Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

By Emily Thampoe
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 17 2019 (IPS)

In a world that is becoming more and more industrial by the day, air pollution appears to be on the rise.

While there have been efforts in major cities to combat the grave effects that pollution can have on the overall health of its citizens, there is still more progress to be made.

Karen Beck Pooley, a Professor of Practice of Political Science and the Director of Lehigh University’s Environmental Policy Design program, told IPS: “One thing that we’ve always known but we haven’t paid as much attention to until fairly recently is the degree to which people’s immediate environments affect their health.”

The importance of recognising air pollution as a prevalent problem was emphasised by the theme of the recent 2019 World Environment Day, with official celebrations held in this year’s host country, China.

Additionally, reports such as the one released recently in Sarajevo, and titled “Air Pollution and Human Health: The Case of the Western Balkans”, highlighted the adverse effects on the public.

Talking on the implications of air pollution, Catriona Brady, Head of the World Green Building Council’s Better Places for People campaign told IPS that, “air pollution is considered to be the biggest environmental threat to human health today”.

“Research shows that over 90% of people across the world are exposed to unsafe levels of air pollution, which includes both the population in big cities and small communities. The effect this pollution has on citizen health is quite horrifying – studies suggest that almost every organ of the human body can be affected by toxic airborne particles, and this is resulting in an approximate 7 million premature deaths each year.”

Pooley notes that the actual planning of cities can have an impact on the amount of pollution produced, saying that, “The way we build our cities and the way people organise their lives in them, affect how much we need car travel or truck traffic. Or environmentally dirty things that we need like trash facilities and where these things are located and who’s living in the midst of the effects of those things.”

While there are positive plans, such as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to phase out coal usage in his country by 2030 or Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta’s plan to ban single-use plastics from being used in the country’s national parks, there are also efforts being made on both smaller and larger scales worldwide.

Pooley observes that, ““At the moment, most of the environmental conservation work and attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and things of that nature are coming from cities.”

Brady says that her organisation, “has embarked on a global ‘Air Quality in Built Environment’ campaign, in partnership with the Climate and Clean Air Coalition.

“With this work we’ve been raising awareness about the role of buildings and cities in generating emissions and air pollution, both inside and outside of buildings, and highlighting strategies that can be valuable to mitigate these. Step one is monitoring – as we can’t reduce what we can’t measure.”

She also said: “We’re advocating for the roll out of air quality monitors to provide detailed data on emissions across the world. With this data we’re equipped with the necessary information to lobby our policy makers to make changes needed to clean up our energy grid, buildings, and air quality.”

Pooley states that citizens can make small changes that will be helpful as well. “Cutting down on car travel can be a big help, because so much pollution comes from cars. So, the more places that are walkable and bikeable and the more trips that are made by something other than cars, the less pollution we’ll have.”

Day to day actions can be quite helpful but having policies put in place may also help deter the harmful effects that poor air quality is having on the lives of those who inhabit such areas.

Brady suggests something similar, while also maintaining that citizen action is important. Policy initiatives – such as the recent London Ultra Low Emission Zone – can help catalyse action towards clean air.

Policy enforcement around energy generation, building energy efficiency, construction practices, transport, waste and many other factors are vital to preserve citizen health.

“But the role of the citizen is also important; reducing the emissions from our lifestyle in terms of energy consumption and choices, diet, and transport methods are all achievable for the individual,” said Brady.

“And if you’re worried about being exposed to pollution by cycling or walking to work, then it’s worth knowing that you’re generally exposed to far higher levels of pollutants in a car in traffic or in an underground system!”

With world leaders proposing plans to help deter ruinous environmental effects and with cities implementing new policies to help out, it is clear that progress is being made in helping to create cleaner environments to live in.

The post Air Pollution Ranked as Biggest Environmental Threat to Human Health appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Spekboom (Portulacaria afra) is a small, succulent tree that is native to the Eastern Cape region of South Africa. It can easily be grown from cuttings, which can survive even in dry conditions (Photos by Tim Christophersen / Florian Fussstetter)

By Tim Christophersen
NAIROBI, Jun 17 2019 (IPS)

Land restoration could attract large private investments in the fight against climate change over the coming decades, if Governments and the United Nations put the right incentives and conditions in place.

When the goats on his farm had nothing more to eat, because the soil was eroded and most of the vegetation destroyed, South African farmer Pieter Kruger had to make one of the toughest decisions of his life. “I have always been a farmer,” he says, “but that moment in 2007, I knew that I could not go on. There was no more water. Zandvlakte is the last farm in our valley in the Bavianskloof, and our river had run dry before it reached my farm.” Pieter reluctantly gave up goat farming, and embarked on the Working for Water programme, a government pilot effort to restore degraded watersheds.

Over the next three years, he and a team of over 100 workers planted 1,500 hectares of his farm with millions of cuttings of an indigenous succulent tree, the spekboom (Portulacaria afra) which can grow well even in dry conditions.

“I have never regretted that decision”, says Pieter Kruger, “the trees are now well established, and in the big flood this year, we managed to keep runoff of water to penetrate the soil, improving ground water levels, instead of washing away our topsoil into the river.”

Tim Christophersen

Spekboom forests can act as ‘natural water dams’: in mountainous areas, the trees can grow even on steep slopes, and when rare rainfall occurs in the semi-arid regions of the Eastern Cape, they suck up all the moisture quickly, and can store if for months. Spekboom forests can serve as grazing and browsing areas of last resort for wildlife and livestock, even when all else has withered in a drought.

Sekboom trees also absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere faster than most other trees in dry conditions. However, farmers are usually not paid for carbon storage, water security and other essential ecosystem services which well-managed land provides for downstream water users, and for the global community. That could change, however, if Governments and the global community set the right conditions.

“Spekboom is an amazing plant. It can take root and regrow, just from simple cuttings from existing trees. It can quickly reform the soil because it continuously sheds a lot of leaves, which help to build up soil organic carbon”, explains ecologist Anthony Mills, who has published extensively on the sub-tropical thicket ecosystem of South Africa, one of the country’s lesser known plant biomes.

Spekboom is the dominant tree of the thicket ecosystem, a complex forest which creates its own microclimate. Thicket forests used to cover up to 5 million hectares across the dry areas of the Eastern Cape, until about 200 years ago, when massive overgrazing by goats and sheep started, and turned much of this ecosystem into a mere shadow of its former biodiversity and natural splendour.

“You can drive for four hours across degraded areas, which look like a savannah woodland, because all you see are some of the surviving jacket plum trees (Pappea capensis), which were originally part of the thicket ecosystem. The richness of this ecosystem is almost all gone today, but we could bring it back,” says Mills. “Today, more than 1.3 million hectares of severely degraded thicket landscapes in the Eastern Cape Province are ready to be restored to their former ecological functionality, which can also increase their productive use for livestock,” he adds.

Scientists from Stellenbosch University came upon the remarkable ability of spekboom to regrow in degraded areas almost by chance. In 1976, a farmer in the Kromport area of the Eastern Cape had planted cuttings of the sturdy tree on a steep slope of about 200 by 100 metres behind a barn on his farm, because he was trying to find a way to stop annual floods that were threatening his livestock. He soon discovered that not only did spekboom rapidly establish itself in the degraded soil, but it also stopped the floods very quickly after it had been planted.

In the foreground, one of the 330 demonstration plots for thicket replanting with spekboom (Portulacaria afra) across Eastern Cape. In the background, the few remaining jacket plum trees (Pappea capensis) on degraded land are an indicator of the former spekboom thicket ecosystem, which could be replanted (Photo by Florian Fussstetter)

“Some of the plants in this area are now over 40 years old, and we can see some of the original thicket ecosystem reforming. Other plants are joining, and birds and wildlife are returning,” says Mills. Although the area is rather small, it has yielded valuable scientific information, including on the amount of carbon stored below ground, in the roots of the spekboom plant and in the soil.

The discovery prompted the South African Government in 2007 to start what is arguably the largest ecological experiment in the world: they planted 330 plots of half a hectare (50 by 50 metres) with spekboom across the entire degraded area, almost 1,000 kilometres. Ten years after the planting, the plots have yielded promising results. In almost all the plots which were planted in degraded thicket and which had their fences maintained, the replanting with cuttings from spekboom has been successful, under a variety of conditions and planting techniques. The most important factor, according to scientists from Stellenbosch University and Nelson Mandela University, is that the grazing pressure from goats must be reduced for at least five years through fencing, and the cuttings need to be planted well and deep enough in the soil.

“By finding a way to boost agricultural productivity, restore a lost ecosystem and store carbon quickly and at scale, we would have a real win-win for farmers and for the global community”, says Tim Christophersen, Coordinator of the Freshwater, Land and Climate Branch at UN Environment.

The goal is to restore an area of thicket of over one million hectares, almost 200 times the size of Manhattan. There is potential to plant more than 2 billion tree cuttings across this immense landscape, providing work and income for thousands of people, for several years.

“This might sound daunting but given the opportunities for combining the real, long-term restoration of these degraded lands with diversified economic benefits to the local economy, the potential is amazing,” says Tim Christophersen.

The South African Government sees thicket restoration as one of the low-hanging fruits for the achievement of national climate and biodiversity goals, and recognizes that private investments are key. “We planted the pilot plots back in 2007 to attract private investors, by demonstrating that this can work,” says Dr. Christo Marais, Chief Director at the Department of Environmental Affairs, which runs the Working for Water programme. “We have studied this thoroughly, and we believe there are big opportunities for ecosystem restoration investments across South Africa.”

One of the next steps in scaling up the restoration could be to establish carbon and livestock farms, where several thousand hectares can be replanted with spekboom, and where income from carbon is combined with other income streams and economic activity.

“Farmers like to look over the fence, and see what their neighbour is doing,” says Pieter Kruger. “Having big demonstration plots on existing farms is important to spread the word that becoming a carbon farmer can pay off, both for restoring the land, and for making a decent return from the land,” he adds.

Even though Pieter has not yet received any compensation for the carbon he has sequestered on his farm, he remains optimistic. “We never give up,” he says. His Zandvlakte farm lies in the Bavianskloof, a UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site, one of the most remote and beautiful areas of South Africa. Pieter and his family have also branched out into eco-tourism, where visitors can experience the success of Pieter’s shift from conventional farming to restoring his land first-hand.

“The global carbon market, including for carbon offsets, for example from the aviation industry, is starting to boom again, after several years of uncertainty. If current trends persist, carbon credits might provide some income for farmers like Pieter,” says Mills. Carbon credits are compensations which nations, companies, or individuals, can buy to offset part of their emissions which cannot be otherwise reduced. Offsets are not a replacement for ambitious climate mitigation action across all sectors. They can only provide a temporary solution while we deeply de-carbonize our economies. Ecosystem carbon credits often also have many other benefits beyond carbon, such as biodiversity, water, or better income options for farmers.

The carbon market is highly complex and volatile, and farmers should not only rely on carbon for their income. “We must try to blend different income streams for farmers, so that carbon credits are only one of several revenue streams. At the same time, the restoration of degraded lands will increase the value of the farmland in the long run and will improve resilience and ecosystem services for local communities, and for entire nations”, says Tim Christophersen. “We are running out of time for climate and biodiversity action, and large-scale opportunities like the thicket restoration in South Africa must be urgently explored. We would like to support the Government of South Africa and other partners, like Living Lands and Commonland, to realize the potential of the Eastern Cape thicket restoration, as we are moving into the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030.”

More information:

South Africa Working for Water Programme:
https://www.environment.gov.za/projectsprogrammes/wfw

UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030:
https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/press-release/new-un-decade-ecosystem-restoration-offers-unparalleled-opportunity

South African Government studies on ecosystem carbon sequestration:

1. https://www.environment.gov.za/sites/default/files/reports/unlockingbarriers_land-usebasedclimatechangemitigation.pdf
2. https://www.environment.gov.za/sites/default/files/docs/carbonsinks_southafricanatlas2017.pdf
3. https://www.environment.gov.za/sites/default/files/reports/indigenousbushencroachment_policybrief.pdf
4. https://www.environment.gov.za/sites/default/files/reports/identificationandmapping_soilsrich_organiccarboninsouthafrica.pdf
5. https://www.environment.gov.za/sites/default/files/reports/biocharreport2015.pdf
6. https://www.environment.gov.za/sites/default/files/reports/nationalterrestrial_carbonsinks_synopsisreport.pdf

Contact: Tim.Christophersen@un.org

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Desertification does not refer to the expansion of deserts, but rather the degradation of land in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas, primarily as a result of human activities and climatic variations. Credit: Campbell Easton/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Jun 17 2019 (IPS)

Yet another under-reported human-made disaster: the relentless desertification of Planet Earth that may make uninhabitable some regions like the Middle East, endanger food security, aggravate climate crisis, and force more and more millions of people to flee.

But before listing the main causes and consequences of this mounting threat, you should know that, according to the UN, desertification does not refer to the expansion of deserts, but rather the degradation of land in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas, primarily as a result of human activities and climatic variations.

Now, alerting against such a disaster, specialised world bodies, like the UN, have just reported on the occasion of the 17 June 2019 World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought, that as much as 24 billion tons of fertile land are lost… every single year.

Moreover, degradation in land quality is responsible for a reduction in the national domestic product of up to eight per cent… also every single year.

By 2025, 1.8 billion people will experience absolute water scarcity, and two thirds of the world will be living under water-stressed conditions – when demand outstrips supply during certain periods

Among other consequences, desertification, land degradation, and drought will increase forced migrations, and worsen the growing climate crisis.

The World Day, which raises awareness of international efforts to combat desertification, was established 25 years ago, along with the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the sole legally binding international agreement linking environment and development to sustainable land management, the UN explains.

 

Three key issues

Running under the slogan “Let’s Grow the Future Together”, the 2019 World Day focuses on the following three key issues as reported by the UNCCD in relation to land: drought, human security and climate.

• Land and Drought— By 2025, 1.8 billion people will experience absolute water scarcity, and two thirds of the world will be living under water-stressed conditions – when demand outstrips supply during certain periods.
  A complex and slowly encroaching natural hazard with significant and pervasive socio-economic and environmental impacts that to cause more deaths and displace more people than any other natural disaster;
• Land and Human Security— By 2045 some 135 million people may be displaced as a result of desertification.
  Achieving land degradation neutrality -by rehabilitating already degraded land, scaling up sustainable land management and accelerating restoration initiatives- is a pathway to greater resilience and security for all,
• Land and Climate Change— Restoring the soils of degraded ecosystems has the potential to store up to 3 billion tons of carbon annually.
  The land use sector represents almost 25 per cent of total global emissions. Its rehabilitation and sustainable management is critical to combating climate change.

 

Las Canoas Lake in the town of Tipitapa, near Managua. Credit: Guillermo Flores/IPS

 

 

‘It isn’t just about sand’

Ibrahim Thiaw, the Executive Secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, said there are only three things all people need to know about the World Day to Combat Desertification:

• It isn’t just about sand,
• It isn’t an isolated issue that will quietly disappear; and
• It isn’t someone else’s problem

“It’s about restoring and protecting the fragile layer of land which only covers a third of the Earth, but which can either alleviate or accelerate the double-edged crisis facing our biodiversity and our climate.”

Thiaw also explained that “poor land management has degraded an area twice the size of China and shaped a farming sector that contributes nearly a quarter of all greenhouse gases.”

And added that there are even more stories about how half the people on the planet are affected by that damaged land or live in urban areas, consuming resources that require 200 times as much land as their towns and cities and generating 70 per cent of emissions.

“If we take action to restore our degraded land, it will save 1.3 billion dollars… a day to invest in the education, equality and clean energy that can reduce poverty, conflict and environmental migration.”

Shall decision-makers seriously listen and act? Or shall they instead feign deafness as they have been too often doing?

 

Baher Kamal is Director and Editor of Human Wrongs Watch, where this article was originally published.

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By IPS World Desk
ROME, Jun 17 2019 (IPS)

One third of the planet’s land surface is under the threat of desertification, impacting over 250 million people.

Although Africa remains the most affected continent, we are witnessing an alarming shift globally:  30% of the United States for example is affected by desertification, one quarter of the land in Latin America and the Caribbean is now arid, and one fifth of Spanish land is at risk of turning into deserts.

Since the 1950s sand drifts and expanding deserts have taken a toll of nearly 700,000 hectares of cultivated land, 2.35 million hectares of rangeland, 6.4 million hectares of forests, woodlands and shrublands.

 

 

Worldwide, 70% of dryland used for agriculture are already degrading and are increasingly threatened by desertification.

This change is often at the root of political and socio-economic problems, and poses a threat to the environmental equilibrium in affected regions.  135 million people are at risk of being displaced because of desertification and mass migrations are only just beginning.

For example, close to one million Mexicans leave their rural drylands every year to find better lives in the United States.  60 million people are expected to move from Sub-Saharan Africa towards Northern Africa and Europe in the next 20 years.

The World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought has been observed since 1995 to promote public awareness relating to the international cooperation to combat desertification and the effects of drought.

This year marks the  25th anniversary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). Under the theme “Let’s grow the future together” this event provides an opportunity to look back and celebrate the 25 years of progress made by countries on sustainable land management, as well as looking at the broad picture of the next 25 years when hopefully we will achieve land degradation neutrality.

 

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Given the far-reaching benefits and rising practical feasibility of renewables, it is likely that the global community is heading for a future that embraces clean power sources. Photo: SANJAY KANOJIA/AFP

By Tarannum Sahar
Jun 14 2019 (IPS-Partners)

With the advent of the 21st century, there has been a steady rise in energy access all around the globe. For the first time ever, the total number of people without access to electricity fell below 1 billion in 2017 according to the International Energy Agency. Despite the increase in the pace of electrification, 13 percent of the global population, mostly concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, still lack critical access to electricity—a factor linked closely with productivity, health and safety, gender equality and education. Without much greater ambition and more intensified efforts, the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7 that has an objective of “ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all” will be impossible to attain by 2030.

At the same time, as the global community faces the persistent and pervasive challenge of energy poverty, it also needs to address the intensifying human-driven climate disruption and the widespread displacement of people as a result of war, persecution and natural disaster. These critically important crises—energy poverty, climate disruption and displacement—are inexorably linked through the strong overlap in the populations affected by all three predicaments.

There is an unprecedented 68.5 million people forcibly displaced across the world. Many of them end in relief camps, where approximately 90 percent do not have energy access as stated by the Center for Resource Solutions. In addition to refugees and internally displaced persons, majority of the people lacking the most basic of electricity services also count amongst the population most vulnerable to the disastrous consequences of climate change. Mass migration ensuing from the dramatic shifts in our environment has the potential of fuelling political unrests and exacerbating conflict. The communities at risk often lack both the political and economic resources that are essential in maintaining stability through strengthening climate resilience and adaptive capacity. As a consequence, many countries with significant energy poverty will bear the worst effects of global warming despite having contributed very little to the historical build-up of greenhouse gas emissions.

Taking constructive steps towards climate change mitigation and achieving universal energy access supposedly seem to be in conflict. The reasoning behind this sceptical notion is the assumption that more people getting access to electricity will require further investment in carbon-intensive power systems and greater exploitation of fossil fuels which largely contribute to the vast majority of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, with rapid advancement in alternative energy technologies primarily in areas of efficiency and cost-reduction, it is no longer required to address one crisis at the cost of the other. In the current scenario, communities enduring extreme cases of energy poverty often depend on biomass burning to meet basic energy needs. Replacing biomass with clean sources of energy will significantly bring down deforestation, a step that is vital for climate mitigation and adaptation. Renewables like solar photovoltaics (PV) and wind turbines are less expensive than newly installed fossil-based power plants in many regions of the world and in some, it is even less expensive than using existing, traditional power plants.

Communities in remote, rural areas or refugee camps located near borders and inhospitable regions of the world are usually situated far away from traditional transmission lines. Installation of capital-intense grid network is economically unviable as reaching an affordable scale in these places is nearly impossible. In recent decades, decentralised energy solution is becoming an increasingly important factor for expediting electricity access. Deployment of distributed infrastructures is powering a disruptive transformation in the energy sector like never seen before. Through the latest policy brief for SDG 7, the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs emphasised that for over 70 percent of those without access in rural areas, decentralised systems based on renewable energy will be the most cost-effective solution.

The new paradigm demands that decision makers think beyond the “grid versus off-grid” dichotomy and recognise the extensive value of autonomous mini-grids and distributed energy services that utilise local resources and effectively serve specific, regional needs. Reducing dependence on centralised generation further democratises the electricity distribution allowing for local ownership of energy services and increased support for alternative energy. Widespread adaptation of distributed systems based on renewables will put a check on the global demand for oil, ease the power struggle over resource-rich areas and cut down energy dominance in political negotiations. Such a transition will help nation states in reducing vulnerability to conflict, and strengthening socio-political stability.

Given the far-reaching benefits and rising practical feasibility of renewables, it is likely that the global community is heading for a future that embraces clean power sources. However, the ultimate question is, will the transition be fast enough to limit global warming to a safe level? The special report on Global Warming of 1.5 degree Celsius published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns that increase in temperature beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels will lead to severe environmental catastrophes and the international community has 12 years to limit that.

As the 25th session of the Conference of Parties (COP25) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change draws near, it is critical that governments, negotiators, and other stakeholders not only consider a rapid shift towards a clean energy future, but also a transition that is just and inclusive of unserved and underserved communities. While international support is certainly essential in achieving SDG 7, real and lasting progress will also require participation at the national as well as local and regional levels. With the emergence of decentralisation in electrification, the energy sector can greatly benefit from polycentrism—the contribution of multiple stakeholders from numerous spheres.

The present day is a unique moment in the history of energy access expansion, as distributed networks can viably reach the furthest corners of the globe. It’s critical to make the best use of this opportunity and drive action towards an energy system that will sustain the earth for future generations, while also stepping up electrification and promoting regional stability.

Tarannum Sahar is studying Economics and Mechanical Engineering with a focus on Energy Transition and Technology Development at Cornell University, USA.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

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By Wendell Balderas
BANGKOK, Thailand, Jun 14 2019 (IPS)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decision authorizing the sale of Philip Morris International (PMI)’s heated tobacco system, IQOS, in the United States inadvertently puts a foot in the door to increase sales of new tobacco products in the developing world.

In April this year, the FDA authorized the sale of IQOS heated tobacco products in the US. However, it clarified that it has not approved IQOS as a ‘modified risk tobacco product’ (MRTP). But PMI is riding on this ‘US-FDA approved for sale’ of its IQOS as also safer alternative to regular cigarettes to Asian governments.

In Indonesia, PMI’s local subsidiary PT HM Sampoerna signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education (Kemenristek Dikti) to support IQOS research and capacity building.

Local tobacco control advocates have criticised this collaboration claiming this is an industry tactic to attract new smokers, especially among the younger generation. Meanwhile PMI’s plans to sell even more cigarettes in Indonesia remain on track reflected by its ubiquitous cigarette advertisements.

While Malaysia’s Control of Tobacco Products Regulation requires pictorial warning on all tobacco products, IQOs is being sold as safer alternatives to regular cigarettes without these warnings.

IQOS is marketed via social media and have escaped the arm of regulators. BAT and JTI are now applying pressure on the government to allow sales of their versions of heated tobacco products.

In the Philippines, PMI claims on one-hand that cigarettes are harmful, smokers should quit and children should not buy them, however in the same breath it continues to refute evidence about smoking.

PMI’s lawyer, representing the Philippine Tobacco Institute (PTI), has filed two court cases challenging Balanga City, Bataan which has passed laws to ban smoking in public places and protect its youth from being exposed to cigarette promotions.

Also, the tobacco industry is trying to sneak Heated Tobacco Products (HTPs) into the bills being deliberated in the Philippine Senate and House of Representatives to regulate e-cigarettes (Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems).

This deception is a typical duplicitous move by the tobacco industry to weaken tobacco product regulation simultaneously deceiving the public to embrace its HTPS as less harmful than regular cigarettes.

In Vietnam, PMI’s President of South and Southeast Asia has met with the Vice Chairman of the National Assembly (NA) promoting its research and development of less harmful product.

PMI’s request to the National Assembly leader was tactical – that they should provide a legal framework to enable its new products to be developed in Vietnam, and on its part, it will provide its own scientific research as well as research from organizations in the United States and Europe.

According to a press report, the Vice Chairman of the National Assembly was ready to create favorable conditions for foreign businesses to invest and expand their business. In investment talks, the emerging evidence on the risks associated with these new tobacco and nicotine products are somewhat lost and even challenged.

Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety announced in June last year that five cancer-causing substances were found in HTPs including PMI’s IQOS, British American Tobacco’s (BAT) Glo and Lil, with the level of tar detected in some of them far exceeding that of conventional cigarettes.

PMI has filed a lawsuit against the South Korean government to demand the disclosure of detailed information on Seoul’s test results of harmful substances found in electronic cigarettes.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that all forms of tobacco, including heated tobacco products (HTPs), are harmful and that there is no evidence to demonstrate that HTPs are less harmful than conventional tobacco products.

A research paper from the University of California San Francisco also concluded “despite delivering lower levels of some toxins than conventional cigarettes, PMI’s own data fail to show consistently lower risks of harm in humans using its heated tobacco product, IQOS, than conventional cigarettes.”

In April 2019 a Swiss lab found a highly toxic substance, isocyanates, emitted from the filters of IQOS. According to pulmonologist and former vice-president of the Swiss Lung League, Rainer Kaelin, inhaling very small amounts of this toxic substance can cause serious health damage.

Tobacco is inherently toxic and contains carcinogens and toxicants even if not burned. HTPs such as IQOS are not harmless, and the precautionary principle to protect consumer safety must be applied to HTPs.

Around 40 countries already ban the sale of e-cigarettes and emerging tobacco products such as HTPs. Among these are four ASEAN countries: Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Singapore and Thailand.

Others include Argentina, Australia, Brazil, East Timor, Kuwait, Taiwan, UAE, and Uruguay. The FDA’s decision should not cause these countries to roll back their ban. These countries have implemented strict tobacco control measures based on the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) and have seen their smoking prevalence decline steadily.

Under the guise of ‘harm reduction’, new and emerging tobacco products such as HTPs pose new threats to society. While continuing to increase sales of cigarettes, transnational tobacco companies are aggressively selling e-cigarettes and HTPs as part of their revamped “smoke-free” image and ironic claims to be part of the solution to the smoking epidemic.

Policy makers should be aware of these veiled attempts of tobacco companies to influence governments to create exemptions for their HTPs and roll back tobacco control policies so as to mislead the public, renormalize tobacco use, increase social acceptability for their products and get more people to be addicted to their products.

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Excerpt:

Wendell Balderas is Media & Communications Manager of the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA)

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By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 14 2019 (IPS)

UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed told a Chatham House meeting in London last week that the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), one of the legacies of the late Secretary-General Kofi Annan, “spawned tremendous progress” in the battle against poverty worldwide.

She pointed out that the number of people living on less than $1.25 a day was reduced from 1.9 billion in 1990 to 836 million in 2015 — “the largest decline of its kind in human history”.

Yet, she warned, much remains to be done to ensure a life of dignity for all. The new rallying point, she pointed out, is the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Still, a new report released last month by the Bangkok-based Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) warns that the SDGs – the successor to MDGs—have been falling behind in a region which is home to the world’s two most populous nations: China and India.

While there has been limited progress, “Asia and the Pacific will not achieve any of the 17 SDGs on its current trajectory”, the report declares. The targeted date to achieve the SDGs is 2030.

The study says “progress has stagnated or has been heading in the wrong direction in more than half the SDGs.”

The situation is deteriorating when it comes to providing clean water and sanitation (SDG6), ensuring decent work and economic growth (SDG8) and supporting responsible consumption and production (SDG12).

The region has made progress towards ending poverty (SDG1) and ensuring all have access to quality education and lifelong learning (SDG4). Measures are also underway to achieve affordable and clean energy (SDG7), according to the report.

“Yet even where good progress has been made, it is too slow for these goals to be met by 2030”.

Launching the report – titled Asia and the Pacific SDG Progress Report 2019 during the 75th Commission session of ESCAP in Bangkok May 28– UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ESCAP Armida Alisjahbana called for urgent action to reverse these negative trends.

“I hope this report will contribute to targeting our efforts to accelerate progress towards all Goals and to strengthen the region’s commitment to improving the quality of data and statistics essential to measuring progress,” she said.

Responding to the report, Stuart Kempster, WaterAid’s Policy Analyst for Monitoring and Accountability, told IPS: “It is shocking that, on its current trajectory, Asia and the Pacific will not achieve any of the 17 SDGs by 2030”.

Referring to SDG 6 which was singled out in the report, he said: “We are especially alarmed that some nations will be years off track in meeting the human right to water and sanitation, the basic building blocks of any stable and prosperous community”, he added.

Kempster said at current rates of progress, everyone in low- and middle-income countries won’t have safely managed water until 2064, or sanitation until 2107.

“We have only 11 years left to keep the promise made to those living without clean water or a decent toilet. Governments must prioritise clean water, decent sanitation and good hygiene, ensuring proper financing is put in place to build a more sustainable world today and for future generations,” he noted.

Arman Bidarbakhtnia, Head, Statistical Data Management Unit (SDMU)
Statistics Division at ESCAP, told IPS the report only assesses regional and sub-regional progress and does not aim to do a country level assessment.

Even though there are many references to country cases at indicator level, he explained, the conclusions on the goals should not be generalized to countries.

The analysis is based on unweighted aggregations at regional and sub-regional level. So, results are not representative of China and India as the biggest countries, he said.

Also, small islands developing states (SIDS) are as important as China and India in this analysis.

He pointed out that “the region” does not mean an entire region or majority of the population but signifies a “typical country in the region” or “half or more countries of the region” (median values).

He said the report is only focusing on the progress and does not aim for a “cause-effect” analysis.

Meanwhile the report also shows major differences in progress between the subregions of Asia and the Pacific which have recorded different successes and face different challenges.

Each subregion needs to reverse existing trends for at least three Goals. For example, East and North-East Asia is regressing in sustainable cities and communities (SDG11), climate action (SDG13) and life on land (SDG15). South-East Asia has moved backwards on SDG8, SDG13 and peace, justice and strong institutions (SDG16).

Additionally, says the report, South and South-West Asia is moving in the wrong direction on SDG6, SDG12 and SDG13.

Since 2000, there has been a decline on gender equality (SDG5), SDG8 and SDG11 in North and Central Asia. The Pacific subregion has regressed on zero hunger (SDG2), SDG8, life below water (SDG14) and SDG16, according to the report.

“The lack of reliable data across all Goals and in all subregions is one of the Asia and the Pacific’s biggest challenges”.

Despite a significant increase in the availability of SDG indicators since 2017, data gaps remain for two thirds of the global SDG indicators. Nearly one-quarter of all SDG targets lacking evidence relate to the environment, according to the report.

Asked whether lack of political will or a shortfall in development aid were reasons for the setbacks, Bidarbakhtnia told IPS these cannot be deduced purely from results of this report.

But it definitely differs by country, including lack of political will, financial resource, development aid, prioritization, development models etc.

However, he said, “you can refer to one ESCAP publication that the cost of closing these gaps is affordable for governments, and it is definitely not all due to lack of financial resources”. https://www.unescap.org/publications/economic-and-social-survey-asia-and-pacific-2019-ambitions-beyond-growth

Asked how valid the conclusions are when the report singles out the “lack of reliable data across all goals,” he said the conclusion is based on a rigorous data availability analysis that is presented in part III of the report. The same part also provides some hint for closing the gap and overcome challenges.

He said administrative sources are a major primary source for SDG indicators at national level. Given their advantages over surveys (lower cost, more frequency, etc) investing in production and use of administrative data is one long-term strategy to close data gaps.

Also exploring use of other alternative sources of data such as satellite imagery, GIS, mobile data and open online sources.

Asked about the region’s rate of success in alleviating or eradicating poverty by 2030, and whether it includes two of the most populous countries in the region, Bidarbakhtnia said “the current rate for eradicating poverty is not enough to achieve the 2030 targets.”

“We have to keep in mind that under goal 1 we are not only talking about income poverty. The region (including China and India) is on track to eradicate “income poverty” if they can maintain the same pace of progress.

However, SDG1 goes beyond only income poverty, region is lagging behind because other dimensions, especially, government spending on basic services (education and health) and resilience against natural disasters.

The report does not present data on China and India but “our data shows that both are doing better than the region on Goal 1 and are on track if they maintain the progress”.

But they also (same as the region) need to accelerate spending on basic services. And there are several other dimensions such as social protection and multidimensional poverty that there is no data to measure, he added.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

The post Asia-Pacific Region Falters on UN Development Goals appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Large numbers of people are bypassing immigration controls as they exit Venezuela. Credit: Tomer Urwicz

By Tomer Urwicz and Liliana Arias Salgado
CÚCUTA, Colombia, Jun 13 2019 (IPS)

Not long ago, 15-year-old Nelsmar attended a middle-class school in central Venezuela. That was before her family was uprooted by the economic and humanitarian crisis in her country, which has pushed nearly 3.9 million persons to migrate or flee, according to recent estimates of the Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela.

Nelsmar’s family made the move over a year ago. They walked for eight days, and spent the rest of the journey traveling by bus, before reaching the border with Colombia. When they arrived in the border city of Cúcuta, she thought the worst was over – but she was wrong.

For weeks, Nelsmar slept either on the street or in a boarding house with shared toilet facilities. Her family struggled to access shampoo, sanitary napkins or even a flashlight to light the way at night.

“When you don’t have the means to bathe or change clothes, or you don’t have enough money, something as natural as one’s menstrual period becomes a real challenge,” Nelsmar told UNFPA.

There are 1.2 million Venezuelan migrants and refugees living in Colombia, and large numbers continue to pour over the border. Many bypass immigration controls.

The mass displacement has led to a heightened risk of sexual violence and exploitation. According to the organization CEPAZ, some 37 per cent of migrant women have reportedly experienced some form of violence. Many migrants are also in need of health services.

Families of migrants and refugees are crossing the border in large numbers. Credit: Tomer Urwicz

UNFPA is working with the government and humanitarian partners to help women receive reproductive health care, including access to maternal health care, contraceptives and other critical services.

UNFPA is also distributing dignity kits, which contain hygiene supplies including sanitary napkins, soap and shampoo, as well as information on where to find health and psychosocial support services. And UNFPA is also organizing workshops on gender-based violence, helping vulnerable migrants identify abuse and learn where to find help.

“The aim of our work was to provide opportunities for the discussion of sexual and reproductive rights, prevent gender-based violence and sexual violence, and share information about the places victims of aggression can go to for care,” explained Dildar Salamanca, a UNFPA field coordinator in Cúcuta, the Colombian city that has received the largest number of Venezuelan migrants in recent years.

In Cúcuta and the city of Maicao, some 2,300 dignity kits have been distributed, and 2,600 women have been reached with contraceptives. More than 2,300 women and adolescents have received information about sexual and reproductive health and gender-based violence.

UNFPA is supporting sexual and reproductive health services, including maternal health care. Credit: Tomer Urwicz

Despite the extraordinary challenges, Mr. Salamanca says he has seen that “migrant women and adolescent girls are extremely strong, resilient and capable of rising above the hostility of life.”

Nelsmar is one such example.

Today, she is living in Cúcuta, where she attends a new school and watches over her siblings when her parents work. She has even joined a group of volunteers who meet on Saturdays to work on youth issues.

Asked how she feels about her situation, she replied firmly, “Well, my dreams are still intact.”

The post Dignity & Strength for Venezuelan Refugees & Migrants in Colombia appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Cyclone Idai’s aftermath in Mozambique. Credit: Denis Onyodi:IFRC/DRK/Climate Centre

By Edinah Masiyiwa
HARARE, Jun 13 2019 (IPS)

In late March Cyclone Idai carved a path of devastation across Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Malawi.  It was the deadliest cyclone to hit the region in more than a century, others have even referred to it as “Africa’s Hurricane Katrina.” More than 1,000 people were killed. Many more saw their homes, food crops, and even entire villages washed away.

My country, Zimbabwe, has been receiving aid from all over the world. Our citizens also have taken it upon themselves to donate toward the needs of those who survived. We may be feeling like things are getting better. But in fact, for many women and girls, they are getting worse.

We are experiencing an aspect of natural disasters that rarely receives the attention it deserves: the fact simply being female puts one at a far greater risk of suffering harm.

A recent report by the UN Resident Coordinator in Zimbabwe observed that at least 15,000 women and girls in the areas affected by Idai are at risk of gender-based violence linked to disruptions caused by the storm.

Edinah Masiyiwa

For example, there was a report of a 14-year-old girl who suffered a sexual assault in Chimanimani, a community in eastern Zimbabwe hit hard by the cyclone. This one case might be just the tip of the iceberg as there are women walking long distances to get to places where food and other aid is being distributed and being forced to sleep in long queues.

There also are concerns of women and girls being asked to provide sex in exchange for access to aid. Meanwhile, a UN Flash appeal report has noted the lack of privacy and lighting in camps for displaced persons, which can increase the risk of violence and transactional sex for female storm victims.

This situation is, unfortunately, not unique to Cyclone Idai.

UN Women has highlighted that there is a rise in violence, including sexual violence, against women and girls in the aftermath of a natural disaster. Just standing in a queue for food aid and other support leave women more vulnerable to sexual exploitation and, consequently, HIV infections.

Also, according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), in crisis situations one in five women of childbearing age are likely to be pregnant.  There is an urgent need to ensure access to reproductive health services. Lack of services such as prenatal care and assisted deliveries, puts these women at an increased risk of life-threatening complications. Suspensions in services that provide prevention and treatment for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections also have a greater impact on women.

Right after the Idai hit, the immediate focus of aid efforts was understandably on providing food and shelter. It is now time to broaden that focus to include interventions that protect women and girls from violence, sexual exploitation, and the loss of critically needed health services

Right after the Idai hit, the immediate focus of aid efforts was understandably on providing food and shelter. It is now time to broaden that focus to include interventions that protect women and girls from violence, sexual exploitation, and the loss of critically needed health services.

For example, all actors on the ground responding to the cyclone must ensure they integrate training programs that include efforts to mitigate the risk of gender-based violence. There should be clear procedures for reporting any cases of violence and measures to protect victims who step forward from suffering retaliation.

Zimbabwe’s Civil Protection Unit also should devote resources to helping women retain access to reproductive health services. Pregnant women should be screened for complications and those at high risk—such as women who need to deliver via caesarian section—should be transferred to hospitals where emergency care is available from skilled health workers.

Women will need access to contraception to avoid unwanted pregnancies, which ultimately lead to unsafe abortions.  Also, at a minimum, there should be a system in place for the timely delivery of aid so that women are not forced to sleep in a long queue just to receive assistance. And any temporary shelter should include security guards to help protect women and girls from attacks.

A natural disaster can impose terrible hardships and cyclones like Idai could become more common as climate change increases the risk of weather extremes. But while we cannot prevent these events from occurring, we can ensure that, for women and girls, storms like Idai do not continue to rage in the form of sexual violence and other neglect that greatly compounds their trauma.

 

Edinah Masiyiwa is a women’s rights activist.  She is the Executive Director of Women’s Action Group and an 2019 Aspen Institute New Voices Fellow.

The post The Storm is Over, But in Southern Africa, Cyclone Idai Continues to Rage for Women and Girls appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Emily Thampoe
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 13 2019 (IPS)

While cities around the world have been providing safe havens to refugees, a few US cities in the Upstate New York region have been integrating refugees and asylum-seekers into their communities.

Specifically, the towns of Utica, Buffalo and Syracuse, are welcoming refugees to live and work. These towns share a border with Canada and so have been allowing asylum-seekers into their communities for many years.

As of 2018, there are 69,058 immigrant residents in the Buffalo Metro Area, according to a report by New American Economy.

This is especially meaningful as immigration policies in the United States have become stricter since the Trump administration took office in 2016.

Eva Hassett, the Executive Director of the International Institute of Buffalo, told IPS: “The Trump administration has lowered the admissions ceiling for refugees coming into the US drastically. There are far lower numbers of refugees arriving in Buffalo, in New York State, in the US – historically low numbers for a program that started in 1980”.

The aforementioned towns fall into the category of “Cities of Light,” as coined by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

This refers to places around the world that have accepted refugees in a warm manner and have provided opportunities and resources that will be beneficial to both the communities and to the refugees who settle in them.

This is just one of the ways that refugees are able to lead lives that are safer than what they would experience in their home countries.

Since 1950, the UNHCR has been aiding in providing assistance to refugees, asylum-seekers, internally displaced and stateless people.

According to the UNHCR, common solutions for refugees include voluntary repatriation (returning to countries of origin), resettlement in another nation and integration into the host community.

Liz Throssell, the UNHCR’s Global Spokesperson for the Americas and Europe, told IPS: “For refugees who cannot go home, integration into their local community can provide a durable solution, allowing them the chance to build a new life. Integration is often a complex and gradual process, with legal, economic, social and cultural dimensions”.

“It places considerable demands placed on both the individual and the host community. But when refugees are integrated, this can bring benefits all round, as the person is able to contribute economically and socially to the community,” she declared.

With approximately 1.1 million refugees becoming citizens in the countries in which they claimed asylum, the good that Cities of Light do is evident.

These cities have given refugees a way to feel safe and welcome through bestowing governmental provisions and ways to maintain their cultural identity while being helped to adjust to a new environment.

Globally-known Cities of Light include Jakarta, Indonesia; Kigali, Rwanda; Vienna, Austria; São Paulo, Brazil; Erbil, Iraq; Altena, Germany and Gdansk, Poland.

Throssell said, “An increasing number of cities are working to empower refugees and embrace the opportunities they bring. Mayors, local authorities, social enterprises and citizens groups are on the frontlines of the global refugee response, fostering social cohesion, and protecting and assisting the forcibly displaced in their midst.”

In Buffalo, benefits have included, “Affordability, welcoming community, pro-rights and inclusion, lots of support infrastructure, good jobs and cities are easy to get around,” according to Hassett.

Similar social and economic effects have been seen in Utica, New York as well.

Although the number of refugees allowed into the United States has been noticeably cut down to 30,000 this year due, in part, to immigration policies under the Trump administration, refugees are still moving into New York state.

Hassett notes, “Refugee is an immigration status; it is conferred upon an individual by the US Department of State (DOS). Refugees arrive documented and work authorized, they are screened and greenlighted before they arrive by DOS, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). They will naturalize to be legal permanent residents.”

The US refugee resettlement program (officially called Reception and Placement) was established in 1980 and provides 90 days of support and financial support to refugees entering the US under the R&P program. This is the program whose ceiling the President has lowered so drastically”.

This sort of migration is possible as residents of the region are promoting job placements, English language services and housing services in order to direct refugees who are already living in the United States to the state.

Much of this advertising is done through video campaigns by resettlement agencies, Facebook groups, WhatsApp chats and newspapers that are run by refugees.

While this will help give opportunity, it also allows New York to expand its population and the size of its workforce.

Having more people move into towns like Utica, Buffalo and Syracuse has turned areas that once were barren or unsafe, into areas that are bustling with life and culture.

The post Cities of Light are Providing Safe Havens to Refugees appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Syed Neaz Ahmad FRSA
Jun 12 2019 (IPS-Partners)

They are thought to be the world’s most persecuted refugees. It is also argued that they are one of the most forgotten too. Some five year ago I saw and met hundreds of inmates from Burma in a Jeddah prison. Thousands of Burmese Muslims from Arakan – often called Rohingyas – were offered a safe haven in Saudi Arabia by King Faisal but with the change in rulers in Saudi Arabia the rules underwent a change too. A permanent abode of peace that was offered to these uprooted Arakanese is now nothing less than a chamber of horrors.

A Rohingya woman and her child at a refugee camp in Bangladesh. Credit: Kamrul Hasan/IPS

There are some three thousand families of Burmese Muslims in Makkah and Jeddah prisons awaiting their deportation. Women and children are held in separate prisons nearby. The only contact the men have with their wives and children is through mobile phones and clandestine courier service provided by hawkers of food & water – aided & abetted by the prison officers for a small fee!

But the interesting question is: Where will they be sent? Burma (Myanmar) doesn’t want them. Bangladesh with a large population, porous border and poor economy doesn’t have the inclination or the ability to handle a refugee population of this size. The Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are having a rough time as it is. Pakistan’s offer to accept part of the Rohingyas – awaiting deportation in Saudi prisons – is seen as mere a diplomatic exercise. Against the background of Islamabad’s treatment of some 300,000 stranded Pakistanis – living a miserable life in camps in Bangladesh – senior Rohingya inmates look at Pakistani overture with suspicion.

But who are these people called Burmese Muslims, Arakanese or Rohingyas? The people who call themselves Rohingyas are the Muslims of the Mayu Frontier area, present-day Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships of Arakan (Rakhine) State, a province isolated in the western part of the country across the river Naf which forms the boundary between Myanmar and Bangladesh.

After Myanmar had gained independence, a concentration of nearly ninety per cent of the area’s population – of Islamic faith formed an ethnic and religious minority group on the western fringe of the republic. In the beginning they favoured a policy of joining Pakistan. This policy faded away when they could not gain support from the government of Pakistan. Later they began to call for the establishment of an autonomous region instead.

Their insistence to call themselves ‘the Muslims of Arakan’ and adoption of Urdu as their national language indicated their inclination towards the sense of collective identity that the Muslims of Indian subcontinent showed before the partition of India (Department of Defence Service Archives, Rangoon: CD 1016/10/11).

In June 1951 All-Arakan Muslim Conference was held in village Alethangyaw, and ‘The Charter of the Constitutional Demands of the Arakani Muslims’ was published. It called for ‘the balance of power between the Muslims and the Maghs (Arakanese), two major races of Arakan.’ The demand of the charter read: North Arakan should be immediately formed a free Muslim State as equal constituent Member of the Union of Burma like the Shan State, the Karenni State, the Chin Hills, and the Kachin Zone with its own Militia, Police and Security Forces under the General Command of the Union (Department of the Defence Service Archives, Rangoon: DR 1016/10/13).

It is noteworthy that in the charter these peoples are mentioned as the Muslims of Arakan and not Rohingyas. The word ‘Rohingya’, it is claimed, was first suggested by Abdul Gaffar, an MP from Buthidaung, in his article ‘The Sudeten Muslims’,

During his campaign for the 1960 elections, Myanmar Prime Minister U Nu promised statehood for Arakanese and Mon people. When he came to power the plans for the formation of the Arakan and Mon states were forgotten. Naturally, the Muslim members of parliament from Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships denounced the plan and called for the establishment of a Rohingya state. (SOAS bulletin of Burma research, 2005)

In 1973, Ne Win’s Revolutionary Council sought public opinion for drafting a new constitution. The Muslims from the Mayu Frontier submitted a proposal to the Constitution Commission for the creation of a separate Muslim state or at least a division for them (Kyaw Zan Tha, 1995).

‘The proposal was turned down. When elections were held under the 1974 Constitution the Bengali Muslims from the Mayu Frontier Area were denied the right to elect their representatives to the “Pyithu Hlut-taw” (People’s Congress). After the end of the Independence war in Bangladesh some arms and ammunitions flowed into the hands of the young Muslim leaders from Mayu Frontier. On 15 July 1972 a congress of all Rohingya parties was held at the Bangladeshi border to call for the Rohingya National Liberation’ (Mya Win, 1992).

Myanmar’s successive military regimes persisted in a policy of denying citizenship to most Bengalis, especially in the frontier area. They stubbornly grasped the 1982 Citizenship Law that allowed only the ethnic groups who had lived in Burma before the First Anglo-Burmese War that began in 1824 as the citizens of the country. By this law those Muslims had been treated as aliens in the land they have inhabited for more than a century.

‘According to the 1983 census Muslims in Arakan constituted 24.3 percent and they were categorized as Bangladeshi, while the Arakanese Buddhists formed 67.8 percent of the population of the Arakan (Rakhine) State’ (Immigration and Manpower Department 1987:I-14).

‘In the 1988 Democracy movement Muslims raised the Rohingya issue. Subsequently when the military junta allowed the registration of the political parties they asked for their parties to be recognized under the name “Rohingya.” Their demand was turned down and so they formed the National Democratic Party for Human rights (NDPHR) that won in four constituencies in 1990 elections – eleven candidates of the Arakan League for Democracy (ALD) were elected to the legislature. However, the Elections Commission abolished both the ALD and the NDPHR in 1991. Some of the party members had to go into exile.’

In 1978 the Burmese junta created a situation for the Arakanese Muslims that forced them to leave their country for safety elsewhere. However, those who crossed over to East Pakistan or Thailand were never considered as welcome visitors. The Myanmar government has consistently refused to recognise the Rohingyas as citizens, who have been forced to flee their homeland since 1978 – to neighbouring Thailand and as far as Japan.

According to Amnesty International, in 1978 over 200,000 Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh, following the Burmese army’s Operation Nagamin. Most – it is claimed by Yangon – were eventually repatriated, but around 15,000 refused to return. In 1991, a second wave of about a quarter of a million Rohingyas fled Myanmar to Bangladesh

The Malaysianinsider.com reports that in January, shocking news emerged of the mistreatment by Thai security forces of over a thousand ‘boat people’ travelling from Bangladesh and Myanmar to Thailand and Malaysia. Most of them were Rohingyas. They drifted at sea for weeks, without sufficient food and water, after having been beaten, towed out, and abandoned. The Indian navy rescued about 400 in different batches; Indonesia rescued a further 391. The rest were reported missing, presumed dead.

In Bangladesh, it is said that there are over 250,000 Rohingyas, some 35,000 of them in overcrowded camps.

There are a further 13,600 registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Malaysia (although there are thousands yet unregistered), an estimated 3,000 in Thailand, and unknown numbers in India.

All of these countries have not ratified the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, its 1967 Protocol, and the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.

Most Rohingyas in Asia are considered irregular migrants. Without official papers, they are often subject to arrest, detention, punishment for immigration offences and deportation. Forced to work in the informal labour market, they are often exploited and cheated.

In Malaysia, where some Rohingyas have resided since the early 1990s, they continue to be rounded up in immigration operations, whipped, and handed over to human traffickers on the Thai-Malaysia border. Some have been deported multiple times; some have ‘disappeared’ along the way. Around 730,000 remain in Myanmar, most of whom live in the Arakan state. The State Peace and Development Council, the military regime that rules Myanmar, continues to disavow Rohingyas as citizens.

Consequently, the Rohingyas are still subject to forced labour, forced eviction, and land confiscation. Strict restrictions are placed on their freedom of movement, freedom to marry, and freedom to own property. Many who return from abroad have been imprisoned for years, punished for crossing the border ‘illegally’. Conditions in the Arakan state continue to deteriorate, increasing the likelihood of further outflows into neighbouring countries.

The UNHCR has been allowed limited access inside Burma. The UN agency claims that it has helped more than 200,000 to get better healthcare and some 35,000 children to education. But this kind of help is merely a drop in the ocean. It’s an irony that countries in Asia and elsewhere – particularly Muslim countries – have shown little or no desire to help ease the situation.

The UNHCR spokesman in Asia, Kitty Mckinsey says: ‘No country has really taken up their cause. Look at the Palestinians, for example, they have a lot of countries on their side. The Rohingyas do not have any friends in the world.’

Obviously, an immediate and sympathetic solution is needed; otherwise, it can plunge Rohingyas into deeper suffering, cause resistance amongst host societies, and fail at stemming the onward movement of Rohingyas into the region.

The late King Faisal’s decision to offer them a permanent abode in Saudi Arabia was a gesture that reflected his noble approach to the problems faced by Muslims in other countries. However, later Saudi rulers have found the Burmese Muslims a thorn in their side. With strict regulation on their employment and movement within the Kingdom Saudi police find them easy targets for extortion and torture.

Although Myanmar Muslims have showed collective political interest for more than five decades since the country gained independence, their political and cultural rights have not been recognised. On the contrary, the demand for the recognition of their rights sounds like a direct challenge to the right of autonomy and the myth of survival for the Arakanese majority in their homeland.

It is said that there are some 250,000 Burmese Muslims in Saudi Arabia – majority living in Makkah Al-Mukarramah’s slums Naqqasha and Kudai. They sell vegetables, sweep streets, work as porters, carpenters, unskilled labour, and those fortunate enough become drivers.

The correct number of the Rohingya refugees living in Asian countries – Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan and Saudi Arabia – is anybody’s guess. But this diaspora of refugees attracts human traffickers. It is not uncommon for poor Rohingyas to marry off their very young – sometimes underage – daughters to old and affluent Saudis in the hope of getting ‘official favours’. But with a high rate of divorce in Saudi Arabia in the Saudi society this hasn’t worked for many. Rohingya wives of Saudi men are not easily accepted in the Saudi society and they have to survive – as second class wives – on the periphery of the social infrastructure.

Those whom I met in Jeddah prisons seem to have accepted the situation as fait accompli. But it is unfair that these innocent people be made to suffer in a country which is considered the citadel of Islam that houses the two holiest places of worship on earth and the rulers style themselves as Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.

King Abdullah is not only the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques; he is also the Custodian of those living in that country, including Rohingya refugees who were invited by one of his illustrious predecessors. Will Saudi Arabia live up to its promises and expectations? Dhaka – with friendly ties with Saudi Arabia – must impress upon Riyadh to find an early solution to this thorn in the side of humanity.

(Syed Neaz Ahmad, who taught at Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, is a London-based journalist. He writes for British, Arab & Bangladeshi press. He anchors a celebrity chatshow on NTV Europe).

The post Burmese Muslims: Still looking for a permanent home! appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Traditional indigenous attire of a Mayan woman from the Quiche region of Guatemala. Credit: UN Photo/John Olsson

By Caley Pigliucci
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 12 2019 (IPS)

Rural and indigenous populations in countries like Guatemala and Honduras are increasingly on the move – either migrating internally or to neighbouring countries.

But the focus on these populations has been limited, leaving them forgotten and marginalized as they continue to be disproportionately affected by climate change.

The disappearance of farmlands and unreliability of crops due to climate change have led families to experience increased food and economic insecurity—that have forced some of them to migrate.

“In general, we can say that the majority of rural migrants are poor people, but often not the poorest, because the latter cannot afford the significant costs of these journeys,” Ricardo Rapallo, Senior Food Security Officer at the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), told IPS.

According to the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), between 2000 and 2010, the number of migrants from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras increased by an average of 59% and the number of illegal immigrants apprehended by the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) increased from 50,000 during 2010 to over 400,000 in 2016.

Elizabeth Kennedy, a researcher with Human Rights Watch (HRW) based in Honduras, told IPS, “When we talk about climate change, we have to think about historical and social factors that leave certain groups more impacted than others…many of the people who farm and fish on the lands most vulnerable to climate change have been historically mistreated.”

“Realizing that those most impacted are indigenous is critical, because it hasn’t been part of the main stream conversation, and it needs to be,” Kennedy added.

The United Nations does not label those forced to migrate due to climate change as ‘climate refugees.’

A change in language would require an agreement among member-states altering the definition of refugees (currently defined as: “someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war or violence”.

And a refugee also has a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group.

However, Kennedy emphasized that “Indigeneity is a protected factor, and that is a reason to claim asylum.” But she warns that in the case of migration from Central America, “many people around the US, including lawyers are not aware that they need to be looking at historic and systemic inclusion.”

She added that this is true “even in Guatemala and Honduras. This is in fact demonstrative that the state doesn’t take it seriously.”

Researchers, like Kennedy, are frustrated as they see little data and few programs that help indigenous and rural people which also take into account the fraught history that indigenous people have in Central America, a place where a number of massacres occurred in 1996 and many are still recovering from the violence.

Kennedy said there are six indigenous groups in Honduras and over 30 in Guatemala, but she expressed her desire to see “updated statistics on the various indigenous groups.”

Many climate migrants are also left out of the public eye because they only migrate within their own country.

“It is important to stress that, even if the international migration is the one gathering public attention, and motivating political reactions, internal migration is by far larger,” said Rapallo..

The UN Development Programme (UNDP) has estimated external migration in 2015 at around 244 million people, while internal migration (as of 2009) was estimated at 740 million people.

For many who experience food insecurities, families will send one member to another country to provide for the family from afar, but the rest of the family will remain in their home country.

The FAO says “what has been observed is that young people represent a major part of the international migrants.”

Alongside the increase of internal migration and external migration among youth, Kennedy also sees an increase in family units migrating away from Guatemala and Honduras in recent years, which, she says, “shows that more is happening than needing to just provide economic stability to the home.”

Rapallo said: “If we want to give people options and make an impact on migration movements, we should work on the root causes of migration.”

The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has taken a specific policy initiative to protect climate migrants: the Platform on Disaster Displacement (PDD).

UNHCR representatives told IPS that the PDD “…promotes policy and normative developments to address gaps in the protection of people at risk of displacement or already displaced across borders in the context of climate change and disaster.”

UNHCR says that member-states and stake-holders will have an opportunity to “…deliver concrete pledges and contributions that will advance the objectives of the Global Compact and highlight key achievements and good practices” at the Global Refugee Forum on the 17 and 18 of December 2019.

But, thus far, it remains unclear to what extent the PDD has had an effect on the admittance or protections of climate migrants.

The 2019 Climate Action Summit will take place this September during the UN General Assembly sessions.

Luis Alfonso de Alba, the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the summit responded to a question from IPS about the potential need to update language surrounding climate migrants.

At a press briefing on May 28th, he said: “This is not a meeting for negotiations… So I think the topic of language will continue to rather be an issue for member states.”

“We are obviously taking into account the impact of climate change into migration as a topic,” he added, but said “We are not negotiating language.”

Though de Alba assured IPS that indigenous populations will be involved in the summit, rural and indigenous populations migrating internally and externally in Central America are still largely over-looked.

Kennedy worries that not enough is being done. “They need targeted programs, they need targeted statistics, and these are not provided,” she said.

Rapallo said: “The right to migrate also involves the right not to migrate. Migration should be an option, but not the only option to pursue a better life, or sometimes even to survive.”

The post The Forgotten Migrants of Central America appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Elephants in an area infested by the invasive sickle bush. The Uganda Wildlife Authority fears that the management of the shrub could be a challenge as the plants rapidly colonise grasslands in the Queen Elizabeth National Park, the country's most diverse park. Credit: Wambi Michael/IPS

By Wambi Michael
KASESE, Uganda, Jun 12 2019 (IPS)

As climate change leads to increased temperatures in East Africa, a thicket of invasive thorny trees with the ability to withstand harsh climatic conditions have begun threatening Uganda’s second-largest park, home to a rare breed of tree climbing lions and one of the highest concentrations of primates in the world.

The Queen Elizabeth National Park forms part of the Greater Virunga Landscape, considered the richest part of the African continent in terms of vertebrate species. The park is Uganda’s most diverse and boasts 5,000 species of mammals, including: 27 primates such as chimpanzees, red-tailed and monkeys, and baboons; birds; amphibians; reptiles; hippos and elephants.

But conservation experts at the Queen Elizabeth National Park are fighting to stop the spread of Dichrostachys cinerea, commonly known as sickle bush.

There is a fear that the further spread of of the shrub, which has a long tap root and various lateral roots that make it difficult to remove, could further place at risk the already endangered species that exist here. A recent  Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) report found that there is massive loss of biodiversity globally that could “undermine human well-being for current and future generations,” according to Sir Robert Watson, the outgoing chair of the IPBES.

Though not new to the country or the region, the invasive plant, which is native to South Africa and known for its medicinal uses, has begun spreading rapidly across the park, taking up in recent years an estimated 40 percent of the almost 2,000 square kilometres that the park covers.

Edward Asalu, the chief warden here, told IPS that the spread of these thickets was affecting animal settlements in this ecologically diverse part of the country.

“This issue is being studied but we know that it is largely linked to climate change,” he said, alluding to the increased temperatures in the country. He added that higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere also contributed to the fast spread of the sickle bush.

According to a climate risk assessment report on the country by the Climate and Development Learning Platform, which aims to integrate climate change into development programming, “climate projections developed for Uganda … indicate an increase in near-surface temperature for the country in the order of +2°C in the next 50 years, and in the order of +2.5°C in the next 80 years.”

Robert Adaruku is a tour guide with the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) and has noted that increased temperatures have affected the growth of the sickle bush.

“As the temperature goes high, such kinds of plants like the sickle bush are able to survive in a hotter environment are able to expand. Because the weather or environment will be favouring their expansion,” he told IPS.

The sickle bush and its recent rapid growth due to increased temperatures has led it to become the latest threat to Uganda’s wildlife conservation efforts. Credit: Wambi Michael/IPS

Thicket drives away animals
The spread of the sickle bush is evident as one drives along the road overlooking the Kazinga Channel, a 32 kilometre stretch of water that joins Lake George and Lake Edward. The channel has previously been considered the ideal spot to view game.

A lonely male elephant is spotted in the early afternoon under a thicket of sickle bush. There is no grass underfoot.

Asalu told IPS the thickets were not easily penetrated by most animals and that “grazers like antelopes, warthogs and buffalos are avoiding those thickets because they can’t find food under there.”

“We have areas which were grasslands but are now being taken over by thickets. Animals, especially the herbivores, like open areas where they can be able to see the carnivores trying to eat them. That is why you cannot find them in area colonised by the sickle bush,” Asalu explained.

Adaruku explained that he first noticed the sickle bush in the park way back in 1997. “The sickle plants were there but on a very small scale. As time goes on it has been able to expand and colonise this area.”

Sickle bush spreading rapidly across Africa and beyond

But it is just not this park that the sickle bush is taking over. Asalu confirmed that Tanzania’s Randilen Wildlife Management Area also recently had to deal with the spread of the sickle bush.

Quoting a study by the Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International (CABI), a non-profit inter-governmental development and information organisation, Asalu said that Dichrostachys cinerea spreads very fast because it can produce up to 130 shoots from the mother stem.

Studies from West Africa have found that the sickle bush is mostly found in warm, dry savannahs but it can grow in more than three climate groups.

CABI said the subspecies spreading in East Africa is thought to have originated in countries such as Algeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa and is spreading all over the world.

“Dichrostachys cinerea has a high reproductive rate, meaning that they produce many seeds throughout the year. Although not all offspring are successful, the plants that do establish themselves can typically expect a long lifespan due to their tolerance to natural disturbances like fire, drought and pests,” reads part of a 2017 report by CABI.

It added that the ability by the sickle bush to prosper on nutrient-poor soils and disturbed areas made it very adaptive and resilient in its native region of South Africa.

A 2017 study in the journal Nature Communications found that alien invasive species, like the sickle bush, have the ability to expand rapidly at higher latitudes and altitudes as the climate warms, out-pacing native species. The park is estimated to be 914m above sea level, while Uganda is about 140 kms above the equator.

Geofrey Baluku is a part-time tour operator around Kilembe and Kasese, the areas alongside the Queen Elizabeth National Park. He is also concerned about the spread of the sickle bush.

“It is a serious problem. What will happen to this park if all the animals go away?” Baluku said in an interview with IPS.

He told IPS that the sickle bush is not entirely new to the area but the rate at which it is expanding was.
“We have used those same plants to treat some diseases. It is very good soothing to tooth ache.
“But …even elephants don’t eat their leaves. Other small animals don’t want to stay in areas colonised by sickle bush so they move to other areas, including where there are human settlements,” Baluku said.

Uganda Wildlife Authority wardens at one of the areas formerly colonised by the sickle bush. The authority has undertaken restoration efforts since July to clear the Queen Elizabeth National Park of the shrub. Credit: Wambi Michael/IPS

A problematic plant

Dr Peter Baine, a research officer at Uganda’s invasive species research unit, told IPS that the sickle bush forms a canopy in a colonised area, releasing chemicals that kill the grass underneath.

“It is quite problematic to other plants because of its ability to spread fast, grow fast, disperse numerous seeds, and the seed’s ability to last in soil up until a year,” he said.

Baine did not rule out the fact that its rapid spread could be linked to climate change. He told IPS that invasive species and climate change are two of the primary factors that alter ecological systems.

He said the National Agricultural Research Organisation and UWA were conducting studies to understand the interaction between climate change and the sickle bush for a possible management plan to fight the problem.

Restoration Effort

The UWA has in the past burnt the sickle bush but discovered that the tree would sprout again after a few weeks.

Since July, the authority has embarked on a new restoration effort, involving the uprooting and burning of the plants in colonised areas.

About six hundred hectares of sickle bush had been uprooted by May when IPS visited the Queen Elizabeth National Park.

Asalu told IPS that there remains a huge challenge ahead because uprooting and burning the sickle bush requires huge financial resources that are not readily available.

But in the meantime the current efforts for eradication are making a difference. IPS saw a number of animals, including buffalo and bushbucks (African antelopes), in parts of the restored area.

*Writing with Nalisha Adams in Johannesburg

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The post Uganda’s Rare Tree Climbing Lions and Endangered Primates Threatened By Climate Change appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Charlotte Munns
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 12 2019 (IPS)

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has been forced to justify its existence at the United Nations ahead of a pledging conference later this month.

UNRWA came under fire by Jason Greenblatt, US Special Envoy for International Negotiations, at a Security Council meeting late last month.

Allegations and criticism raised by Greenblatt did little to aid the already precarious financial situation of the Agency. Last week, UNRWA held a press conference at the UN in an attempt to raise awareness — and funds for their work.

The organisation supports around 74% of Gaza’s population, and also has major operations in the West Bank and Jordan, where millions of Palestine refugees reside. The Agency provides food aid, social services, education and infrastructure.

UNRWA requires US$1.2 billion to fund all its operations in the coming year. However, fears have been raised regarding their ability to do so. Unless the Agency is able to secure at least US$60 million by the end of this month, their ability to provide food aid to over 1 million Palestine refugees seems uncertain.

The Agency is funded predominantly by UN Member States, the European Union and regional governments. These sources contribute 93% of funds. Private individuals and non-governmental sources contributed over US$17 million in 2018.

Matthias Schmale, Director of UNRWA Operations in Gaza, noted at the press conference last week, “right now, strictly financially speaking, we don’t have the money to guarantee the opening of schools in the fall.”

These financial concerns have largely arisen following the United States’ refusal to continue funding the organisation. Greenblatt justified Trump’s decision to the Security Council last month.

“The UNRWA model has failed the Palestinian people,” he said, describing the Agency as an “irredeemably flawed operation” and a “band-aid” solution. Instead, he proposed an integration of the Agency’s services into government and non-governmental organisations’ structures.

In his explanation of the United States’ decision, he reaffirmed the country’s support of Israel, stating “the United States will always stand with Israel.”

This prompted criticism that the decision to cease funding UNRWA was a political move, rather than for issues with the Agency’s functioning.

Peter Mulrean, Director of UNRWA’s Representative Office in New York, said in a statement to IPS that “UNRWA regrets the U.S. decision to stop funding UNRWA after decades of being the Agency’s single largest donor and strong partner.” However, he refused to speculate on the motives behind that decision.

Greenblatt claimed the politicisation of UNRWA, despite its intended neutrality, meant “year after year, Palestinians in refugee camps were not given the opportunity to build any future; they were misled and used as political pawns and commodities instead of being treated as human beings.”

In his response, Mulrean said: “UNRWA is a UN humanitarian Agency that has no political role in Palestine or anywhere else.”

Despite this, UNRWA was asked at the press conference to respond to claims its members have involvement with Hamas after weapons were found stored in a school, and tunnels were located beneath multiple UNRWA educational buildings.

The Agency noted its officials reported all such incidents, and measures were taken to remove the weapons and close the tunnels.

Criticism of UNRWA seems at odds with the Security Council’s stance on the Agency.

Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, said in a press briefing last week, “the Secretary General has been speaking on support of UNRWA for a long time,” adding, “his position remains unchanged, that he very much feels that UNRWA is a stabilizing force in the region through the education services it provides, through the health services, and through the support services.”

At the Security Council meeting last month it was only the United States and Israel that spoke against UNRWA. All other 14 member states reaffirmed their support for the Agency.

“That is a reflection of the broad support UNRWA enjoys in the international community,” Mulrean told IPS.

Despite this, UNRWA has for years struggled to meet its budget. Last year, around 42 countries and institutions increased their contributions to erase an unprecedented deficit of US$446 million.

Greenblatt noted the United States was frequently called upon to fill budget gaps. Having pledged around US$6 billion to the organisation over the course of its existence, he reaffirmed his government’s refusal to continue to do so.

Instead, the United States has called for a conference in Bahrain—June 25-26– to discuss possible solutions to the Palestine refugee crisis. Many see this as compensation for withdrawing funding for UNRWA.

While Mulrean refused to take a formal position on the upcoming conference in Bahrain, he did say that UNRWA doesn’t see this as in competition with the Agency’s work.

UNRWA has fought Greenblatt’s criticism before press in order to garner support for its mandate. Within a context of escalating violence in Gaza – some saying the worst since 2014 – and ever- increasing numbers of Palestine refugees, the Agency continues to seek funding from member states so as to continue its operations in the coming year.

“This is our reality,” Mulrean said, “we have schools to run, we have clinics to run, we have people to feed.”

The post An Uncertain Future for Palestinian Refugees appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By GGGI
Jun 12 2019 (IPS-Partners)

SEOUL, Republic of Korea  (GGGI) – Out of more than 200 participants, 15 were shortlisted from GGGI’s Member countries and countries where GGGI has operations, including Cambodia, Colombia, Ethiopia, India, Jordan, Morocco, Nepal, the Philippines, Rwanda, Uganda, the UAE, and Vanuatu. This year, GGGI is pleased to have a variety of project ideas designed to facilitate the achievement of green growth and climate change action in developing countries, including innovative uses of solar PV systems, recycling solutions, and waste management innovations.

In 2019, 50% of applications consisted of teams with female leads with regional diversity of 43% (Asia), 7% (Small islands), 30% (Sub-Saharan Africa), 17% (MENA), and 3% (Latin America).

GGGI would like to congratulate the following 15 participants who will take part in a 12-week support and development program, receiving mentoring and training through a virtual webinar. The top three teams who win the Business Plan Competition will win USD 5,000 per team in seed funding to invest in their business ideas plus bursaries.

 

 

In April, GGGI kicked off a global competition to support young entrepreneurs develop sustainable ideas or solutions that would positively impact their communities and the Sustainable Development Goals.

“We are hoping to foster a generation of young leaders passionate about promoting green solutions and a sustainable future"

Dr. Frank Rijsberman, Director-General of GGGI

Now in its second year, the Greenpreneurs 2019 program aims to serve as a platform for young entrepreneurs with ideas for business development, that is environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive.

“Young entrepreneurs have innovative business ideas to accelerate the transition to green growth in developing countries, however, they still lack access to right technical training, network, mentorship, and seed capital. Thus, together with Student Energy and the Youth Climate Lab, GGGI launched a pilot Greenpreneurs program in 2018 with the aim of providing support for green growth startups, particularly in developing countries.”

Believing in the potential of the youth, Greenpreneurs is designed to provide opportunities for young entrepreneurs to transform innovative ideas into green businesses in sustainable energy, water and sanitation, sustainable landscapes and green cities – all of which are GGGI’s thematic priorities.

“We are hoping to foster a generation of young leaders passionate about promoting green solutions and a sustainable future. Last year, we launched a business competition limited to virtual mentoring over the web, but this year, we are envisioning to have physical incubators to join the green streams to nurture green entrepreneurs,” said Dr. Frank Rijsberman.

GGGI’s partner, the Youth Climate Lab, shared how “youth play a crucial role in combating climate change. Their active participation provides intergenerational viewpoints of present and future citizens, which are fundamental to sustainable development.”

About Greenprenuers Program 2019

Greenpreneurs is a twelve-week virtual global competition open to youth between the ages of 17 and 35 focused in GGGI’s Member countries. The four priority themes (Sustainable Energy, Water & Sanitation, Sustainable Landscapes, and Green Cities) reflect the urgent issues impeding growth in developing countries in the context of green growth, climate change, and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

 

 

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Photo Credit: UNICEF/Phil Moore

By UNOCHA
Jun 11 2019 (IPS-Partners)

(UNOCHA) – Conflict, hunger and disease forced nearly 700,000 people to flee South Sudan to become refugees in neighbouring countries in 2017. More than 70 percent of those fled in the first half of 2017, when multiple military offensives occurred in Upper Nile, Unity, Jonglei, and the Greater Equatoria region.

Since 2013, over 4.2 million people – about one in three South Sudanese – have been displaced within the country. More than 2.2 million people are now refugees in countries across the region, including Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

What happens when people are forced to abandon their land, homes, jobs and schools due to a civil war? Follow one family’s journey of 1,000 kilometers (over 600 miles) as they travel the length of South Sudan in search of safety.

View the full story on UN OCHA

The post Displaced in South Sudan – A journey of 1,000 kilometers appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Nils Røkke
TRONDHEIM, Norway, Jun 11 2019 (IPS)

Never before has half a degree (0.5C) meant so much for humanity. We are behaving as if we have time to deal with climate change. We don’t. The main problem is that we believe we must sacrifice growth and prosperity for the sake of decarbonisation. We don’t.

Increase investments

We can decarbonise the economy and create jobs and growth. In Europe, this requires that member states increase investments in energy research and renewable energy technologies.

Europe can take the lead by investing in research and reviewing regulations, making sustainability a competitive advantage. The public and the private sector need to work together to quickly prototype technologies and then scale the pilots.

This requires research and innovation incentives. To show the effect of these approaches, I would like to point out a few concrete examples.

To increase investments in research in Europe, research institutes, the public and the private sector need to link national funding to EU programs. Existing research funding needs to be spent more wisely.

Nils Røkke

Simultaneously the public and the private sector need to plan, work and evaluate projects like real partners. I am certain that this will incentivize and accelerate climate-friendly and market-worthy businesses and ideas.

One example of an effective public-private partnership is the Norwegian government’s support of research facilities for carbon capture and storage at multiple locations for multiple industries. This includes Norcem’s cement plant in Breivik and the recycling of energy from a waste incineration plant at Klementsrud in Oslo.

Leveraging public-private partnerships

The Norwegian government has understood that to balance its national carbon budget, the public sector needs to support private industry. Proof that this approach works is the first full-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) solution to be implemented at a cement factory, in Brevik, Norway.

Government supported schemes for capacity building, research and innovation has underpinned this development and planned deployment. This has also included projects operating under the EU Framework programs for research from FP6 to Horizon 2020. We need more solutions that are sustainable, effective and realistic by 2030. Which means we also need more public-private partnership.

Regulating change

At the same time, countries can regulate to ensure that sustainable operations become a competitive advantage and that sustainable technologies is rapidly deployed and adopted. A clear example from industry is the Europe-wide market for carbon quotas.

Requiring companies to pay for their emissions incentivizes them to find the most innovative and effective ways to reduce their emissions. The companies that can reduce emissions in the most cost-effective way will in turn become more competitive. The companies that change will capture market share and grow.

Regulations are also an incredibly efficient way to affect consumer and market behaviour, and thereby which technologies are sold, profitable and further improved. A common example of this is the Norwegian government’s approach to regulating the personal vehicle market.

Electric vehicles are exempt from many taxes and fees in Norway, which makes them very appealing when compared to vehicles with internal combustion engines. All of these incentives have made a significant impact on consumers adopting electric vehicles.

In March 2019 Norway actually became the first country in the world to sell more electric vehicles than internal combustion vehicles.

Incentivising energy research

Increasing funds for energy research and affecting behaviour through regulation are important for change, but full-scale pilot projects will only scale when energy research itself is incentivized. No one single technology or system can tackle our transition to a zero-emission society.

Each country must therefore consider the tools at their disposal to incentivise research into technologies for renewable energy. This was the backdrop for establishing the Mission Innovation initiative (MI) that was launched at the COP21 in Paris. Why is only 1.8% of public research and development funding invested in clean energy when clean energy is one of the most important ways to achieve climate neutrality?

The Mission Innovation initiative aims to double the investment into clean energy to trigger more investment from the private sector. After all, public money cannot solve this challenge alone.

Countries need to work together. At EERA, we work hard to ensure that we facilitate cooperation to the greatest possible extent. One concrete project I would like to draw attention to is the Joint Programme for Concentrated Solar Power (JP CSP).

Fostering knowledge and technology transfer from advanced European research to the most promising areas for solar thermal energy is the key aim of the international cooperation strategy of the program.

Within the framework of the EU funded Integrated Research Programme STAGE-STE, the JP CSP has successfully integrated partners from four continents – from Australia to Chile, Brazil, Mexico, India, China, as well as from MENA countries like Libya, Morocco and Saudi Arabia – in its research community, gathering all the key research institutions working on CSP and solar thermal energy.

The EU can always do more. One concrete recommendation I would like to give as Executive Vice President of Sustainability at SINTEF and Chair of EERA is to increase the budget for the next Horizon Europe research program. The initial suggestion of 100 billion EUR should instead be expanded to 120 billion.

We need the budgetary room so that we can fully pursue the ideas that make the most sense. Also, we need to be sure that the research we do fully permeates industry. Therefore, “Pillar Two” of Horizon Europe, the portion that connects the research with industrial opportunities, must be further strengthened.

There are many solutions and technologies that are required to generate the technologies and techniques for a more sustainable future. All countries and member states in Europe should increase their investments, regulate to ensure that sustainability becomes a competitive advantage, and incentivize research to realize as many solutions as possible.

Technology can keep us in the race to prevent global warming, jobs and economic growth. How can we ever overspend on that investment?

The post Developing Technologies for Zero-Carbon Economies appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Nils Røkke is Chair of European Energy Research Association and head of Sustainability at SINTEF Energy.

The post Developing Technologies for Zero-Carbon Economies appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Michael Lim Mah Hui
KUALA LUMPUR and PENANG, Jun 11 2019 (IPS)

The emergence and growth of financialization from the 1980s has been driven by several factors operating at various levels – national and international, ideological and political, and of course, technological. The 1971 collapse of the Bretton Woods (BW) international monetary system arguably paved the way for financial globalization.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Cross-border financing
The BW dollar-gold standard had provided the basis for the relatively stable post-World War Two exchange rate system; ‘regulated’ capital flows of the BW system gave way to a new international financial order based on free-floating exchange rates and freer cross-border capital flows.

These developments changed banking in two ways. First, banks became more globalized, with international banking taking off in the 1970s. In the 1950s, only three major US banks had foreign branches. In 1965, only US$9 billion, or 2% of total US banking loans, were foreign. By 1976, foreign loans had risen to US$219 billion as the ten largest US banks made half their profits from international banking.

Second, with floating exchange rates, transnational companies’ (TNCs) profits were exposed to currency risks. Fluctuating, instead of stable exchange rates generated more profits from foreign exchange trading, accounting for growing bank revenues and profits.

Hedging and speculation
As banks increasingly served TNC ‘hedging’ needs, forex trading for speculation became more important than supporting the real economy. Although total world trade in 2007 was only worth US$15 trillion, forex trading averaged US$5 trillion daily, or over a quadrillion in the year!

Derivatives — such as options, swaps, non-deliverable contracts, ‘shorting’, etc. — allowed banks and their clients to hedge and speculate, with greatly increasing leverage magnifying risks, not only to the parties involved, but also to the financial system as a whole.

Michael Lim Mah Hui

At the international level, governments have permitted the proliferation of tax havens for corporations and individuals to evade taxes, ‘recycle’ and hide illicit funds, supported by bankers, lawyers, accountants and other enablers. Such illicit flows in 2014 were estimated at between US$1.4 trillion to US$2.5 trillion.

Thus, financial globalization involves mutating networks of financial institutions, both banks and non-bank financial institutions such as institutional investors, asset managers, investment funds and other ‘shadow banks’.

It involves lending to companies, households and individuals, for trading on securities and derivative markets within and across national borders. Financial globalization has been enabled by innovations made possible by significant improvements in computing capability.

Hélène Rey argues synchronized financial trends constitute a ‘global financial cycle’ due to the growing interconnectivity of securities and equity markets, capital flows and credit cycles around the world, ultimately influenced by US Fed policies. Greater integration and synchronization of financial markets have thus exacerbated financial instability and fragility.

From state to individual
But rapid global financialization is not only due to the expansive power of financial innovation, but also to deliberate policy choices at national and international level, beginning in the US with financial liberalization and banking deregulation from the 1980s. Interstate banking was allowed, and interest rate controls lifted, with commercial banks eventually allowed to underwrite and trade securities.

The US and other powerful financial interests successfully ‘globalized’ financial liberalization and financialization in the rest of the world, pressuring economies to lift exchange rate controls and open financial markets to foreign banks and investors, leading to Japan’s financial ‘big bang’ in 1990-1991 and the 1997-1998 East Asian financial crises.

The 1980s also saw the erosion of progressive taxation with more tax breaks for the rich, ostensibly to promote growth, and exaggeration of supposed funding crises for social security and public pensions.

Governments have favoured finance with generous tax breaks for interest income, with capital gains taxed much less than wages. These were invoked to legitimize the shift from future provisioning via the welfare state to self-provisioning via market investments.

Thus, investment risks have shifted from employers and governments to future pensioners investing individually via private pension funds, insurance companies and asset management corporations, i.e., changing from ‘defined benefits’ to ‘defined contributions’.

Ideological drivers
Financialization has been supported by the rise of shareholder activism, invoking ‘economic value added’ (EVA) arguments, to maximize shareholder value, instead of serving various stakeholders including employees, customers, suppliers and the public, or allowing managerial abuse of the ‘principal-agent’ problem, as managers serve their own interests, rather than investors’.

Short-termist maximization of stock prices via quarterly earnings, e.g., through mergers and acquisitions, is thus prioritized instead of long-term considerations, including ‘organic growth’. This paved the way for the mergers and acquisitions wave of the 1980s and 1990s, immensely profiting Wall Street and anointing financiers as the new ‘masters of the universe’.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram, a former economics professor, was United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development, and received the Wassily Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought.

Dr Michael LIM Mah Hui has been a university professor and banker, in the private sector and with the Asian Development Bank.

The post Driving Financialization appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Cartoon by Jack Swanepoel, published in Sunday Times, Johannesburg, July 13, 1997

By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM/ROME, Jun 11 2019 (IPS)

When I recently visited the Czech Republic I noticed an increasing Czech opposition against their wealthy Prime Minister. Andrej Babiš has been endowed with the nickname Babisconi since he, like the former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, is accused of purchasing and using various means of communication for his own propaganda purposes. Apparently, this endeavour has so far been quite successful, since according to my Czech friends Babiš is still popular among a majority of their compatriots.

Like Berlusconi, Donald Trump, Poland´s Kaczyński and Hungary´s Orbán, Andrej Babiš challenges his nation´s legal representatives and even tries to change legislation to favour him in his efforts to avoid mounting accusations of wrongdoing. Billionaires like Trump, Berlusconi and Babiš came to power by declaring that their wealth made them immune to corruption, claiming that their goal was to ”drain swamps” created by corrupt, ”professional” politicians. To prove their capacity to achieve a change for the better they referred to their success as entrepreneurs. However, all three soon fell victims to an urge to continue enriching themselves.

The Czech Republic is at the very core of Europe and a man like Andrej Babiš appears to be a result of the country´s liminal position between a ”capitalist” West and a formerly ”socialist” East. Babiš is a billionaire who like Trump brags about his wealth and popularity, while using xenophobia as a means to gain support. Extremely wealthy politicians like Trump and Berlusconi have been accused of gaining their fortunes through connections with organized crime, while Babiš is said to have benefitted from the oligarch-controlled environment that emerged from a crumbling ”Eastern Block”.

On the 5th of June, 120,000 demonstrators took to the streets of Prague protesting against what they considered to be Andrej Babiš´s shameless power abuse. It was the biggest protest since 28 November 1989, when 500,000 demonstrators convinced the nation´s Communist leaders that they had to resign. However, street protests do apparently not bother Andrej Babiš. Like Trump, Babiš claims that after his victory in the last elections (he obtained close to 30 percent of the votes, three times more than the closest contender) he is confident that his ”base” remains strong and loyal, while he believes the opposition is just a paper tiger whipped on by fake news.

Before entering politics, Babiš was an entrepreneur and he is now the second richest man in the Czech Republic, with an estimated net worth of about US$ 4.04 billion. Since 2011, Babiš heads the recently founded populist party ANU, which proclaims its goal is to rid the Republic of corruption and fight unemployment. ANU, which has an anti-EU and anti-immigration platform, also promises substantial tax cuts for all.

In spite of his ruling party´s intention to abolish immunity for politicians, such immunity has so far saved Babiš from being convicted for fraud. He has been under investigation by both the Czech Police and OLAF (Office européen de Lutte Anti-Fraude) the European Anti-Fraud Office. Among other crimes Babiš is accused of using an anonymous company, unlawfully controlled by himself, to obtain a € 2 million subsidy from the EU. In 2017, Babiš was, upon request from the Czech police, stripped of his parliamentary immunity. However, after a few months, as a result of his re-election as Prime Minister, Babiš regained his parliamentary immunity.

Babiš is constantly accused of conflicts of interest, recurrent intimidations of opponents, as well as his alleged past role in the communist secret police. In 1980, Babiš joined the generally dreaded Communist Party and has since then on been accused of being an ”influential” agent for the Czechoslovak Secret State Security Service, StB, and working closely with KGB, something he vehemently denies.

When the trading firm Agrofert in 1993 was ”re-capitalized”, Babiš suddenly emerged as its sole owner, supported by so far undisclosed financing. Under Babiš´s leadership Agrofert gradually developed into one of the largest companies in the country, acquiring and developing various agricultural, food processing and chemical industries. In 2011, Agrofert Holding consisted of more than 230 companies, mainly in the Czech Republic, Slovakia (Babiš is a Slovak by birth) and Germany. In 2013, Agrofert purchased the media company MAFRA, publisher of two big newspapers, owner of a TVnetwork and the Czech Republic´s most popular radio station.

Babiš is known to oppose the power and influence of both the EU and NATO. His conflict with the latter organisation emanates from his disappointment over its refusal to sink ships ”trafficking human beings”. He stated that NATO

it is not interested in refugees, although Turkey, a NATO member, is their entrance gate to Europe and smugglers operate on Turkish territory.1

He has also rejected EU refugee quotas stating:

We must react to the needs and fears of the citizens of our country. We must guarantee the security of Czech citizens. Even if we are punished by sanctions.2

Even if Babiš repeatedly has assured people about his close attachment to Western Europe and the US, he is accused of furthering Russian policy goals and business interests. An often quoted example is that he granted a Czech government loan guarantee to a Russian company with a record of defaults, though owned by a close friend to Putin.

Is Andrej Babiš emergence in politics part of a trend where business interests and a global financial system facilitate kleptocracy? Where internal and foreign policies are crafted to pursue rulers´ personal agendas and enrichment? We are witnessing Trump´s blatant lies and coverups, well aware of the fact that much of his wealth was created through deals with Mafia dons like Vito Genovese, Anthony ”Fat Tony” Salerno, Paul Castellano, John Staluppi and Nicodemo “Little Nicky” Scarfo. Contacts generally mediated through the ruthless lawyer Roy Cohn. No one involved in huge construction projects on Manhattan, or within the gambling world of Atlantic City, could avoid making deals with the ”mob”. This business model did not change when the Trump Organization began to cooperate with money laundering oligarchs like Kazakh citizens Mukhtar Ablyazov and Ilyas Khrapunov, as well as several other shady characters from around the world.3

The dirty connections between politics and business are revealed from all over the world. Kleptocrats from Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Angola are siphoning wealth to offshore companies. Cyprus and other places are currently emerging as havens for dirty Russian money. A year ago, Malaysia´s former Premier Minister Najib Razak was arrested by Malaysia´s Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) accused of transferring US$10.6 million to his personal bank account. The money originated from complicated schemes orchestrated through an investment group funded by government developement grants. These are just a few worrying signs and indications of a wave of greed and ruthlessness sweeping the world. Occasionally, hidden horrors of this criminal realm flare up when some journalist or whistleblower is brutally murdered, like Daphne Caruana Galizia on Malta, Jamal Kashoggi in Istanbul, or Anna Politkovskaya in Moscow, just to mention a few of the most famous cases, representing numerous other believers in freedom of speech who are killed, tortured and silenced all over the world.

Investigative journalists have often good reasons for fear. But – are powerful and wealthy people fearless? Apparently not. I assume most of them fear to lose their power and money and thus be exposed as being pathetic and defenseless. Tony Schwartz, who ghostwrote The Art of the Deal for Donald Trump, stated:

Fear is the hidden through-line in Trump’s life – fear of weakness, of inadequacy, of failure, of criticism and of insignificance. He has spent his life trying to outrun these fears by “winning” – as he puts it – and by redefining reality whenever the facts don’t serve the narrative he seeks to create. It hasn’t worked, but not for lack of effort.4

1 Czech minister Babiš criticises NATO´s stance of refugees,” Ceske Noviny, 20 Septenber 2015.
2 “Babiš: ´I reject the EU refugee quotas´,” Prague Monitor, 4 August, 2016.
3 Cooley, Alexander and John Heathershaw (2018) Dictators Without Borders: Power and Money in Central Asia. Princeton: Yale University Press
4 Mayer, Jane (2016) ”Donald Trump´s Ghostwriter Tells All,” The New Yorker, July 18

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 Wealth and Power: Andrej Babiš and Donald J. Trump appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Elisa knitting outside her home.

By Karessa Ramos
MADRID, Spain, Jun 11 2019 (IPS)

This is the story of two women who are positively transforming social norms in their respective societies, as part of the global movement towards gender equality.

In Lima, Peru, Elisa Cuchupoma runs two livelihoods: one is selling knitted hair ornaments along with her group lending co-members, and the other is selling cuy (cavia porcellus), a guinea pig native to the Andean regions, raised for its meat.

She is part of the Palabra de Mujer group lending program of BBVA Microfinance Foundation (BBVAMF) in the country, which has reached more than 90,000 vulnerable women.

In La Vega, Dominican Republic, Benita Hernández tends a small-scale farm where she grows coffee, celery and sweet potato among other crops. Recently, she has also added macadamia nuts in her list of produce and has been receiving loans and technical assistance from the Foundation’s local institution.

This may not seem much at first glance, but in a region where women still face significant barriers to own productive properties and to independently access financing, Elisa and Benita join millions of women fighting for this and other rights that they are being denied.

Similarly, over 1.2 million women like them are taking part in this worldwide action, with the support of BBVAMF, through its six microfinance institutions (MFIs) in five countries in Latin America.

It is true that over the past decades in the Americas, the legal framework in politics, economics and in protecting women from gender violence has evolved positively. In fact, it is the second-best performer according to the OECD’s 2019 Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) Report, which reflects women’s situation in 180 countries regarding discrimination in four dimensions: the family, restricted physical integrity, limited access to productive and financial resources, and restrained civil liberties.

None of its countries classify as having high or very high discrimination. Still, the SIGI’s latest edition1 confirms that to reach Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG 5): Gender Equality, the region has to address women’s lack of access to productive and financial resources.

This organization, together with the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB), confirms that adequate legislation is the first step towards gender equality, as it impacts women’s economic independence, without which, their progress and that of the whole region will never be optimized.

For instance, the SIGI shares that “nine countries have not implemented gender-sensitive measures to expand women’s access to formal financial services”. Consequently, their participation in the social and economic spheres is limited and their potential remains untapped. The report has identified that the region’s economic cost of gender inequality is USD 400 bn.

Benita in her farm.

Likewise, it reveals that the family is the most difficult area of change, to the extent that Colombia is the only country with a law recognizing that women and men enjoy the same right to be head of household.

This means that as of this day, women’s voice and status within their home are subordinated to those of men. However, legal protection is insufficient when women’s own families continue to express negative attitudes about them or the projects they wish to undertake. Social norms and dynamics, based on practices, would have to undergo major transformations as well.

Accordingly, Elisa and Benita are not settling to be entrepreneurs with stable sources of income. Access to financial resources has enabled them to dream bigger and make their progress extensible to their households and communities.

In fact, BBVAMF’s own social performance assessment reveals that its female clients perform better than males: their earnings grow by 20% annually (versus 12% for businesses managed by male entrepreneurs), 37% of female clients overcome poverty in the second year with the Foundation, and although their exit to poverty is slower than that of their male counterpart, they experience a much lower relapse rate.

This is why it’s no surprise that, in their own way, these two women are also paving the road for change, so other women could enjoy the same rights as they do.

In Elisa’s case, her husband’s apprehension to apply for a loan deterred her from pushing her business plans forward. This went on until she learned about BBVAMF’s Peruvian MFI, where she was given a loan without her husband’s knowledge (since his collateral and signature were not required).

This then, became her gateway to economic independence, because aside from financial resources, her lending group (named “Neighbors united forever”) also receives training in financial and business management, and the members have become her second family who support her and encourage her to follow her ambitions.

In return, she has taught other female lending groups how to knit; expanding their skillset and making other entrepreneurial possibilities open to them. She now offers employment to 12 women of her community.

Benita, for her part, knows how lack of information has caused Dominican women to waive their right to be land proprietors, preventing them to accumulate assets and reduce their vulnerability. Indeed, the SIGI identifies “poor, less educated and rural women to be at higher risk due to intersectional discrimination.”

Without adequate knowledge about the requirements, and sometimes not even possessing the basic document of identification, they don’t stand a chance to be legal land owners. This widespread reality drove her to become part of the “Asociación Humanista de Campesinos” (Humanist Farmers’ Association) to help people fix their documentation requirements and afterwards aid them to obtain their land titles.

As the SIGI 2019 states, “social norms can be double-edged swords for women”: they can either hinder or act as catalysts for their progress. This is why the efforts of these two female entrepreneurs, along with those of other women, governments, the private sector, civil society, and other stakeholders are slowly taking the shape of a tool to eliminate discriminatory laws, social norms and practices.

Yet it must be maintained that transforming this social, cultural and historical machinery is a non-exclusive responsibility for women. The whole society- women and men, girls and boys must be engaged.

In this regard, SEGIB and BBVA Microfinance Foundation will jointly host the presentation of the SIGI 2019 in Madrid, Spain, on June 13th, as part of their commitment to drive changes that bring the world nearer to fulfilling SDG 5 and the 2030 Agenda. The gathering will take a broad look at the main conclusions of the report, after which the Latin American context will then be discussed, where Elisa and Benita will share their tales and make the reality of many others like them visible for the world to see: women who have to overcome social and economic barriers to find their way towards economic independence, and thus, contribute to achieving gender equality.

1 The SIGI looks at the gaps that legislation, social norms and practices create between men and women in terms of rights and opportunities. For more on methodology, refer to: http://bit.ly/2I2YDOw (p. 165)

The post Championing Social Changes: A Tale of Two Women appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Karessa Ramos is Social Media Data Analyst for BBVA Microfinance Foundation based in Madrid

The post Championing Social Changes: A Tale of Two Women appeared first on Inter Press Service.