Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

World Health Organization goodwill ambassador for Leprosy Elimination and chair of the Nippon Foundation, Yohei Sasakawa (left), holds the hand of a leprosy patient. Sasakawa visited Mozambique’s rural Namaita Centre to assess the progress of leprosy patients. The Nippon Foundation has been providing funds and medication in order to eliminate leprosy in Mozambique. Credit: Elísio Muchanga/IPS

By Elisio Muchanga
NAMPULA PROVINCE, Mozambique, Jul 28 2018 (IPS)

It takes Faurito António, 42, from Lalaua district, Nampula Province, two hours to reach his nearest health centre in order to receive the drugs necessary for his treatment of leprosy. António, whose foot has become affected by the muscle weakness that occurs when leprosy goes untreated, says this long walk while ill is the reason why many don’t continue treatment – which can take between six to 12 months.

“There are people who drop out of treatment for alleged fatigue from going long distances to gain access to a hospital,” he tells IPS of the rural distribution of Mozambique’s health centres.

In the deeply rural and poor northern province of Nampula, some six million people, according to the Mozambique ministry of health, are serviced by one health centre in each of the 23 districts.

The lack of development—many of the villages in the region do not have electricity or even paved roads—also often makes these centres difficult to access.

This southern African nation was in a 16-year civil war that ended in 1992 and ranks 181 out of 188 countries on the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Index, sharing its place with conflict-ridden South Sudan. World Bank data shows that more than half, 63 percent, live below the poverty line of USD1.90 a day.

A source in the health ministry says that on average, about 5,000 people are treated in Nampula’s health centers, leaving the remaining population without access.

Distances to Health Care Centres

Nampula Province was ranked in a study as one of the areas with the highest number of villages located 60 minutes away from a health centre. The province’s main 500-bed Nampula Central Hospital, in Nampula City, serves a population of approximately 8.5 million from the three provinces of Nampula, Cabo Delgado and Niassa.

This province has the most cases of leprosy in the country. In the first half of this year, the ministry of health registered a total of 553 cases, most of them from the districts of Lalaua, Meconta, Mogovolas and Nampula, in Nampula Province. This was followed by Zambezia and Cabo Delgado with 121 and 84 new cases respectively.

Leprosy is a chronic disease. Initial symptoms are patches of skin that are paler than normal, and this makes the disease difficult to diagnose. But if left untreated, the World Health Organization (WHO) says it “can cause progressive and permanent damage to the skin, nerves, limbs, and eyes.”

Last year, Mozambique’s national director of public health, Francisco Mbofana, raised concern that the disease was still going undiagnosed and untreated. Club Mozambique quoted him as saying that often patients appeared for the first time at health centres already suffering from second degree malformations “where mutilations of their fingers and toes are evident.”

The disease, which is transmitted via droplets, from the nose and mouth, during close and frequent contact with untreated cases, is curable with multidrug therapy (MDT), and early treatment averts most disabilities. The WHO has provided MDT for free since 1995 thanks to intial funding from the Nippon Foundation. The Nippon Foundation, a non-profit philanthropic organisation from Japan, is active in many countries across the globe in eliminating leprosy, including here in Mozambique.

The MDT treatment that António is on was donated by the Nippon Foundation and is available for free for all leprosy patients across the country.

António has been on the therapy for two weeks now, and says that he can report an improvement.

Promoting early identification of the disease through education

Unlike António, Ermelinda Muelete, 23, was fortunate enough to have been diagnosed early on when white patches appeared on her body. But Muelete, who had been on medication for the disease for some weeks, stopped the treatment because she felt that the patches on her skin were not going away quickly enough.

But she regrets the decision.

“I want to return to the treatment,” she tells IPS from the Namaita Centre, a small clinic in Mozambique’s district of Rapale, Nampula province. Muelete says that while members of the small rural community here have not rejected her outright, she felt that some of their attitudes and actions discriminated against her.

But this Thursday Jul. 26, as a small rally was held in the area to sensitise people about the disease, she felt more confident.

The WHO goodwill ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, Yohei Sasakawa, visited Namaita Centre to evaluate how funding from the Nippon Foundation, of which he is chair, has been able to assist treating Mozambicans with leprosy.

The foundation has been on the forefront of combatting the disease. In 2013, along with WHO, Nippon Foundation held a leprosy summit during which 17 countries that reported more than 1,000 new cases a year issued the Bangkok Declaration to reaffirm their commitment to achieve a leprosy-free world.

Here in Mozambique, the foundation has provided both funds and medication to the health ministry to implement post-elimination interventions at community level in the endemic districts of the central and northern parts of the country, especially for the active search for patients for early diagnosis and treatment. The Nippon Foundation initiative, which began last year, will continue until 2020.

According to Sasakawa, the process of diagnosis of this disease has been difficult, because the symptoms can take a significant time to present and they are not specifically painful. This long incubation period, on average five years, but in some cases up to 20 years according to WHO, means that people don’t always seek treatment immediately.

However, he challenged communities to be vigilant, and to try to identify if their relatives have any skin discoloration so that they can be referred to a hospital for screening and treatment.

“In fact, the appearance of white patches on the patient’s body is one of the main forms of suspicion that may lead to a specific diagnosis to determine the disease,” he says.

“Do not take long with symptoms of leprosy you have to see a doctor in the nearest health centre to get treatment, which is free.”

In addition to providing money and MDT, Nippon Foundation also support public awareness campaigns that sensitise local populations about leprosy, how to identify it and where to receive treatment.

In rural areas, poor understanding of the disease makes it difficult for people to identify it and obtain necessary treatment. Only nine percent of the country’s 28 million people have internet access, according to the World Bank data.

So the education rally made a difference to Muelete.

“Now I don’t feel rejected because of my situation. I feel strong to overcome discrimination and go ahead with the treatment,” she says.

The struggle to eliminate leprosy

Sasakawa says that Nippon Foundation has been struggling to eliminate the disease. There over 210,000 new leprosy cases registered globally in 2016, according to official WHO figures from 145 countries.

Mozambique had been declared free from leprosy in 2008. However, a few years later, it experienced an outbreak of the disease.

The country’s health minister Nazira Abdula, says that just in the first six months of this year, Mozambique registered about 951 new cases of leprosy, compared to 684 cases in 2017.

“The cases may increase, but mini-campaigns are foreseen in the provinces that register some cases of leprosy,” she says from her office in Maputo as she received the foundation delegation.

Manuel Dias, a community leader in Namaíta reiterated the request for support to combat leprosy.

“We ask Mr. Sasakawa to continue bringing the leprosy drug here in Namaíta, because there are many people suffering from this disease.”

Sasakawa reaffirmed his commitment to continue supporting communities with a view to eradicating the disease, particularly in rural areas.

• Additional reporting by Nalisha Adams in Johannesburg

• How Mozambique Is Coping With AIDS
• Mozambique Tackles its Twin Burden of Cervical Cancer and HIV

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By WAM
TUSCANY, Italy, Jul 27 2018 (WAM)

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, today attended the final day of the Mohammed bin Rashid Endurance Festival, which was held in Tuscany, Italy, with the participation of more than 500 riders from various countries.

UAE riders dominated the main 120-km race, with rider Saeed Al Kheyari coming in first for M7 Stables, whereas F3 Stables’ rider Salem Al Owaisi came in 2nd, leaving the third place to M7’s Salem Malhouf.

An important stage of the Europe-based endurance races, Sheikh Mohammed followed part of the race and checked on the preparations of UAE team ahead of the World Endurance Cup, which will be held in the United States in September.

The Festival takes place as part of the Toscana Endurance Lifestyle 2018, supported and sponsored by Meydan at San Rossore Racecourse.

WAM/Hatem Mohamed

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By WAM
ABU DHABI, Jul 27 2018 (WAM)

The Emirates Writers Union on Friday mourned the death of Ousha bint Khalifa Al Suwaidi, a legendary Emirati poet known as Fatat Al Arab (Girl of the Arabs).

Poet Ousha Al Suwaidi significantly contributed to evolving the Nabati Poetry through her refined, in-depth and insightful poetic expressions that earned her wide acclaim amongst the elite and the ordinary alike, said the Union in a statement today.

The Union called for documenting the legacy of the great poet, who, said the statement, was an inspiration to the women’s poetry movement as well as the cultural scene in its entirety across the emirates.

Condolences poured in today from a large number of Emirati officials and literati across the country over the death of the great poet.

Born into a household that loved literature, Ousha was a popular contemporary poet known for her rich contents and multiple creativity.

As a youngster she had the opportunity to meet many poets and listen to their poetry. She recited poetry at a very young age and quickly received recognition for her abilities within the poetry community.

Writing many poems in a short space of time, Ousha gained the nickname “Gulf Laureate Poet”. Keen to develop her talents, Ousha read classical poetry by Al Mutannabi, Abu Tammam and Al Ma’ari, alongside the work of local poets, including Al Majidi bin Thahir, Rashid Al Khalawi, Saleem Bin Abdul Hai and Mohsin Hazzani.

WAM/Hatem Mohamed

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A girl looks into her shelter in an overcrowded displacement site in West Guji, Ethiopia. Photo: IOM/Olivia Headon

By International Organization for Migration
DILLA, Ethiopia, Jul 27 2018 (IOM)

Roughly 970,000 people have been internally displaced by conflict in Ethiopia’s Gedeo Zone and West Guji in the past four months, the majority in June. With so many people becoming displaced in such a short time period, IOM, the UN Migration Agency, and humanitarian partners have been scaling up their presence to provide urgent, live-saving assistance.

IOM is providing shelter assistance and essential aid items, facilitating access to water and sanitation services and raising awareness about hygiene to the displaced populations in both areas, many of whom have found shelter in unfinished buildings or in unhealthy conditions with just a sheet of tarpaulin for protection from the elements.

Access to safe sanitation and clean water is of concern, as is ensuring health needs are met. In the past three weeks, IOM has constructed 318 latrine stances, seven temporary communal shelters and eight communal kitchens. To improve the overall delivery of humanitarian assistance, IOM is providing displacement tracking and site management support.

Access IOM’s latest reports on displacement in Gedeo and West Guji here.

Two airlifts this week have delivered 200 tonnes of aid donated by UKAID to Ethiopia bound for the internally displaced populations in Gedeo and West Guji. Most people fled their homes with little more than the clothes they were wearing. The UKAID airlifts contain badly needed shelter materials and blankets as Ethiopia is in the midst of its cold rainy season. IOM and partners began distributing aid yesterday and expect it will take approximately 15 days to reach an estimated 50,000 displaced people.

Earlier this week, IOM released a much-needed appeal for USD 22.2 million to continue its humanitarian operations in Gedeo and West Guji.

“We are extremely grateful to the donors, who have shown great support for the people and Government of Ethiopia, but more funding is urgently required to meet the needs of the hundreds of thousands displaced people in Gedeo and West Guji,” said Maureen Achieng, IOM Ethiopia Chief of Mission and Representative to the African Union, IGAD and UNECA. “Without additional funding, lives will be at risk. The needs are immense – the international community’s response must match them.”

For more information, please contact Olivia Headon, Tel: +251902484062, Email: oheadon@iom.int

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Women activists in Zimbabwe have long demanded a fair share of power. Credit: Mercedes Sayagues/IPS

By Teldah Mawarire
HARARE, Zimbabwe, Jul 27 2018 (IPS)

For many Zimbabwean voters, casting their ballots on July 30 is sure to be a somewhat surreal experience. For the first time since the country’s independence, the ever-present face of Robert Mugabe will not be staring back at them on the ballot paper.

But that new experience – while perhaps inspiring hopes for positive change among some – is likely to be preceded by an old, familiar feeling of déjà vu. The road to the 2018 general election has been littered with the same potholes of electoral irregularities and restrictive laws of previous polls.

And for Zimbabwe’s embattled civil society, the fact that none of the repressive laws that were used against them have been touched since a bloodless military coup eight months ago is cause for concern.

This vote is proving difficult to call. It’s not the first time the race has seemed too close to call for analysts and opinion pollsters. The 2008 poll posed the same dilemma. It later emerged that the opposition was cheated of victory and a government of national unity among the political opponents was later formed.

The latest survey released by think tank, Afrobarometer last month showed that the ruling Zanu-PF party would get 42%, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) 31% and the voting intentions of the remaining 26% of respondents were unknown.

Whilst these figures create the picture of a competitive race, it does not mean the conditions on the ground are favourable for a fair and credible election.

The incumbent Mnangagwa, Mugabe’s former right-hand man and vice president who took power after the coup, is desperate for a win to rip off the “coup plotter’’ tag on his back.

The opposition, coming from a troubled and fractured past, have been re-energised by emergence of a more youthful leader, Nelson Chamisa and need a win badly to avoid being again relegated to the dustbins of ineffectiveness. The poll’s outcome will be highly contested and could spill over into the courts, if not the streets.

Zimbabweans have been concerned with electoral irregularities, particularly related to a voters’ roll that has not been made fully transparent, and issues concerning the validity of profiles of voters appearing on the roll.

Questions have also been raised around the independence of the poll’s administrators, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission and allegations that the printing of the ballot paper was compromised and done without consultation with all contesting parties. Civil society concerns however, go beyond the administration of the electoral process.

Although there is a notable peace and an absence of the politically motivated violence that has hounded Zimbabwean elections since 2000, conditions impacting freedom of assembly, association and expression remain constrained by restrictive legislation.

Zimbabwe’s civil society at home and abroad have no time to rest after the historic election and must already be strategising on giving the next administration a timeline on intentions to open civic space.

Before the coup, CIVICUS Monitor, a tool that tracks threats to civil society in all countries, rated Zimbabwe’s rated civic space as a ‘repressed’. That assessment remains – just one step away from the worst rating: ‘closed’. The Democratic Republic of Congo currently the only nation in the Southern Africa Development Community region regarded as ‘closed’.

On the eve of the election, outstanding human rights issues remain largely untouched and unamended restrictive laws are yet to be aligned to the constitution the country adopted in 2013, remain active, casting doubt on the country’s ability to hold a truly credible and fair election.

This legislation includes the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), which was used to persecute and harass journalists. Under AIPPA, it is compulsory for all media houses, foreign and local journalists to be registered with it with restrictive requirements and expensive costs. Even non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that produce publications for small or specialised audiences must be licensed.

Another law needing reform is the Broadcasting Services Act, which in its current form is an impediment to media freedom and the growth of independent media, and has been used by government for political interference in the news media sector.

While the political opposition has been largely able to assemble with less administrative and physical interference from security agents post-Mugabe, the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) remains a huge concern.

Provisions that violate the right to assemble and protest such as protesters’ needing to give police four days’ written notice of an intended demonstration or the power of police to ban a gathering for three months if they believe it would endanger public safety, awkwardly remain.

NGOs will also have to work hard to have the law governing NGO registration and operations amended. The Private Voluntary Organisations Act (PVO) creates a web of bureaucratic red tape for NGO registration, which can take three months to a year Organisations that work to protect LGBTIQ rights are unable to operate openly and require specific legislation protecting their freedom to exist and operate.

It is also no secret that NGOs operating in rural areas at the district level have been routinely and illegally made to secure police clearance and sign a memorandum of understanding with the District Administrator to operate. This control over NGO activities has contributed to the strangling civic space in the rural areas.

And of course, there remains the glaring lack of protection for human rights defenders who have borne the brunt of brutal attacks under Mugabe. For the rights community, it has also not inspired confidence that there is still no meaningful investigation into the case of Itai Dzamara, an activist who disappeared on 9 March 2015.

Whichever way the election results swings, civil society has much work that is essential to holding Mugabe’s successors to the promise of opening civic space, so desperately needed in Zimbabwe.

The post After Elections, Hard Work Starts for Zimbabwe’s Civil Society appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Teldah Mawarire is a campaigns and advocacy officer with global civil society alliance, CIVICUS.

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Congolese Women's Forum Meets in Kinshasa, DRC in Sept 2017

By Justine Masika Bihamba
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 27 2018 (IPS)

I am a women’s human rights defender and President of Synergie des Femmes, a platform of 35 organizations working for the improvement, promotion, defense, respect and protection of women’s rights in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

We offer particular support to women who are victims of sexual violence, and work towards the establishment of lasting peace in North Kivu in the east of the country.

On July 26th I briefed the United Nations Security Council on the current situation for women in the DRC in the areas of the UN mission (MONUSCO), the growth of insecurity and the increase of cases of sexual violence against women and girls, and the tense political climate following the failure to hold elections before the constitutional deadline.

The recent decision to close some bases of MONUSCO has exposed the civilian population in sensitive areas. We are left in a precarious position. Despite the rapid deployment, interventions often arrive too late, when irreparable damage has already been done.

Following a decrease in financial resources, the Joint Human Rights Office is no longer present on the ground and, as a result, can no longer effectively document the cases of serious human rights violations that are now reported.

We fear disorder during the proposed elections at the end of this year and really hope that MONUSCO will ensure that Congolese police are properly trained so that order can be maintained and that polling stations can be secured. This is extremely important as fair and transparent elections are at the core of ensuring a peaceful and prosperous nation.

Meanwhile, the situation of women – and particularly those victims of sexual violence – is worsening day by day. The increase in armed groups as part of the ongoing war here has meant that mass rapes have continued, while populations have been displaced. In North Kivu alone, cases of rape and violence have increased this year by more than 60%.

The political climate has also made things more dangerous. Things are very tense at the moment as elections were not held before the end of last year as expected. This goes against our constitution.

At the time various demonstrations were shut down by the police, civilian deaths occurred, material damage was extensive (especially convents and Catholic churches), arbitrary arrests took place of the leaders of the citizen movement, of human rights defenders and of opposition politicians.

With only five months to go before the elections are due to take place (again), the political environment continues to be extremely difficult.

In addition to this political instability and the brutal repression of dissident voices, several legal reform projects initiated by the Congolese government have further reduced Congolese freedom of expression and civic spaces. One of these aims to change how non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are run here, which could have major ramifications.

Against this backdrop the participation of women in the electoral process – a tried and trusted way of increasing the chance of lasting peace – has remained very low. A problematic electoral law brought in at the end of 2017 is a serious obstacle to our rights and freedoms.

It imposes many constraints, including the requirement of candidates to reach a threshold of support of at least 1% of votes at the national level. As a result, no provincial election nomination file was filed by the deadline date in some constituencies.

This law also discriminates specifically against women in the electoral contest and doesn’t take into account their socio-economic conditions. It states that a deposit of $ 1,000 must be made by candidates. This is an astronomical sum for women and young people living for the most part on an income of less than $1 per day.

UN Security Council Resolution 1325, adopted in October 2000, calls for an increase in the participation of women in all peacebuilding and security efforts. In late 2017, I co-ordinated a group of over 60 women from all provinces of the DRC to make this a reality for Congolese Women.

We set up the Congolese Women’s Forum to be able to achieve this and have pleaded with the government to change this discriminatory law, which is likely to reduce rather than increase women’s political participation in the DRC.

The upcoming elections will also be problematic in terms of how they are likely to be run. The proposed use of the voting machines will cause significant challenges and may lead to fear of electoral fraud. The DRC currently has a population that is 65% illiterate – mostly women and young people – who would have enormous difficulties using these machines.

This is the environment in which we currently live in the DRC. Every day we have new obstacles to overcome but we are also hopeful for a better future. In my statement to the Security Council and Member States I recommended that five steps are taken.

We want them to put pressure on the DRC government to implement policies which truly promote women’s participation in decision-making and women’s candidatures for elections.

We want them to ask the government to respect the freedom of expression, the right to demonstrate and the civic space of the Congolese population, that the New Year’s Eve Agreement, the Constitution and the rule of law are all respected, that MONUSCO restore its bases in sensitive areas to ensure the effective protection of civilians, that it supports the ongoing electoral process and ensures that the Joint Human Rights Office effectively documents human rights violations.

Finally, we recommended that the Security Council really supports civil society organizations that work for the promotion and defence of women’s rights – particularly in training women in leadership to be able to access decision-making positions. This is a key component of ensuring we finally see lasting peace in this country.

The post Peace & Equal Political Participation of Women in the DRC appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Justine Masika Bihamba is President of Synergie des Femmes, a women’s organization based in Goma, DRC, and partner of global women’s group Donor Direct Action.

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Credit: UNICEF

By Dr Chewe Luo
AMSTERDAM, Jul 27 2018 (IPS)

As the 22nd International AIDS Conference wraps up in Amsterdam, I can’t help but reflect on how far we have come on this journey with the AIDS epidemic.

When I first qualified as a pediatrician in Zambia some 30 years ago, Southern Africa was only just awakening to the magnitude of the AIDS crisis starting to play out in the region. Some governments famously refused to acknowledge the severity of the epidemic and questioned even the existence of HIV and its connection to AIDS.

Zambia had its moment of shocked awareness when the 30 year-old son of President Kenneth Kaunda died, and his father announced that the cause had been AIDS.

Around us, the epidemic was taking its toll on the able-bodied as mothers and fathers fell ill and died, leaving their children – sometimes infected, sometimes not – in the care of grandmothers, or aunts, or orphanages, or to fend for themselves any way they could.

We are a long way from that place now. What has made the difference? Availability and accessibility of treatment, of course, but perhaps even more importantly, concerted action from entire segments of society focused on bringing the epidemic under control.

Among the heroes in the fight against the epidemic, I would single out:
• Activists like ActUp, GMHC, South Africa’s Treatment Action Campaign, and others, who galvanized global outrage at the glaring disparities between global North and the global South.
• The Governments of Brazil, South Africa, and India, which asserted the right to access for medicines by all, persisting in the face of implacable corporate resistance, till the pharmaceutical industry allowed generic versions of the treatments which inhibit HIV.
• The numerous researchers who tested combinations of drugs, and adapted them for different populations, such as young children and lactating mothers.
• The generic manufacturers who were able to combine drugs into fixed dose combinations that were affordable and accessible to poor countries.
• And ordinary health workers, intergovernmental and to civil society organizations who believed that the epidemic could be defeated.

Where are we now? UNICEF’s latest report, Women: At the heart of the HIV response for children allows optimism. Take Southern Africa as an example. Some 57,000 babies became newly infected with HIV in 2017 in the region. This is still far too many, but infections in the region peaked in 2002 at 170,000, so this is a massive decrease in 15 years. Deaths in the region are also coming down, from a peak of 110,000 in 2004 to 33,000 last year.

However, if there is one thing that came across very clearly in Amsterdam this week, it is that we cannot afford to let up. This is especially crucial for the children and young people who are now face to face with the virus.

The child population is set to rise in sub-Saharan Africa, from 560 million in 2018 to 710 million by 2030. The region still has the overwhelming share of HIV/AIDS cases, and it is not coming down in key groups such as adolescents. So ‘youth bulge’ is about to meet HIV/AIDS – and that could be a cataclysmic crash.

HIV/AIDS is not under control in West and Central Africa, which we project will overtake Eastern and Southern Africa by 2050 as the region with the highest number of new HIV infections – without urgent action now.

What we know is that despite the progress, what has brought us here is not enough to take us all the way. We need passion and leadership, which served us well in the past, but we also need innovative technology – like the promising HIV self-testing which removes some of the barriers for adolescents.

We need advances in treatment and prevention. We need to strengthen the human rights approach to HIV. All people, whatever their age, should have the right to the service that will keep them free of HIV or keep them healthy if they get it. And we need continued investment in programmes and people.

Finally, we need bold and inspired leadership, infused with creativity, energy and optimism — a new generation of activist leaders, to tackle these challenges directly.

The post No Time to Slow Down While HIV/AIDS is Threatening a New Generation appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Dr Chewe Luo is Global Chief of HIV/AIDS for UNICEF

The post No Time to Slow Down While HIV/AIDS is Threatening a New Generation appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Bitter gourds, or “ampalayas” are difficult to find in Italy, but easy to find in the Esquilino market in Rome. In Italy, over 400,000 agricultural labourers risk being illegally employed by mafia-like organisations, and more than 132,000 work in extremely vulnerable conditions. Credit: Maged Srour/IPS

By Maged Srour
ROME, Jul 27 2018 (IPS)

In Italy, over 400,000 agricultural labourers risk being illegally employed by mafia-like organisations, and more than 132,000 work in extremely vulnerable conditions, enduring high occupational suffering, warns the fourth report on Agromafie and Caporalato.

The report, released this July by the Italian trade union for farmers, Flai Cgil, and the research institute Osservatorio Placido Rizzotto, sheds light on a bitter reality that is defined by the report itself as “modern day slavery”. The criminal industry is estimated to generate almost five billion euros."We must rebuild the culture of respect for people, including migrants. These are people who bend their backs to collect the food we eat and who move our economy." -- Susanna Camusso, secretary general of CGIL

“The phenomenon of ‘Caporalato’ is a cancer for the entire community,” Roberto Iovino from Osservatorio Placido Rizzotto, told IPS. “Legal and illegal activities often intertwine in the agro-food sector and it ultimately becomes very difficult to know who is operating in the law and who is not.”

The criminal structure is called Caporalato or Agromafia when it touches a number of aspects of the agri-food chain. It is administered by ‘Caporali’, who decide on working hours and salaries of workers. The phenomenon is widespread across Italy. From Sicilian tomatoes, to the green salads from the province of Brescia, to the grape harvest used for producing the ‘Franciacorta’ sparkling wine in Lombardia, to the strawberries harvested in the region of Basilicata—many of these crops would have been harvested by illegally-employed workers, according to the report.

Miserable salaries and excessive working hours

The average wages of the exploited, warns the report, range between 20 and 30 euros per day, at an hourly rate of between three to four euros. Many reportedly work between eight to 14 hours per day, seven days a week. The majority of the collected testimonies show that many workers are paid less than their actual time worked and their salaries are 50 percent lower than the one outlined by the national contract for farmers.

In some areas like Puglia or Campania in southern Italy, most salaries are paid on a piecework basis or per task.

Some workers reported to Flai-Cgil that they were paid only one euro per hour and that they had to pay 1.5 euros for a small bottle of water, five euros for the transportation to reach the field and three euros for a sandwich at lunchtime each day. Day labourers are also required to pay between 100 to 200 euros for rent, often in abandoned, crumbling facilities or in remote and less-frequented hotels.

The money was paid to the ‘Caporale’ or supervisor.

According to the report, a ‘Caporale’ earns between 10 to 15 euros a day per labourer under their management, with each managing between 3,000 to 4,000 agricultural workers. It is estimated that their average monthly profit fluctuates between tens to hundreds of thousands of euros per month, depending on their position in the pyramid structure of the illegal business. It is alleged in the report that no tax is paid on the profits and this costs the state in lost income and also impacts on companies operating within the law.

“Those people [‘Caporali’] are not naive at all,” one of the workers told the trade union’s researchers. “They know the laws, they find ways of counterfeiting work contracts and mechanisms to [circumvent] the National Social Security Institute.” The institute is the largest social security and welfare institute in Italy.

“They have a certain criminal profile,” the worker explained.

Migrant victims

The ‘Caporali’ are not just Italians but Romanians, Bulgarians, Moroccans and Pakistanis, who manage their own criminal and recruiting organisations. The report warns that recruitment not only takes place in Italy but also in the home countries of migrants like Morocco or Pakistan.

In 2017, out of one million labourers, 286,940 were migrants. It is also estimated that there are an additional 220,000 foreigners who are not registered.

African migrants also reportedly receive a lower remuneration than that paid to workers of other nationalities.

These victims of Agromafia live in a continuous state of vulnerability, unable to claim their rights. The report points out that some workers have had their documents confiscated by ‘Caporali’ for the ultimate purpose of trapping the labourers. It also highlights the testimonies of abuse, ranging from physical violence, rape and intimidation. One Afghan migrant who asked to be paid after months without receiving any pay, said that he had been beaten up because of his protests.

The report also estimates that 5,000 Romanian women live in segregation in the Sicilian countryside, often with only their children. Because of their isolation many suffer sexual violence from farmers.

Luana told Flai-Cgil of her abuse. “He offered to accompany my children to school, which was very far to reach on foot,” she said. “If I did not consent to this requests, he threatened not to accompany them any more and even to deny us drinking water.”

“We have to put humanity first, and then profit”

Many of the victims hesitate to report their exploiters because they are fearful of losing their jobs. A Ghanaian boy working in Tuscany told Flai-Cgil that Italians have explained to him how to lay a complaint, but he holds back because he still has to send money to his family.

During the report release Susanna Camusso, secretary general of the country’s largest trade union, CGIL, said: “We must rebuild the culture of respect for people, including migrants. These are people who bend their backs to collect the food we eat and who move our economy.

“We must help these people to overcome fear, explaining to them that there is not only the monetary aspect to work. A person could be exploited even if he holds a decent salary. We have to put humanity first, and then profit .”

• Museums Taking Stand for Human Rights, Rejecting ‘Neutrality’

The post ‘Agromafia’ Exploits Hundreds of Thousands of Agricultural Workers in Italy appeared first on Inter Press Service.

More girls in rural Bihar, India are going to school after mini-grid-powered household lights give mothers and children two extra hours of evening work and study time. Experts say that when girls receive prolonged education this reduces HIV prevalence, child marriages and sexual violence. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

By Carmen Arroyo
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 26 2018 (IPS)

Better and prolonged education can bring down high rates of illiteracy, sexual abuse and early marriage among girls.

“When girls stay in school, HIV goes down, child marriages go down and sexual violence goes down,” shared Alice Albright, chief executive officer of Global Partnership for Education, a multi-stakeholder partnership and funding platform that aims to strengthen education systems in developing countries.

She was speaking at the side event ‘Keeping girls in school: What impact on the fight against HIV, tuberculosis and malaria?’, during the 2018 High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, this July.

Agreeing with Albright, the spokesperson from the international NGO Camfed, or Campaign for Female Education, told IPS: “the cycle of poverty and ill health is perpetuated when girls don’t have access to quality education.”

The relationship between health and education among females has long concerned member states as an issue to address using the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. The panel, which included Brian Flynn, deputy permanent representative of Ireland to the U.N.; Jens Frølich Holte, deputy minister, ministry of foreign affairs from Norway; Marijke Wijnroks, chief of staff at the Global Fund; Sonita Alizadeh, champion, Girls not Brides; Mohamed Sidibay, a youth representative; and Albright, emphasised a critical issue: keeping girls in school.

The U.N. Women’s report ‘Turning Promises into Action: Gender Equality in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Action’ revealed that 15 million primary-school age girls don’t learn to read or write in school (10 million boys don’t either); 15 million girls between the ages of 15 and 19 have been forced sexually; and 750 million women were married before they turned 18. These numbers can only go down with better and prolonged education, highlighted Albright.

Issues like child marriage, sexual abuse, lack of healthcare products, and responsibility for household chores create a greater disparity between boys and girls when it comes to education.

For Camfed, the reason these issues affect boys and girls differently seemed obvious. “Girls are different from boys in their level of vulnerability to sexual exploitation, especially in a context of rural poverty, where pressure to have transactional sex to raise money for food and school going costs can result in life threatening infections, early pregnancy, the life threatening complications resulting from this, early marriage, and domestic violence.”

With 2.4 million women between the ages of 15 and 24 living with HIV, addressing this issue seems more urgent than ever for political leaders.

“Girls and young women face widespread social, cultural, political and structural barriers in accessing their right to health, particularly around sexual and reproductive health and rights,” Nazneen Damji, U.N. Women policy advisor, stated.

A year of education can change a girl’s life completely. According to the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF), an extra year of secondary school can increase a woman’s income by 15 percent in the future, generating a virtuous cycle. However, it is very hard for a girl to access that extra year. She would have less time to study, as her household chores might occupy most of her time and families will count on her daily work, which can be interrupted if she attends school.

“Secondary schools are few and far between in rural areas, and the long and tiring walk to school can also be dangerous for girls (sexual exploitation, dangerous rivers to cross, wild animals). In addition, most schools in rural sub-Saharan Africa are ill equipped to support girls while they are menstruating,” the UNICEF spokesperson told IPS when asked what other obstacles a girl child has to overcome to access education.

But once that education is accessed, the consequences are hugely beneficial.

“We know that educating girls, especially adolescent girls, creates cascading benefits, producing a ripple effect,” explained the UNICEF spokesperson.

“Educated girls are less likely to marry or have children early; they are better able to protect themselves from HIV and AIDS, from sexual exploitation and abuse. Educated women are far less likely to die in childbirth and far more likely to have healthy babies who survive their infancy and thrive,” he added.

Safeena Husain, founder of Educate Girls, an NGO in India that has helped 200,000 girls to return to school since 2007, also shared her organisation’s experience with girls’ education with IPS.

“We do see that with more girls in school they are getting married later. These educated girls feel empowered to make informed decisions and stand up for their rights,” she said.

As an example, Husain commented: “Some girls who we managed to enrol and stay in school through primary education made a conscious decision to call off their engagement to boys who were less educated. It’s a brave move for a girl living in a rural, patriarchal society where she has seen women covered under the veil all her life.”

Most importantly for her, the effects of education are long-term and affect society as a whole.

“The big multiplier effect with educating girls is that they will become the decision makers of the future. It will be the women who choose how to look after the next generation and if they know how to look after themselves during pregnancy, and when bringing up their children there will be an immediate impact on the health of the next generation,” she said.

What can be done?

As to who should be the stakeholder leading these changes in girls’ education, the answers vary. National governments, civil society groups and the private sector—through investments—all have a role to play.

For the UNICEF spokesperson, the key lies within national political leadership.

“We help countries build stronger education systems that deliver quality education to boys and girls,” he said, adding that making sure that national education plans and policies consider gender was key to ensuring that girls and boys alike enter and succeed at school.

Gender could be taken into account, he explained, by removing gender stereotypes from learning materials or educating teachers on the importance of gender biases.

Damji, from U.N. Women, believes civil society is crucial. While Camfed believes that both governments and civil society must interact: “Policy needs to be driven by the expertise of girls and young women who face these barriers, and we need local coalitions to break them down, holistically, with all duty bearers involved: parents, schools, local and traditional leaders, local and national education authorities, social and health workers,” the Camfed spokesperson concluded.

It is Hussain, from Educate Girls, who advocates for the collaboration between these three political actors, including the firms and enterprises.

“The private sector can bring funding and a risk-taking appetite to help fuel innovation and evidence building about what works. Civil society is closest to where the problems lie, they have the community access and know the community voice.

“Once solutions have been found, real scale will only happen when the government gets involved and either integrates the change into policy or funds the delivery of solutions at scale.”

When asked whose responsibility is it to lead the change, she replied: “Essentially it is the responsibility of everyone.”

• UNESCO on Gender Imbalance in Global Education
• Opinion: Education as a Cornerstone for Women’s Empowerment

The post Educating Girls, The Only Road To Achieve the SDGs appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By WAM
DUBAI, Jul 26 2018 (WAM)

Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD and CEO of the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority, DEWA, has invited companies involved in solar photovoltaic, PV, technology to participate in the third Dubai Solar Show.

The region’s largest solar energy exhibition is organised by DEWA in conjunction with the 20th Water, Energy, Technology, and Environment Exhibition, WETEX 2018.

Both events are held under the directives of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, and under the patronage of H.H. Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai and UAE Minister of Finance and President of DEWA.

The Dubai Solar Show will be held from 23rd to 25th October, 2018, at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre. It will cover approximately 14,000 square metres, attracting 125 exhibitors and over 10 sponsors from around the world.

The Dubai Solar Show will be held from 23rd to 25th October, 2018, at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre. It will cover approximately 14,000 square metres, attracting 125 exhibitors and over 10 sponsors from around the world.

“Organising the third Dubai Solar Show highlights the UAE’s leadership in this field, as well as its leading position in increasing reliance on solar energy, and the transformation to a green economy, to embrace the concept of sustainability in all aspects: environmental, social and economic. At DEWA, we are keen on achieving the vision of our wise leadership to ensure a sustainable future for future generations.

“This supports the UAE Centennial 2071, which paves the way for the future UAE, the UAE Vision 2021, to create a sustainable environment in terms of air quality, conserving water resources, more reliance on clean energy, and implementing green development in Dubai, as well as the Dubai Plan 2021 to establish Dubai as a smart and sustainable city, whose environmental elements are clean, healthy and sustainable.

“Consequently, the initiatives launched by our wise leadership aim to achieve global leadership in these fields, notably the Green Economy for Sustainable Development initiative, launched by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, to enhance green economy in the UAE, under the slogan ‘Green Economy for Sustainable Development’ and the Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050, to transform Dubai into an international hub for clean energy and green economy, by providing 7 percent of Dubai’s total power output from clean resources by 2020, 25 percent by 2030, and 75 percent by 2050,” Al Tayer said.

“Through its stand at the exhibition, DEWA will review its efforts in research, development and innovation in the field of solar energy, in addition to its major solar projects, notably the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, which is the largest single-site solar park in the world that uses the IPP model. It will produce 1,000 MW by 2020 and 5,000 MW by 2030, with a total investment of AED50 billion. When completed, the project will achieve a reduction of approximately 6.5 million tonnes of carbon emissions annually.

“We will also highlight our efforts on engaging the community in our efforts to increase our reliance on solar energy, through the Shams Dubai initiative, to encourage building owners to install PV panels on their rooftops to generate electricity from solar power. A total of 1,132 buildings with a total capacity of 49.1MW have already been installed. The number of panels is expected to double in the future to eventually cover all buildings in the emirate by 2030,” Al Tayer added.

He further called on all parties responsible for solar energy projects to participate in the Dubai Solar Show due to the benefits offered to exhibitors and participants.

“Dubai Solar Show offers exclusive benefits to participants, such as free registration for companies and products at DEWA, letters of recommendation for products participating in the show, and exclusive field visits to the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park. The benefits include speaking to the public and reviewing products at conferences and seminars accompanying the show.

“Organising the show in conjunction with WETEX 2018 and the fifth World Green Economy Summit, WGES 2018, is a unique opportunity for those interested, to extend their scope of work to include other renewable forms of energy and many related sectors such as water, environment and energy production, in general, as well as green economy projects. In addition, participants and visitors can avail of the busy agendas of the two events, which feature conferences, workshops, and specialised activities. They can also meet experts and specialists from around the world,” said Dr. Yousef Al Akraf, Executive Vice President of Business Support and Human Resources and Chairperson of the Sales, Logistics and Sponsorship Committees at WETEX.

WAM/مبارك خميس/MOHD AAMIR

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Journalists in Pakistan protest against the killing of their colleagues. Credit: Rahat Dar/IPS

By Aliya Iftikhar
ISLAMABAD, Jul 26 2018 (IPS)

When it comes to the military and the judiciary, Pakistan’s journalists are “between a rock and a hard place,” Zohra Yusuf, of the independent non-profit Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, told CPJ.

In recent months the judiciary, which has a history of siding with Pakistan’s powerful military, has remained largely silent amid attempts to censor or silence the press.

Ahead of yesterday’s elections, CPJ documented how journalists who are critical of the military or authorities were abducted or attacked, how the army spokesman accused journalists of sharing anti-state and anti-military propaganda, and how distribution of two of Pakistan’s largest outlets–Geo TV and Dawn–was arbitrarily restricted.

The judiciary, which has power to take up cases on its own, did not intervene on behalf of the press. But it has continued its practice of threatening legal action against its critics.

Some journalists and analysts said that by not taking action, the judiciary has added to a climate of fear and self-censorship.

The judiciary has at times been seen as a strong supporter of democratic values, but Yusuf said the perception among many people in Pakistan is that the judiciary and the military “seem to be on the same page on certain aspects of our democracy.”

“Now … democracy and media are being presented as a problem,” Yusuf said, adding that journalists are bending over backwards to avoid provoking either institution.

Madiha Afzal, an adjunct assistant professor of global policy at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the author of Pakistan Under Siege: Extremism, Society, and the State, told CPJ she thinks the judiciary is an “all too willing pawn in the military’s hands.” Afzal added, “I also think that it is in broad agreement with the military in its stance on Pakistan’s politics.”

The judiciary did not respond to CPJ’s email and calls requesting comment. Pakistani authorities certainly appear to be taking a tougher stance toward the press.

The country’s media regulator issued a statement this month warning news channels not to air any statements “by political leadership containing defamatory and derogatory content targeting various state institutions, specifically judiciary and armed forces.”

And Ahmad Noorani, a senior journalist with The News, told CPJ that some media houses received instructions from “certain forces” not to cover anything that favored former prime minister Nawaz Sharif or went against the judiciary. Noorani did not provide further details.

Owais Ali, the founder of the Pakistan Press Foundation, said a free media was crucial for free and fair elections. “Whatever the political issues are, they need to be discussed. These include criticisms of the judiciary and the military in the forthcoming elections. The media should not have a price to pay simply for reporting what is being discussed by the politicians and political parties.”

The lack of judicial support does not appear to be linked to court capacity. Pakistan’s chief justice came under criticism from political analysts this year for “judicial activism” — taking on suo motu cases, cases taken on the court’s initiative, Reuters reported. The court has launched inquiries on issues ranging from water shortages, police encounters, and milk prices.

Suo motu cases seem to be taken up “at the drop of a hat,” but when Geo asked the Supreme Court to take on its case, the court refused, Imran Aslam, president of Geo TV, told CPJ, referring to how cable operators arbitrarily blocked the broadcaster’s transmission earlier this year. “I certainly think the judiciary could have done something about Geo.”

The judiciary is supposed to provide justice to the media houses and media workers, but failed to take notice of the situation that the leading news channel of the country was facing, Noorani said. The court could easily have issued an order or at least asked for a report from the relevant regulatory authority, but they didn’t provide any relief to Geo, he said.

Afzal said she thinks the restrictions on Geo and Dawn undermined the outlets’ credibility. “[It] means that many in Pakistan don’t get to hear liberal voices or voices that are critical of the military, which in turn ensures that they remain pro-military and skeptical of liberal voices,” she said.

News outlets that criticize the judiciary often find themselves threatened with legal action. Nearly every major news organization has been served contempt of court notices, Yusuf said.

Last year, Noorani and his paper’s publisher, Jang Group, were served two notices, including one over Noorani’s report on the Inter-services Intelligence. Noorani said the court withdrew the notice after he presented records of his communication and evidence backing the story.

A contempt of court order brought against TV journalist Matiullah Jan and Waqt TV in February, over claims the higher court was insulted on Jan’s talk show, was dropped after the station’s management apologized and Jan said he would exercise more caution, according to Dawn.

Fakhar Durrani, a reporter at The News, said that when he reported last year on judges who were allegedly vying for plots of land that were part of a housing scheme case they were hearing, his organization came under pressure to stop reporting. Durrani, who did not specify where the pressure came from, said he was not able to publish any follow-up stories.

“During that era, my organization was facing contempt of court notices on other issues so they tried not to indulge in any other legal matter,” Durrani said.

Issuing a contempt of court notice to just one news outlet in Pakistan is a sufficient message to all the media houses because it comes from the highest court in the country and there is no way to appeal a Supreme Court order, Noorani said. If the Supreme Court orders the closure of a news station it sends a message to all other media houses to either fall in line or face the consequences, Noorani said.

The uncertainty over what could draw a contempt of court notice exacerbates the situation.

Aslam, of Geo TV, said criticism of any kind is looked upon as almost treasonous. He added, “It’s a scary situation because you don’t know when you’ll be called up in the courts, and this has led us to tread more carefully.”

He added that objective reporting has been skewed in Pakistan because of the constraints “looming” over the media all the time. “What it induces is self-censorship, even if word doesn’t go down to reporters and everybody else, they are looking over their shoulders.”

*Prior to joining CPJ, Aliya Iftikhar was a research assistant at the Middle East Institute and interned at the U.S. Department of State. She has worked with Amnesty International and written for Vice News.

The link to the original article: https://cpj.org/blog/2018/07/silence-from-judiciary-over-media-attacks-increase.php

The post Silence from Judiciary Increases Self-Censorship, Pakistan’s Journalists say appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Aliya Iftikhar* is Asia Research Associate at the Committee to Protect Journalists

The post Silence from Judiciary Increases Self-Censorship, Pakistan’s Journalists say appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The floating market at Ganvie village on Lake Nokoue near Cotonou, Benin. Many migrants use Benin as a launchpad before heading to North Africa or Europe. But some are choosing to remain. Credit: David Stanley/CC By 2.0

By Issa Sikiti da Silva
COTONOU, Jul 26 2018 (IPS)

Last year, Mohamed Keita returned home to Mali after living and working in Libya for six years. Eighteen months ago he was arrested by security forces in Libya as he and other migrants tried to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe via a makeshift boat. After spending six months in jail, which traumatised him, he was transported back to Mali.

But as soon as he arrived he immediately knew that it would be difficult for him to stay put.

Keita’s home is in the central poverty-stricken Mopti region where his entire village still does not have power.

While his parents now live in the country’s capital Bamako, “even in our family house in Bamako, running water and electricity are luxuries. And when it’s raining, flooding occurs and kills people. These kinds of things, including armed conflict and terrorism, force you to go far away to look for a better life and peace,” he says as he wipes the sweat that falls heavily from his face as he works on a construction site on the outskirts of Cotonou, a major city in Benin.“While we were waiting for the trip, we used to hear bad news of friends who had drowned at sea. Death stoked us while we waited for our turn... It was like waiting for Judgment Day.” Mohamed Keita.

Besides, he says, terrorism is still tearing the country apart, and peace and national reconciliation remain elusive.

The west African nation of Mali, which heads to the polls this Sunday Jul. 29, was caught in violent crisis in 2012 when a Tuareg group called the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad began a fight for a separatist rule. However, AFP reported yesterday that despite recent attacks by jihadists and inter-ethnic violence, incumbent president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita said there was “no war-mongering in Mali today.” He was elected in 2013 soon after French intervention to bring peace to the nation.

But as far as Keita was concerned, no real social or economic development has taken place since he left.

Had there been, the 26-year-old tells IPS, it would have enticed him to stay and plan his future. So instead he headed to Benin, another west African country. In Cotonou, a vibrant and thriving place, he shares a small room with six other sub-Saharan African migrants who are waiting to make the journey to North Africa and eventually to Europe.

Benin, new illegal migration hub?

The city is a far cry from his home village or even Bamako. Women from across the continent come here to buy local material that is highly sought after to make African dresses. Business is booming as the government doesn’t charge high taxes on small businesses.

Many also like it here because they consider xenophobia and police harassment to be non-existent. Last February, the government abolished short stay visas for 31 African countries in order to develop South-South cooperation.

Benin, a low-income country, has always been a transit route for west African migrants looking to make a fortune in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo-Brazzaville and Angola. It has also served as a stopping point for central African migrants looking to get to Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, and perhaps continue their journey to Europe.

According to a 2015 United Nations report on the country, 2.1 percent of the 11 million people here are migrants, the vast majority of who come from the neighbouring countries of Nigeria, Togo and Niger.

But this nation has always attracted sub-Saharan African traders looking for business opportunities. Its central market Dantokpa or Tokpa—which means market of snakes in the local language—is West Africa’s largest open-air business area.

“Cotonou is a good place to do business because you can earn up to 100 percent profit from selling everything you buy here,” Congolese trader Marthe Mavoungou tells IPS, as she is about to board a plane back to Brazzaville.

The country’s proximity to economic powerhouse Nigeria, also plays a role in the bustling business here as huge volumes of stock from Lagos port make their way to Benin. Items ranging from women’s bags, shoes and clothes, find their way onto local markets where they are sold cheaply.

Biggest mistake

Keita, a highschool dropout, left Mali at 20 for Libya and worked as a menial labourer there. The experience was a difficult one.

“If you are black and living in North Africa…you get unfair treatment but you have nowhere to complain,” he explains.

Amid emotional abuse, exploitation and racial slurs proffered towards him almost on a daily basis, Keita kept telling himself that the experience  would come to an end once he boarded the boat to Europe.

But it was not to be.

“I was crying when we were arrested, and at the same time angry with myself for making what I thought was the biggest mistake of my life,” he says.

“The failed trip cost me 1,500 dollars, which represented all my savings from working in the Libyan construction sector,” he says, emotionally.

But his story is fortunate. While he may not have crossed to Europe as he wanted to, Keita, unlike thousands of others is still alive.

“While we were waiting for the trip, we used to hear bad news of friends who had drowned at sea. Death stoked us while we waited for our turn. Some migrants even began smoking drugs to kill the stress. It was like waiting for Judgment Day.”

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said this month that on just one weekend some 218 migrants lost their lives in two mass seperate drownings. “I’ve just returned to Libya after a series of tragedies and the loss of hundreds of migrant lives including several babies,” IOM head William Lacy Swing reportedly said as he visited Libyan earlier this month. “My message is that all must focus on saving lives and protecting migrant rights.”

IOM states that this is the fifth year in a row that nearly 1,000 migrants have died or gone missing crossing the Mediterranean.

Nearly 48,000 asylum-seekers and migrants have reached Europe’s shores in the first six months of 2018, according to IOM figures.

Keita still thinks that those who make it to Europe are lucky. “But if you ask them about the things they endured before achieving their goal, they would tell you thousands stories of misery, abuse and pain,” he says.

His own pain did not end after trying to leave Libya for Europe. He says he experienced terrible and painful things in jail, which he would rather not talk about.

“The TV images you see showing migrants crammed in one place under the scorching sun like sheep waiting to be taken to the abattoirs is only a tip of the iceberg,” he explains.

A report released in March by the U.N Human Rights Office estimates that 6,500 people are being held in official prisons while thousands more are in facilities run by the government or run by armed groups affiliated to the state. Earlier this year Doctors Without Borders said that some 800 migrants in Libya’s detention centres were living under worsening conditions.

Many migrants have, however, returned home thanks to IOM’s Voluntary Humanitarian Return (VHR) programme.

Some choose to stay

Ousmane Bangoura, who lived in Morocco for four years in a failed to reach Spain, also lives in Cotonou where he sells used clothes in the city market Dantokpa.

His experience was a difficult one.

“Arabs hate blacks for no apparent reason and they call us derogatory names. Everybody is against you, including your neighbours. Besides, local media is also fuelling xenophobia through subjective and discriminatory reports,” Bangoura says.

But Bangoura, who is from Guinea-Conakry, tells IPS, that he will remain in Benin.

“I’m happy with what I’m currently doing, as I’m able to my life and send money home time to time to my ailing parents,” he says.

And there seems to be a recent increase in the number of migrants flocking to Cotonou looking to get to North Africa, according to a local community leader.

Some observers firmly believe that the city could become another Agadez (the door of Sahara), a northern town of Niger, where the country’s security forces have been conducting an aggressive campaign to root out human smugglers and migrants waiting to go to Libya. The campaign, which has been welcomed by the European Union, has also seen stocks of weapons seized and a number of arms traders arrested.

Congolese migrant, Didier, and his friend Felix, from the Central African Republic, both recently arrived to Cotonou from Agadez. Didier tells IPS that human smugglers have descended on Cotonou.

“A man and a woman came to see us on Sunday, asking if we wanted to travel to Spain via Morocco,” Didier says.

“He said all the paperwork will be done here in Benin and that they will take us through Senegal and Mauritania. They were asking for USD700 for the trip to Morocco, and once you reach there, they will take you to their ‘agents’ who will charge you USD1,500 negotiable for the trip to Europe. I’m not yet ready, but I will go come or shine. Europe is every young African’s dream.”

But for Keita the dream of living and working in Europe hasn’t died. But he says he will do it formally, when the time is right. For now he is happy to remain in Benin and earn a living.

• Immigration, Lot of Myths and Little Reality
• The High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development Must Address Migration
• EU Funds Giant Research Project on Migration

The post Benin – the Launchpad and Home for African Migrants appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: Sarah Farhat / World Bank

By Lauren Braniff and Michel Hanouch
WASHINGTON DC, Jul 26 2018 (IPS)

Households in developing countries spent $148 billion out-of-pocket for healthcare expenses in 2015, and each year 100 million people are pushed into extreme poverty because of the high cost of healthcare.

Particularly for major inpatient expenses, health insurance is the most effective way for people to reduce their out-of-pocket costs and avoid having a major medical emergency plunge them deeper into poverty.

However, insurance providers often have difficulty convincing low-income customers to pay insurance premiums now for needs that may or may not arise later.

Fortunately, digital financial services (DFS) has made it easier to bundle insurance with other financial products in ways that address a range of inpatient and outpatient health services and that introduce people to the benefits of insurance.

As discussed in a previous CGAP blog post, “A Digital Finance Prescription for Universal Health Coverage,” various DFS are helping patients pay for medical treatment in many developing countries. Digital credit is enabling patients to obtain instant loans for healthcare, even in remote areas.

In fact, CGAP research in Kenya found that paying medical bills was one of the most common reasons people cited for borrowing from digital lending platform m-Shwari. Digital savings is another example. Savings products allow people to save and easily withdraw funds from dedicated health savings accounts.

Still, obtaining insurance is the best way to prepare for major health expenses, yet too few low-income people are insured. About 75 percent of the world’s population is not adequately protected by insurance, and 40 percent have no coverage at all.

While there are many reasons for this, paying monthly premiums is a significant challenge to consumers with irregular sources of income. Another key issue is that low-income consumer value liquidity, so they hesitate to commit funds to any one destination ahead of immediate need.

This makes insurance a difficult sell on its own. But digital channels enable providers to more effectively bundle insurance with other services that meet a wider range of short- and long-term healthcare needs.

MicroEnsure’s Fearless Health product in Kenya is a good example of bundling’s potential. MicroEnsure has more than 50 million registered users in 15 countries. The company provides free basic life, accident and hospital insurance via mobile phone to many of its customers, through partnerships with mobile network operators.

However, these models are only able to cover catastrophic needs, rather than the day-to-day risk events that are more tangible for consumers. To provide a solution that addresses a broader range of potential health events, MicroEnsure designed Fearless Health, which integrates insurance with other products designed to help customers get the inpatient and outpatient care they need without delaying treatment because of the costs.

The Fearless Health pilot launched in 2016 with three key features: on-demand loans for primary healthcare at outpatient clinics, medical advice by phone (whereby customers text their health questions by SMS and receive a call from a doctor) and insurance for inpatient care that provides a cash payout if a customer or family member suffers a health emergency requiring three or more nights at a hospital.

Limiting the insurance component to inpatient care only, while offering loans for outpatient needs, allowed MicroEnsure to keep premiums low because administrative costs related to outpatient claims tend to drive up premiums.

By bundling financial products in this way, MicroEnsure hoped customers could experience the benefits of insurance without having to make costly, separate insurance premium payments.

MicroEnsure viewed the loans as the key way to introduce customers to Fearless Health’s other features. It marketed the loans at participating clinics to help patients cover the cost of their treatments.

During borrowers’ loan repayment periods, they were insured and had access to the telephone health information service. Mobile money was essential to Fearless Health, and all payments to and from customers were digital.

From MicroEnsure’s perspective, cash was not viable given the potential for multiple payouts per client in addition to receiving loan repayments on a regular basis. For customers, receiving loans and hospital cash payouts quickly via digital channels was critical so they could pay for immediate expenses.

Banner reads: “Receive treatment today, pay later.” MicroEnsure promoted Fearless Health at clinics around the country. Credit: Michel Hanouch

The Fearless Health pilot confirmed that there is a high demand for the product among customers who do not have enough funds for outpatient care. Further, Fearless Health customers spent more at the clinics than noncustomers, providing a business case for clinics to welcome the product and reducing the potential negative impacts of undertreatment due to patient liquidity constraints.

However, it also showed that MicroEnsure’s plan to offer the credit to patients when they were at the clinics and needed it most should be reconsidered. Most patients at clinics had already brought enough cash to cover minor outpatient expenses.

The target market for Fearless Health did not bother coming to clinics because they lacked funds. The pilot suggested that MicroEnsure would need to find ways to market the product outside of clinics.

To understand the features of Fearless Health that were most valued by customers, researchers from CGAP and Busara Center for Behavioral Economics asked them what mattered most to them: amount of coverage, duration of coverage or the number of family members covered.

Customers indicated that duration of insurance coverage was the most important. The other factors were also considered important, however, and a desirable combination of all three increased people’s willingness to pay for the Fearless product.

This suggests that the preferred solution should cover family members and offer a reasonable coverage amount, but that extending the duration of coverage should be emphasized.

MicroEnsure’s Fearless Health is an example of how providers can approach health insurance for poor people. Although our research uncovered areas where the product could be improved, it is clear that digital channels have an important role to play for insurance providers looking to create microinsurance products that are scalable and sustainable but also add real value to customers’ lives.

The link to the original article follows:
http://www.cgap.org/blog/bringing-health-microinsurance-kenyans-mobile-phone?utm_source=CGAP+Reader+%2807.23.18%29&utm_campaign=CGAP+Reader+%2807.23.18%29&utm_medium=email

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Excerpt:

Lauren Braniff & Michel Hanouch, Consultative Group to Assist the Poor. The CGAP, which is housed at the World Bank, is a global partnership of more than 30 leading organizations that seek to advance financial inclusion.

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Indonesia has one of the highest rates of income inequality in Southeast Asia, according to the World Bank. Credit: Sandra Siagian/IPS

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jul 26 2018 (IPS)

Economic divergence among countries and regions was never pre-ordained. According to the late cliometrician Angus Madison and other economic historians, the great divergence between the global North and South, between developed and developing countries, began around five centuries ago, from the beginning of the European, particularly Iberian colonial conquests.

From about two centuries ago, around the time of the Industrial Revolution, divergence accelerated with uneven productivity advances. During the 20th century, national level inequalities went down in many developed countries in the period after the First World War until around the 1970s with the rise of labour, peasant and other popular mobilizations.

Inequality, not only at the national level, but also at the international level, seems to affect the pattern of aggregate demand, particularly in developing countries, which in turn influences future investment and growth prospects and patterns.

Thus, the immediate post-Second World War period saw relatively high growth during what some Anglophone economists call the ‘Golden Age’, due to a combination of Keynesian policies at the national level in developed economies, and partially successful development policies in many newly-independent countries of Asia and Africa. However, this eventually came to an end in the 1970s for a variety of reasons.

Recent trends
Since then, inequalities have begun to grow again at the national level in many countries, but international divergence has declined in more recent decades. This recent convergence is due to significantly accelerated growth in some developing countries as expansion in some developed countries slowed. Among developing countries, growth was initially largely confined to East Asia and, to a lesser extent, South Asia, bypassing much of the rest of Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Africa suffered a quarter-century of stagnation from the late 1970s until the beginning of this century when commodity prices rose once again and China began investing in the continent. There was at least one lost decade in Latin America in the 1980s, and arguably, a second one for many on the continent in the following decade.

Such variation needs to be recognized. The recent convergence overall obscures very mixed phenomena of greater national-level inequalities in many economies, but also some international convergence due to more rapid growth in some major developing economies.

However, this convergence has begun to slow again, following the collapse of commodity prices since late 2014. This initially began with petroleum, but eventually affected almost all other commodities, especially mineral prices, slowing the decade of growth in Africa.

Divergence
The recent phenomena which many term globalization are often linked to international economic liberalization, but the strengthening of property rights has also been important. This has not only consolidated traditional property rights, but also extended property rights in novel ways, e.g., ostensibly to clarify supposedly ambiguous entitlements.

These have involved not only national legislation, but also free trade agreements and investment treaties at the international level, e.g., to consolidate ostensible asset-related entitlements, including so called intellectual property rights.

While few economic commentators may openly advocate increasing inequality, or blatantly espouse divergence, the consequences of many policies and positions associated with the conventional wisdom tend to increase divergence. For example, agricultural trade liberalization has undermined productive potential as only rich countries can afford subsidies, which most developing countries cannot afford.

For a long time, Africa used to be a net food exporter until the 1980s. Since then, it has become a net food importer. With trade liberalization, Africa was supposed to realize its true potential. Instead, Africa has lost much of its existing productive potential, not only in manufacturing, but also in agriculture.

To make matters worse, African farmers cannot compete with subsidized food imports from the EU and the USA. For example, as US consumers have a strong preference for chicken breasts, wings and legs from the US are not only flooding the Americas, but increasingly, Africa and Asia.

Convergence prospects
It is also important to consider the prospects for possible convergence in the long term due to the increased availability and affordability of capital. Besides recent Chinese international financing initiatives, quantitative easing, other unconventional monetary policies, recycling of petrodollars and private East Asian capital, as well as novel, and often illicit international financial flows may transform the horizon of possibilities.

Not unlike the Cold War and the aftermath of 9/11, the resurgence of European ethno-populism in reaction to growing economically and politically driven immigration into developed Western economies has reminded the world of the squalid conditions still prevailing in much of the global South, especially in Africa.

Perhaps more importantly, geography, rather than class, is increasingly viewed by many as the major determinant of income and welfare levels, with vastly different living standards associated with location rather than educational qualifications, occupation or productivity.

Thus, without the prospect of rapid convergence, not only nationally between wealth classes, but also internationally between rich and poor nations, the failure of economic globalization to deliver on its implicit promise of liberalizing cross-border human migration will haunt international relations, human rights and political liberalism for some time to come.

The post Globalization, Inequality, Convergence, Divergence appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Immigrant rights advocates and others participate in rally and demonstration at the Federal Building in lower Manhattan against the Trump administration's policy that enables federal agents to take migrant children away from their parents at the border. Photo: AFP

By Brig Gen Shahedul Anam Khan ndc, psc (Retd)
Jul 26 2018 (The Daily Star, Bangladesh)

If there was any doubt about President Trump’s racist inclinations, it was fully removed by his pontification to the European leaders about, what he thinks, the negative consequences of immigration on Europe. Every time the US president opens his mouth on any subject, with the exception, perhaps, of real estate business, he betrays an abject ignorance on practically everything under the sun. And every time he does that I am reminded of what an illustrious predecessor of his, and he belonged to the Republican Party also, had said about the dangers of speaking out of turn, which was that, “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.”

It may be worth quoting President Trump’s comment about immigration and Europe, whose leadership he managed to rub the wrong way with his characteristic injudiciousness. In an interview with The Sun in June, the US president blamed immigration for the changing culture of Europe: “I think allowing millions and millions of people to come into Europe is very, very sad. I think you are losing your culture.” And he said the same thing later at a news conference with the British PM, face to face, warning Europeans to be careful of the “changing culture” as a consequence of immigration. The reality is that, and that is acknowledged by all except the ultranationalists and rightists, the UK would not be what it is today without immigrants.

Trump’s utterances on culture is surprising on many counts, particularly the fact that such a thought was expressed by one who has both German and Scottish pedigree—being the grandson of a German, and the son of a Scottish immigrant to the US. And he has fathered a male progeny whose mother happens to be a first generation immigrant from Slovenia and has been a US citizen since only 2012. The American author James Jones had once advised the Americans to read their text books, and nobody more than the US president should take that to heart, particularly on history.

The issue of migration has been the topmost in the mind of President Trump. He has doubled down on immigrants from the very first day he took office, banning immigration from a selected list of Muslim countries. His cabinet ministers have used the scriptures, very selectively, to justify the policy of separating children from parents seeking asylum in the US from across its southern borders. That being the case, it may be worth looking at the scriptures to put the matter in a historical and scriptural context.

If migration is a crime, which Trump thinks it is, then the blame of the original sin must fall on the two who transgressed the Lord’s Command and thus endured forced migration. Ever since Adam and Eve were forced to migrate to the earth, human history has been the history of migration, of seeking newer lands for greener pastures and for following the command of the Lord, as did Abraham when he obeyed the order of his Lord to leave his home which was in present day Iraq. Immigration to a Christian kingdom, whose king Najashi knew his scriptures well, contributed to the survival of Islam at the very seminal stages of its existence. And the Islamic calendar commences with the immigration to Medina. Interestingly, all the revealed scriptures talk about protection of the immigrants.

Contrary to what Donald Trump thinks, migration has enriched and embellished languages and enhanced the capacity to adapt. But coming from one who is regrettably oblivious of how the American colonialists and their successors have decimated the American Red Indians, to the point where they are now penned in so called reservations, the fear expressed is not surprising. Neither is it new. Two hundred years ago Benjamin Franklin was worried about too many German immigrants “swamping America’s predominantly British culture.” Migration from Ireland was discouraged because they were looked down upon as “lazy and drunkards”— Poles, Italians, Russian Jews were the “new immigrants believed to be too different ever to assimilate into American life” at the beginning of 20th Century. Their contribution to America belies the misgivings.

Unfortunately, people like Mr Trump forget that the US is about migration and migrants. According to a US author, writing in 2002, “An authoritative 1997 study by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) concluded that immigration delivered a ‘significant positive gain’ to the U.S. economy. In testimony before Congress last year, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan said, ‘I’ve always argued that this country has benefited immensely from the fact that we draw people from all over the world.’”

As for Europe, the notion that there are “original people” from whom the present day generation is originated has been proven wrong by a research report published in The Independent (UK) in February this year which says that immigrants have been “moving and mixing” across Europe since ancient times. The liberalists believe, in view of the spurt of refugees in Europe that Europe’s cultural, ethnic and religious diversity will increase in a transformative way in the years and decades to come. As for the Sub Continent, its cultural richness is the result of intermixing of people of various races creeds and ethnicities.

Modern day migration is a fact of life and the natural order of things. And the pull factors are just as relevant now as it was 1,50,000 years ago. Mr Trump, immigrants don’t change culture but they surely can win a country the World Cup. The French would swear to that.

Brig Gen Shahedul Anam Khan ndc, psc (Retd) is, Associate Editor, The Daily Star.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

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By WAM
PARIS, Jul 25 2018 (WAM)

Wadi Wurayah in Fujairah has been designated a ‘Biosphere Reserve’ by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

On its official Twitter account, the UNESCO today announced that the Fujairah nature spot won the prestigious accolade.

The designation is awarded for protected areas that demonstrate a balanced relationship between people and nature and promote sustainable development. The site is one of 24 natural spots that won the coveted status.

Located in the Emirate of Fujairah, the site consists of a water catchment area in an arid climate that is part of the Haiar mountain range. It hosts a rich fauna and flora endemic to the Arabian Peninsula and is one of the last Emirati places where traditional farming practices are still maintained.

The Wadi is home to 81 bird species, 20 mammal species, at least nine reptile and amphibian species and 467 invertebrates.

A National Ecotourism Project was announced by the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment on 5th July. It listed Wadi Wurayah as a destination to be promoted to tourists.

Biosphere Reserves are areas comprising terrestrial, marine and coastal ecosystems. Each reserve promotes solutions reconciling the conservation of biodiversity with its sustainable use.

The reserves are considered ‘Science for Sustainability support sites’ – special places for testing interdisciplinary approaches to understanding and managing changes and interactions between social and ecological systems, including conflict prevention and management of biodiversity.

Biosphere reserves are nominated by national governments and remain under the sovereign jurisdiction of the states where they are located. Their status is internationally recognised.

WAM/Hazem Hussein/Hatem Mohamed

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Peatland degradation in Indonesia has also caused a decrease in fish populations. Courtesy: Global Green Growth Institute

By Kanis Dursin
JAKARTA, Jul 25 2018 (IPS)

The South Asian nation of Indonesia is the world’s fifth-largest emitter of greenhouses gases (GHG) and is ranked as the world’s second-largest plastic polluter of oceans, just behind China. So when the country committed in the Paris Agreement to limit the rise in average global temperatures to below 2°C by unconditionally reducing its emissions by 29 percent with using its own finances and by 41 percent with international funding, many felt the goals too ambitious.

Climate Action Tracker, which produces scientific analysis measuring the actions governments propose to undertake in order to limit climate change impact, noted that Indonesia’s 2016 commitment actions to reduce GHG, are “highly insufficient.”

The World Resources Institute (WRI), in a study on what is required for the country to reduce its emissions as promised in the Paris Agreement, noted that more ambitious actions would be necessary in order to meet the targets – referred to as nationally determined contributions or NDCs.

“For Indonesia to achieve both its unconditional and conditional NDC targets, more-ambitious mitigation actions will be necessary. Our analysis suggests that the key areas of increased ambition should be strengthening and extending the forest moratorium policy, restoring degraded forest and peatland, and increasing energy conservation efforts,” WRI said.

The Global Green Growth Institute, which has a mandate to support emerging and developing countries develop rigorous green growth economic development strategies, has been assisting this Asian nation draw up its national green growth roadmap. GGGI focuses on assisting countries in achieving quality economic growth through less stress on the environment and natural capital.

“As the country aims to become a high-income country in the 2030s, continued rapid economic growth is required. Without adopting green growth approaches, Indonesia, already the world’s fifth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases and the largest contributor of forest-based emissions would only pollute the world more,” Indonesia deputy country representative Dagma Zwebe told IPS.

However, private sector involvement, strengthening of national policies and regulation on land use are required to bring the country closer to its targets.

Excerpts of the interview follow:

Q: GGGI helped Indonesia draw up its national Green Growth Programme. Tell us more about the roadmap and how you chose the priority sectors?

The roadmap helps Indonesia chart a course toward a sustainable economy and focuses on energy, sustainable landscape, and infrastructure. These priority sectors were selected based on multi-stakeholder consultations, involving many government agencies and ministries, including advice provided by the Green Growth Programme Steering Committee.

Q: Briefly, what green initiatives has GGGI introduced in each of the priority sectors?

At the policy level, the national government and two provincial governments are now working to mainstream green growth in planning processes. For projects, GGGI designed a hybrid solar photovoltaic (PV) project combining an existing diesel-based power grid with solar PV in eight locations in East Nusa Tenggara. The facilities would reduce diesel consumption by 236 million litres or the equivalent to a total reduction of 549,300 tonnes of CO2 emissions and potential savings for state-owned electricity company Perusahaan Listrik Negara of around USD125 million over 20 years.

In the forest and land-use sector, Central Kalimantan has now formed public-private partnerships for rewetting, replanting and revitalisation of peat landscapes, while in the infrastructure sector, GGGI helps develop bankable green infrastructure projects, especially in special economic zones.

Q: Has there been any difficulty faced in implementing the programme?

One of the difficulties faced is that often the general public, in all sectors, associate green developments with more work or more barriers, decreased returns, and slower developments.

Q: What is needed to drive private investment in green initiatives?

Just for example, the current administration has put infrastructure development as one of the country’s priorities. Based on the current plans, a total investment of USD400 billion is required in the transportation, energy, water and waste sectors over a five years period. While the government has allocated significant funding toward this goal, there is still a gap of USD150 billion to overcome.

This is where the private sector can come in and play an important role. That has not happened yet for various reasons, including the national political and regulatory environment, lack of healthy pipeline of high quality, green and inclusive bankable projects, and capacity limitations in the public, private, and financial sector.

Q: Under the Green Growth Programme, GGGI, in cooperation with government agencies, will train 30,000 civil servants on green growth.

An important aspect of the Green Growth Programme is to build systems and capacity in ways that can be replicated. This is done through the establishment and operations of a web-based green growth knowledge platform hosted by the Indonesian ministry of national development planning, which will extend support to initiatives in other provinces beyond the two current pilot provinces of Central and East Kalimantan. The knowledge platform was launched in July, and will be further built upon over the next few years.

GGGI is also working to strengthen capacity of stakeholders in the application of the extended cost benefit analysis tool, specifically in mainstreaming the tool into strategic environmental assessment methodologies, as part of the government of Indonesia’s development and spatial planning process.

Q: In the first phase, GGGI worked with the Central and East Kalimantan provinces on several green programmes. How have the programmes developed? 

Districts Murung Raya and Pulang Pisau in Central Kalimantan allocated USD8.8 million in 2015 to implement their green growth strategies, covering six key sectors: forestry, mining, plantation, aquaculture, energy and cross-sectorial developments.

GGGI has provided strong support for the development of the provincial general energy planning for East Kalimantan and Central Kalimantan. The plan followed the issuance of the General Plan for National Energy.

Q: Do you think Indonesia can achieve its targeted reduction of GHG emissions?

Indonesia has pledged to reduce emissions by 29 percent financed by its own resources and by 41 percent subject to international assistance by 2030. This is an ambitious target, but Indonesia is taking many steps to reach this. Even with all these efforts though, Indonesia is not yet on track to reach its targets.

However, further strengthening of the earlier mentioned national policies and regulations in the land-use and energy sectors, including the moratorium on new forest and peatland concessions, peatland restoration, renewable energy mix targets, social forestry and degraded forest land rehabilitation, could bring Indonesia much closer to their target.

– Additional reporting by Nalisha Adams

• Q&A: Air Pollution Remains Cause for Alarm in Asia
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• “Green Development Has to Be Equal for All”

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Excerpt:

Since 2013, the Global Green Growth Institute has been working with the government of Indonesia promoting green growth. IPS correspondent Kanis Dursin interviewed Indonesia Deputy Country Representative Dagma Zwebe about the country's steps in mitigating climate change.

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A young couple walk down a steep stairway in La Carpio, a poor neighbourhood on the outskirts of San José, Costa Rica. About half of the young people living in communities like this one in Central America say they would migrate if they could. Credit: Josué Sequeira/IPS

By Daniel Salazar
San Jose, Jul 25 2018 (IPS)

La Carpio is an island of poverty on the outskirts of Costa Rica’s capital, surrounded by the country’s most polluted waters – the Torres River – on one side and a massive garbage dump on the other.

A sewage treatment plant that processes wastewater from 11 cities is also next to the slum, where nearly 25,000 people live in unpainted houses and shacks, interspersed with street markets, more than seventy bars and a hundred or so churches of different faiths, about 10 km from downtown San José.

This impoverished community holds the stories of thousands of Costa Ricans and Nicaraguans; it is the largest community of migrants from that neighbouring country in Central America. Most of them are young people who had to migrate because of inequality and fear of violence of different kinds."On average, the difference between countries of origin and destination worldwide in terms of income is one to 70, and it is estimated that in about 25 years we will be talking about a difference of 100 to one. In this world, it will not be easy to convince migrants not to migrate to where the income and quality of life can be found.” -- Salvador Gutiérrez

On average, almost half of the residents between the ages of 14 and 24 of poor Central American neighbourhoods similar to La Carpio, such as Jorge Dimitrov (Managua), El Limón (Guatemala City), Nueva Capital (Tegucigalpa) or Popotlán (San Salvador), say they would leave their countries… if they could.

This was reported by a study by the Institute of Social Research of the University of Costa Rica (UCR), which interviewed 1,501 young people from these five poor neighbourhoods on the outskirts of Central America’s capital cities, partly released in June under the title “Central America torn apart. Demands and expectations of young people living in impoverished communities.”

The study was based on 300 interviews with young people from each community conducted at their homes during the last quarter of 2017, with the help of nearly 100 pollsters recruited in those communities.

In these neighbourhoods, on average almost two-thirds of young people see the distribution of wealth as “very unjust” or “unjust”, about half say they have recently been afraid of the violence around them and the same percentage believe “their fate does not depend on them.”

In Popotlán, in the municipality of Apopa, outside of San Salvador, 76 per cent of young people under 24 said they wanted to migrate, while in the neighbourhood in Tegucigalpa the proportion was 60 per cent, in La Carpio 50 per cent, in Guatemala City 49 per cent and in Managua 47 per cent.

The Salvadoran case

The young people of Popotlán are surrounded by violence, and face the stigma of living in an area ruled by different gangs, while suffering a lack of access to an adequate diet and to healthcare.

“Maria” (not her real name) is well aware of these problems. She lives in this neighbourhood and heads a community organisation that supports young people with food and education. A few days after the interview she asked that neither her name nor the name of her organisation be mentioned, after several murders in the area.

“Being young here would appear to be a crime. Usually, young people say happily, ‘I’m going to be of legal age soon’, but that doesn’t happen here. Here they’re afraid the police will catch them because they’re young, not so much because they’re in a gang, but just because they live in this neighbourhood. When looking for work it’s very hard to say you’re from Popotlán,” she told IPS in a telephone conversation.

Youth, the dominant feature of migration

Salvador Gutiérrez, regional liaison and policy officer at the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) Regional Office for Central America, North America and the Caribbean, said the central feature of migration in this region is youth.

Corrugated iron roofs predominate in the populous neighbourhood of La Carpio, on the outskirts of San José, Costa Rica, where an estimated half of the houses are built with inadequate materials. Credit: Daniel Salazar/IPS

“In general, the age group that migrates the most are people between 14 and 24, in the case of Central America. What is clearly seen as a differentiating element in the case of youth migration is the fact that these people are looking to build an entirely new future,” he told IPS at the regional office in San José.

Young Central Americans are also different from other migrants because they are fleeing violence and crime, often suffered personally, or they want to be reunited with their families who already live in other countries.

The stigma of being young in Popotlán leads many to migrate, but others like the community activist Maria decide to stay and fight for the youth of the neighbourhood, “in an area where the state is barely present.” Five of the young people she helps are about to enter university.

“Living is a miracle, and we try to encourage them to discover the values they can offer to others…One young man told me that he wanted to go to college, and that he wanted his parents to be proud of him. Sometimes it hurts a lot when your own family doesn’t believe in you,” Maria said.

Communities torn apart 

Carlos Sandoval, coordinator of the UCR study, told IPS that 31 years after the Esquipulas II Agreement, which in its preamble stated that it was aimed at young people and that it established measures to bring about “lasting peace” in the region, “Central America is still torn apart.”

“Even the main achievement of electoral democracy as a mechanism of political legitimation is falling apart. Perhaps what this study contributes is that there is a lack of ideas on how to think about Central America,” he said.

“Let us not be surprised if what is happening in Nicaragua opens a new cycle of social unrest,” he said, referring to the demonstrations and uprising that broke out in that country in April, and which is not waning despite the fact that a brutal crackdown has already caused more than 370 deaths, mostly young people, and has triggered a wave of emigration.

In the five neighbourhoods covered by the study, life is even more complex for young women. Almost 32 per cent of the young women surveyed said they were mothers, while only 13 per cent of the young men said they were fathers.

This situation was experienced by Mario de León, who was born in Nicaragua and grew up in La Carpio, with a mother who raised her four children on her own.

“My mom worked from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Monday through Sunday in a supermarket. We were able to eat, study and have clothes to wear thanks for her,” he said. Now, De León, at the age of 30, is a math professor at the UCR.

He came to La Carpio when he was six years old, he said as he accompanied IPS around the neighbourhood. His family had lost everything in Nicaragua during the war, had moved to Guatemala for some time and arrived in Costa Rica in the mid-1990s.

“It was horrible in school. The school was made of four corrugated iron sheets, a roof and a dirt floor. It leaked when it rained, we would have blackouts, and we would have to go home. But I would stay there studying as the water ran down the walls. I tried to motivate myself,” he said.

Not until this year did a modern primary school open in La Carpio, serving some 2,100 students. Although access to education already existed, ensuring quality services for communities like this is often a task where the state shows up late, if at all.

In the neighbourhoods surveyed, the vast majority of young people (between 64 per cent in Costa Rica and 79 per cent in El Salvador) said they did not care whether the government was “democratic or not,” but simply wanted it to “solve problems.”

For the IOM’s Gutiérrez, the study highlights that cooperation and aid for these countries to develop are crucial if the issue of migration is to be addressed.

“We must work on the structural causes of migration: poverty, inequality, security and development opportunities in a broad sense,” he said.

For him, that means creating opportunities for the regularisation of migrants, cooperating to address public security, and reducing inequality within and, above all, between countries.

“On average, the difference between countries of origin and destination worldwide in terms of income is one to 70, and it is estimated that in about 25 years we will be talking about a difference of 100 to one. In this world, it will not be easy to convince migrants not to migrate to where the income and quality of life can be found,” he said.

That is why, the UCR study states, half of the young people in the poor communities of Central America think that having a future depends on emigrating.

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Credit: Jader Flores/IPS

By Edwin Huizing
Jul 24 2018 (IPS)

Just 40 years after Daniel Ortega led the Sandinistas to overthrow the Somoza dictatorship, a severe crisis grips Nicaragua. Most Nicaraguans want nothing more than to see Ortega, who has been in office for eleven years, disappear from the political scene. Hivos, headquartered in The Hague, believes the Netherlands should use its membership in the UN Security Council to prevent a civil war and bring about a peaceful transition.

Since the protests against President Ortega started in April this year, at least 273 people have died and 2,000 have been injured, according to the human rights arm of the Organization of American States (OAS). And the number of victims grows every day.

Edwin Huizing, Executive Director at Hivos

The opposition to Ortega comes from many corners: students, workers, pensioners, the Catholic Church and not least, women’s groups fighting for a more just society. The government’s heavy-handed repression of the protesters also affects journalists and human rights defenders supported by the Netherlands and Hivos. For example, employees of the human rights organization CENIDH were arrested. Journalists from the online magazine Confidencial have been mistreated, threatened and robbed of their cameras and telephones.

In the weekend of July 13, Ortega’s supporters – a mix of government officials and militias – besieged a Catholic church where some 200 students had sought refuge after the protests at their university turned violent. Thanks to fifteen hours of mediation by high-ranking clergy, the students were given safe conduct to leave. But by then, there were already two dead and ten wounded.

According to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (CIDH), abuse, torture, kidnapping and murder are the order of the day. In its unusually harsh report, the Commission clearly points to the state as partly responsible. If the protests against Ortega continue to spiral out of control, a civil war could break out.

A global trend of government oppression

Nicaragua exemplifies the current trend of governments that are increasingly suppressing activist citizens, critical journalists, human rights defenders and NGOs.

Dutch foreign policy, with its emphasis on “the ring of instability around Europe,” migration and economic commitment is far too limited in this light. Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok’s recent letter about strengthening the Netherlands’ diplomatic network does not even mention the words “human rights”. Its emphasis on economic diplomacy and cuts in spending on diplomatic posts comes at the expense of promoting human rights.

But foreign policy must be about more than migration from Africa and growth opportunities for the Netherlands. The Dutch government’s Coalition Agreement has allocated 40 million euros for strengthening our diplomatic network. Part of this should be directly destined for Nicaragua, and for Central America, which is threatening to become a forgotten region.

Credit: Jorge Mejía Peralta

There must be an end to the violence and impunity

Together with Sweden, currently chairman of the UN Security Council, the Netherlands can bring these human rights violations in Central America to the attention of the UN Security Council, starting with the crisis in Nicaragua. There must be an end to the violence and impunity, for which disarmament of paramilitary forces is crucial. There needs to be an independent international investigation into the killings and other crimes that will bring those responsible to justice. International delegations (e.g. EU parliamentarians) should visit Nicaragua to act as the eyes and ears of the international community and thus increase the pressure on the government to cease its repression and start a transition to free elections, under international supervision.

Riding a wave of hope back in the 1980s, many Dutch people – including NGOs – supported the Sandinista movement. Let them now declare in no uncertain terms that Ortega has not proven to be any better than his illustrious right-wing predecessors.

International political action is urgently needed as the crisis in Nicaragua rapidly escalates, possibly into civil war.

This opinion was originally published here

The post We Cannot Look Away From the Crisis in Nicaragua appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The conflict in Nicaragua is spiraling out of control. International political action is urgently needed to prevent further escalation, argues Hivos Director Edwin Huizing. And the Netherlands must take the lead.

The post We Cannot Look Away From the Crisis in Nicaragua appeared first on Inter Press Service.