Africa

The 82-year-old submits his resignation in the wake of weeks of protests, state media report.

The Ivory Coast baseball team were hoping to qualify for the Olympics, but missed out due to funding.

By Stella Paul
PALIKIR , Apr 2 2019 (IPS)

Maylene Ekiek has been working with the Department of Health in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) for 12 years now. She is the head of the National Leprosy Programme in the Pacific island nation, which still remains one of three, along with the Marshall Islands and Kiribati, that is yet to eliminate leprosy.

Ekiek is responsible for ensuring the smooth running of the leprosy programme, as well as its success.

However, as Ekiek reveals in this interview, the absence of funding at a national level is one of the many roadblocks that she faces. In what seems to be a growing trend across the Micronesia region, FSM also has combined diseases to provide an integrated healthcare service. In this nation the treatment of both tuberculosis and leprosy is combined. However, while there are regular budgetary allocations for TB, there are none for leprosy, otherwise known as Hansen’s disease.

Despite the lack of funding, Ekiek has managed to keep the programme alive because of her sheer grit and passion for seeing a Leprosy-free Micronesia.

During a recent visit of the Sasakawa Health Memorial Foundation/Nippon Foundation team to Micronesia’s Health Ministry, Ekiek was on sick leave thanks to a fractured her leg. But to everyone’s surprise, Ekiek attended the meeting as she viewed it as a vital opportunity to seek the resources she needs for the leprosy programme. In the following interview, Ekiek talks about the financial and technical support needed achieve the programme’s goal of eliminating leprosy.

 

 

 

Related Articles

• “Don’t Tell My Husband I Have Leprosy”: Social Stigma Silences Marshall Islands’ Women
• Q&A: Why Treating Leprosy as a Special Disease Violates the Rights of the Person Affected by It
• A Disease as Old as Time – Eliminated but Not Eradicated

The post Financial Hurdles to Eliminating Leprosy in Micronesia appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Samuel Chukwueze says that wining the Nigeria Football Federation's Young Player award will keep him motivated for the future.

To ensure public acceptability, some benefits accrue to many in the early stages of privatization in order to minimize public resistance. However, in the longer term, privatization tends to enrich a few but typically fails to deliver on its ostensible aims.

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Apr 2 2019 (IPS)

In most cases of privatization, some outcomes benefit some, which serves to legitimize the change. Nevertheless, overall net welfare improvements are the exception, not the rule.

Never is everyone better off. Rather, some are better off, while others are not, and typically, many are even worse off. The partial gains are typically high, or even negated by overall costs, which may be diffuse, and less directly felt by losers.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Privatized monopoly powers
Since many SOEs are public monopolies, privatization has typically transformed them into private monopolies. In turn, abuse of such market monopoly power enables more rents and corporate profits.

As corporate profits are the private sector’s yardstick of success, privatized monopolies are likely to abuse their market power to maximize rents for themselves. Thus, privatization tends to burden the public, e.g., if charges are raised.

In most cases, privatization has not closed the governments’ fiscal deficits, and may even worsen budgetary problems. Privatization may worsen the fiscal situation due to loss of revenue from privatized SOEs, or tax evasion by the new privatized entity.

Options for cross-subsidization, e.g., to broaden coverage are reduced as the government is usually left with unprofitable activities while the potentially profitable is acquired by the private sector. Thus, governments are often forced to cut essential public services.

In most cases, profitable SOEs were privatized as prospective private owners are driven to maximize profits. Fiscal deficits have often been exacerbated as new private owners use creative accounting to avoid tax, secure tax credits and subsidies, and maximize retained earnings.

Meanwhile, governments lose vital revenue sources due to privatization if SOEs are profitable, and are often obliged to subsidize privatized monopolies to ensure the poor and underserved still have access to the privatized utilities or services.

Privatization burdens many
Privatization burdens the public when charges or fees are not reduced, or when the services provided are significantly reduced. Thus, privatization often burdens the public in different ways, depending on how market power is exercised or abused.

Often, instead of trying to provide a public good to all, many are excluded because it is not considered commercially viable or economic to serve them. Consequently, privatization may worsen overall enterprise performance. ‘Value for money’ may go down despite ostensible improvements used to justify higher user charges.

SOEs are widely presumed to be more likely to be inefficient. The most profitable and potentially profitable are typically the first and most likely to be privatized. This leaves the rest of the public sector even less profitable, and thus considered more inefficient, in turn justifying further privatizations.

Efficiency elusive
It is often argued that privatization is needed as the government is inherently inefficient and does not know how to run enterprises well. Incredibly, the government is expected to subsidize privatized SOEs, which are presumed to be more efficient, in order to fulfil its obligations to the citizenry.

Such obligations may not involve direct payments or transfers, but rather, lucrative concessions to the privatized SOE. Thus, they may well make far more from these additional concessions than the actual cost of fulfilling government obligations.

Thus, privatization of profitable enterprises or segments not only perpetuates exclusion of the deserving, but also worsens overall public sector performance now encumbered with remaining unprofitable obligations.

One consequence is poorer public sector performance, contributing to what appears to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. To make matters worse, the public sector is then stuck with financing the unprofitable, thus seemingly supporting to the privatization prophecy.

Benefits accrue to relatively few
Privatization typically enriches the politically connected few who secure lucrative rents by sacrificing the national or public interest for private profit, even when privatization may not seem to benefit them.

Privatization in many developing and transition economies has primarily enriched these few as the public interest is sacrificed to such powerful private business interests. This has, in turn, exacerbated corruption, patronage and other related problems.

For example, following Russian voucher privatization and other Western recommended reforms, for which there was a limited domestic constituency then, within three years (1992-1994), the Russian economy had collapsed by half, and adult male life expectancy fell by six years. It was the greatest such recorded catastrophe in the last six millennia of recorded human history.

Soon, a couple of dozen young Russian oligarchs had taken over the commanding heights of the Russian economy; many then monetized their gains and invested abroad, migrating to follow their new wealth. Much of this was celebrated by the Western media as economic progress.

The post Has Privatization Benefitted the Public? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

To ensure public acceptability, some benefits accrue to many in the early stages of privatization in order to minimize public resistance. However, in the longer term, privatization tends to enrich a few but typically fails to deliver on its ostensible aims.

The post Has Privatization Benefitted the Public? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

This article is part of a series on the current state of civil society organisations (CSOs), which will be the focus of International Civil Society Week (ICSW), sponsored by CIVICUS, and scheduled to take place in Belgrade, April 8-12.
 
Lysa John is the secretary-general of CIVICUS, a global alliance of more than 7,000 activists and civil society organisations across 175 countries.

By Lysa John
JOHANNESBURG, Apr 2 2019 (IPS)

“I never thought it would get so big and I think it is amazing.”

The words of a 16-year-old Swedish teenager who skipped school to protest outside her government’s inaction on climate change. Greta Thunberg is marvelling at how, in just a few short months, her solitary protests outside Sweden’s parliament, have inspired and united hundreds of thousands of young people and others across the globe into a powerful, growing grassroots movement for climate change action.

And growing.

Thunberg’s school climate strike has inspired more than 1,500 climate strike events in more than 100 countries across the globe, from Argentina to New Zealand.

Lysa John – Credit: CIVICUS

For those of us fighting what can often feel like a losing battle against a rising tide of rights repression, Thunberg’s words should offer a profoundly insightful message – a lightbulb moment – about the way forward for our struggle for a just, inclusive and sustainable world. About mobilizing for amazing results.

It is fair to say that the traditional civil society sector is at a crossroads. Public trust in and support for aid organisations and NGOs has faded, thanks in part to recent high-profile abuse scandals, dwindling resources and frustration with a lack of real structural societal change in spite of our efforts.

The old approaches of working with governments, who are failing to serve their people’s interests, for incremental change, is not working anymore.

This watershed moment for organized civil society comes amid a serious, global crisis in democracy. A staggering 7 billion people live in countries where fundamental freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly are not properly respected, according to The CIVICUS Monitor, an online platform that tracks threats to civic freedoms worldwide.

In this environment, citizen action is increasingly being organized into grassroots, social movements – mass-based, non-hierarchical groupings driven by people power, that are starting to prove successful in the fight for human rights and social justice.

The global #MeToo gender rights movement and the March for Our Lives American gun reform movement led by high school students – both still growing campaigns – provide encouraging lessons for the Climate School Strike movement on the power of this dynamic approach to activism.

So, how does civil society engage social movements in a way to harness the power of dynamic, new ways to tackling the world’s most pressing challenges?

That’s a key question that more than 700 civil society leaders, activists and international organization representatives will be trying to answer when they meet for the global International Civil Society Week (ICSW) gathering in Belgrade next week, from April 8-12.

Hosted by CIVICUS, a global alliance of civil society organisations in partnership with Civic Initiatives, a Serbian association of NGOs, the conference’s theme, “The Power of Togetherness”, explores how people and organisations around the world can, and are, working together to enable and defend spaces for civic action in a world where global transformations are reshaping how civil society functions.

In order to build stronger, more resilient and effective civil society we need to re-connect with citizens. Across the world, we are seeing the emergence of diverse civic movements aimed at calling out injustices or achieving improvements in governance in local and national contexts.

Many of these are spontaneous, self-organised expressions of change – led by ordinary people who feel strongly about universal values of justice, integrity and solidarity. For formal civil society organisations (CSOs), there could not be a better time to lean into and strengthen approaches to community leadership for ‘glo-cal’ change.

We have the passion and intellect to connect the action on the streets with the spaces where decisions must be taken; and to channel the local energies for change into strategies for long-term, globally-connected transformation.

At the International Civil Society Week (ICSW), a primary goal is for delegates to work together to understand and connect with people’s movements on the streets around the world, to build bridges that strengthen alliances and create solidarity and to identify steps to build and sustain collective impact.

On every continent, forces seek to undo the advances made in our societies and communities. But around the world, brave citizens continue to risk their lives to stand up against repression and persecution.

The ICSW is all the more significant this year as civil society leaders, activists and innovators are gathering in a country in which a growing social movement has been demonstrating some of these very goals.

For weeks now, there have been ongoing mass protests in the capital, Belgrade, calling for democratic reforms under the banner of a campaign known as “#OneinFiveMillion. The campaign is a live example of how civil society plays an instrumental role in fighting to protect and expand civic freedoms and democratic values in the Balkans and globally. The toppling of Macedonia’s government in 2017 by unprecedented civic action is another example of that fight back.

Serbian civil society played a crucial role in the country’s transition to democracy. But not all parts of the country’s society are equally protected, with gay-rights activists and women human rights defenders, in particular, targets of attacks and threats.

By hosting ICSW 2019 in Serbia, we will shine a spotlight on the region’s communities, help address their challenges and find ways to support them.

We will also examine the opportunities we have to forge new alliances and increase our collective impact by coming together to fight for common issues. Across the past year, we have civil society get better at transferring strategies and lessons for change across countries.

India’s legal win for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community has, for instance, boosted efforts to repeal discriminatory laws in other countries, including Costa Rica and Portugal. In Argentina, Kenya and Ireland, we saw ordinary people take action to defend and advance abortion rights.

Last, but not in the least, we will spend time reviewing the changes we need within civil society and the way we operate. We need greater accountability for our own actions and the way we engage those we are meant to serve and represent.

Revelations of scandals around sexual and other misconduct by NGO officials in recent years have done much to erode public trust in the integrity of our organisations and our mission. Urgent solutions – new ways of operating – will continue to be sought through our deliberations at the International Civil Society Week.

As in previous years, this week of dialogue will enable us to emerge stronger in our individual and collective inspirations for change. The ICSW is that much needed space for us to step back from the overwhelming urgency of ‘doing’ and spend time instead thinking deeply about questions of our relevance and legitimacy as a sector.

It will be a time for us to go beyond individual mandates and limitations, and work instead on developing pathways for our future relevance, including in relation to investments we need to make in order nurture the next generation of civic leaders.

This includes decisive and innovative ways to expand the tent of ‘civil society’ beyond traditional limits and enabling more people than ever before to share our values and speak out for the changes needed to ensure a just, inclusive and sustainable world.

Building a new generation of champions for social justice – in the way that Greta Thunberg has inspired millions of children and youth to take action for the climate – is the future we need to design together; our time in Belgrade offers us the opportunity to commit to doing this better and more actively together.

The post Grassroots Organising Points the way in Fight Against Rising Repression appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

This article is part of a series on the current state of civil society organisations (CSOs), which will be the focus of International Civil Society Week (ICSW), sponsored by CIVICUS, and scheduled to take place in Belgrade, April 8-12.

 
Lysa John is the secretary-general of CIVICUS, a global alliance of more than 7,000 activists and civil society organisations across 175 countries.

The post Grassroots Organising Points the way in Fight Against Rising Repression appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The post An Indigenous Nation Battles for Land and Justice in Bolivia appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Women in Madagascar who have had life-changing surgery are helping others to get treatment.

After Adel Taarabt finally makes his Benfica debut, people are reminiscing on social media about footballers whose stars shone brightly, if only briefly.

The president will resign before the end of his fourth term, the presidency says.

Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio. Courtesy: The Commonwealth

By Lahai J. Samboma
LONDON, Apr 1 2019 (IPS)

If the government of Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio were to be graded on their first year’s performance in office, it is likely that their report card would read, “promising start, which they must surpass in the years ahead”.

Since taking office after his successful election last year, this retired brigadier general has made a promising start, beginning with a massive investigation into corruption and mismanagement under All Peoples Congress (the APC) government of ex-President Ernest Bai Koroma.

On the recommendations of that investigation, a judge-led public inquiry is now examining corruption allegations against former officials. Early scalps in this veritable war on graft include those of ex-Vice President Victor Bockarie Foh and former minister Minkailu Mansaray; they have both offered to return money they stole.

The issue of corruption hits a raw nerve here, a country that is desperately poor despite its wealth of natural resources and fertile lands, which in a parallel universe would guarantee a decent standard of life for every one of its 7.5 million citizens. Former government officials are also widely believed to have stolen resources meant for the victims of the Ebola and mudslide disasters which laid waste to thousands a few years back.

Freetown resident Levi Fofana captures the public mood when he says Bio came at the “right time”. “The people of Sierra Leone were lied to by the roguish APC, which created a bankrupt state in which swindlers dressed in suits and African robes abused power with impunity,” he said.

Although ex-President Koroma has called the anti-corruption drive a “witch-hunt”, ordinary people are enthused, urging the government on. They hope Koroma will find himself in the dock one day soon; they want to know how the former president and his close family and associates became “overnight millionaires”.

Bio was the leader of the former military junta who handed power to a democratically-elected government after organising elections in 1996. He has brought renewed hope to this coastal West African nation which suffered a devastating civil war in the 1990s that killed tens of thousands and devastated the economy – and which had to endure a decade-long APC hegemony characterised by corruption, economic decline, and drift.

He inherited state liabilities of 3.7 billion dollars. Simultaneously as he drove forward his anti-corruption campaign, the new President upon taking office established a consolidated account for all government revenues. The goal was to plug any potential “leakages” in his own administration.

According to T J Lamina, Sierra Leone’s High Commissioner to London, the policy has been a success, and is still in place one. Revenues collected have gone towards servicing the domestic debt and paying civil servants, who were now getting paid on time and without government having to borrow.

Ambassador Lamina told IPS: “It’s not like Sierra Leone is not generating revenue; the revenue is there but it was going into private pockets.”

Bio’s stewardship of the economy has won plaudits from the IMF, who have approved a new two-year support programme worth 172 million dollars. The World Bank has chimed in with support to the tune of 325 million dollars. Both Bretton Woods institutions’ relationship with the previous administration had been “increasingly difficult”, which saw the IMF suspending their programme in 2017. President Bio has said both institutions were “necessary evils”.

His ambitious, five-year National Development Plan, costed at 8 billion dollars, was unveiled in February and has been endorsed by the Bretton Woods double act. Its key pillars include the development of human capital and infrastructure, and increasing agricultural production, especially of the staple food, rice – which the country used to export up till the 1970s, but which is now sucks up valuable foreign exchange to import.

Inevitably with report cards, you eventually get to the bits that cause embarrassment or feelings of regret in the subject. In this case one of these has to be the alarming rates of gender-based violence against women and young girls. The available figures paint the story in vivid technicolour.

According to police statistics, there were 632 cases of rapes or sexual assaults in 2012. That figure rose to an astronomical 8,505 for last year alone. Over 70 percent of victims were girls under 15 years old. Although the government declared the crisis a state of emergency and speedily passed legislation making the “sexual penetration of minors” punishable with an automatic life sentence, it remains to be seen how effective this will be.

“Our commitment [to solving this problem] is beyond mere words and beyond mere acknowledgement of an obligation,” President Bio has said. “The protection and empowerment of our women and girls is critical to our existence and progress as a nation.”

While it is true that they inherited the problem, it would be a harsh indictment of President Bio’s “new direction” if, by this time next year, the incidence of egregious sexual violence remains at unacceptably-high levels.

Observers also expressed concern over last year’s arrest by police of a man who led a demonstration against the removal of subsidies from petrol and kerosene. He was later released without charge. Rights groups subsequently called on the government to respect the right of peaceful protest.

“The price of our fuel was hiked because the IMF told government to do it,” said protester Fatmata Bangura, adding that the move would put “more strain on a budget already under a lot of pressure”.

From an appraisal of the first year of President Bio’s government, two things are clear. The first is that he has entered into a marriage of convenience with the IMF and the World Bank; the second is that, if his government’s promising start is to be surpassed, or even sustained, he will need the skills of a master magician to keep both his people, as well as his “marriage partners”, happy.

 

The post Sierra Leone: Bio Government’s First Year appeared first on Inter Press Service.

This article is part of a series on the current state of civil society organisations (CSOs), which will be the focus of International Civil Society Week (ICSW), sponsored by CIVICUS, and scheduled to take place in Belgrade, April 8-12.
 
Michel Forst is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, and a speaker at the International Civil Society Week, 8-12 April 2019, in Belgrade, Serbia

By Michel Forst
GENEVA, Apr 1 2019 (IPS)

They are ordinary people – mothers, fathers, sisters, sons, daughters, brothers, friends. But for me they are extraordinary people – the ones who have the courage to stand up for everyone else’s rights.

They are the human rights defenders.

Last year, according to reliable sources, 321 of them were killed, in 27 countries. Their murders were directly caused by the work they do to ensure the rest of us enjoy the rights we claim as purely because we are human.

The mandate on the situation of human rights defenders was established in 2000 by the Commission on Human Rights (as a Special Procedure) to support implementation of the 1998 Declaration on human rights defenders.

Countless others were tortured, raped and threatened, also for the work they do protecting their, and others’ human rights.

In fact, 2018 was deadliest year for human rights defenders since the UN began monitoring the challenges they face through the establishment of a mandate for a Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders.

It shouldn’t be like this.

Last year we marked 70 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and 20 since the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. The latter Declaration provides for the practical support and protection of human rights defenders as they go about their work.

It is addressed not just to states and to human rights defenders, but to everyone. It tells us that we all have a role to fulfil as human rights defenders and emphasises that there is a global human rights movement that involves us all.

This is a task we are not performing well.

Human rights should not need defenders, and human rights defenders should not need protection from the might of oppressive governments, corrupt multinationals and crooked legal systems. But this is an imperfect, human world.

Since 2000, when we UN Special Rapporteurs on the situation of human rights defenders began our monitoring work, much progress has been made. There has been extensive discussion on how these courageous people should be protected, and there is a Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders and Journalists in a limited number of countries.

Sadly, it is often not properly implemented, or funded.

It is impossible to canvass each defender’s particular treatment or mistreatment by the authorities they face, or even that of communities of defenders. There are, however, trends.

On 23 October last year, Julián Carrillo, an indigenous rights defender from Mexico’s state of Chihuahua told a friend by phone that he believed he was being watched and that he was going into hiding. On the evening of 25 October, his body was found. He had been shot several times.

On 22 August last year, Annaliza Dinopol Gallardo, a Filipina land rights defender known to her community as “Ate Liza”, was shot dead outside Sultan Kudarat State University in Tacurong City. She had four children.

Mr Carillo’s murder is indicative of the largest trend. More than two-thirds – a full 77% – of the total number of defenders killed were defending land, environmental or indigenous peoples’ rights, often in the context of extractive industries and state-aligned mega-projects.

Ms Gallardo’s murder represents another trend – the number of attacks on women and girls who are defenders is increasing. In the recent report that I have presented to the UN Human Rights Council I have highlighted that, in addition to the threats experienced by their male colleagues, women human rights defenders face gendered and sexualised attacks from both state and non-state actors, as well as from within their own human rights movements.

This includes smear campaigns questioning their commitment to their families; sexual assault and rape; militarised violence; and the harassment and targeting of their children.

Changing all this is our task for the future. Protection Mechanisms for Human Rights Defenders and Journalists need to be properly implemented and funded, at national level.

We need to empower defenders and increase the abilities of those who are responsible for their protection to keep them safe. We also need to improve the accountability mechanisms these officials operate under.

To properly defend the defenders, we also need to recognise their diversity, and that each one of them faces challenges particular to their individual circumstances. There is no one-size-fits-all answer to ensuring each defender is able to do their work unfettered.

We need to acknowledge that defenders, just like all of us, live in this modern, interconnected world.

Protecting them means covering all aspects of their safety: physical, psychological and digital. It means doing so with flexibility. It also means that our protection needs to extend to their families, and the groups and organisations they belong to. We need to speak to them about what they need to feel safe.

In recent years the world has taken a worrying turn away from respect for human rights. Increasingly, groups are becoming inward-looking, and nations nationalistic. We need human rights defenders now more than ever.

They also need us.

The post Human Rights Defenders Need to be Defended as Much as they Defend our Rights appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

This article is part of a series on the current state of civil society organisations (CSOs), which will be the focus of International Civil Society Week (ICSW), sponsored by CIVICUS, and scheduled to take place in Belgrade, April 8-12.

 
Michel Forst is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, and a speaker at the International Civil Society Week, 8-12 April 2019, in Belgrade, Serbia

The post Human Rights Defenders Need to be Defended as Much as they Defend our Rights appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The number of cases of the disease has almost doubled in the past 24 hours, officials say.

Nigeria under-23 striker Taiwo Awoniyi admits his struggle to get a UK work permit may end his dreams of playing for Liverpool.

Joseph Chamie is former Director of the United Nations Population Division.

By Joseph Chamie
NEW YORK, Apr 1 2019 (IPS)

Two, four and eight billion people is the extraordinary doubling and redoubling of the world’s population that occurred in slightly less than a century. World population, which had grown to 2 billion by 1927, doubled to 4 billion by 1974 and will reach 8 billion by around 2023.

Source: United Nations Population Division.

 

Is that record-breaking demographic growth of world population likely to be repeated in the 21st century? The short answer is:  while a doubling of world population over the course of the 21st century is possible, its quadrupling is not in the cards.

In the late 1960s the growth rate of the world’s population peaked at 2.1 percent and has since declined to approximately half that level, or 1.1 percent. The annual addition to the world’s population also peaked in the late 1980s at nearly 93 million and is now about 82 million per year. The primary reason for lower levels of world population growth is the decline in fertility rates or the average number of births per woman.

At the beginning of the 20th century average global fertility was still about six births per woman. By 1950 world fertility had declined only slightly to five births per woman, with less than a handful of countries having rates below the replacement level. During the second half of the 20th century, however, birth rates dropped relatively rapidly across most countries, resulting in today’s world fertility level of about 2.5 births per woman (Figure 2).

 

Source: United Nations Population Division.

 

Powerful forces, which continue to operate today, brought about the declines in fertility primarily during the second half of the 20th century. Particularly noteworthy among those forces were lower mortality, increased urbanization, widespread education, improvements in the status of women and modern contraceptives.  Survival of the young, migration from rural areas to urban centers, education and employment of women contributed greatly to the desire of couples, especially women, to delay, space and limit childbearing.

Not so long ago, the attempts of women and men to time and limit their number of children were resisted, with some countries having laws preventing the distribution of contraceptive materials and information. Throughout the 20th century especially following the Second World War, public attitudes, government policies and personal behavior changed markedly regarding birth control and contraception.

In the early 1960s modern contraceptives, notably the oral contraceptive pill, became available to married women and subsequently to unmarried women. Today nearly two-thirds of women aged 15 to 49 years who are married or in a union are using contraceptives, with close to 60 percent of them using a modern family planning method. However, one in ten married or in-union women aged 15 to 49 years, or approximately 142 million women, want to stop or delay childbearing but are not using any contraceptive method to prevent pregnancy.

The availability of the oral pill and other modern contraceptive methods permitted couples to gain control over the number and timing of their births. The ability for both women and men to determine the timing and number of births is certainly a major achievement having enormous demographic, social, economic and political consequences.

Although mortality levels continue to play an important role in the growth of world population as it has throughout human history, fertility rates constitute the critical determinant of the future size of world population. If birth rates remain unchanged at current levels, a highly unlikely scenario given recent trends, the world’s population would reach 26.3 billion by the end of the century (Figure 3).

 

Source: United Nations Population Division.

 

If fertility rates continue their decline and move to the replacement level of about two births per woman, which is the United Nations medium variant, world population is projected to be 11.2 billion in 2100. A half child above and below the replacement level yields the United Nations high and low variants for world population of 16.5 billion and 7.3 billion, respectively, at the close of the century.

While world population is not likely to quadruple in the 21st century, the populations of approximately three-dozen countries, largely in sub-Saharan Africa, are projected to more than quadruple during this century according to the United Nations medium variant. Africa’s largest country Nigeria, for example, is projected to have its population sextuple over the 21st century, from 122 million at its start to 794 million at its close.

While world population is not likely to quadruple in the 21st century, the populations of approximately three-dozen countries, largely in sub-Saharan Africa, are projected to more than quadruple during this century

The country with the most rapid rate of projected population growth is Niger. Its population is expected to increase seventeen-fold over the 21st century, from 11 million to 192 million, again according to the medium variant. If fertility were to decline more rapidly, the low variant, from its current 7 births per woman to 4 births per woman by mid-century and to the replacement level of 2 births per woman by the century’s close, Niger’s population would increase nearly thirteen-fold to 144 million during the century. Moreover, even if its fertility rate were to fall immediately to the replacement level, the instant replacement variant, Niger’s population is projected to triple to 37 million over the 21st century.

In contrast to the countries with populations that are projected to more than quadruple, the populations of some 50 countries are projected to decline during the 21st century, according to the medium scenario. Moreover, 30 of those countries are expected to experience population declines of at least 20 percent over the current century.

Japan, for example, is projected to have its population decline by 34 percent over the 21st century, from 128 million to 85 million. China, the largest population among this group of countries, is expected to see its population of 1.3 billion in 2000 drop to 1.0 billion by 2100, a decline of 20 percent. The most rapid population declines during the 21st century of approximately 50 percent are projected for Bulgaria, Latvia and Moldova.

In terms of absolute numbers, ten countries account for 62 percent of the projected world population growth between today and the close of the century, which is approximately 3.5 billion according to the United Nations medium variant (Figure 4). Of those countries, the top five contributors to population growth in the 21st century are in sub-Saharan Africa: Nigeria (17 percent), Democratic Republic of Congo (9 percent), Tanzania (7 percent), Niger (5 percent), Uganda (5 percent), India (4 percent), Pakistan (4 percent), Angola (4 percent), Ethiopia (4 percent) and the United States (3 percent).

 

Source: United Nations Population Division.

 

World demographics of the recent past are explicit, detailed and straightforward. The 20th century was the most rapid world population growth in human history. Although dramatic declines in mortality and fertility levels have taken place, the growth of world population continues but at a slower pace than the recent past.

It is evident that world population will soon reach 8 billion and will continue to increase well after that demographic milestone. As described above, the future growth of world population will largely be a function of the path of future fertility, especially across the high fertility countries of Africa.

Of course, the future of world population remains uncertain and current demographic conditions, particularly mortality and morbidity levels, could change markedly for the worse as has occurred at various times in the past.

Nevertheless, population projections for the 21st should not be dismissed as merely demographic soothsaying. Demographic projections provide valuable insight into the most likely future course of population growth and what policies and programs may be needed to address changing demographic conditions and their consequences.

A world population of 8 billion people and possibly double that number by the century’s close poses a plethora of critical challenges for humanity as well as the planet’s flora and fauna. Prominent among those challenges, especially relevant for rapidly growing developing countries, are concerns about food, water, housing, education, employment, health, peace and security, governance, migration, human rights, energy, natural resources and the environment.

Unfortunately, in too many instances political leaders have chosen to address those critical challenges with the three D’s: Denial, Delay and Do nothing. In order to deal effectively with the many population related challenges of the 21st century, government policies and programs as well as the efforts of international and national organizations should be guided by the three A’s:  Acknowledge accurately, Analyze thoroughly and Act prudently.

 

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Excerpt:

Joseph Chamie is former Director of the United Nations Population Division.

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By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM / ROME, Apr 1 2019 (IPS)

On March 19, 78 years old Nursultan Äbisjuly Nazarbayev unexpectedly announced his resignation as President of Kazakhstan, referring to the need for “a new generation of leaders”. The same day the speaker of the nation´s parliament was appointed as interim president, awaiting presidential elections scheduled for 2020.

Nazarbayev ruled his country for more than a quarter-century and since all influence on public administration rests securely with his Nur Otan Party it will undoubtedly once again win the elections. In 2015, Nazarbayev received 97.8 percent of the presidential votes. Why Nazarbayev resigned is open to speculations, though a common assumption is that he intends to yield power to his eldest daughter, Senator Dariga Nazarbayeva, and by resigning give her time to secure necessary support for a credible victory in the upcoming elections.

On March 20, the Kazakh Parliament unanimously decided to change the name of the capital from Astana to Nursultan, to honour the Elbasy, Leader of the Nation, Nursultan Äbisjuly Nazarbayev. The name change has raised questions and worries around the world. Is a name so important? Probably.

In 2014, Nazarbayev suggested that Kazakhstan should change its name to Kazakh Yeli since its current name associated his nation with other -stannations. He noted that Mongolia receives more investment probably because it is not considered to be a
-stancountry, even if it is in the neighbourhood of and not as stable and wealthy as Kazakhstan.

It might be true that Nazarbayev´s assumption is well-founded. Kazakhstan is probably worthy of more global attention. It is the world´s largest landlocked country and the ninth largest in the world. Rich in oil and minerals its economy grows at an average of eight percent a year, making it the first former Soviet Republic to repay all its debts to the International Monetary Fund. In spite of a muffled press and apparent corruption it is according to the World Bank a politically stable country, free of violence. It has furthermore, probably due it is growing wealth, advantageous relations and cooperation with nations as diverse as Russia, USA, Iran, Israel and Ukraine.

An ad for The Walt Disney Company once declared: “What’s in a name? Everything!” The name of individuals have become brands, synonymous with either good or evil. The mentioning of names like Hitler or Stalin may evoke fear and dislike, while other names are associated with quality and creativity, like the names of innovators used for prestigious companies – Friedrich Bayer, André-Gustave Citroën, Christian Dior, Gaspare Campari, William Colgate, King Camp Gillette, Soichiro Honda, Will Keith Kellogg, Max Factor, Henri Nestlé, Sakichi Toyoda, Werner von Siemens, Henry E. Steinway, Andreas Stihl, etc.

On the contrary to take the name away from someone is a way to obliterate her/him. Names were removed from concentration camp prisoners, they became things and could thus be exploited and annihilated. For example, during World War II, the Imperial Japanese Army’s Unit 731 was engaged in deadly experiments on human beings. Prisoners were injected with pathogenic microbes, exposed to different types of weaponry and subjected to other “experimental” atrocities. Victims were designated with numbers from 101 to 1,500. When all had been killed, the count restarted from 101. They were known as “logs”, maruta and deaths were reported as numbers of “felled logs”.

Conquerors have often taken away names of people and the places they inhabit, replacing them with their own. The Philippines are named after Philip II of Spain, while Zimbabwe and Zambia once were named Southern- and Northern Rhodesia after the white supremacist and billionaire Cecil Rhodes, who owned the investment company that controlled these territories. The capital of the Congo Free State carried the name Leopoldville after Leopold II of Belgium, the mass murderer who by foreign nations during the so called Berlin Conference 1885 had been given the immense territory as his personal domain. The capital of the neighbouring country still carries the name Brazzaville after Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza, governor-general of the French Congo. The same is true of countless other places all over the world, renamed after foreign intruders.

Catchy and inspiring names may support rise to power. During his election campaign Donald Trump benefitted from the fact that he was not only a person, but a brand as well. The name Trump had become a product projecting what his company, The Trump Organization, wanted to represent – fame, success, glitz, glamour, wealth and power.

The success of, or repression by, political leaders is accordingly expressed by their names, their brands. Revolutionary leaders often choose striking sobriquets, like Nguyễn Sinh Cung who chose Ho Chi Minh, He Who Has Been Enlightened, which eventually became the name of a town as well. Ioseb Jughashvili chose Stalin, Man of Steel, and not only Stalingrad was named after him, but towns in all Soviet republics and satellites bore names like Stalino, Stalin, Stalinsi, Stalinogród, Stalinogorsk, Stalinsk, Stalinabad, while other towns were named after his henchmen, like Voroshilov, Kirov, Beria, Molotov and Kalinin.

If US citizens are surprised by the impudence of naming towns and capitals after living persons they might be oblivious of the fact that their nation´s capital was named after George Washington while he was still alive. There are even entire countries named after their rulers, like Saudi Arabia, which bears the name of the House of Saud, a dynasty founded in the18th century and still ruling that nation.

Names are signs of lasting power. If a ruler was despotic and his name attached to places it is generally taken away after his death. Like the tyrant Trujillo, who for more than thirty years ruled the Dominican Republic as his personal domain and had his nation´s capital and highest peak named after himself. These names were taken away after his death and when his son and heir had fled the country. However, Gabon´s capital is still named Bongoville after Omar Bongo, who died as one of the wealthiest heads of state, due to oil revenues and shameless corruption, while his son continues to rule the country.

We may hope that the renaming of Astana to Nursultan is not a sign of uncontrolled megalomania, like the one that befell Kazakhstan´s southern neighbour, Turkmenistan, where Saparmurat Atayevich Niyazov, self-appointed Father to the Turkmen, Turkmenbashi, renamed the days of the week and the months of the year after himself and members of his family. He constructed a 120-metre-tall tower, crowned by a gold-plated, revolving sculpture of himself – his face is always directed towards the sun. Niyazov also decided that all libraries outside the capital would be closed, declaring that the only book worth reading was his own Ruhnama; mandatory reading for students, state employees and for those who aspire to obtain a driving license. When Turkmenbashi died in December 2006, he was followed by former dentist Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, who named himself Arkadag, the Protector. It is maybe Berdymukhamedov’s odontological background that has made him love whiteness. Dark-coloured cars have since January 2018 been banned from the streets of the capital. Like his predecessor, Berdymukhamedov also likes gold. In 2015 he “humbly accepted” an equestrian monument. Covered with 24 karats gold Berdymukhamedov is now represented mounted on a horse on top of a 20 metres high, dazzlingly white, marble cliff. In February 2017, Berdymukhamedov was re-elected President of Turkmenistan with 97 percent of the votes in his favour, though his nation´s capital is still named Asischabad.

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.

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