Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

The Black Sea Grain Initiative was halted by Russia. Its impact is likely to be felt on food markets across the globe. Credit: Duncan Moore/UNODC

By Oluwafemi Olaniyan and Abigail Van Neely
ABUJA & UNITED NATIONS, Jul 18 2023 (IPS)

As Russia paused the renewal of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres reacted with regret saying the global south would be badly affected.

A Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, on Monday, July 18, said the agreement was “suspended.”

“As soon as the Russian part is fulfilled, the Russian side will immediately return to the implementation of that deal,” Peskov said. 

The Russian Federation’s decision to terminate the Black Sea Grain Initiative will “strike a blow to people in need everywhere,” Guterres said in reaction.

Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the secretary-general, acknowledged that Ukraine and Russia produce an enormous number of products needed on the global food market. The impact of the deal’s termination was immediate, with wheat prices increasing 3 percent when the news broke.

Guterres emphasized that the Black Sea Grain Initiative and Memorandum of Understanding on facilitating exports of Russian food products and fertilizers “have been a lifeline for global food security and a beacon of hope in a troubled world.”

“Ultimately, participation in these agreements is a choice,” Guterres said. “But struggling people everywhere and developing countries don’t have a choice. Hundreds of millions of people face hunger, and consumers are confronting a global cost-of-living crisis. They will pay the price.”

Dujarric said Guterres was disappointed his proposals in a letter to President Putin went “unheeded.”

“The letter that [Gutteres] sent to President Putin was a very clear illustration of his determination to keep this alive for the benefit of people in the global south for the benefit of vulnerable people everywhere, for whom an increase in food prices has a direct impact – and it includes people in rich countries and in poor countries,” Dujarric said.

According to Dujarric, Guterres did not receive a formal response to his letter.

The Joint Coordination Centre that facilitates the implementation of the initiative remains available for discussions in Istanbul. A final vessel is being inspected.

In a diplomatic flurry, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa last week discussed the initiative with Russian President Vladimir Putin. But according to reports, Russia said it could not continue with the initiative because promises, which include the export of fertilizer and, according to Reuters, connecting a subsidiary of Russia’s agricultural bank to the international payment system SWIFT, which enables payments to be made, had not been fulfilled.

Ukraine is one of the world’s largest exporters of grain. Before the Russian invasion in February 2022, Ukrain supplied around 45 million tonnes of grain to the world market annually. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 16 African countries rely strongly on the agricultural produce of Russia and Ukraine. The invasion triggered a shortage of at least 30 million tonnes of food globally, impacting countries like the Horn of Africa, where climate change, conflict, and bad governance have sparked a food security crisis affecting about 50 million people.

Wealthier Countries Main Beneficiary of Exports

However, data on the initiative indicates that China and Spain were the two biggest beneficiaries of the grain, although the World Food Programme (WFP) said the initiative was crucial to its support of humanitarian operations in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.

A data set of countries that benefitted from the Black Sea Grain Initiative. Credit: UN

Of the 32.9 million tons exported, 43 percent went to developed countries and 57 to developing countries. Exports by World Bank categories show that 44 percent went to high-income countries. Upper-middle-income countries received 37 percent, lower-middle-income countries 17 percent, and low-income countries just 3 percent.

World Food Programme (WFP) Director David Beasley said: “Africa is very fragile right now. Fifty million people (are) knocking on famine’s door.” He warned that if Moscow should shut down or blockade the ports, there would be a catastrophe, notably in Africa, where millions of people are facing famine.

“Food prices, fuel costs, debt inflation, and three years of COVID, the people have no more coping capacity, and if we don’t get in and get costs down, then 2024 could be the worst year we have seen in several hundred years”.

Solutions to Africa’s Foreign Dependence on Food Products

Steve Wiggins, a food expert at ODI, a global think-tank based in the UK, noted that Africa’s dependence on imports was often misunderstood.

“African nations’ dependence on foreign aid is very high; African nations are always depending on importation even as far back as before their independence and even after independence. But many African countries do not rely on imports for their staples, contrary to what many people assert. What Africa tends to import is higher-value food: frozen chicken, canned tuna, packed biscuits, packet noodles, and so on. If you look at imports of the main staples, for most countries, 15% or less, often far less, is imported.”

He said rising imports did not indicate agricultural failure.

“This is a common misunderstanding: the idea that Africa is so far from feeding itself that rising food imports means agricultural failure. No, often rising food imports reflect economic growth and the ability of urban middle classes to afford imported food.”

Chris Gilbert, a commodity market analyst, says, “The invasion of Ukraine pushed wheat prices up by just 5% – a very small share of the increase in wheat prices seen from April 2020 to May 2022. He points out that the Black Sea initiative has been a key reason why the invasion did not push wheat, maize, and sunflower prices higher and why prices fell back after May 2022”.

Steve Wiggins, a food expert based in the UK, noted that “Africa’s vulnerability to price rises varies hugely by place and circumstance. Some countries, such as Egypt and Sudan, are heavily exposed to rising costs of wheat imports. In other parts of Africa, hard-pressed working mothers have taken to sliced bread, noodles, and pasta as near-instant food they can prepare quickly for their children when they return from work.”

Alex Abutu, the Communication Officer for West and Central Africa at the African Agricultural Technology Foundation, said it was time for Africa to put resources into agriculture to lessen the dependence on imports of basic foodstuffs.

He said African governments are yet to fully follow the Maputo Declaration on Agriculture and Food Security resolutions, which include allocating 10 percent of national budgets to agricultural development – a trend experts say undermines the growth of African agricultural development.

“Africans should go beyond manual labor if they really and truly want to satisfy themselves. Precision agriculture should be encouraged and inculcated … Seed buying should be encouraged; grains are meant to be eaten and not replanted; a good seed will surely germinate because it has undergone purification and has been checked well, unlike a grain that might have got infected, and this will affect the yields from it, a seed will surely bring about 99 percent yield but a grain will not. It reduces yields.”

Additional reporting: Cecilia Russell
IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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A floating mosque collapsed due to the tsunami in September 2018, Palu, Indonesia Credit: Unsplash/Arif Nur Rokhman https://unsplash.com/photos/kfg7QZZJ9vg
 
The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) is convening top policymakers, experts and academicians from across the region on 25 – 27 July to discuss transformative adaptation policies and actions at ESCAP’s Committee on Disaster Risk Reduction. The Asia-Pacific Disaster Report 2023 will also be launched at the meeting.

By Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana
BANGKOK, Thailand, Jul 18 2023 (IPS)

The world faces a disaster emergency, yet nowhere is the threat more immediate than in Asia and the Pacific. Ours is a region where climate change-induced disasters are becoming more frequent and intense. Since 1970, two million people have lost their lives to disasters.

Tragically, but all too predictably, the poorest in the least developed countries (LDCs) are worst affected. They will find themselves in the eye of the storm as temperatures rise, new disaster hotspots appear and existing risks increase.

Unless we fundamentally change our approach to building resilience to disaster risk, temperature rises of 1.5°C or 2°C will make adaptation to the threat of disasters unfeasible. Disaster risk could soon outpace resilience in Asia and the Pacific.

It is worth pondering what this would mean. The grim tally of disaster-related deaths would inevitably rise, as would the annual cost of disaster-related losses, forecast to increase to almost $1 trillion, or 3 per cent of regional GDP, under 2°C warming ¬ up from $924 billion today, or 2.9 per cent of regional GDP.

The deadly combination of disasters and extreme weather would undermine productivity and imperil sustainable development. In the poorest parts of our region, such as the Pacific small island developing States, disasters would become a major driver of inequality.

Losses would be particularly devasting in the agriculture and energy sectors, disrupting food systems and undermining food security as well as jeopardizing energy supply and production. Environmental degradation and biodiversity loss would be remorseless, leading to climate change-driven extinctions and further increasing disaster risk.

To avoid this exponential growth of disaster risk, there is a narrow window of opportunity to increase resilience and protect hard-won development gains. To seize it, bold decisions are needed to deliver transformative adaption. They can no longer be postponed.

Next week, countries meeting during our Committee on Disaster Risk Reduction will consider key questions such as prioritizing greater investment in early warning systems. Expanding coverage in least developed countries is the most effective way to reduce the number of people killed.

Early warning systems can shield people living in multi-hazard hotspots and reduce disaster losses everywhere by up to 60 per cent. They provide a tenfold return on investment. To protect food systems and reduce the exposure of the energy infrastructure – the backbone of our economies – sector-specific coverage is needed.

Investments at the local level to improve communities’ response to early warning alerts, delivered through expanded global satellite data use and embedded in comprehensive risk management policies, must all be part of our approach.

Nature-based solutions should be at the heart of adaptation strategies. They support the sustainable management, protection and restoration of degraded environments while reducing disaster risk. The evidence is unequivocal: preserving functional ecosystems in good ecological condition strengthens disaster risk reduction.

This means preserving wetlands, flood plains and forests to guard against natural hazards, and mangroves and coral reefs to reduce coastal flooding. Forest restoration and sustainable agriculture are essential. In our urban centers, nature-based solutions can mitigate urban flooding and contribute to future urban resilience, including by reducing heat island effects.

Beyond these priorities, only transformative adaption can deliver the systemic change needed to leave no one behind in multi-hazard risk hotspots. Such change will cut across policy areas. It means aligning social protection and climate change interventions to enable poor and climate-vulnerable households to adapt and protect their assets and livelihoods.

Disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation must become complementary to make food and energy systems more resilient, particularly in disaster-prone arid areas and coastlines. Technologies, such as the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence, can improve the accuracy of real-time weather predictions and how disaster warnings are communicated.

Yet to make this happen, disaster risk financing needs to be dramatically increased and financing mechanisms scaled up. In a constrained fiscal context, we must remember that investments made upstream are far more cost-effective than spending after a disaster.

The current level of adaptation finance falls well short of the $144.74 billion needed for transformative adaptation. We must tap innovative financing mechanisms to close the gap. Thematic bonds, debt for adaptation and ecosystem adaptation finance can help attract private investment, reduce risk and create new markets.

These instruments should complement official development assistance (ODA) , while digital technologies improve the efficiency, transparency and accessibility of adaptation financing.

Now is the time to work together, to build on innovation and scientific breakthroughs to accelerate transformative adaptation across the region. A regional strategy that supports early warnings for all is needed to strengthen cooperation through the well-established United Nations mechanisms and in partnership with subregional intergovernmental organizations.

At ESCAP, we stand ready to support this process every step of the way because sharing best practices and pooling resources can improve our region’s collective resilience and response to climate-related hazards. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development can only be achieved if we ensure disaster resilience is never outpaced by disaster risk. Let us seize the moment and protect our future in Asia and the Pacific.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is Under-Secretary-General of the UN and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Climate change poses a direct threat to small-scale peasants in Afghanistan, with soaring summer temperatures and frigid winters becoming increasingly challenging.

By External Source
Jul 17 2023 (IPS)

Baba Jan, 60, a farmer in Badghis Province in Afghanistan has been forced to leave his home, not because of the war but due to the worst drought he has ever experienced. It is the second time this year he has been forced to leave his cherished home and life in the rural area for capital city, Kabul.

“If I could have stayed in Badghis, and even if you would have given me all of Kabul, I would not have come here”, he lamented, adding, “I loved my peasant life very much, and I miss my peasant life”, he said, covering his sad face with a shawl.

However, Baba Jan is not alone. A large number of farmers have suffered the same fate. Their lives in the western provinces of Afghanistan have been upended, with the loss of their agricultural products, livestock, and water resources caused by severe draught, largely understood to stem from climate change.

Baba Jan is now living with his three younger children in a mud hut in Kabul. The adverse situation has forced him to send his four grown-up children to work in Iran.

“We don’t care much about the war”, he says. “We were happy and busy with our peasant life but our children faced the risk of dying of hunger due to drought caused by climate change”.

Afghanistan is one of the countries that has been severely affected by climate change. The United Nations declared in 2022 November that Afghanistan is the sixth country in the world that has been severely affected by climate change.

It is one of the major concerns in the life of the people of Afghanistan – apart from the four-decades war that has ravaged this country – especially for the farmers and ranchers who cannot properly engage in livestock rearing and farming activities.

Apart from scorching hot summers with temperatures reaching 45 degrees Celsius, the situation can also swing to the other extreme of freezing harsh winters. As a result of the cold winter, about 200 people have lost their lives this year; hundreds of livestock have also been lost.

United Nations organizations have provided financial assistance to affected Afghans to alleviate their suffering, but they complain it is not enough for those in the drought-stricken areas, where what is needed most is assistance to drill wells in order to access fresh drinking water.

Even though current statistics are difficult to come by, says Obeidulla Achakzai, Director of Environmental Protection Trainings and Development Organization (EPTDO), a combination of reduced rainfall and frequent droughts have caused groundwater in Kabul to recede further from 20 meters thirty years ago to 120 meters currently.

The main source of livelihood for most Afghans is farming and if rain fails consecutively for four farming seasons, it causes huge food distress and population displacement. Climate change therefor exacerbates the poverty in a worn-torn country.

Obeidullah Achakzai says, for instance, that residents of Herat, Helmand, Uruzgan and other southern provinces of Afghanistan have lost their crops and have been displaced to other provinces within the country and into neighbouring countries.

Given this situation, people in Afghanistan are appealing to the global community to detach climate change from politics because environment is science and science is not political. In this regard, they call on the rest of the world to co-operate with Afghanistan – a reference to western countries denial of aid to the hardline Taliban regime.

Meanwhile, back in Kabul, Baba Jan like the other Afghans who have been displaced from their communities is fervently praying for the day he would be able to return home and continue his farming.

Excerpt:

The author is an Afghanistan-based female journalist, trained with Finnish support before the Taliban take-over. Her identity is withheld for security reasons.

Race in America remains a problematic concept, an arbitrary classification of unscientific distinctions and an incoherent stereotype as well as being difficult to define objectively and unambiguously. Credit: Shutterstock.

By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, USA, Jul 17 2023 (IPS)

With preparations for America’s 2030 population census underway and the Census Bureau encouraging additional public input, it’s time to seriously evaluate the continued inclusion of the race question in the U.S. population census.

Not only is the census race question confusing, an arbitrary classification of unscientific distinctions and conceptually problematic, the continuing collection of race data in the decennial census is divisive, alienating and inconsistent with America’s motto “e pluribus unum”, out of many, one.

The collection of population race data is a controversial matter. Some countries, agencies and organizations, including the UN Council for Human Rights, contend that the collection and compilation of race data are necessary to ensure equality, address systemic racism and guide appropriate public policy decisions. They believe that governments should collect and make publicly available comprehensive demographic data disaggregated by race.

Others, however, maintain that the collection of race data is estranging, promotes adverse stereotypes and contributes to the establishment of discretionary social differences. They also fear that the collection and compilation of population race data may be used by government authorities and others to benefit or sanction certain groups. Moreover, they note that despite religious discrimination in the U.S., the decennial population census does not have a question on religious affiliation.

The large majority of OECD countries, including France, Germany, Italy and Japan, do not collect data on the racial identity of their inhabitants. Only about a fifth of the 38 OECD countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, collect racial data on their respective populations (Figure 1).

 

Source: OECD.

 

In some countries, such as France, the collection of data on race is considered divisive and accordingly governments avoid considering their citizens in racial categories. Also, in many European countries as well as elsewhere, the collection of race data remains a highly sensitive matter given the recent history of authorities using demographic data to harass, oppress, persecute and even exterminate certain groups of people.

Anyone who has filled out a recent decennial U.S. census questionnaire is faced with the question of race. There are a lot of people who don’t understand how best to answer that question because it doesn’t match the way they understand race

In the United States, beyond the basic enumeration of its population required by the U.S. Constitution for determining representation in Congress, the questions included in its decennial census is basically a political matter. Topics to be included or excluded in America’s population census are often in response to politics and political lobbying.

Questions about age and place of residence typically raise few objections. In contrast, the collection of other information, such as religious affiliation, citizenship, sexual orientation, gender identity, ethnicity, political affiliation and immigration status, are often contentious and some are not included in the census.

Since the first U.S. census in 1790, when some data on race as well as categories differentiating between free white people, other free people and enslaved people were collected, the government has changed its definitions of racial categories more than 10 times. Also, in many past censuses, individuals who were both white and another race, no matter how small the percentage, were counted as the nonwhite race, largely on the basis of the one drop rule.

The U.S. Census Bureau currently collects race data in accordance with the 1997 Standards for Maintaining, Collecting, and Presenting Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity directed by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Based largely on continent or country of origin, OMB’s minimum five categories for data on race are: American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and White.

Beginning in the 1960 census, race was no longer determined by the decisions of census enumerators but relied on the individual’s interpretation to select the appropriate racial category. In addition, the self-reporting of more than one race began with the 2000 census.

The Census Bureau defines race as a person’s self-identification with one or more social groups. The Bureau repeatedly stresses that the racial categories in the census questionnaire generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in the country and not an attempt to define race biologically, anthropologically or genetically.

Anyone who has filled out a recent decennial U.S. census questionnaire is faced with the question of race. There are a lot of people who don’t understand how best to answer that question because it doesn’t match the way they understand race.

With the choice of one or more “racial categories” in the recent 2020 census, an individual could select White, Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, nearly a dozen Asian or Pacific Island countries as well as the ubiquitous “Some Other Race” category, with national or ethnic origins to be specified in the write-in areas (Figure 2).

 

Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

 

The U.S. census race question has been met with dissatisfaction and frustration among some groups and individuals. In addition to the limited choices, the census race categories are increasingly failing to reflect how people see themselves, are out of step with the reality of their personal experiences and are often confused with people’s ethnic identity, especially Hispanic.

In the 2020 census, close to 50 million U.S. residents, or approximately 15 percent of the country’s population, checked a box for “Some Other Race” in the question on race. The proportion of the U.S. population choosing the category “Some Other Race” in 2020 is double the percentage from a decade earlier and triple the percentage from two decades earlier (Figure 3).

 

Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

 

Among the proposed reforms being considered to the race question for the 2030 census is the inclusion of a new checkbox for “Middle Eastern or North African” (MENA). Under the current standards set by the Office of Management and Budget, Americans with roots in the Middle East or North Africa are considered white.

Advocates for Arab Americans and other MENA groups have long campaigned for their own checkbox in the race question. Based on their daily life experiences, many people of MENA descent do not identify as white people.

Besides the addition of a new checkbox to the census racial question, the proposed reform to the race question would change the government’s definition of “White” as it would no longer include people with MENA origins. As a result, the change could decrease the proportion of people who identify as white among the U.S, population, which has become a salient part of American politics, especially among the political right.

Families across America are becoming more racially diverse. Part of the rise is the result of the growing diversity of the U.S. population due to immigration and increasing intermarriage among America’s racial and ethnic groups.

Since 2010, the number of people in the U.S. who identify themselves as multiracial has changed substantially. From 9 million people in 2010, the number increased to 33.8 million people in 2020 and now represents about 10 percent of the U.S. population.

Race in America remains a problematic concept, an arbitrary classification of unscientific distinctions and an incoherent stereotype as well as being difficult to define objectively and unambiguously. Also, since 1960 the U.S. Census Bureau has relied on self-identification by the individual to determine a person’s race.

In sum, the population census race question is not required to determine Congressional representation and, very importantly, the race question is contributing to the entrenchment of spurious divisions across the country that are unnecessary, confusing and inimical to the inherent principles of the nation. Accordingly, serious consideration should be given to evaluating the inclusion of the race question in America’s 2030 population census.

 

Joseph Chamie is an independent consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division and author of numerous publications on population issues, including his recent book, “Births, Deaths, Migrations and Other Important Population Matters.”

 

Credit: United Nations

By Toby McIntosh
WASHINGTON DC, Jul 17 2023 (IPS)

Less than half of United Nations agencies have access to information policies, according to a survey by Eye on Global Transparency.

Of 27 UN bodies surveyed, 13 have access policies. So, 14 UN agencies lack access policies. Setting a poor example, the UN Secretariat still lacks an access to information policy.

Other prominent UN agencies without access policies include the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Civil Aviation Organization, the International Organization for Migration, the World Trade Organization and the World Intellectual Property Organization.

Two UN institutions created access policies in 2021. One was the International Maritime Organization. The other was the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). Ironically, UNIDO’s policy went undisclosed until very recently. UN Women is developing a policy, according to a spokesperson.

Otherwise, the UN bodies without access policies show no signs of planning to create them, including at the Secretariat level. Access policies establish the procedures for requesting information and set the standards for what will and won’t be provided.

Despite Hint, No Action by the UN Secretariat

In 2018, there was a hint of a possible pro-transparency move by the UN Secretariat, but nothing materialized.

The top UN communications official at the time said the Secretariat would like to create a “rigorous” access to information policy. However, a year later, the Secretariat said in a statement that it had no such plans. The UN press office did not reply to a recent request for comment.

Access to information is considered an integral part of the right of freedom of expression, as recognized in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The fact that the UN Secretariat and other UN bodies don’t apply this standard to themselves prompted a rebuke from a UN Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights. “For the central global political institution, one that serves the public interest across a range of subject matters, this is intolerable,” began a 2017 report.

UN agencies were encouraged to create access policies in a 2018 UN Human Rights Council resolution and a 2020 report by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

UNESCO Urged to Be Advocate

Pressure for more transparency at UN agencies is minimal. One potential advocate, the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), supports creation of access laws at the national level. But UNESCO but does encourage UN agencies to adopt access policies, despite calls for it to do so.

While national adoption and implementation of access laws is one of the UN‘s Sustainable Development Goals, with UNESCO as the monitor, there is no UN goal for UN access policies.

At a UNESCO-sponsored International Day for Universal Access to Information meeting held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in 2022, the participants approved a declaration calling on intergovernmental bodies to adopt access polices.

Setting a less-than-stellar example itself, UNESCO recently amended its own access policy without announcing its intentions or inviting public comment. (See EYE article.) Nor did UNESCO follow substantive advice it gives to countries, to have an independent oversight bodies to handle appeals.

Independent appeals panels are uncommon at UN agencies. Most, like UNESCO, handle appeals with internal review panels. By contrast, the existence of independent appeals panel is more frequent at international financial institutions (IFIs), almost all of which have access polices. (See EYE 2023 story)

Difficulties with Opacity

Getting information from agencies without policies can be problematical. A nongovernmental organization in Nigeria learned this when it asked the International Organization for Migration (IMO) about a program to help returning migrants. (See EYE article.)

There was no detail on IOM’s website and an IOM official denied having “any information” about the $324,000 project or a pineapple processing factory spawned by the effort. The IOM has no access policy through which to make a formal request.

When policies do exist, the processing of requests can be time-consuming. This author has a pending appeal with the UN Environment Programme, submitted March 8, four months ago. UNEP has not met its goal of issuing decisions within 60 working days.

Veteran UN journalist Thalif Deen, writing for Inter Press Service, called the UN “one of most opaque institutions, where transparency is never the norm.”

https://www.ipsnews.net/2023/05/proposal-un-freedom-information-act-never-got-off-ground/

UNIDO Discloses Previously Nonpublic Access Policy

The UNIDO website doesn’t indicate the presence of an access policy, but after EYE contacted the agency the one-and-a-half year old policy was forwarded.

The UNIDO policy, like most access polices, begins with strong commitments to openness (“maximum access”) and then moves on to “limited” exemptions.

However, the UNIDO exemptions, like those in many national and international access policies are quite protective. For example, confidential treatment is guaranteed for documents submitted by governments and third parties.

Unusually, UNIDO’s policy says that “[L]imitations may apply with regard to the types of requestors to whom such information will be disclosed.” Access policies typically do not discriminate on who may apply, although some national policies forbid applications from non-citizens. Also rare is a UNIDO requirement that requesters must pay in advance to cover the estimated cost of handling their request.

So, there are two hurdles: getting access policies in the first place and getting good access policies.

Toby McIntosh has reported for several decades on transparency at international institutions and on freedom for information issues world-wide. During a journalistic career in Washington, he covered the White House, Congress and many regulatory agencies. View all posts by Toby McIntosh

IPS UN Bureau

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 17 2023 (IPS)

Just after a band of mercenaries tried to oust the government in the Maldives back in 1988, I asked a Maldivian diplomat, using a familiar military catch phrase, about the strength of his country’s “standing army.”

“Standing army?”, the diplomat asked with mock surprise, and remarked perhaps half-jokingly, “We don’t even have a sitting army.”

With a population of about 250,000, around that time, the Maldives was perhaps one of the few countries with no fighter planes, combat helicopters, warships, missiles or battle tanks—an open invitation for mercenaries and free-lance military adventurers.

As a result, the island’s fragile defenses attracted a rash of mercenaries and bounty hunters who tried to take over the country twice– once in 1979, and a second time in 1988.

Although both attempts failed, the Indian Ocean-island refused to drop its defenses. It not only initiated a proposal seeking a UN security umbrella to protect the world’s militarily-vulnerable mini states but also backed an international convention to outlaw mercenaries, namely the 1989 ‘International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries’

In the US, a mercenary is called a “soldier of fortune”, which is also the title of a widely circulated magazine, and sub-titled the Journal of Professional Adventurers.

The adventures– and mis-adventures– of mercenaries were also portrayed in several Hollywood movies, including the Dogs of War, Tears of the Sun, the Wild Geese, the Expendables, and Blood Diamond, among others.

When the Russian Wagner Group hit the front pages of newspapers worldwide, it was described as a private mercenary group fighting in Ukraine.

The New York Times said on June 30 the Wagner Group provided security to African presidents, propped up dictators, violently suppressed rebel uprisings and was accused of torture, murder of civilians and other abuses.

But the failed coup attempt by Wagner threatened, for a moment, the very existence of the Group.

A military adviser to an African president, dependent on mercenaries, implicitly linked the name Wagner to the German composer Richard Wagner.

And the official was quoted as saying “If it is not Wagner any more, they can send us Beethoven or Mozart, it doesn’t matter. We’ll take them”.

A July 14 report on Cable News Network (CNN) quoted a Kremlin source as saying the Wagner group, which led a failed insurrection against Russian President Vladimir Putin last month, was never a legal entity and its legal status needs further consideration.

“Such a legal entity as PMC Wagner does not exist and never existed. This is a legal issue that needs to be explored,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

Peskov refused to disclose any further details on the meeting between Wagner head Yengeny Prigozhin and Putin, which reportedly took place several days after the aborted rebellion in June.

Besides Ukraine, mercenaries have been fighting in Central Africa, Mali, Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Libya. In Syria, there was a para military group called Slavonic Corps providing security to President Bashar al-Assad battling a civil war—and later by the Wagner Group.

And in Mali there were over 1,500 mercenaries fighting armed groups threatening to overthrow the government.

Ironically, the US which once used the Blackwater Security Consulting Group during the American occupation of Iraq, has imposed sanctions on several African nations deploying mercenaries.

Antony J. Blinken, US Secretary of State, said last week that the United States is imposing sanctions on several entities in the Central African Republic (CAR) for their connection to the transnational criminal organization known as the Wagner Group and “for their involvement in activities that undermine democratic processes and institutions in the CAR through illicit trade in the country’s natural resources”.

“We are also designating one Russian national who has served as a Wagner executive in Mali. Wagner has used its operations in Mali both to obtain revenue for the group and its owner, Yevgeniy Prigozhin, as well as to procure weapons and equipment to further its involvement in hostilities in Ukraine.”

The United States has also issued a new business risk advisory focused on the gold industry across sub-Saharan Africa.

Specifically, the advisory highlights “how illicit actors such as Wagner exploit this resource to gain revenue and sow conflict, corruption, and other harms throughout the region”.

Death and destruction have followed in Wagner’s wake everywhere it has operated, and the United States will continue to take actions to hold it accountable, said Blinken.

Dr. Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, told IPS it is certainly good that the United States is finally taking leadership in opposing the use of mercenaries.

The Iraq War—which then-Senator Joe Biden strongly supported—relied heavily on the use of mercenaries from the Blackwater group. Similarly, during the Cold War, the CIA used mercenaries to support its military objectives in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa.

“Whether such actions targeting the Wagner Group is indicative of an actual shift in U.S. policy or simply a means of punishing a pro-Russian organization remains to be seen,” he said.

Dr. Simon Adams, President and CEO of the Center for Victims of Torture, told IPS throughout history, big powers have often used mercenaries. From trying to hold back anti-colonial struggles to the horrors of the Cold War in Latin America or Africa, there is nothing new in that.

“But I think the big change is that the international community has become more intolerant of these guns-for-hire and privatized armies who believe that they can operate outside of International Humanitarian Law, and are often rampant abusers of human rights”, he pointed out.

And it is much harder these days for their state sponsors to deny responsibility for their actions, he added.

The Wagner Group has been implicated in numerous atrocities in Ukraine, Central African Republic and a number of other places, he said.

“They deserve all the opprobrium that has been heaped upon them. The challenge now is not just to sanction them, and to try to hold the main war criminals accountable under international law”.

The bigger challenge is to ensure that no other big state or major power engages in these same nefarious practices the next time it suits their own partisan interests to do so, declared Dr Adams.

Meanwhile, according to an article in the National Defense University Press, private force has become big business, and global in scope. No one truly knows how many billions of dollars slosh around this illicit market.

“All we know is that business is booming. Recent years have seen major mercenary activity in Yemen, Nigeria, Ukraine, Syria, and Iraq. Many of these for-profit warriors outclass local militaries, and a few can even stand up to America’s most elite forces, as the battle in Syria shows.”

The Middle East is awash in mercenaries. Kurdistan is a haven for soldiers of fortune looking for work with the Kurdish militia, oil companies defending their oil fields, or those who want terrorists dead, according to the article.

“Some are just adventure seekers, while others are American veterans who found civilian life meaningless. The capital of Kurdistan, Irbil, has become an unofficial marketplace of mercenary services, reminiscent of the Tatooine bar in the movie Star Wars—full of smugglers and guns for hire.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Speakers at the “Ensuring Education Continuity: The Roles of Education in Emergencies, Protracted Crises and Building Peace” conference at the UN today called for an immediate increase in funding for education in crisis zones. Credit: ECW

By Abigail Van Neely
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 14 2023 (IPS)

As the 2030 deadline for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) looms, Education Cannot Wait’s director Yasmine Sherif warned, “We are failing the promises we made on everything in the sustainable development goals, but especially on education because, without education, we cannot achieve any of the other sustainable development goals.”

Sherif was speaking at the “Ensuring Education Continuity: The Roles of Education in Emergencies, Protracted Crises and Building Peace” conference at the United Nations headquarters – where speaker after speaker called for an immediate increase in funding for education in crisis zones.

The conference was co-organized by the Permanent Missions of Japan, Italy, and Switzerland, UNICEF,  ECW, Global Partnership for Education (GPE), UNESCO, Save the Children, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Japan NGO Network for Education. The event was created with the goal of addressing the “crucial role of education as a life-saving and life-sustaining intervention in an emergency.” It took place as a side event during this week’s High-Level Political Forum.

This discussion came at a critical time. Earlier this week, the 2023 Sustainable Development Goals Report painted a grave picture of progress towards achieving the quality education goal proposed for 2030. Four out of every five countries studied experienced learning losses following the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the end of 2022, there were 34.6 million refugees, the highest global number ever recorded, of which 41%  were children. According to ECW, 224 million crisis-affected children need education. Over half of these children – 127 million – are not achieving the minimum proficiencies in literacy or numeracy.

“It is critically important during this [High-Level Political Forum] that we emphasize that education is a fundamental human right,” Ambassador Kimihiro Ishikane, Permanent Representative of Japan to the UN, said.

Noting that seven years remain before the SDG deadline, Stefania Giannini, Assistant Director-General for Education at UNESCO, urged Member States to commit to the Safe Schools Declaration, an inter-governmental agreement to protect education in times of armed conflict.

Speakers emphasized the importance of consistent education even during times of crisis.

During protracted emergencies in areas that have been disrupted by man-made conflicts or natural disasters, education continuity provides children and communities with a “sense of normalcy”,  Awut Deng Acuil, Minister of Education in South Sudan, remarked. “[This] fosters social and emotional wellbeing of learners affected by crises.”

Two weeks ago, ECW launched a program in South Sudan to support a recent influx of refugees. Acuil highlighted that education is more than just knowledge gained in the classroom. She explained that it involves essential social-emotional learning, supports country development, builds resilience, promotes conflict resolution, and can even assist with economic recovery.

“Continuity of education for millions of children affected by crises remains at stake. Though we all know that one, education is a fundamental right for all children, and education continuation in high emergency situations remains a high priority for many communities,” Acuil said.

“Education is more than service delivery. It is a means of socialization and identity development through the transmission of knowledge, skills, values and attitudes across generations. It is, therefore, an important tool for the sustenance of peace, for without education, we cannot have peace,” said Asaju Bola, Minister from the Permanent Mission of Nigeria to the UN.

Somaya Faruqi, an engineering student and captain of the Afghan Girls Robotic Team, spoke about the power of academic achievement as a means to inspire gender equity. After her robotics team’s success in international competitions, more Afghan girls were given permission to join.

“The key to all these processes was education. Accessible education for girls and for boys equally,” Faruqi said.

Now, following the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan, Faruqi describes her home country as “a prison for girls” she had to flee.

ECW director Yasmine Sherif and other delegates at the “Ensuring Education Continuity: The Roles of Education in Emergencies, Protracted Crises and Building Peace” conference at the UN. Credit: Abigail Van Neely/IPS

The event showcased the measures that UN agencies have been taking to ensure education continuity. The UNESCO Qualifications Passport initiative provides refugees with a means for their qualifications to be certified and recognized in their host countries. UNESCO and UNICEF jointly launched the Gateways to Public Digital Learning, a global initiative for schools, learners, and teachers to have access to quality digital learning tools.

Digital learning and alternate forms of education provision were noted as significant tools to invest in, especially for students located in remote areas or in those communities who are unable to attend traditional public schooling. Ultimately, as Frank van Cappelle, Senior Advisor of Education, UNICEF, noted, “a holistic approach is needed; a flexible approach is needed… The human element is key.”

However, despite some gains, funding remains a barrier to the success of these programs. According to Charles North, the CEO of the Global Partnership for Education, the number of children impacted by crises is rising, but funding is not.

Rotimy Djossaya, Executive Director for Policy, Advocacy, and Campaigns at Save the Children, called for “timely debt relief for countries whose debt burdens are threatening their ability to invest in education.” He cited statistics that four out of fourteen low and middle-income countries spent more on servicing external debt than they did on education in 2020.

The event showcased a continuous, pressing need for education to be made a priority on the national and global levels. As Sherif noted, education is the foundation of a “more prosperous world.”

“Spend money on education, invest in humanity.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Ligoria Felipe dos Santos poses for a photo on her agroecological farm that mixes corn, squash, fruits, vegetables and medicinal herbs. She is part of the women's movement that is trying to prevent the installation of wind farms in the Borborema mountain range, in the northeastern Brazilian state of Paraíba. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

By Mario Osava
ESPERANÇA, Brazil , Jul 14 2023 (IPS)

Zé Pequeno cried when he learned that the heirloom seeds he had inherited from his father were contaminated by the transgenic corn his neighbor had brought from the south. Fortunately, he was able to salvage the native seeds because he had shared them with other neighbors.

Euzébio Cavalcanti recalls this story from one of his colleagues to highlight the importance of “passion seeds” for family farming in Brazil’s semiarid low-rainfall ecoregion which extends over 1.1 million square kilometers, twice the size of France, in the northeastern interior of the country."These are seeds adapted to the semiarid climate. They can withstand long droughts, without irrigation." Euzébio Cavalcanti

Saving heirloom seeds is a peasant tradition, but two decades ago the Brazilian Semiarid Articulation (ASA), a network of 3,000 social organizations that emerged in the 1990s, named those who practice it as individual and community guardians of seeds. By September 2021, it had registered 859 banks of native seeds in the region.

Cavalcanti, a 56-year-old farmer with multiple skills such as poet, musician and radio broadcaster, coordinates the network of these banks in the Polo de Borborema, a joint action area of 14 rural workers’ unions and 150 community organizations in central-eastern Paraíba, one of the nine states of the Brazilian Northeast.

“These are seeds adapted to the semiarid climate. They can withstand long droughts, without irrigation, that is why they are so important,” he explained. They also preserve the genetic heritage of many local crop species and family history; they have sentimental value.

“Don’t plant transgenics, don’t erase my history”, is a slogan of the movement that promotes agroecological practices and is opposed to the expansion of genetically modified organisms in local agriculture. “Corn free of transgenics and agrotoxins (agrochemicals)” is the goal of their campaign.

In Paraíba, the name “passion seeds” has been adopted, instead of native or heirloom seeds, since 2003, when the state government announced that it would provide seeds from a specialized company to family farmers.

“If the government offers these seeds, I don’t want them. I have family seeds and I have passion for them,” reacted a farmer in a meeting with the authorities.

“‘Passion seeds’ spread throughout Paraíba. In other states they’re called ‘seeds of resistance’,” Cavalcanti said.

Agroecology is one of the banners of the Polo de Borborema, as it is for ASA in the entire semiarid ecosystem that covers most of the Northeast region and a northern strip of the southeastern state of Minas Gerais.

“Passion seeds,” as heirloom seeds are known locally, ensure better harvests on semiarid lands, free of transgenics or “agricultural poisons,” according to Euzébio Cavalcanti, a small farmer, poet and musician who helped lead the struggle for agrarian reform and cares for the seeds in the highlands of Borborema, in northeastern Brazil. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

Learning to coexist with semiarid conditions

This approach arose from a change in the development strategy adopted on the part of local society, especially ASA, since the 1990s. “Coexisting with semiarid conditions” replaced the traditional, failed focus on “fighting the drought”.

Large dams and reservoirs, which only benefit large landowners and do not help the majority of small farmers, gave way to more than 1.2 million tanks for collecting rainwater from household or school rooftops and various ways of storing water for crops and livestock.

It is a process of decolonization of agriculture, education and science, which prioritizes knowledge of the climate and the regional biome, the Caatinga, characterized by low, twisted, drought-resilient vegetation. It also includes the abandonment of monoculture, with the implementation of traditional local horticultural and family farming techniques.

The Northeast, home to 26.9 percent of the national population, or 54.6 million inhabitants according to the 2022 demographic census, concentrates 47.2 percent of the country’s family farmers, according to the 2017 agricultural census. There are 1.84 million small farms worked mainly by family labor.

Brazil’s semiarid region is one of the rainiest in the world for this type of climate, with 200 to 800 millimeters of rain per year on average, although there are drier areas in the process of desertification.

A stand at the ecological market in the municipality of Esperança, in northeastern Brazil, is a link between urban consumers and family farmers opposed to agrochemicals, monoculture and transgenic products. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

Borborema, the name of a high plateau that obstructs the humidity coming from the sea, making the territory to its west drier, is the scene of various peasant struggles, such as the mobilization for agrarian reform since the 1980s and for small-scale agriculture “without poisons” or agrochemicals, of which the “seeds of passion” are a symbol.

Cavalcanti is a living memory of local history, also as a founder of the local Landless Workers Movement (MST) and an activist in the occupations of unproductive land to create rural settlements, on one of which he gained his own small farm where he grows beans, corn and, vegetables and has two rainwater collection tanks.

Women help drive the expansion of agroecology

Women have played a key role in the drive towards agroecology. The March for Women’s Lives and Agroecology is an annual demonstration that since 2010 has defended family farming and the right to a healthy life.

This year, on Mar. 16, 5,000 women gathered in Montadas, a municipality of 5,800 inhabitants, to block the creation of wind farms that have already caused damage to the health of small farmers by being installed near their homes.

Borborema is “a territory of resistance,” say the women. About 15 years ago, they succeeded in abolishing the cultivation of tobacco.

The president of the Union of Rural Workers of the municipality of Esperança, Alexandre Lira (C) and other leaders pose in front of a poster declaring the union’s current goals: “Agroecological Borborema is no place for a wind farm,” he says about this area in Brazil’s semiarid Northeast region. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

When the citrus blackfly arrived, the government tried to combat it with pesticides, but “we resisted; we used natural products and solved the problem for our oranges and lemons,” said Ligoria Felipe dos Santos, a 54-year-old mother of three.

“That is agroecology, which is strengthened in the face of threats. Farmers are aware, they resort to alternative defenses, they know that it is imbalance that leads to pests,” she told IPS.

“Agroecology is a good banner for union activity,” said Lexandre Lira, 42, president of the Rural Workers Union of Esperança, a municipality of 31,000 people in the center of the Polo de Borborema.

It is also a factor in keeping farmers’ children on the farms, because it awakens the interest of young people in agriculture, said Edson Johny da Silva, 27, the union’s youth coordinator.

Maria das Graças Vicente and Givaldo Firmino dos Santos stand next to the machine they use for making pulp from native fruits little known outside Brazil, such as the umbu (Brazil plum), cajá (hog plum), acerola (Amazon or Barbados cherry), along with cashews, mangos, and guava. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

Pulp, added value

Maria das Graças Vicente, known as Nina, 51, along with her husband Givaldo Firmino dos Santos, 52, is an example of agroecological productivity. On 1.25 hectares of land they produce citrus fruits, passion fruit, acerola (Amazon or Barbados cherry), mango and other fruits, as well as sugar cane, corn, beans and other vegetables.

Grafted fruit tree seedlings are another of the products they use to expand their income, as IPS was shown during a visit to their farm.

Using their own harvest and fruit they buy from neighbors, they make pulp in a small shed separate from their home, with a small machine purchased with the support of the Advisory and Services to Projects in Alternative Agriculture (AS-PTA), a non-governmental organization that supports farmers in Borborema and other parts of Brazil.

“Luckily we have a microclimate in the valley, where it rains more than in the surrounding areas. Everything grows here,” Santos told IPS.

But the couple created three reservoirs to collect rainwater and withstand droughts: a 16,000-liter water tank for household use, another that collects water on the paved ground for irrigation, and a small lagoon dug in the lower part of the farm.

But in 2016 the lagoon dried up, because of the “great drought” that lasted from 2012 to 2017, Vicente said.

The fruit pulp factory has grown in recent years and now has seven small freezers to store fruit and pulp for sale to the town’s stores and restaurants. The couple decided to purchase a cold room with the capacity of 30 freezers.

“I work in the mornings on the land, in the afternoons I make pulp and my husband is in charge of the sales,” she said.

Hiring workers from outside the family to reduce the workload costs too much and “we try to save as much as possible on everything, to sell the pulp at a fair price,” Santos said.

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A transgender person participates in health services provided by the Khmer HIV/AIDS NGO Alliance (KHANA) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, December 2019. Credit: UNAIDS

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Jul 14 2023 (IPS)

A report released this week has highlighted how continuing criminalisation and marginalisation of key populations are stymying efforts to end the global HIV/AIDS epidemic.

The report from UNAIDS, entitled ‘The Path that Ends AIDS’, says that ending AIDS is a political and financial choice, and that in countries where HIV responses have been backed up by strong policies and leadership on the issue, “extraordinary results” have been achieved.

It points to African states that have already achieved key targets aimed at stopping the spread of HIV and getting treatment to people with the virus. It also points out that a further 16 other countries, eight of them in sub-Saharan Africa, which accounts for 65% of all people living with HIV, are close to doing so.

But the report also focuses on the devastating impact HIV/AIDS continues to have and how alarming rises in new infections in some places are being driven largely by a lack of HIV prevention services for marginalized and key populations and the barriers posed by punitive laws and social discrimination.

Estimated adults and children living with HIV. Credit: UNAIDS

“Countries that put people and communities first in their policies and programmes are already leading the world on the journey to end AIDS by 2030,” said Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of UNAIDS.

Experts and groups working with key populations have long warned of the effect that the stigmatisation, persecution and criminalisation of certain groups has on the AIDS epidemic.

They point to how punitive laws can stop many people from accessing vital HIV services.

Groups working with people living with HIV in Uganda, which earlier this year passed anti-LGBTQI legislation widely considered to be some of the harshest of its kind ever implemented (it includes the death penalty for some offences) say service uptake has fallen dramatically.

“The law has had a very negative effect in terms of health,” a worker at the Ugandan LGBTQI community health service and advocacy organisation Icebreakers told IPS.

“Community members are threatened by violence and abuse by the public, many are afraid to go out. HIV service access points are now seen by LGBTQI community members as places where they will be arrested or attacked,” he said.

Newly infected adults and children. Credit UNAIDS

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the worker added: “This is going to affect adherence to treatment and will be bad for the spread of HIV. Some people are being turned away at service centres, including places where people go for ARV refills because although the president has declared that treatment will continue for members of the community, there are individuals at some centres who say the law has been passed, and so they don’t need to give treatment to members of the community.”

Groups working with people with HIV in other countries where strict anti-LGBTQI laws have been introduced have also warned that criminalisation of the minority will only worsen problems with the disease.

In Russia, which has one of the world’s worst HIV/AIDS epidemics, anti-LGBTQI legislation brought in last year has effectively made outreach work illegal, potentially severely impacting HIV prevention and treatment. Widespread antipathy to the community also forces many LGBTQI people living with HIV to lie to doctors about how they acquired the disease, meaning the epidemic is not being properly treated.

A worker at one Moscow-based NGO helping people with HIV told IPS: “What this means is that the right groups in society are not being targeted [with measures to prevent the epidemic growing] and so the epidemic in Russia is what it is today.”

Harsh legislation, conservative policies and state-tolerated stigmatisation also impact another key population – drug users.

Countries in regions where drug use is the primary or a significant driver of the epidemic, such as Eastern Europe and Central Asia and Asia and the Pacific, drug users often struggle to access harm reduction and HIV prevention services. They fear arrest at needle exchange points, attacks from a general public which often views them negatively, and prejudice and stigmatisation from workers within the healthcare system.

At the same time, in states with harsh laws targeting the LGBTQI community, drug users, sex workers or other vulnerable groups, civil society organisations helping those populations are also affected by the legislation, meaning that vital HIV prevention and treatment services they provide are hampered or halted completely.

And these problems are not confined to a handful of states. The UNAIDS report states that laws that criminalize people from key populations or their behaviours remain on statute books across much of the world. The vast majority of countries (145) still criminalize the use or possession of small amounts of drugs; 168 countries criminalize some aspect of sex work; 67 countries criminalize consensual same-sex intercourse; 20 countries criminalize transgender people; and 143 countries criminalize or otherwise prosecute HIV exposure, non-disclosure or transmission.

Consequently, the HIV pandemic continues to impact key populations more than the general population. In 2022, compared with adults in the general population (aged 15-49 years), HIV prevalence was 11 times higher among gay men and other men who have sex with men, four times higher among sex workers, seven times higher among people who inject drugs, and 14 times higher among transgender people.

Ann Fordham, Executive Director at the International Drug Policy Consortium, told IPS there was an “urgent need to end the criminalisation of key populations”.

“Data shows HIV prevalence among people who use drugs is seven times higher than in the general population and this can be directly attributed to punitive drug laws which drive stigma and increase vulnerability to HIV. It is devastating that despite evidence that these policies are deeply harmful, the majority of countries still criminalise drug use or the possession of small quantities of drugs,” she said.

But it is not just minorities which are disproportionately affected by HIV.

Globally, 4,000 young women and girls became infected with HIV every week in 2022, according to the report.

The problem is particularly acute in sub-Saharan Africa region, where there is a lack of dedicated HIV prevention programmes for adolescent girls and young women and where across six high-burden countries, women exposed to physical or sexual intimate partner violence in the previous year were 3.2 times more likely to have acquired HIV recently than those who had not experienced such violence.

Research has suggested that biological, socio-economic, religious, and cultural factors are behind this disproportionately high risk of acquiring HIV. Many girls and young women in the region are economically marginalized and therefore struggle to negotiate condom use and monogamy. Meanwhile, a predominant patriarchal culture exacerbates sexual inequalities.

“For girls and women in Africa, it is general inequalities which are driving this pandemic. It is social norms which don’t equate men and women, girls and boys, it is norms which tolerate sexual violence, where a girl is forced to have unprotected sex and that is then dealt with quietly rather than tackling the abuser,” Byanyima said at the launch of the report.

UNAIDS officials say that promoting gender equality and confronting sexual and gender-based violence will make a difference in combatting the spread of the disease, but add that specific measures aimed at young women and girls, and not just in sub-Saharan Africa, are also important.

“[Sexual and reproductive health] services are not designed for young women in many parts of the world – for instance girls cannot access HIV testing or treatment without parental consent up to a certain age in some countries,” Keith Sabin, UNAIDS Senior Advisor on Epidemiology, told IPS.

“A lack of comprehensive sexual education is a tremendous barrier in many places. It would go a long way to improving the potential for good health among girls,” he added.

But while the report highlights the barriers faced by key populations, it also shows how removing them can significantly improve HIV responses.

It cites examples from countries from Africa to Asia to Latin America where evidence-based polices, scaled up responses and focused prevention programmes have reduced new HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths, while some governments have integrated addressing stigma and discrimination into national HIV responses.

It also noted that progress in the global HIV response has been strengthened by ensuring that legal and policy frameworks enable and protect human rights, highlighting several countries’ removal of harmful laws in 2022 and 2023, including some which decriminalized same-sex sexual relations.

“Studies strongly suggest a better uptake of services among men who have sex with men (MSM) in countries where homosexuality has been decriminalised or is less criminalised. A certain policy environment can improve uptake [of HIV services] and outcomes,” said Sabin.

The UNAIDS report calls on political leaders across the globe to seize the opportunity to end AIDS by investing in a sustainable response to HIV, including effectively tackling the barriers to prevention and services faced by key populations.

Experts agree this will be crucial to ending the global epidemic.

“We have long known that we will not end AIDS without removing these repressive laws and policies that impact key populations. Today, UNAIDS is once again sounding the alarm and calling on governments to strengthen political will, follow the evidence and commit to removing the structural and social barriers that hamper the HIV response,” said Fordham.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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By Yasmine Sherif
NEW YORK, Jul 14 2023 (IPS)

We all know and agree that patience is a virtue. It is indeed. With one exception.

In the face of a child’s suffering, impatience is the highest virtue. Or as we say in the spirit of Education Cannot Wait: “We must be unapologetically impatient” in our collective goal to reach 224 million crisis-affected children and adolescents with quality education.

Over the past few months, we have met with refugee children, teachers, parents, community leaders, implementing partners, strategic donors and government officials in Colombia, South Sudan and Chad. Time and again we have seen first-hand how climate change, armed conflict and forced displacement severely disrupt lives, destroy hope and dramatically impede progress toward our global promise of inclusive quality education for all.

As stressed by United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Chad, Violet Kenyana Kakyomya, in this month’s ECW high-level interview: “Refugees have been exposed to trauma due to the violence they witnessed and experienced, which for children can have short- and long-term negative effects on their physical, mental, cognitive and emotional development.” In this context, access to education is a crucial protection measure.

Unless we act now as a global community, we will lose an entire generation of children and, with them, future generations. We will leave behind a legacy of broken promises, denial of opportunity and loss of hope. The most effective way to counter this is to empower today’s generation with the academic, social-emotional learning, mental health, self-confidence, empathy skills and tools to reverse and mitigate the avalanche of despair and destruction and to build back better.

Above all, we need to #EmpowerHer – namely the millions of crisis-affected girls who are among the furthest left behind and yet who have so much to contribute in changing the world for the better.

Education is the most powerful means to break cycles of violence – committed on both human beings and mother nature. Education is the best pathway to end conflicts and climate disasters. Because the world needs profoundly educated people who can both think and feel; and, who know how to put this vision into action. None of this can wait.

The task is daunting, urgent and requires immediate action. Our recent global estimates study provides a clearer picture than ever of the growing challenges. In all, the new estimates indicate as many as 224 million crisis-impacted children are in urgent need of a quality education.

As we reflect on our progress in advance of this year’s UN SDG Summit, UN General Assembly, Climate Talks (COP28), and Global Refugee Forum, we must unite with a sense of urgency, impatience and concrete action to ensure Education Cannot Wait and our global strategic partners receive the financing required to deliver an inclusive and continued quality education. Our shared goal is to make more than #222MillionDreams come true.

With more funding, we can deliver faster and further, together.

In June, we launched new investments in South Sudan, Central African Republic and Somalia. Our proven results-focused strategy exists. The political will is there. The systems and processes for coordination of joint programming are in place. The missing link is financing. We need fully funded joint programmes across sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia.

It is possible to do: together, we continue our global advocacy efforts to urgently mobilize more than US$1.5 billion to realize ECW’s goal of reaching 20 million children and adolescents over the next four years of our strategic plan.

This is not only a very realistic and logical goal. It is an existential imperative requiring action now – not waiting for better financial prospects or until the world is a better place.

As the late UN Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjold, said: “It is when we all play safe that we create a world of utmost insecurity.”

We can’t play it safe. If there is any virtue we all need today, it is to be unapologetically impatient.

Yasmine Sherif is Director of Education Cannot Wait.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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To mitigate the worst climate change impacts, we need to consider implementing climate solutions outside of the free economic market.

By Michael Davies-Venn
AMSTERDAM, Jul 14 2023 (IPS)

The dangerous state of global climate has reached a new low as a World Metrological Organisation (WMO) analysis reveals. It confirms a known obvious: human activities continue to worsen conditions that have changed our planet’s climate.

Most distressing is that ‘there is a 66 per cent likelihood that the annual average near-surface global temperature between 2023 and 2027 will be more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels for at least one year.’

With under five years before the much dreaded 1.5 degrees set by the Paris Agreement becomes a reality – and with it ‘a 98 per cent likelihood that at least one of the next five years, and the five-year period as a whole, will be the warmest on record’ – politicians and policy-makers have received the loudest definitive clarion call that should induce urgent and fundamental changes in approaches to mitigating and adapting to climate change impacts.

It had been known for decades that the African continent is highly vulnerable to such impacts as drought, flooding and heatwaves. What remains unknown but can be reasonably discerned is the scale of human catastrophe and its resulting global impacts that are certain to happen should – so far unsuccessful – climate governance approaches remain unchanged.

Already observed impacts of climate change

It is now reasonable to conclude that climate actions that should have been undertaken at a continental scale will not be completed within five years to avert climate change impacts. Over decades, predictions in earlier International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports have already become a reality.

Its latest special report – focused on the 1.5 degrees threshold – details climate impacts that have claimed lives and livelihoods among Africans who contributed the least to climate change. Six climate impacts assessed between ‘medium, high and very high confidence’ such as displacement, heat and losses in agriculture and crop production, are no longer just predictions — and are certain to further increase within the next five years.

A certain outcome of this will be increases in false solutions, such as techno-scientific babble to spray silver iodide into the atmosphere to create rain, as well as inflame nationalistic policy responses, such as the British government’s current inhumane policy to return a growing number of people fleeing from the most vulnerable continent to climate change impacts.

Any effort, worthy of being considered serious, to avert further callous suffering and wanton waste of lives across Africa during the next five years, must aim at implementing climate mitigation and adaptation projects at a scope, continental scale and rate that surpasses the frequency of recent environmental disasters.

Before the onset of these WMO’s predictions, those most responsible for climate change saw and mostly ignored as distant problems, the starvation in Ethiopia, catastrophic drought in Kenya and cyclone in Zimbabwe that affected millions, killed thousands and, since 2021, displaced some 1.5 million searching for food and water in Somalia.

But such a short-sighted understanding of cascading impacts resulting from extreme weather and environmental conditions induced by a changed global climate will only worsen the situation. Further, beyond five years, social outcomes across Africa would, in the long-term, represent persistent social pressures, including from those with the courage to maintain a moral sting on the conscience of politicians in developed countries.

A most certain of those is the changing demography of Africa, as ‘more than half of global population growth between now and 2050 is expected to occur in Africa.’ In sub-Saharan Africa, the population is projected to grow from 258 million in 1984 to over 1.6 bn in the next seven years. It would be a natural outcome that these lives will relentlessly escape barren farmlands and flood communities that no longer sustain their lives for those in Europe and elsewhere.

Reports of thousands of lives lost at sea should signal to politicians that risks faced by those seeking refuge by crossing the Mediterranean Sea, using over-crowded and rickety boats, are not sufficient deterrence to outweigh their perceptions of protection in developed countries that are comparably more adapted to climate change impacts and with mitigation solutions.

Another reason for urgent changes to addressing climate change is that assistance to developing countries to aid humanitarian disasters are constrained by inflation in developed economies, the political climate in donor countries and unforeseen developments, such as the recent Covid19 pandemic.

And so, within the next five years, the resulting environmental disasters from a world warmed to 1.5 degrees, coupled with national economic pressures in developed countries such as inflation, which reduces foreign aid, inconsistent national policy-making from short-term political cycles and misplaced national priorities on overseas development assistance (ODA) – such that saw Somalia ranked tenth on a list of top-ten recipients of gross ODA between 2020 and 2021, during the same period the country was experiencing a profound humanitarian crisis – will contribute to creating a global humanitarian catastrophe perhaps not seen since the end of the Second World War.

The need for large-scale transformations

Unlike Western Europe, which was rebuilt on the Marshall Plan, a similar plan may be unnecessary for Africa, had developed countries honoured promises on climate change assistance. But climate finance promises to honour yet more broken promises have not stopped African countries’ from increasing their resilience and reducing the continent’s high vulnerability to climate change impacts.

They continue to play by UNFCCC rules and have deposited plans, including plans to implement plans, to mitigate and adapt to climate change. But as the UNFCCC has found, virtually all National Determined Contributions, from some 100 countries, ‘need international support for technology development and transfer to implement.’

Since as many countries have been waiting for decades for such support, it is reasonable to suspect the finance needed will not arrive in less than five years. And so, national efforts to protect lives across Africa have largely come to nought, while emissions outside the continent continue to rise, while ironically, the premature death of ‘King Coal’ still makes headline news in the foreign press.

Keeping that failure in mind, if the Paris Agreement could still be lauded as the greatest achievement on climate change, then the accord’s approach to implementing its solutions is its weakest. Whether it’s implementing mitigation and adaptation projects or transferring technologies from developed to developing countries, the inflated role and relevance of money to realise these solutions reduce the accord’s potential from a practical instrument to a simple conceptual document.

Its finance framework contributes to gestate and birth a marketplace of climate finance funds, greenwashing scams and initiatives informed by neoclassical free-market logic that, as yet, have failed to reduce global emissions. But where the framework should matter most – to stimulate climate finance flows to developing countries – remains an unmet need.

Yet, Africa’s persistent high vulnerability to climate change impacts isn’t for lack of climate finance, but one of access to money. One has only to observe that Africa has historically been at the bottom rung of recipients of public and private sector finance, such as foreign direct investments and overseas development assistance.

Climate finance, which must freely flow to fund renewable energy and climate-resilient projects, has followed suit. Until 2050, the continent would need, yearly, $240 bn to implement climate mitigation and adaptation measures, but received $15.7 bn in loans in 2020. It is more critical now than ever to understand that private financial markets are unsuitable for solving public problems.

Economic power has historically been centralised in developed countries and climate change impacts will not honour this historic disparity.

Decarbonising African economies implies societal, sectoral and infrastructural transformations at a scale unknown to human history. Yet, knowledge and technologies exist today to make this transformation a reality. But this evidently provides no assurance for their use, mainly because of the insistence that such transformation should be accomplished on the basis of neoclassical market logic.

Aside from such reasoning reflecting a certain measure of cognitive dissonance, it also suggests a wilful and callous condemnation of vulnerable lives to more death and unnecessary suffering. A practical and perhaps only option now is to consider implementing climate solutions outside the free economic market.

The second is to socialise these solutions. This henceforth should mean that decisions on how to provide electricity to hundreds of millions who’ve been living in perpetual darkness at sunset for generations, provide drought-resistant crops to those in barren farmlands and supply early warning systems to prevent deaths from extreme weather, must no longer be informed by neoclassical economic dictates. By orienting climate solutions towards social goals, human societies may minimally survive in a world warmed up to 1.5 degrees.

Michael Davies-Venn is a public policy analyst and communication expert. He works on global environmental governance with focus on climate mitigation and climate adaptation measures between developing and developed regions. He is Junior Fellow at Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam.

Source: International Politics and Society, published by the Global and European Policy Unit of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Hiroshimastrasse 28, D-10785 Berlin.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Analysts are concerned about pre-election violence and intimidation ahead of next month's Zimbabwean poll. Credit: Ignatius Banda/IPS

By Ignatius Banda
BULAWAYO, Jul 13 2023 (IPS)

Zimbabwe holds general elections next month amid growing human rights and press freedom concerns in what analysts say could mar conditions for undisputed poll results.

Lawyers representing opposition political activists have not been spared assaults from police and suspected ruling Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (Zanu PF) party supporters as economic conditions worsen.

In January, Kudzayi Kadzere, a human rights lawyer, was beaten up by police and his arm broken after being dispatched to a local police station in the capital city, Harare, to represent arrested opposition political party supporters. The police accused him of being a “criminal nuisance.”

Early this month, the country’s security forces allegedly attacked Obey Shava, a human rights lawyer who has represented several opposition Citizens for Coalition for Change (CCC) officials and other human rights abuse victims. Unknown assailants broke his legs.

However, the country’s main political opposition led by Nelson Chamisa, the CCC, was quick to point fingers at ruling party activists and the country’s secret police for Shava’s attack. The CCC has routinely been tipped to win successive elections without success.

These incidents have been met with widespread condemnation on the eve of what is seen as crucial elections slated for 23 August, with the British parliament discussing and raising concerns early this month about what is seen as deteriorating human rights conditions in Zimbabwe ahead of the polls.

“What we are seeing in this election cycle is lawfare or the weaponisation of the law,” said Ringisai Chikohomero, a senior analyst at the  Institute for Security Studies (ISS) in Pretoria, South Africa.

“This has led to a lot of prosecution and persecution, and what this has done is to create an atmosphere of fear that you can be locked up for a long time without actually going to trial,” Chikohomero told IPS.

These comments come when human rights organisations say almost a hundred political prisoners are incarcerated, with former opposition legislator Job Sikhala having spent more than a year behind bars and accused of obstruction of justice.

Amnesty International has condemned Sikhala’s long detention, with Flavia Mwangovya, Deputy Director for East and Southern Africa, Amnesty International saying in a May statement  that “there is a worrying restriction of civic space underway in Zimbabwe with growing attempts to persecute anyone who dares to freely express themselves.”

The developments come amid escalating economic hardships, with President Emmerson Mnangagwa accusing the business sector of deliberately sabotaging the economy to stoke anti-government sentiment.

While Mnangagwa has used the campaign trail and radio jingles to denounce violence and appeal for peaceful elections, human rights defenders have questioned the continuing human rights abuses despite its condemnation from the highest office in the land.

“The challenge about the pre-election conditions is that can it be proven that there have been systematic human rights violations,” said Piers Pogue, senior analyst at the International Crisis Group.

“Though international observers from the EU are coming, it is quite clear that six weeks before elections doesn’t constitute long-term observation,” Pogue told IPS.

Already, police have banned or placed stringent conditions for opposition political rallies, such as outlawing the chanting of slogans, further setting the stage for possible confrontations and running battles with party supporters as has happened in past elections.

However, analysts say there is a need for the country to move from continued disputed poll outcomes, and one of the recommendations is to have long-term observer teams from such groups as the African Union and the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

“Ideally, the AU and SADC should have deployed longer-term observer teams. We have seen in the past that only long-term missions manage to get to grips with election conditions. Differences between long and short-term observer missions expose the contradictions of how electoral conditions are assessed,” Pigou said.

Zimbabwe’s elections have for years hogged regional and international headlines after successive controversial victories by the founding Zanu (PF) party amid decades-old worsening economic conditions; with eleven presidential candidates in next month’s general election, the stage could be set for yet another contentious poll outcome.

Meanwhile, as election day approaches, the Zimbabwe Catholic  Bishops Conference has added its voice to concerns about the pre-election conditions, appealing to voters to exercise their democratic right to vote.

“Do not be intimidated, coerced or manipulated to vote against your will. Please refuse to be used in violent attacks against your fellow brothers and sisters,” the Catholic bishops said on 9 July.

The clerics also appealed to the country’s security services, long accused of doing the ruling party’s bidding, to maintain law and order without taking sides.

“To members of the security sector, we appeal to you to work to maintain peace and justice and let all the perpetrators of political violence be held accountable,” the bishops said.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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By Silvia Fernandez de Gurmendi
THE HAGUE, Netherlands, Jul 13 2023 (IPS)

On the night of 17 July 1998, the outcome of the Diplomatic Conference convened to create the International Criminal Court was still uncertain. Hundreds of state representatives and civil society organizations assembled in the FAO headquarters in Rome, holding their breath in anticipation.

Finally, after midnight, euphoric delegations could applaud the outcome of the vote: 120 states in favour, 7 against and 21 abstentions. A long-standing dream was to become reality: the creation of a permanent criminal court to investigate and try perpetrators of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The crime of aggression was also included, but only in a programmatic way pending agreement about its definition and the conditions under which the Court could exercise jurisdiction. These questions were only resolved 12 years later in the first review conference held in Kampala, Uganda in 2010.

In the 25 years that followed the adoption of the Statute, successive judges and prosecutors contributed to operationalizing this Court, simultaneously desired and feared by different actors of the international community. States and civil society expected much of this unparalleled institution and its potential to impact positively on conflict resolution.

The creation of an international court with jurisdiction over international crimes was not in and of itself something new. The International Criminal Court followed the steps of the post-war Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals, as well as those created by the United Nations Security Council 50 years later for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

Silvia Fernandez de Gurmendi

However, the establishment of the first permanent international criminal jurisdiction, represented a key paradigm shift. Contrary to special tribunals, the International Criminal Court was not created to exercise jurisdiction solely in predetermined situations but to decide for itself, fully independently, where to investigate and who to prosecute. The ability to select situations in the world where to intervene gave it powers never previously granted to any other court.

To counterbalance this ambitious mandate, the Court was conceived as a complementary institution of last resort, with the power to act only in those cases of inaction or lack of genuine action by national systems.

Furthermore, despite its global vocation, the International Criminal Court was not granted universal jurisdiction. Unless the United Nations Security Council requests the Court to act, the Court may only investigate and prosecute in situations in which the states in whose territories the crime are committed or the states of nationality of the perpetrators are parties to the Rome Statute.

In its 25 years of operations and within the parameters set by its constituent treaty, the Court has demonstrated its capacity to investigate and prosecute in multiple situations of extremely grave crimes in Africa, Asia, America and Europe. It has also demonstrated the possibility of involving the victims of those crimes in its proceedings and of repairing the harm suffered by hundreds of thousands of them, either directly and indirectly.

For the first time, the Rome Statute introduced elements of reparative justice which allow victims to participate in the proceedings to make observations and to request reparation. These elements were later incorporated by the legal frameworks of other international courts and today form an integral part of international criminal justice.

The Court has achieved significant accomplishments, but has also suffered difficulties in its functioning. Currently, the Assembly of States Parties is undertaking, together with the Court and civil society, a holistic review to strengthen of the Rome Statute system by accelerating proceedings and improving the performance, governance, and work culture of the Court.

This review also seeks to strengthen cooperation by states and to design suitable strategies to increase political support and protect the institution and everyone who collaborate with it against threats and attacks.

Today, the Rome Statute has 123 state parties. This is a significant number that comprises two thirds of states in the international community. However, it is still insufficient to achieve the Court’s global aspirations.

Broadening the universality of the Court is of crucial importance. Today the world needs more justice than ever. The atrocities of the twentieth century that led to the creation of the Court have not ceased and there is a growing erosion of multilateralism and the rule of law.

Despite current circumstances, there is cause for hope. The international community has redoubled its demand for justice and multiplied the initiatives to make it a reality. The establishment of the Court reaffirmed the obligation to investigate and prosecute and contributed to consolidate the concept that justice is an indispensable component of sustainable peace.

In addition to proceedings by the International Criminal Court and other international tribunals, more states are willing to exercise universal jurisdiction over international crimes. New mechanisms are being created to ensure the collection and preservation of evidence that may assist these international or national efforts.

We are seeing the emergence of a global justice system, or a justice “eco-system”, within which international and national courts have a role to play – sometimes a central role, sometimes a complementary or supporting one.

In July 1998, the Court was an idea yet to be realized. Twenty-five years after its creation, the hope is that more states will join this historical effort to maximize its potential to impart justice in our tumultuous world.

Silvia Fernandez de Gurmendi is President of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute; Former Judge and former President of the International Criminal Court.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Sofía Quispe, the president of Ecorecicladoras de La Paz, finds a good haul of paper and cardboard in a municipal dumpster at the end of Avenida 6 de Agosto in La Paz, in a nighttime job that the southern hemisphere winter makes more challenging. CREDIT: Franz Chávez / IPS

By Franz Chávez
LA PAZ, Jul 12 2023 (IPS)

They haul many kilos of recyclable materials on their backs but receive little in return. These Bolivian women who help clean up the environment from dawn to dusk are fighting for recognition of their work and social and labor rights.

The inhabitants of La Paz, Bolivia’s political center, walk hurriedly and almost oblivious to the women of different ages silently opening heavy lids of municipal garbage dumpsters that are taller than the women themselves."This sector isn't noticed by society, especially because we work with waste, that is, with what society throws away; this work is 'devalued'." -- Bárbara Giavarini

They use a homemade tool, a kind of hook with a long wooden handle, to dig through the unsorted waste, trying to avoid getting cut by broken glass, and in search of plastic containers, paper, cardboard or aluminum cans.

People walk by on the avenues and squares without looking at them, and sometimes actively avoiding them. The recyclers feel this indifference and even rejection, but they overcome it with the courage gained over years and generations, convincing themselves that they have a dignified vocation.

“People call us dirty pigs (cochinas), they humiliate us and we can never respond,” says Rosario Ramos, a 16-year-old who accompanies her mother, Valeriana Chacolla, 58, sorting through the trash for recyclable waste.

A study by the United Nations Joint Program on self-employed women workers in the country describes them generally as being “of indigenous origin, adults with primary school education. Seventy percent of them are also involved in activities related to commerce, while 16 percent work in the manufacturing industry.”

Of a population of 12.2 million projected by the National Institute of Statistics for the year 2022, 5.9 million are women. La Paz is home to 1.53 million people.

Of the total population of this Andean country, 41 percent defined themselves as indigenous in the last census, while according to the latest official data available, 26 percent of urban dwellers live in moderate poverty and 7.2 percent in extreme poverty, including most of the informal recyclers.

 

One of the groups of women of the Ecorecicladoras de La Paz association gather next to a municipal dumpster in a corner of Plaza Avaroa in Bolivia’s political capital, after finishing their nightly collection of reusable materials. CREDIT: Franz Chávez / IPS

 

On this southern hemisphere wintertime July night in La Paz, the group of women are virtually invisible as they gather around the dumpsters located in a corner of the Plaza Avaroa, in the area of Sopocachi, where residential and public office buildings are interspersed with banks, supermarkets and other businesses.

It’s a good place for picking through the waste in the dumpsters, and the women find paper, newspapers, plastic and aluminum containers. Although the volume of waste is large, each one of the garbage pickers manages to collect no more than one or two kg on one of the days that IPS accompanied different groups of the women in their work.

The silence is broken on some occasions when salaried municipal cleaners show up and throw the women out of the place, because they also compete to obtain materials that they then sell to recyclers. This is a moment when it becomes especially clear that garbage has value.

That is one of several reasons that forced the informal garbage pickers to come together in an association called EcoRecicladoras de La Paz. “There is no work for us, and they only listen to us when we organize,” says María Martínez, 50, the recording secretary of the 45 members, who also include a few men.

In Bolivia, trash is not separated into reusable and non-reusable waste in homes or offices. This task is carried out by private recycling companies, who buy the raw materials from informal waste collectors such as EcoRecicladoras.

 

Leonor Colque Rodríguez, 78, wearily ends her night shift collecting recyclable waste in Sopocachi, an area in La Paz, Bolivia. She has been working for 40 years as a “grassroots recycler” and is the head of her household. CREDIT: Franz Chávez / IPS

 

Martínez, with slightly graying hair, says she comes out every evening. “I was a domestic worker until I was 30 years old. When my daughter was born I couldn’t get a job. I collected plastic bottles, clothes and shoes and sold them to the factories, but the recycling companies who pay really low prices emerged,” she complains.

It takes about three months between the initial collection and the final sale of the recyclable materials. Martínez collects the materials, carries around seven kg on her back, walks about three kilometers and patiently stores them until she has enough to sell them to the wholesaler.

“One year I collected 200 kg of scrap metal and sold it for 150 bolivianos (about 20 dollars),” she recalls. The recycling companies want to buy by the ton, she explains, with a grin, because it is impossible for them to reach that volume.

She represents a second generation of garbage collectors. Her mother, Leonor Colque, is two years short of turning 80, and has been combing through garbage dumps and trash on the streets for 40 years. On her back she carries a cloth in which she hauls a number of pieces of paper and some plastic waste.

“They should stay in school because this job is not for young girls,” she recommends, sadly, because she could not achieve her goal of sending one of her daughters to a teacher training school.

At 58, Chacolla, like almost all women garbage pickers, is the head of her household. Her husband, a former public transport driver, lost his job due to health problems and occasionally works as a welder, door-maker or bricklayer.

When she goes out to sort through trash she is accompanied by her daughter, Rosario, who explains and expands on what her mother says, calling for a change in the public’s attitude towards them and respect for the work they do as dignified, emphasizing, as they all do, that they deal with recyclable waste, not garbage.

 

Vests like this one identify women “grassroots recyclers” in their work of sorting through waste in dumpsters installed by the municipal government of La Paz in different parts of the Bolivian city. CREDIT: Franz Chávez / IPS

 

“I walk with the Lord in my heart, he always helps me,” says Angelica Yana, who at 63 years of age defies the dangers of the wee hours of the morning in the Achachicala area, on the outskirts of La Paz, five kilometers north of the city.

“Nothing has ever happened to me,” says Yana, who leaves her home at three in the morning to scrape up enough to support a son who offers fine finishing masonry services, and her sick husband.

At the age of 70, Alberta Caisana says that she was assaulted by municipal cleanup workers while she was scrounging for recyclable materials. She now carries a credential issued by the Environmental Prevention and Control Directorate of the Autonomous Municipal Government of La Paz, and wears a work vest donated by development aid agencies from the governments of Sweden and Switzerland.

She relies on her uniform and identification card as symbols of protection from the indifference of the people and aggression from local officials.

The mother of a daughter and the head of her household, Anahí Lovera, saw her wish to continue her university studies frustrated, and at the age of 32 she combines collecting plastic bottles with helping in different tasks in the construction of houses.

 

In the foreground, the secretary of Ecorecicladoras de La Paz, María Martínez (50), together with Carla Chávez (42) and her mother Leonarda Chávez (72) take a break from sorting through waste in the Sopocachi area of the Bolivian city of La Paz. CREDIT: Franz Chávez / IPS

 

Others, they say, sell clothes and other recovered objects in street markets, such as the famous one in Villa 16 de Julio in the neighboring city of El Alto, where used and new objects are sold in an area covering two kilometers.

Lovera’s work appears to go smoothly, but she and her colleagues describe the moment of dealing with the buyers. They deliver an exact volume and weight of products and the buyers declare a lower weight in order to pay less.

“This sector isn’t noticed by society, especially because we work with waste, that is, with what society throws away; this work is ‘devalued’,” Bárbara Giavarini, coordinator of Redcicla Bolivia-Reciclaje Inclusivo, told IPS.

One sign of the public’s recognition of the “grassroots recyclers,” as they call themselves, could be the direct, sorted delivery of the waste, which would facilitate the women’s work, she said.

Redcicla, a platform that promotes the integrated treatment of waste, has been helping since 2017 to organize them and bring visibility to their work, while fostering the delivery of waste from citizens to “grassroots recyclers” and working for the recognition of their work as dignified.

The president of Ecorecicladoras de La Paz, Sofía Quispe, supports the idea of getting help from local residents in sorting materials and delivering them to their affiliates, instead of throwing them into dumpsters where they are mixed with products that prevent subsequent recycling.

 

The president of the women’s group Ecorecicladoras de La Paz, Sofia Quispe, walks along the central Arce Avenue in this Bolivian city in search of dumpsters where local residents throw their waste. CREDIT: Franz Chávez / IPS

 

Quispe is a 42-year-old mother of three. Like most of her fellow recyclers, she walks about two kilometers on foot in search of dumpsters, dressed in the customary indigenous wide-brimmed hat and pollera or skirt.

On the night that IPS accompanied her, she did not find the dumpster that was usually on Avenida 6 de Agosto, probably because it had been removed and taken to another part of the city.

The impoverished garbage picker was once a skilled seamstress who worked in small family-owned factories in the Brazilian city of São Paulo. Upon her return due to an illness, she was unable to raise the money she needed to buy a machine and raw materials.

She was also discouraged by the lack of interest among local residents in buying garments made in Bolivia, as they preferred low-cost clothing smuggled into the country as contraband.

Leonarda Chávez, another 72-year-old head of household, who collects recyclable materials every day with her daughter Carla Chávez (42) and granddaughter Maya Muga Chávez (25), feels satisfied because she can see her dream come true.

This month, her granddaughter earned a diploma in Business Social Responsibility, with which she completed her university education, in addition to a degree in commercial engineering and business administration, in a country where higher studies do not always guarantee good jobs.

Among the darkness and the objects discarded by people, hope is also alive. Rosario Ramos took the lessons of hard work and created her own goal: “I will study advanced robotics and prosthetic assembly,” she says with a confidence that contrasts with the group’s sad stories.

While India decreased its population without access to clean cooking fuels by about 30 percent from 2010 to 2020, Africa has seen an increase of more than 50 percent over the same period, driven by a rising number of poor, tepid government policies to address this issue, and overarching poverty challenges. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS

By Alexandra Peek and Philippe Benoit
WASHINGTON DC, Jul 12 2023 (IPS)

An estimated 2.4 billion people currently lack access to clean cooking fuels, with the majority relying on biomass (firewood, charcoal, dung) to meet household cooking needs. This is only a slight decrease from 2017, when 2.5 billion people lacked access to clean cooking fuels.

Of those who continue to lack this access, the majority—923 million—live in sub-Saharan Africa, followed by 490 million in India. While India decreased its population without access by about 30 percent from 2010 to 2020, Africa has seen an increase of more than 50 percent over the same period, driven by a rising number of poor, tepid government policies to address this issue, and overarching poverty challenges.

These figures are likely to remain persistently high at about 2.2 billion over the next decade, roughly split between India and other parts of developing Asia on the one hand, and sub-Saharan Africa on the other.

It’s important to see these women and girls—potentially the largest segment of the energy labor force today and in the foreseeable future—as producers and workers. In understanding them as a formidable workforce of biomass producers, their knowledge and experience can inform ongoing efforts of electrification, clean cooking alternatives, gender rights, and overall poverty alleviation

Hidden behind these figures are the people who produce the biomass that powers most of this energy use: often it’s women and girls who are tasked with this labor. In this article, the authors discuss why it’s important to see these women and girls—potentially the largest segment of the energy labor force today and in the foreseeable future—as producers and workers.

In understanding them as a formidable workforce of biomass producers, their knowledge and experience can inform ongoing efforts of electrification, clean cooking alternatives, gender rights, and overall poverty alleviation. It is also equally important to recognize this workforce in order to improve its working conditions on the path to building a more inclusive energy workforce toward net zero emissions.

While the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #7 (SDG 7) draws attention to the need to eliminate the use of non-clean cooking techniques that kill millions each year, the working conditions under which women toil today to produce biomass also merits greater attention.

As the World Bank reported recently, “across most of Sub-Saharan Africa and in parts of China, women are the primary fuel wood collectors,” which is also the case in areas of South Asia. This is time-consuming and physically demanding work that can involve “collecting and carrying loads of wood that weigh as much as 25-50 kilogrammes” and can “take up to 20 or more hours per week.”

 

Estimating the Size of this Workforce

Just how many women are working in this area? A preliminary estimate—based on data regarding the number of households relying on biomass for cooking and the rate of participation of women in this labor—puts the number at over 300 million. Overall, while there is reliable data on lack of access to clean cooking, reliance on biomass, and deforestation trends, there is a gap in knowledge about the (wo)man power it takes to produce biomass.

This gap may stem from the way issues around biomass are often discussed in the SDG 7 context. For example, data on the lack of access to clean cooking primarily informs solutions to shift cooking norms and electrification pathways and efforts to obviate the need for women to labor in producing biomass, while data on biomass reliance feeds into conservation and land use efforts.

Such efforts, however, tend to overlook women as an energy workforce, even though across sub-Saharan Africa, India, parts of China, and Latin America, women and young girls collect and make the biomass necessary to power their homes, including for heating.

Organizations focused on gender parity, such as SEforAll, come closer to recognizing the work of these women and girls, but they, too, frame their efforts in line with clean cooking initiatives rather than labor conditions or rights. For instance, research on the number of hours spent collecting firewood and preparing meals is used to discuss cultural and gender roles that lead to systemic disadvantages for women and girls.

A missing link in all of these narratives and frameworks is understanding the size and importance of this workforce and how it might inform different strategies.

 

Embracing a Worker-Producer Narrative

Calculating the number of women and girls in their capacity as biomass producers reframes the perception of them as passive consumers (i.e., cooks) to active self-producers of the household energy sector. This framework can bolster efforts mentioned above in the following ways:

 

First, it reframes biomass—from an issue singularly belonging to the clean cooking initiative— and places it more broadly in the context of workers’ rights. Despite numerous clean cooking campaigns, poor women and girls will continue to produce biomass for their families for the foreseeable future. As important as it is to make access to clean cooking technologies universally available, what can be done for those producing their own energy in the meantime?

For example, these could be solutions such as creating wood stalls in more accessible areas to reduce collection times, or developing more ergonomic harnesses for carrying the wood to reduce the physical burden of the work. In addition, can more income-generating opportunities be created to help reduce the poverty of these women and girls?

Second, it informs policies around building an inclusive energy workforce. Recognizing that there is already a female-run and -operated energy workforce across the developing world has implications for workforce policies governing the energy transition. For example, when it comes to the ability to tap into this existing labor force, does reskilling apply to this workforce as it does to coal miners?

Moreover, by focusing on improving the labor conditions of women and girl biomass producers, this framework intersects with SDG 5: achieve gender equality and empower all women and girl. Organizations such as the Clean Cooking Alliance that aim to “increase the role of women in the clean cooking sector” and collect data on the number of hours required for biomass production could benefit from such a framework.

Third, research that intentionally includes groups underserved and underrepresented in data can inform policies for a just energy transition. Capturing the number of women and girls producing biomass can lead to important discoveries for improving their lives while informing the energy transition. For instance, surveys and fieldwork to collect the amount of biomass producers could also be used to track energy consumption and production trends that inform electrification efforts.

Many biomass collectors live on the margins or in rural areas, and research geared toward their energy needs can inform, for example, decentralized renewable energy projects and help anticipate their consumption patterns.

This energy workforce comprises some of the poorest people in the world—women, girls, and people of color—and that may partly explain why their labor and working conditions have received relatively less attention.

The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report and other research puts the world on a tight timeline for lowering emissions. Existing frameworks for achieving a clean energy transition can be strengthened through approaches that recognize and acknowledge the agency of biomass energy producers made up of millions of women and girls.

[First published by Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy on July 6, 2023.]

 

Alexandra Peek is a research associate with Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.

Philippe Benoit is an adjunct senior research scholar with Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy and is also research director for Global Infrastructure Analytics and Sustainability 2050.

 

Swedish Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson and Robert Mugabe walking hand in hand in 1989
 
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Proverb of unknown origin

By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Jul 12 2023 (IPS)

The war in Ukraine continues unabated; young men are sacrificed on battlefields, towns laid waste by aerial attacks, the threat of nuclear disasters is looming. People within an often formerly friendly inclined Europe are now wondering if Vladimir Putin has gone insane. The war in Ukraine is generally called “Putin’s war” and in April 2021 Putin signed a legislation providing him the right to run for two more consecutive terms, thus he could stay in power till 2036.

Nazi Germany was equalled with Hitler, the Soviet Union with Stalin, Communist China with Mao, and now Russia with Putin. Another example of the identification of an entire nation with a totalitarian ruler was Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe. A president who apart from participating in the invasion of a neighbouring country led his nation into a bloody civil war.

When I in the year 2000 was working for the Swedish International Development Cooperation (Sida) it was questioned why the Swedish Government every year granted SEK 140 million (USD 15 million) in development aid to Zimbabwe, a country governed by a scorned Robert Mugabe. At that time, Zimbabwe’s GNI had in one year shrunk by 13 percent, among other things due to unbudgeted expenses for the country’s participation in a war in the DR Congo (from 1998 to 2003 Zimbabwe’s participation in this war cost USD 1 million a day). A badly managed land reform had drastically reduced agricultural production. Even before the crisis 75 percent of the population was unable to meet necessary needs of food, clothing, schooling, health care and housing. Unemployment was over 60 percent, while 25 percent of the adult population was infected with HIV/AIDS.

Misery was blamed on Mugabe’s misrule, but Swedish support to Zimbabwe continued during his reign. Since Swedish aid was initiated in the early1980s Zimbabwe had by the year 2000 received SEK 5 billion (approximately USD 460 million). Economic support currently amounts to USD 28 million per year.

Swedish relations with Robert Mugabe indicate difficulties opinion leaders face while analysing the power game of other nations. For fear of being seen as harbouring neo-colonial attitudes “experts” often withheld critical judgment and were apt to name various leaders as ”hopes for Africa”. Unfortunately personal benefits from supremacy may prove to be a fatal temptation , several heroes of yesterday have after their seizure of power turn into despots.

In the case of Zimbabwe (which at the time was “Rhodesia” governed by a white minority party, the Rhodesian Front) it was reasonable to oppose a regime that kept the majority of a nation’s population out of power because of the colour of their skin. Swedish debate has often been characterized by two different worldviews, either that the world consists of democracies and dictatorships, with the former being on the good side, or that an enduring conflict subsists between the “West” and the “Rest”, where “West” is seen as the villain. According to the latter understanding , it did not matter if Zanu (PF), the party of Robert Mugabe, actually pursued one-party rule, any opposition towards the “ancient colonial world order” was OK.

It was thus more justifiable to support an armed struggle than the democratic consensus policy proclaimed by another Zimbabwean liberation group, Zapu, headed by Joshua Nkomo. The influential Pierre Schori, international secretary of the Swedish Social Democratic Party and close assistant to Prime Minister Olof Palme, supported the “eloquent and radical” Mugabe:

I think that it had to do with personal contacts. […] In the case of Zimbabwe, we did not choose between Zapu and Zanu, but I think that when Joshua Nkomo came to Sweden it was often through the churches, while Robert Mugabe was more of a pure freedom fighter.

Mugabe spoke fluent English, with an “exquisite” Oxford accent. He liked “open conversations and intellectual debates”, and in spite of an aversion to English colonialism he was an admirer of “Anglophone culture” and a fan of cricket, attesting that it “civilizes people and creates good gentlemen.”

Mugabe had been arrested in 1963 and was after 1966 transferred to a cell he shared with Zanu’s leader Ndabaningi Sithole. Mugabe remained in custody for a further eight years, devoting his time to studies. He gained a masters in economics, a bachelor of administration, and two law degrees from the University of London. Amnesty International’s Swedish Group 34 had as its lot to support the imprisoned freedom fighter. One member of the group later stated;

– He took advantage of the opportunity to study in prison and asked us to get literature. So we members shared the expenses and sent books to him. […] At that time, Mugabe was considered as a good guy. He was very fond of children and always remembered all our children’s names and greeted them in his letters. In addition to the books, Mugabe also asked for help with items such as a pair of pyjamas and tubes of toothpaste. Before his release, I and Eva Moberg [a well-known journalist], who had started the group, went and bought a suitcase, which we sent to him with his wife Sally.

In 1958, Mugabe had moved to Ghana to gain a teacher’s certificate at the Achimota College where he met his first wife, Sally Hafton. During Mugabe’s imprisonment Sally first moved to London, where she taught at the Africa Centre. She also lived for several years in Sweden, mostly in the village of Heby, north of the university town of Uppsala. She kept close contact with the members of Amnesty Group 34. Mugabe appreciated that Sally was staying in Sweden, which he considered to be a “safe country”. Sally worked as a nanny, learned Swedish and campaigned for Zimbabwe’s freedom struggle, both in Sweden and England. In Sweden, she became a frequently seen and well-liked person.

Mugabe was released in 1974 and resolved to leave Rhodesia for Moçambique. However, Samora Machel, who in 1975 became Moçambique’s president, was suspicious of Mugabe, whom he considered to be immature and belligerent. Furthermore, Machel suspected that Mugabe’s quick rise to power was due to machinations to get rid of Sithole as head of Zanu, a “prison coup” that might have been supported by Rhodesia’s white leader, Ian Smith. Machel put Mugabe under house arrest in Quelimane, far from the Zimbabwean guerrilla camps. It was rumoured that Machel was jealous of Mugabe’s intellectual achievements, preferring more down-to-earth men, especially the Zimbabwean guerrilla commander Josiah Tongogara. Contrary to Machel, Mugabe had never been an active fighter. When Machel in 1980 attended Mugabe’s inauguration as Zimbabwe’s president, he was well aware of Mugabe’s intention to form a one-party government, giving his Shona supporters absolute power. Machel addressed Mugabe:

To ensure national unity, there must be no Shonas in Zimbabwe, there must be no Ndebeles in Zimbabwe, there must be Zimbabweans. Some people are proud of their tribalism. But we call tribalists reactionary agents of the enemy. […] Zimbabwe is the jewel of Africa. Don’t tarnish it!

Some of Mugabe’s Swedish acquaintances were suspicious of him:

He considered himself to be a superior teacher, a professor. He had six different degrees, he was a learned and well-read man. Therefore, he believed that he was right in everything, and if he was opposed, he went mad.

Politicians and journalists declared that Mugabe could be charming and nice, but it was also alleged that he was a loner; admittedly a hard-working man, a voracious reader and not much given to laughter, but above all – a single-minded and extremely complex person, not easily captured by conventional categories. Some even claimed they considered him to be devoid of ordinary warmth and humanity; emotionally immature, homophobic and xenophobic. The last time a Swedish friend met with him, Mugabe told him:

When we are elected presidents, we suddenly get enormous power in accordance with the constitution that we took over from the colonial power. We can fill positions for relatives, friends and party sympathizers. We live well and have a different life than the vast majority of our citizens. But when we leave the presidential palace, we have nothing, there are no presidential pensions.

Mugabe coveted absolute power and when he obtained it, he hold on to it. Zanu came to act as yesterday’s colonial rulers. Even if power relations had changed, perceptions of power were the same. The Swedish Government did not lack documentation warning about Mugabe’s ambitions, nevertheless its conclusion was that he was Zimbabwe’s strongest leader and moreover “pro-Sweden”, accordingly Swedish aid could not be terminated, and even had to be increased.

Already in 1977, Mugabe declared that “any man who maliciously plants contradictions within our ranks will be struck by the Zanu axe” and he was even more ruthless towards his former brothers in arms – Zapu, and its leader Joshua Nkomo.

Zanu’s power base was among the Shona people, while Zapu found its strongest support among the Ndebeles in Matabeleland. Furthermore, the Cold War was reflected in the two parties’ relations to the outside world. Zapu received Soviet support, while Zanu relied on China, which wanted to undermine Soviet influence in Africa.

In early 1983, the North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade, a unit subordinated to the presidency, began a crackdown on dissidents in Matabeleland. Over the following two years, thousands of Ndebele and Kalanga were accused of being “Zapu-traitors”, detained, marched to “re-education camps”, tortured, raped and/or summarily executed. Although there are different estimates, the consensus of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) is that more than 20,000 people were killed.

Swedish aid workers were knowledgeable about these atrocities. Nevertheless, Swedish aid continued to be delivered to Zanu-controlled Zimbabwe. The former head of Sida’s aid office in Harare played down the events, declaring that “the civilian population in Matabeleland has been stuck between warring factions.” He advised against using aid as a means of pressure to get Mugabe to stop the mass killing.

After the 93 years old Mugabe finally was removed from power, Zimbabwe continued to spiral down the abyss, while Swedish support is uninterrupted. The country is now ruled by Emmerson Mnangagwa, who once was a close ally to Mugabe. A brutal man who in 1983 described Government opponents as “cockroaches and bugs requiring DDT to be removed.” In 1998, Mnangagwa was put in charge of Zimbabwe’s intervention in the DR Congo wars and accused of “swapping Zimbabwean soldiers’ lives for mining contracts.” Mnangagwa does not further human rights, instead his government has deepened Zimbabwe’s economic struggles, enabled endemic corruption, fuelled instability, and targeted human rights activists and journalists. It is estimated that Zimbabwe may lose up to half the value of its annual GDP of USD 21.4 billion due to corrupt economic activities. Money laundering is among the murky deals said to be carried out under Mnangagwa’s aegis. Under diplomatic cover, criminals send unaccounted cash in exchange of equivalent amounts in Zimbabwean gold, and then sell it for seemingly legitimate money.

Swedish support to Mugabe and his successor might be considered as an effort to alleviate the plight of Zimbabwe’s citizens, but it might also be interpreted as being based on simplifications of a complicated reality and furthermore relying on one man’s power. When Mugabe’s abuse of sovereignty led to massacres, they were minimalized by those of those who had bet on him and the misrule of his successor is hardly noticed.

The world is now wondering whether the majority of Russia’s population will continue to support its strong man. If Putin’s nation will be weaken or strengthened by such encouragement. The stakes are high and predictions are generally gloomy.

Main sources: Yap, Katri P. (2001). Uprooting the weeds: Power, ethnicity and violence in the Matabeleland conflict. Ph.D Thesis, Universiteit van Amsterdam and various Swedish newspaper articles.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Since 2018, PBF has invested $22M in Mauritania, implemented by 11 UN Agencies, Funds and Programmes. Credit: IOM Mauritania

By Lila Pieters Yahia
NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania, Jul 12 2023 (IPS)

Deep in the heart of Southeastern Mauritania lies the district and town of Bassikounou, nestled on the border with neighboring Mali, over 1,200 kilometers from the capital city of Nouakchott.

The border between the two countries is barely visible, but the communities on either side remain tightly knit through their shared family ties, trading relationships and religious traditions.

The vast grasslands of Bassikounou have long provided nourishment for herds of livestock, yet in recent years, the region has experienced a decline in rainfall and pasture which has made life more challenging for communities and their animals.

In addition to the strains caused by a changing climate, in 2022, Mauritania experienced an influx of new refugees, including Mauritanian returnees from Mali due to the deteriorating security situation.

By the end of last year, almost 83 000 refugees resided in the Mbera camp in Bassikounou and over 8,000 in small villages outside the camp.

This influx of refugees with their livestock increased pressure on the pastures and water sources; and led to greater conflict and competition between communities for access to water and grazing fields.

On top of this, returning pastoralist herds of livestock are estimated at 800,000; further exacerbating the scarcity of resources, and raising concerns about tensions with the host population over water access.

Cohesion and economic empowerment

As part of my new role as Resident Coordinator in Mauritania, I visited Bassikounou district in January 2023 to see how the UN country team on the ground was utilizing the Secretary-General’s Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) to foster conflict prevention, promote social cohesion and tackle the devastating effects of climate change among the host communities, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and refugees.

The PBF’s investment in Mauritania date back to 2018 when FAO, UNDP, UNICEF and OHCHR collaborated to implement a pioneering project aimed at managing scarce natural resources, enhancing economic development, and supporting village committees to resolving conflicts.

Although the project has ended, lasting effects can still be observed. For example, the local radio station which was set up with the support of the PBF is now managed by the local and has become a vital tool in promoting social harmony between host communities and refugees.

As the head of the coordination cell of the Hodh El Charugui told me during the visit, “the radio is a jewel, through its broadcasting and radio talk shows, it allowed to reinforce social cohesion and peaceful coexistence between refugees and host communities” including young people and women.

During my visit, I also had the privilege of meeting inspiring women and young girls who shared their journeys towards greater economic empowerment. The Bassikounou women’s network, which was supported by PBF’s first project in the region, consists of 49 gender focal points, village committees and 20 women’s associations. The network is now fully institutionalized with legal status.

The women spoke about the transformational change they brought to their communities through this network by implementing simple rules to lift structural barriers regarding women’s participation and rights.

One such rule is to ensure that each time a man speaks, a women should have the opportunity to voice her opinion. Today, the Bassikounou network is the technical branch of the newly created Observatoire National des Droits de la Femme et de la Fille (ONDFF), making it a powerful force for gender equality in Mauritania.

Women play a critical role in conflict management and peacebuilding efforts in Mauritania. Credit: IOM Mauritania

Whilst in Bassikounnou I also had the honor of meeting with the Mourchidates, a group of fifty Mauritanian women religious guides, who are working to deconstruct radical rhetoric arguments used by extremist groups in Néma, and prevent violent extremism.

Through an innovative pilot initiative supported by PBF and implemented by UNOSSC and UNESCO, these women received training on how to spot warning signs of radicalization in individuals and communities and how to intervene early to prevent violence from erupting.

Building resilience to climate shocks

Investing in adaptation measures and building greater resilience to the effects of climate change is another key priority for host communities, IDPs and refugees in Bassikounou district.

Mauritania’s mostly desert territory is highly susceptible to deforestation and drought, with temperatures regularly exceeding 40°c during the dry season from September to July; which means that bushfires have become an increasingly frequent occurrence threatening refugees and host communities, their herds and livelihoods.

With thanks to support from the UN country team and investments from the PBF, communities are coming together to manage and mitigate risks of such bushfires.

During my visit to the district, I saw first-hand the achievements of the Mbera fire brigade volunteers. Founded by refugees, this all-volunteer firefighting group has extinguished over 100 bushfires since 2019 and planted thousands of trees to preserve the lives, livelihoods of the host communities and refugees and the local environment.

These interactions between refugees and host populations has led to a more inclusive, equitable and sustainable management of natural resources in Mbera. The Fire Brigade’s courage and tenacity in safeguarding lives, livelihoods and the environment has earned them the title of the Africa Regional Winner of the 2022 Nansen Refugee Award.

Elsewhere during our visit to Mbera camp and surrounding villages, we saw inspiring youth and women-led initiatives to strengthen community resilience to climate change and promote social cohesion, specifically through the regeneration of vegetation cover.

Through the planting of 20,000 seedlings cultivated on five reforestation sites, women are now able to sell vegetables produced in community fields to sustain their families, invest in small businesses, and save for joint initiatives. In addition, a youth-led start-up is piloting biogas production in Bassikounou by employing youth to provide natural gas for vulnerable families.

Towards peace and prevention

Beyond Bassikounou, the Fund has invested in cross-border initiatives to address fragility risks, including in Mauritania due to its porous borders and security threats such as trafficking and terrorism.

Between Mali and Mauritania, with PBF’s support, FAO and IOM are strengthening the conflict prevention and management capacities of cross-border communities by setting up, training and equipping 24 village committees located on the Mauritano-Malian border zone.

In a world that is often plagued by conflict and strife, the need for peacebuilding initiatives has never been greater. The Secretary-General’s Peacebuilding Fund is a unique tool that can effectively prevent conflicts from escalating and support ongoing peacebuilding efforts.

My visit to Bassikounou allowed me to see firsthand the changes and transformation on the ground supported by the PBF and jointly implemented by the UN country team and national partners and refugees communities.

From strengthening social cohesion to empowering more women and young people in conflict and natural resource management, the impact of these initiatives continues to grow.

I am more convinced than ever that we must continue to support such initiatives and invest in peacebuilding – only then can we hope to create a better future for all.

Lila Pieters Yahia is UN Resident Coordinator in Mauritania. This article was written with support from the UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA) and the Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO).

Source: UN Development Coordination Office (UNDCO), New York.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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By Sarah Razak and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jul 12 2023 (IPS)

As our planet continues to heat up at an alarming rate, carbon credits, markets and trading have been promoted as effective measures to combat global warming. While there is an urgent need to curb planetary heating, growing reliance on this innovation is problematic, to say the least.

Global warming occurs when heat from the sun is absorbed by greenhouse gases (GHGs) such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane. Like a blanket, GHGs trap heat, preventing it from escaping our atmosphere. This raises temperatures on Earth, accelerating climate change and triggering extreme weather events such as droughts, cyclones and floods.

Sarah Razak

Historically, human activities – including deforestation and fossil fuel burning – have released CO2 into the atmosphere, increasing the already huge accumulation of emissions. Continuing GHG emissions are now making this problem worse.

Market solution?
Carbon trading has been touted by some economists as the best, fairest and most efficient solution to mitigate global warming. The basically simple market-based idea behind carbon trading is appealing – companies will stop emitting as they must pay to release GHGs by buying ‘carbon [dioxide-equivalent] credits’.

With carbon trading, companies are rewarded for releasing less GHGs. Such companies can sell their extra carbon credits to other companies exceeding their credits, who must thus pay to release more GHGs.

Correctly pricing such credits is thus crucial for the efficacy of the mechanism. But carbon trading promoters tend to under-price credits for carbon trading to gain more acceptance and support.

Thus, this approach treats the Earth’s capacity to absorb CO2 as a service to be bought and sold while ignoring its other all too real implications. Worse, quotas are often arbitrarily set, without rewarding low emitters of the past and present.

Dubious equivalence
There are many GHGs – including methane, nitrous oxide, and others – of which the most important is CO2. The notion of carbon [dioxide] equivalence had to be created to create a market for GHGs’ estimated carbon equivalents (CO2e), ostensibly measured by their global warming potential relative to CO2.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Thus, CO2e has become the ‘universal’ measurement unit for carbon trading, functioning like a common currency. However, the CO2e yardstick for GHG trading is problematic as such measures rely heavily on assumptions and estimates.

Carbon markets and trading – based on such equivalence – have, in turn, led to misleading estimates and interpretation. The resulting poor policy analysis, formulation and efficacy undermine efforts to address global warming more effectively.

Due to the complex and changing properties of gases, CO2e estimates have been subject to many revisions. In 1996, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) declared one unit of hydrofluorocarbon (HFC-23) gas had a global warming potential equivalent to 11,700 units of carbon dioxide (CO2e) over a 100-year period.

In 2007, HFC-23’s CO2 equivalence was revised upwards to 14,800 CO2e. But the IPCC noted even this huge revision upwards remained subject to a huge margin of error of plus or minus 5000 CO2e units.

CO2e is also complex to navigate as different GHGs have different properties. For example, HFC-23 has a stronger warming effect than CO2 in the short-term. Thus, using a common yardstick for these two very different gases – as is commonly done – is not only scientifically moot, but also analytically misleading.

Carbon markets delay action
Unsurprisingly, carbon trading’s premises remain controversial. After all, carbon trading does not actually reduce GHGs, but merely discourages increasing emissions by imposing the costs of buying credits. Thus, instead of cutting GHG emissions, companies can buy carbon credits, fostering an illusion of progress.

Those buying carbon credits may believe they are thus reducing GHG emissions. But in fact, emissions do not decline much. Worse, companies may believe they are fully compensating for all the negative consequences (‘externalities’) of emitting GHGs by buying carbon credits. But this is an illusion.

High GHG emitters do not actually have to make much effort to cut emissions. Buying carbon credits, ostensibly to compensate for their GHG emissions, has thus become a low-cost, low-effort alternative to investing in less GHG-emitting technologies.

Unsurprisingly, most major emitters prefer the cheaper option of carbon trading over such transformative investments. Real investments in better technologies typically require significant upfront costs, while the financial returns to such investments are almost never immediate.

Companies have every incentive to indefinitely postpone major efforts to cut GHG emissions by participating in carbon trading. Thus, carbon trading effectively delays – rather than accelerates – needed transitions to renewable energy technologies.

‘Carbon offsets’ offset action
Companies can earn carbon credits for doing ‘climate friendly’ projects – such as reforestation – to offset the harm done by GHG emissions. These projects are supposed to compensate for the harm caused by GHG emissions, ostensibly offsetting companies’ adverse environmental impacts.

While planting trees can absorb CO2, it does not immediately eliminate accumulated CO2. A significant time lag occurs as growing trees need time to increase their capacity to absorb CO2, and thus reduce atmospheric CO2 levels.

The rate of CO2 emissions release into the atmosphere exceeds the rate at which CO2 is naturally absorbed by natural sinks like forests, including offset projects. This imbalance has contributed to an accelerating increase in long-term GHG accumulation levels in the atmosphere.

Although carbon trading may help reduce growing emissions at the margin, it has not significantly reduced accumulated CO2 in the atmosphere. The time lags involved further diminish its net contribution, and certainly do not offer the urgent solutions needed.

By purchasing carbon credits from such projects, many think they are thus offsetting their GHG emissions. But there is no empirical evidence that such offset projects actually reduce GHG emissions, i.e., carbon trading is not even ‘net-zero’.

Holistic approach needed
Unsurprisingly, carbon credits, markets and trading have fostered a false sense of progress. Most problematically, it has delayed the urgent need for an accelerated transition, especially to far more renewable energy generation and use.

To more effectively address the challenges of global warming, we need to move beyond carbon trading to a more comprehensive approach prioritizing more urgent, effective and impactful adaptation and mitigation efforts, including renewable energy generation and use.

Sarah Razak and Jomo Kwame Sundaram work at the Khazanah Research Institute in Kuala Lumpur.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Credit: U.S. Department of Commerce’s, Industry & Analysis-Aerospace Office and U.S. Commercial Service

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 12 2023 (IPS)

When President Ferdinand Marcos was running an authoritarian regime in the Philippines (1965-1986), he was once asked about rumors of rigged elections in his country.

“I promised I will give you the right to vote,” he said, according to a joke circulating at that time, “But I did not say anything about counting those votes”

The Marcos regime – and the rise and fall of Ferdinand Marcos and First Lady Imelda—is now being portrayed as a glittering musical titled “Here Lies Love” on Broadway: the showcase for some of the biggest hits in New York’s famed theatre district.

The New York Times ran a review last week under the headline “Disco and a Dictatorship: Brewing a Combustible Mix”.

The US, which was a close political and military ally of the Marcos dictatorship, took a backseat after his fall from power—and never exerted the same influence under successive. post-Marcos governments.

But the US has now resurrected its relationship and has made a strong comeback under Marcos’ son, Ferdinand Marcos Jr who took over as president in June 2022, and whose country is now going to be one of the biggest single beneficiaries of the growing political – and possibly military confrontation—between the US and China.

The positive fallout is on the Philippines– as the US bolsters its military relations with Manila with millions of dollars in US arms and security assistance

The U.S. has also designated the Philippines a Major Non-NATO Ally (MNNA), strengthening security ties between the two nations.

The Philippines joins the privileged group of 19 MNNAs, including Israel, Australia, Egypt, South Korea, Jordan and New Zealand, among others.

They are all “close American allies that have strategic working relationships with US armed forces” but are not members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

The strong new relationship has also contributed to the development of significant opportunities for U.S. defense and security equipment manufacturers and service- providers to enhance the Philippines’ self-defense capabilities, according to the U.S. Commercial Service (USCS), the trade promotion arm of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration.

The U.S. provides an average of about $120 million per year in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) to the Philippines. This year, it will be in excess of $200 million.

The U.S. Government has expressed its intent to make available to the Philippines $100 million in additional Foreign Military Financing (FMF) to be used by the Philippine Department of National Defense (DND) to fund its armed forces modernization programs.

According to the USCS, the Philippine’s defense market is contingent with the 15-year modernization program (2013-2028) currently underway.

“With the current challenges faced by the Philippines, including maritime disputes with China in the West Philippine Sea”, the Department of National Defense (DND) reiterated that air power is a critical component in its joint forces, especially in territorial defense.

The Philippine DND is a key player in the Indo-Pacific region as it continues to bolster its defense capabilities and maintain regional stability.

Under Horizon 3, the desired capabilities are focused on enhancements to C4ISTAR, air defense systems, air and surface interdiction systems, anti-tank systems and ground rocket systems, all pending approval by the Department of National Defense.

During a briefing last April, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: “Our security alliance is an enduring source of strength for both of our nations. Today, we focused on ways to continue our close partnership under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement so that our forces can work even more closely together, including to provide humanitarian assistance and respond to disasters.”

“We also discussed deepening our robust economic ties, including through the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity. We’re working closely with other IPEF partners to build out this framework to help our economies grow faster and fairer so that all our people can reach their full potential, lead on issues shaping the 21st-century economy, and do it in a way that is sustainable for our planet.”

At the April briefing, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III said the two countries had just celebrated the start of their 38th annual Exercise Balikatan.

He said more than 17,000 troops are participating this year. “It is the largest and most complex iteration in the exercise’s history”.

“Now the commitments that we made today will further integrate our strong bilateral ties into multilateral networks, including with Japan and Australia, and we discussed plans to conduct combined maritime activities with likeminded partners in the South China Sea later this year as we work to enhance our collective deterrence”.

“Our alliance is ultimately guided by our deep and enduring commitment to freedom. So, we’re not just allies, we’re democratic allies, and the United States and the Philippines are bound by a common vision for the future – a vision that’s anchored in the rule of law and freedom of the seas and respect for the territorial integrity of sovereign states.”

Mao Ning, a spokeswoman for China’s foreign ministry, was quoted as saying: “Out of self-interest, the United States continues to strengthen its military deployment in the region with a zero-sum mentality, which is exacerbating tension in the region and endangering regional peace and stability.”

She said “countries in the region should remain vigilant against this and avoid being coerced and used by the United States.”

In February 2023, the Biden administration announced a new conventional arms transfer policy. One of the objectives is to “Prevent arms transfers that risk facilitating or otherwise contributing to violations of human rights or international humanitarian law…”

After a meeting with Philippine President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. at the White House in May 2023, the Biden administration issued a statement that said in part, “The United States and the Philippines’ shared democratic values strengthen our alliance immeasurably”.

Promoting respect for human rights and rule of law, and ensuring civil society leaders and members of marginalized communities are safe from violence, are key priorities for the U.S.-Philippines relationship.

Dr. Natalie J. Goldring, a Visiting Professor of the Practice in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, told IPS “The Biden administration’s new conventional arms transfer policy is a welcome development. But the policy needs to be fully implemented to be effective.”

“The US security relationship with the Philippines is an important test of whether the policy rhetoric will become reality. So far, the signs are not encouraging.”

Reporting by Human Rights Watch* indicates that human rights violations continue to occur regularly under the Marcos administration. They report that, “Marcos has done little to address the pending human rights issues.

Police and their agents continue their ‘drug war’ killings, though at a lower rate than during the Duterte administration. “The authorities remain responsible for extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and arbitrary arrests of activists and outspoken critics.”

“It’s time to stop rewarding countries that systematically abuse the human rights of their citizens. At a minimum, US arms and security assistance to the Philippines should be paused until the Marcos administration demonstrates significant improvement in its human rights record,” said Dr Goldring, who also represents the Acronym Institute at the United Nations on conventional weapons and arms trade issues

“Continuing to provide US military assistance and arms transfers sends exactly the wrong message. Business as usual is likely to perpetuate the human rights abuses the Biden administration claims to oppose,” she declared.

*HRW statement:
“Philippines: Marcos Failing on Rights,” A Year On, Course Correction Needed. Human Rights Watch, 28 June 2023, https://www.hrw.org/node/385256/printable/print

White House statement on Marcos’ visit:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/05/01/fact-sheet-investing-in-the-special-friendship-and-alliance-between-the-united-states-and-the-philippines/#:~:text=The%20Philippines%20is%20the%20United,the%20broader%20Indo%2DPacific%20region.

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Sudanese refugee James Mathiang (left) with his teammates has had difficulties getting his qualifications recognised even though he was offered a scholarship. Wilson Odhiambo/IPS

By Wilson Odhiambo
NAIROBI, Jul 11 2023 (IPS)

East African international students could soon easily study in neighbouring countries after the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) proposed a new qualification framework to mitigate the difficulties faced when seeking education across borders.

IGAD has, over the past year, been conducting a series of seminars and workshops aimed at finding a solution to the problems faced by foreigners and refugees looking to continue with their education and employability in foreign lands.

During the 3rd IGAD conference held in Nairobi, Kenya, in March last year, it was agreed that its member states needed to develop a harmonised qualification framework that would allow their students to cross borders in search of work and education easily.

The IGAD member states include Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Djibouti, Uganda, South Sudan and Eritrea.

Countries usually have different education systems and standards, making it mandatory for foreigners to prove their qualifications before joining any institution.

Joining a higher education institution in Kenya demands one to have attained certain set standards from high school, which in this case, is to have a mean grade of at least a C+. Therefore, an international student seeking to join the same institution must show that they achieved an academic qualification from their country equivalent to the Kenyan standard.

To do this, they must go through the Kenya National Qualification Authority (KNQA) and have their high school grades converted to verify whether they meet the standards.

However, given the difference in curriculum and education standards for different countries, this is usually a tedious process for many.

Students have complained of waiting for months (or even years, in some cases) before having their qualifications approved to join learning institutions. This has especially been tough on refugees from Somalia and South Sudan, whose education systems are still volatile, making it difficult for them to get quality education in countries of their choice.

South Sudan, for instance, has seen many of its citizens stream into Kenya in search of refuge and a fresh start to life. And due to their height, many Sudanese teenagers are sought after by basketball coaches in colleges and universities who are willing to offer them sport scholarship opportunities.

IPS spoke to James Mathiang during one of his basketball games to understand his transition process as a foreigner trying to further his ambitions.

Mathiang is a refugee from South Sudan who had been offered a sports scholarship by African Nazarene University (ANU) but is yet to join since he has not cleared the qualification process.

“I came to Kenya in 2021 with my family and currently live in one of the estates in Nairobi. Our country is still facing civil unrest, and my parents felt it was wise for us to seek refuge in Kenya, which also meant continuing with our lives in a new country,” Mathiang told IPS.

“I play basketball and have many of my relatives who have been in Kenya for longer, who also play the sport and were able to introduce me to some of the teams they play in.”

It was not long before one of the basketball scouts noticed Mathiang’s potential and offered to get him a scholarship in return for his talents. Mathiang is, however, yet to benefit from the deal due to the required qualification conversion process.

“It has already been seven months since I was offered the scholarship, but I am yet to understand how the conversion process works. I may have to sit for another qualification exam in Kenya since my papers are not recognised by KNQA,” Mathiang told UWN.

According to KNQA, the qualification is a planned combination of learning outcomes with a definite purpose and is intended to provide qualifying learners with applied competence and a basis for further learning.

Joining a university in Kenya, requires one to have completed four years in high school and attained a mean grade of at least a C+.

This standard may differ in a country like Sudan or Uganda, where students must spend at least six years in high school before joining a University. As such, a Kenyan going to Uganda in search of higher education has to meet a standard equivalent to that of Uganda and vice versa.

Rollins Oduk, who has been on a basketball scholarship at the Uganda Martyr University, recalls how it took him almost two years to convert his secondary school certificates to meet the qualifications required by the Ugandan system.

“Since Uganda did not have a qualification system like Kenya, I had no choice but to enrol into one of their secondary schools and sit for fresh exams so that I could be accepted by their higher education institutions. In the meantime, I could still play for the University and get some financial benefits as I waited. This is a good move by IGAD, and it will help a lot of foreigners like me,” Oduk told UWN.

According to IGAD, only one of its member states, Kenya, has a properly functioning qualification system that enables foreigners to confirm and convert their qualifications quickly.

Dr Alice Kande, managing director, KNQA, explained that having a regional qualification framework would lessen students’ obstacles when moving across the member states in search of education.

“KNQA is receiving so many foreign qualifications that are awarded without a clear clarification on whether they are accredited in their countries of origin, their requisite volume of learning, the skills that they impart and their equivalence to local qualifications,” Kande told IPS.

“The authority plays an important role in ensuring that authenticity of foreign qualifications is ascertained; and that the country only accepts and recognises foreign qualifications that meet the national standard. By doing this, we hope that students get quality training and education that equips them with the skills necessary to work both locally and internationally and that the country as a whole only accepts and recognises qualifications that meet the national standard and protects the country from fake and substandard qualifications,” she added.

According to Zetech University, it is tough for institutions to enrol international students due to the bureaucracy of specific government offices that frustrates the effort of potential students and the recruiting universities. There is a disconnect that makes it necessary for the concerned offices to sit with the universities and discuss a way forward.

“To join Zetech, foreign students are expected to have a visa, a student pass and the KNQA equation to get admission. It is particularly difficult for Somali students because of the fear of terrorism; hence the student pass takes too long to process,” said Dr Catherine Njoki, Liaison and Resource Mobilization Director Zetech University. A student’s pass can take up to eight months to a year to acquire, making some give up entirely on their education.

“The students are also required to equate their results with the KNQA. This Government body is also very slow in their service delivery, and they decline to support the recruiting institutions with a general guideline of how students can get temporary admission as they await the confirmation. KNQA should become a little flexible with such information and also realise the country needs the foreign exchange as much as the institutions need the students,” Njoki told UWN.

KNQA, however, states that it should only take two to eight weeks for an evaluation process to be concluded.

“According to Kenya National Qualifications Authority, service charter evaluation of qualifications processing time is (14 -60) working days from receipt of an application. This is counted from date of receipt of all relevant documents provided by the applicants,” Kande explained.

The following are some of the requirements that will be expected of someone trying to have his qualifications converted:

(i) Certified copy of each qualification certificate to be evaluated.

(ii) Certified copy of official transcript of each qualification to

be evaluated.

(iii) Certified copy of certificate and transcript of qualification preceding the one

that has been submitted for evaluation.

(iv) Certified copy of Identity Document or birth certificate for children

under the age of 18 for citizens or Passport for foreigners

(v) Translations (if applicable) together with the documents in the original

language prepared by a sworn translator.

Njoki added that IGAD should bring all stakeholders involved to help address these issues.

“I would like to continue with my education through this sports scholarship, and if this harmonised system works, there are many foreigners like me who are going to benefit from it,” Mathiang concluded.

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