Africa

The Somali Football Federation confirms former Ghana women's coach Bashir Hayford as the new national team boss.

Credit: Lalsu Nogoti

By Saahil Kejriwal and Rachita Vora
Mar 25 2019 (IPS)

The remarkable story of an Adivasi lawyer and social activist who has led peoples’ movements against state development policies, and sought redress for human rights violations of his people in conflict-ridden regions of Maharashtra.

Lalsu Nogoti is an independent elected member of the Zila Parishad in the district of Gadchiroli, Maharashtra. He is also the first lawyer from the Madia Gond Adivasi community in that district. A firm voice against large-scale diversion of forest land for numerous mining projects, Lalsu has also been part of several peoples’ movements against the state’s development policies. The focus of his work is on the effective implementation of laws that protect Adivasi rights.

He has been engaged in seeking redress for human rights violations of Adivasis resulting from the crossfire between Maoist insurgent and paramilitary operations in the district. His vision lies in ensuring that the Madia Gonds retain their rights over natural resources of the region. In 2017, he was selected for the Indigenous Fellowship Programme by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights.

In this interview with IDR, Lalsu highlights the importance of engaging with law and politics to bring about social change, and the important role that local self governance plays in securing the rights of Adivasi groups.

 

Could you tell us about your early life?

I think the first turning point of my life was when I was three or four, and my father passed away. I come from a remote village, Juvvi, in Gadchiroli which borders Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region. In our tribal community—we are Madia—there is a custom of remarriage, so my mother remarried and returned to her home state, Chattisgarh. The community looked after me. I would help with all kinds of chores, from guarding the farm from birds to grazing the cattle.

Later, the village elders sent me to Lok Biradari Prakalp, at Hemalkasa, so that I could get food and shelter. That was a project by Ramon Magsaysay Award winner, Dr. Prakash Amte. I went to school there. I could not write until I was in grade 5, and I understood very little, but I studied hard. Each year, I stood among the top five in the annual exams. When I topped my grade 10 exams, Prakash bhau offered to send me for higher studies.

Throughout my childhood, there were people who supported me along the way. I was raised by the community around me, and I was offered help at various points, which I never refused. While pursuing higher studies, I would do any work that came my way—chopping tree branches, sweeping, helping in the School for the Disabled, and working at Yuvagram.

One day, Dr Dhairyasheel Shirole, a trustee of Fergusson College, Pune, was visiting Anandwan. Bharati vahini, one of my guardians, asked him, “Here is a Madia boy who is good at his studies and is honest. Would you take him to Pune to study further?” Bharati vahini also told him that I was an orphan, and had no money.

My law degree may have given me technical knowledge, but working with the community, I learn new things every day. You can become literate and aware through formal education, but the knowledge of local challenges can only come from working with people.

Fergusson had an ‘earn and learn’ scheme—if I found work, I could earn money and pay for my education. So I decided to go. A few other Adivasi students from Hemalkasa were offered the same opportunity, but weren’t willing to travel so far.

This was a time of many firsts for me: my first time travelling by train; and the first time I was made aware of my Adivasi background. People made fun of me for not speaking Marathi. I never learned Marathi because Madia is my tribe’s language. No one in my village speaks Marathi even today.

But by the time I graduated college, I had a degree with a specialisation in Marathi literature. I then went on to study law.

 

What made you choose law as a career?

When I was in college, many Madias were becoming doctors, but not lawyers. I felt that fighting the issues we were facing needed a knowledge of the law, and so I enroled in ILS law college.

At the time, you would rarely find Adivasi students in these colleges; they were scared to go to such places. My roommate at Fergusson asked me why I wanted to study at ILS. He said, “You will fail. It’s quite hi-fi. You don’t know English.”

I was not afraid to fail. In fact, when I stood first and informed my community, they asked, “Is that a good thing or bad?” They were really not bothered.

Apart from completing law, I also got a master’s in sociology, a bachelor’s degree in journalism, and a master’s in communication and journalism.

In 2006 I returned from Pune to Nagpur, where I practiced law for one year. I had studied law to be able to help my people, but soon realised that the Nagpur Court was inaccessible for them. If I continued working there, I would have earned well but I wouldn’t have served the people for whom I studied law. I wanted to help my people directly, be with them, and discuss their issues face-to-face. And so, I moved to Aheri and worked at the court there.

In the years since, I worked with many organisations on issues relating to tribal rights, including Srujan, Tata Trusts, Ecotech, and Oxfam India.

 

In 2016, you entered politics by contesting the local election. What prompted you to do this?

I used to believe politics was a dirty game. But having been closely involved with local governance, I have come to believe that in addition to the law, politics is an important tool for social change. In fact, if we keep shying away from politics, no good person will ever enter this space.

The Lok Sabha or Vidhan Sabha are not going to work for the poor. And so we have to enter politics, so we can make laws that are useful for us. For instance, because I helped translate the Forest Rights Act from Marathi to Gondi and Madia, I was able to bring the issues of the Adivasis into those documents.

 

Can you tell us about your experience with using the gram sabha as a tool for local self-governance?

The gram sabha has emerged as an important local government body, one that can make laws and rules for the village. The seat of government in Mumbai is not the only government. The local government at the village level also has the same powers—for instance, managing the market and what goods can be sold freely, regulating or curtailing money lending activity, and deciding what village-level initiatives are introduced and how their funding is allocated.

The gram sabha’s role in local governance has been strengthened with the passing of two acts: The Forest Rights Act (FRA) and the Provision of Extension to Scheduled Areas Act (PESA). These have been important instruments of social change.

 

Credit: Lalsu Nogoti

 

Could you elaborate?

Let us first talk about the Forest Rights Act (FRA). Before it was passed in 2006, no law had ever mentioned that traditional forest dwellers and scheduled tribes have been subjected to historical injustice. This was the first time that the government acknowledged the injustice, saying that the Act was an effort to correct this.

The Act has also been crucial because it recognises the rights of scheduled tribes and other traditional forest dwellers over forest land. Over the years, these rights have been curtailed as a result of increasing state control over forests, as well as developmental and conservation activities. The FRA, with its provision of individual forest rights (for homestead and agriculture), community rights (for gram sabha rights over forest resources) and community forest resource rights (for gram sabhas to use, manage and protect forest resources), has guaranteed tenurial security over Adivasi peoples’ land and livelihoods.

The FRA also recognises ‘Habitat rights’ of the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTG),1 a subcategory of scheduled tribes (ST) that is characterised by low literacy and nutrition levels, and subsistence level of economy. My tribe, Madia, was also declared a PVTG by Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs. This provision is among the most important within the FRA, as it extends beyond the administrative units of the household or the village, and recognises the rights of a larger clan of villages of the same community—in Bhamragad area for instance, there are 108 villages that form a habitat, or ilaka. This traditional structure, with its own traditional leadership, offers livelihood and resources, as well as being socially and spiritually important to the community.

In practice, there are many steps that the people must take to claim these rights (the overall process is controlled at a state level); there are also many Adivasi groups who are eligible to claim these rights but don’t know that they can. This is where the gram sabha’s role becomes even more important, because all initial claims must first be submitted to and verified at the village level.

 

And what about the PESA Act?

The PESA Act was passed in 1996. The right to forest produce is the most important part of it. For the first time, the people and the gram sabha can collect the tendu leaves on their own without the interference of middlemen. They can package it, and sell directly to companies. The Act lists many other items as well, including resin, honey, lac, timber, and bamboo. With PESA, more and more people in my area have been able to establish ownership rights over forest produce.

Where I work, the gram sabha is dealing directly with the company. These are new processes, not only in Bhamragad but in many places across the district. And there is much work that activists are doing across the district. The ownership rights over forest produce have resulted in higher incomes, and we are now seeing higher expenditure on education and health.

Adivasi culture and the forest are intricately linked. Where there is a forest, the culture remains alive. PESA thus looks after both.

Under PESA, the gram sabha has the authority to handle financial dealings of an area, and control or manage local trade. This helps the people regulate the sale of intoxicants like alcohol or tobacco, and curtail informal moneylending. Further, the PESA Act covers land acquisition and displacement. Now, if anyone wants to buy land for mining, they have to consult the gram sabha and take their consent after a public hearing.

FRA and PESA are very important tools to strengthen the gram sabha and ensure autonomy of the Adivasis. Using these laws, we can increase awareness among people, and give them the confidence to raise their voices.

We have now started a movement to spread legal literacy in Adivasi areas—about FRA, PESA, Biodiversity Act, RTI—and bring about societal change by law. We have also translated the constitution in Marathi.

 

What are some of the challenges associated with your work?

Given that we work in a Naxalite area, engaging with the law and politics can be especially challenging. The local police believe that if Naxalites support a law, the government must oppose it. Thus, for them, anybody who supports that law is assumed to be a Naxalite. The police ask people if they agree with, or support, the PESA act. If they do, they are branded as a Naxalite.

Another challenge is that the laws keep changing to suit the ruling government. When the ruler changes, the language changes. For our grassroots activists who believe in this law and support it, the challenge is sustaining that support, especially when someone sitting in the capital can change the law, or cancel it all together.

We also have limited resources, and limited connection with the outside world, especially people located in the corridors of power. Then, what is my strength? Sitting in Bhamragad, I can’t do much. Even still, it is important for me to stay here, and work for my people. My law degree may have given me technical knowledge, but working with the community, I learn new things every day. You can become literate and aware through formal education, but the knowledge of local challenges can only come from working with people.

Apart from challenges in carrying out my work, there are other, more deep-rooted challenges that Adivasis face, chief among them being language. Indian states are divided linguistically—Marathi is spoken in Maharashtra, Gujarati in Gujarat, Bengali in West Bengal. Gondi speaking people have been living in this country from the beginning, but have been scattered across different states, due to which they must learn different state languages. I am in a ‘Marathi cage’. My mother is in Chhattisgarh, where they have to learn Hindi; she’s in a ‘Hindi cage’. In this way, we are left unable to communicate with each other. Our own language has suffered because of this. Plus, we don’t have a formal organisation or structure. Our community is our area of work. There is no office. Our village—Gotul or local space—is our office. So how can we band together, work together on these cultural and political issues for our people?

Translated from Marathi into English by Anupamaa Joshi.

 

Footnotes

1. PVTG is a subcategory of scheduled tribes (ST), characterised by a pre-agricultural level of technology, stagnant or declining population, extremely low literacy rate and subsistence level of economy. There are 75 listed PVTGs in India.

 

Saahil Kejriwal is an associate at IDR. He is responsible for sourcing and editing content, along with online and offline outreach. He has completed the Young India Fellowship, a postgraduate diploma in liberal studies, from Ashoka University. Prior to that, Saahil worked as an instructional designer at NIIT Ltd. Saahil holds a BA in Economics from Hansraj College, University of Delhi. He spent his early years in Guwahati, Assam.

Rachita Vora is Co-founder and Director at IDR. Before this, she led the Dasra Girl Alliance, a Rs. 250 crore multi-stakeholder platform that sought to empower adolescent girls in India. She has a decade of experience, and has spent the past eight years working in the areas of financial inclusion, livelihoods and public health. She has led functions across strategy, business development, communications and partnerships, and her writing has been featured in the Guardian, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Next Billion and Alliance Magazine. Rachita has an MBA from Judge Business School at Cambridge University and a BA in History from Yale University.

This story was originally published by India Development Review (IDR)

The post Q&A: “The Knowledge of Local Challenges Can Only Come from Working with People” appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Dogon-Fulani tensions have existed for a while but what is behind the increase in communal killings?

Three Burundian schoolgirls were arrested for defacing a photo of President Pierre Nkurunziza.

Dr. Arturo Cunanan is the Medical Centre Chief of Culion Sanitarium and General Hospital in the Philippines and one of the most experienced experts on Hansen’s disease, also known as leprosy, in the world today. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella Paul
MAJURO, Mar 25 2019 (IPS)

His multiple awards and degrees aside, Dr. Arturo Cunanan is known as a people’s doctor; one who has profound belief in the human rights of every person affected by Hansen’s disease, commonly known as leprosy.
Considered one of the most experienced experts on the disease in the world today, Cunanan is currently the Medical Centre Chief of Culion Sanitarium and General Hospital in the Philippines. He is the first director of the hospital who is a direct descendant of people affected by Hansen’s disease who were isolated and segregated in Culion. The island of Culion, where the hospital is based, was originally set up as a leper colony at the turn of the 20th century, with the hospital been founded to solely treat patients with Hansen’s disease. However, from 1994, the Culion Sanitarium and General Hospital began general hospital services.

Currently in the Marshall Islands, in the northern Pacific, to review the national leprosy programme for the atoll nation, Cunanan tells IPS about the importance of viewing leprosy as an ordinary disease and how the failure to do so leads to continuous stigma.

“Integration of leprosy in the mainstream is important and it is also important to see that leprosy is treated as an ordinary disease and not as a special disease. Leprosy then becomes an ordinary disease. But if you treat leprosy as a special disease, then those with leprosy can become more stigmatised. People who have leprosy, can live a normal life. This is the message,” he tells IPS.

Recipient of several national and international awards, including the 2015 Gandhi Peace Prize, Cunanan earned his Masters in Public Health and Hospital Administration at the University of the Philippines and a Doctorate (PhD) in Health Systems and Policy at the National Institute of Health, University of Leeds as an International Ford Foundation Scholar.

He is also a consultant with the World Health Organisation and has provided his leadership in reviewing the National Leprosy programmes across the Micronesia region.

Cunanan is also the implementer of Sasakawa Memorial Health Foundation/Nippon Foundation’s projects in Culion and the Philippines that are related to leprosy and human rights, preservation of leprosy history, and various socio-economic projects that improve quality of life of people affected by leprosy and their families.
Excerpts of the interview follow:

Inter Press Service (IPS): Can you elaborate on how treating leprosy as a special disease leads to more stigmatisation and violates the rights of a person affected by it?

Arturo Cunanan (AC): Leprosy is one of the oldest known diseases in human history. It’s a biblical disease; there are instances of Jesus meeting men suffering from leprosy—men who were described as unclean and who became clean after Jesus touched them. The fear of leprosy and the social reaction to leprosy—both are are old.

In modern times, we have seen governments bring in laws that were built on the rule of detection and segregation. All of this only alienated a leprosy-affected person further.

But the truth of the day is: leprosy is curable. A person with leprosy can live a normal life. He can get treated—free of charge—for his disease. But, if we continue to treat leprosy as a special, extraordinary disease, it will perpetuate the alienation and it will also perpetuate the fear and stigma.

IPS: What happens when a leprosy-affected person faces stigma?

AC: First, they are socially, economically, and culturally isolated. People in their village, neighbourhood, society stop making contact with them and their families. But it ultimately violates their rights to respect and dignity.
Let me give you an example. In Culion, we get visitors. Some of them ask me if they can visit some leprosy-affected people. I tell them, look around you—everyone here has been affected by leprosy. But they look around and they do not want to believe what they see: normal people, with a normal physical appearance.

What these visitors are expecting to see is a person who has severe physical deformity, because in their minds, they [the visitors] have the image of a leprosy-affected person like that—a demonised image.
So, I tell them, these are people, no matter how severely they are affected by the disease—they are people like you and me, they have a right to a life of respect and dignity. How would you feel if someone looked at you in shock and fear, maybe disgust and gasp? This is what stigma and isolation leads to—the total denial of dignity.

IPS: How does this affect the treatment of leprosy?

AC: There are several reasons why a person affected by leprosy doesn’t seek treatment and social stigma is one of them. The person is afraid that once he has been confirmed as a person who has leprosy, the reaction of society will be severe towards him and his family.

They will not be included in any social or cultural events, nobody will visit them at their homes, and nobody will continue social relations with them. This will affect them economically also, they will not be employed like before. All of this discourages the person from going to the health centre and reporting his condition as he wants to avoid this social stigma.

IPS: You often say that Leprosy treatment needs to be integrated into the general health service system. What does that mean?

AC: This means that leprosy treatment can be made available at the local level. At every health centre, someone should be skilled enough to at least raise suspicion—if not fully detect—when he or she notices a possible case of leprosy.

For example, a person visits the health centre with a visible patch on his or her body which maybe numb. If a staff member at the health center can suspect that this could be a leprosy case, he could share this with the person and refer this person to a more skilled health worker to another clinic that specialises on leprosy. This way, a detection, confirmation and treatment could then begin.
But if the staff member is not capable of this, then he could simply give him an ointment for a skin rash and send him back home.

Especially in the islands, where people live a simple life, in close contact with the sun, sand and salt water, small skin marks like a patch would not usually make a person suspicious of his body or make him go to a leprosy clinic straightaway. But if even one person at the health centre can think that this might be leprosy, it could be a big help.

The third point is, even when the treatment begins, the person affected by leprosy may not take his medicines regularly or may not monitor his health conditions such as a sign of reactions etc on a regular basic and this could affect him adversely. But, if the staff at his local health center can communicate with him that he must report back if there is a reaction, he will do so.
So, it is key to have leprosy treatment integrated in the general health service, so there are skilled workers at every level of the health system.

Related Articles

• People Affected by Leprosy in Latin America Unite for Their Rights and Their Voice
• Q&A: Important to Treat Anyone Suffering from Leprosy as an Equal Individual
• Living with Leprosy on the Climate-Vulnerable Kiribati Island Atolls

The post Q&A: Why Treating Leprosy as a Special Disease Violates the Rights of the Person Affected by It appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

IPS Correspondent Stella Paul interviews DR ARTURO CUNANAN, one of the world’s leading experts on leprosy and Medical Centre Chief of Culion Sanitarium and General Hospital in the Philippines.

The post Q&A: Why Treating Leprosy as a Special Disease Violates the Rights of the Person Affected by It appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The United Nations says plans to classify female athletes by their testosterone levels, put forward by athletics' governing body, "contravene international human rights".

South Africa's coal power stations can't meet demand and are polluting the air local communities breathe.

Credit: David Symonds in The Economist, 24 July 2008

By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM / ROME, Mar 25 2019 (IPS)

These lyrics are from Fire, the only hit by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, which in 1968 sold over one million singles. Brenton Tarrant played it in his car while he triumphantly left the Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand. He had just gunned down around 100 unarmed worshippers and was on his way to another mosque to continue the slaughter before Friday prayers ended on 15 March. His murderous rampage finished by the Linwood Islamic Centre, where he could not find the entrance. He shut a man and his wife, whom he encountered outside the building and then shattered a window with a hail of bullets, killing five more inside, while he shouted that everyone had to leave the mosque. A courageous shop keeper rushed out and throw a credit card reader at Tarrant, who rushed back to his car followed by the shop keeper, who shattered the windshield with a handgun he had picked up from the ground. Tarrant run away, but was almost immediately restrained by police who had been able to trace him.

Tennant had by then shot and killed 50 individuals, aged between 2 and 71 years. He had used two semi-automatic rifles, two shotguns and a lever-action rifle, all purchased online from a local gun store. Tennant live-streamed the 17 minutes Al Noor Mosque massacre at Facebook Live. Nine minutes before initiating his killing spree he had posted links to a 73-page manifesto, The Great Replacement, on Twitter and 8chan and emailed it to 30 recipients, among them The Prime Minister´s Office and various media outlets.

Contrary to many Islamist terrorists, who are prepared to die for their beliefs, Tennant wanted to be taken alive and use his trial as an opportunity to appear as a martyr for his beliefs and use his deeds as propaganda for them. Exactly like another white supremacist before him, the Norwegian Anders Berling Breivik, who in June 2011 in cold blood slaughtered 77 totally unprotected and surprised individuals, most of them youngsters between 14 and 18 years. Breivik´s statements in court and his 1,500 pages long manifesto served as an inspiration for Tennant.

Condemnations and condolences arrived immediately after the horrific event. Almost every nation leader sent his/her “heart-felt” sympathies to the people of New Zealand and Muslims around the world. Donald Trump twittered: “My warmest sympathy and best wishes goes out to the people of New Zealand after the horrible massacre in the Mosques.” This was normal procedure, though Trump did three days after his first tweet post another one: “The Fake News Media is working overtime to blame me for the horrible attack in New Zealand. They will have to work very hard to prove that one. So Ridiculous!” Trump had before that declared that he did not view white nationalism as a rising threat: “I don’t really. I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems, I guess.” Perfectly in line with previously expressed views when Trump had assumed that any Muslim lone wolf slayer represented views of all Muslims: “I think Islam hates us”. This while any person who in the name of some whacky right-wing ideology had massacred people, like the Las Vegas shooter who killed 58 people, according to Trump represented no one else but himself. Such people are according to Trump just crazy: “The wires were crossed pretty badly in his brain. Extremely badly in his brain. And it’s a very sad event.” Trump´s line of thinking may thus be connected with the fact that his administration cut funding for the Department of Homeland Security’s Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) programme – except to address Islamic-inspired terrorism.

Trump seems to express inclinations towards extreme narcissism and cynical populism. He has during his presidency revealed a behaviour characterized by exaggerated feelings of self-importance, excessive need for admiration and a lack of empathy. However, there is apparently also a large dose of populism characterizing his way of expressing himself. Particularly in his cynical use of xenophobia. Trump has repeatedly whipped up fear off criminal elements and potential terrorists illegally crossing US borders: “They’re sending us not the right people. The US has become a dumping ground for everyone else’s problems.” Using vulgar expressions Trump has declared that many migrants come from places he defined as “shithole countries”.

Trump behaves like a performer blinded by his own success and like many others who use the Internet as a political platform he indulges in rude attacks on perceived opponents and enemies. He is fond of using offensive dubs and verbal barrage like an “extraordinarily low IQ person”, against people with other views than his own. Simultaneously he showers inflated praise on those who support him. Candace Owens, an Afro-American conservative commentator and political activist, who Tarrant in his manifesto declared to be the one who had “influenced [him] above all” has by Trump been acclaimed as someone who

is having a big impact on politics in our country. She represents an ever expanding group of very smart ‘thinkers,’ and it is wonderful to watch and hear the dialogue going on … so good for our Country!

Trump had of course been delighted by Owens´s declaration that “the left hates America and Trump loves it!”

It may be claimed that Trump did not create a maniac like Brenton Tarrant, who in his manifesto hailed the US President as “a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose.” However, opinion makers who use a derogative language, making fun of “political correctness” and subscribe to blatant generalizations, inspire others to do that as well.

An example of this is the Swedish “shock jock” PewDiePie, who due to his more than 89 million YouTube subscribers, in 2016 was listed among Time Magazine´s “100 most influential people”. PewDiePie, whose real name is Felix Kjellberg, makes millions of dollars annually. My high school pupils made me listen to him entertaining and impressing his overwhelmingly young listeners by his ridiculously exaggerated, puerile and fake melodramatic persona, pouring out expletives and pointless jokes, often precariously close to “forbidden” themes like racism and misogyny. An approach called memeing, i.e. expressing inane and dumb assertions while appearing as if you are serious about them. I did not find PewDiePie´s idiotic ramblings funny, only annoying, though Tarrant wrote in his manifesto: “Remember lads, subscribe to PewDiePie.”

By simply clicking “send” we may all reach any madman with our baseless generalizations. By setting up blogs, vlogs, Instagram – and Facebook accounts we may share our opinions and “facts” without realizing that with this power comes responsibility. A world leader like Trump cannot excuse himself from the fact that his statement about certain immigrants, even if they in this case were criminally charged members of the infamous MS 13 gang, might have grave consequences:

You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are. These aren’t people. These are animals.

Expressions like “we and them”, indicating a right to mistreat others, even innocent children, in the name of our own superiority, may convince ice-cold mass murderers like Anders Breivik and Brenton Tarrant that they have been doing humanity a service by annihilating “enemies to our way of life”.

No – Trump and PewDiePie, you cannot convince me that you are any innocent bystanders. Each and everyone of us is responsible for his/her own discourse and actions. Not any of us is an autonomous being. For better or worse, we are all connected to one another. Accordingly, our words have effects and do not for one second assume that hate speech is beneficial for human co-existence.

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

The post Words Matter: Trump and the Massacres in Christchurch appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

I am the god of Hell Fire

and I bring you fire.
I'll take you to burn!
Fire, I'll take you to learn.
I'll see you burn!
                 Jacob Louis Plant

The post Words Matter: Trump and the Massacres in Christchurch appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Meet the men and women connecting - and sometimes disconnecting - residents of the city of Port Harcourt.

António Guterres, is Secretary-General of the United Nations

By António Guterres
BUENOS AIRES, Mar 25 2019 (IPS)

I see five issues that will be central to implementing the Paris Agreement on climate change and achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. South-South Cooperation can offer solutions to all of them.

First, rising inequality both between and within countries is eroding trust and deepening a sense of injustice. Globalization has enabled many people to escape poverty – but its benefits are not shared equitably and its costs fall disproportionately on the poor and vulnerable.

António Guterres

Cooperation can enable developing countries to learn from each other and grow more quickly, close income gaps and build inclusive, resilient societies.

Second, climate change is the defining issue of our time, and we are losing the race. 2018 was the fourth hottest year on record and natural disasters are impacting nearly every region.

That is why I am bringing world leaders together at a climate action summit in New York in September. I am calling on leaders to bring concrete, realistic plans that raise ambition on mitigation, adaptation, finance and innovation.

We must enhance nationally determined contributions by 2020, in line with reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent over the next decade.

We need fundamental shifts to support green financing and increase investment in climate action from billions to trillions.

The Green Climate Fund must become fully resourced and operational. And the pledge to mobilize 100 billion dollars a year by 2020 for climate action in the developing world, including mitigation and adaptation, must be implemented.

South-South cooperation will be vital to ensure mutual support and exchange of best practices, to enhance adaptation and increase the resilience of developing countries and communities facing the devastating impacts of climate change.

South-South Cooperation can also support the transformation of economies dependent on fossil fuels, with strategies that reinforce both sustainable development and environmental protection.

Third, infrastructure and energy needs are set to expand enormously, thanks to population growth and urbanization in the Global South.

Some 60 percent of the area that is expected to become urban by 2030 has yet to be built. If we get this wrong, we will lock ourselves into a high-emissions future with potentially catastrophic consequences.

But if we get infrastructure right, it will be an opportunity for development cooperation, industrial transition and growth, cross-border trade and investment, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and sustainable development.

Fourth, gender has been described as the docking station for the SDGs, since it offers opportunities to engage on different crosscutting issues. It must be at the heart of all efforts if we are to succeed.

We have seen significant progress for women over the past forty years. More girls are in school; more women are doing paid work. Harmful practices like female genital mutilation and child marriage are in decline.

But this progress is not complete; indeed, we are seeing a pushback against our efforts and in some cases the gender equality gap is widening.

This affects us all, because where women are better represented in politics, we see improved social protection and increased spending on development. When women have access to land and credit, harvests increase. When girls are educated, they contribute more to their communities and break cycles of poverty.

And let’s not forget that countries with the highest number of women in parliament, in national security institutions, and as farmers, are indeed in the Global South.

Fifth, the multilateral development system must be better positioned to support South-South cooperation and implement the 2030 Agenda.

South-South cooperation has evolved significantly over the last decades – but multilateral institutions, including the United Nations, have not kept up.

I am grateful to Member States for recognizing the role of the United Nations in the outcome document for the South-South Conference (in Buenos Aires). We will take up the mandates you are entrusting to us, and you can count on my personal commitment to make sure the ongoing reforms of the United Nations reinvigorate our support for South-South cooperation.

We also need to realign financing for sustainable development and unlock the trillions that will deliver the 2030 Agenda.

South-South cooperation can never be a substitute for official development assistance or replace the responsibilities of the Global North set out in the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and the Paris Agreement.

South-South Cooperation must also involve young people, civil society, the private sector, academia and others, building innovative partnerships and extending the reach of initiatives. It must harness the potential of new technologies and digitalization that create opportunities and promote inclusivity.

South-South cooperation is a global exercise of all countries of the South to benefit everyone, including the Least Developed Countries. Every country, every partner has something to share or teach, whatever their circumstances.

This conference is a starting point.

Later this year, over the course of a week in September, Heads of State will gather in New York for the Sustainable Development Goals Summit and the Climate Action Summit. They will discuss Universal Health Coverage, Financing Sustainable Development and the Global Partnership to support Small Island Developing States.

All these meetings are aimed at accelerating implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement, which were born from a consensus on the common interests that bind us together.

Now is the time to stake out that common ground again and take bold and transformative action.

Together, we can achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, we can beat climate change, and transform the lives of people around the world.

I thank the Government and people of Argentina for hosting this Conference.

Forty years ago, the landmark international conference on South-South Cooperation resulted in the Buenos Aires Plan of Action for Promoting and Implementing Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries.

Since then, the Buenos Aires Plan of Action, known as BAPA, has been the foundation and reference point for South-South cooperation, based on principles of national ownership, equality and non-conditionality.

BAPA transformed the dynamics of international cooperation.

It highlighted the value of a different form of cooperation, based on the exchange of knowledge and appropriate technologies among nations facing similar development challenges.

Across the global South, we have seen remarkable advances since BAPA. Thanks in part to South-South cooperation, millions of women, men and children have been lifted out of extreme poverty. Developing countries have achieved some of the fastest economic growth rates ever seen and have set global standards for sustainable development.

As we gather again in Buenos Aires, we recognize and celebrate the long journey we have walked together.

But we also recognize our common challenges.

Today, we are here to ensure that South-South cooperation remains responsive to the evolving realities of global development and the changing needs of developing countries as they implement the 2030 Agenda.

We have an opportunity to develop and strengthen frameworks for South-South cooperation; improve systems and tools; increase transparency; and strengthen accountability.

*Extracts from a keynote address by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to the Conference on South-South Conference in Buenos Aires on March 20, 2019.

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Excerpt:

António Guterres, is Secretary-General of the United Nations

The post South-South Cooperation: a Path to Implementing UN’s 2030 Agenda appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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Participants taking part in the colloquium "The role of communication in the challenge of South-South cooperation", organised in Buenos Aires by Inter Press Service (IPS) Latin America, within the framework of the Second High-Level United Nations Conference on South-South Cooperation. Credit: Daniel Gutman/IPS

By Daniel Gutman
BUENOS AIRES, Mar 24 2019 (IPS)

Communication can be a key tool for the development of cooperation among the countries of the global South, but the ever closer relations between them do not receive the attention they deserve from the media.

This conclusion arose from the meeting organised by Inter Press Service (IPS) Latin America in Buenos Aires on Mar. 22, during the third and final day of the Second High-Level United Nations Conference on South-South Cooperation, which brought together representatives of almost 200 countries in the Argentine capital.

“The role of communication in the challenge of South-South cooperation” was the colloquium that brought together journalists, political analysts and officials from international organisations in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia."There is little coverage on what progress has been made in trade, technology or health cooperation among the countries of the South, which may seem very different among themselves but are quite similar in terms of their needs." -- Mario Lubetkin

The colloquium, organised by the regional branch of the international news agency IPS, was one of the parallel meetings to the conference and the only one dedicated to communication.

“Forty years ago, when the first conference, also held in Buenos Aires, approved the Plan of Action that forms the basis of South-South Ccoperation, there was awareness that communication was key,” said Mario Lubetkin, assistant director-general of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

“However, that notion has been lost and communication has not kept up with the changes that have taken place since then. This creates a vacuum for our societies,” said Lubetkin, the moderator of the meeting.

“There is little coverage on what progress has been made in trade, technology or health cooperation among the countries of the South, which may seem very different among themselves but are quite similar in terms of their needs,” concluded Lubetkin, a former director general of IPS, an international news agency that prioritises information from the global South.

In front of an audience made up mainly of journalists and other media workers, the debate was oriented towards the most appropriate tools for developing countries to better disseminate news from the global South, the latest term coined to define the group of nations in Africa, Latin America and Asia.

The president of IPS Latin America, Sergio Berensztein, stressed that “today there is an opportunity for nations like ours, thanks to the fact that there is no longer the biloparity of the Cold War era, nor the unipolarity of the years that followed. Today we are in a time of what we call apolarity.”

Berensztein stressed that at a time when there is a renaissance of protectionism and nationalism in the world, it is necessary for journalists to reinforce the idea of cooperation and ensure that a plurality of voices is heard on the international stage.

“We are living in a moment of crisis in which the old has not fully died yet and the new has not yet been fully born. That is why it is a time of uncertainty and accurate information is an element that favors the peaceful resolution of conflicts,” said Berensztein.

View of the room where the meeting on the role of communication in promoting South-South cooperation was held in Buenos Aires, organised by Inter Press Service (IPS) Latin America. The participants agreed that media outlets in the global South must generate attractive content that will allow them to combat a news agenda imposed by the countries of the industrialised North. Credit: Daniel Gutman/IPS

The power of the large media based in countries of the industrialised North, which tend to impose their journalistic agenda on a global level, was present in the debate as a worrying factor and as evidence of the failure of initiatives aimed at bringing about a new and more balanced information and communication order.

“What is the best way to foment the mass circulation of information about the global South, in order to escape this problem?” was one of the main questions that arose during the two-hour debate, held at a hotel in the Argentine capital.

From the city of Lagos, in a videoconference, the news director of the Nigerian Television Authority, Aliyu Baba Barau, called for strengthened cooperation between media outlets and journalists from developing countries, through the organisation of trips and mechanisms that favour the sharing of resources.

“Nigerian TV permanently shares its resources with other countries,” he said as an example of what can be done in terms of cooperation in media projects in the South.

“The mechanism of South-South cooperation and its advantages need to be understood not only by those who lead our nations, but also by the global community,” said Baba Barau.

Media representatives from China played a prominent role in the exchange of ideas and reflected the strong interest in Asia’s giant in achieving closer ties with Africa and Latin America.

Participants included Zhang Lu, deputy editor of China Daily, the country’s largest English-language news portal; Cui Yuanlei, Mexico correspondent for the Xinhua news agency, which distributes information in several languages (including Spanish); and Li Weilin, team leader of the CCTV television network in São Paulo, Brazil.

Li said the media in emerging countries should not depend on the information distributed by the news networks of industrialised countries, and said journalism should be a way to share experiences.

He said, for example, that during the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, CCTV produced coverage for people in Kenya to see how Jamaica’s star runners were trained, and for Jamaica to meet the Kenyan runners who perform so well in the long-distance and medium-distance races.

Roberto Ridolfi, Assistant-Director General of FAO’s Programme Support and Technical Cooperation Department, stressed that the countries of the South “do not have a shared past, but they do have the same future.”

Ridolfi said communication has a key role to play in the arduous path towards Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which seek to improve the quality of life of the world’s population and bring the South into line with the level of development in the North.

“The media and journalists have the mission of attracting audiences with news linked to sustainability. The proliferation of plastics in the oceans, the devastation of forests or the problems plaguing food production are issues that should be on the agenda,” he said.

Like the other panelists, Ridolfi lamented that societies are unaware of the South-South cooperation mechanisms that have emerged in recent years and said journalists have a lot of work to do in that regard.

“We have yet to demonstrate to the world the real value and benefits of South-South cooperation,” the FAO official said.

The need for African, Asian, Latin American and Arab media to get to know each other better was recognised as a necessity.

The local participants were particularly emphatic about this, since Argentina is a country with deep cultural ties with Europe, where little is known about what happens in the countries of the regions of the South, beyond catastrophes and conflicts.

The challenge, now that new technologies have democratised communication but have also put it at risk, is to generate information from the South in attractive formats that allow a better understanding of the realities and opportunities in developing countries and between the countries and regions of the South.

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