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In 2014, Hanna Hemrom sought the help of her teacher who persuaded some parents to let their daughters play football. They formed the Rangatungi United Women Football Academy, which teaches football to girls, helping them feel empowered. Courtesy: Young Bangla

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 18 2019 (IPS)

For too long, women and girls have been excluded from the playing field—literally. But now, many are paving the way in the fight against gender inequality through sports.

Sports is being increasingly used as a tool for empowering girls around the world, helping challenge gender norms on and off the field.

Studies have found that promoting sports among girls can not only help improve their physical health, but also build self-esteem, courage, and leadership.

Just last month, United Nations Women and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) joined forces to host the Women and Sports Awards which celebrated some of the change makers who have helped advance women and girls through sport.

One such role model is Po Chun Liu who overcame numerous obstacles to become the first female baseball umpire in Taiwan and make the Forbes’ 2018 list of the most powerful women in international sports.

She continues to create opportunities for girls and women to get involved with sport, helping “strike out gender discrimination.”

“It’s our responsibility to empower girls and women so they’ll realise their full potential and take charge of their life…to help a girl is to help a family,” said Liu.

IOC’s President Thomas Bach echoed similar sentiments, stating: “Sports give girls and women self-confidence…especially in countries where women’s rights aren’t a top priority yet, there’s a tremendous benefit to women’s and girls’ participation in sport.”

“In today’s world, no organisation or country can afford to let half of the population be left behind – either in sport or in society. Advancing women in and through sport is truly a team effort. By joining hands and working together, sport can inspire the necessary change and lead the way,” he added.

In the small village of Rangatungi in Bangladesh, Hanna Hemrom is leading the way to achieve this vision.

Formed in 2014, the Rangatungi United Women Football Academy teaches football to girls, helping them feel empowered.

After only seeing boys on the field, Hemrom sought the help of her teacher who persuaded some parents to let their daughters play football.

“When the other girls and I walked from home to the football fields, people use to taunt us. They said we would not be able to get married because we wear shorts and play football. But we still carried on playing,” she recalled, adding that they struggled to persuade others to play.

But with persistence and determination, girls continue to express interest and join the team, helping transform Hemrom and her fellow teammates’ lives.

“I am a Santal girl who used to be very shy and didn’t mix with Bengali girls. Football has brought me close to other girls – Muslim, Hindu and we all play together now,” Hemrom said.

“I think football is a good habit. Earlier girls in our village used to do nothing or just talk over phone or indulge in some silly things. We now play football with the girls and boys of our village,” she added.

In 2016, the Rangatungi United Women Football team competed in the under 14 national football competition and a year later, they became the champions in the Rangpur division.

Now the girls have even bigger dreams, aspiring to play for the national team and hoping to inspire others to dream big too.

Young Bangla, the largest youth forum in Bangladesh, recognised the Rangatungi United Women Football Academy as one of the top 10 youth initiatives in the country.

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A bakery shop in Cairo, Egypt. Egyptian flatbread, known as Aish baladi or country bread is on the table of all Egyptians, even the poorest, thanks to a smartcard system that assigns certain quantities to each family to avoid unnecessary waste.

By Maged Srour
CAIRO, Apr 18 2019 (IPS)

“Unfortunately the overall nutritional panorama of Egypt does not look well,” says Dr. Sara Diana Garduno Diaz, an expert concentrating on nutrition and biology at the American University of the Middle East. Diaz’s research focuses on dietary patterns and ethnic-associated risk factors for metabolic syndrome.

“While traditionally a country known for its lavish and welcoming food patterns, the quality of eating has been compromised,” she tells IPS.

Her findings are echoed by Oliver Petrovic, Chief of Health and Nutrition at the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Egypt: “Unhealthy foods such as sugary biscuits, candy, chips and cakes, make up one-third of the foods consumed daily by Egyptian infants.”

Child consumption of sugary snack foods was associated with a 51 percent higher likelihood of being part of a ‘stunted child and obese mother’ household, Petrovic tells IPS. “Only about half of children under two consume iron rich foods,” he adds.

In a country where one in five children are stunted or too short for their age, malnutrition accounts for 35 percent of the disease burden in children younger than five, warns the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

The definition of stunting, according to UNICEF, “is a measure of chronic malnutrition; it reflects inadequate nutrition over a long period, or effects of recurrent or chronic illnesses.” 

A 2018 UNICEF report on Egypt explains maternal and child malnutrition are influenced by inadequate dietary intake and disease. The report further states that inadequate dietary intake refers to poor access to “a balanced diet among the poorest sections of society, as well as poor dietary habits, lifestyle and lack of nutritional awareness across the population, as opposed to issues of food availability.”

It also notes that not being able to optimise breast feeding plays a role in this. In addition, poor sanitation and hygiene are also underlying causes of malnutrition. 

“Traditional eating practices of the entire region relied heavily on seasonal and local foods, slow cooking methods, communal eating and avoidance of food waste but more recently habits such as rushing meals and preference for cheaper sources of energy are becoming the norm,” Diaz points out.

Junk food is on the rise

And the negative consequences of this extends over time.

FAO estimates that between two and six percent of stunted children become stunted adults who are less productive than adults of normal stature. Increased morbidity and mortality; decreased cognitive, motor, language and socio-emotional development; and an increase in non-communicable diseases like diabetes and heart conditions are some of the short- and long-term effects of stunting.

“It is important to be aware of the crucial importance of a proper nutrition in the first years of life. They have a profound effect on a child’s future. These years are a critical early window of opportunity to provide the nutrition, protection, bonding and stimulation that children need to reach their full potential,” Petrovic tells IPS.

“Adequate nutrition, safe environments and responsive adult caregiving are the best ways to support healthy brain development,” he adds.

On the other hand, the undernourishment rate in the total Egyptian population between 2014 and 2016 was less than five percent according to the World Food Programme. Undernourishment, according to FAO, is “an estimate of the proportion of the population whose habitual food consumption is insufficient to provide the dietary energy levels that are required to maintain a normal active and healthy life.” 

The prevalence of five percent is the same as most industrialised countries, showing that the situation is not as critical as in sub-Saharan Africa. In Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi, for instance, one in every three people is undernourished.

Egypt and food challenges: high score in ‘food loss and waste’, poor score in ‘dietary patterns’

But the problem lies not only with Egypt. All Arab countries face complex food challenges, as identified by the Food Sustainability Index (FSI), developed by the Economist Intelligence Unit with the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition (BCFN).

Each country  is ranked according to food loss and waste, sustainable agriculture and nutritional challenges. According to the FSI Whitepaper 2018, Egypt ranked 50th out of 67 countries analysed worldwide for malnourishment, making it one of four countries not from sub-Saharan African that were ranked in the bottom 20.  The other three nations are Saudi Arabia, India and Indonesia.

However, overall Egypt scored moderately for nutritional challenges. The rather good result obtained in the ‘life quality’ category, did not sufficiently offset the very low results obtained in the ‘lifestyle’ and ‘dietary patterns’ categories.

Food loss and waste: the ‘smartcard system’ in Egypt

Arab countries all ranked low in the FSI with regards to food loss and waste. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) were ranked the 29th and 35th performing countries respectively for food loss and waste among 35 high-income countries, while Egypt ranked 10th out of 23 middle-income countries.

Egypt has specifically introduced a measure–a smartcard system–that has limited the problem nationally.

The programme, which impacts about 80 percent of the Egyptian population, establishes the maximum daily amount of subsidised bread that can be requested by each family member.

As a result, food waste has decreased considerably and other countries like Jordan are considering implementing this model to avoid waste on subsidised basic food items.

What can be done?

Egypt certainly lives in a situation of great vulnerability regarding nutritional challenges.

The aridity of the region places pressure on agriculture and the Nile alone is not enough to satisfy the needs of more than 90 million inhabitants. Much of the Nile water is used for agriculture and inefficient water management at local level can lead to scarcity of supply to entire communities. Moreover, climate change amplifies all these challenges.

The rise in prices of foodstuffs has also forced millions of Egyptians to adopt a less expensive but also less healthy lifestyle.

To reverse the current trends of malnutrition (high prevalence of stunting, increasing underweight and increasing overweight at the same time), requires careful consideration of the common causes and a complex, multisector approach to address the underlying causes.

“At the policy level, UNICEF and the World Bank have worked on better understanding of the problem,” Petrovic tells IPS.

“They have supported the Egyptian Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) in developing an investment case, with in-depth analysis of the situation and with the proposed and costed interventions needed to reduce stunting. UNICEF is also providing technical support to the Ministry of Health and Population in revising the Nutrition Strategy and developing the new and costed action plan for nutrition,” he adds.

Overall, the picture of food security in Egypt appears positive and negative at the same time. The situation must be kept under control by authorities, farmers and all Egyptians themselves.

“In my opinion it is not a question to be addressed exclusively by policymakers,” says Diaz.

“I believe the solution requires changes at an individual and community (home) level. These changes of course require support from policymakers, for example, through nutrition education programmes, micro-loans to boost local farmers and other local food production initiatives and infrastructure to improve food security.

“The policies may exist or be under developed but will remain useless unless they are accepted and implemented by the people.”

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Yemen home for the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 18 2019 (IPS)

President Donald Trump’s decision to veto a bi-partisan Congressional resolution to end US military involvement in a devastating Saudi-led four-year conflict in Yemen– is expected to escalate the ongoing war in the trouble-plagued region.

The weapons used by the Saudis in the reckless bombing of mostly civilian targets, including schools and hospitals, are largely from the United States: F-15 fighter planes, Bell helicopters, drones, air-to-surface missiles, M60 battle tanks, laser-guided bombs and heavy artillery.

Trump’s veto on April 16 is expected to ensure the uninterrupted flow of American-made weapons into a war zone described by the United Nations as the “world’s worst humanitarian disaster”.

In its latest report released last month, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said arms imports by Middle Eastern countries increased by 87 per cent between 2009–13 and 2014–18 and accounted for 35 per cent of global arms imports in 2014–18.

Saudi Arabia became the world’s largest arms importer in 2014–18, with an increase of 192 per cent compared with 2009–13.

Currently, the US is one of the largest arms suppliers to Saudi Arabia.

Citing conservative UN estimates, Ole Solvang, Policy Director at the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), told IPS some 17,700 civilians have been killed in the fighting since 2015.

An estimated 2,310 people have died from cholera according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), and 85,000 children under the age of five have died from starvation.

Solvang said more bombs and weapons in Yemen will only mean more suffering and death.

“By providing such extensive military and diplomatic support for one side of the conflict, the United States is deepening and prolonging a crisis that has immediate and severe consequences for Yemen— and civilians are paying the price,” he noted.

David Miliband, president of the International Rescue Committee, described Trump’s veto as “morally and strategically wrong-headed.”

This was Trump’s second veto, the first being the rejection of a bipartisan Congressional resolution aimed at overturning his declaration of “national emergency” at the southwestern border to keep immigrants and refugees from the US.

The death toll in Yemen has continued to rise.

Justifying US arms sales to Saudi Arabia, Trump has repeatedly said that if the US doesn’t sell weapons, the Chinese and the Russians will sell them.

Asked if this a valid argument, NRC’s Solvang told IPS : “I have no idea if the Chinese or the Russians would step in to replace US arms sales. As we now know, there is no shortage of countries willing to sell arms to the (Saudi-led) Coalition “ – judging by the latest revelations out of France and the previous information out of the UK.

“The argument is basically irrelevant, and avoids the question of whether the US wants to be complicit in supporting the killing of civilians in Yemen. Congress thinks the US should not be and that’s what’s important here,” he said.

Meanwhile, US arms supplies to the Saudi-led coalition are also viewed as a move directed at Iran which is allied with the Yemenis caught in the middle of a larger confrontation between Iran on one side and the US and the Saudis on the other.

Solvang said that was also Trump’s justification for the veto.

He pointed out that the US views Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, as an Iranian proxy force, and US aid to the Coalition is part of the wider struggle in the region against Iran.

“This is not in dispute and the analysis is enthusiastically embraced by key administration officials, such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has accused Ansar Allah of being the primary cause of the humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen.”

This does not, however, relieve the US of its obligations to do what it can to protect civilians. That includes putting as much pressure on the coalition as it can – privately and publicly – to abide by the laws of war, said Solvang.

And, ultimately, if the US sees that it is not able to shift coalition behaviour sufficiently, end the cooperation or risk becoming complicit in the abuses, these obligations are the same for all parties to the war in Yemen.

Asked about the rising casualties, he pointed out that in the first three months of this year alone, NRC’s analysis of attacks on civilians reveals that civilian casualties in Hajjah and Taiz alone have more than doubled since the Hodeidah ceasefire and Stockholm Agreement came into effect, with 164 and 184 people killed respectively.

An estimated 788 civilian casualties were reported nationwide since 18 December last year. The majority of them, 318 people, were killed by shelling. Across Yemen, a total of 1,631 houses, 385 farms, 47 local businesses and 13 schools were attacked in the same period.

Meanwhile, in a statement released April 17, the 15-member UN Security Council reiterated their call on the (warring) parties to fulfil their obligations under international human rights law and international humanitarian law, including ensuring the protection of civilians.

They expressed deep concern at the devastating impact this conflict has had on civilians, especially Yemeni children.

And they reminded all parties of their obligations towards children affected by armed conflict, and called on them to engage constructively with the Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict to implement their commitments and obligations.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

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Artisanal diamond miners at work in the alluvial diamond mines around the eastern town of Koidu, Sierra Leone. Credit: Tommy Trenchard/IPS

By Ivar Andersen and Linda Flood
STOCKHOLM, Apr 18 2019 (IPS)

The mining industry is one of the world’s most dangerous industries. Globally, the death toll is at least 14,000 workers per year. But how many lives are actually lost is something that neither trade unions, national governments or the United Nations know.

The men were sitting down for lunch in the canteen. January was about to turn into February but for them life would end then and there. Suddenly, a flood of mud and sludge swept in. The iron ore mine Feijao was destroyed when a dam in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais collapsed.

At least 206 people died in the accident, which could probably have been avoided. Leaked documents have shown that the directors of the multinational mining company Vale knew about the dangers of the dam.

Globally, the mining industry employs more than 24 million people.

Everywhere – from China to Kazakhstan – miners go to work with their lives on the line. Most of the people who die do so in silence.

The mining industry is full of informal jobs. And the number of fatal accidents is considerably higher than in most other sectors.

Getting a thorough picture of the number of fatalities is difficult. When Arbetet Global took a close look at the ten biggest mining countries, it turned out that not even welfare states like Canada had comprehensive statistics.

“In order to get these numbers you would have to contact every province, and then add the numbers together,” a representative from the trade organisation Mining Association of Canada writes.

Major mining accidents in 2019

January 19 – China
21 mine workers died when a coal mine collapsed in the Chinese province Shaanxi. Local authorities have announced that more inspectors will review the so-called high-risk mines this spring.

January 25 – Brazil
At least 206 people lost their lives in Brazil when a dam connected to the iron ore mine Feijao collapsed. More than two months later, 102 people are still missing.

February 6 – South Africa
At least 18 people died in a gas explosion in a coal mine in Mpumalanga, South Africa. The victims allegedly worked in the mine without permits.

February 26 – Indonesia
At least 24 people lost their lives in an illegal gold mine in Indonesia after a big earthquake. Rescue workers also found body parts that couldn’t be identified from four other people.

March 2 – India
Four mine workers died in an illegal coal mine in the state of Nagaland, in northern India. The cause of death is unknown but it is believed that the workers inhaled poisonous gas.

March 16 – China
20 mine workers died and 30 were injured in the Chinese city of Xilingol. The workers were on their way down into the mine when the breaks of their shuttle vehicle failed and the driver lost control of the vehicle.

Sources: New China News Agency, O Globo, The Times, Jakarta Post, Shillong Times
Glen Mpufane, Director of Mining at the global trade union IndustriAll, estimates that the mining industry claims thousands of lives every year.

“I would say 7,000–8,000.”

He stresses that the numbers are unreliable. Some counties have reliable statistics, but globally the reporting on fatal accidents in the workplace has major flaws.

“It’s a big handicap for us. Without reliable data it’s much harder to follow the development. And we don’t have the resources to compile our own statistics. Our investigative unit isn’t that large and we have 14 sectors to organise.”

The ILO’s department of statistics, based in Geneva, calls itself “the world’s leading source of labour statistics”. But not even here do we find comprehensive information. A quick search in the statistical database reveals huge gaps in the reporting.

“We don’t know all that much about work-related fatalities in the world. We only get data if it’s collected on a national level,” says Rosina Gammarano, economist and statistician at the UN agency.

If you want figures concerning employment, stock prices, or BNP-development, all you need to do is a quick google search.

For figures relating to health and safety in the workplace however, you’re much worse off.

Part of the explanation is that responsibility for the reporting is often divided among several departments, as opposed to, for example, financial statistics. But the main problem is something else, according to Rosina Gammarano.

“Compared to other parts of labour market statistics, calculating death tolls is a very complicated, because it’s such a sensitive issue. There are several reasons why it is so under-reported. It could be that employers are not reporting because they don’t want inspections, or that governments don’t want negative attention.”

For Rosina Gammarano and her colleagues, the unwillingness to report fatalities is a source of frustration.

“We tend to only care about what we can quantify. Without statistics, the governments, corporations, and the international community won’t care, because they wont know it’s a problem. Any if you don’t have numbers, it is also always possible for someone to claim that there hasn’t been any accidents.”

For the employees of the world, this is, literally, a question of life or death.

“The lack of statistics hides the fact that there are many, many serious accidents,” Rosina Gammarano says. “It’s only by counting them that you can make the problem visible and force politicians to pay attention to it. For us here at the department of statistics at the ILO, that’s the driving force, to make the invisible visible.”

She’s not overly optimistic.

“This isn’t something you can solve by putting an infinite number of statisticians in a room. It has to start with a genuine desire to shed light on the accidents and eliminate the risks. If governments and employers aren’t serious about wanting to improve safety, I doubt we’ll ever get good statistics.”

A decade ago, the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM), which has since merged with IndustriAll, estimated that the yearly number of deaths exceeded 12,000. The decrease is mainly due to lower death tolls in China.

In 2005, almost 6,000 workers lost their lives in the country’s coal mines alone, according to official statistics. In 2018, the number had decreased significantly, to 333.

The independent labour rights organisation China Labour Bulletin (CLB) deems that these numbers reflect an actual decrease, even though many deaths still go unrecorded.

“Those are the accidents and deaths that have been reported. There’s always a risk that some have been silenced, that happens regularly,” according to Director of Communication Geoffrey Crothall.

In the early 2000’s, the Chinese coal marked grew explosively. The country’s massive investments in infrastructure demanded cheap energy and regulations for this wildly growing sector was not prioritised.

According to CLB, the government has since increased the number of health and safety inspections, but Geoffery Crothall argues that the decreasing death toll mostly depends on reduced production.

Hundreds of thousands of coal mining jobs have disappeared as the Chinese economy has slowed down.

“The sector has been decreasing since 2015, demand has been dwindling, and coal workers have lost their jobs. That’s why we see fewer accidents.”

This pattern is visible all over the world. In the industrialised world, efforts to increase health and safety in the workplace has led to fewer deaths, but globally the decrease stems from the fact that the sector now employs fewer people.

In 1998, the ILO estimated that 36 million people were employed in mining globally, of which six million worked in the informal sector.

Today, the UN agency estimates that there are 24 million mine workers, including both formal and informal employment. ILO is currently collecting information as grounds for a new estimation on the informal sector, a process which involves several different ILO departments.

Trade unions say that the lack of reliable statistics complicate their work, while the ILO says that unwillingness to report deaths hides the true scope of the problem.

But even if all of this would change – if correct reporting of workplace accidents all of a sudden became a top priority on the global political agenda – would a complete picture of the human cost of the mining industry become clear.

When IndustriAll estimates the yearly amount of deaths to 7,000-8,000, it is referring to the formal sector. In the informal sector the uncertainty is too great for Glen Mpufane to dare say a number.

“But the death toll is definitely higher than in the formal sector,” he says.

“It’s a tragedy that is happening every day, with mine workers dying in Pakistan, Peru, Congo, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and they are never added into the official statistics. The deaths we hear about are just the tip of the iceberg.”

Translation: Cecilia Studer

 

This story was originally published by Arbetet Global

 

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Adding value to coconut at Aelan Ltd. in Vanuatu. Credit: Commonwealth Secretariat.

By Josephine Latu-Sanft
PORT VILA, Apr 18 2019 (IPS)

In the Pacific, coconut is king. Known as the ‘tree of life’, locals make use of every part of the tree to survive – the fruit for eating, husks for fuelling fires, fronds for making multiuse baskets, and the trunk for building houses.

Coconuts also drive economic growth, with Pacific Island countries supplying 50 per cent of the world’s copra trade. Papua New Guinea is the world’s largest exporter of copra – the dried coconut flesh from which oil is extracted – followed by Vanuatu.

However, fluctuating global copra prices can leave small Pacific economies very vulnerable.

Opening a Commonwealth workshop on micro, small and medium enterprises in Port Vila last week, Vanuatu’s Deputy Prime Minister Bob Loughman explained: “In 2017, Vanuatu exported 1.8 billion worth of copra (roughly USD 18 million). In 2018, the global price plummeted, and as a result the value of our copra exports fell by 75 per cent.

“My question is, why is Vanuatu still producing copra? Why can our farmers and communities not produce coconut oil instead?”

 

Vanuatu Deputy Prime Minister Bob Loughman wants the country to focus on value addition and moving up global value chains. Credit: Commonwealth Secretariat.

 

Learning from experience, the island nation of 280,000 people set out to transform the way it trades with others. The aim is to move up the ‘global value chain’ – the production cycle from the field to the final product – to target higher value exports.

These aspirations have been backed by EUR 20million from the European Development Fund for the Vanuatu Value Chain Programme. But as for many other small island states, there are several key hurdles to overcome.

 

Challenges and opportunities

Learning from experience, the island nation of 280,000 people set out to transform the way it trades with others. The aim is to move up the ‘global value chain’ – the production cycle from the field to the final product – to target higher value exports.

In Port Vila, Commonwealth acting head of trade competitiveness, Sujeevan Perera, told delegates about a cruise ship which once docked at a Caribbean destination and exhausted the country’s beer supply. It took a month before stocks were refilled.

He said: “Pacific suppliers are mostly micro, small and medium sized enterprises (MSMEs). Would they be able to fill the demands of, say, a large supermarket that needs several 50ft containers of a product each week?

“If they do not have the capacity, buyers and investors can move elsewhere.”

There are possible solutions: one is having a regional hub, supplied by other smaller countries for export to a bigger client. Otherwise, businesses could focus on high value niche markets.

The latter is a path local business owners are already actively pursuing.

Sandrine Wallez, manager of Alternative Communities Trade in Vanuatu (ACTIV) Ltd, is looking to export highly specialised goods such as vegan chocolate, virgin coconut oil and coconut jam.

She said: “Nowadays, people are looking for more organic products. Pacific products are already organic by default, so we should take advantage of this.

“However, we’re all facing the same problem in the Pacific: we are small, which is very difficult in this world market of bulk commodity and big volume.

“We have niche market products which have high value, but low volume, so to get out of the country is very expensive.  Sometimes it’s quite difficult to access some markets.”

She urged development partners to support Pacific businesses in finding the right customers, networking, and developing a Pacific-wide brand that competes with others across the globe.

 

Enhancing connectivity

The meeting in Port Vila on 10-11 April was the first to drill down into the issues faced by micro, small and medium enterprises in agribusiness, since the Commonwealth adopted its flagship programme on trade and investment. Known as the Commonwealth Connectivity Agenda (CCA), it aims to unlock $2 trillion worth of intra-Commonwealth trade by 2030.

Delegates agreed the coconut sector in the Pacific has great potential. However, it needs commitment and coordination from a range of players, including government and businesses.

CCA lead Kirk Haywood said: “This first meeting of the supply side connectivity ‘cluster’, or working group, acted as a platform for members to share experiences, forge networks, and exchange solutions for common problems.

“This will be backed by further research and strategies under the CCA that would help Commonwealth countries, especially small states, benefit more from global trade.”

The meeting agreed on an action plan that will outline opportunities and challenges for small and medium agribusinesses, explore financing options, and look at harnessing technology for business development.

 

The post Climbing the Coconut Value Chain in the Pacific appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Josephine Latu-Sanft is Senior Communications Officer, Commonwealth Secretariat

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Reclamation of desertified, sandified land on either side of the Sudu desert road in Wengniute County, China. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

By Daud Khan
ROME, Apr 18 2019 (IPS)

As China has moved from a poor isolated country to a major player in the world economic and political sphere, developing countries need to learn how to engage.  

In the first of this two part article I explored how best developing countries could benefit from the ongoing and planned flow of investments into their countries.

In this second part I look at some of the critical elements of China’s development experience and discuss what lessons could be drawn for policies and programmes in other developing countries. Given my background and experience I shall look at this issue from the perspective of agriculture and rural development, although the key ideas most likely also apply to other sectors.

Overall growth in China over the past 25 years has years has averaged 9% per year!!  This is while many other developing countries have struggled to keep growth above population increases.

The key to this fast economic growth is China’s amazingly high investment rate – over 40% in the past two and a half decades.  In comparison, most other developing countries struggle to reach investment rates of 15%.

Much of the investment and the associated growth occurred in manufacturing and associated services which is what make the country the workshop of the world.

However, it is important to recall that one of the key factors underpinnings China’ performance was strong agricultural performance with growth of around 4-5%. – this rate of growth in the agriculture sector is now a benchmark rate for other developing countries who wish to achieve rapid economic development.

It is important to recall that one of the key factors underpinnings China’ performance was strong agricultural performance with growth of around 4-5%. - this rate of growth in the agriculture sector is now a benchmark rate for other developing countries who wish to achieve rapid economic development

This relatively high growth had two consequences. Firstly, it helped maintain low prices, particularly for food and agricultural raw materials, and secondly, it allowed a massive release of labour from agriculture.

The proportion of total labour employed in agriculture in China dropped from around well over 50% in 1991 to around 16% in 2018, a transformation that only a few other countries in the world, such as Thailand and VietNam even come close to.

The low prices of food and agricultural raw materials, along with the transfer of labour out of agriculture, provided the cheap manpower and inputs that laid the foundation for China’s competitive growth in manufacturing and services.

China’s agriculture growth reflects higher yields and productivity improvements, rather than an increase in inputs.  Productivity increases took place along the full value chain, from postharvest handing to processing, packaging and marketing.

This was the result of investments in machinery, equipment, irrigation, storage and logistics, as well as a strong push on research and technology diffusion.   There were also changes in the structure of production which reflect changes in demand patterns particularly of richer, more urbanised consumers.

Output of traditional cereals such as wheat and rice fell, while that of fruits, vegetables, livestock products and fisheries increased rapidly.    China also integrated well with the world trading system, importing crops which were cheaper on the world market such as soyabean, needed for the rapidly expanding livestock sector; and cotton, needed for the textile industry.

Several factors stand out from China’s experience that are of importance to other developing countries. The most important of these are: high levels of public investments in key infrastructure, which eased and facilitated private investments; a strong push for technological change and innovation; and a dynamic approach to institutional reforms and critical policy issues such as liberalization of trade and markets. However, other developing countries may find that implementing these lessons will not be easy and will require substantial changes in their governments do business.

Developing countries need to raise investment rates, including in agriculture. However, low saving rates and poor taxation capacity limit the extent that this can be done. The funds needed to make transformative change will have to come from foreign sources and the only country that can do this at the scale required is China.

The saving’s rate in China is around 50% of GDP and continues to outpace investment providing huge resources to invest overseas. Ensuring that developing countries attract, and then make the best use of Chinese investments is thus critical. This is a topic I dealt with in my preceding paper.

At the same time, Governments in developing countries need to make far better use of the limited available public funds. In a number of countries, public funds from Government or donors are not spent in a timely manner due to bureaucratic and administrative inefficiencies.

When they are spent, much goes into corruption; on appeasing political constituencies particularly by providing low-skill, unproductive jobs; or funding activities that are best left to the private sector.  Developing countries also need to spend much more on research and technological innovation.

Overall China spends over 2% of GDP on research and development – a massive US$200 billion/year. Spending on agriculture is lower – about 0.6% of Agriculture GDP – but this still makes it the largest public agricultural research system in the world. The only other developing countries which have anything similar in size and complexity are Brazil – which spends over 1.5% to 2% of agriculture GDP on research, – and India which spend around 0.3%.

Actions to improve public spending, including larger allocations to research and technological innovations, require a mix of administrative and political actions which are the capacities of Governments of developing countries to implement if they so wish.

However, getting the right mix of policies especially with regard to broad development visions and strategies is more complex. In the unipolar world which emerged after the fall of the USSR, neo-liberalism provided the dominant development paradigm. The success of China, and countries such as Viet Nam, are providing an alternative to this neoliberal paradigm where the role of the state is stronger, and markets are used to guide local decisions but with strategic directions and key economic levers in the hands of the Government.

Most western academic institutions, traditional donor agencies and international UN agencies aligned themselves with the neoliberal view.  However, developing countries faced with a successful and emergent China need to think harder about their development strategies and policies.

This will require them to work closely not just with traditional donors and UN agencies but increasingly with academia, civil society and research institutions, at home as well as in China. As mentioned in the first of these two articles, this is something that developing country governments need to still need to learn how to do.

 

Daud Khan has more than 30 years of experience on development issues with various national and international organizations. He has degrees in economics from the LSE and Oxford; and a degree in Environmental Management from the Imperial College of Science and Technology.  

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A billboard for Nigeria's incumbent president Muhammadu Buhari and his deputy, who won re-election in February. (CPJ/Jonathan Rozen)

By Jonathan Rozen
NEW YORK, Apr 17 2019 (IPS)

When Nigeria’s incumbent president Muhammadu Buhari won re-election this year, he campaigned (as he did in 2015) on an image of good governance and anti-corruption. Billboards in the capital, Abuja, bore the smiling faces of the president–who first led Nigeria as military ruler from 1983-1985–and his vice-president Yemi Osinbajo, and called for voters to let them “continue” their work and take the country to the “Next Level.”

Under Buhari’s first elected term, CPJ documented detentions, assaults, and harassment of the press. In one particularly grave case, Jones Abiri, editor of the Weekly Source, was detained without charge in 2016 and denied contact with his family or a lawyer, for over two years.

Abiri was released in August, but in the months before the February general election, authorities continued to harass the press: Premium Times reporter Samuel Ogundipe was detained and prosecuted for refusing to reveal a source; Buhari stated publicly that “rule of law must be subject to the supremacy of the nation’s security and national interest”; and the military raided two Daily Trustoffices, according to media reports and CPJ research.

CPJ spoke with five Nigerian journalists about their views on press freedom and the potential challenges in Buhari’s second elected term. Their answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

CPJ also attempted to contact the government for comment. When contacted by phone on April 12, presidential spokesperson Garba Shehu told CPJ that he would call back later that day. CPJ’s subsequent calls went unanswered. CPJ also attempted to contact Minister of Information Lai Mohammed, but its calls and a WhatsApp message went unanswered.

Nurudeen Abdallah, investigations editor of the Daily Trust, pictured outside the newspaper’s headquarters in Abuja. The paper was raided by the military in January. (CPJ/Jonathan Rozen)

Nurudeen Abdallah, investigations editor, Daily Trust, Abuja:

You know Buhari was a military ruler. When he was campaigning for election in 2015, he promised Nigerians that he’s a converted democrat. In the last four years he didn’t live up to his promise that journalists will be safe under his democratic administration.

Our offices here in Abuja and our regional office in Maiduguri in northeast Nigeria were raided, closed down and journalists were taken away. So many bloggers are undergoing prosecution across the states by governors that are under the same party platform as him. He did not live up to expectations.

At the beginning I expect [the administration] will scale down the attacks, because they won the elections. But toward the next election, they will likely scale it up. At that time, they [won’t] want stories they consider negative to the government to be published.

Certainly they will use their normal state apparatus: denial of advertisements, spying on journalists, and sometimes outright attack. But we have our constituency, our readers. We have to tell them the truth, not what the government wants.

I’m only hoping that the people in power–the presidency and the state governors–will see reason and see journalists as partners in progress. The same people who are complaining against our reports now were the same people that were in the opposition. It’s a vicious cycle, but they should know that the people have the right to know. They should be responsible to the electorate.

They can only be there in power for a limited time. General Sani Abacha [Nigeria’s military ruler from 1993-1998] was here. Where is he today? The journalists that were hounded into prison, the newspapers he closed down, they are back in full throttle. But he is no more. That is just my message. You cannot muzzle the media. Maybe you can muzzle it for some time, but not forever.

Jaafar Jaafar, of the Daily Nigerian, pictured outside the office of his newspaper in Abuja. (CPJ/Jonathan Rozen)

Jaafar Jaafar, editor-in-chief, Daily Nigerian, Abuja:

Buhari’s first term was really bad. A number of journalists were incarcerated for no just cause. I can remember the case of Jones Abiri, who was detained for more than two years in the secret service dungeon.

I fear for press freedom in Nigeria, as the Buhari administration may get emboldened. The president has his final term now. He is not seeking re-election. My fear is that this administration in the next four years may not condone some publications. Anything that does not favor the government, or the government doesn’t like, they may descend on.

Just a few days before the election, they laid siege to the Daily Trust offices, took computers, and only recently returned them. What about after the election? What do you think will happen?

In November, the Kano state government filed a civil suit against me for publishing videos of the governor of Kano state, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, allegedly receiving bribes. Government officials tried to persuade me not to publish the videos. But I stood my ground and I published.

I have received a lot of threats [from people saying] “We know where you are, and we know how to deal with you.” I went into hiding for about a month. Some people that I knew in the government warned me that there are some plans against me, that I should just leave my house or I shouldn’t go to Kano, my home state. I didn’t go to Kano during this election, even though I registered there to vote.

I believe the only thing that may reduce the crackdown on newspapers or crackdown on the press is if agencies like CPJ will be very watchful over the next four years. Just put your eyes on Nigeria.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: In his defamation complaint, the governor said that the reports were false, according to court documents seen by CPJ. Salihu Tanko Yakasai, a spokesperson for Ganduje, told CPJ he was unable to comment on Jaafar’s case because it is already in the court. He said that “no effort was made” by the government to prevent Jaafar from publishing. In October, Yakasai told CPJ there was “no threat from the government side” and “no reason to believe there is any threat” against Jaafar.]

Evelyn Okakwu, a reporter for Premium Times, pictured at the Center for Investigative Journalism in Abuja. (CPJ/Jonathan Rozen)

Evelyn Okakwu, judiciary and human rights reporter, Premium Times, Abuja:

The challenges for the next four years are not particular to the media, but to the entire system in Nigeria. You find out that where there is a perceived score to settle between the government and an individual or a group perceived to be “enemies of the government,” a government agency is used to track down those people.

In January 2017, I was arrested alongside Premium Times publisher Dapo Olorunyomi for a story. But there was a loud, general consensus in Nigeria and in the international media against it, and in the end the army even apologized. So we are getting somewhere.

What happened during Samuel Ogundipe’s arrest in August is worrisome. Unless we come to that point that institutions act only by the law, then we will continue to go around and around this circle, where people in power believe they can just use a government agency–be it the police or the Department of State Security–to just hijack a person they feel is a threat, and get them locked up.

Zainab Suleiman Okino sits at her desk in the Blueprint office in Abuja. (CPJ/Jonathan Rozen)

Zainab Suleiman Okino, editorial board chair, Blueprint, Abuja:

Although the government won their re-election, they are still not comfortable. They try to muzzle journalists who have views different from theirs. Going forward there’s palpable fear in the air, fear that Buhari’s past as Nigeria’s military leader might be re-enacted.

Jones Abiri for example. The government said they suspected he was doing some form of terrorism, or he was aiding or abetting terrorism. For them to be able to put him in prison for two years, they had to read political meaning into his offense, which I do not think is the truth. So once in a while we have things like that. But by and large the Nigerian press is fairly open.

Martin Ayankola, editor of Punch, at the headquarters of the newspaper, known as ‘Punch Place,’ outside Lagos. (CPJ/Jonathan Rozen)

Martin Ayankola, editor, Punch, Lagos:

I would say that the situation is not terrible, although there have been attempts to curtail press freedom. I think that if you do your job right, you are also respected.

Journalists are not supposed to make people in government look good. That is not our business. We are supposed to put out information we have. [The government] shouldn’t see us as an extension of their public relations departments.

The biggest challenge that I see is the attempt to silence the opposition. People should understand that there won’t be any democracy without opposition.

There are subtle ways to create problems for the press. For instance, the government may decide to hit the revenue of the papers, because the government is a very big advertiser. That will be a subtle way to arm twist you, to get you to dance to their tune. You always see the arrests, but there are also subtle attempts to also cow the media.

[Reporting from Abuja and Lagos, Nigeria.]

*Jonathan Rozen has worked in South Africa, Mozambique, and Canada with the Institute for Security Studies, assessing Mozambican peacebuilding processes. He was a UN correspondent for Inter Press Service (IPS) and has written for Al Jazeera English and the International Peace Institute. He speaks English and French.

The post ‘You Cannot Muzzle the Media’: Nigerian Journalists on Press Freedom under Buhari appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Jonathan Rozen is Africa Research Associate at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)

The post ‘You Cannot Muzzle the Media’: Nigerian Journalists on Press Freedom under Buhari appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Nabela Zainab prepares tea on the biogas stove in her home in Faisalabad, Pakistan. The stove has eased indoor air pollution and restored her health. Credit: Saleem Shaikh/IPS

By Mushahid Hussain*
ISLAMABAD, Apr 17 2019 (IPS)

Pakistan, which has been listed as the 7th most vulnerable country affected by climate change, is now seriously tackling the vagaries of weather, both at the official as well as non-official level.

Pursuant to an initiative launched by the Pakistan Parliament’s Upper House, the Senate, which specially entrusted a sub-Committee of the Standing Committee on Climate Change to focus on “Green and Clean” Islamabad, media, civil society and students have taken up the cudgels on combating climate change.

On April 10, over 500 students and faculty of one of the prominent universities of Islamabad, COMSATS, launched the “Say No to Plastics” campaign which includes distribution of flyers underlining hazards of plastics use, backed by a door-to-door awareness campaign as well as cautioning against plastic littering.

This is just one component of the campaign against environmental degradation in Pakistan, the seeds of which were planted in 2014 when a similar Senate sub-Committee declared the “Right to a clean, green and healthy environment” as a fundamental Human Right. That sub-Committee also published Pakistan’s first Media Manual on Environmental Degradation and Climate Change. This was the outcome of the first-ever Public Hearings on environment and climate change in Pakistan’s parliament which incidentally is the first Green Parliament in the world since it is powered by solar panels, a gift from China.

According to experts, Pakistan has faced around 150 freak weather incidents as a result of climate change in the past 20 years: flash floods, smog in winter, forest fires in summer, melting glaciers, freaky heatwaves, landsides, displaced population, etc. During floods in 2010-11, almost 10% of Pakistan’s population was displaced in 2 provinces, one in the North and another in the South. Last year, the costs of extreme weather as a consequence of climate change, were listed at $ 384 million and in the past 20 years, there has been a cost of almost $ 2 billion to the national economy because of the ravages of climate change. Efforts are being undertaken to mitigate the problem. For instance, some $ 120 million funds have been expended in the country in the past 5 years to arrest forest degradation and to promote tea plantations . There has also an effort to bring about a more eco-friendly energy mix for Pakistan.

Pakistan has an installed capacity of over 30,000 MG of electricity. Out of this, 60% is being generated through imported fuel including furnace oil, coal etc. while 30% is via hydropower, 6% nuclear and only 4% generated on renewable energy. The share of renewable energy would be enhanced to 25% of the total by 2025 and 30% by 2030.

In this context, an interesting conference convened in the last week of March in the picturesque British countryside retreat at Wilton Park, organised by the Climate Parliament, a UK-based body promoting cooperation on climate change among parliamentarians. A large number of parliamentarians from Asian countries like Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, China, Japan, Pakistan and Mongolia participated, as well as leading renewable energy experts plus the International Solar Alliance.

Termed as the Green Grids Initiative, the purpose was to discuss and educate the participants on steps that need to be taken for a “renewable-powered planet”. The focus was also on regional grid interconnectivity so that regions can promote cooperation in renewable energy. An interesting side event to this conference was a comprehensive briefing on promoting “Green Cooking”, since fuels such as wood, charcoal, coal and kerosene are amongst the climate pollutants emitted from traditional rural area cooking in most Third World countries. Globally, up to 25% of black carbon emissions come from household cooking, heating and lighting. In many Asian and African countries, household cooking can account for as much as 60-80% of black carbon emissions. Therefore, the efforts to mitigate the consequences of climate change and environmental degradation also require an easily accessible industrial and technological approach that would make clean cooking accessible to the 3 billion people who live without it.

Among the initiatives for the way forward proposed at the meeting at Wilton Park, was the need for a special bank for renewable energy similar to the special bank established for infrastructure, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), so that availability of capital serves as an opportunity to promote renewable energy . That would be an incentive for developing countries to promote easily available renewable energy in their energy mix. Another proposal that emerged in the context of South Asia was to implement the already existing SAARC Framework Agreement for Energy, which focuses on electricity, signed by all members of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in 2014.

While there are bureaucratic bottlenecks plus issues of capacity and legality, what emerged from the discussion was also the need for the right vision and political will to take this battle for a green economy forward. Political conflicts serve as an impediment for regional energy cooperation while influential lobbyists like the Oil Lobby serve as a roadblock against renewable energy utilization. For decades, for instance, Pakistan was hostage to imported oil with a whopping bill of $ 20 billion per annum, while little or no effort was undertaken to look at cleaner or cheaper sources of energy. The key role in this context is, therefore, both of parliamentarians in providing the vision and the will as well as media and civil society to promote greater awareness and expose machinations of powerful vested interests.

It is heartening that in the context of Pakistan, there has been accelerated citizen activism like the “Say No to Plastics” campaign. In the past five years, citizens and parliamentarians of Islamabad have gone to the Supreme Court against attempts by builders and the construction lobby to alter the master plan of Islamabad, against the cutting of trees and building of high rises on green areas to benefit the real estate lobby. In both instances, the Supreme Court upheld the citizens plea to preserve, protect and promote a clean and green environment in Pakistan’s Federal Capital, Islamabad, which is relatively young at a little over 50 years, sprawling among the green hills that make it one of the most beautiful capitals of the world. The good thing is that the battle to combat Climate Change has now been taken up by not just the government but the people, civil society, parliamentarians, media and concerned citizens, who have organised themselves for this cause including such proactive group of professional women volunteers who call themselves “Green Force” to lobby on environmental issues, which gives hope that this battle can and will be won in a country that is faced with some of the gravest challenges to its future due to climate change.

*Mushahid Hussain was Bureau Chief of the Inter Press Service (IPS) during 1987-1997 & in 2014, he launched the first Public Hearings on Environment & Climate Change in the Pakistan Parliament. As Senator, he chairs the Senate SubCommittee on ‘Green and Clean Islamabad’ which has launched a campaign to ban plastic use in the Pakistani capital.

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A year since Nicaragua spiralled into a socio-political crisis, human rights leaders have called on the country to refrain from violence and uphold the human rights of its citizens. Credit: Eddy López/IPS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 17 2019 (IPS)

A year since Nicaragua spiralled into a socio-political crisis, human rights leaders have called on the country to refrain from violence and uphold the human rights of its citizens.

In light of blatant, persistent human rights violations, United Nations agencies and human rights groups have urged the Nicaraguan government to halt its brutal crackdown on its citizens.

“Throughout the last year, the government of President Ortega has brutally and repeatedly repressed anyone who dares to stand up to his administration. The Nicaraguan authorities continue to violate the rights to justice, truth and reparation of hundreds of victims, while also preventing civil society organisations and international human rights monitors from working freely in the country,” said Amnesty International’s Americas Director Erika Guevara-Rosas.

“This has got to stop,” she added.

“Violations…coupled with the lack of accountability for unlawful excesses by members of the security forces, have stoked rather than reduced the tensions in the country,” said High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet.

After thousands took to the streets to protest controversial social security reforms in April 2018, demonstrations were quickly met with violence by state security forces and pro-pro-government armed groups.

According to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, over 300 people have been killed, more than 2,000 injured, and 2,000 arrested.

The Central American country has also since banned all protest and censored media in order to prevent any government criticism.

In December, Nicaraguan police raided TV station 100% Noticias and arrested station director Miguel Mora and news director Lucia Pineda Ubau, both of whom are being held on charges of “inciting hate and violence.”

At least 300 others, including human rights defenders, face charges of terrorism.

The High Commissioner particularly expressed concern over reports of torture and ill-treatment of detainees, including recent reports of authorities beating and using dogs and tear gas on detained protestors in La Modelo prison.

Government police and shock troops besiege a protest by medical students trying to organise on Sept. 12 in the city of León, 90 km west of Managua. Credit: Eddy López/IPS

As major protests are expected to mark the anniversary of the start of the crisis later this week, many fear another violent reaction.

The targeting of dissidents and protestors have prompted a massive exodus as an estimated 60,000 people have fled to neighbouring countries, including Costa Rica.

Among those seeking asylum are students, opposition figures, journalists, doctors, human rights defenders and farmers.

According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), many families are taking extreme measures to cross the border after being persecuted or receiving threats making it “overwhelmingly a refugee flow.”

After several attempted attacks and being informed that he was wanted “dead or alive,” Manuel left his banana plantations and fled to Costa Rica with his pregnant wife Andrea and their two children.

“We lived with the anxiety of not knowing when they would break into the house to get us…I’m sure if I go home they will hurt me,” Manuel told UNHCR.

Taking great lengths to avoid police, Manuel took a small boat along the Pacific Coast while Andrea walked through a back route of muddy fields with the children.

While they are now safe in the neighbouring country, Manuel and Andrea’s children are still haunted by their last days in Nicaragua where they were hunted by gun-carrying men in uniform.

“My youngest son hugs me every time he sees the Costa Rican police because they look like the officials who attacked us. He hugs me and says that he takes care of his daddy,” Manuel said.

While the Nicaraguan government and the opposition Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy negotiated two pacts, including one on the release of detained protestors, the agreements have still yet to be implemented in its entirety and further negotiations have stalled.

“The fact that the negotiations have come to a standstill and the Government is not honouring the agreements reached so far, is undermining the possibility of establishing a genuine inclusive dialogue to solve the serious social, political and human rights crisis facing the country,” Bachelet said.

“A solution to the crisis must address the institutional flaws and strengthen the rule of law…it is of paramount importance that a thorough and transparent accountability process is established to ensure justice, truth and reparations, as well as a clear guarantee of non-repetition,” she added, highlighting the need to put victims of human rights violations at the heart of negotiations.

Guevara-Rosas urged the government to respect the public’s rights including the right to assembly, stating: “The Nicaraguan government must put an immediate end to its strategy of repression and release all the students, activists and journalists detained solely for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly….the brave people of Nicaragua will not be silenced.”

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A pair of combines harvesting soybeans in the US. Courtesy: World Resources Institute.

By James Jeffrey
WASHINGTON, D.C., Apr 17 2019 (IPS)

Water supply has long been a key issue in California. Today it is no less critical, especially given the years of drought that California is experiencing, lending additional impetus to assessing the impact of agriculture on water.

The conventional estimate is that 80 percent of the water used in California flows into the state’s multi-billion-dollar agricultural sector.

But it goes way beyond water. As in California, agriculture in the United States is dominated by large, specialised crop and animal farms that focus on short-term productivity, often at the cost of creating other environmental problems, as well as public health issues.

Increasingly, there is recognition that societies need to work towards an agriculture that is greener, cleaner, and provides better quality, more nutritious food that not only feeds people but improves their diet. This is not a new idea, rather one that has been ignored in our impatient, on-demand society, as well as one that has had to compete against a food and diet industry valued at 66 billion dollars in the U.S., with all the vested interests that go with it.

“It is not necessarily the size of holdings or the level of mechanisation and industrialisation that is a problem, rather it is the way agriculture is practiced, when this has unintentional impacts on the environment,” Jean-Marc Faurès, a former senior advisor on sustainable agriculture at the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), tells IPS.

“In the past, we have looked at productivity as the sole metrics to measure success in agriculture. Measuring agricultural sustainability forces us to go beyond productivity only and include other dimensions, like the environmental, but also the social dimension.”

To better help people understand where the problem areas are occurring, the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition Foundation (BCFN), a non-profit research centre studying the causes and effects on food created by economic, scientific, societal and environmental factors, has produced a food sustainability index profile for the U.S. and another 66 countries.

Each country profile focuses on three pillars—food loss and waste, sustainable agriculture, nutritional challenges—each of which is broken into multiple relevant categories that are rated green, yellow or red, to indicate progress: green being good, red being bad.

The U.S. score for sustainable agriculture was average due to the land category having repeatedly low scores across indicators such as the impact on land of animal feed and biofuels, agricultural subsidies and diversification of agricultural systems (the U.S. earned a high score for the food loss and waste pillar, but only performed moderately well in terms of nutritional challenges).

“A major issue in the U.S. is the low proportion of land set aside for organic farming as opposed to the large amount used for bio-fuel and animal feed,” BCFN’s Katarzyna Dembska tells IPS. “The large demand for animal feed is directly linked to the meat supply in the country: the additional 225 grams of meat available per capita per day—compared to the recommended intakes—makes the U.S. availability of meat for consumers among the highest in the world.”

Lack of diversification is another problem in the U.S., and around the world, with people fed from just a very limited basket of crops and animals, Faurès says. This increases the vulnerability of agricultural systems to unexpected events—climatic, pests, or market related—but also means that people eat food that is not diversified and is too rich in carbohydrates and not enough in vitamins.   

“It is a paradox in a way that many developing countries show much more diverse production systems than developed countries,” Faurès says. “This is in part due to the imperative need for farmers to diversify sources of income and reduce risks related to shocks.”

He emphasises, however, that he isn’t recommending turning to be more like those farming models, which have many of their own problems.

“Moving towards more sustainable agriculture takes different shapes according to your starting point,” Faurès says. “In poor, unproductive areas, the focus is on increasing productivity and reducing vulnerability; in more advanced, input-intensive systems, sustainability implies a move towards greener production systems that make better use of the resources that our ecosystems offer and progressively reduce their negative impacts on the environment.”

Food subsidies in the U.S. are often called out for sustaining problems, scoring a red in the food sustainability index profile.

“The bigger issue with subsidies is what they have failed to do, and how they are underachieving in terms of what they could be doing,” Timothy Searchinger, a research scholar at Princeton University and for the World Resources Institute, tells IPS. “Agriculture has been grossly under regulated and under incentivised on the environmental side.”

The result has seen environmental costs incurred and opportunities missed for the likes of improving land use.

“Even though the U.S. is blessed with an abundance of farm-friendly country, it’s still limited,” Ari Phillips, an environmental journalist, tells IPS. “Agricultural land is extremely unaccommodating for wildlife and can lead to nearby chemical contamination issues.”

There are good examples of countries succeeding in cutting back on such environmental consequences, Searchinger says. Costa Rica has made significant progress in reducing deforestation that was occurring as a result of subsidies paid for grazing, while New Zealand has basically gone “cold turkey” on subsidies and as a result improved land use and agriculture.

He notes that when considering all this, it should be borne in mind there are different ways of defining progress and hence it should not be forgotten that agriculture has achieved what it set out to do.

“There’s been stunning progress in making food—the advances really have been staggering,” Searchinger says. “Twenty-five years ago, many people in China were desperately hungry—that’s been turned around, though with gigantic environmental consequences.”

The implications globally are clear enough to cause grave concerns. The UN has predicted that as soon as 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population could be dealing with water scarcity. Increasingly in the news are stories of water-starved communities around the world—from Houston to Puerto Rico to Cape Town—indicating that our trust in the tap is far less dependable than we assume.

“Drought-prone states like Texas and California were already water stressed before climate change came around,” Phillips says. “Overcoming the combined challenges of population growth and reduced precipitation in a limited amount of time will be tough. Agriculture will have to play a big part in this transition. If it gets bad enough, there could be permanent water rationing.”

Tackling these sorts of problems, and how agriculture influences them, is highly complex due to all the interlinking factors.

“People need to be better educated about the water embedded in the food that they eat and the products that they use,” says Jack Ceadel with Global Water Intelligence. “We need to adopt new technology and invest properly in our water infrastructure and making our cities more efficient and resilient.”

At the same time, it requires better appreciation of the sorts of hard data provided by the likes of Barilla’s food sustainability index profiles, rather than being swayed by what might look good. Searchinger notes that though people may prefer more traditional farms that appear more in harmony with the surrounding environment, even those types of farms have transformed the environment significantly, while larger, more ugly farms may have less impact environmentally per tonne of food produced.

Commentators note that changing the food culture of any country like the U.S.—in its case with 328 million keen and diverse appetites—will require redirecting, reframing and sometimes remaking traditional habits, expectations and the physical environment, as well as what is taken as normal and acceptable in people’s lives.

“The first thing is to feed people,” Searchinger says. “But you have to do it with more environmental sensitivity.”

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By Anthony Annett and Joshua Lipsky
WASHINGTON DC, Apr 16 2019 (IPS)

Sustainable development encapsulates the idea that material progress must always go hand in hand with social inclusion and respect for the environment.

Delinking economic growth from the other two pillars would be an act of self-sabotage. Ancient Rome offers us a case study of how tragedy might play out—and how it can be avoided.

The Roman Republic lasted 500 years because its institutions were supple enough to adapt to two great challenges—internal conflict between aristocrats and the masses and external conflict with rival states and integration of conquered peoples.

Despite constant tensions, Romans were bonded by shared values—a sense of honor rooted in public service and a commitment to their conception of the common good.

For generations, the center held—until it did not. At first, the changes were subtle. Territorial expansion—at the beginning of the second century BCE, the Republic stretched from Gaul to Greece—brought an influx of wealth in the form of tribute payments, taxes from new provinces, and the development of metal mines.

A new class of super-wealthy Romans created financial instruments to package debt, resell it, and invest the profits in infrastructure projects. Sound familiar?

In many ways, this was an ancient form of globalization, both trade and financial. And the boom times drove the population of Rome to nearly 1 million by the first century BCE, making it the first city on earth to reach that milestone.

But all was not well. The new wealth was not being shared widely. A mass influx of slaves upended the labor market and left soldiers and citizens out of work and increasingly angry.

At the same time, as noted by Edward Watts in his new book, Mortal Republic, wealth accumulation began to supplant personal virtue and service to the state as the main measure of success.

And the elites did not spend their newfound wealth merely on villas and luxury goods. Unlike their forefathers, they engaged in large-scale bribery and corruption to secure political honors and offices, and judicial impunity.

Perhaps no one person embodies the dynamic of the age better than Marcus Licinius Crassus. His fortune—generated largely by corrupt property speculation—was so vast that it matched the entire Roman treasury. And as bankroller for hundreds of politicians, he gained unrivaled influence from his wealth.

It wasn’t long before the fault lines ruptured. In previous centuries, the elites responded to popular discontent by sharing power and rebalancing the political equilibrium. But under the sway of self-interest and corruption, the consensus unraveled.

The same pattern played out again and again during the Republic’s last century—populist anger running into patrician intransigence, leading to overreach by both sides, often ending in violence.

The cycle started with the Gracchus brothers, Tiberius and Gaius. Tiberius pushed for the redistribution of land to the poor. But his reform plan triggered conservative opposition, and he was clubbed to death. His younger brother, Gaius, picked up the mantle, focusing on social protection—in the form of subsidized grain—and fighting corruption through judicial reform. He too was killed.

Following the chaos, Gaius Marius arose as the champion of the poor, riding a wave of popular disgust at senatorial corruption.

But he ultimately allied with those willing to use violence for political means, prompting a patrician backlash and the dictatorship of Sulla, who did the unthinkable—lead an army across the Roman city limits. His reign was one of mass proscriptions, property confiscation, and neutering of plebian power.

In the years that followed, unscrupulous patricians such as Cataline and Clodius sought to advance their own careers by exploiting popular frustration—including by casual recourse to violence and intimidation.

All of this paved the way for Julius Caesar, who used strong-arm tactics to carry out populist reforms. But after his victory in a civil war, Caesar too assumed the title of dictator and became increasingly autocratic. His murder prompted another round of civil bloodletting, effectively killing the Republic.

Over the course of the Republic’s fateful final century, a succession of leaders smashed norms previously thought inviolable. Political violence became routine. The institutions of state were weaponized to persecute opponents. The mob grew increasingly angry. In turn, strongmen offered to restore order. All because of the festering wounds of inequality and corruption.

Following the Republic’s collapse, Rome enjoyed a remarkable resurgence—although the peace was secured in part through the suppression of democratic institutions.

Edward Gibbon, the great chronicler of the fall of Rome, deemed the apex of empire in the second century CE to be the period in history when “the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous.”

What Gibbon did not know was that favorable fortune owed much to a favorable climate. As documented by Kyle Harper in a remarkable new book, The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire, the period between roughly 200 BCE and 150 CE is now known as the Rome Climate Optimum—a warm, wet, and predicable climate uniquely favorable to the empire’s key agricultural crops.

But by the third century, the climate became cooler, dryer, and more unpredictable, with more frequent droughts and crop failures. By the middle of the fifth century, the Late Antique Little Ice Age had arrived.

A changing climate reduced the empire’s resilience to a variety of shocks, including pandemics. Smallpox struck in the second century, and a virulent outbreak that may have been Ebola followed in the third. In the mid-sixth century, the Plague of Justinian—the first known incidence of bubonic plague—probably killed half of the empire’s population.

Recent evidence shows the role of climate change. The decade before the outbreak of plague saw some of Europe’s coldest temperatures in two millennia, brought about by a sequence of massive volcanic eruptions.

This likely forced gerbils and marmots out of their natural habitats in central Asia, causing the bacteria-bearing fleas they carried to infect the black rat, whose population had exploded along Rome’s expansive network of trade routes.

To be sure, the fall of Rome had many fathers. It remains perhaps the most overdetermined event in human history. But it seems increasingly clear that the natural world impinging on the human world was a major culprit.

Weakened by these hostile forces of nature, the empire started to unravel in the third century. This was a period marked by persistent political instability, pressure on the frontiers, and a fiscal crisis compounded by currency debasement.

After a genuine economic revival in the fourth century, the natural environment intervened once more—severe drought in Eurasia spurred the migrations of the Huns, whom Harper calls “climate refugees on horseback.”

This started a domino effect of mass migration across the Roman frontier, ultimately leading to the collapse of the western empire in the fifth century. That was followed in the sixth century by the ugly trifecta of climate-change-induced crop failures, catastrophic plague, and ruinous war. It was during this period that Rome’s population fell to a mere 20,000—and the Roman forum became the campo vaccino , the cow field.

The Roman Republic and the Roman Empire both fell because they failed the sustainable development test. There is a cautionary lesson for our own times in how that failure played out—a breakdown in time-honored social norms, entrenched political polarization driven by economic inequality, repudiation of the common good by elites, and environmental havoc leading to disease and disaster.

We should take this lesson to heart, especially as we hear history rhyming in ways that are eerie and disconcerting. This demonstrates the utmost urgency of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, the global call to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure peace and shared prosperity. The Roman experience offers a window into our possible future if we fail to act.

There are some important differences between our economy and that of ancient Rome, of course. Ours is vastly wealthier, healthier, more inclusive, and more resilient.

The Romans did not have the ability to eliminate all forms of material deprivation, even though they could and should have better handled the inequalities arising from their own experience with globalization. We have it within our power to do both.

We also have it within our power to solve the problem of climate change, by far the greatest challenge of our generation. The Romans were very much at the mercy of nature. Their activity was not the driving force behind the shifting climate, so they could do little to slow or stop its march. But since human activity is causing climate change today, it can be fixed by changing our behavior—delivering a zero-carbon energy system over the next three decades.

The bottom line is that sustainable development is of enduring importance—whether we are talking about 130 BCE, 530, or 2030.

The post Ancient Rome Offers Lessons on the Importance of Sustainable Development appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Anthony Annett is an assistant to the director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Joshua Lipsky is a senior communications officer in the IMF’s Communications Department.

The post Ancient Rome Offers Lessons on the Importance of Sustainable Development appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Alexandra Ellerbeck and Avi Asher-Schapiro
NEW YORK, Apr 16 2019 (IPS)

After a seven-year standoff at the Ecuadorean embassy in London, British police last week arrested WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange–a development press freedom advocates had long feared.

For years, journalists and press freedom advocates worried the U.S. would prosecute Assange under the Espionage Act for the publication of classified information, a scenario that potentially would have set a devastating legal precedent for U.S. news organizations that regularly publish such material.

During the Obama administration, officials ultimately said they would not prosecute because of the possible consequences for press freedom.

It was unclear whether the Trump administration would have the same compunction: while Trump praised WikiLeaks, then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo labeled it a “non-state hostile intelligence service.”

Trump has shown little concern for freedom of the press, once allegedly urging then-FBI Director James Comey to jail journalists. (In response to news of Assange’s arrest, Trump said he would leave it to the Justice Department).

In this context, the charge on which Assange was arrested seemed modest: A single count of conspiracy (with former Army Pfc. Chelsea Manning) to “commit computer intrusion” under the U.S. Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, with a maximum penalty of five years.

Unlike the publication of classified information, hacking computers is not a tool for reporters. Some journalists were quick to point out this out.

“[The] charge here is attempting to help crack a password to steal classified material. Didn’t work but would news orgs do that? (Not in my experience.),” said Greg Miller, a national security reporter at The Washington Post, said on Twitter.

But press freedom advocates, and some journalists, have not expressed relief based on the indictment. A host of organizations, including CPJ, spoke out against the prosecution. Here’s why:

(1) The indictment is flimsy and could simply be a pretext to punish Assange for publishing classified information.

The diplomatic time and resources expended between three countries to detain Assange strikes some observers as disproportionate to the single computer misuse charge.

The indictment is vague about the exact nature of the aid Assange allegedly provided Manning in the course of their interaction, but it does not appear that Assange successfully hacked any password.

Even if his attempts were successful, they would have helped Manning cover her tracks, but not let her break into a system to which she didn’t already have access.

Prosecutors have wide range of latitude; it’s worth remembering that the Obama administration likely had all the same information, but declined to pursue an indictment.

Matthew Miller, a former Justice Department spokesperson in the Obama administration, told The New York Times that he thought the charge was justified but “This is not the world’s strongest case.”

So, is it just a pretext on the part of the U.S. government to punish Assange for the publication of classified information — a practice that should be constitutionally protected? The issue comes in a time of heightened concern for investigative journalists and national security reporters.

Since the September 11 attacks, the government has increasingly classified large amounts of material and punished those who share it with the press. CPJ has written extensively about the chilling effect of this crackdown on reporting in the public interest.

“Given the nature of the charge — a discussion 9 years ago about an unsuccessful attempt to figure out a password — I think it’s fair to debate whether this is a fig leaf for the government punishing someone for publishing stuff it doesn’t want published,” tweeted Scott Shane, a national security reporter for The New York Times.

“If it wasn’t Julian Assange, it would be very unlikely you’d see this prosecution,” Cindy Cohn, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told CPJ. “This is what over-broad discretion in prosecution does, it gives them a pretext for going after people they don’t like.”

(2) The charge could be a placeholder, with more to come.

Another reason why the charge may seem so modest: It could be the first of several. Last week, CNN cited U.S. officials promising additional charges against Assange. The press freedom implications of any future charges could be significant–especially if they involve the Espionage Act.

“It may be part of a larger case,” Ben Wizner the director of the American Civil Liberties Union, told CPJ. The current indictment already cites the Espionage Act and describes the cracking of a password as part of a conspiracy to violate it.

The DOJ’s legal strategy could be to pile on more charges after Assange is extradited. The extradition treaty between the U.S. and the U.K. says an individual can only be charged for the “offense for which extradition was granted” or similar offenses, but it also stipulates how governments can waive this rule.

Assange has an extradition hearing on May 2, which gives the U.S. government time to develop new charges.

(3) The language of the case seems to criminalize normal journalistic activities.

While the charge against Assange relates to the alleged conspiracy to hack a password, the language of the indictment sweeps in a broad range of legally protected and common journalistic activity.

Count 20 of the indictment states, “It was part of the conspiracy that Assange encouraged Manning to provide information and records from departments and agencies of the United States.”

The indictment goes on to characterize a number of journalistic practices as part of a criminal conspiracy, including use of a secure message service, use of a cloud-based drop box, and efforts to cover Manning’s tracks.

The cultivation of sources and the use of encryption and other means to protect those sources are essential to investigative journalism. While the government may include these details to show intent or to describe the means and context for the alleged criminal action, they seem to go beyond what is necessary.

Barton Gellman, who led The Washington Post’s Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting on the Snowden documents, told CPJ, “If asking questions and protecting a source are cast as circumstantial evidence of guilt, we’ll be crossing a dangerous line.”

“A lot of the way the crime is described here could be applied to other journalists,” Wizner, at the ACLU, told CPJ. “If the government wanted to just target the attempted intrusion, they could have written a very different complaint.”

(4) The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is incredibly broad.

In all of the concern over the Espionage Act, journalists may not have sufficiently raised alarm over the law under which the U.S. charged Assange: the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). “Thinking we should breathe a sigh of relief because it was the CFAA instead of the Espionage act is premature.” Cohn, of Electronic Frontier Foundation, told CPJ.

The CFAA carries its own set of free expression issues. While it encompasses clearly illegal behavior like hacking, it also criminalizes “unauthorized access to a computer.”

Manning was prosecuted under the CFAA in addition to the Espionage Act, but prosecuting a publisher under the under the CFAA for conspiracy in obtaining the classified information could potentially create a dangerous legal model.

While reporters do not conspire to decrypt passwords, they are often aware of, and might actively discuss with sources, activities that could fall under the broad frame of “unauthorized access.”

As the Cato Institute’s Julian Sanchez wrote on Twitter, “The way ‘helping to hack’ is being charged is as a conspiracy to violate 18 USC §1030 (a)(1) [of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act]. And good reporters conspire with their sources to do that constantly.”

“For almost every reporter working with a source, the source is providing information in digital form. Anyone who is working with a source who obtained that info in a way that they weren’t supposed to has a CFAA risk,” Cohn said.

She added that any journalists who don’t think there are broader press freedom implications to the Assange prosecution are “whistling past the graveyard.”

(5) Ecuador’s withdrawal of asylum raises questions.

Assange’s arrest came after Ecuador withdrew his asylum protection. In a tweet on April 11, Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno said the decision came after Assange’s “repeated violations to international conventions and daily-life protocols.”

In a video statement accompanying the tweet, he cited Assange’s repeated “intervening in the internal affairs of other states” via WikiLeaks publications.

Ecuador had previously restricted Assange’s access to the internet based on allegations that he was interfering in U.S. elections and in the referendum for Catalan independence from Spain.

While Assange’s unusual presence in a diplomatic mission created tensions–both inside the embassy and in Ecuador’s broader international relations–withdrawing asylum is an extreme measure, and one that could have troubling implications if it was done in response to publishing.

*Alexandra Ellerbeck, CPJ’s North America program coordinator, previously worked at Freedom House and was a Fulbright teaching fellow at the State University of Pará in Brazil. She has lived in Chile, Bolivia, and Brazil.

*Asher-Schapiro is CPJ’s research associate for North America. He is a former staffer at VICE News, International Business Times, and Tribune Media, and an independent investigative reporter who has published in outlets including The Atlantic, The Intercept, and The New York Times.

The post Why the Prosecution of Julian Assange is Troubling for Press Freedom appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Alex Ellerbeck* is North America Program Coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists & Avi Asher-Schapiro* is North America Research Associate

The post Why the Prosecution of Julian Assange is Troubling for Press Freedom appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Thousands of youth gather in Rome on Friday, Mar. 15, to join the climate strike, a global movement that aims to make governments and institutions aware of taking serious steps to implement the Paris Agreements and save the planet. Together First, one of the partners of ICSW, is among the groups urging for a more inclusive, collaborative movement to work towards solutions for all. Credit: Maged Srour/IPS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 16 2019 (IPS)

Increasingly facing restrictions and assault, civil society from around the world have come together to celebrate and promote people power.

Organised by CIVICUS, International Civil Society Week (ICSW) brought together civil society organisations and activists to discuss the threats and challenges that they face in a world where arbitrary detention, censorship, and exclusion have sadly become the norm.

Together First, one of the partners of ICSW, is among the groups urging for a more inclusive, collaborative movement to work towards solutions for all.

IPS spoke to Giovanna Marques Kuele, non-resident research fellow at Igarapé Institute (Brazil) and a member of Together First’s informal steering group, about the importance of civil society and working together.

Giovanna Marques Kuele, non-resident research fellow at Igarapé Institute (Brazil) and a member of Together First’s informal steering group speaks to IPS about the importance of civil society and working together.

Inter Press Service (IPS): How important is the protection and inclusion of civil society and human rights defenders to you and the global system as a whole?

Giovanna Marques Kuele (GMK): The protection and inclusion of civil society and human rights defenders are essential. While young people are raising their voices to demand inclusion for change, human rights defenders are under attack across the globe, including in my home country Brazil.

During the Civil Society Summit—which took place on the first day of ICSW—Together First endorsed the “The Belgrade Call to Action,” which calls on United Nations member states to take concrete urgent action against the shrinking space for civil society and the increasing reprisals against human rights defenders. Together First relies on the protection of civic space because we—civil society together—are the voices and agents of change that can push for the actions we sorely need to avert existential risks such as climate change.

For us, multilateralism is about more than states. It is about people and organisations working together to achieve a common goal. We at Together First believe that we can no longer rely on the turgid rate of progress by world leaders. Instead, we need to raise our voices and say: we can and must do better. And so we are building a movement that is truly global and meaningfully inclusive. During the ICSW, as a small first step, I met with youngsters who work at grassroots organisations to make sure we find ways to echo their voices, as decisions and actions taken in distance places, like city capitals and New York, can affect their daily lives.

IPS: What are the biggest challenges faced by civil society and human rights defenders today?

GMK: Like many of our colleagues at the ICSW meeting, Together First believes that multilateralism is under threat at a time when we need it more than ever. Global risks such as climate change and weapons proliferation need a collective response. These risks can be grouped into three sets: the ones great powers have not wanted to address (e.g. climate change), the risks insufficiently understood by politicians (e.g. new technologies), and the risks considered too difficult (e.g. the glaring deficit in cyber governance). These risks need collective action. But many governments are overwhelmed. Some are turning inwards, becoming more fiercely nationalist. As a result, the UN—already overstretched and underfunded—is now facing further cuts and struggling to deliver in this difficult environment.

IPS: As a multi-stakeholder group, how does Together First work with and mobilise civil society?

GMK: Together First seeks to build a global people’s movement for a people-centred multilateralism. Together, we want to identify and call for transformative next steps – the most important changes we can make now to address global risks. We also want to raise our level of ambition. The challenges we face are vast and complex; we must demand more than the current glacial pace of change.

Ultimately, we know that if we want to build the effective global governance system we so badly need, we cannot rely on world leaders alone. We must open up the conversation so that, in turn, we can make the system itself transparent and inclusive, where stakeholders play a meaningful role in the decisions and actions that affect their lives.

IPS: What role can the UN play to better promote and protect civil society?

GMK: Together First believes that by harnessing progressive power of civil society and by deploying an innovative and thorough methodology, we can work together to identify feasible and actionable steps to make global governance more effective – and put them into practice.

One of these steps must involve a greater role at the UN for civil society, who are key actors in the policy space and on the ground. What I heard from many people at ICSW is that organisations–as much as they work to achieve SDGs at country level, for instance–do not feel connected to the UN Headquarters, where decisions are ultimately taken. A concrete suggestion is to establish an Envoy for Civil Society—carefully chosen to make sure she or he is able to understand and transmit grassroots concerns to the upper levels.

IPS: As International Civil Society Week comes to a close, what message would you want civil society groups and human rights defenders to take home?

GMK: At ICSW, Together First, with our partners UN2020, made a public call for civil society to share their perspectives and need so we can demand that they are on the table for the UN’s 75th Anniversary in 2020.

Moving forward, it’s essential that our voices are heard at key meetings in the lead up to 2020. On April 23, I will be speaking at an event on building trust in multilateralism organised by the President of the General Assembly and IPI. Please send me your questions and comments via #MultilateralismMatters @TogetherFirst and I will be sure to raise them.

As the theme of this year suggested, ICSW is a testament to the existence of the ‘Power of Togetherness’ – the reality that people and organisations around the world are working together to unlock the potential of collective action. I think the energy of this event showed that we can believe that together it is possible to promote meaningful and inclusive change.

Related Articles

• Civil Society Leaders Meet Amid Protests, Attacks on Rights
• When Youth Take on The Fight to Defend Rights
• Smears, Laws, Lack of Cooperation: Tools Against Activists

The post Q&A: Achieving “Togetherness” appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

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

The post Q&A: Achieving “Togetherness” appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Anis Chowdhury
KUALA LUMPUR and SYDNEY, Apr 16 2019 (IPS)

The World Bank’s Enabling the Business of Agriculture (EBA) project, launched in 2013, has sought agricultural reforms favouring the corporate sector. EBA was initially established to support the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, initiated by the G8 to promote private agricultural development in Africa.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

The New Alliance has been touted as “a new model of partnership” for agricultural transformation in Africa. The Bank has used the EBA to address the land issue in developing countries, particularly in Africa. The effort is strongly supported by the US and UK governments as well as the Gates Foundation, all strong proponents of corporate agriculture.

Emulating the influential annual World Bank Doing Business report, the EBA scores countries on the ease of doing business in agriculture. It purports to measure ‘legal barriers’ to agribusiness and to prescribe reforms in twelve areas, including seeds, fertilizers, trade and machinery.

It advocates reforms in favour of agribusiness. For example, governments should weaken regulations over seeds, fertilizers and pesticides and strengthen foreign agribusiness power and influence. Missing from the partnership are peasants and indigenous peoples whose livelihoods depend on traditional land uses.

Dangerous new indicator
The 2017 EBA report proposed a new indicator on land. Introduced as a pilot for 38 countries, the land indicator is expected to be extended to more countries in the 2019 EBA report. The Bank claims to be seeking to better protect land rights and to ensure more equity in land access.

EBA best practices point to a very different agenda based on promoting large-scale industrial agriculture at the expense of family farmers, pastoralists and indigenous peoples. It is biased towards industrial agriculture and agribusiness, and the intent of the new indicator makes it even more urgent to challenge the EBA initiative.

Anis Chowdhury

The EBA advocates certain reforms and policy measures, raising concerns about its likely impact, if implemented by governments. To enhance land use productivity, the Bank advocates formalizing (private) property rights, easing the sale and lease of land for commercial use, land expropriation and public land auctions.

UNCTAD’s 2009 World Investment Report cautioned that “Greater involvement by TNCs will not automatically lead to greater productivity in agriculture, rural development or the alleviation of poverty and hunger”.

Even joint research by World Bank and IFPRI staff is circumspect about the claimed benefits of large scale commercial farming in light of likely environmental, social and productivity impacts. Large scale commercial farming has often involved environmental degradation, forced evictions and human rights violations, worsening food insecurity and livelihood destruction.

Legal land grabbing
Since the turn of the century, large-scale land acquisitions by transnational corporations (TNCs) in developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, have accelerated. Such land targeted by ‘investors’ has often long been used by local people who may not have property titles, often deemed unnecessary.

Land use practices have often evolved with changing demography, ecology, knowledge and technology. Legally, such land may be deemed either public or state land, and/or land to which local communities claim customary rights.

Unsurprisingly, such land grabs have encountered resistance from many opposing expropriation of their land. Some have been successful in delaying, disrupting or blocking new plantations, large farms and ranches.

Enabling land privatization
Much public land in developing countries is used in line with customary practices. Communally managed natural resources — water, forests, grazing land — are generally recognized as essential for sustaining the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of rural poor.

In customary law, land is typically valued as a shared inherited resource, often with deep social and cultural significance. Ignoring this, the Bank is urging governments to privatize public land with ‘potential economic value’ for commercial use, so that it can be put to its ‘best use’.

The Bank has been promoting the formalization of private land ownership to encourage agribusiness investments in capital-intensive agriculture, to increase productivity. Commodifying land will enable more capital-intensive agricultural production as the Bank believes that “undocumented [land] rights pose challenges and risks to investors”.

By scoring countries in terms of ease of accessing land for agribusiness, the new EBA land indicator seeks to accelerate land privatization and to facilitate corporate access to land in developing countries. By enhancing property rights and making land a ‘transferable asset’, its use as collateral for credit is also enhanced.

Marginalizing rural poor
The Bank strategy either ignores or seeks to take advantage of the considerable vulnerability of many family farmers, worsened as the land they depend on for their livelihoods becomes a tradable asset.

The development of land markets increases commercial pressure on land, destroying the livelihoods of many depending on land and the commons—grazing and fishing grounds, and forests.

By promoting land as a marketable commodity, the land indicator inevitably enables greater concentration of land ownership. In economies with ‘formal’ land tenure systems, farmers often lose their land to creditors.

Spreading such property rights will legally facilitate land dispossession, concentration and grabbing. While jobs may be created for some locals, many more may be marginalized without much hope for alternative livelihoods elsewhere.

Thus, facilitating corporate agriculture by concentrating control over land use is likely to exacerbate rural poverty and overall inequality. Land titling, purportedly to protect land users from eviction, thus accelerates dispossession of current land users. Hence, the EBA should be ditched.

Instead, governments should be helped to design food and agriculture policies that empower family farmers, pastoralists and indigenous peoples to address the major challenges of poverty, hunger, malnutrition, environmental degradation, resource depletion and climate change.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram, a former economics professor, was Assistant Director-General for Economic and Social Development, Food and Agriculture Organization, and received the Wassily Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought in 2007.
Anis Chowdhury, Adjunct Professor at Western Sydney University & University of New South Wales (Australia), held senior United Nations positions in New York and Bangkok.

The post World Bank Dispossessing Rural Poor appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Ambassador Walther Lichem* of Austria is President Inter Press Service (IPS).

By Ambassador Walther Lichem
VIENNA, Apr 16 2019 (IPS)

The past seventy years since the end of the second world war have been marked by profound changes in our international system. Relations between states have become more horizontally structured interactions with a rising significance of the common good articulated and pursued by newly-created international programmes and organisations.

Ambassador Walther Lichem

The international agenda increasingly consists of items addressing internationally and globally-shared challenges of dependencies and interdependencies.

The traditional security and peace focus has been broadened into areas of concern which require contributions and activities not only by states but by international organisations and programmes who jointly with non-state actors such as academic institutions and associations, civil society organisations, the private sector including those who joined the Global Compact, have contributed to a new pattern of leadership in the processes of defining our global goals and in the implementation of the related programmes of action.

Another characterizing element in our Global Agenda related-approach is the inter-sectoral interdependence reflected in the international community’s agenda marked by “AND” – “climate change and international security”, “human rights and societal cohesion” etc.

These agenda—and interrelated-ness—require, however, also institutional integration cutting across the institutional development marked by sectoral segregation. There is a rising need for each agenda sector to be fully up-to-date regarding the entire pattern of global challenges and the related plans of action, using this level of information for the development of institutional integration.

There is also a rising need for information flows between governmental/ intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

The new global agenda benefits from the work and conclusions of academic institutions and programmes, a relationship which regrettably has not yet been fully recognized by the international system.

Many of our important global agenda items based their policy approach on research and academic discourse – e.g. the issue of environmental protection, the concept of sustainability, the process of climate change, the societal development needs and human rights etc.

Another dimension of the pluralisation of global governance affectedness and responsibility is the role of each and every citizen on the globe to know and understand these challenges and assume a rising responsibility in addressing them.

Certain agenda areas, such as environmental protection, the sustainable development and use of our natural resource systems, human rights and human security have given the citizen an almost central role in the achievement of the declared objectives.

Today, every citizen can contribute to the recognition of the dignity of the other and the related human rights. The impact of citizen-focused human rights programmes is visible in human rights cities in all regions of the world. The citizen creating conditions of societal cohesion also essentially contributes to peace and security.

Private sector decisions can make important contributions to both the natural resources related and societal cohesion-related challenges. Academic institutions must adjust their programmes of research and of university education to the global agenda-related challenges.

The cultural sector provides important inputs into the development of values and related behavioural patterns related to the challenges of pluri-identity societies and the integration of otherness.

All these new patterns of responsibility and contributions to achievements for our Global Agenda, however, do require qualified information. It must be recognized that complex academic or policy-process related studies and reports are not accessible to the general citizenship including those in positions of responsibility at local and national levels.

Even governmental institutions and the international diplomatic community cannot internalize all the documents which are to serve as a basis for multilateral negotiations.

The development of this new participatory system of global governance with intergovernmental institutions and processes, national governments and local authorities has led to the recognition of an urgent need for qualified patterns of information which translate challenges, achievements and failures to the political responsibilities at local, national and also international levels, to governmental, inter-governmental and non-governmental institutions who have increasingly shaped our Global Agenda and articulated the rising need for societal understanding and information.

Media are the classical providers of such information combining data with assessments and the vision of our common future. Yet, as analysis of the current situation underlines, there is an urgent need to strengthen qualified information systems which would provide not only governmental, intergovernmental and non-governmental institutions and the citizens but also the media with pertinent and needed information.

There is no way into a future of shared global responsibility without a qualified and also ethically committed system of information related to our processes of global change.

There is a need to recognize that such highly pertinent information related to our common future requires recognition and support from the global society as a contribution to our shared global public space.

This implies that support is to be provided from governmental, intergovernmental and non-governmental institutions. A respective policy discourse with participation from these institutions is to be envisaged in order to prevent the decay or elimination of qualified programmes like Inter Press Service.

*Walther Lichem, retired Austrian Ambassador with studies in law and oriental archaeology (Univ. of Graz, Austria) and political science (Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna) started his professional career in 1966 at the United Nations Secretariat in New York in the field of international water resources with development cooperation missions to Ethiopia (1971), Argentina (1971-74) and to the Senegal River Development Organisation (1980). He was also Rapporteur on international river basins at the International Conference on Water Law (Caracas, 1976) and at the IVth World Water Conference (Buenos Aires, 1982).
Ambassador Lichem undertook major assignments in the UN system at the Human Rights Summit in Vienna in 1992 and as Ambassador to Chile and to Canada, as a member of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space and as an adviser to the 16 countries sharing the Guinea Current in West and Central Africa on the creation of a regional organisation.

The post Global Governance and Information appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Ambassador Walther Lichem* of Austria is President Inter Press Service (IPS).

The post Global Governance and Information appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Sivananthi Thanenthiran
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Apr 15 2019 (IPS)

Over a week ago – on April 3 – Brunei, the tiny South East Asian kingdom on the island of Borneo, announced its citizens would face the full force of the Shariah law.

The kingdom has decided to implement the death penalty by stoning as a punishment for homosexuality and extramarital relations, despite global outcry from the LGBT community and human rights advocates against this specific barbaric punishment.

Brunei’s adoption of the Sharia law has been in stages. The first phase began on May 1, 2014. Initial phases dealt with misdemeanours such as indecent behaviour, and then moved to meting out punishments of flogging and amputation of limbs for crimes such as theft and robbery.

However, there has been a deathly silence around the other crimes enumerated within the Sharia laws. This may have been largely due to the fact that the monarchy lacks a vibrant civil society tracking – for obvious reasons, analysing and generating data on government laws and policies, and holding the government accountable.

Sivananthi Thanenthiran

The Sharia penal code was instituted to bolster the Islamic identity of this autocracy of around 430,000 subjects, of which two-thirds are Muslim. The introduction of Sharia at the national level sends chills across the Southeast Asian region.

Already in the autonomous province of Aceh, Indonesia, Sharia laws are fully implemented limiting the dress and mobility of women, and ensuring flogging for a variety of offences is carried out. In May 2017, two gay men were sentenced to be flogged 85 times each for homosexuality, after being filmed by vigilantes.

The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao also hopes to follow suit in instituting some form of Sharia. Some states in Malaysia have already enacted the Sharia code, and in Kelantan, caning was introduced in 2017.

Brunei’s Sharia laws – akin to several Middle Eastern countries, notably Saudi Arabia – cover a variety of crimes, many of which in modern day parlance fall within the personal realm.

These include consensual sex outside of marriage (both premarital and extramarital sex, termed as adultery), consensual sex between people of the same sex (including women, who show signs of sexual conduct though without penetration), attempting to commit adultery (example given as lying on the bed together), close proximity with a person of the opposite sex, causing a miscarriage, pregnancy out of wedlock, as well as variety of non-crimes such as consuming alcohol and eating during the fasting month.

The state obsession with sex, and legislating sex, has been perennial. In the development of modern thought, most of these activities (deemed criminal by the kingdom of Brunei), are considered as private behaviours of citizens.

The Sharia laws infringe on citizens’ rights to privacy – that sexuality and sexual behaviour is a private matter. One’s sexual activities and sexual orientation should be determined by the individual and not the State.

The Sharia laws then serve not only to enforce compulsory heterosexuality, but only marital sexuality – signalling the state’s refusal to recognise citizens’ rights to privacy and self-determination on matters of sexuality.

The burden on women and girls is also exacerbated by such laws. For example, a Muslim woman who is pregnant or who gives birth to a child out of wedlock is guilty of an offence, and can be fined not more than BND $8,000 (1BND = 0.74USD approx) and/or imprisoned for a maximum of two years.

In most of the countries of the world, pregnancy out of wedlock is not a crime in anyway, and harsh punishments on a new mother do not speak of justice tempered with mercy. And should a woman find herself with an unwanted pregnancy, regardless of marital status, she cannot procure an abortion easily.

Both first trimester and second trimester abortion (characterised in the Sharia laws as miscarriage of pregnancy and ‘miscarriage of a foetus’), voluntary and involuntary, are considered as crimes.

A woman who ‘attempts to miscarry’ a pregnancy can be fined up to BND$12,000 and/or be imprisoned for a maximum of three years. A woman who attempts to ‘miscarry a foetus’, can be fined up to $20,000-40,000 and/or imprisoned for a maximum of five to 10 years, depending on whether the foetus temporarily survives.

These are extremely harsh measures which do not take into consideration women’s lived realities and choices they have to navigate, especially in light of equally harsh punishments for carrying pregnancies to term, if those pregnancies are out of wedlock.

A number of these Sharia laws are applicable to both Muslims and non-Muslims, and in this violates freedom of religion and belief by imposing the laws, beliefs and punishments, of one particular religion on non-practitioners of that religion, to the extent that they can lose their lives for these beliefs.

Theocratic states insidiously apply the machineries of the state to force the state’s religious beliefs on all citizens irrespective of religious affiliation. Freedom of religion must also necessarily include freedom from religion.

The inhuman and archaic punishments enumerated in these Sharia laws – amputation, caning and whipping, stoning in no way demonstrate the golden ideal of justice tempered with mercy. The quality of mercy in meting out punishment is crucial to any society as it means “forbearance to inflict harm, under circumstances of provocation, when one has the power to inflict it.”

Harsh laws hurt people. These Sharia laws then do not testify to puritanical moral rigour: rather they demonstrate the moral failure of the state.

The post Brunei’s Shariah Code & the New Stone Age appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

This article is part of a series on the role of civil society organisations (CSOs), which was the focus of International Civil Society Week (ICSW), sponsored by CIVICUS, in Belgrade, April 8-12

 
Sivananthi Thanenthiran is the executive director of the Asian-Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women (ARROW), a regional NGO based in Malaysia championing sexual and reproductive health and rights in Asia Pacific. She is also a “SheDecides” Champion for Asia Pacific.

The post Brunei’s Shariah Code & the New Stone Age appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM / ROME, Apr 15 2019 (IPS)

The Academy Awards, i.e. The Oscars, may occasionly award a worthy movie as Best Picture, though it is far from sure they select films with a unique artistic vision, enduring cultural influence and/or innovative qualities. Take for example the plain family drama Kramer vs. Kramer, which in 1979 won Best Picture and Best Director, while Francis Ford Coppola´s by now classical epic Apocalypse Now was awarded for best sound.

The 2019 Academy Awards rewarded the feelgood, racial drama Green Book as Best Picture, while Spike Lee´s sophisticated onslaught on American racism, BlacKkKlansman had to settle for Best Adapted Screenplay. The Mexican Roma won several prizes, including Best Director, Best Foreign Language Film and Best Cinematography, while the Colombian Birds of Passage, suddenly and inexplicably was removed from the list of nominees for Academy Awards.

Birds of Passage may be placed beside avant-garde movies by Sergio Leone, Akira Kusosawa and the lesser known Glauber Rocha. Filmmakers who transformed the classical genres of American cinema, i.e. Westerns and Gangster movies, by refashioning and reinvigoarating them into a new artform. By providing Birds of Passage with the subtitle Once Upon a Time in Colombia, Guerra and Gallego indicated their gratitude to Sergio Leone. Once Upon a Time in the West and Once Upon a Time in America were the titles of films by Sergio Leone, whose work came to be a crucial inspiration for auteurs like Coppola, Scorsese and Tarantino.

Leone has been called cinema´s Great Romantic Poet. In spite of intially being brushed off as a manufacturer of low budget action movies, Leone is now appreciated for his extraordinary talent of combining photo, action and music into a strong, intense unity. Being the son of a cinema pioneer and a silent film actress, Leone grew up as an admirer of Italian grand opera, an aspect perceivable in his movies, where the drama is heightened by aestethics expressed through extreme close-ups, long sweeping shots integrating the landscape with the story, and not the least his use of Ennio Morricone´s music. These qualities originated partly from Leone´s admiration of Akira Kurosawa, just like this Japanese master Leone interspersed his narratives with short, intense and often quite unexpected sequences of sudden violence and frenzy. Lately, film critics have also discovered that below the surface of Leone´s operatic Westerns and Gangster movies lurks a vision of the growth of an American society immersed in greed and corruption. A depiction of moral decline that even if it is more fantastical than realistic, nevertheless is true.

When asked why he called some of his movies Once upon a time … Leone explained that they were ”fairytales for adults”, portrayals of bygone eras seen through a lense that enchanted a harsh reality. His movies are like operas and some may even be viewed as legends with a moral message. Leone´s aesthetics may provide a hint to the imagery and narrative structure of Guerra’s and Gallego´s Birds of Passage. A film in which we are confronted with similar desolate landscapes, panoramic views, sudden oubursts of intense violence, paired with long sequences characterized by reflection and waiting. In the Colombian movie we also find intricate symbolism, expressed through the presence of birds and insects and sometimes specific coulours, like red and black. It is set within a temporary, yet mystical, landscape encapsulated by the lore and customs of the Wayúu people. As Leone´s movies where the narrative is accompanied by Morricone´s mood creating music, the Colombian movie´s score is an integrated part of the tale, with insect – and bird sounds that blend with vibrating, unfamiliar instruments it occasionally creates an almost hallucinatory effect.

Birds of Passage depicts the so called Bonanza Marimbera, when people in the Guajira region of northern Colombia during the 1960´s and 1970´s became involved in big scale drug smuggling to the US, the offset of Colombia´s notorious celebrity as a source for global drug traficking. A fame that eventually gave rise to documentaries, movies and TVseries, offering thrilling tales about mass murderers like Pablo Escobar. However, Birds of Passage is far from being what several reviewers assumed – just another movie about the rise and fall of druglords. It is a multifaceted work of art reminding us that Colombia was the birthplace of the great magical realist Gabriel García Márquez. The author´s maternal family was Wayúu, the indigenous people at the centre of Guerra’s and Gallego´s tale and just like Birds of Passage García Márquez´s masterpiece One Hundred Years of Solitude includes numerous influences from the mystical lore of the Wayúus.

Contrary to the Mexican Oscar winner Roma, where the maid at the centre of the tale was no more than an idealized, but strangely anonymous, indigenous woman, Birds of Passage is told from the perspective of the Wayúu, among whom spririts walk the earth and dreams carry important messages. The Wayúu are not depicted as exploited innocents, they are flawed indiviuals just like the rest of us, victims of greed and passions.

The story begins in the late 1960s. In an arid, windy area Zaida undergoes a ritual, involving a dance to attract presumptive suitors. Rapayet is bent on marrying Zaida, but her mother, the matriarch Ursula, is not happy about him, even if the orphaned Rapayet is nephew of the Word Messenger, a respected elder with important ritual tasks. Ursula demands an extravagant dowry of 50 goats, 20 cows and four precious, ceremonial necklaces. Together with his friend Moises, an alijuna, outsider, without any respect for Wayúu traditions, Rapayet makes contact with a group of American Peace Corps volunteers, who are more interested in making profitable marijuana deals than in development work. Rapayet’s cousin Aníbal, a clan leader who grows marijuana up in the sierra, becomes part of the business and Rapayet can afford to purchase his dowry and marry Zaida.

The Wayúu world where sunglasses, pickup trucks, goats, horses and Cessna planes, comingles with colourful silk dresses and traditions and beliefs of an ageold tribal society, soon becomes affected by the violence and greed of a burgoning drug trade. As fortunes grow, Rapayet becomes entangled in a web of violence, social decline and an impossible duty to uphold of Wayúu rules and morals.

Rapayat´s isolation and anguish are mirrored by his surreal, all-white, minmalist mansion in the middle of a flat desertland, where he together with his Zaida sleeps in a hammock, next to a king-size bed. Birds of Passage is a timeless tale of domestic troubles and unfulfilled duties within a declining society. It could just as well be a Shakepearean – or a classical Greek drama. Like such masterpieces it is also poetry, with its striking images and bold compositions like in movies by Tarkovsky and Kubrick. It also has the rich, sensous texture of recent Chinese movies, for example do the flow and rich colour of the womens´ dresses remind of the refined imagery of Zhang Yimou‘s House of the Flying Daggers. The ballad framing, the dreams and rituals within a violent, empty landscape invoke the work of the eccentric Brazilian director Glauber Rochas, whose Black God, White Devil premiered in 1964, the same year as Leone´s first Western, A Fistful of Dollars. Like Birds of Passage Rochas´s movie is an epic and moving work of art, staged within a rural, poor area where mysticism, religion and popular culture are blended into a powerful, bleak and cruel story, accomplished with such vision and skill that another great auteur, Michelangelo Antonioni, exclaimed that “each scene was a lesson in how modern cinema should be made.”

1. With Birds of Passage Guerra and Gallego join ranks with Leone, Kurosawa and Rochas as great innovators, creators of aesthetically pleasing, excellently composed visions of worlds far removed from mundane cliches and plagiarisms of mainstream Hollywood productions. Furthermore, they represent an invigorating voice from the South. That this powerful film may be called an instant classic is that it deserves to be revisited and analysed several times. Its beauty and multifarious craftmanship make it a sequel to other impressive masterpieces.

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 Birds of Passage: An Instant Classic appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Helen Kidan
LONDON, Apr 15 2019 (IPS)

As the first anniversary of the swearing on Ethiopia’s Prime Minster Abiy Ahmed rolled around last week, Ethiopians – and observers worldwide – marvelled at the pace and scale of radical reform he has brought to the formerly repressed country in the past year.

Abiy has released hundreds of political prisoners, overturned or revised repressive laws and allowed countless political exiles to return, among a number of changes.

But perhaps, one of the most significant moves for the region, has been his ending of the decades-long armed conflict with neighbouring Eritrea with the initiation of a historic peace deal.

The two countries have begun restoring diplomatic relations as part of that peace process. Abiy’s acclaimed reforms have served to brighten the spotlight of criticism on Eritrea for its notoriously brutal repression of citizens’ fundamental freedoms and dissent, which has prompted hundreds of thousands to flee their homeland.

And Eritrea’s long-running crackdown continues to have a particular cost for Eritrean women. While Abiy Ahmed has won wide praise for his appointment of a record number of women cabinet ministers along with Africa’s only female head of state, women in Eritrea struggle to reconcile the gender disparity they face since their own struggle for independence.

There was a time in the country’s history when the role of women occupied a higher status than it does now. Eritrean women played a crucial role during their country’s 30-year war of independence from Ethiopia. They comprised a third of Eritrea’s fighting force and were active across all levels of the military.

But their recruitment to the army’s ranks alongside men had far less to do gender equality than for the need for able-bodied soldiers. Whilst many women found greater gender equality on the war fronts, the cultural gender inequalities persisted.

In these circumstances, they became masculinised. They played the roles of freedom fighters as well as mothers, wives and daughters, and this is what distinguished them from their male comrades.

After independence, when combatants returned to their families, these war hardened fighters were ostracised, looked at as unfeminine and not marriage material.

Many marriages that women fighters had entered into during the war were rejected by their families and many were forced to separate from their husbands. The collapse of their marriages and their stigmatisation had a detrimental effect on them, leading to depression and even suicide.

Whatever rights female combatants gained on the frontline before independence, were slowly eroded after. They received no support for post-war rehabilitation and reintegration back to civilian life where they had to care for their families. With the objective achieved, the government expected them to go home and fit back in.

Many had spent their entire youth on the front in the 30-year war and found it very difficult to adapt to civilian life and earn a living without employable skills.

The two-year border military conflict with Ethiopia that erupted in 1998 led to increased repression inside Eritrea. The war and growing state restrictions impacted all Eritreans but women had it especially hard.

This war and the independence struggle bore a heavy human cost. By official accounts, at least 19,000 Eritrean soldiers were killed in the border conflict. As a result, some 53% of households are headed by women, who in many cases, raised children without fathers.

The many men that were disappeared by the state for expressing dissent also contributed to this hardship. The state’s clampdown on dissent and fundamental freedoms, hurt families and communities and more women were targeted.

Young Eritrean women also suffered and continue to suffer in the military camps – Eritrea has maintained a policy of compulsory conscription – and in detention centres, where they face all forms of gender-based violence.

Since the government has barred any independent NGOs from operating inside Eritrea, it is extremely difficult for women to get the support they need. Existing laws do not help women and as government officials are often responsible for these abuses, most cases go unreported.

Eritrea’s notorious repressive state policies have caused people to flee their homeland en mass as asylum seekers. According to the United Nations’ International Organisation for Migration (IOM), Eritreans comprise the ninth largest refugee group in the world, with almost half a million displaced across numerous countries.

When Eritrean girls and women become refugees in neighbouring countries, many are abused by traffickers, raped and tortured and go on to suffer further human rights abuses.

But at home, they face a blatant gender bias that has increasingly taken root since the independence struggle. The current peace process with Ethiopia is a clear example: there was not a single woman in the high-level delegation that Eritrea sent to Ethiopia for landmark peace talks in June last year.

This illustrates the extent to which women have disappeared from the social, economic and political scene of Eritrean society. There cannot be effective peace if half the population is not allowed to participate in the process at a political and governmental level – not as mere tokens but as effectual politicians, negotiators and mediators.

Eritrean women need to be part of any peace process if it is to be sustainable and ensuring that women have the skills to negotiate for their interests is key in this respect. This will not only have an impact for Eritrean women or Eritrea but also for the region.

The other aspect that holds women back is the fact that they are educationally disadvantaged and economically marginalised and cannot compete for leadership positions. Moreover, they lack the confidence and skills needed to compete meaningfully in the workplace.

This situation is perpetuated when these women leave Eritrea. And we see a much lower participation of women in civil society organisations now compared with the period during the independence war, when participation of women at the grassroots level was far greater.

The last 27 years have really left women side-lined, with no voice and representation and inactive at the grassroots. But many are prepared to change that.

The Network of Eritrean Women (NEW) is an independent organisation established in the Eritrean diaspora with the aim of empowering women and fighting all forms of discrimination. NEW works with different Eritrean women’s groups across Europe and has members in Africa, the United States and the Middle East.

Women’s empowerment is crucial to ensure their voices are heard and needs met. In the face of repression, it is imperative that a space is opened for the feminist perspective in Eritrea and for women to be engaged in the dynamics of their society.

The post From Empowerment During War, Eritrean Women Must Fight Gender Discrimination in a New Peace appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

This article is part of a series on the current state of civil society organisations (CSOs), which was the focus of International Civil Society Week (ICSW), sponsored by CIVICUS, and concluded in Belgrade, April 12

 
Helen Kidan is an Eritrean human rights activist and founding member of Horn Human Rights and Network of Eritrean Women.

The post From Empowerment During War, Eritrean Women Must Fight Gender Discrimination in a New Peace appeared first on Inter Press Service.

More than 200 civil society leaders and human rights activists from some 100 countries took to the streets of Belgrade, Serbia in solidarity with those whose basic freedoms are at risk. They participated in the International Civil Society Week (ICSW), sponsored by CIVICUS, which took place in Belgrade, April 8-12. Courtesy: CIVICUS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 15 2019 (IPS)

Counterterrorism measures are not only affecting extremist groups, but are also impacting a crucial sector for peace and security in the world: civil society.

Civil society has long played a crucial role in society, providing life-saving assistance and upholding human rights for all.

However, counterterrorism measures, which are meant to protect civilians, are directly, and often intentionally, undermining such critical work.

“Civil society is under increased assault in the name of countering terrorism,” Human Rights Watch’s senior counterterrorism researcher Letta Tayler told IPS, pointing to a number of United Nations Security Council resolutions as among the culprits.

“Nearly two decades after the September 11 attacks, we are seeing a very clear pattern of overly broad counterterrorism resolutions. We are seeing a clear pattern of violations on the ground that are being carried out in the name of complying with binding Security Council counterterrorism resolutions,” she added.

Just two weeks after September 11, 2001, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1373 which called states to adopt and implement measures to prevent and combat terrorism.

Since then, more than 140 countries have adopted counterterrorism laws.

The newly approved Resolution 2462, passed at the end of March, requires member states to criminalise financial assistance to terrorist individuals or groups “for any purpose” even if the aid is indirect and provided “in the absence of a link to a specific terrorist act.”

While the resolution does include some language on human rights protections, Tayler noted that it is not sufficient.

“It is not sufficiently spelled out to make very clear to member states what they can and cannot do that might violate human rights on the ground,” she said.

Blurred Lines

Among the major issues concerning these resolutions is that there is no universal, legal definition of terrorism, allowing states to craft their own, usually broad, definitions. This has put civil society organisations and human rights defenders (HRDs) alike at risk of detention and left vulnerable populations without essential life-saving assistance.

“I think it is irresponsible of the Security Council to pass binding resolutions that leave up to States to craft their own definitions of terrorism…that’s how you end up with counterterrorism laws that criminalise peaceful protest or criticising the state,” Tayler said.

Oxfam’s Humanitarian Policy Lead Paul Scott echoed similar sentiments to IPS, stating: “The Security Council, by being overly broad, is just giving [governments] the tools to restrict civil society.”

According to Front Line Defenders, an Irish-based human rights organisation, 58 percent of its cases in 2018 saw HRDs charged under national security legislation.

Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism Fionnuala Ní Aoláin found that 67 percent of her mandate’s communications regarding civil society were related to the use of counter-terrorism, and noted that country’s counterterrorism laws are being used as a “shortcut to targeting democratic protest and dissent.”

In April 2018, thousands of people took to the streets in Nicaragua to protest controversial reforms to the country’s social security system.

According to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, over 300 people have been killed, more than 2,000 injured, and 2,000 arrested—some of whom were reportedly subject to torture and sexual violence when detained.

Many of those arrested will also be tried as terrorists due to a new law that expanded the definition of terrorism to include a range of crimes such as damage to public and private property.

At least 300 people, including human rights defenders, face charges of terrorism.

The Central American country said that the law was passed to comply with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an intergovernmental body that works alongside the Security Council to combat terrorist financing.

A Civil Society Facing Uncivility

Tayler also pointed to the lack of consequences for States that pass counterterrorism laws that do not abide by their obligations under international law.

In Resolution 2462, member states are told to comply with international humanitarian law when cracking down on terrorist financing but does not require countries to consider the effect of such measures on humanitarian activities such as providing food and medical care.

“In the zeal to be as tough looking as they can possibly can, governments have overlooked very very easy ways to protect those of us who are providing life-saving aid,” Paul told IPS.

The lack of protections for civil society and its impacts was most visible during the 2011 famine in Somalia.

In an effort to restrict “material support” to terrorist groups, countries such as the United States enacted counterterrorism legislation which blocked aid into areas controlled by Al-Shabab.

This not only impeded local and international organisations from doing their job, but one report noted that the constraints contributed to the deaths of over 250,000 people in the East African nation.

The problem has only gotten worse since then, Paul noted.

“The measures imposed by governments are unnecessarily broad and they prevent us from working in areas that are controlled by designated terrorist entities. What they have essentially done is criminalise humanitarian assistance,” he said.

Tunisia has used its terrorism financing laws to shut down a number of civil society organisations.

According to the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, approximately 200 organisations were dissolved and almost 950 others were delivered notices, referring them to courts on charges of “financial irregularities” or “receiving foreign funds to support terrorism” despite the lack of substantive evidence.

Many of the dissolved organisations provided aid and relief for orphans and the disabled.

All Eyes on Deck

Tayler highlighted the importance of the UN and civil society to monitor how counterterrorism resolutions such as Resolution 2462 are used on the ground.

“While we would love to see amendments to this resolution, pragmatically the next best step is for all eyes—the eyes of civil society, the UN, regional organisations—to focus on just how states implement this resolution to make sure that overly broad language is not used by states to become a tool of repression,” she said.

“The UN and leaders of countries around the world should use International Civil Society Week as an opportunity to take stock of the risk that this trend has posed on both to life-saving aid organisations and human rights defenders and to reverse this dangerous trend,” Tayler added.

Paul pointed to the need to educate both the public and policymakers on counterterrorism and its spillover effects as well as the importance of civil society in the global system.

“Civil society is a key part of effective governance. We don’t get effective public services, we don’t get peace, we don’t get to move forward with the anti-poverty agenda if civil society actors aren’t strong and empowered,” he said.

“If governments aren’t careful about protecting our right to stand up for marginalised and vulnerable populations, everyone will hurt. Not just those populations. It will have an effect broadly on our societies,” Paul added.

Related Articles

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• Civil Society, Press Freedom & Human Rights Under Attack in Africa

The post Civil Society Under Attack in Name of Counterterrorism appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

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

The post Civil Society Under Attack in Name of Counterterrorism appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Youth activist Abraham M. Keita is the founder of the Liberia-based Giving Hope to Children Foundation and is among a growing movement of youth activists who are fighting for the defence of civil liberties and demanding that government act on important issues. Credit: A D McKenzie/IPS

By A. D. McKenzie
BELGRADE, Apr 15 2019 (IPS)

Abraham M. Keita says he was nine years old when a girl of thirteen was sexually assaulted and strangled in his home community in Liberia.

The anger, outrage and sadness he felt would lead him to start advocating for children’s rights – participating in marches, organising protests and going up against the powerful, in a country where sexual abuse of children is among the worst in the world, according to United Nations figures.

Keita will turn 20 years old later this month, and he says he has already spent half of his life as an activist for change.

“I’ve been marching since I was 10,” he told IPS with a quiet smile.

A tall, slim young man, with a thoughtful air, Keita was among the strong representation of youth activists at the annual International Civil Society Week (ICSW) meeting, held this year in Belgrade Apr. 8-12.

Co-hosted by the Johannesburg-based global civil society alliance CIVICUS and Serbian association Civic Initiatives, the event brought together more than 850 delegates from around the world. Keita and other activists, such as 17-year-old Gabriel dos Santos of Brazil, were invited by the organisers to join the discussion on how to build movements for change.

Keita, the 2015 winner of the International Children’s Peace Prize (an annual award from the Amsterdam-based Kids Right Foundation to a child who “fights courageously for children’s rights” – winners include Nobel Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai), is also the founder of the Liberia-based Giving Hope to Children Foundation.

He is among a growing movement of youth activists who are fighting for the defence of civil liberties and demanding that government act on important issues such as protecting children from violence, ensuring sustainable development, and reducing global warming, according to ICSW organisers.

“The youth engagement in ICSW in general is always extremely important to achieve the creation of partnerships among diverse groups and to continue raising awareness of the contributions young people offer to civil society spaces,” said Elisa Novoa, CIVICUS’ youth engagement coordinator.

During the event, youth activists sent out a message calling for civil society to “open up the space” to diverse groups.

“Civil society should understand the importance of sharing power and enabling inclusion in a meaningful and uplifting manner,” their statement said. “We as young people of diversity acknowledge and recognise the importance of having voices of vulnerability at the forefront of change. We need to redefine how we provide solutions and build togetherness.”

Activists also requested trust from donors, encouraging sponsors to be bold in funding organisations that are truly youth led.

For many such groups, a central theme is protecting the vulnerable, a position that Keita has taken. He told IPS that he grew up among vulnerable children, living in poverty in a slum in the Liberian capital Monrovia with his mother and siblings – his father was killed before he was five years old, during Liberia’s brutal and long-lasting civil war.

Different sides in the conflict used children as child soldiers and sexually abused many of them, as reports by the UN and other organisations have shown. That legacy continues, with a high number of girls and women being assaulted, while most of the rapists go unpunished.

According to Liberian government figures, from January to September 2018, nearly 900 sexual and gender-based cases of violence were reported, including 500 rape cases of which 475 involved children.

The statistics provide “alarming evidence that we are still not dealing with this problem in an effective manner”, said Liberia’s President George Weah last October, as quoted in local media.

Keita points out that since many incidents of sexual violence go unreported, the number of children affected is much higher than in official data. Furthermore, cases of sexual violence are not prosecuted quickly enough.

“Hundreds of cases are still in the courts, and the perpetrators are roaming freely,” he said.
The problem is rooted in all levels of society and includes civil society as well as government representatives, with individuals responsible for protecting children being charged with sexual abuses.

In 2017, a Liberian lawmaker allegedly raped a 13-year-old girl, making her pregnant. Keita organised protests against the powerful individual and was himself arrested and charged with “criminal coercion”, he said.

These charges were eventually dropped. The lawmaker meanwhile appeared in court, spent two days in jail, and since 2017, activists have not been able to locate the girl or her family, Keita told IPS. He and other advocates are still pushing for prosecution of the case, even if that may lead to their own detention, he added.

Arrests and smears are among the official tactics used to suppress youth advocates, similar to those used against human rights defenders in general, said ICSW delegates. Members of the public, too, sometimes think that youth activists are misguided and can tend to dismiss their work.

But as youth around the world join forces, their campaigns for rights and environmental action are becoming a growing force.

In Belgrade, youth volunteers assisted with the organisation of ICSW, including being monitors for the closing event – a symbolic “run for freedom” around the meeting’s venue, through a few of the city’s streets, as part of new initiative Freedom Runner.

Dušanka, a 20-year-old Serbian university student studying international affairs and political science, told IPS she had volunteered because she intended to work in civil society, was interested in diversity and wished to make a difference.

“I want to help all people,” she said. “People are different but we’re all equal. That’s a message to the world.”

Along with their idealism, youth activists are aware of the risks they run. Keita told IPS that he sometimes felt a “little afraid”, and that his mother and family members worry too.

“But whatever happens to me, I want to act so things will change, [and] not continue being the same,” he said.

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The post When Youth Take on The Fight to Defend Rights appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

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

The post When Youth Take on The Fight to Defend Rights appeared first on Inter Press Service.