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The Libyan Disaster: Little Bits of History Repeating

Tue, 07/09/2019 - 10:56

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Excerpt:

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

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Categories: Africa

Africa’s Megacities a Magnet for Investors

Tue, 07/09/2019 - 09:59

Sandton Gautrain Station in Johannesburg, South Africa.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Power of population

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

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

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

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

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

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

Overstretched infrastructure

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Informal economies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Excerpt:

Finbarr Toesland, Africa Renewal

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Categories: Africa

Media and Web Freedom Threatened in Sudan Turbulence

Tue, 07/09/2019 - 08:49

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Categories: Africa

Japan Boosts Complex Fight to Eliminate Leprosy in Brazil

Tue, 07/09/2019 - 05:47

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

By Mario Osava
BRASILIA, Jul 9 2019 (IPS)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Categories: Africa

Of Leaders Then and Now

Mon, 07/08/2019 - 18:35

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

Categories: Africa

Climate Change Victims: What Will You Do Next?

Mon, 07/08/2019 - 17:24

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

By Joshua Castellino
LONDON, Jul 8 2019 (IPS)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Excerpt:

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

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

Categories: Africa

Climate Change Deniers Violate Human Rights

Mon, 07/08/2019 - 17:09

Cooking with a biogas stove, photo: Sven Torfinn

By Eco Matser
AMSTERDAM, Jul 8 2019 (IPS)

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

Human rights and climate change

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

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

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

Exacerbating poverty and inequality

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

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

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

Reduced productivity

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

The risk of “climate apartheid”

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

A just transition

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

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

Making the right link

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

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

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

Climate change policies must be human rights policies

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

This opinion piece was originally published here

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

Excerpt:

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

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

Categories: Africa

Sustainable Development Needs a Hardware Update

Mon, 07/08/2019 - 15:15

By Jens Martens
BONN, Jul 8 2019 (IPS)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

… but there are signs of change

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

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

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

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

Strengthening bottom-up governance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No policy coherence without governance coherence

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

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

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

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

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

Overcoming the weakness of the HLPF

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

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

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

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

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

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

Democratic governance requires democratic funding

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Revitalizing global norm-setting – rejecting corporate voluntarism

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

UN2020 – democratic global governance at the crossroads

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Excerpt:

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

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

Categories: Africa

Solar Collectors and Solidarity Change Lives in Argentina

Mon, 07/08/2019 - 10:13

Volunteers install a solar water heater, made from recycled materials, with a 90-litre tank on the roof of a modest home in the Argentine municipality of Pilar, 50 km north of Buenos Aires. This unique thermal generation system was designed by Brazilian engineer José Alano, who did not patent it in order to facilitate its free use. Credit: Daniel Gutman/IPS

By Daniel Gutman
PILAR, Argentina, Jul 8 2019 (IPS)

“This is the best thing ever invented for the poor,” says Emanuel del Monte, pointing to a tank covered in black tarps protruding from the roof of his house. It forms part of a system built mostly from waste materials, which heats water through solar energy and is improving lives in Argentina.

Thanks to him, hundreds of families in three poor neighbourhoods on the outskirts of the Argentine capital now have hot water for bathing. They used to heat water in pots but had abandoned the practice in recent years because of the high costs of cooking gas.

Del Monte, 32, his wife and five children live in an unpainted cinder-block house with a half-built brick perimeter wall in the neighborhood of Pinazo, Pilar municipality, about 50 km north of Buenos Aires."When they first tell you about it, you don't understand what they're talking about. Then you realize it's an opportunity you can't miss out on because it changes your life.” – Verónica González

Pinazo is a community of about 5,000 people that reflects the social deterioration in the 24 municipalities surrounding Buenos Aires, which together with the capital account for more than 13 million of the country’s 44 million inhabitants.

Neighbourhoods on the outskirts of the capital are home to 130,000 of the 200,000 people who lost their jobs in 2018 in this South American country, where the economy is in a deep crisis and poverty has climbed to 36 percent of the population, according to official figures.

The paved streets of Pinazo are lined with houses with roof tiles and gardens, run-down but clearly middle-class.

But if you turn down the dirt side streets, many of the homes are shacks made of boards, corrugated metal and even pieces of tarp, between empty dirt lots where cats, dogs and chickens wander about.

On some Saturdays, however, things get busy on several of the empty lots: dozens of volunteers, mostly young people, work for hours building solar heaters, together with many local residents.

The volunteers gather early on one side of the freeway from Buenos Aires and come to the neighbourhood together, in cars and trucks loaded with huge bags full of plastic bottles, cans, cardboard boxes, old mattresses and tarps.

Mariana Alio and her husband, Emanuel del Monte, stand in front of their house in Pinazo, a poor neighbourhood in the municipality of Pilar, in Greater Buenos Aires. On the roof they have a solar water heater, covered with mattresses and tarps that keep it warm, which provides them with hot water for bathing – a luxury their family had to do without because of the high cost of the cooking gas they used to heat water in pots. Credit: Daniel Gutman/IPS

In addition, local residents at the site gather useful waste products, which they used to burn or throw into the polluted stream that gives its name to the neighborhood, since there is no garbage collection system.

Convened by the non-governmental organisation Sumando Energías, the volunteers say their goodbyes just before sunset, after building and installing on the roofs of up to four houses solar energy collectors and 90-litre thermal tanks, which keep the water warm because they are covered with mattresses and tarps.

“Each collector is made with 264 plastic bottles, 180 cans and 110 cardboard boxes. Most of the materials we use are reused,” Pablo Castaño, 32, who founded Sumando Energías in 2014, tells IPS as he walks around, supervising the work of the volunteers.

“I am convinced that sustainability is the only way to improve things for the poor. Social and economic solutions go hand in hand with environmental solutions,” says Castaño.

The head of Sumando Energías says he came into contact with the conditions in low-income areas while volunteering for another NGO, Techo (Roofs), dedicated to providing decent housing in slums, and became interested in renewable energy while studying to become an industrial engineer.

Castaño was born and raised in the southern province of Río Negro, near Vaca Muerta, the giant unconventional oil and gas field that the government is counting on to give a boost to Argentina’s declining economy. But he argues that “it is not the burning of fossil fuels that is going to save us.”

The solar collectors consist of 12 parallel two-metre-long PVC tubes covered with cans that absorb heat from the sun and heat the water inside the pipe. They are then wrapped in plastic bottles and cardboard.

Young volunteers from Sumando Energías build solar collectors in the Pinazo neighborhood. The NGO trains them in the development of clean energies that provide social, environmental and economic solutions in poor neighbourhoods in Argentina. Credit: Daniel Gutman/IPS

“That’s how we generate the greenhouse effect that keeps the temperature up. The next step is to set up a closed circuit between the pipes and the tank, which is placed on top, as hot water becomes dense and tends to rise. After about 60 round-trip cycles, the water is hot, between 40 and 65 degrees (Celsius),” says Lucía López Alonso, one of the volunteers.

“What is generated is not electricity, but solar thermal energy,” she tells IPS.

Emanuel del Monte’s wife, Mariana Alio, who works at a greengrocer’s, says their family used to heat up water in pots using cooking gas, for bathing, but economic difficulties forced them to only use gas for cooking.

“Some people in the neighbourhood still think I’m crazy when I tell them that I now have hot water from a system built using waste products,” says Del Monte, who recently lost his job as a maintenance worker in Escobar, a municipality near Pilar, and today does odd jobs, mowing lawns or as a handyman.

In both Pilar and Escobar, slums exist side by side with summer homes and gated communities – some of them wealthy and all of them surrounded by walls and fences and protected by private security guards – where slum-dwellers can find casual work.

“(José) Alano didn’t patent it in order for his design to be used freely. We also follow his philosophy and uploaded the solar collector manual to our Facebook page, so anyone can access it,” Castaño explains.

In four years, Sumando Energías has built and installed 174 solar collectors in neighbourhoods on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.

In the poor neighbourhood of Pinazo, on the outskirts of the Argentine capital, young volunteers cover a 90-litre thermal tank with a layer of foam recycled from old mattresses, which helps keep water heated by a solar collector – also made with old plastic bottles and cans – warm. Credit: Daniel Gutman/IPS

Castaño explains that the system for making solar collectors with reused materials was designed in 2002 in Brazil by retired mechanic José Alano, who promoted it in the south of his country.

The activist says the units have a useful life of 10 years or more, but points out that they last longer because they do not have mechanical parts. In addition, the plastic bottles can be easily replaced when they eventually darken and no longer perform their function of maintaining heat.

The aim of the initiative is not only to provide a solution for poor families but also to pass on know-how about renewable energy to the volunteers, who donate 1,500 pesos (about 33 dollars), which are used to cover the cost of the materials.

“We also receive some donations from companies, but we don’t accept any from companies linked to the fossil fuel business,” says Castaño.

Sumando Energías is now working on prototypes of solar cookers that will allow families like those living in the Pinazo neighbourhood, most of whom depend on the informal labour market, to cut their dependence on cooking gas cylinders, which cost 10 dollars to refill.

“Many of us here have had 25-litre electric water heaters, but they tend to burn out because the electric power source is unreliable,” says Verónica González, a 34-year-old local resident who lives with her mother, three daughters and a niece, as she cuts plastic bottles alongside the volunteers.

Her family is among the latest to benefit from the solar heaters designed by Alano. “When they first tell you about it, you don’t understand what they’re talking about. Then you realize it’s an opportunity you can’t miss out on because it changes your life,” she tells IPS.

The post Solar Collectors and Solidarity Change Lives in Argentina appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

We Can Get the 2030 Agenda Back on Track – With More Empowered, Inclusive, & Equal Partnerships

Fri, 07/05/2019 - 13:33

Credit: United Nations

By Ulrika Modeer and Susanna Moorehead
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 5 2019 (IPS)

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, universally adopted in 2015, is a plan to create a better and more sustainable future for all in just 15 years, through 17 Sustainable Development Goals (the SDGs). It sounds implausible.

And yet, when we work together, across international borders, and social boundaries, we are capable of extraordinary progress. But that progress is by no-means guaranteed.

Success will depend on more equal and trusting partnerships between aid donors and recipients; the ‘development partners’ and ‘partner countries’ in the jargon of the sector.

How we go about achieving these is one of the key issues for discussion at a senior meeting of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation, the GPEDC, in New York on 13-14 July.

Development progress and challenges

Take sub-Saharan Africa. Since 1990, maternal mortality has halved; and the mortality rate for children under five has fallen by more than half. In South Asia the risk of child marriage for girls has almost halved. In the poorest countries, the share of the population with access to electricity has more than doubled. Each of these numbers is life-changing, and life-saving, for millions of people.

But the pace of change is still too slow, and too many people are being left behind. A recent special edition of the UN Secretary-General’s report on ‘Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals’ identifies some of the challenges: hunger is rising, due to conflict and climate change; more than half of the world lacks access to managed sanitation facilities, increasing the risks of disease; and more than a million species are facing extinction.

A call for principled collective action

Investing in our common future demands urgent action. The SDGs provide a clear and measurable vision of what we want to achieve. And the Financing for Development process provides a good understanding of what this vision needs.

Now is the time for a concerted effort to work out how we work together: focusing on results and inclusive partnerships; and based on country ownership, mutual accountability and transparency.

These four ‘principles of effectiveness’ were agreed by 161 nations and 56 international organisations in Busan, the Republic of Korea, in 2011. They are the basis of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation – a voluntary alliance of governments, civil society, trade unions, the private sector and other development partners, committed to making development more effective.

They agreed that if we invest in partnerships that are more responsive, inclusive, and transparent – more equal – we will achieve more sustainable development results.

Making development cooperation more effective

During 2018, a record 86 countries and territories that receive aid took part in an exercise (along with hundreds of civil society organisations, private sector representatives, foundations, trade unions, parliamentarians and local governments) to monitor the extent to which all partners are walking the talk in terms of promises made on development effectiveness.

There’s good news and bad. Relationships between development partners are increasingly based on mutual trust. Development planning, led by recipient governments, has improved in quality and in scope.

International development actors are increasingly using local procurement systems, meaning more of the resources intended to support development overseas are staying where they are most needed.

But donor reluctance to fund government activities means that fewer resources are available for the public sector in partner countries. Recipients of aid find that it is now less predictable and long term, undermining countries’ efforts to plan.

In some places, state-civil society relations have worsened and space for civil society actors is shrinking. These findings demonstrate that while progress has been made, there is much more to be done.

Particularly so against a backdrop of falling levels of official development assistance (ODA) from major donors from 2017 to 2018: a decline of 3% to the group of least developed countries, and a drop of 4% to Africa.

Looking to the future

To achieve the SDGs, our collective development efforts need to be as effective as possible. We need to protect the space for different development actors to make their contributions, to invest in national capacity to measure progress, to use country systems in ways that can build trust, and to make sure all actors are living up to their commitments under the 2030 Agenda.

These are some of the messages we hope will stick in the minds of decision-makers, as they leave the senior level meeting of the Global Partnership in New York this month. That how we do things matters; that working together on a more equal footing, can lead to better, more sustainable outcomes for us all; and that committed international action can make even the implausible a reality.

*Ulrika Modeer also represents the UN Sustainable Development Group on the Steering Committee of the Global Partnership. Prior to this, she served as the State Secretary for International Development Cooperation and Climate at the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. She has undertaken assignments across Latin America and Africa.

*Susanna Moorehead also represents the DAC on the Steering Committee of the Global Partnership. She has previously served as British Ambassador to Ethiopia, Djibouti, and the African Union, and as an Executive Director at the World Bank.

About the Global Partnership:

The Global Partnership is led by four Co-Chairs, currently: Mustafa Kamal, Minister of Finance, the People’s Republic of Bangladesh; Norbert Barthle, Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister for Economic Co-operation and Development, the Federal Republic of Germany; Matia Kasaija, Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, Republic of Uganda; and Vitalice Meja, Executive Director of the CSO Reality of Aid Africa.

Twice a year they convene a 23-member Steering Committee, which includes representatives of civil society, trade unions, the private sector, parliamentarians, local government, civic foundations, international financial institutions and the international multilateral system. The Steering Committee guides the work of the Global Partnership, including the biennial development effectiveness monitoring exercise, with support from the OECD and from UNDP.

More information on the Global Partnership and the up-coming Senior-Level Meeting can be found here.

The post We Can Get the 2030 Agenda Back on Track – With More Empowered, Inclusive, & Equal Partnerships appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Ulrika Modeer* is Director of UN Development Programme’s Bureau of External Relations and Advocacy & Susanna Moorehead* is Chair of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC), at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

The post We Can Get the 2030 Agenda Back on Track – With More Empowered, Inclusive, & Equal Partnerships appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Africa’s Free Trade Area Misses Nigeria

Fri, 07/05/2019 - 12:48

Fishing trade in the village of Orimedu, Lagos State, Nigeria. Credit: Arne Hoel/World Bank

By Mattias Sköld
UPPSALA, Sweden, Jul 5 2019 (IPS)

When Africa’s free trade area launches on 7 July, a key player will be missing. However, Victor Adetula, head of research at Nordic Africa Institute (NAI) in Sweden, predicts that Africa’s largest economy, Nigeria, will gradually open up and join the project.

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is meant to create a tariff-free continent that can grow local businesses, boost intra-African trade and create jobs. The AfCFTA initially requires members to remove tariffs from 90 percent of items, allowing free access to commodities and services across the continent.

When the agreement’s operational phase is launched on 7 July at an African Union summit in Niger, 52 of the continent’s 55 countries will be on board. Only Benin, Eritrea and Nigeria have yet to join the project. Nigeria is Africa’s largest economy, making it the most notable non-signatory to the AfCFTA deal.

“If Nigeria is not playing along, it is going to affect the progress of the free trade area. Nigeria is needed”, says Adetula, who is himself Nigerian.

Nigerian government representatives have claimed they need to consult with domestic economic stakeholders before making a decision. The president of Nigeria’s largest labour union Nigeria Labour Congress, Ayuba Wabba, has described the AfCFTA as “an extremely dangerous and radioactive neo-liberal policy initiative… that seeks to open our seaports, airports and other businesses to unbridled foreign interference never before witnessed in the history of the country”.

Adetula says that while Nigeria and the whole continent are likely to gain from the creation of the free trade area, some of the country’s nascent industries could be damaged as European, Asian and US products enter the market through other arrangements, such as the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the European Union (EU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Victor Adetula. Credit: Mattias Sköld

“Africa’s industries can’t compete with Europe’s. For instance, virtually all the industries are small, and generally vulnerable. Africa’s comparative advantage is still in the production of primary resources, not in manufacturing goods”, Adetula says.

“If their industries are not well protected and secured against all unregulated external influence and risks, uncontrolled trade liberalisation by the African countries will merely open their markets for others to take advantage of. It will kill rather than stimulate industrialisation in Africa. Look at what happened to the textile industry, for example – it is almost dead in African countries due to globalisation.”

Adetula says that while some might argue that Nigeria’s position amounts to nothing but protectionism, African countries have good reason to be careful and protective of their economies. He points out that even the EU countries are operating with certain degrees of guarantees of protection for their local industries as part of their national interests.

“Is there any country that is not protecting its own industry? There is none!”

Adetula says that Nigeria’s position can partially be explained by history. Since the 1960s, the West African nation has always acted carefully before entering regional cooperation deals.

“Nigeria is already operating a trade liberalisation policy within the framework of the ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme. Already there are concerns within the ECOWAS region and other similar sub-regional integration arrangements that the EU-led EPA will result in multiple trade liberalisation schemes on the continent.

The AfCFTA will likely introduce a new trade liberalisation arrangement. Managing multiple trade liberalisation schemes requires that Nigeria be more careful”, Adetula says.

Another concern is about the structure of the economies of African countries. Take, for instance, the structure of their industrial sectors. They do not complement one another perfectly to enhance complementary cooperation between industries on the continent, according to Adetula.

“Also, if you consider the structure of African trade, many countries are producing the same items. So, how then are they going to trade and with what products? It is not just ‘Let there be trade and there will be trade’ – what do you trade in? How industry and trade are integrated with each other is a question that needs to be addressed.”

Adetula takes the case of West Africa.

“Nigeria is producing cocoa, Ghana is producing cocoa, Côte d’Ivoire is producing cocoa – so who is going to trade with what?” Adetula says it is a positive indicator of global development when the right of a country to say yes or no to a proposal for international cooperation is respected.

“For example, Sweden is a member of the EU but does not subscribe to the common European currency. Similarly, Nigeria might find it favourable to join some parts of the AfCFTA but not others. It is a possibility.”

Adetula predicts that Nigeria will opt to become a member of the free trade area through a gradual transition process.

He compares the situation with the development of the EU, which started with a small group of countries, with UK joining in 1973 and eastern European countries much later.

“Nigeria’s position is not a definite ‘no’, but Nigeria will not be rushed by anyone. Generally, Nigeria’s policy on external trade can promote international trade and development while supporting regional initiatives towards increased intra-African trade.

Nigeria has persistently cautioned against rushing the agenda of the AfCFTA without extensive consultation with all the stakeholders. Nigeria needs to take into consideration some peculiarities of its political economy, as well as some lessons learned from the EU’s recent experience.”

The post Africa’s Free Trade Area Misses Nigeria appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Zero Population Growth vs Population Control

Thu, 07/04/2019 - 13:52

By Marian Starkey
WASHINGTON DC, Jul 4 2019 (IPS)

Knowledge is power, but with the caveat that said knowledge is based in fact. Otherwise, it’s misinformation.

I appreciate the journalism of IPS. Similarly, I respect and spend much of my time advocating for Americans to demand that the United States support the work of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). Therefore, I was disappointed by two elements of an IPS interview with Dr. Benoit Kalasa about efforts to address population and development challenges as they pertain to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The Demographic Dividend

Dr. Kalasa, Director of the Technical Division at UNFPA, says that the addition of two billion people in the next 30 years will pose challenges, but will also bring “tremendous opportunity” in the form of a demographic dividend.

The demographic dividend, however, is not predicated on future population growth, but on fertility decline that follows rapid population growth. The benefits come from a changing age structure that increases the ratio of the working-age population to the youth population.

This shrinking of the base of a country’s population pyramid allows economies to develop rapidly, if the right investments are made in health, education, and employment. That’s because, during a period when a large number of adults are economically productive, a smaller proportion of young people require their support.

In addition, when fertility declines, investments in each child tend to increase, preparing a healthier, better educated generation of future workers to be more productive per capita than their parents’ generation.

The demographic dividend is typically considered a one-generation “bonus” period, but the benefits of smaller families extend far beyond that relatively short window.

Many of today’s upper middle-income countries started this century as lower middle-income or lower-income countries — mainly those in Latin America. It’s no coincidence that the total fertility rate of the Latin America and Caribbean region nearly halved, from 3.9 to 2.0, between the early 1980s and today.

Giving readers the impression that population growth can be the silver bullet that helps an economy grow — when the population is growing most rapidly in the poorest, least developed countries — is what economists in high-income countries are known for doing.

They often tout the shortsighted Ponzi scheme of population growth for continued economic gains through an increasing consumer base, with no regard for the limits of the planet to absorb that population growth.

Zero Population Growth vs. Population Control

More troubling than the faulty description of the demographic dividend was the handling of what could have been an interesting conversation about population stabilization efforts around the world by countries that signed on to the 1994 Programme of Action at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, and by the international donor and NGO communities.

Credit: UNFPA

Dr. Kalasa responded to a question about the “1960s concept of Zero Population Growth (ZPG)” with a reassurance that UNFPA rejects “population control” and only supports voluntary, rights-based family planning.

Population control and ZPG are not synonymous. Zero population growth is the demographic term for a population that is growing by zero percent — neither increasing nor decreasing in size. Population control is a strategy for achieving zero population growth that is outdated and condemned by all credible groups.

It’s understandable that UNFPA would want to make absolutely clear that its mission and programs steer clear of population control. All rights-based population groups, including Population Connection (which was founded under the name “Zero Population Growth”), engage in the same reassurances.

Every Republican president in the United States since Ronald Reagan (including Donald Trump) has denied funding to UNFPA based on a fallacious interpretation of the Kemp-Kasten Amendment.

The interpretation goes like this: China has engaged in decades of coercive abortion and sterilization of its citizens. UNFPA has a program in China. Therefore, UNFPA is engaged in coercive abortion and sterilization in China.

Never mind that UNFPA’s program in China is aimed at demonstrating that rights-based family planning programs work at least as well as coercive ones. Still, because of these erroneous accusations, it makes sense that UNFPA would want to reiterate at every opportunity possible that it does not condone or tolerate population control.

Striving for zero population growth via voluntary fertility decline, however, has nothing to do with population control. Family planning programs that expand access to modern contraceptive education, services, and supplies operate for the benefit of the individuals who may choose to participate — or not — at their own discretion.

There are an estimated 214 million women in the developing world who have an unmet need for family planning: They do not want to become pregnant in the next two years, but they are not using modern contraception.

Their reasons for nonuse range from fear of side effects to living too far from a clinic to having unsupportive partners. These barriers, and more, can be address through education about myths regarding side effects; offering a full range of contraceptive options so that women can find the methods that work best for them; mobile outreach units that travel to rural areas; and partner education (and when that fails, through methods that are discreet and less likely to be detected by an unsupportive partner).

None of these strategies falls under population control, and yet they all bring us closer to zero population growth.

The post Zero Population Growth vs Population Control appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Marian Starkey is Senior Director of Publications at Population Connection. She has an MSc in Population and Development from the London School of Economics.

The post Zero Population Growth vs Population Control appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Australia’s Forgotten Asylum Seekers

Thu, 07/04/2019 - 12:48

By Charlotte Munns
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 4 2019 (IPS)

As the focus of Australian politics shifts away from refugee and asylum-seeker policies, the government avoids accountability for inhumane actions.

Despite clear concerns that Australia’s offshore processing facilities for asylum seekers in Nauru and Manus Island are violating basic human rights, public scrutiny seems to have waned. Recent federal elections saw little emphasis on refugee policy, followed by an apparent disinterest in critiquing the policy.

This is not in spite of recent concerns. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the “right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health”, Dainius Puras, issued a report on April 2nd outlining major concerns.

“Many suffer from physical and mental conditions, which seem to have been caused and exacerbated by their prolonged and indefinite confinement,” he wrote, “there are multiple reports of self-harm and suicide attempts.”

Puras also noted reports of mal-aligned bones that had not been treated, poor access to health care, a lack of specialists, and cessation of torture and trauma counselling services in the offshore facilities.

This report followed years of scrutiny from international organisations like the United Nations and Amnesty International.

On July 19th 2013, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced that from that day forward no asylum seeker arriving in Australia without a visa would ever be settled in the country.

Under the policy, later named ‘Operation Sovereign Borders’, all asylum seekers would be placed in detention centres on Manus Island or Nauru, and details of boat arrivals would not be made public.

This hardline policy was prompted by a marked increase in the number of boat arrivals in the country. In 2008 Australia had 161 individuals arrive. By 2012 this had increased to 17,202.

The Australian Government adopted the slogan “Stop the Boats” as part of its campaign to promote domestically and overseas that it would not resettle asylum seekers within its borders.

Simon Kurian, cinematographer and director of the documentary ‘Stop the Boats’, told IPS, “thus began the demonising of people seeking asylum in Australia, especially by sea.”

“From that time on the gross misrepresentation of people seeking asylum began; beneath the sentiment was a thick underbelly of racism which the politicians used to their advantage,” Kurian said.

Over time, both major parties adopted the “Stop the Boats” rhetoric as the policy became a political move for votes. The hardline approach has enjoyed significant public support since its conception.

In 2014, 42% of the Australian voting public were in support of the policy. In 2017, 48% agreed, according to the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank.

Furthermore, the policy has been successful in stopping boat arrivals. While asylum seekers are still attempting to reach Australia, albeit far fewer than in past years, none have been processed in offshore facilities. Just over 50 individuals arrived in 2017, however all were returned to their country of origin.

“Offshore processing as currently enacted by the Australian Government may have served its national interests better than the current international protection system, but is still in violation of the Convention to which Australia is a signatory,” the Lowy Institute said.

While the policy has been successful in achieving its goals and responding to public opinion, the conditions under which it has been carried out have been heavily scrutinised.

Many organisations have drawn attention to the policy’s violation of the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, to which Australia is a signatory.

“Every fundamental principle that underpins the Convention to which Australia is a founding signatory is contravened by the Stop the Boats and Operation Sovereign Borders policies,” Kurian said, “all of this knowingly, with intent, without compunction and with no real reprisal or consequence.”

In 2013, the Office of the UN High Commissioner criticised offshore detention centres as “below international standards for the reception and treatment of asylum seekers.”

The Guardian newspaper released in 2016 ‘The Nauru Files’ detailing over 2,000 incident reports from the detention centre. They detailed incidents of self-harm, sexual assault, abuse and injury.

While the actual operations of the detention centres have been shrouded in secrecy by the Australian government, the sheer number of alarming reports raises concern.

The Australian Government has severely limited public knowledge of boat arrivals, refused media entry to offshore detention facilities and disallowed interviews with asylum seekers. In order to get footage for his documentary, Kurian was forced to film secretly.

The Australian Government has repeatedly claimed it is the responsibility of Nauru and Papua New Guinea governments to regulate the conditions in the centres.

Despite clear concerns, and alarming secrecy, domestic and international public scrutiny has waned. While fewer boats have attempted to reach the country’s shores, there still remain hundreds of men in detention centres on Manus Island.

With the majority of women and children moved to community processing facilities on the mainland, the emotional appeal of the campaign to shut down detention centres, or at least improve conditions has weakened.

As a result, refugee policy took a peripheral role in recent federal elections. “Climate change, housing, taxation all became the focus of discussion before and during the campaign season. Neither party touched the refugee policy,” Kurian said.

By shifting the election focus, the Australian government has managed to avoid accountability for violating the UN Refugee Convention, evaded proper investigation into reports of human rights abuses, and stemmed public criticism.

“The 600 men who remain on Manus are forgotten,” Kurian said.

The post Australia’s Forgotten Asylum Seekers appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Libya Tragedy: Why Lock up Migrants in the First Place?

Thu, 07/04/2019 - 10:06

African migrants in Libya. Libya is one of the main departure points for African migrants, fleeing poverty and war, to try to reach Italy by boat. Some 3,800 migrants and refugees are held in government-run detention centres in Tripoli and elsewhere in Libya in what human rights groups and the U.N. say are often inhuman conditions. A military strike on a detention centre for migrants in Libya claimed dozens of lives on Tuesday. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS.

By James Reinl
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 4 2019 (IPS)

A military strike on a detention centre for migrants in Libya that claimed dozens of lives on Tuesday Jul. 2 has reignited a debate over the poor treatment of the mainly African people who transit through the turbulent country.

The United Nations has called for an investigation into the strike on Tajoura detention centre, which held some 600 people in a suburb of the Libyan capital Tripoli — part of a global chorus condemning the attack, which killed at least 44 people and injured 130 others.

But the strike followed repeated warnings about the vulnerability of migrants in guardhouses near Libya’s hotspots, and raises tough questions about whether it was necessary to lock them up in the first place.

“This is not the first time that migrants and refugees have been caught in the crossfire, with multiple airstrikes on or near detention centres across Tripoli since the conflict started in the city,” said Prince Alfani, a coordinator for the humanitarian medical group Médecins Sans Frontières.

“What is needed now is not empty condemnation but the urgent and immediate evacuation of all refugees and migrants held in detention centres out of Libya.”

By one estimate, some 3,800 migrants and refugees are held in government-run detention centres in Tripoli and elsewhere in Libya in what human rights groups and the U.N. say are often inhuman conditions.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet called for a war crimes probe into the strike, while condemning the “overcrowding” in Libya’s lockups for migrants and the rape and other violations that occur inside them.

“I also repeat my call for the release of detained migrants and refugees as a matter of urgency, and for their access to humanitarian protection, collective shelters or other safe places, well away from areas that are likely to be affected by the hostilities,” said Bachelet.

Libya is one of the main departure points for African migrants, fleeing poverty and war, trying to reach Italy by boat. But many are picked up and brought back by the Libyan coastguard, in a scheme backed by the European Union.

Two U.N. agencies — the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and UNHCR, the U.N.’s Refugee Agency — said they had relocated 1,500 refugees from lockups in Libya’s hotspots to safer areas in recent months.

“Including those victims at Tajoura, some 3,300 migrants and refugees remain arbitrarily detained inside and around Tripoli,” the two agencies said in a statement. “Moreover, migrants and refugees face increasing risks as clashes intensify nearby. These centres must be closed.”

In May, UNHCR had already called for the Tajoura centre to be evacuated after a projectile landed some 100 metres away, injuring two migrants. Shrapnel from that blast tore through the lockup’s roof and almost hit a child.

This week’s strike was the highest publicly reported toll from an air strike or shelling since eastern forces under Khalifa Haftar launched an offensive three months ago to take Tripoli, the base of Libya’s internationally-recognised government.

The U.N. Security Council was expected to condemn the attack late Wednesday, Jul. 3, though it remained unclear whether it was the fault of Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) force, the U.N.-backed Tripoli-based government’s forces or another group.

Haftar’s LNA, allied to a parallel government based in eastern Libya, has seen its advance on Tripoli held up by robust defences on the outskirts of the capital, and said it would start heavy air strikes after “traditional means” of war had been exhausted.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres was “outraged” by the “horrendous incident” and called for an “independent investigation” to prosecute those responsible for what many onlookers call a war crime, said his spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

“This incident underscores the urgency to provide all refugees and migrants with safe shelter until their asylum claims can be processed or they can be safely repatriated,” Dujarric told reporters Wednesday.

Haftar’s bid to capture Tripoli has derailed U.N. efforts to broker an end to the mayhem that has ravaged the hydrocarbon-producing North African country since the brutal, NATO-backed overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

The post Libya Tragedy: Why Lock up Migrants in the First Place? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Why Environmental and Humanitarian Action Must Be Linked

Thu, 07/04/2019 - 09:31

Smoking fish in kilns in Ggaba, Uganda. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) estimated that brick-making kilns were burning 52,000 trees every year. Credit: Pius Sawa/IPS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 4 2019 (IPS)

Environmental and humanitarian action is often understood as two different sectors. However, the lack of awareness regarding its intersections could lead to further long-term devastation.

With the growing number of crises around the world, humanitarian actors are essential. They are often the first responders during and after a crisis, providing urgent, life-saving assistance.

However, there is an increasing need for such actors to pay attention to long-term implications of operations, particularly with regards to the environment.

“[The environment] is not integrated into humanitarian programming…while we are very clear that the humanitarian focus is life-saving assistance, we also understand that this cannot be done if you are compromising of the lives of future generations or even the current generation in the long-term,” head of the Joint Environment Unit (JEU) of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Emilia Wahlstrom, told IPS.

“Environmental degradation is causing humanitarian crises, and humanitarian crises are exacerbating areas that are already under a lot of strain.”

World Agroforestry Centre’s head of programme development Cathy Watson echoed similar sentiments to IPS, stating: “There is a paradigm that in emergencies you are saving lives and you don’t have time to think about these other things. The problem with that paradigm is pretty soon it settles down and then you really have to think about what sustains their lives and that is usually the natural environment. So if that’s not taken care of, you can end up having an even worse situation.”

“Environmental degradation is causing humanitarian crises, and humanitarian crises are exacerbating areas that are already under a lot of strain,” she added.

According to a 2014 study by JEU, Sudan’s humanitarian crisis was closely linked with deforestation and desertification due to humanitarian operations.

Such deforestation was caused by the need for firewood for cooking and dry bricks for construction, and humanitarian operations exacerbated the problem as there was an unprecedented demand for construction.

The UNEP estimated that brick-making kilns were burning 52,000 trees every year.

Such activities reduce soil fertility, decrease water supplies, and destroy valuable agricultural land, impacting the already fragile livelihoods of millions affected and displaced by conflict.

Already, worsening land degradation caused by human activities as a whole is undermining the well-being of two-fifths of the world’s population.

According to the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), 60 percent of all ecosystem services are degraded. Reduced ecosystem functions makes regions more prone to extreme weather events such as flood and landslides as well as further conflict and insecurity.

Approximately 40 percent of all intrastate conflicts in the past 60 years are linked to natural resources.

Most recently, the influx of Rohingya refugees to Bangladesh has put a strain on environmental resources. According to the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP), over 4,000 acres of hills and forests were cut down to make temporary shelters, facilities, and cooking fuel in Ukhia and Teknaf of Cox’s Bazaar for the 1.5 million refugee population.

Such deforestation has increased the risk of landslides and tensions between host and refugee communities are escalating.

However, refugees shouldn’t be to blame, Watson noted.

“Refugees are just doing what they have to do to get by but we can take a much more ecological approach and really think about how we’re going to maintain the ecosystems that sustains these refugees, provide water, provide fertile soil, and wood to cook,” she said.

Since the average time a refugee remains displaced can now be up to 26 years, the need for a more ecological approach is necessary.

“There’s plenty of time to really build up the environmental well being of the area so that people can also feel good, live well, have shade, have fruit, have clean water….you’re not going to grow food for very long if you cut all the trees down,” Watson told IPS.

Both Watson and Wahlstrom highlighted the importance for humanitarian actors to use available guidelines, tools, and resources ensure their operations aid populations in the long-term.

For instance, the Sphere Handbook, first piloted in 1998, provides minimum standards for humanitarian response including the need to integrate environmental impact assessments in all shelter and settlement planning, restore the ecological value of settlements during and after use, and opt for sustainable materials and techniques that do not deplete natural resources.

“We know what to do, everyone knows what to do. But we are not doing it…the leaders and decision makers should change the way we do our business,” Wahlstrom said.

Watson made similar comments, stating: “There are so many good guidelines, but theres not been a lot of enforcement or awareness of ecological thinking…if you really think about how to manage the landscape and map it out and work out where you’re going to get fuel from, what areas must be protected because of water—you can build areas that are much more resilient and productive.”

While some humanitarian agencies have already begun to address environmental concerns, Wahlstrom pointed to the need for both environmental and humanitarian actors to also work together.

“Because of the life-saving mandate and the very urgent elements of [the humanitarian sector’s] work, environmental actors and development actors are a bit wary to get involved because they feel like it is not their place,” she told IPS.

“The planet is burning, and environmental actors—we no longer have the privilege of sitting in our scientific community and working on our reports. We have to go out there and we have to spread the message,” Wahlstrom added.

The Environmental and Humanitarian Action Network (EHA) hopes to do just that. Though it is an informal network, the EHA brings together humanitarian and environmental experts to share guidance, good practices, and policies to mitigate the environmental impacts of humanitarian operations.

“Time is running out. We really cannot afford to not collaborate…we are stronger together and together we can have a better response and be better prepared,” Wahlstrom said.

The post Why Environmental and Humanitarian Action Must Be Linked appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Chilean Schools Recycle Greywater to Combat Drought

Thu, 07/04/2019 - 07:11

The principal of the Samo Alto rural school, Omar Santander, shows organic tomatoes in the greenhouse built by teachers, students and their families, who raise the crops irrigated with rainwater or recycled water in Coquimbo, a region of northern Chile where rainfall is scarce. Credit: Orlando Milesi/IPS

By Orlando Milesi
OVALLE, Chile, Jul 4 2019 (IPS)

Children from the neighboring municipalities of Ovalle and Río Hurtado in northern Chile are harvesting rain and recycling greywater in their schools to irrigate fruit trees and vegetable gardens, in an initiative aimed at combating the shortage of water in this semi-arid region.

And other youngsters who are completing their education at a local polytechnic high school built a filter that will optimise the reuse and harvesting of water.

“The care of water has to start with the children,” Alejandra Rodríguez, who has a son who attends the school in Samo Alto, a rural village on the slopes of the Andes Mountains in Río Hurtado, a small municipality of about 4,000 inhabitants in the Coquimbo region, told IPS.

“My son brought me a tomato he harvested, to use the seeds. For them, the harvest is the prize. He planted his garden next to the house and it was very exciting,” said Maritza Vega, a teacher at the school, which has 77 students ranging in age from four to 15.

The principal of the school, Omar Santander, told IPS during a tour of rural schools in the area involved in the project that “the Hurtado River (which gives the municipality its name) was traditionally generous, but today it only has enough water for us to alternate the crops that are irrigated, every few days. People fight over watering rights.”

The Samo Alto school collects rainwater and recycles water after different uses. “The water is then sent to a double filter,” he explained, pointing out that they have a pond that holds 5,000 liters.

The monthly water bill is much lower, but Santander believes that the most important thing “is the awareness it has generated in the children.”

“There used to be water here, and the adults’ habits come from back then. The students help raise awareness in their families. We want the environmental dimension to be a tool for life,” he said.

For Admalén Flores, a 13-year-old student, “the tomatoes you harvest are tastier and better,” while Alexandra Honores, also 13, said “my grandfather now reuses water.”

El Guindo primary school, located 10 kilometers from the city of Ovalle, the municipal seat, in a town known as a hotspot for drug sales, performed poorly in tests until three years ago.

At that time, the principal, Patricio Bórquez, and the science teacher, Gisela Jaime, launched a process of greywater recovery. They also planted trees and native species of plants to adapt to the dry environment of the municipality of 111,000 inhabitants, located about 400 kilometers north of Santiago.

Four students, ages 13 and 14, talk to IPS about how the water reuse project has made them aware of the importance of taking care of water in the semi-arid territory where they live, in a classroom at the rural school of El Guindo, in the municipality of Ovalle, Chile. Credit: Orlando Milesi/IPS

“The project was born because there was no vegetation,” said the teacher. Today they recover 8,000 litres of water a month. “Teaching care for the environment provides a life skill,” said Bórquez.

“Our school had the stigma of being in a place rife with drug addiction. Today in Ovalle we are known as the school with the most programs. We placed third in science,” she said.

Jaime described the experience as “gratifying” because it has offered “tools to grow and create awareness among children and the entire community about the importance of caring for water and other resources.”

Geographer Nicolás Schneider, founder of the “Un Alto en el Desierto” Foundation, told IPS that his non-governmental organisation estimates that one million litres of greywater have been recovered after eight years of work with rural schools in Ovalle.

In this arid municipality with variable rainfall, “only 37.6 mm of rainwater fell in 2018 – well below the normal average for the 1981-2010 period of 105.9 mm,” Catalina Cortés, an expert with Chile’s meteorology institute, told IPS from Santiago.

Schneider describes the water situation as critical in the Coquimbo region, which is on the southern border of the Atacama Desert and where 90 percent of the territory is eroded and degraded.

“Due to climate change, it is raining less and less and when it does, the rainfall is very concentrated. Both the lack of rain and the concentration of rainfall cause serious damage to the local population,” she said.

Innovative recycling filter

With guidance from their teachers, students at the Ovalle polytechnic high school built a filtration system devised by Eduardo Leiva, a professor of chemistry and pharmacy at the Catholic University. The filter seeks to raise the technical standard with which greywater is purified.

Duan Urqueta, 17, a fourth-year electronics student at the Ovalle polytechnic high school, describes the award-winning greywater filter he helped to build. Initially, units will be installed in eight rural schools in this municipality in northern Chile. Credit: Orlando Milesi/IPS

The prototype recycles the greywater from the bathrooms used by the 1,200 students at the polytechnic high school. This water is used to irrigate three areas with 48 different species of trees. Similar filters will be installed in eight rural schools in Ovalle.

The quality of the recovered water will improve due to the filter built thanks to a project by the Innovation Fund for Competitiveness of the regional government of Coquimbo, with the participation of the Catholic University, the “Un Alto en el Desierto” Foundation, and the Ovalle polytechnic high school.

The prototype was built by 18 students and eight teachers of mechanics, industrial assembly, electronics, electricity and technical drawing, and includes two 1,000-litre ponds.

The primary pond holds water piped from the bathroom sinks by gravity which is then pumped to a filter consisting of three columns measuring 0.35 meters high and 0.40 meters in diameter.

“The filter material in each column…can be activated charcoal, sand or gravel,” said Hernán Toro, the head teacher of industrial assembly.

Toro told IPS that “the prototype has a column with zeolite and two columns of activated charcoal. The columns are mounted on a metal structure 2.60 meters high.”

View of the water cleaning filter designed at the Ovalle polytechnic high school and built by a group of teachers and students with funding from the government of the region of Coquimbo, in northern Chile. Each unit costs 2,170 dollars and it will promote water recycling in the schools in the semi-arid municipality. Credit: Orlando Milesi/IPS

The water is pumped from the pond to the filter’s highest column, passes through the filter material and by gravity runs sequentially through the other columns. Finally, the water is piped into the secondary pond and by means of another electric pump it reaches the irrigation system.

Duan Urqueta, a 17-year-old electronics student, told IPS that they took soil and water samples in seven towns in Ovalle and “we used the worst water to test the filter that is made here at the high school with recyclable materials.”

In 2018, “we won first place with the filter at the Science Fair in La Serena, the capital of the region of Coquimbo,” he said proudly.

Pablo Cortés, a 17-year-old student of industrial assembly, said the project “changed me as a person.”

Toro said the experience “has been enriching and has had a strong social impact. We are sowing the seeds of ecological awareness in the students.”

“It’s a programme that offers learning, service, and assistance to the community. Everyone learns. We have seen people moved to the point of tears in their local communities,” the teacher said.

Now they are going to include solar panels in the project, which will cut energy costs, while they already have an automation system to discharge water, which legally can only be stored for a short time.

Eight schools, including the ones in Samo Alto and El Guindo, are waiting for the new filters, which cost 2,170 dollars per unit.

Schneider believes, however, that at the macro level “water recycling is insufficient” to combat the lack of water in this semi-arid zone. And he goes further, saying “there is an absence of instruments for territorial planning or management of watersheds.”

“Under the current water regulatory framework, the export agribusiness, mainly of fruit, has taken over the valleys, concentrating water use…and the government turns a blind eye,” he complained.

The post Chilean Schools Recycle Greywater to Combat Drought appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Indigenous Communities Head Towards Energy Self-Sufficiency in Guatemala

Thu, 07/04/2019 - 00:12

By Edgardo Ayala
USPANTÁN, Guatemala, Jul 3 2019 (IPS)

Because the government has never provided them with electricity, indigenous communities in the mountains of northwest Guatemala had no choice but to generate their own energy.

Now electricity lights up their nights and, most importantly, fuels small businesses that provide extra income to some of the 1,000 families who benefit from the community energy projects.

These community projects have been implemented in four indigenous villages located in the Zona Reina eco-region, in Uspantán municipality in the northwestern department of Quiché.

The miracle of having light initially occurred more than 10 years ago in 31 de Mayo, a Maya indigenous village.

Thanks to financial cooperation from organisations in Spain and Norway, the hard work of the community and support from the environmental group MadreSelva, the first mini-hydroelectric plant began to operate there, harnessing the waters of the Putul River.

Given the success of the first community hydropower plant, other villages also decided to generate their own electric power: El Lirio, in May 2015; La Taña, in September 2016; and La Gloria, in November 2017.

And these four villages share their electricity with five neighbouring communities.

Life has changed today in these villages, local resident Zaiada Gamarro told IPS. She stressed the importance of electricity for women, who can now cook and perform other household tasks at night, for children, who can now do their homework after dark, and for businesses like small bakeries or shops that can now sell refrigerated products.

A similar plan is under way to build mini-dams in eight other indigenous villages in the neighbouring region of Los Copones. They will also share their electricity with 11 communities in the surrounding area, in a project for which the German development aid agency has contributed 1.25 million dollars.

For further information, read the IPS article: Against All Odds, Indigenous Villages Generate Their Own Energy in Guatemala.

The post Indigenous Communities Head Towards Energy Self-Sufficiency in Guatemala appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Sri Lanka on Security Alert Long After Easter Bombings

Wed, 07/03/2019 - 13:05

By Emily Thampoe
NEW YORK, Jul 3 2019 (IPS)

Sri Lanka continues to be on a security alert long after the devastation caused by a string of bombings on Easter Sunday this year.

Raisa Wickrematunge, Editor of Groundviews, told IPS: “There has been a tightening of security. There are now security checks being carried out outside hotels and shopping malls – either through scanners or bag and body searches”.

“At the St Anthony’s Church, where the first blast occurred, there are bag and body searches conducted before worshippers can go inside, and bags are left outside the Church premises. Many churches and some schools have also increased their security.”

Curfews were put into place and a social media ban was enacted temporarily, in order to prevent the graphic nature of the tragedies from being broadcast publicly. There has been much damage of the emotional and physical varieties in the once war ridden nation.

For one thing, this attack was not expected by the Christian minority in Sri Lanka. Despite this, they have persevered.

Father Rohan Dominic of the Claretian NGO told IPS: “For quite some time, there were attacks on the Muslim and Christian minorities by extremist Buddhists. In places, where the Buddhists were the majority, Christians lived in fear.”

However, in a turn of events that left many in shock, one of the minority groups seemed to be the ones that initiated the attacks that occurred on Easter.

All seven of the perpetrators allegedly belonged to a local Islamist group, National Thowheeth Jama’ath, according to government officials from the country.

In response to this, there have been bans put in place for burqas and niqabs, traditional facial coverings worn by Muslims and people have been denied entrance into establishments, even while wearing hijabs.

There were smaller bombings in Dematagoda and Dehiwala later on that same day. With a death toll of 290 people and 500 injured, domestic measures to protect the citizens were taken.

After its 26 year long civil war between the Tamil and Sinhalese ethnic groups came to an end in 2009, conditions in Sri Lanka were mostly calm.

However, on 21 April, 2019, the country erupted into violence. Three churches in the cities of Negombo, Batticaloa and Colombo, along with three hotels in the city of Colombo, were targeted in bombings by a group of seven Sri Lankan citizens.

The churches were St. Sebastian’s Church, Shrine of St. Anthony Church and Zion Church and the hotels were Cinnamon Grand, Kingsbury Hotel and Shangri-La Hotel.

Sri Lanka is a country that is primarily Buddhist with a large Hindu population and Christian and Muslim minorities.

Father Dominic said that, “The Catholic Church in Sri Lanka was able to recover from the attack quickly and aided the survivors and the families of the victims by consoling and caring for them. The Church also has guided the Christian community at moments of anger and frustration in controlling their emotions and not to blame the Muslims. This position of the Church has helped to prevent violence and created common understanding and religious harmony.”

According to Wickrematunge, there has been much help in helping the community adjust to life after the attacks and in restoring what has been lost.

Other efforts have been led by organisations such as the Red Cross, Kind-hearted Lankans, the Archbishop of Colombo and the Church of the American Ceylon Mission in Batticaloa. There have also been crowdfunding efforts on popular websites like GoFundMe.

Since the attacks have affected lives in a physical and emotional way, the state has given financial support to the affected as of 21 June.

There has also been a trust fund set up for children who have lost family members to the attacks.

Some of the industries affected, such as tourism, have been offered subsidized loans in order to help with paying employees. Psychological support and educational resources are being provided to citizens as well.

While it has only been three months since the attacks affected the lives of many, steps towards rebuilding have been made and the future appears to be promising.

The post Sri Lanka on Security Alert Long After Easter Bombings appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Are We Fighting a Losing Battle in the War Against Drugs?

Wed, 07/03/2019 - 11:41

By Lakshi De Vass Gunawardena
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 3 2019 (IPS)

How effective is the global war on drugs?

The latest statistics released by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) are staggering: 35 million people across the globe currently have a substance use disorder, and as of 2017, 585,000 people have died worldwide as a result of drug use.

According to a recently-released UNODC report, the lack of proficient drug treatment and facilities for those that need it is impacting mortality rates at alarming levels.

Hence, it stands to reason that treatment and prevention are immensely falling short of the mark on a global scale.

Prisons are also no exception to these shortcomings. In fact, the Report unmasked that those incarcerated for drugs are more likely to continue being exposed to drugs.

The Report also highlighted that out of the 149 countries that were surveyed, about 1 in 3 people reported that they consumed drugs in prison at least once while incarcerated, and 1 in 5 people who are currently incarcerated reported that they have used drugs within the past month.

“In terms of data, we did some data collection, always trying to get as much as possible, in terms of socio-economic characteristics, we would have this type of data, I imagine, and this is also something that will run throughout the new report, and is being discussed now.” Chloé Carpentier, Chief of the Drug Research Section told IPS.

The issue between drugs and human rights is on Secretary General António Guterres’ radar as well.

“Together, we must honour the unanimous commitments made to reduce drug abuse, illicit trafficking and the harm that drugs cause, and to ensure that our approach promotes equality, human rights, sustainable development, and greater peace and security.” Secretary General António Guterres stated on the International Day Against Drug Use and Illicit Trafficking.

“We will make sure that no one with a drug problem is left behind” Dr. Miwa Kato assured, during the official launch of the Report on June 26.

Dr. Kato continued to push this message throughout her speech and cited that “Health and justice need to work hand in hand.”

Beyond the UN, this is a topic of interest for the academia world as well, since young people are heavily susceptible to a substance use disorder.

“It is important that we say people— not user or addicts, that language itself is stigmatizing.” Dr. Danielle Ompad, Associate Professor, College of Global Public Health and Deputy Director, Center for Drug Use and HIV Research at New York University (NYU) told IPS.

Dr. Ompad highlighted the importance of person-first language, citing that “It is important how we refer to people, and view them as humans, and not just the behavior (the substance use).

In terms of the World Drug Report, she noted that “The war on drugs, if you look at it, hasn’t really been an effective war”, and elaborated that the focus should not be supply- side intervention, because in the long run, drugs are going to be produced and sold no matter what, which leads to mass incarceration, which doesn’t benefit any party.

It is also important to recognize that “not everyone needs treatment, and those that do should absolutely have access to it. But just because you use marijuana does not mean you are an addict”.

She went on to suggest a harm- reduction approach. The harm-reduction approach blends a plethora of strategies from safer use to managed use to abstinence- it meets the need of the person.

www.HarmReduction.org

Meanwhile, tracing back to the issue of treatment, the Report affirmed that over 80% of the world’s population lack access to adequate treatment with only 1 out of 7 people with a substance use disorder receiving treatment each year.

The Report showcased that women cited a strong sense of fear that kept them from seeking the help that they needed for a variety of reasons that ranged from possible legal issues to the lack of childcare while in treatment.

Another issue is several countries, particularly in Asia, is the death penalty for any person found guilty of a drug ‘offense.’

Last month, Sri Lanka’s President, Maithripala Sirisena signed death warrants for four convicts- thus pushing the notion that those who have a substance use disorder are ‘dirty’ and should be disposed of.

Similarly, in a 2014 study conducted by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, it was shown that drug addiction was viewed more negatively than mental illness. Ironically, however, the two are all but intertwined.

This is also evidenced by the Report- about half of the world’s population that develop a mental disorder will also experience a substance use disorder in their lifetime.

However, it is to be noted, that despite all of the above, the Report only cited the “lack of effective treatment interventions based on scientific evidence and in line with human rights obligations.” but made no further elaborations on the what’s and how’s and was only discussed briefly at the official Report launch.

That said, the issue of ensuring those that do have a substance use disorder are provided for while figuring out more beneficial and healthier initiatives to reduce drug rates across the globe are currently being discussed among the United Nations (UN) and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Dr Omad said for better and or worse, licit and illicit drug use is part of our world.

“Focus a little bit more on harm reduction,” Dr. Ompad stated, and above all “We need to stop the war on the people who use drugs,” she declared.

The post Are We Fighting a Losing Battle in the War Against Drugs? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Paraguay Moves Towards Sustainable Commodities

Tue, 07/02/2019 - 18:26

By Silvia Morimoto
ASUNCION, Paraguay, Jul 2 2019 (IPS)

The statistics are alarming. By 2050, the world will require an estimated 60 percent growth in agricultural production to meet the food demand of a population of close to 9 billion people.

While we ramp up production to ensure food security, it is crucial that this increase has minimal impact on the environment and forests. This is vital to preserve tropical forests and to meet the climate objectives of the Paris Agreement.

The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Science and Policy on Biodiversity and Ecosystems (IPBES) reports that between 1980 and 2000 more than 100 million hectares of tropical forests were devastated globally. More than 40 percent of this loss occurred in Latin America mainly due to the expansion of livestock.

So, what we do in one sector will without a doubt affect another. About 24 percent of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions are now are caused by agriculture and deforestation, and about 33 percent of efforts to mitigate climate change depend on forest conservation and ecosystem restoration.

Paraguay is at the heart of this story. It is home to large swaths of wetlands and forests. The country is the world’s fourth largest exporter of soy and the eight largest exporter of beef. Both sectors contribute to more than 30 percent of Paraguay’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Silvia Morimoto

Now, in an effort to confront those challenges, Paraguay is leading the way in the region to address the causes of deforestation. It is convening a “Forests for Sustainable Growth” strategy, and it is promoting new alternatives for the sustainable production of soy and beef that have been designed jointly with stakeholders.

The overarching goal is to help achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) 12 Responsible Consumption and Production, and Goal 15 Life on Land. To make headway on this front, the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development (known as MADES) has been implementing since 2015 the Green Production Landscapes Project.

The project is in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) through its Green Commodities Programme and aims to protect the Atlantic Forest of Alto Parana in the Oriental Region of the country by promoting sustainability in the soy and beef commodities supply chain.

This initiative funded by the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), co-financed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, the National Forestry Institute, the Sustainable Finance Roundtable, ADM Paraguay SRL, Louis Dreyfus Company, and Cargill, is aimed at supporting farmers like Juan Antonio Secchia.

In 1990, Secchia received 600 hectares of land from his grandfather in Caazapa, a department located in the Oriental Region, where the Atlantic Forest of Alto Paraná is allocated.

When Secchia started farming on his San Isidro ranch, he had about 300 head of cattle that produced milk. In 2012 in an effort to increase productivity, Juan Antonio decided to innovate, to optimize the use of his land by investing in the silvopastoral system. This alternative production system combines trees, pasture, and animals, to preserve the environment.

Credit: UNDP Paraguay

In 2018, the private sector and the National Government supported him so he could expand the silvopastoral system, to another 40 hectares of his farm. Now, he has doubled his cattle herd from 300 to 600, increasing milk production by 100 liters a day.

Besides Secchia, other 3 farms have received support to adopt the silvopastoral system. More than 133,000 seedlings were donated to plant trees, to protect the soil, and to provide a better environment for raising cattle.

The success of the system has led to a new goal: to double the area of silvopasture to 400 hectares, this year, to advance the conservation of natural resources, and improve beef production.

The government along with UNDP has created a National Platform for Sustainable Commodities, a space for dialogue that reunites stakeholders for the first time to discuss needs and actions to achieve sustainability in the commodities supply chain and to protect the environment.

Such efforts were expanded to the Occidental Region through the Green Chaco Project. The Chaco is the second-largest forest ecosystem in Latin America, with rich biodiversity, that accounts for about 60 percent of Paraguayan territory, where less than three percent of the population lives. Yet, it is home to 45 percent of the national dairy production, and a vast portion of the nation’s cattle farms.

These initiatives have led to the dissemination of best practices, and discussions on the platform are resulting in new ideas. Suggestions for concrete solutions are going to be included in a National Action Plan for sustainable soy and a Regional Action Plan for Sustainable Beef.

For the Paraguayan Government, addressing deforestation promises multiple wins for climate change, for inclusive sustainable development, for economic growth, and for farmers. But success will come only if we all act together, now.

The post Paraguay Moves Towards Sustainable Commodities appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Silvia Morimoto is UNDP Resident Representative in Paraguay

The post Paraguay Moves Towards Sustainable Commodities appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

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