Africa

President Ali Bongo is under house arrest after being ousted by the army after a disputed election.

BRAC International recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the Bihar Government’s Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society to launch Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana Shahari, the first government-led urban Graduation programme in Asia. Credit: BRAC

By Rina Mukherji
PUNE, INDIA, Aug 30 2023 (IPS)

In a bid to tackle the complexities of urban poverty, the Government of Bihar’s Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society (BRLPS) has launched Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana Shahari (SJY Urban). The program will include a time-bound series of multifaceted interventions addressing food security, social inclusion, and sustainable economic livelihoods to enable participating households to achieve a better standard of living.

As part of this program, BRLPS has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with BRAC International, which will serve as a thought partner to the Government of Bihar for the project development and also is building a consortium of partners to support the government in its implementation. Project Concern International (PCI), for example, is taking on management responsibilities and will also host thematic workshops across departments and with civil society experts to support inclusive learning and dialogue.

Mobile Creches will create a community cadre of childcare providers who will support maternal and child health. They have a 50-year-old history of providing childcare support, maternal and nutritional health, and WASH training to urban women in the slums of Delhi, Mumbai, and Pune. Quicksand will support the learning process to consolidate the design through ethnographic methods, prototyping, and other design elements. These learnings will help inform the project about the fabric of each respective urban community and provide a feedback loop once the rollout starts.

SJY Urban was inspired by the existing rural programme, Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana (SJY), locally known as JEEVIKA, the largest government-led Graduation programme in the world, which has reached over 150,000 households as of early 2023 and is still expanding. SJY Urban is modelled on the rural programme’s six basic modules: 1) Building up the aspirations and confidence of households; 2) Financial Inclusion; 3) Improvement of Health, Nutrition, and Sanitation; 4) Social Development; 5) Livelihood generation; and 6) Government Convergence.

While taking inspiration from JEEVIKA, the Urban Programme will be adapted to respond to the unique challenges people in poverty face within the urban context.

“Urban poverty is complex and inadequately addressed,” said Shweta S Banerjee, Country Lead – India, BRAC International. “SJY Shahari is a unique project in the many challenges it has accepted, including supporting project participants during extreme heat waves. BRAC is excited and committed to serving as a thought partner to the Government of Bihar as we take the time to test, learn, relearn, and deploy the project design.”

Applying Learnings from the Rural Programme to the Urban

The 36-month SJY Urban Programme will be launched in five wards in Patna and five wards in Gaya for now and will be scaled up in a year’s time. Given the unique challenges in urban settings, where research and solutions are more limited in comparison to rural settings, the programme will incorporate learnings from the SJY programme.

“In keeping with the requirements in an urban setting, we intend to provide improved skill sets in carpentry, plumbing, welding, and the like that can help workers access better employment opportunities both within and outside Bihar. For instance, there are around 50,000 to 100,000 Bihar workers in the Tiruppur hosiery industry. We intend to provide them with the necessary skill certification through the National Skill Development Council,” Jeevika CEO Rahul Kumar told IPS.

Designed with a focus on women’s empowerment, SJY has made a pronounced difference for people living in extreme poverty in Bihar, particularly through inclusive livelihood development and access to financial security through self-help groups (SHGs). The urban programme will also utilise SHGs to improve financial opportunities along with sustainable livelihood options.

While the livelihood options are different, there is still a great opportunity for skill development for people living in urban poverty. JEEVIKA plans to pursue livelihoods for participants through conventional entrepreneurship, building up specific skills for trades, and partnerships with public utilities. The existing bank sakhi programme, a program that has trained rural women to assist customers in opening accounts and other administrative bank-related services, as part of JEEVIKA, saw 2,500 bank sakhis leverage Rs 10,000 crore in business for various banks.

According to Rahul Kumar, the bank sakhi programme could be introduced in across Bihar and offer additional financial products such as insurance and mutual funds.

There are also climate-responsive livelihoods that have been utilised in the rural programme that can work for an urban setting as well, such as waste management, recycling of waste, and the use of e-rickshaws. With climate change contributing to rapid urbanisation across Asia and driving millions more into poverty, affecting those furthest behind first, sustainable, resilient livelihood development will be a critical component of SJY Urban. The programme will work to further enhance resilience among participants by providing them with resources and training to develop food security and social inclusion.

Creating a Stronger Ecosystem Through Convergence

Similar to the rural programme, SJY Urban will bring together different existing government schemes and agencies to best serve those living in extreme poverty. The programme will also leverage the existing enterprises within the rural programme and promote them in the urban programme as well, such as market poultry and dairy products.

There are existing livelihood initiatives that rural participants are driving forward, such as running nurseries across the state, which have provided saplings to the Environment, Forest, and Climate Change Department for planting. These saplings can be used by urban plantations and gardens that are also under the department. Similarly, there are kiosk carts that sell Neera or palm nectar that are processed and made by JEEVIKA participants. There is an opportunity to expand this enterprise to the urban setting as well.

JEEVIKA will also engage other government agencies to support the design and implementation of the urban programme. Most recently, JEEVIKA and BRAC convened an inaugural workshop in preparation for launching the Urban Poor Graduation Project, in collaboration with the Departments of Urban Development and Housing, Labour Resources, Social Welfare, Women and Child Development Corporation. The workshop brought together government representatives and experts with diverse sectoral expertise to reflect on existing solutions for urban poverty and share key insights that could help inform the design and delivery of the Urban Poor Graduation Project. The workshop also brought together practitioners and leveraged knowledge from Graduation-based programmes outside Bihar and India.

The shared expertise and convergence in existing government schemes and partnerships will allow the programme to address unique challenges facing the urban environment and enhance coordination, which will ultimately improve overall impact.

Challenges and Learning Opportunities in an Urban Environment

This will be one of the first urban Graduation programmes at scale that combine skills development and livelihood support to alleviate urban poverty.

The unique constraints presented by the urban environment in Bihar, such as limited land availability, the migratory nature of the population in urban poor neighbourhoods, and heatwaves impacting the ability to work, present an opportunity to learn and adapt programming further to test what works.

“The kind of social cohesion prevalent in rural areas is lacking in urban centres. This makes social mobilisation, on which the programme rests, a difficult task,” Kumar said.

The first phase in designing the programme, along with the learnings from the first cohort of participants, will offer valuable insights on how to combat the challenges of those living in urban poverty face. Such learnings can then be shared across the Global South to support broader efforts to respond to rapid urbanisation and an increase in urban poverty.

SJY Urban is poised to move head-on, with its consultants scheduled to hammer out a clear strategy in the coming months. In a year’s time, Kumar says the programme aims to cover all 240 urban local bodies in the state.
IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Csaba Kőrösi, President of the United Nations General Assembly, addresses the General Assembly meeting to commemorate and promote the International Day against Nuclear. Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider

By Abigail Van Neely
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 30 2023 (IPS)

The President of the UN General Assembly, Csaba Kőrösi, struggled to find a reason to celebrate the 13th International Day against Nuclear Tests. There have only been five nuclear tests, all conducted by North Korea since the day was declared in 2010. Still, Kőrösi said he sees a world plagued by more distrust, geopolitical competition, and conflict than before.

“We are closer than at any other time in this century to global catastrophe, and yet we fail to see the terrifying trap that we have set for humanity by betting on nuclear weapons,” Kőrösi told the General Assembly.

The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty would ban all nuclear tests and explosions. However, while it was adopted by a large majority of the General Assembly in 1996, the treaty is not yet in force. It must first be ratified by nine remaining countries with significant nuclear capabilities, including China, India, and the United States.

Secretary-General António Guterres called for these countries to ratify the treaty immediately to end the “destructive legacy” of nuclear war.

Izumi Nakamitsu, Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs addresses the UNGA to commemorate and promote the International Day against Nuclear Tests. Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider

Meanwhile, nuclear stockpiles and capabilities are growing. Globally, a record 2.2 trillion dollars went to military spending last year. According to Izumi Nakamitsu, the high representative for disarmament affairs, there are 13,000 nuclear weapons stored around the world.

Kőrösi expressed concern that nuclear testing threatens the “newest human right” to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. He called for a “human-centered approach to disarmament” aimed at preventing both human suffering and environmental destruction. As Nakamitsu pointed out, nuclear tests often occur in the world’s most fragile ecosystems.

In the last decade, international monitoring systems have helped increase transparency and promote a “powerful global norm against testing,” Robert Floyd, the executive secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, said. Civil society has continued to play an important role in advocating for nuclear non-proliferation since the first nuclear test in 1945 and first test ban treaty in 1965.

Still, danger persists. The president reminded member states that a limited nuclear war cannot exist: “It is time to put an end to the threat of our collective suicide.”
IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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African leaders have called for concerted investment in energy and water infrastructure to accelerate the achievement of UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the African Union’s Agenda 2063. Credit: United Nations

By Antonio Pedro
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, Aug 30 2023 (IPS)

September 2023 marks the halfway point to the deadline for achieving the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Yet, globally we are still far off-track, and Africa is only halfway towards achieving the SDGs, with nearly 600 million Africans still lacking access to electricity and 431 million people living in extreme poverty.

While the challenges associated with achieving the 2030 Agenda remain complex, the slow progress in Africa is, fortunately, redeemable. Africa possesses abundant assets to achieve the SDGs. The challenge lies in effectively harnessing these resources to turn Africa’s comparative advantages into global competitive advantages.

As a first step, we need to develop new narratives that move away from portraying Africa as a “victim” and instead emphasise Africa’s position as a solutions powerhouse for rescuing the SDGs and climate mitigation.

Africa can play a crucial role in securing global food, water, and energy security and accelerate the decarbonisation of production systems. The continent has 60% of the world’s arable land, 40% of the world’s solar irradiation potential, 71% of global cobalt production, and 77% of the world’s platinum.

Cobalt and platinum, in particular, are critical minerals for the energy transition and electrification of transport systems. However, Africa’s extractive sector is an enclave with insignificant linkages to local economies.

Secondly, we must go beyond the logic of resource extractivism that locks the continent in perennial booms and busts that accentuate Africa’s vulnerabilities to global shocks. To address this, African governments must implement smart industrial policies, foster local value addition, develop regional value chains, and promote resource-driven industrialisation.

These should be supported by well-constructed and executed local content and national suppliers’ development programmes, which will ultimately lead to the emergence of well-performing local small- and medium-scale enterprises.

A notable disruptive example is the development of a battery, electric vehicle, and renewable energy value chain in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia, valued at US$46 trillion by 2050. We need to replicate these examples across the continent.

The evidence is clear that climate action will generate dividends for the continent. To this effect, we need to go beyond GDP metrics. For instance, many African countries, including those in the Congo Basin, possess vast natural wealth, which often goes unaccounted for in official statistics.

Therefore, we need to strengthen the capacities of national statistical systems to incorporate natural capital accounting into national accounts. With this, countries can assess the monetary value of their natural wealth to design ecological compensation schemes, participate in carbon markets, reinforce the value proposition of nature conservation, and secure more fiscal space.

At the right price (e.g., US$120/ton of C02 sequestrated), carbon credit markets could generate US$82 billion of innovative financing per year, with the Congo Basin being a hotspot for this.

However, the fundamentals must be right to secure macroeconomic stability and sustainable financing. These include enhanced trade, sustainable industrialisation, and economic diversification to reduce the continent’s vulnerabilities, improve the share of tradeables in total exports, and generate the millions of jobs that Africa needs for its youthful population.

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), ratified in 2019, offers great potential for trade and investment on the continent, helping to catalyse the development of regional value chains and enable the continent to climb the ladder in global value chains. African multilateral development banks also play an important role in de-risking investments on the continent on the road to making Africa a globally competitive investment destination.

Looking ahead, we should also build on the outcomes of the recently held UN Food Systems Summit and 2nd Stocktaking Moment and accelerate the implementation of the Common African Agro-industrial parks Programme (CAAPs) to promote continental agro-industrialisation and integration.

These agro-industrial parks have the potential to stimulate public and private investment in agro-industries, ensure greater food security across Africa, and increase the value of Africa’s food and agriculture product exports.

Additionally, access to affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy is crucial to achieving many of the SDGs, ranging from poverty reduction and advancements in health, education, water supply, and industrialisation to mitigating climate change, yet Africa faces a huge energy gap. Building the Inga III and IV dams must be prioritized to increase access to renewable electricity.

To finance these and other transformational projects, dormant funds in our pension funds should be mobilized as efforts to reform the global financial architecture and reduce the cost of borrowing for our countries continue.

Africa must keep its eye on the prize and chart its own path to rescuing the SDGs. Isolated solutions and “business as usual” projects will no longer suffice. We need to strengthen Africa’s institutions and agency by building ecosystems for transformational change and leadership.

Drawing inspiration from the ‘moonshot’ programmes that led to the historic moon landing in 1969, economist Mariana Mazzucato highlights the importance of creating structures that foster collaborative, mission-oriented thinking, and a shared sense of purpose.

To build such an environment on the continent, ultimately, we need leaders from all walks of life who are responsive and transparent, embrace multi-stakeholder consultations, and work inclusively towards strengthening social compacts and domestic accountability to fully harness Africa’s potential for achieving the SDGs.

Antonio Pedro is Acting Executive Secretary, UN Economic Commission for Africa and UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network Leadership Council Member

IPS UN Bureau

 

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The 2023 SDG Summit will take place on 18-19 September 2023 in New York. It will mark the beginning of a new phase of accelerated progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals with high-level political guidance on transformative and accelerated actions leading up to 2030. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elias

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 30 2023 (IPS)

The United Nations will host six “high-level” meetings, including two summits of world leaders– over a short span of five consecutive days, beginning September 18.

The back-to-back meetings, described as unprecedented, includes the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Summit on September 18-19; a high-level dialogue on Financing for Development (FfD) on September 20; and a ministerial meeting of the Summit of the Future on September 21 (with the summit itself scheduled to take place September 2024).

The agenda of the 78th sessions of the General Assembly also include high-level ministerial meetings on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response (September 20); Universal Health Coverage (September 21), and the fight Against Tuberculosis (September 22).

The UN is also expected to announce a Climate Ambition Summit—scheduled to take place in September 2024.

But these summits and high-level ministerial meetings come at a time when UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says he needs action, not empty promises or political rhetoric.

At the BRICS summit on August 24, he complained about the unfulfilled promises by Western donors.

“We need action to save our planet. Developed countries have a particular responsibility and so they must lead and they must deliver. They must also keep their promises to developing countries.”

He singled out the annual $100 billion pledge to developing countries; the proposed loss and damage fund; the doubling of adaptation finance; and the replenishment of the Green Climate Fund—promises made mostly at high-level meetings.

And on unimplemented plans for early warning systems, which are aimed “to protect every person in the world – including the 6 in 10 Africans who still lack those systems”. As a matter of justice, Africa must be considered a priority in all these crucial commitments, he noted.

Still, the months ahead will be vital.

“From the Africa Climate Summit, where I will be in Nairobi in two weeks times, the G20 Summit, to the SDG and Climate Ambition Summits at the United Nations in September, to COP28 in December – we have important opportunities to set a path to a better, more peaceful and more just world,” he said.

According to an article in the European Network on Debt and Development (EURODAD) website September 2022, developed countries agreed in 2009 to mobilise 100 billion dollars per year by 2020.

This deadline was then extended to 2025, with a view to setting a new global climate finance goal by 2025. At the time, developed countries hailed this as a seminal commitment that would ensure that developing countries in the global south were also able to tackle climate change.

Andreas Bummel, Executive Director, Democracy Without Borders, told IPS high-level summits that are usually preceded by intensive preparation play an important role by providing governments with a platform to express commitments and enabling the public to hold them accountable for their action or inaction. and of the international campaign for a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly

The Sustainable Development Goals summit this year is crucial as it marks the half-way point in implementing Agenda 2030, he said.

“At the time, civil society will convene for its own meeting across the UN building, the Global People’s Assembly, to provide its perspective and remind world leaders of their promises,” he said.

https://www.peoplesassembly.global/en/

Jens Martens, Executive Director of Global Policy Forum Europe, a think tank based in Bonn, told IPS the SDG Summit offers the Governments of the Global North the chance to demonstrate that they are serious about their much-vaunted global solidarity.

Because at the mid-term of the 2030 Agenda, the results are devastating: According to the United Nations, the countries are only on track with 15 percent of the targets. For the remaining 85 percent, progress is insufficient, or development is even heading in the wrong direction, he pointed out.

“A key reason for this is the failure of countries in the Global North to provide the necessary means to implement the SDGs. At the SDG Summit, they must declare their political willingness to change this”.

What is needed, he argued, is the mobilization of new and additional public resources to finance the SDGs. The UN Secretary-General has proposed an SDG Stimulus of $500 billion per year for this purpose.

“This would be extremely important. But what is also needed is effective debt cancellation, increased cooperation on tax matters at the UN level, and reforms in the international financial architecture”.

“If governments of the Global North do not make concessions on these issues, the SDG Summit will fail. And then the Summit of the Future planned for September 2024 is also doomed to fail. In view of the global crises, we cannot afford for that to happen”, he declared.

Purnima Mane, past President Pathfinder International and former Assistant Secretary General & Deputy Executive Director, UN Population Fund (UNFPA), told IPS the large number of meetings this September could be interpreted as a genuine effort to make up for the difficulties experienced over the last three years in coming together to monitor progress and enhance commitment on varied, equally relevant themes to push forward a collectively designed, multilateral agenda.

But the results of these meetings are also expected by the Secretary-General (SG) to be different from those held earlier, in that instead of empty promises and political rhetoric, these meetings would lead to action, she added.

“While this is a welcome move from the SG, it is not clear what steps will be taken to ensure that this in fact happens and what it will take to motivate Member States towards the action they needed to have taken all along”.

And more meetings than usual on critical themes — all of which demand minimally, for action to occur, commitment of political leadership at all levels, adequate resources, and solid planning and accountability measures, will not necessarily ensure that such action will follow, especially during this period of our history when the world is divided by increasing tensions that occupy the attention of national leadership.

She said the appeal the SG makes to the Western donors, in particular, in his message to them, is to live up to their promises to fulfill, what he refers to as a Rescue Plan for People and Planet.

The Plan demands better support to developing countries, and considerable changes to the international financial architecture which will amount to sacrifices on the part of groups like the G20.

“Whether these changes will happen is to be seen. Demanding action is obviously fully justifiable and we can hope that the action will occur but the track record so far has not been promising”, said Mane, currently an independent consultant on gender and development and global health, focusing on sexual & reproductive health.

Speaking during the International Day against Nuclear Tests August 29, Csaba Kőrösi, President of the General Assembly was critical of public funds being diverted.

He noted that global military spending reached a record 2.2 trillion dollars in 2022.

When public funds are diverted in this way, the President said, “and when our own words are ignored, we have a duty to ask: “How serious are our pledges to focus on overcoming poverty and curbing pollution, climate change, or biodiversity loss?”

“Will we protect our newest human right: the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment? Or are our lofty pledges nothing but words?”, he asked.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Aug 30 2023 (IPS)

The United Nations Secretary-General’s Dialogue on Financing for Development on 20 September may well be the world’s last chance to save the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and curb global warming in time.

The UN and international finance
Many features of the international financial system – including multilateral arrangements developed over many decades – have been overtaken by new developments, sometimes resulting in multidimensional crises.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

The month-long 1944 Bretton Woods gathering was convened as a UN conference to create conditions conducive to post-war recovery and post-colonial development. But the systemic concerns of John Maynard Keynes and others from developing countries were largely ignored.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) was set up for post-war growth and stability following the pre-war ‘gold standard’ crisis. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development – later, World Bank – would help with financing.

The Bretton Woods agreement set the gold price in US dollars, effectively making the greenback the world’s reserve currency. Thus, the US Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) has long financed Treasury bonds with newly minted dollars.

The French economy minister saw this giving the US an ‘exorbitant privilege’. As Europeans increasingly demanded gold for dollars abroad, President Richard Nixon unilaterally abandoned US Bretton Woods obligations in August 1971.

It thus repudiated its promise to deliver gold for the greenback upon demand by other central banks. Although the dollar has not been the world’s official reserve currency since, widespread acceptance has effectively extended the exorbitant privilege indefinitely.

UN potential?
The inadequate institutions and processes in place over the last half century have exacerbated risks. Meanwhile, financial crises inadvertently highlight previously obscure gaps, weaknesses and vulnerabilities.

Proposals to reform economic governance should start with better efforts to address these problems. This should involve progressive reform of the UN system, including the IMF and World Bank.

The UN is well suited to lead because of its record with difficult reforms due to its more inclusive and responsive governance. Securing legitimacy requires all parties to feel they have stakes in the broader reform agenda.

Despite poor regulation, many believe new financial markets and instruments have ushered in a new golden era. Threats posed by international macro-financial imbalances are seen as far less dangerous than those due to budgetary deficits. Worse, false purported solutions to such dangers have exacerbated complacency.

Financing development
Major financing for development (FfD) innovations have long been initiated by the UN. Special drawing rights (SDRs), ‘0.7 per cent of national income’ for official development assistance (ODA) and debt relief were all conceived in the UN around half a century ago.

The financialization of recent decades has undermined the mobilization and deployment of adequate financial resources to accelerate sustainable development and address global warming.

During the 1990s, the UN warned against new threats to economic stability. Some were due to volatile private capital flows and speculation, encouraged by deregulated financial markets, enabled by the IMF despite its Articles of Agreement.

By contrast, the UN has insisted on ensuring policy space for more effective development strategies by Member States. It has also urged macroeconomic policies to support long-term growth, technological progress and economic diversification.

The UN Secretariat has also promoted orderly sovereign debt relief. But Member States have long complained IFIs were shirking their mandates to provide financial stability and adequate long-term development finance.

UN pro-active on finance again?
The first UN FfD conference was held in Monterrey, Mexico, in 1992. It sought to ensure adequate development finance on reasonable terms after the 1980s’ debt crises, exacerbated by conditionalities imposed with emergency IFI credit.

Structural adjustment programmes ensured ‘lost decades’ for Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. The current situation may be even more dire. Government debt today is greater than ever, but also more diverse, and on much more commercial terms. This situation is even less conducive to debt restructuring, let alone relief.

For decades, the UN’s FfD Office has tried, largely in vain, to mobilize domestic and international resources for development and climate finance. But progress has been modest and grossly inadequate at best.

The SDGs were cursed at birth in September 2015 by rich nations blocking developing country efforts to improve international tax cooperation at the last FfD summit at Addis Ababa just months before.

The rich countries’ Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has since imposed its will on international corporate taxation. The OECD process largely consigned developing countries to observer status, offering paltry shares to reward compliance.

The UN has also highlighted links between financialization and food as well as energy crises, stressing justice and sustainability concerns. It has urged greater sensitivity to avoid, or at least alleviate ‘downside risks’ for the vulnerable.

Get real to progress
International tax cooperation has been blocked for decades by the rich nations’ OECD. The UN system, including the IMF, urgently needs a strong mandate to seek common solutions to increase tax revenue for all.

While private finance is needed for the SDGs, it is also part of the problem when not well regulated. Meanwhile, most developing countries still lack access to liquidity during financial crises except on onerous IMF terms.

Also, with the reversals of trade liberalization in recent decades, especially with new Cold War sanctions, UN resolutions need to be realistic in order to be broadly accepted and feasible.

The last decade has seen huge setbacks to progress on the SDGs, climate action and needed financing. Developing countries have received only a third of the IMF’s 2021 $650 billion SDR allocation.

Over the decades, ODA flows have declined as a share of commitments, with the loan-grant ratio falling, favouring financial globalization, particularly since the first Cold War ended.

This has constrained developing countries’ ability to respond to crises and meet long-term development financing and fast-growing climate adaptation requirements. Curbing illicit financial flows can also improve financing for needed ‘public goods’.

As most rich nations show little sign of meeting their ODA and climate finance obligations, annual issue of SDRs, within limits set by the US Congress, can quickly boost international liquidity ‘painlessly’.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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By Nick Nuttall
BONN, Germany, Aug 29 2023 (IPS-Partners)

Environmental issues have been my life’s career. But music has also been important.

Arts can shift societal perspectives on tough topics.

Nick Nuttall

Just Because Some Bad Wind Blows is my new album’s title song. It starts with a dystopian future, flips to a more upbeat guitar solo and imagines a future where we solved (most) of climate change, “because (humanity) we choose to”.
NoSecrets wonders why intelligent people can’t see the sustainability writing on the wall and suggests they are blinded by consumerism and vanity—with consequences!

Hometown is about Rochdale, North England. Like many northern towns, it boomed under the industrial revolution. But now is lifeless. Let’s down-size it back to a village, keep some fine buildings and transform the land back to nature.

Just Because Some Bad Wind Blows, released on Reptiphon Records May 5, 2023 is available at https://nicknuttallmusic.bandcamp.com/album/just-because-some-bad-wind-blows-3

 

Nick Nuttall was the Director of Communications for two United Nations agencies – the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Bonn, Germany. Nuttall was the official spokesperson for the Paris Climate Agreement and today is a presenter on We Don’t Have Time

Credit: Luis Acosta/AFP via Getty Images

By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Aug 29 2023 (IPS)

On 20 August, Guatemala witnessed a rare event: despite numerous attempts to stop it, the will of the majority prevailed. Democracy was at a dramatic crossroads, but voters got their say, and said it clearly: the country needs dramatic change and needs it now.

Bernardo Arévalo, leader of the progressive Movimiento Semilla (Seed Movement), born out of 2015 anti-corruption protests, is now Guatemala’s president-elect. All-night street celebrations erupted as early results were announced. It was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence: politics bringing joy rather than disappointment to Guatemalans.

But renewed attempts to prevent change can be expected. What Guatemalans expect from Arévalo is a morally competent government that will bring about genuine democracy – a government looking out for the public rather than self-serving elites. The unprecedented seriousness of Arévalo’s promise is reflected in the fear his rise has fuelled among the beneficiaries of the current authoritarian kleptocracy.

A blatant manipulation of judicial institutions after the first round of voting on 25 June failed to prevent Arévalo competing in the runoff – but now the attempt is to stop his inauguration. Following the runoff, the Public Prosecutor made yet another attempt to have Semilla suspended.

The stakes are so high that an attempt to stop change by force can’t ruled out. An assassination plot involving state and non-state forces came to light days before the runoff.

For security reasons, Arévalo couldn’t address the crowds celebrating on election night. On 24 August, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights granted precautionary measures to Arévalo and vice-president-elect Karin Herrera, giving the state 15 days to report back on the adoption of additional measures – both already have state-issued security – to protect their physical integrity.

Guatemalans are counting the days to the inauguration of their new government, scheduled for 14 January 2024. But their hope is mingled with uncertainty and fear.

An election surprise and its aftermath

The collective mood on 20 August couldn’t have been more different from that on 25 June, when first place in the first round went to invalid votes.

The run-up to the June vote had been marked by further deterioration of civic space and the restriction of the choice on offer through the disqualification of several contenders, including the candidate first in the polls, conservative business leader Carlos Pineda Soa. But Arévalo wasn’t on the radar of opinion polls and no one saw him coming. In a very fragmented vote, his 12 per cent put him in the runoff. The frontrunner, with 16 per cent, was a political insider, former first lady Sandra Torres of the National Unity of Hope (UNE).

The establishment rightfully feared Arévalo because he didn’t seem the kind they could easily bring into the fold. A progressive academic and a member of Congress since 2020, he promised to bring back the numerous justice officials in exile and resume the fight against corruption ended by his predecessors.

The fact that he could become Guatemala’s next president made the 25 June election results an instant object of contention. Nine parties, including UNE, submitted complaints about supposed ‘irregularities’ that had gone undetected by all international observers. Their supporters converged outside the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE).

In what was denounced as an attempted ‘electoral coup’, the Constitutional Court ordered a recount and instructed the TSE to suspend certification of results. The TSE eventually endorsed the results two weeks later, on 12 July.

But in the meantime, the Attorney General, an official under US corruption sanctions, spearheaded an onslaught of judicial harassment against Arévalo. She launched an investigation of Semilla for alleged registration irregularities and had its offices raided. She twice ordered raids on TSE offices too. And just as the TSE announced Torres and Arévalo as the runoff competitors, she ordered Semilla’s suspension. The Constitutional Court however blocked this order.

Citizens defend democracy

The European Union and the Organization of American States, both of which had observation missions, took a strong stance. Domestic condemnation of the attempt to twist the results was also voiced by groups ranging from leading business associations to Indigenous authorities. But the starring role was played by citizens who spent weeks on the alert to ensure that Arévalo wasn’t kicked out of the runoff.

Large-scale peaceful demonstrations were repeatedly held in Guatemala City and departmental capitals, overwhelmingly led by young people. They were vocally nonpartisan, making clear that they were marching not for Arévalo or Semilla, but for the future of democracy.

On election day, this translated into a clear victory for the change candidate: Arévalo took 58 per cent of the vote, compared to Torres’s 37.2 per cent. The election saw strong participation by young, educated, urban voters, many voting for the first time.

An uncertain future

Once he takes office Arévalo will face a tough time fulfilling his promises, not least because the June election produced a highly fragmented Congress in which Semilla will have only 23 of 160 seats.

But the urgent question now is what lengths deeply entrenched elites will go to to try and stop Arévalo taking office. Torres hasn’t conceded defeat. Instead, she’s cried foul and accused the five TSE magistrates of ‘breach of duties and abuse of authority’.

Meanwhile the Attorney General and her right-hand man, a prosecutor who has made a career of protecting the powerful and persecuting the press, continue the ‘investigation’ through which they seek to shut Semilla down. People have responded by continuing to demonstrate outside the Attorney General’s office demanding her resignation.

Guatemala is living a unique moment, an opportunity that many didn’t think they’d ever see. But it’s also an uncertain time. Guatemala must walk carefully into the future, one step at a time, resisting the onslaught, judicial or otherwise, to get the president-elect to Inauguration Day.

People have made it clear they’re ready to take to the streets in numbers to defend what they’ve achieved. And they’ll need to both support and hold to account the new government for the mission it’s been entrusted with: that of restoring the substance of democracy.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

 

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Manchester United goalkeeper Andre Onana is recalled by Cameroon, despite announcing his international retirement last year.

He is charged with "aggravated homosexuality" under tough new anti-LGBTQ legislation enacted in May.

Women share nutritious diverse local crop varieties at 2022 Djimini seed fair in Senegal. The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa is helping rewrite African laws and policies to favor conversion to hybrid and GMO maize seeds. Credit: AFSA or Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA)

By Timothy A. Wise
CAMBRIDGE, MA., Aug 29 2023 (IPS)

As the adage goes, when you find yourself stuck in a hole, stop digging. As African leaders and their philanthropic and bilateral sponsors prepare for another glitzy African Green Revolution Forum, convening September 5-8 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, they are instead handing out new shovels to dig the continent deeper into a hunger crisis caused in part by their failing obsession with corporate-led industrialized agriculture.

Instead of cutting food insecurity in half, as the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) promised at its founding in 2006, the continent has spiraled in the opposite direction. The number of chronically “undernourished” people in AGRA’s 13 focus countries has increased nearly 50%, not decreased, according to recent hunger data from the United Nations.

AGRA’s corporate cheerleaders will try to blame the continent’s deepening cavern of hunger on disruptions from the COVID pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war, but chronic hunger had already risen 31% by 2018 in AGRA countries, as I documented in my 2020 Tufts University study. The hole was already getting deeper.

Summit host Tanzania is a case in point. As the government readies another Green Revolution festival of self-congratulation, refusing to allow Tanzanian farm groups to offer a more critical perspective and more effective solutions, UN figures show a 34% increase in number of undernourished Tanzanians since 2006. An estimated 59% of Tanzanians suffer moderate or severe levels of food insecurity, according to survey data from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

African farmers: “Put down the Green Revolution shovels”

Once again, African farmer organizations are calling on African leaders and the donors who support them to put down the Green Revolution shovels, climb out of the hole, survey the damage their failing agricultural development model has wrought, and change course to more farmer-centered and sustainable ecological agriculture.

The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa concluded its recent continental meeting on seed rights denouncing “AGRA and other corporate actors’ continued pressure to influence African government seed policies and biosafety regulations to increase corporate capture and control of seed on the continent.” They have scheduled a virtual press conference August 30, demanding “No Decisions About Us Without Us!”

In calling for a strategic reset, they are not ignoring the complex causes of hunger on the continent – climate change, conflict and corruption exacerbated by pandemic disruptions and rising costs of fertilizers and food imports from Russia and Ukraine. They are recognizing that the Green Revolution’s corporate-driven, technology-based strategy for rural uplift has proven unfit to help small-scale farmers cope with such challenges.

In 2006, AGRA offered a coherent strategy and admirably ambitious goals. Its aggressive promotion of commercial seeds and synthetic fertilizers would catalyze a virtuous cycle of agricultural development. Rising yields would feed the hungry and stimulate further investments in productivity-enhancing farm technologies. AGRA’s self-proclaimed “theory of change” would double food-crop productivity and incomes for 30 million small-scale farming households by 2020 while cutting hunger in half.

Seventeen years – and more than one billion dollars – later, the evidence shows that AGRA’s theory of change was flawed at every turn. Those seeds and fertilizers did not produce a productivity revolution. Yields rose only 18% over 14 years, barely faster than before the new Green Revolution push. Maize yields grew only 29% despite billions of dollars in government subsidies to allow farmers to buy – and corporations to sell – the inputs. Meanwhile, more nutritious and climate-resilient traditional crops such as millet and sorghum saw yields stagnate or decline as farmers planted more subsidized maize.

With limited yield improvements, farmers didn’t see more food or higher incomes from sales of their promised new surplus production. They saw a losing proposition, with the costs of seeds and fertilizers outpacing the expected returns from crop sales. When the subsidies were cut as government budgets were squeezed, farmers stopped buying the seeds and fertilizers and went back to their old seeds, if they had managed to save any. Many found themselves in debt after input purchases failed to pay off their investment.

Most found farmland that was now less fertile than before, the nutrients drained by monocultures of maize. The fertilizers fed the maize, not the soil, which continued to lose fertility, starved for the organic matter provided by more ecological methods such as intercropping and manure applications.

So no one should be surprised to find hunger on the rise. Farmers were not growing much more food. What food they were growing – mostly starchy staples like maize and rice – were less nutritious than the mix of crops they used to grow. And they had little new cash income to purchase more food, never mind a diverse and nutritious diet. Many had less cash as they tried to pay off debts from their failed investments in commercial seeds and fertilizers.

Cosmetic changes, less transparency

International donors have failed to heed African farmers’ calls to change course. Instead, AGRA rolls out new corporate branding, a facelift not the full makeover Africa needs.

At last year’s Green Revolution Forum, attendees were treated to a slick set of videos announcing that the forum was removing the term “green revolution” from its name. Indeed, this year’s gathering calls itself the African Food Systems Summit. And AGRA itself dropped “green revolution” from its name, declaring with no real explanation that it would now just go by its acronym, AGRA.

AGRA literally stands for nothing at this point. Calling its new five-year strategy “AGRA 3.0,” leaders refuse to acknowledge the failures of their Green Revolution model. They keep promoting new versions of the same failed approaches. AGRA continues to foster pro-business policy changes within African governments, like the one it has helped push in Zambia this year. It promotes “agro-poles” – 250,000 acre “farm blocks,” often located on land grabbed from local communities so corporate investors can establish industrial-scale farms.

Like many tech upgrades, AGRA 3.0 gives African farmers less of what they really need, not more.

This year, AGRA’s cosmetic changes include a newly redesigned web site, replete with AGRA’s new logo but missing even the rudimentary progress reports it used to make available to the public. Scrubbed from the site – or conveniently buried in it – is last year’s damning donor-commissioned evaluation, which highlighted AGRA’s many failures to deliver on its promises.

African farmers have a different vision. They want donors and governments to stop supporting the failing Green Revolution initiative and instead shift their support to lower cost, farmer-centered, ecological agriculture. Farmers are producing their own organic fertilizers and pesticides from local materials, with excellent results. The simple and low-cost innovation of “green manure-cover-cropping” has scientists working with some 15 million small-scale maize farmers in Africa to plant local varieties of trees and nitrogen-fixing food crops in their maize fields, tripling maize yields at no cost to the farmer.

The solutions are at hand. It is past time for Green Revolution promoters to put down the shovels and stop digging Africa deeper into hunger.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Community Protest against Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT), a wildlife conservation NGO. Credit: Pastoralist Media Initiative

By Arjun Amin
OAKLAND, California, Aug 29 2023 (IPS)

African leaders, public officials, and private-sector executives will converge in Nairobi, September 4-6, at the Africa Climate Summit (ACS) – coinciding with the UN Africa Climate Week (ACW). In recent years, Africa has been the poster child for climate solutions, with carbon credit and offset projects gaining popularity among the public and private sectors alike.

These schemes allow companies, primarily from the Global North, to “offset” their carbon emissions by funding forestry and land management efforts across Africa. Despite the hype around these solutions to climate crisis, serious concerns remain about their efficacy and negative consequences.

And yet, carbon credit and offset schemes will be at the center stage of the Summit, pedaling false climate solutions. With a lot on the line in the coming week, it is imperative to examine closely what some of these carbon credit and offset “solutions” entail – both for the consumers and the communities involved.

For several years, the Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT), a wildlife conservation NGO, has managed a multitude of “community” conservancies in Kenya and operated the Northern Kenya Grasslands Carbon Project (NKGCP), which they describe as “the world’s largest soil carbon removal project.”

Built on the premise that grazing practices of the Indigenous communities in Northern Kenya are unsustainable and that NRT’s model of “planned grazing” will allow for substantially more carbon to be sequestered, it offers on option for companies including British Airways, Meta, Netflix, and Salesforce to “offset” their emissions.

NRT also claims to promote community livelihood, aid endangered wildlife, and usher in a new wave of environmental sustainability, making it worth looking at whether their actions live up to what they state.

For one, it is extremely difficult to prove whether the NKGCP actually removes as much carbon as claimed. The Project’s credits are verified through DC-based company Verra – specializing in setting standards and verifications for carbon projects – that have been called out numerous times for exaggerated claims.

An investigation by The Guardian, Die Zeit, and SourceMaterial, revealed that only a handful of Verra’s rainforest projects showed evidence of deforestation reductions, 94% of the credits had no benefit to the climate, and that the threats to the forests claimed in its projects were overstated by about 400%. Outside of discredited Verra, it is near impossible to prove if NRT is making a difference.

According to Survival International, an Indigenous rights group, NRT’s “grazing strategy” is disruptive to the natural grazing patterns of the pastoralists as well as the relationships, traditions, and structures that hold the communities together.

NRT has allegedly displaced the local communities in the region, taken control of their agricultural and herd management practices, and imposed their own standards of what “sustainability” should achieve with little care for traditional methods that have stewarded this land for thousands of years.

Additionally, breakdown of the traditional grazing systems is endangering food security of the locals – who lack information about the project, let alone having provided their Free, Prior, and Informed Consent.

There are several reports of human rights abuses involving NRT against the Indigenous communities in Northern Kenya. The gravest allegations concern the rangers who patrol NRT’s conservancies – accused of intimidation and violence against the very communities NRT claims to support.

And, it is worth learning where the money NRT takes in is actually going. Theoretically, large sums of cash are promised to the communities, but the truth is far from what NRT claims. Up to 30% of project revenues are distributed directly to Native Energy, an American consultancy firm responsible for marketing the credits to corporate partners.

The remainder of project revenues are managed by NRT – of which 40% is retained for a variety of costs including land management and “conflict resolution.” When looking at the language NRT uses in its financial reports, it is not “communities” who are entitled to the NKGCP’s profits, but rather “community conservancies” with pastoralists not in control of how the funds are used. 30% of total project revenues are split up between these conservancies – with each conservancy receiving just over 2% of the funds.

But, anywhere between 20-40% of this already small slice is required to be spent on tasks like “grazing management” and other tasks which NRT directly oversees. With all the entanglements of NRT’s carbon scheme one thing is clear: communities in Northern Kenya are not benefitting and are instead losing control and access over the natural resources.

Schemes purportedly managed by the public sector appear to carry their own array of problems. A prime example is the Uganda Carbon Bureau, which manages a series of credit and offset schemes with private-sector partners, through the intermediary, Environmental Conservation Trust of Uganda (ECOTRUST).

For several years now, they have partnered with Plan Vivo through its Trees for Global Benefits (TGB) program to sequester carbon by “encouraging sustainable land use.”

As part of the program, farmers plant swaths of new trees in return for direct payment and a litany of purported benefits including inducing “No Poverty” in the regions where TGB operates. Despite these bold claims, Plan Vivo’s 2021 report revealed that nearly a quarter of farmers did not meet their “performance targets.”

Those who fail to meet the targets are cut off from any financial compensation with little notice. Much like with NRT, there is no way to prove if the program actually sequesters more carbon, and Plan Vivo offers little more than assurances of “increased biodiversity” in their official material.

TGB’s effects on communities in Uganda have reportedly been profoundly negative. A report by the Global Forest Coalition revealed that Plan Vivo and ECOTRUST have been notoriously difficult in working with the farmers, often neglecting to inform them about payment schedules and amounts, shifting target requirements, and cutting off compensation at their will.

Many participants were not adequately informed about the 25-year-spanning contracts they signed – only offered in English – with scarce opportunities to provide feedback.

Though Plan Vivo claims to alleviate food insecurity through its scheme, it is accused of doing just the opposite. The trees planted through TGB are on the land that farmers previously used for growing crops for their families and sell for a somewhat-steady income.

After the trees are planted, the land is no longer usable for agriculture, and TGB’s contracts stipulate that they have the final say over land use. Cash payments through the program are reportedly rarely enough to compensate for income lost, and many families have been left worse off than before.

Despite clear warning signs, the government of Uganda, has continued to promote Plan Vivo, even though carbon sales come nowhere near meeting the operational costs, as disclosed in its Annual Report. In order to recoup losses, TGB relies on funding from a slew of donors including the United Nations Development Programme, the United States Forestry Service, and the Dutch Government. The scheme is inherently unsustainable – it is only a matter of time before the farmers are abandoned with growing uncertainty over their futures.

False climate solutions like Trees for Global Benefits and the Northern Kenya Grassland Carbon Project are not up to the task, but will be showcased at the Africa Climate Summit as the way forward. The claims they make are significantly overstated and end up causing far more harm to the communities who are being duped into signing shifty contracts, dispossessed of their land and authority, and made vulnerable to continued, persistent abuse. Corporations are choosing to offload their “climate guilt” onto the Global South, while shoring up revenues by slapping “net zero” on their products.

Carbon credit and offset projects obviate real, substantive measures needed to tackle climate change; they are a diversion of time and money away from solutions that matter. It is essential that African leaders challenge these false solutions and demand tangible, impactful, and accountable climate action – more than just greenwashing the corporate guilt of the global North at the expense of Indigenous communities across the continent.

Arjun Amin, a Junior at The College Preparatory School in Oakland, CA, did a summer internship at the Oakland Institute (www.oaklandinstitute.org), examining carbon credits schemes as a solution to climate crisis.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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‘Nature Insights – Speed Dating with the Future’ aims to explain human connectedness and impact with nature. CREDIT: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI, Aug 29 2023 (IPS)

If you’ve ever heard that 1 million species are at risk of extinction and wondered what that means for you, your family, and your future – there’s a podcast you won’t want to miss.

Nature Insight: Speed Dating with the Future, produced by IPBES (the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services), tells the very human stories behind the science and policy of the global nature crisis, and its new third season starts today! 

Human activity is pushing other species off planet Earth at a rate never before seen in human history. One million species of plants and animals, out of an estimated total of eight million species, are at risk of extinction, many within decades.

“We are now in what some scientists consider the Anthropocene – a geological era based on the impact of humans on Planet Earth. We have touched the Earth in ways that will seemingly last forever. With that comes our impact on every other species with which we share the Earth, millions upon millions of species, many of which we do not even know yet. While we might not see it all the time, we are deeply connected and rely heavily on these species for our own well-being. These are the many values of nature, and we have a great responsibility to preserve them,” says Brit Garner, Science Communicator and one of the two co-hosts of the podcast.

IPBES, often described as “the IPCC for biodiversity”, is an independent intergovernmental body. Its mandate is to compile the best available evidence on nature to inform decision-makers, and it brings together experts from around the world to create reports that are often thousands of pages long. But IPBES knows that not everyone will read a 1,000-page report, so the IPBES secretariat has found other ways of bringing biodiversity science to all kinds of decision-makers around the world.

Rob Spaull, the Head of Communications at IPBES, is the other co-host of the podcast. He tells IPS the podcast provides a platform and an opportunity for people from every corner of the world to peer into the “box of science and policy on nature”, to engage with complex issues that impact their daily lives, and to assess how their own choices and decisions impact nature and in return, how these choices affect nature’s capacity to meet their needs. Nature Insight seeks to engage with a wide variety of decision-makers in finance, business, health, and energy and to make clear our own interlinkages with nature and biodiversity.

Explaining the podcast’s title, Spaull says, “Every time you listen to Nature Insight, you are speed-dating with nature and with what the future may bring. Speed dating is about having a short time to communicate things that could change your life, and in this podcast, we try to do so by introducing listeners to people with unique insight into humanity’s relationship with nature.”

The podcast was started at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is now entering its third season, which will be available today, with new episodes dropping every Tuesday over the next five weeks on all the platforms where people usually engage with podcasts. Listeners should expect to meet incredible individuals whose experience can help people in every part of the global community to see solutions for the future of humans and nature but from different perspectives.

“From the great heights of the Himalayas to the farthest reaches of Antarctica, we have lined up a lot of exciting new topics and an array of experts to take us on these journeys together. In the first episode of our new season, we feature a mushroom scientist from Nepal who climbed Mount Everest and has been climbing the Himalayas in search of new species of fungi and mushrooms and for new discoveries for science, such as never-before-described species, to help fill existing knowledge gaps. We will also hear from an incredible and groundbreaking expedition that went to the South Pole, a place not known for its biodiversity and usually considered to have very little biodiversity,” explains Spaull about Season 3.

“We will also speak to two very prominent environmental journalists, one from the global North and another from the South, on changes, challenges, and opportunities to reporting on nature and biodiversity over the years. There will be an episode on youth and youth engagement and another on stakeholders and the IPBES stakeholder network. Importantly, there will be an episode on invasive alien species following the launch of the new IPBES report, to be released on September 4, 2023. It’s a season of great excitement, extensive travels, and unmissable insights.”

Nature Insight Season 3 builds on the success already achieved in the past two years, when the podcast explored topics such as zoonotic diseases and pandemics, indigenous and local conservation, achieving transformative change, protecting coral reefs and coastal ecosystems in the context of climate change, the links between business and biodiversity, and the diverse ways in which communities attach different values to nature.

“With time and policy having passed and the pandemic having transitioned, so much has changed in three years since we started the podcast. In the third season, we are really widening the idea of what, where and who nature is and getting stories from those expansions. We get to hear from geographical locations and stakeholders we have not heard from before. We have considered the values of nature in ways we have not done in the past,” Garner expounds.

Spaull points out the relevance of the podcast to implementing the new Global Biodiversity Framework, the outcome of the landmark 2022 UN Biodiversity Conference, in which nations adopted four goals and 23 targets for 2030 as a concrete plan to halt and reverse nature loss. Over six widely varied episodes of the podcast, listeners will hear from experts on the frontlines of biodiversity research and action about cutting-edge science and vibrant personal insights about some of the most critical issues facing people and the planet.

“Making the podcast has been a very exciting experience, with me in the United States, Rob in Germany, the producer in the UK and guests from all over the world. The diversity of people, places and topics has created some profound experiences for me. During the lockdown, I was in my attic at 3 a.m. speaking to an indigenous leader from Western Australia on water rights, and I realised, though isolated, we are still very much connected, and it is this connection to people and nature that enables us to do and achieve great, meaningful things,” Garner recounts.

Spaull says that the podcast has only scratched the surface. In subsequent episodes and seasons, there is still new ground to capture nature in its many unique elements. Season one started during the COVID-19 lockdown, season two as the world was coming out of lockdown, and season three is happening when governments are engaging with new targets for nature. As the world moves on, it is unlikely that Nature Insights will run out of topics to discuss anytime soon.

You can subscribe to Nature Insight on all major podcast platforms or by clicking here.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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