanent members of the Security Council, abstained during the voting process – the rationale being that more time was needed for diplomacy.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Oct 20 2023 (IPS)

It’s a rapid reversal for New Zealand’s Labour Party, in power for six years. At the last election in 2020 it won an outright majority, the first party to do so under the current voting system. But three years on, it’s finished a distant second in the election held on 14 October. The result speaks to a broader pattern seen amid economic strife in many countries – of intense political volatility and the rejection of incumbents.

Jacindamania fades

Former Labour leader Jacinda Ardern captured the public imagination when she took the helm of her party in August 2017. Labour had been floundering but went on to gain seats at the election the following month, unexpectedly forming a coalition government.

Aged 37, Ardern was her country’s youngest-ever prime minister by some margin, and the world’s youngest female government leader. Many saw her as a breath of fresh air, offering an approachable and empathetic brand of politics. Ardern enjoyed an international profile unprecedented for a New Zealand prime minister.

The 2020 election saw Ardern and her party rewarded for what was widely seen as an effective pandemic response, credited with saving around 20,000 lives. The opportunity seemed on to pursue an ambitious agenda. The government could point to progress in decriminalising abortion, tightening gun control laws and introducing stronger workplace rights. But many saw the government as having an overcrowded legislative agenda, failing to make headway on headline policies such as child poverty, while voters increasingly became preoccupied with high inflation.

Ardern announced her resignation in January 2023. Her popularity and that of her party had declined amid the soaring cost of living, which some blamed on long pandemic lockdowns.

Ardern had been the target of a bombardment of online abuse, much of it vilely misogynist in nature. Last year New Zealand police reported that threats against Ardern had almost tripled over two years, as anti-vaccine disinformation and conspiracy theories accumulated extremist adherents. In 2022, anti-vaccine protesters camped for weeks outside parliament. The protests, which ended in violence, were a magnet for far-right extremists. Levels of vitriol previously unseen in New Zealand were again present during the election campaign, in which women and Māori candidates in particular were subjected to intimidation and instances of violence.

Ardern’s replacement as prime minister, Chris Hipkins, promised to focus on bread-and-butter issues. He cut many progressive policies and pitched squarely for the centre. But his strategy failed. Labour was the only major party to shed votes. It lost support to the centre-right National Party – New Zealand’s other party of government – along with the right-wing Act and the nationalist and populist NZ First. But it also shed more progressive voters, with the Green party and Te Pāti Māori, which advocates for Indigenous rights, picking up support.

Fractious coalition ahead

Quite what government will form isn’t yet clear. Results are provisional and won’t be finalised until 3 November, with over half a million ‘special votes’ still to be counted – many from New Zealanders living overseas. Due to the death of a candidate a by-election will also be held.

The National party has 50 seats in the 121-seat single-chamber parliament; the workings of the electoral system mean parliament will expand to 122 seats once all votes are counted. This total means it’s clear the National party will head a coalition government, with Christopher Luxon as prime minister. But a National-Act alliance might not be enough to command a majority. NZ First may need to be part of the coalition too.

NZ First is the creation of maverick opportunist Winston Peters. Over the course of a long career, Peters has pulled off the trick of positioning as anti-establishment while working with both main parties in coalition governments, including Ardern’s first administration, and serving as deputy prime minister twice. This time he was able to capitalise on anti-government sentiment developed under the pandemic, including by opposing vaccine mandates.

Among his campaign targets were Māori rights, with Peters – himself Māori – pledging to withdraw support for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Another focus was trans rights, tapping into the same currents of manufactured outrage seen in Europe and North America, with a law proposed to restrict access to toilets for transgender people.

The numbers may mean that the National party finds it easier to govern with Peters than without, even though the three parties disagree on key policies, including on the economy and housing. It could be a rocky road ahead.

Advances reversed?

For New Zealand’s civil society, the question could now become how best to defend gains made and keep on the agenda vital issues such as climate change. The climate crisis was barely mentioned during the campaign even though the country is experiencing extreme weather along with the rest of Oceania. Hipkins scrapped a series of transport reforms intended to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Act, certain to be part of government, wants to get rid of New Zealand’s Climate Change Commission and Zero Carbon Act, which mandates an emissions reduction plan and cap.

The last government’s experiments in ‘co-governance’ – essentially collaborative management, mostly of environmental resources, between government and Māori representatives, based in New Zealand’s foundational Treaty of Waitangi – seem sure to end. All parties likely to be involved in the new government attacked these moves with a flurry of hyperbolic claims. Act and NZ First characterise efforts to challenge the exclusion of Māori people as privileging them over other population groups. The danger is that those strongly opposed to Māori rights will feel emboldened, signalling increasing division and polarisation ahead.

New Zealand offers a lesson on the political consequences of the impacts of the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis intensified by Russia’s war on Ukraine. In just three years, overwhelming political support evaporated. Progress may be temporary and subject to rapid reversal. Civil society must be able to switch strategies just as quickly, from advocating for more to defending gains already made.

Andrew Firmin isCIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

 

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An aerial view of Hacendita Cafubá, on the north shore of Piratininga, a lagoon in southeastern Brazil, when ponds that serve as a spillway and to collect sedimentation of polluted water were being built and filter gardens that clean the water of the Cafubá River before discharging its waters into the lagoon were being planted. CREDIT: Alex Ramos / Niterói City Government

By Mario Osava
NITERÓI, Brazil , Oct 20 2023 (IPS)

Houses with balconies facing the street or the surrounding hills, when they are not hidden behind high walls, reflect a neighborhood where people live on the shore of a lagoon but reject the landscape it offers.

Piratininga, a 2.87 square kilometer coastal lagoon in the southern part of the Brazilian city of Niterói, began to change after several decades of uncontrolled urban growth with no care for the natural surroundings, in what has become a neighborhood of 16,000 inhabitants."I saw fish where there was nothing living before, I saw flowers where there was only mud, I saw life where nature was already dead without any hope." -- Local beneficiary of the PRO project

Garbage, polluted water, construction debris and bad odors hurt the landscape and the quality of life that is sought when choosing a lagoon and green hills as a place to build a year-round or weekend residence.

The accumulated sludge at the bottom of the lagoon is 1.6 meters thick, on average, resulting from both pollution and natural sedimentation.

“That’s what explains those houses that turn their backs to the lagoon,” explained Dionê Castro, coordinator of the Sustainable Oceanic Region Program (PRO Sostenible) of the city government of Niterói, a municipality of 482,000 people separated from the city of Rio de Janeiro only by Guanabara Bay.

Oceânica is one of the five administrative zones of the municipality, locally called regions, which includes 11 neighborhoods in the southern part, on the open sea coast, in contrast to others on the shore of the bay or inland areas without beaches. With two lagoons and a good part of the Atlantic Forest still preserved, the area stands out for its nature.

PRO Sostenible, which was founded in 2014, seeks to restore environmental systems and to ensure better and more sustainable urbanization in the area. Its actions are based on a systemic approach and nature-based solutions.

Dionê Castro is head of the Sustainable Oceanic Region Program of the municipality of Niterói, on the edge of the Piratininga Lagoon in southeastern Brazil. Gardens and piers jutting into the lagoon have replaced the garbage dumps, polluted water and construction debris that had led local residents to reject the landscape, leading houses to be built with their “backs to the lagoon.” CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

 

Natural clean-up of the water

The program’s flagship project is the Orla Piratininga Alfredo Sirkis Park, which pays homage to a leader of the environmental movement, former national lawmaker and former president of the Green Party, as well as journalist and writer, who died in 2020.

The park, known by its acronym POP, has the mission of recovering and protecting the ecosystems associated with the Piratininga Lagoon, in addition to fostering a sense of belonging to the environment and its surroundings. For this reason, the participation of the local residents in all stages of the project has been and continues to be a basic principle.

It comprises an area of 680,000 square meters, the largest in Brazil in nature-based solutions projects, with 10.6 kilometers of bicycle paths, 17 recreational areas and a 2,800 square meter Ecocultural Center.

To bring residents and visitors closer to the local environment, the plan is to complete three three-story lookout points – two of which have already been built – and piers reaching into the lagoon, part of which can be used for fishing, as fish still inhabit the lagoon despite the pollution of recent decades.

The first section, known as Haciendita Cafubá, was inaugurated on Jun. 17, with a water filtration system for the Cafubá River, one of the three that flow into the lagoon, a lookout point, piers, a bicycle path and even a nursery for newborn crocodiles in a special fenced-in area.

 

A view of ponds and, in the background, filtering gardens after their inauguration in June 2023. Hills covered by native vegetation surround the Piratininga lagoon and the neighborhood that grew up over half a century around it and now has 16,000 inhabitants, in Niterói, a neighboring city of Rio de Janeiro in southeastern Brazil. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

 

“I went to see if I could find the crocodiles, my son made me walk down the street, he loves animals… I never thought I would see what I saw… I went to the beginning of the Haciendita, I saw fish where there was nothing living before, I saw flowers where there was only mud, I saw life where nature was already dead without any hope. Congratulations for tolerating us, that community is tough.”

This is the testimony of a resident, addressed to the head of PRO Sostenible. The park has had a large number of visitors since before its inauguration, attracted by flora and fauna that had long since disappeared from the shores of the lagoon.

The technology used to clean the waters is known around the world but has not been widely used in Brazil. It is based on filter gardens, in which layers of gravel and permeable substrates serve as a base for macrophytes, aquatic plants that live in flooded areas and are visible on the surface.

The plants filter the water in a process that does not require chemical inputs.

A special spillway receives the waters of the Cafubá, which conducts and controls them to give greater efficiency to the next pond, the sedimentation pond, the first step in cleaning the polluted waters by reducing the solid material produced by erosion and garbage thrown into the riverbed.

After the sedimentation basins, the water passes through three filtering gardens before flowing into the lagoon.

 

Biologists and environmental managers Heloisa Osanai and Andrea Maia are photographed at the Tibau Island lookout point at the western end of the Piratininga Lagoon in southeastern Brazil. The vegetation, dominated by the exotic and invasive white lead tree, is gradually being replaced by local species as part of the restoration and clean-up process. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

 

Plant filters

Twelve species of macrophytes are used in the filtration process, but the variety has been reduced due to maintenance difficulties. “We use only Brazilian species, and no exogenous species,” said Heloisa Osanai, a biologist specialized in environmental management and one of the 17 employees of PRO Sostenible.

Examples include water lettuce and water lilies with orange flowers.

“One of the effects of the water treatment is the reduction of mosquitoes, which is important to local residents, who used to burn dry vegetation in an attempt to drive away the insects. People no longer build bonfires in the evenings. The filter gardens attract dragonflies that eat the mosquitoes,” said Osanai.

In the larger Jacaré River, 11 filtering gardens were created, which operate in sequence and whose size was designed for greater efficiency, said Andrea Maia, another biologist and environmental manager of the team.

 

Filter gardens beautify the environment and expel mosquitoes, with macrophyte aquatic plant species that clean the water, in addition to decontaminating the Piratininga lagoon, restoring fishing and local tourism in a long-neglected ecosystem of Niteroi, in southeastern Brazil. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

 

Awards and results

PRO Sostenible has already won several national and international awards. It was named one of the three best environmental sustainability programs in Latin America and the Caribbean in the Smart Cities 2022 award.

This year it won another award from Smart Cities Latin America, as the best in Sustainable Urban Development and Mobility. The Park also won awards for valuing biodiversity, from the Federation of Industries of Rio de Janeiro, and another as an environmental project, from the São Paulo city government, for contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda.

In addition to the Park, the program has inaugurated a Sports and Leisure Center on the island of Tibau, on the other side of the Piratininga Lagoon, closer to the sea.

As part of this project, sports fields, a playground and a lookout point have been built, while an invasive tree, the white lead tree (Leucaena leucocephala), native to Mexico and Central America, which dominated the island’s vegetation, has been gradually replaced with local species.

The systemic thinking that guides PRO Sostenible is based on three pillars, explained Dionê Castro.

First is the complexity of local ecosystems and of the projects being implemented, focusing on the environmental, natural, social and cultural dimensions.

In second place is what is called “intersubjectivity”, which takes into account new paradigms of science, leaving behind “simplistic and Cartesian views…The changes do not come from outside, but from local residents, with public input from the conception of the project to its execution,” said the geographer who holds a doctorate in environmental management.

The third pillar is irreversibility. The lagoon and its ecosystems will not return to their original state, “to zero,” but will be cleaned up as much as possible to reach a “new equilibrium,” she said.

Local support for the environmental project led to solutions in different areas, such as the regularization of real estate in the favelas or shantytowns, the improvement of health, the revitalization of fishing, and even the creation of a fishermen’s association.

“It’s environmental justice on the march,” Castro summed up.

In Africa, an estimated 55 million girls under the age of 15 have experienced – or are at risk of experiencing – FGM. Credit: Shutterstock

By Stephanie Musho and Esther M Passaris
NAIROBI, Oct 20 2023 (IPS)

The tips of our fingers have densely packed nerve endings. That is why a miniscule paper cut activates our pain receptors and causes stubborn pain for a day or two. Now consider that a clitoris has over 10,000 nerve endings. It is the human female’s most sensitive erogenous zone, explaining the sexual pleasure it elicits at the slightest touch. A paper cut on your clitoris would be agonizing yet does not compare to the pain of female genital mutilation – or FGM.

The consequences are devastating and far-reaching, permeating social, political and economic facets of daily life. Consider that the current and future financial cost of health care alone for women living with conditions caused by FGM is USD 1.4 billion   annually.  Yet,  over 4 million women and girls remain at risk of undergoing this violation.

Unlike male circumcision that has been found to reduce transmission rates of HIV and sexually transmitted infections, FGM has no medical benefits. It is simply a function of patriarchy meant to sexually control women.  The consequences of FGM are dreadful.

Unlike male circumcision that has been found to reduce transmission rates of HIV and sexually transmitted infections, FGM has no medical benefits. It is simply a function of patriarchy meant to sexually control women.  The consequences of FGM are dreadful

Survivors have spoken out on what sex is like after this heinous mutilation:  they feel no sexual pleasure, only excruciating pain. Childbirth is even worse as they are more susceptible to complications, increasing the prevalence of maternal mortality and morbidity by way of obstructed labor, fistula, post-partum hemorrhage, sepsis and ultimately death. The psychological effects are extensive too, resulting in, among other things, depression, crippling anxiety, and even suicide.

Worse still is that the repercussions extend beyond physiology. FGM is often a precursor to child marriage, cutting off the prospects of a girl or young woman actualizing themselves. It is further compounded by conflict and climate crises. In such contexts, bride price is deemed to be an ‘easy escape’ from economic hardships. This false perception makes an already bad situation worse.

In Africa, an estimated 55 million girls under the age of 15 have experienced – or are at risk of experiencing – FGM. This is despite the existence of robust laws and policies that criminalize this violation in at least 28 countries on the continent. For example  50% of these 55 million girls are found in three countries – Egypt, Ethiopia and Nigeria, and all three countries have criminalized the practice. This disregard of the rule of law can be attributed to deeply entrenched cultural dogma, founded on patriarchy that perpetuates the clashing of harmful culture with the legal code.

Additionally, African women and girls in the diaspora, such as those among the 11 million Africans in Europe and 2 million in the U.S., continue to suffer, with little to no legal protections in place. Aggravating this is that undocumented migrants have little recourse, as seeking protection from FGM would expose them to detention and deportation.

Besides, an emerging trend in the fight against FGM is the contention with cross border FGM. This is where communities travel outside of territories with stringent laws that criminalize the practice to carry out the violation elsewhere to avoid prosecution. This is termed ‘vacation cutting’. It is consequently imperative that FGM is criminalized everywhere, for there to be progress towards our shared global sustainable goals.

The fight to end this scourge is made harder by the medicalization of FGM where health professionals conduct the practice in place of traditional ‘cutters’; in a fallacious and inadequate attempt to mitigate the damaging impacts of FGM.  In fact, a qualified medical doctor recently filed an application in the High Court challenging the prohibition of FGM, citing criminalization of the practice as a violation of bodily autonomy and an infringement of a woman’s right to uphold her culture. This is a reiteration of the need to double down efforts to eradicate the practice as there are those among us that remain committed to the continued relegation of women and girls, and their entrapment in vicious dependency and poverty cycles in the name of culture.

It is then evident that ending FGM requires an armory of varied strategies. This begins with the understanding that when a country becomes party to an international legal instrument, it consents to limitations to its sovereignty and must therefore fulfil its obligations under international law.

This includes those under African Charter on People’s and Human Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa – commonly known as the Maputo Protocol, for African States; and the United Nations Convention on the Elimination on all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), among others. These are important tools towards much needed universal criminalization of and ending FGM.

The world is currently at the midpoint of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) set to elapse in 2030, and all indications point to a completely off-track trajectory – if not regression. If the current rate of progress continues, it could take nearly 300 years to attain gender equality.

While some could argue that it is unrealistic to succeed in 7 years, it is certainly possible to accelerate action and shorten this depressing forecast. We must therefore accelerate action and truly leave no one behind. This means protecting those at risk of this horrendous violation of women and girls. Additionally, a needed increase in financial investments; and it makes financial sense to make them since ending FGM saves economies the costs of the attendant consequence.

The time is now to focus on FGM because while there are ongoing efforts to reform the global financial architecture towards financing for development, these have been heavily centered on climate action.  Whilst this is indeed important, the relegation of other goals in this pursuit runs the risk of pushing them – including those on women and girls further to the periphery. These spaces must be expanded towards intersectional collaboration towards financing and meeting our people and planetary goals.

Additionally, there are at least 40 general and presidential elections slated for next year. Fifteen elections are in Africa; 7 in the Americas; 8 in Asia; another 8 in Europe and 2 in Oceania. It is an opportune time for the electorate to demand the inclusion of gender and health rights like ending FGM in manifestos as a start.

People can appraise track records and thereafter hold elected leaders accountable to their commitments including on increased budgetary allocations and transparency in expenditure. Good governance is indeed central to these efforts.

Ultimately, ending FGM requires a concerted effort, a global push with full solidarity where everyone has a responsibility to act. If the rights of women and girls are not prioritized and intersectionality leveraged, as deliberated on at the just concluded International Conference on FGM, we will ultimately fail to achieve Agenda 2030 in its entirety and possibly even our health and gender goals in our lifetime.

 

Stephanie Musho is a human rights lawyer and campaigner; and an Aspen New Voices Senior Fellow

Hon. Esther Passaris is a Member of Parliament in the Republic of Kenya and a member of the Pan African Parliament 

Two trainee nurses seen in a viral video are accused of bringing the name of the institution into disrepute.

Tabeth Gowere (76) makes extra cash from weaving plastic waste. A group of seniors started weaving plastic out of a need to improve the environment and make some extra cash. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

By Jeffrey Moyo
HARARE, Oct 20 2023 (IPS)

They do not have a pension nor financial support from families or relatives, but they have themselves. Now they have become collectors of plastic waste, which they turn into products as they battle for survival – earning money from the growing plastic pollution in Zimbabwe.

Such are the lives of the country’s senior citizens, like 76-year-old Tabeth Gowere and 81-year-old Elizabeth Makufa, both hailing from Harare’s Glenora high-density suburb, where they become famous as plastic waste collectors.

Gowere and Makufa, thanks to plastic waste, now care for themselves financially despite their old age, so they said.

“At first, we saw plastic waste just being flown around by the wind, and we started to pick these, cleaning the environment, burning it, but later realized we could make something out of these plastics and earn money.  So, using plastic waste, we started weaving different things, including mats to decorate sofas. Many people were impressed by our work, and they started placing orders for the plastic products we were making,” Gowere told IPS.

Makufa, like Gowere, has also seen gold in the dumped plastic waste.

“We say this is waste, but from it, we find something that is helping us to sustain us in life. I make 30 US dollars daily at times from selling the products I make from plastic waste, which means at least I get something to survive,” Makufa told IPS.

The young are learning from the lessons from the senior plastic waste entrepreneurs – like 40-year-old Michelle Gowere.

“Weaving things using plastics is a skill I learned from my mother-in-law, Mrs Gowere. We spend time together daily, and because of this, I ended up learning the skill from her; this is helping me to, at least, help my children with food to carry in their lunch boxes when they go to school,” Michelle told IPS.

To Michelle’s mother-in-law and many others, the environment has been the secondary beneficiary of the geriatrics’ initiative collecting plastic waste.

“You would see that in our area, waste collectors from the council rarely come to empty the refuse bins. So, as we use plastic waste to make our products, we are making our environment clean,” Michelle told IPS.

Zimbabwe Environmental Management Agency (EMA) about 1.65 million tonnes of waste are produced annually in Zimbabwe, with plastic making up 18 percent of that.

However, Makufa says it was not the love of money that swayed them into getting into plastic waste but improving the environment.

“It was not because we lacked money that we turned to collecting plastic waste, but we copied some people who were doing it, and we started doing the same. We thought of removing plastic waste from our environment, and we told ourselves if we could take those plastics and weave them together, we could have impressive products that we could sell and earn some money,” Makufa told IPS.

As the group of elderly people are making a difference in collectively fighting plastic waste, the local authorities welcome their contribution but add that it is everybody’s responsibility to care for the environment.

“The job of caring for the environment is not a responsibility of the council alone. In fact, it is the duty of everyone to make sure where they live there is cleanliness. As a council, we thank people who are beginning to realize that there is money in plastic waste. It’s not every waste that should be dumped; there is what we call recycling, and some people make money from it, but the duty to take care of our surroundings is not a prerogative of the council, but ordinary people as well,” Innocent Ruwende, Harare City Council spokesperson, told IPS.

Priscilla Gavi, director of Help Age Zimbabwe, a non-governmental organization mandated to take care of the elderly’s needs, says the elderly, too, are critical in the fight against plastic waste.

“Old age does not make someone incapable of supporting their families and taking care of themselves. It doesn’t stop the aged from working for their country. In fact, old age gives people opportunities to use skills gained during their prime ages, and they, for instance, make use of plastics, producing different things for sale from plastic waste as they also rid the environment of the plastic waste,” Gavi told IPS.

Yet for many like Makufa, collecting plastic waste has also turned out to be therapeutic in addition to being an economic venture.

“These things that we make with our own hands using plastic waste help us to rest from mental stress owing to problems we have these days that strain us psychologically. So, this helps us to be always occupied and refrain from overthinking about things we don’t have control over,” said Makufa.

According to the Environmental Management Agency (EMA), an estimated 1.65 million tonnes of waste are produced annually in Zimbabwe, with plastic making up to 18 percent of that.

Gowere and Makufa and other elderly recyclers and plastic entrepreneurs have drawn the admiration of organizations like EMA.

“This is a commendable initiative that is promoting upcycling of waste and upscaling recycling as a business. This reduces the amount of waste that ends up in landfills and the environment. Plastic waste takes hundreds of years to decompose, and it releases harmful toxins into the environment when burned,” Amkela Sidange, spokesperson for EMA, told IPS.

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Cities across Asia and the Pacific in the 21st century have undergone extraordinary transformation and economic growth. They are places of immense opportunities for upward mobility to improve quality of life, dynamic innovations for transforming global technologies, and manufacturing hubs to meet the increasing demands for industrialization, consumerism and prosperity. The eighth Asia-Pacific Urban Forum (APUF-8), which is being held next week (23-25 October) in Suwon, Republic of Korea, is a key platform to share urban solutions and enhance partnerships to address the multitude of challenges. Credit: ESCAP

By Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana
BANGKOK, Thailand, Oct 20 2023 (IPS)

Cities have always been dynamic hubs of culture, education, economic growth and opportunity, and most importantly, centres of social interaction attracting residents and visitors alike.

It is no surprise then, that Asia and the Pacific has in recent years become predominantly urban as people seek greater opportunities and services in cities of all sizes, from coastal communities in the Pacific to mega-cities such as Bangkok, Hong Kong and Tokyo, and in smaller towns and emerging urban centres, each with unique characteristics reflecting our region’s diversity.

The megatrend of urbanization, however, has not been free of difficulties, with many of the global crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the increasing effects of climate change, biodiversity loss and various forms of pollution, all converging in our cities. These challenges have made more visible long-standing issues such as inequalities and urban poverty, access to affordable housing and an infrastructure gap.

Our most vulnerable communities often are those most affected. This is clear in our cities where climate-related disasters disproportionately impact the poor, and women and children are unable to access essential urban services.

Meanwhile, a lack of affordable housing hinders the poor and middle classes alike, and inadequate infrastructure too frequently results in persons with disabilities being left behind. Collectively, these challenges not only can harm cities and their residents but will hinder progress toward the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its goals, many of which intersect in cities.

When cities shuttered during the pandemic, economic activity, tourism, education and urban services all suffered seemingly irreparable harm. Yet, in the aftermath of the global pandemic, we realize that a sustainable future for Asia and the Pacific runs through our cities, and we must take the necessary steps to address existing urban challenges and plan urbanization to be inclusive and resilient to future shocks and crises.

And we know how to get there. ESCAP, UN-Habitat and partners have developed a new flagship report, Crisis Resilient Urban Futures: The Future of Asian & Pacific Cities 2023. Through analysis of the crises and their effects, the report offers practical guidance across four key thematic areas for inclusive urban policies, partnerships, and innovations:

First, urban and territorial planning remains the foundation of how all cities manage their growth and plan urban services. Having seen how crises can disrupt these systems, we know that holistic urban planning that prioritizes multi-use, compact development, low-carbon transportation and mobility, affordable housing and efficient delivery of services are essential for creating safe, sustainable and livable cities for all citizens.

Next, as we are all too frequently reminded by the number of climate-induced disasters in our region, effectively responding to the climate emergency must be a priority, and cities are well positioned to lead innovation and new practices for low-carbon and resilient pathways. A resilient city engages all stakeholders, from the most vulnerable communities to civil society and policy makers from the local to national level, all working to co-develop solutions.

We also live in a more digitally connected world, where urban digital transformations and smart city technologies, if managed effectively, can improve operational efficiencies, bridge the digital divide and ensure access for all. The pandemic underlined the need to include everyone in shaping our digitally transformed future.

Finally, the multiple crises highlighted the urgency to safeguard urban finances. Expanding, diversifying, and increasing municipal revenue should be a key strategy for cities to stimulate local economic recoveries. And as no city can go it alone, robust multi-level governance, supported by transparent public frameworks for intergovernmental transfers, is needed, while more stable policies and incentives can open doors to private sector investment.

Recovery from any shock or crisis takes time and collective action. We must ensure that our urban areas guard against future risks while building safe, sustainable and livable communities and putting us back on track to achieve the 2030 Agenda.

The eighth Asia-Pacific Urban Forum (APUF-8), which is being held next week (23-25 October) in Suwon, Republic of Korea, is a key platform to share urban solutions and enhance partnerships to address the multitude of challenges. Though the task is formidable, with the right policies, innovations, cooperation and the engagement of citizens, we can ensure that our region’s cities remain vibrant hubs.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

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