Africa

By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM / ROME, Jul 9 2019 (IPS)

The Libyan catastrophe and the suffering of ”illegal” migrants are generally depicted as fairly recent events, though they are actually the results of a long history of greed, contempt for others and fatal shortsightedness. Like former Yugoslavia, Libya was created from a mosaic of tribal entities, subdued by colonial powers and then ruled by an iron-fisted dictator. Now, Libya is a quagmire where local and international stakeholders battle to control its natural resources. The country holds the largest oil reserves in Africa, oil and gas account for 60 percent of GDP and more than 90 percent of exports.1 This is one reason why Egypt, France, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the U.S., and many other nations are enmeshed in Libya. Furthermore, European nations try to stop mainly sub-Saharan refugees and migrants from reaching their coasts from Libya. An attempt to understand Italy´s essential role in the struggle over Libya´s oil and attempts to control unwanted immigration may help to clarify some issues related to the current situation.

On the 29th of June Sea-Watch 3 arrived in the port of Lampedusa. The ship carried 40 people who two weeks before had been rescued from an inflatable raft off the coast of Libya. After being denied disembarkation in Tripoli Sea-Watch headed for Lampedusa. The German Captain Carola Rackete´s appeals to the Italian Government to let the migrants disembark on Italian territory were met by deaf ears and she thus steered Sea-Watch dangerously close to a military patrol boat, which tried to hinder her vessel from reaching the port:

The situation was desperate. My goal was only to bring exhausted and desperate people to shore. My intention was not to put anyone in danger. I already apologised, and I reiterate my apology. They were asking me to take them back to Libya. From a legal standpoint, these were people fleeing a country at war [and] the law bars you from taking them back there.

Captain Rackete was placed under house arrest awaiting trial, accused of “resistance and violence against warships”. Italy´s interior minister, Matteo Salvini, declared:

Mission accomplished. Law-breaking captain arrested. Pirate ship seized, maximum fine for foreign NGO.2

On the 3rd of July, the Court decided that Rackete had acted out of compassion and after being ordered to return to Germany she was released. Salvini fumed:

She will return to her Germany where they would not have been so tolerant if an Italian woman had made an attempt on the life of German policemen. Italy has raised its head: we are proud to defend our country and to be different from other small European leaders who think they can still treat us as their colony.3

Italy treated like a European colony? This is doubtful, though it is a fact that Libya once was Italy´s grossing and mistreated colony and that Italy continues to be deeply involved in Lybian affairs.

While Rackete awaited her trial, Tajoura, a “migrant detention centre” east of Tripoli, housing more than 600 people, was hit by two airstrikes, leaving at least 44 dead and more than 130 severely injured. The attack was blamed on Kahilfa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA).

Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar is the Libyan-American commander of armed forces loyal to the Libyan House of Representatives.4 He served under Muammar Gaddafi and took part in the coup that in 1969 brought Gaddafi to power. In 1987, Haftar was captured during Chad´s still smoldering civil war. He was released in 1990 and for two decades lived not far from Langley, Virginia, headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). General Haftar was instrumental in the 2011 downfall of Gaddafi and has been described as Libya’s most potent warlord. During Libya´s recent conflicts he has fought with and against nearly every significant faction.5

At the moment, Haftar is openly supported by Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Egypt, and more or less clandestinely by France and Russia, with the U.S. waiting in the wings. France supports the interests of Total S.A., ranked as the world’s fourth-largest non-governmental petroleum company (after Shell, BP, and Exxon), while Russia is supporting LNA through weapon sales. Haftar´s forces are currently attacking the Government of National Accord (NAC) with its centre in Tripoli, this transition government is officially supported by the UN and particularly by Qatar and Turkey, though other forces are also present, such as Italy´s Miasit mission with 400 soldiers and 130 “land, naval and air vehicles”. Italy is the European country with the deepest Libyan ties.6 One example is ENI´s activities, an Italian multinational oil and gas corporation, the world´s 11th largest industrial company, which since 1959 has profited from Libya´s oil production.7 However, Italy´s connections with Libya runs even deeper than that.

In 1912, Italy conquered Ottoman Tripolotania and created a colony called Libya. After being defeated in World War II, Italy did in 1947 relinquish all claims to the territory. However, for more than thirty years the stream of people crossing the Mediterranean had moved in a completely different direction than it is doing now. After the Great Depression, Libya´s Italian population increased rapidly; in 1927, 26,000 Italians were living there, by 1939 they numbered 119,140, or 13 percent of the total population. Italian settlers were provided with land and infrastructure, while the local population was driven off to marginal lands, though this did not happen without fierce resistance. Italian colonial troops waged a ruthelss war against the locals, applying chemical weapons, mass executions of POWs and civilians, as well as the establishment of lethal concentration camps. It is estimated that between 1923 and 1932, 80,000 to 120,000 Libyans had been exterminated.8

When Colonel Muammar Gadaffi in 1970 became Libya´s dictator he banished the remaining 12,000 Italian citizens and had their possessions confiscated. After Gadaffi in 1973 nationalized half of the foreign oil production, the country´s GDP rose from USD 3.8 billion in 1969 to USD 24.5 billion in 1979. For a few years, Libya´s average per-capita income was above the average of Italy. Oil money was used to fund welfare programmes; house-building projects, improved healthcare, and compulsory education. However, over time Gadaffi´s erratic behaviour worsened. Any political conversation with foreigners became punishable with at least three years in prison and intents to start a ”political party” could lead to execution. Libya was furthermore supporting terrorist organizations all over the world.

In 2004, Gadaffi visited Brussels and succeeded in convincing the EU to drop sanctions imposed on Libya. Like Turkey, Libya used the plights of refugees and international migrants as a means to extract funds from the EU, which in 2010 contributed with €50 million to stop African migrants from passing through Libya into Europe, while migrants had already been used as a bargaining chip during Gadaffi´s negotiations with Italy, which in spite of recurrent grievances had maintained several of its financial and commercial ties with Libyan leaders.

In 2008, Gadaffi made a deal with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi – Italy would through annual installments of USD250 million over a 20 year period compensate Libya for hardships brought about by its colonization of the country. In exchange, Libya would curb illegal migration across the Mediterranean, an encouragement for establishing ”detention centres”, which soon became sources for slave labour and human trafficking.9 The deal was suspended in February 2011 but renewed on 7 July 2018, leading to an intensified Italian-Lybian cooperation.

After a new Italian government came into office in 2018, it refused to take in people from search-and-rescue ships active in the Mediterranean, this included rescue efforts by the EU sponsored Operation Sophia, which since 2015 had saved thousands of people from drowning. After Italy threatened to veto it, EU did on 27 March stop this endeavour. Since then, thousands more international migrants, mainly from sub-Saharan Africa, have been detained in the infamous Lybian detention centres. Various reports did in 2017 estimate the number of inmates in Libyan camps to be between 10,000-20,000, at any given time. 10

The situation has become even worse after Field Marshal Haftar´s recent, massive attack on Tripoli. Both militias and ”regular” army forces tend to use ”detention centres” as ”shields” for their installations. On 3 July, right after the attack on the Tajoura camp, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, stated:

I have repeatedly called for the closure of all migrant detention centres in Libya, where UN human rights staff have documented severe overcrowding, torture, ill-treatment, forced labour, rape, and acute malnutrition, among other serious human rights violations. I also repeat my call for the release of detained migrants and refugees as a matter of urgency, and for their access to humanitarian protection, collective shelters or other safe places, well away from areas that are likely to be after been trapped in gruesome facilities.11

Libya´s current misery and the plight of refugees and international migrants languishing in its detention centres, or drown in the Mediterranean, cannot only be blamed on repression in developing countries and the inability of their governments to amend poverty and unemployment. The disaster is also caused and furthered by distortions engendered by colonization and the enduring greed of foreign stakeholders. We are all guilty of the current suffering in Libya.

1 Organization of the Pertroleum Exporting Countries (2019) Libya Facts and Figures. https://www.opec.org/opec_web/en/about_us/166.htm
2 Agence France-Presse (2019) “Captain defends her decision to force rescue boat into Italian port.” The Guardian, 30 June.
3 Tonacci, Fabio and Alessandra Ziniti (2019) “Sea-Watch, Carola Rackete è libera: ´Commossa. Gip annula
l´arresto: ´Agì per portare in salvo i migranti´. L´ira di Salvini.” La Repubblica, 4 July.
4 A UN led initiative established in 2015 a Libyan Government of National Accord (NAC). However, a House of Representatives (HoR) had already been formed after an election in 2014, to replace Libya´s General National Congress. Neither entity recognizes the other, NAC is based in Tripoli, while HoR is in Tobruk, their armies are currently fighting each other.
5 Anderson, Jon Lee (2015) “The Unravelling: In a failing state, an anti-Islamist general mounts a divisive campaign” The New Yorker, February 23 and March 2.
6 Orsini, Alessandro (2019) “Haftar a Roma: L´Italia non pu`lasciare a Libia scivolare verso il Medio Oriente,” Il Messagero, March 17.
7 https://www.eni.com/enipedia/en_IT/international-presence/africa/enis-activities-in-libya.page?lnkfrm=asknow Thirty percent ENI´s shares are owned by the Italian government.
8 Historical information in this article is mainly based on Wright, John (2012) Libya: A Modern History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
9 Human smuggling from the coast of Libya is a multimillion dollar business. In 2015, the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime (GITOC) estimated profits to be between USD 255 – 323 million per year. GITOC (2015) Policy Brief. Libya: a growing hub for Criminal Economies and Terrorist Financing in the Trans-Sahara. Geneva: RHIPTO. p. 2.
10 Amnesty International (2017) Libya’s Dark Web of Collusion: Abuses Against Europe-Bound Refugees and Migrants. London: Amnesty International Ltd.
11 https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=24535&LangID=E

Jan Lundius holds a PhD. on History of Religion from Lund University and has served as a development expert, researcher and advisor at SIDA, UNESCO, FAO and other international organisations.

The post The Libyan Disaster: Little Bits of History Repeating appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

And I've seen it before,
and I'll see it again.
Yes I've seen it before,
just little bits of history repeating.
           Propeller Heads: History repeating

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Sandton Gautrain Station in Johannesburg, South Africa.

By Finbarr Toesland
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 9 2019 (IPS)

Megacities, cities with a population of at least 10 million, are sprouting everywhere in Africa. Cairo in Egypt, Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Lagos in Nigeria are already megacities, while Luanda in Angola, Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and Johannesburg in South Africa will attain the status by 2030, according the United Nations.

Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire and Nairobi in Kenya will surpass the 10 million threshold by 2040. And by 2050 Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso, Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, Bamako in Mali, Dakar in Senegal and Ibadan and Kano in Nigeria will join the ranks—bringing the total number of megacities in Africa to 14 in about 30 years.

The number of people living in urban areas in Africa will double to more than 1 billion by 2042, according to the World Bank.

The University of Toronto’s Global Cities Institute, which monitors cities’ population growth and socioeconomic development worldwide, forecasts that Lagos will be the largest city in the world by 2100, housing an astonishing 88 million people, up from 21 million currently.

In a 2016 paper titled African Urban Futures, published by the Institute for Security Studies, an African independent research organization that aims to enhance human security on the continent, researchers Julia Bello-Schünemann and Ciara Aucoin wrote: “The current speed of Africa’s urbanisation is unprecedented in history. For some it is the ‘single most important transformation’ that is happening on the continent.” They add that African “cities and towns will increasingly shape the lives of people living on the continent.”

Africa’s demographic transition, caused by the “youth bulge,” an increase in the population of people between 15 and 29 years of age, will continue to fuel a move to the big cities because “young people are generally more prone to migrate to urban areas” than older people, according to Ms. Bello-Schünemann and Ms. Aucoin.

While millions of rural Africans move to cities in search of high-paying jobs and a better quality of life, these burgeoning metropolises also offer strong incentives to investors foreign and domestic.

Power of population

Lagos is a prime example of the economic power in Africa’s megacities. From its technology hub ecosystem—Africa’s largest—to its successful banking sector and prosperous film industry, venture capitalists see many investment opportunities in Nigeria’s commercial capital.

According to a report by the telecom trade body GSM Association, there are 31 tech hubs in Lagos, 29 in Cape Town and 25 in Nairobi. The value of innovative tech spaces to African economies is massive, as investors pump capital into start-ups and hence contribute to countries’ GDPs.

In 2017 outgoing Lagos State Governor Akinwunmi Ambode announced that the state’s GDP had reached $136 billion, about a third of Nigeria’s GDP ($376 billion) and more than the combined GDPs of Ghana ($47 billion) and Tanzania ($52 billion).

Steve Cashin, founder and CEO of the private equity firm Pan African Capital Group, believes that investors are focusing on Africa’s megacities because of market size.

“My firm does a lot of business in Liberia, and one of the main constraints to growing businesses and attracting investment there is the population size and density. When the entire country’s population is just about 4 million, and you’re likely only to reach a small fraction of that, it is harder to make a compelling business case,” says Cashin.

A single Lagos district can be a market the size of an entire country such as Botswana. Because people in Lagos are concentrated, companies can benefit from lower fixed costs and easier distribution. “The economics are just more attractive,” he adds.

Overstretched infrastructure

But highly populated cities have both positives and negatives. Rapid urbanization strains already overstretched infrastructure and creates complex problems for local governments.

For example, the population of Kinshasa is forecast to grow by 61 people every hour until 2030. People will have to look for jobs and use public transport and other social services.

Bello-Schünemann and Aucoin elaborate: “Most of Africa’s urban residents live in informal settlements or slums, lack access to basic services, face precarious employment conditions and are vulnerable to various forms of urban violence.”

They add: “Global climate and environmental changes, and pressure from water, food and energy insecurities, compound the challenges for human development and the complexities of contemporary urban governance on the continent.”

Around 75% of homes in Kinshasa are in slums, and Lagos has dozens of them: places like Somolu, Bariga and the floating slum of Makoko. If infrastructure growth fails to keep up with increasing population, more slums will develop, experts warn.

To address these problems, Africa’s fast-growing cities require all-inclusive infrastructure development, advises Cashin. “The importance of deliberate and thoughtful urban planning cannot be understated, not only for the efficiency and productivity of these cities but also for the safety of its inhabitants.”

He adds that “proper urban planning requires significant upfront investment” and that “local governments also need to harness the potential of these rapidly growing cities by making strides to formalise the economy.”

Informal economies

In sub-Saharan Africa the informal economy—economic activities that are not regulated and therefore not taxed—represents up to 41% of GDP and provides 85.5% of total employment, reports the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the UN body that sets international labour standards and promotes social protection.

Without collecting enough taxes, cash-strapped city authorities cannot finance critical infrastructure such as roads, hospitals and power.

Some local administrations depend on foreign direct investment (FDI) or opt for the BOT system—build, operate, transfer—in which investors finance a project (such as a bridge) and recoup their investments by, for example, collecting tolls for a limited period.

Investors who are attracted to densely populated cities are also repelled by a lack of infrastructure and incompetent city authorities.

The State of African Cities 2018, a UN report, says that Johannesburg, Lagos and Nairobi are the leading FDI attractions in sub-Saharan Africa.

Private investors often accompany financing with technological know-how. For example, smart city projects across South Africa, such as Melrose Arch in Johannesburg, require a diverse range of talent not often found in that country. Foreign investors with expertise in this field can draw on their own experience and contacts to put a skilled team in place.

In sum, the key to urban planning and attracting investors is to plan with an eye toward future population growth, notes Jonathan Hall, assistant professor at the University of Toronto’s Department of Economics and Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.

He adds that, “People will continue to move to the megacities until unemployment is so high, and the infrastructure is so overstretched, that their quality of life is roughly the same in the city and the countryside.”

Authorities managing Africa’s megacities have their work cut out for them. Investors who are attracted to densely populated cities are also repelled by a lack of infrastructure and incompetent city authorities.

“Cities need strong, competent and democratic governments [that can] work with their low-income populations, rather than, as all too often happens, evicting them,” says David Satterthwaite, senior fellow with the Human Settlements Group at the think tank International Institute for Environment and Development.

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Excerpt:

Finbarr Toesland, Africa Renewal

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The United Nations said the current internet shutdown in Sudan forms part of a larger effort to stifle the free expression and association of the Sudanese population, and to curtail the ongoing protests in the country. In this dated picture, Sudanese journalists attend a press conference. Courtesy: Albert González Farran /UNAMID

By James Reinl
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 9 2019 (IPS)

The United Nations has condemned an internet shutdown and the blocking of social media channels during Sudan’s political crisis, as fears persisted over a crackdown on media freedoms in the turbulent African country.

The U.N.’s independent expert on the human rights situation in Sudan, Aristide Nononsi, and two other officials, said in a statement that web blocking by Zain-SDN and other internet providers was stifling the freedoms of expression and association.

“In the past few weeks, we have continued to receive reports on internet blocking of social media platforms by the Transitional Military Council [TMC],” the experts said, referencing the TMC, which has run Sudan since the ouster of former president Omar al-Bashir in April.

“The internet shut down is in clear violation of international human rights law and cannot be justified under any circumstances. We urge the authorities to immediately restore internet services.”

The statement was co-signed by Clement Nyaletsossi Voule, the U.N.’s Special Rapporteur on rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, and David Kaye, a special rapporteur Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression .

The three officials said mobile operator Zain-SDN was behind the “most extensive blocking scheme” and had closed access to all key social platforms, which are used to share news and to arrange protests. Other providers MTN, Sudatel and Kanartel had also cut web access, they said.

“The internet shutdown forms part of a larger effort to stifle the free expression and association of the Sudanese population, and to curtail the ongoing protests,” the experts said in a statement on Monday.

“Restricting or blocking access to internet services not only adversely affects the enjoyment of the rights to freedom of expression, assembly and participation, but it also has severe effects on protesters demands’ regarding economic and social rights.”

Sudan’s military rulers ordered the internet blackout as a security measure on Jun. 3, when security forces also killed dozens of protesters as they cleared a sit-in outside the Defence Ministry in the centre of the capital, Khartoum.

The web blackout has affected most ordinary users of mobile and fixed line connections and is reportedly harming the economy and humanitarian operations in the African nation of some 40 million people.

Sudanese journalists have also raised concerns about the treatment of reporters during the ongoing political crisis.

On Jun. 20, journalist Amar Mohamed Adam was arrested and detained by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary outfit under the TMC, before being handed over to the intelligence services, according to the Sudanese Journalists Network.

At the end of May, the TMC also ordered Qatar-based Al Jazeera Television offices in Khartoum closed, with officers from various Sudanese security branches turning up at the premises and seizing broadcast gear.

Sherif Mansour, a regional coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, a watchdog and campaign group, described a “worrying sign” designed “to suppress coverage of pro-democracy events”. He urged the TMC to “reverse course”.

Protesters had been demanding the restoration of internet services as one of their conditions for getting back around the negotiation table with the TMC and forming a transitional administration made up of civilians and military officers.

Hopes were raised of a breakthrough last week, after Sudan’s military chiefs and protest leaders announced they had struck a deal on the disputed issue of a new governing body in talks aimed at ending the country’s months-long political crisis

The two sides reportedly agreed on a joint sovereign council to rule for a little over three years while elections are organised. Both sides say a diplomatic push by the United States and its Arab allies was key to ending a standoff that had raised fears of all-out civil war.

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The post ​Media and Web Freedom Threatened in Sudan Turbulence appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Composer Helen Epega says Pidgin is a uniting force in Nigeria, a country with hundreds of languages.

Yohei Sasakawa (C), president of the Nippon Foundation and World Health Organisation Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, shakes the hand of Sebastião Miranda Filho, the mayor of Marabá in northern Brazil, where the foundation finances a project to distribute food to poor families affected by the disease, to encourage them to complete treatment. Credit: Artur Custodio/IPS

By Mario Osava
BRASILIA, Jul 9 2019 (IPS)

When cases of Hansen’s disease, better known as leprosy, increase in Brazil, it is not due to a lack of medical assistance but to the growing efficacy of the health system in detecting infections, contrary to the situation in other countries.

This unique aspect of the disease was highlighted during a Jul. 2-7 visit by Nippon Foundation President Yohei Sasakawa to the northern Brazilian states of Pará and Maranhão, to learn about and reinforce efforts to reduce the incidence of the disease.

Sasakawa continued his tour of this Latin American country on Monday Jul. 8 in Brasilia, where he will meet with President Jair Bolsonaro and other authorities from the executive, legislative and judicial branches, before returning to Japan on Wednesday Jul. 10.

The Nippon Foundation funds several projects in Brazil, one of which facilitates telephone and Internet communications, to expand and improve information about this chronic disease and combat the prejudice, stigma and discrimination surrounding it.

Early detection is one of the recommendations stressed in Sasakawa’s meetings with authorities in the Amazon jungle state of Pará, according to Claudio Salgado, a professor at the Federal University of Pará who is president of the Brazilian Hansenology Society.

“Hanseniasis (as the disease is called in Brazil) doesn’t manifest itself in acute outbreaks of fever, chills and confusion, like malaria,” he told IPS from Belem do Para.

Symptoms, such as numb spots on the skin, often take years to appear, when the effects are already irreversible, including loss of fingers and crippling or paralysis of the hands or entire limbs.

In addition, the cases are widely dispersed, making it even more difficult to identify patients, even though there are means of early detection, such as the screening of household contacts of leprosy patients.

An estimated 95 percent of people have natural immunity to infection. Hansen’s disease is not as contagious as many people believe. It takes prolonged, close contact over many months with an untreated leprosy patient to catch the disease, and patients are no longer contagious after only a few days of antibiotic treatment.

For all these reasons, it could be deceptive to set quantitative goals, such as the target adopted by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to “eliminate” leprosy by the year 2000, Salgado argued. “Elimination” is defined as a prevalence rate of less than one case per 10,000 persons a year.

The battle against Hansen’s disease gained a key ally in 1982, when multidrug therapy became available. More than 16 million people have been cured since then, according to WHO.

Brazil is the only country in the world that did not formally meet the goal. In 2017 there were 26,875 new cases in a population of 200 million, translating to 1.35 cases per 10,000 people, according to a WHO report.

But Salgado calls into question statistics that point to a sharp reduction in cases, which he said is epidemiologically impossible. He also throws doubt on the claim that Brazil accounts for 92 percent of all new cases in the Americas, as recognised by the Brazilian Health Ministry in its National Strategy to Confront Hanseniasis 2019-2022.

The governor of Maranhão, Flavio Dino, held a dinner for the delegation of the Nippon Foundation, which funds projects for those affected by Hansen’s disease in several cities in this state in Northeast Brazil. The visit and meetings with health officials bolstered new efforts to combat the disease and its consequences, such as disabilities, stigma and discrimination. Credit: Artur Custodio/IPS

He says this indicates that very different situations with respect to leprosy, between Brazil and its neighbours, in spite of similar economic, social and environmental conditions.

An apparent paradox: a country where diagnosis and treatment of Hansen’s disease is reduced would have favourable statistics, in contrast with the likely expansion of leprosy. In other words, fewer cases would be detected, even if the situation was actually getting worse.

In Maranhão, the second Brazilian state visited by Sasakawa, the rate is high: 4.4 new cases per 10,000 persons.

“We detect 3,125 cases per year on average,” reported Lea Terto, superintendent of Epidemiology and Disease Control at the local Health Ministry.

The fact that Maranhão is the state with the largest number of infected children and adolescents under 15 is a concern, because it indicates that they are living with untreated adults, he told IPS from the regional capital, São Luís.

Sasakawa was welcomed by health workers at the clinics, former leprosariums and cities he visited, who celebrated the benefits of projects funded by the Nippon Foundation.

Maranhão was the state that benefited the most from a project implemented since 2017, aimed at strengthening detection and treatment of Hansen’s disease in the 20 municipalities with the highest prevalence of the disease, Artur Custodio, national coordinator of the Movement for the Reintegration of Those Affected by Hanseniasis (Morhan), told IPS from São Luís.

The visit was “very positive” in terms of strengthening the disposition of those involved in the issue and bolstering the local government’s commitment to combatting the disease and the problems that hinder its prevention, Terto said.

She was impressed by Sasakawa’s statement that “people who are prejudiced are sicker” than patients with Hansen’s disease.

“Active search and exams of household contacts” are the priorities of her work, to “reduce prevalence in a concrete and responsible way,” which means a slow reduction of about two percent of new cases a year, said Terto, who has been a nurse for 37 years.

It is actually better if more cases appear than expected, she said, because it means that new untreated patients have been identified.

In addition to the difficulties of making leprosy visible, there are concerns about people quitting treatment, which can last from six months to more than a year depending on the severity of the case. In the most complex cases, a major effort is required to ensure that the patients stick with the treatment until the leprosy bacteria is eliminated.

To encourage patients to complete the multidrug therapy, the Foundation is funding the distribution of baskets of basic foodstuffs to affected families in Marabá, a city in the interior of the state of Pará, visited by Sasakawa on Jul. 3.

Better nutrition gives a boost to the treatment, which is effective if the infected person takes the antibiotics for the prescribed period of time.

Sasakawa began his tour in northern Brazil with a visit to the Marcello Candia Clinic, a dermatology reference unit in Marituba, a city of 108,000 inhabitants in Pará.

A former leprosarium marked the history of the city and of José Picanço, head of Morhan in Pará. He and his two siblings were separated from their parents, who had the disease and were isolated in the institution in 1972. Picanço and his siblings were also treated like “lepers”.

Children of people with leprosy were taken away from their parents and placed in orphanages. It is estimated that between 15,000 and 20,000 people in Brazil suffered – and still suffer – the social and psychological consequences of hanseniasis, because of the former law for the segregation of people with the disease.

Picanço’s parents, who lived until 2007, at least achieved the right to compensation for the violence perpetrated against them by the State. But their grown children continue to fight for this right as victims.

“There are states, such as Minas Gerais and Ceará, that are working towards recognition of this right, by government decree or bills making their way through parliament. But since the problem resulted from a national policy, it is up to the federal government to compensate us,” Picanço told IPS from Belem.

He said Sasakawa’s visit strengthened the struggles for early diagnosis of the disease, the rights of those affected and the need for greater coverage of hanseniasis in the media, which is currently limited to an annual campaign in January.

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A replica of Ghana's parliament chamber is built using salvaged seats in a Manchester art gallery.

A snapshot from Butembo in DR Congo - one of the frontlines in the fight against the deadly virus.

It's designed to help combat the Democratic Republic of Congo's Ebola outbreak - the second largest ever.

The UN's education agency says global targets on improving education are going to be missed.

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Taiwo grew up with albinism, but his twin brother did not have the condition.

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The post Of Leaders Then and Now appeared first on Inter Press Service.

BBC Africa Eye revisit an expose led by Anas Aremeyaw Anas, which revealed corruption in African football.

Professor Joshua Castellino is Executive Director of the UK-based Minority Rights Group International

By Joshua Castellino
LONDON, Jul 8 2019 (IPS)

Contemporary politics generates a lot of noise and smoke, with little attention devoted to understanding, analysing and fixing the causes of the noise and smoke. The global public discourse is dominated by statements made by politicians and aspirants to power, designed to shock, awe and draw support.

But the statements are rarely about real underpinning threats facing society: not on climate change, and not on the urgent need to generate employment in the face of increased mechanization.

Anger and resentment at the loss of jobs on account of shifts in manufacturing are dismissed as a design fault to be overcome through simple solutions: building walls, departing clubs like the EU, increasing tariffs on ‘foreign produce’ and keeping migrants out since they are apparently responsible for the failure of the economy to generate employment.

Irresponsible as that simplistic politics might be, it pales in comparison to how climate change is treated. The sheer abdication of governance is appalling and shameful, calling into question the essence of why governments are needed at critical times in human history.

While scientists have produced compelling evidence for decades, the recent impact of climate change is difficult to refute for even the least educated person. When Greta Thunberg called for urgent action she received adulation and patronage in equal measure, but none have yet been able to respond with the urgent action she called for.

Many in government around the world appear to accept the realities of climate justice, but see it as an issue for the future – unlikely to affect their time driven mandate of adhering to power.

In its Key Trends Report 2019, focussing on climate justice, Minority Rights Group (MRG) provides evidence of the impact of climate change on the most vulnerable communities in society.

The overarching facts on climate change are not new: Lake Chad, a key water body in Africa has shrunk by 90 per cent since the 1960s, while the Arctic is currently warming twice as fast as anywhere else on earth. These stark facts, in the public realm for long, have not yet focussed on the impact on people.

The push for Canadian indigenous communities to leave their ancestral lands in the face of climate impact is mirrored by those in the Pacific in Tuvalu and Kiribati.

The degradation of forests around key water towers in Kenya, and their occupation for commercial use, impacts their traditional custodians, depriving them of their homes, and disrupting the flow of water across Africa, into the Nile and onwards into the Mediterranean.

As the desert eats into Chad, pastoralists face a heightened crisis, stimulating migrant flows into Europe, while Nigeria is heading in a similar direction with tensions rising as pastoralists, faced with shrinking grazing areas, make incursions into others’ territories.

Pastoralists and sedentary communities are also building up to a stand-off in Morocco as competition for land and water becomes acute.

The continued exploitation of natural wealth in the form of oil and gas by wealthy companies, despite stark warnings about the carbon economy, are creating devastating immediate consequences for the communities cursed with living in proximity to these.

This is as true in Kenya as in Ecuador, Thailand and Russia. In every case communities are forced to contend with pollution, dereliction of their environment, impact on their livelihoods and the eventual loss of their homes. That they were not consulted in any of the processes is a given, only exacerbated by the shocking governance failures over what ought to happen to them.

A new theme is also emerging that treats indigenous communities and forest dwellers in particular as inconvenient nuisances that through their very existence negatively impact the push towards climate conservation.

This phenomenon pits environmentalists against super marginalized communities, who appear to be considered as collateral for the few pitiful moves being made in the name of environmental protection. The argument being made appears to posit communities that have lived in a sustainable and traditional manner for centuries being tagged with responsibility for environmental damage.

This deeply flawed argument goes against all evidence, making scapegoats out of subsistence driven communities, for activities that have been sustainable for centuries and create an overall negative carbon footprint.

It also facilitates the biggest polluters and corporate actors, who continue to reserve the right to make profits out of natural wealth in conjunction with governments, that no matter what property regime is used, do not belong to them.

Alongside each of these relatively ‘new’ phenomena, lies the time-honed discrimination that has erected structures over centuries that seek to maintain the hegemony of a small privileged elite in each society.

Thus, the plight of Black Americans in New Orleans affected by Hurricane Katrina lies in stark contrast to the urgent action taken in the face of the flooding experienced by Manhattan as a result of Hurricane Sandy.

The Valladolid Controversy of 1550 was the first publicized debate concerning the rights of colonized peoples. Bartolomé de Las Casas argued that native Americans were human despite their ‘unchristian’ customs, while Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda believed they were barbarians rather than human, and therefore had to be suppressed. The dispute may seem like a historical footnote that captured the fatal attraction and insecurity towards Otherness.

Yet in this the most recent crisis facing humanity its echoes are alive and well. Climate change affects us all, of that there is little doubt. At what point this becomes survival critical for you is merely a reflection of the accident of birth.

Wealth and proximity to power may keep you insulated a while longer. Indigenous peoples and minorities the world over on the other hand, have continued to be treated as objects whose consent to anything is irrelevant and unnecessary, and therefore they form the frontline to the crisis.

Sane, scientifically validated well-informed voices have called for urgent action. MRG’s Key Trends Report of 2019 provides evidence of the current impact of climate injustice on communities. If governments continue to abdicate responsibility to solving this problem, we need to sweep them away and bring in others who can respond to this need.

Each of us have a responsibility to hold our governments to account for issues that matter, while not being drawn into meaningless games that maintain the power of the few over the many. If climate change is not highest on your agenda it ought to be, and you must act politically and responsibly to make sure your voice counts.

If not for the indigenous and minority communities now, then for yourself and your own loved ones tomorrow.

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Excerpt:

Professor Joshua Castellino is Executive Director of the UK-based Minority Rights Group International

The post Climate Change Victims: What Will You Do Next? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Cooking with a biogas stove, photo: Sven Torfinn

By Eco Matser
AMSTERDAM, Jul 8 2019 (IPS)

Whoever still thinks climate change is purely an environmental issue, threatening only nature, needs to think again. Climate change is also essentially a human issue because of its devastating effect on human life – and rights. It exacerbates existing inequalities, undermines democracy and threatens development at large. Likewise, by far the greatest burden will fall on those already in poverty, while the rich will be able to buy their way out of rising heat and hunger.

Human rights and climate change

The latest report on climate change and poverty by the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights puts it bluntly: “climate change threatens the full enjoyment of a wide range of rights,” – from the right to land, resources and food, to the right to good health. It will spark conflicts and aggravate all current forms of insecurity.

Equally important will be the impact on democracy. As the UN report outlines, governments struggle to get support for (the costs of) action to combat climate change and the major socio-economic transformations this requires. “In such a setting, civil and political rights will be highly vulnerable.”

We at Hivos, and a number of organizations and individuals with us, have long warned about the terrible impact climate change can have on development and how it so unfairly affects people living in poverty. For years, we have been calling for an integrated approach to combatting climate change that benefits both the environment and development goals. Here’s why:

 

Exacerbating poverty and inequality

People in poverty are far more vulnerable to climate shocks because they have fewer resources available to adapt or make themselves resilient. Hence, they are driven deeper into poverty. For example, farmers risk losing their income due to drought or other extreme weather, and (fishing) communities living in coastal areas will have to flee rising sea levels.

Eco Matser, Hivos global Climate Change / Energy and Development Coordinator

Apart from increasing inequalities between rich and poor, climate change is also causing a growing divide between ethnicities, the sexes, generations and communities (Amnesty International). Areas inhabited largely by migrants and ethnic or racial minorities are more exposed to problems like industrial pollution, overcrowding, food insecurity, landslides, and the impacts of resource extraction; women and girls are disproportionately affected across the board; (indoor) air pollution is particularly harmful to children and the elderly; and the lands of indigenous people are more vulnerable to changing weather patterns.

 

Reduced productivity

And there is the threat to all our economies. At present, heat stress already causes loss of productivity. This will rise to 2 percent of working hours by 2030 even if we manage to maintain the global temperature increase below 1.5°C, estimates Moustapha Kamal Gueye, Coordinator of the ILO’s Green Jobs Program.

 

The risk of “climate apartheid”

The UN report also cites what is possibly the most disturbing risk of all. A new era of “climate apartheid” where the wealthy pay to escape rising temperatures, hunger, and conflict while the rest of the world is left to suffer. “Perversely, the richest who have the greatest capacity to adapt and are responsible for and have benefitted from the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions, will be the best placed to cope with climate change, while the poorest, who have contributed the least to emissions and have the least capacity to react, will be the most harmed,” the report states.

 

A just transition

For all these reasons, mitigating climate change is an urgent human rights obligation. But it also provides a huge opportunity to enhance these rights. The transition to a low carbon economy would actually strengthen workers’ and women’s rights and reduce the divide between individuals and between communities.

Providing access to clean and affordable energy resources will increase the (economic) wellbeing of people currently living in poverty. Replacing firewood with “clean” solar, biogas or electric cooking equipment not only reduces carbon emissions but provides much healthier conditions for women and children. The same goes for the energy needs of (remote) off-grid rural communities, which can be much easier met by wind and solar energy sources that in turn do not harm the environment. In fact, it is estimated that the renewable energy sector alone will create 18 million new jobs – also for the underprivileged.

 

Making the right link

Linkages made by some human rights organizations have referred to specific issues like the “right to food” or the “land rights” of indigenous peoples. But they barely ever make the connection between climate change and human rights writ large. This is we so warmly welcome the UN report on climate change and poverty.

Governments and the private sector have equally failed to integrate the two. In the Paris Agreement, governments committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and support climate vulnerable countries to adapt to irreversible consequences. But missing is the fact that people have the right to be protected against climate change. That there needs to be a just transition, ensuring gender equality, and minority and indigenous rights, while reducing economic and social inequalities. And that the implementation should be transparent and participatory, in accordance with the right to information.

The private sector also has a huge role to play. Fossil fuel companies in particular must take responsibility for the negative climate effects they cause and transition to renewable energy, phasing out fossil fuel exploration and use.

 

Climate change policies must be human rights policies

In conclusion, integrating human rights into climate change policies will simply improve and expand their effectiveness. As the UN report states, “This crisis [climate change] should be a catalyst for states to fulfil long ignored and overlooked economic and social rights, including to social security and access to food, healthcare, shelter, and decent work.”

This opinion piece was originally published here

The post Climate Change Deniers Violate Human Rights appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Eco Matser is Hivos global Climate Change / Energy and Development Coordinator

The post Climate Change Deniers Violate Human Rights appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Emmanuel Amuneke leaves his post as Tanzania head coach by mutual consent following the Taifa Stars' early exit from the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations.

By Jens Martens
BONN, Jul 8 2019 (IPS)

When UN Member States adopted the 2030 Agenda and its SDGs in September 2015, they signalled with the title Transforming our World that ‘business as usual’ is no longer an option and fundamental changes in politics and society are necessary.

Four years later they have to admit that they are off-track to achieve the SDGs. The global civil society report Spotlight on Sustainable Development 2019 shows that in many areas there is no progress at all, and in some even regression.

Destructive production and consumption patterns have further accelerated global warming, increased the number of extreme weather events, created plastic waste dumps even in the most isolated places of the planet, and dramatically increased the loss of biodiversity.

Fiscal and regulatory policies (or the lack of) have not prevented the accelerated accumulation and concentration of wealth but have only made them possible, and thus exacerbated social and economic inequalities.

Systemic discrimination keeps women out of positions of power, disproportionately burdens them with domestic and care-giving labour and remunerates their formal employment less than it does that of men.

Total global military expenditure reached the historic high of US$ 1.822 trillion in 2018. In contrast, net ODA by members of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) was only US$ 153.0 billion in 2018, thus less than one tenth of global military spending.

Most governments have failed to turn the proclaimed transformational vision of the 2030 Agenda into real transformational policies. Even worse, national chauvinism and authoritarianism are on the rise in a growing number of countries, seriously undermining the social fabric, and the spirit and goals of the 2030 Agenda.

… but there are signs of change

Despite these gloomy perspectives, there are signs of push-back. In response to the failure or inaction of governments, social movements have emerged worldwide, many with young people and women in the lead.

They do not just challenge bad or inefficient government policies. What they have in common is their fundamental critic of underlying social structures, power relations and governance arrangements.

Thus, the implementation of the 2030 Agenda is not just a matter of better policies. The current problems of growing inequalities and unsustainable production and consumption patterns are deeply connected with power hierarchies, institutions, culture and politics. Hence, policy reform is necessary but not sufficient. Meaningfully, tackling the obstacles and contradictions in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs requires more holistic and more sweeping shifts in how and where power is vested, including through institutional, legal, social, economic and political commitments to realizing human rights.

In other words, a simple software update (of policies, norms and standards) is not enough – we have to revisit and reshape the hardware of sustainable development (i.e. governance and institutions at all levels).

Strengthening bottom-up governance

Re-visiting the hardware of sustainable development has to start at the local and national level. While most governance discourses emphasize the democratic deficit, gaps and fragmentation in global governance, the major challenge for more effective governance at the global level is the lack of coherence at the national level. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen bottom-up governance.

Bottom-up governance refers not only to the direction of influence from the local to the global. It also calls for more governance space to be retained at local and sub-national levels.

It enables, for instance, indigenous peoples, small farmers and peasant communities to exercise their rights in retaining their seeds, growing nutritious foods without genetically modified organisms, and accessing medicines without paying unaffordable prices set by transnational companies and protected by intellectual property rights.

The same is true for universal access rights to social protection. Social protection needs to be owned and governed by sub-national and national governments with fiscal space created in national budgets.

Universal, free access to essential public services are the foundation blocks of the SDGs and at the core of local governments’ commitment to the 2030 Agenda.

However, the privatization of public infrastructure and services and various forms of public-private partnerships (PPPs) often have had devastating impacts on service accessibility, quality and affordability.

Responding to these experiences, counter-movements emerged in many parts of the world. Over the past 15 years there has been a significant rise in the number of cities and communities that have taken privatized services back into public hands.

Achieving the SDGs will not happen without an enabling environment at international level. But what we often see is a disabling environment that makes it difficult to raise the urgently needed domestic resources.

Local and national (fiscal) policy space is often limited by external interventions. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) plays a central role in this regard. In many countries, for instance Egypt and Brazil, IMF recommendations and loan conditionalities have led to deepening of social and economic inequalities and threats to human rights.

No policy coherence without governance coherence

In endorsing the 2030 Agenda governments committed to enhancing policy coherence for sustainable development (SDG target 17.14) and to respect each country’s policy space (SDG target 17.15).

The achievement of these targets is constantly undermined by the inherently asymmetric nature of the global governance system with the IMF and World Bank dominating discourse and policies. Thus, policy coherence will not be possible without overcoming governance incoherence.

The current system of global (economic) governance is marked by systematic asymmetry. The most striking example is the asymmetry between human rights and investor rights.

Today’s trade and investment agreements give transnational corporations far-reaching special rights and access to a parallel justice system to enforce them, the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) system.

Removing the ability of investors to sue States in the ISDS system and similar rules in investment and trade agreements would be a first step in reducing the systematic asymmetry in global governance. It would also be a step towards governance coherence for sustainable development.

Overcoming the weakness of the HLPF

Enhancing governance coherence also means that the relevant UN bodies, particularly the High-level Political Forum (HLPF), must be strengthened and no longer de facto be subordinated to the international financial institutions and informal clubs like the G20.

Governments established the HLPF as a universal body and gave it a central role in overseeing a network of follow-up and review processes at the global level.

But compared to other policy arenas, such as the Security Council or the Human Rights Council, the HLPF remained weak.

The SDG Summit in September 2019 and the HLPF review process to take place in 2019-2020 are opportunities to reposition the HLPF more firmly in the General Assembly machinery, similar to the direction taken by the Member States for the Human Rights Council (HRC) in 2005.

With an agenda of equal importance and intimately connected to those of the HRC, the General Assembly should transform the HLPF to a Sustainable Development Council, supported with complementary machinery at regional and thematic levels.

But the claim to make the UN system ‘fit for purpose’ requires more than upgrading the HLPF and its related fora.

Democratic governance requires democratic funding

Adequate funding at all levels is a fundamental prerequisite to improve the governance of SDG implementation. At the global level this requires the provision of predictable and reliable funding to the UN system.

Governments should reverse the trend towards voluntary, non-core and earmarked contributions as well as the increasing reliance on philanthropic funding. Democratic governance requires democratic funding instead of unpredictable support from private foundations of wealthy individuals.

Parallel to the global level the widening of the public governance space requires, among other things, changes in fiscal policies at national level. This includes, for example, taxing the extraction and consumption of non-renewable resources, and adopting forms of progressive taxation that prioritize the rights and welfare of poor and low-income people (e.g., by emphasizing taxation of wealth and assets).

Fiscal policy space can be further broadened by the elimination of corporate tax incentives and the phasing out of harmful subsidies, particularly in the areas of industrial agriculture and fishing, fossil fuel and nuclear energy.

Instead of engaging in a new arms race, governments should reduce military spending and reallocate the resource savings, inter alia, for civil conflict prevention and peacebuilding.

But as the massive protests by the yellow vests movement in France against rising fuel prices just recently demonstrated, interdependencies between environmental and social policy goals and targets require particular attention. Many environmental policy instruments have regressive effects on income distribution.

But if priorities are properly defined and interdependencies effectively anticipated, fiscal policies can become a powerful instrument to reduce socioeconomic inequalities, eliminate discrimination and promote the transition to sustainable production and consumption patterns.

Revitalizing global norm-setting – rejecting corporate voluntarism

Enhancing governance coherence requires providing the institutions responsible for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs not only with the necessary financial resources but also with effective political and legal instruments.

At global level this requires changing the current course of relying on non-binding instruments and corporate voluntarism. This is particularly relevant in areas where significant governance and regulatory gaps exist.

The currently discussed post-2020 global biodiversity framework should include binding targets and implementation commitments for State Parties, in accordance with the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities.

With regard to the governance of the oceans, there is currently no mechanism that coordinates the different legal frameworks, making it difficult to effectively address conflicts of interest. This is particularly relevant with regard to deep sea mining. To overcome these governance gaps may require even a new UN body on Oceans.

There is also a need for a legally binding agreement to tackle plastic pollution. Many civil society organizations and legal experts call for a new global Convention on Plastic Pollution with a mandate to manage the lifecycle of plastics, including production and waste prevention.

Governance and regulatory gaps exist as well in the global digital economy. Self-regulation of internet companies will not work, and regulation through e-commerce trade agreements will not work either.

The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) of the UN has the potential to advance in this arena, but it lacks authority and does not have the mandate to make any rules.

Corporate social responsibility initiatives, such as the UN Global Compact, and voluntary guidelines, such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP) have particularly failed to hold corporations systematically and effectively accountable for human rights violations.

The Human Rights Council took a milestone decision in establishing an intergovernmental working group to elaborate a legally binding instrument (or ‘treaty’) to regulate the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises.

This ‘treaty process’ offers the historic opportunity for governments to demonstrate that they put human rights over the interests of big business.

UN2020 – democratic global governance at the crossroads

Scientists warn that the world is moving fast towards tipping points with regard to climate change and the loss of biodiversity, that is, thresholds that when exceeded can lead to irreversible changes in the state of the global ecosystem.

Similarly, the system of global governance is facing tipping points that, when transgressed, lead to irreversible changes. Multilateralism is in crisis.

But, as medical doctors tell us, a crisis points to a moment during a serious illness when there is the possibility of suddenly getting either worse or better.

There is still the danger of exacerbating authoritarianism and national chauvinism, and of not only shrinking but vanishing space for civil society organizations in many countries.

But there is also a rapidly growing global movement for change, a movement that takes the commitment of the 2030 Agenda to “work in a spirit of global solidarity” seriously.

The year 2020 with its official occasions, particularly the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, provides an important opportunity to translate the calls of the emerging global movements for social and environmental justice into political steps towards a new democratic multilateralism.

The post Sustainable Development Needs a Hardware Update appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Jens Martens is executive director of Global Policy Forum (New York/Bonn) and has been the director of Global Policy Forum Europe since its foundation in 2004. Since 2011 he has also coordinated the international Civil Society Reflection Group on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The post Sustainable Development Needs a Hardware Update appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The athlete says she'll continue to challenge IAAF rules on testosterone levels in female athletes.