Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

By Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana
BANGKOK, Thailand, Aug 30 2022 (IPS)

Asia and the Pacific is the most digitally divided region of the world, and South-East Asia is the most divided subregion. The Covid-19 pandemic detonated a “digital big bang” that spurred people, governments and businesses to become “digital by default;” a sea change that generated vast digital dividends. These benefits that have not been distributed equally, however. New development gaps have emerged as digital transformation reinforces a vicious cycle of socioeconomic inequalities, within and across countries.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

Bridging these divides and ensuring advances in technology can benefit everyone will be a key challenge as the region seeks to achieve a more inclusive and sustainable post-pandemic recovery. A new ESCAP report, Asia-Pacific Digital Transformation Report 2022: Shaping our digital future, identifies five key “digital divides;” fault lines that separate those who can readily take advantage of new technology from those more likely to be left behind. These divides are related to age, gender, education, disability and geography.

Typically, those most comfortable with technological innovation are younger and better educated people who have grown up with the Internet as ”digital natives”. Older persons may be more distrustful, or slower to acquire the necessary skills or suffer declines in aptitude. But at any age, poor communities – especially those in rural areas – are most at risk as they may be unable to afford electricity or digital connections or lack the relevant skills, even if the necessary infrastructure and connectivity are there.

The most significant driver of digital transformation is business research and its development and adoption of frontier technologies. Another major component is e-government; the delivery of public information and services via the Internet or through other digital means. This has the potential for more efficient and inclusive operations; especially when linked to national digital ID systems. However, because e-government services often evolve in complex regulatory environments, providing appropriate levels of accessibility for older generations, the disabled, or those with limited education has become more challenging.

It is clear that digital technologies are enabling the delivery of previously unimagined services while enhancing productivity and optimizing resource use that helped reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and pollutants. These technologies also helped track and contain pandemic spread. Social networks are fostering and diversifying communications among people of all ages sharing common interests, irrespective of location. This helps them stay in touch, broaden their experiences, continue education or deepen subject knowledge. This provided a veritable lifeline that has continued as we enter the post-pandemic era.

At the same time, the risks have also proliferated. Social networks also created social ”echo chambers” and generated torrents of misinformation and hate speech. New cryptocurrencies have opened the way to speculative financial bubbles, while cybercrime increased alarmingly as it assumed prolific variations. In addition, digital gadgets and the Internet are thought to contribute to more than 2 per cent of the global carbon footprint. The manufacture of electronic hardware can also exhaust supplies of natural resources such as rare-earth elements and precious metals like cobalt and lithium.

Moreover, digital transformation has led to the creation of an immense amount of digital data which become an essential resource to understand digital transformation. However, it raises concerns about the ethical and responsible use of data for privacy protection. A common understanding among countries on the operationalization of such principles has yet to evolve.

The Asia-Pacific Digital Transformation Report 2022 highlights the importance of digital connectivity infrastructure as “meta-infrastructure.” 5G and other high-speed networks can make all other infrastructure – such as transport and power grid distribution – much smarter, optimizing resource use for sustainable development. To contribute to these needs, the Report recommends three pathways for action, which are not mutually exclusive and are aligned with the ESCAP Action Plan of the Asia-Pacific Information Superhighway initiative for 2022-2026.

The first pathway focuses on the supply side and provides relevant policy practices for the development of cost-effective network infrastructure. The second addresses the demand side and recommends capacity-building programmes and policies to promote uptake at scale, of new, more affordable and accessible digital products and services. The third involves improving systems and institutions that are related to collecting, aggregating and analysing data in a way that builds public trust and deepens policymakers’ understanding of the drivers of digital transformations.

Finally, in a world where digital data can flash around the globe in an instant, the report highlights the importance of regional and global cooperation. Only by working together can countries ensure that these technological breakthroughs will benefit everyone; their peoples, economies and societies, as well as for the natural environment, in our new “digital by default” normal.

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

IPS UN Bureau

 

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By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 30 2022 (IPS)

Most sub-Saharan African French colonies got formal independence in the 1960s. But their economies have progressed little, leaving most people in poverty, and generally worse off than in other post-colonial African economies.

Decolonization?
Pre-Second World War colonial monetary arrangements were consolidated into the Colonies Françaises d’Afrique (CFA) franc zone set up on 26 December 1945. Decolonization became inevitable after France’s defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and withdrawal from Algeria less than a decade later.

Anis Chowdhury

France insisted decolonization must involve ‘interdependence’ – presumably asymmetric, instead of between equals – not true ‘sovereignty’. For colonies to get ‘independence’, France required membership of Communauté Française d’Afrique (still CFA) – created in 1958, replacing Colonies with Communauté.

CFA countries are now in two currency unions. Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo belong to UEMOA, the French acronym for the West African Economic and Monetary Union.

Its counterpart CEMAC is the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa, comprising Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Chad.

Both UEMOA and CEMAC use the CFA franc (FCFA). Ex-Spanish colony, Equatorial Guinea, joined in 1985, one of two non-French colonies. In 1997, former Portuguese colony, Guinea-Bissau was the last to join.

Such requirements have ensured France’s continued exploitation. Eleven of the 14 former French West and Central African colonies remain least developed countries (LDCs), at the bottom of UNDP’s Human Development Index (HDI).

French African colonies
Guinea was the first to leave the CFA in 1960. Before fellow Guineans, President Sékou Touré told President Charles de Gaulle, “We prefer poverty in freedom to wealth in slavery”.

Guinea soon faced French destabilization efforts. Counterfeit banknotes were printed and circulated for use in Guinea – with predictable consequences. This massive fraud brought down the Guinean economy.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

France withdrew more than 4,000 civil servants, judges, teachers, doctors and technicians, telling them to sabotage everything left behind: “un divorce sans pension alimentaire” – a divorce without alimony.

Ex-French espionage documentation service (SDECE) head Maurice Robert later acknowledged, “France launched a series of armed operations using local mercenaries, with the aim of developing a climate of insecurity and, if possible, overthrow Sékou Touré”.

In 1962, French Prime Minister Georges Pompidou warned African colonies considering leaving the franc zone: “Let us allow the experience of Sékou Touré to unfold. Many Africans are beginning to feel that Guinean politics are suicidal and contrary to the interests of the whole of Africa”.

Togo independence leader, President Sylvanus Olympio was assassinated in front of the US embassy on 13 January 1963. This happened a month after he established a central bank, issuing the Togolese franc as legal tender. Of course, Togo remained in the CFA.

Mali left the CFA in 1962, replacing the FCFA with the Malian franc. But a 1968 coup removed its first president, radical independence leader Modibo Keita. Unsurprisingly, Mali later re-joined the CFA in 1984.

Resource-rich
The eight UEMOA economies are all oil importers, exporting agricultural commodities, such as cotton and cocoa, besides gold. By contrast, the six CEMAC economies, except the Central African Republic, rely heavily on oil exports.

CFA apologists claim pegging the FCFA to the French franc, and later, the euro, has kept inflation low. But lower inflation has also meant “slower per capita growth and diminished poverty reduction” than in other African countries.

The CFA has “traded decreased inflation for fiscal restraint and limited macroeconomic options”. Unsurprisingly, CFA members’ growth rates have been lower, on average, than in non-CFA countries.

With one of Africa’s highest incomes, petroleum producer Equatorial Guinea is the only CFA country to have ‘graduated’ out of LDC status, in 2017, after only meeting the income ‘graduation’ criterion.

Its oil boom ensured growth averaging 23.4% annually during 2000–08. But growth has fallen sharply since, contracting by -5% yearly during 2013–21! Its 2019 HDI of 0.592 ranked 145 of 189 countries, below the 0.631 mean for middle-ranking countries.

Poor people
With over 70% of its population poor, and over 40% in ‘extreme poverty’, inequality is extremely high in Equatorial Guinea. The top 1% got over 17% of pre-tax national income in 2021, while the bottom half got 11.5%!

Four of ten 6–12 year old children in Equatorial Guinea were not in school in 2012, many more than in much poorer African countries. Half the children starting primary school did not finish, while less than a quarter went on to middle school.

CFA member Gabon, the fifth largest African oil producer, is an upper middle-income country. With petroleum making up 80% of exports, 45% of GDP, and 60% of fiscal revenue, Gabon is very vulnerable to oil price volatility.

One in three Gabonese lived in poverty, while one in ten were in extreme poverty in 2017. More than half its rural residents were poor, with poverty three times more there than in urban areas.

Côte d’Ivoire, a non-LDC CFA member, enjoyed high growth, peaking at 10.8% in 2013. With lower cocoa prices and Covid-19, growth fell to 2% in 2020. About 46% of Ivorians lived on less than 750 FCFA (about $1.30) daily, with its HDI ranked 162 of 189 in 2019.

CFA’s neo-colonial role
Clearly, the CFA “promotes inertia and underdevelopment among its member states”. Worse, it also limits credit available for fiscal policy initiatives, including promoting industrialization.

Credit-GDP ratios in CFA countries have been low at 10–25% – against over 60% in other Sub-Saharan African countries! Low credit-GDP ratios also suggest poor finance and banking facilities, not effectively funding investments.

By surrendering exchange rate and monetary policy, CFA members have less policy flexibility and space for development initiatives. They also cannot cope well with commodity price and other challenges.

The CFA’s institutional requirements – especially keeping 70% of their foreign exchange with the French Treasury – limit members’ ability to use their forex earnings for development.

More recent fiscal rules limiting government deficits and debt – for UEMOA from 2000 and CEMAC in 2002 – have also constrained policy space, particularly for public investment.

The CFA has also not promoted trade among members. After six decades, trade among CEMAC and UEMOA members averaged 4.7% and 12% of their total commerce respectively. Worse, pegged exchange rates have exacerbated balance of payments volatility.

Unrestricted transfers to France have enabled capital flight. The FCFA’s unlimited euro convertibility is supposed to reduce foreign investment risk in the CFA. However, foreign investment is lower than in other developing countries.

Total net capital outflows from CFA countries during 1970–2010 came to $83.5 billion – 117% of combined GDP! Capital flight from CFA economies was much more than from other African countries during 1970–2015.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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A view of two towers in Vaca Muerta, the field whose discovery gave Argentina huge potential in shale gas and oil. Since 2011, governments have dreamed of fully exploiting it, but have been unable to do so, so the country spends billions of dollars annually on imports of gas. CREDIT: Energy Secretariat

By Daniel Gutman
BUENOS AIRES, Aug 29 2022 (IPS)

Argentina, which has one of the largest unconventional hydrocarbon deposits in the world, has been forced to import gas for 6.6 billion dollars so far this year.

The main reason for this paradox -which aggravated the instability of the economy of this South American country- is the lack of transportation infrastructure.

In a public ceremony on Aug. 10, President Alberto Fernández signed the delayed contracts for the construction, for more than two billion dollars to be financed by the State, of a modern gas pipeline aimed at bridging that gap.

The objective is to bring a large part of the natural gas produced in Vaca Muerta to the capital, Buenos Aires, home to nearly a third of the 47 million inhabitants of this Southern Cone country.

Vaca Muerta is a geological formation with an abundance of shale gas and oil, located in the southern region of Patagonia, more than 1,000 kilometers from Buenos Aires.

The name Vaca Muerta has been on the lips of recent Argentine presidents as a symbol of the better future that awaits a country whose economy suffers from a chronic lack of foreign exchange and a weakened local currency, resulting in a poverty rate of around 40 percent of the population.

This has been the case since 2011, when the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that Vaca Muerta makes Argentina the country with the second largest shale gas reserves, behind China, and the fourth largest oil reserves.

Vaca Muerta has reserves of 308 trillion cubic feet of gas and 16.2 billion barrels of oil, according to EIA data, confirmed by Argentina’s state-owned oil company YPF.

“With Vaca Muerta, Argentina has the potential not only to achieve energy self-sufficiency but also to export. We are missing a huge opportunity,” said Salvador Gil, director of the Energy Engineering program at the public National University of San Martín, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.

Gil told IPS that Argentina could play an important role, given the crisis of rising energy prices driven up by the war in Ukraine, which threatens to drag on.

But to do so, it must solve not only its transportation problems, but also the imbalances in the economy, which for years have hindered the influx of large investments in the country.

“Today, what the world needs is energy security and Argentina has gas, which has been identified as the main fuel needed for the transition period towards clean energies, in the context of the fight against climate change,” the expert said.

Argentine President Alberto Fernández, flanked by Economy Minister Sergio Massa (left), and the governor of the province of Buenos Aires, Axel Kicillof, signed a contract for the construction of the gas pipeline that will expand the capacity to transport natural gas produced in the Vaca Muerta field to the capital. It is considered a key project for the Argentine economy. CREDIT: Casa Rosada

More foreign dependence

However, since 2011, when the EIA made public its first data on Vaca Muerta’s potential, which led politicians and experts to start dreaming that Argentina would in a few years become a kind of Saudi Arabia of South America, the country is in fact more and more dependent from the energy point of view.

A study of the period 2011-2021 released this year by a private think tank states that “the decade was characterized by an increase in Argentina’s external dependence on hydrocarbons: gas imports increased by 33.6 percent over the decade while diesel imports grew by 46 percent and gasoline expanded 996 percent.”

The document, published by the General Mosconi Energy Institute, points out that Argentina, which until the end of the 20th century enjoyed self-sufficiency in gas and oil, began to experience a considerable decrease in production in 2004.

Two years later, gas began to be imported by pipeline from Bolivia and in 2008 liquefied natural gas (LNG), brought by ship mainly from the United States and Qatar, started to be imported.

“Since then, the proportion of imported gas out of the total consumed in the country has grown. In 2009 it represented only six percent, rising to 22 percent in 2014. In 2021 it represented 17 percent of the total,” the report states.

Still far below its real potential, Vaca Muerta’s production has been growing. In June it contributed 56 percent of the 139 million cubic meters per day of natural gas produced in Argentina, according to official data.

Gas is the main fuel in the country’s energy mix, accounting for about 55 percent of the total.

With regard to oil, Vaca Muerta contributed 239,000 of the 583,000 barrels per day of national production in June.

Today, gas from Patagonia in the south is transported to Buenos Aires and other large towns and cities through three gas pipelines built in the 1980s, which do not live up to demand.

For this reason, the gas pipeline whose contract was signed this month has been described by both the political leadership and the academic world as the most urgently needed piece of infrastructure in Argentina at the moment.

Its cost was set at 1.49 billion dollars at the end of 2021, but it will probably exceed two billion dollars, due to the devaluation and inflation that are crippling the Argentine economy.

According to the government, the pipeline will be operational by June next year, at the beginning of the next southern hemisphere winter.

View of the Costanera thermal power plant, which produces electricity in Buenos Aires with natural gas. Thermal generation predominates in Argentina’s electricity mix, making up almost 60 percent of the total in 2021. The gas shortage recorded this southern hemisphere winter made it necessary to use more liquid fuels to supply the power plants. CREDIt: Enel

In search of investment

“Of course the pipeline is important, but it will not solve all of Argentina’s energy problems,” said Daniel Bouille, a researcher with a PhD in energy economics.

The expert reminded IPS that an important factor is that shale oil and gas is extracted using the hydraulic fracturing technique or fracking, which “is more costly than conventional techniques.”

“To develop Vaca Muerta´s great potential, investments of between 60 and 70 billion dollars are needed,” he explained.

Bouille said that today the conditions do not exist for these investments to take place, in a country whose economy has not been growing since 2010 and where there are exchange controls and limits on the export of foreign exchange, none of which foments confidence among international capital.

In order to combat this situation, Economy Minister Sergio Massa announced that on Sept. 9 he will visit oil giants such as Chevron, Exxon, Shell and Total at their headquarters in the U.S. city of Houston, Texas to interest them in the possibility of investing in Vaca Muerta.

Argentina does not seem to be coming up with alternatives. “For 20 years the country’s conventional oil and gas production has been steadily decreasing, because all the basins have been depleted,” said Nicolás Gadano, an economist specializing in energy at the private Di Tella University.

“It is precisely the shale hydrocarbons from Vaca Muerta that in the last five years have offset the situation to slow the fall in total production,” he added in an interview with IPS.

Gadano believes that further development of Vaca Muerta’s potential will be positive for Argentina even from an environmental point of view.

“This year in Argentina a lot of oil was used for electricity production due to the lack of gas. But when the pipeline begins to operate, liquid fuels will be replaced by gas, which is a cleaner fuel,” he said.

There are also less visible but critical voices regarding the focus on Vaca Muerta as the path that Argentina should follow in terms of energy.

“Fracking, in addition to its negative environmental and social impacts, is very expensive,” said Martín Alvarez, a researcher at Observatorio Petrolero Sur, a non-governmental organization that focuses on the environmental and social aspects of energy issues.

He noted that “Vaca Muerta hydrocarbons had no possibilities of being exported until the current global energy crisis. It wasn’t until this year’s international price increase that a market for them emerged.”

“Argentina has forgotten about renewable energies and is committed to fossil fuels, which is a step backwards and goes against international climate agreements. Seeking the development of Vaca Muerta has been the only energy policy of this country in the last 10 years,” he complained.

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The UN General Assembly in session, with diplomats from 193 countries. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elias

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 29 2022 (IPS)

When UN diplomats are charged with civil or criminal offenses – from traffic violations to sexual abuse — they avoid prosecution and civil law suits under cover of diplomatic immunity.

It’s a privilege exercised by diplomats worldwide—including US diplomats in overseas postings.

In the 1970s and 80s, there were diplomats from several financially-ailing member states, who were cut-off from their cash-starved home countries, and unable to pay their rents and phone and electricity bills—plus their UN membership dues.

The landlords who had bitter experiences fighting tenants over unpaid rents and damages to their apartments avoided diplomats as tenants because they were protected by diplomatic immunity and couldn’t be dragged into Small Claims Court.

So, at least in one New York City apartment building, the landlord had a sign which read: “Dogs and Diplomats Not Welcome.”

But last week it was a more serious offense—by an envoy from South Sudan, accredited to the UN, who was accused of rape, an allegation made by a neighbor in a Manhattan apartment building.

But he claimed diplomatic immunity to avoid prosecution by New York City police.

The immunity can be waived only by the country which accredited the diplomat to the UN—or in the alternative, the US could declare the diplomat persona non grata (PNG).

In international diplomacy, PNG is a status applied by a host country to foreign diplomats to remove their protection of diplomatic immunity from arrest and prosecution.

But South Sudan went one better: it recalled its ambassador.

A letter, dated August 25, from South Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, a copy of which was obtained by IPS, says “It is with regret that our diplomat was involved in an alleged rape incident with one of New York City residents”.

“The leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation took the decision to immediately recall the diplomat in question, pending a full investigation from a specialised committee. The. The diplomat in question is now back in South Sudan and has been suspended from his duties, awaiting the outcome of this investigation.”

The letter also says the Ministry of Foreign Affairs “would like to take this opportunity to reiterate the government of South Sudan’s, and indeed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ position that sexual misconduct in any shape or form is heinous end wholly unacceptable.”

“As a government, we have worked tirelessly since our inception to ensure that the rights of women and girls are protected. The Ministry of Public Service has worked with civil servants across the country to carry out sensitivity trainings”.

Beyond ratifying regional and international instruments for the protection of women and girls, the letter says, “we have also worked to receive direction from our gender and youth cluster to practically implement these instruments across the country. because it is our belief that living a life devoid of gender-based violence and indeed the threat of it, is a right for all.”

“The mandate of our foreign missions is two-fold. To both protect the interests of South Sudanese citizens abroad and to promote strong bilateral relations with our host countries. It is regretful that in this alleged instance, the latter has been jeopardized. We are committed to working closely with the relevant US authorities to take appropriate action, following the outcome of all investigations,“ says the letter, in an attempt at damage control.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and indeed the extended government of South Sudan stands with victims of pf sexual assault everywhere and is committed to continuing to safeguard all those at risk of sexual violence”, the letter adds.

Antonia Kirkland, Global Lead, Legal Equality and Access to Justice at Equality Now, told IPS: “We welcome South Sudan’s acknowledgment of the seriousness of these rape allegations against one if its UN diplomats”.

The status of an individual — regardless of whether they are a diplomat, a head of state, royalty, or a UN employee — should not be an excuse for impunity or misused to shield someone from facing justice if they have committed an act of sexual violence or other serious crime, she pointed out.

“In cases involving sexual violence, diplomatic immunity should not be invoked and allegations must be effectively investigated and prosecuted, and convicted perpetrators punished. It is also vital that victims are fully supported and receive the justice they deserve and to which they are entitled”.

“Consistent with its stated internal commitment to survivors of criminal sexual harassment by its own employees and intention to waive immunity in such cases, we hope the UN is encouraging South Sudan to cooperate closely with the US and authorities in New York to ensure the case is fully investigated,” said Kirkland.

If the findings indicate that the rape allegations are credible, South Sudan should uphold the rule of law and ensure the case goes to court, and if he is found guilty, ensure he is punished accordingly, she declared.

Asked about the accusations, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters August 23: “We’re aware of this. We’ve seen the press reports. I think this is an issue having to do, as you said, — I think there had been some early misreporting on it — not with anyone who is working for the United Nations but a member of the diplomatic corps.”

“I think any alleged rape or sexual assault needs to be fully investigated. This is a particular issue between the Member State and the US Government, but we’ll keep an eye on it’, he added.

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Zimbabwean First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa appears to be following the example of her predecessor Grace Mugabe. Credit: Wikipedia.

By Farai Shawn Matiashe
Bulawayo, Aug 26 2022 (IPS)

On Friday, November 24, 2017, Emmerson Mnangagwa was sworn as interim leader during a colourful ceremony at the National Sports Stadium in the capital Harare, after the ouster of President Robert Mugabe in a military coup more than a week before.

Seated on Mnangagwa’s side is his wife, Auxillia, wearing a white costume and some expensive-looking gold jewellery. The couple looks on as the ruling party Zanu-PF supporters and Mugabe’s critics cheer the ushering in of a “Second Republic”, “New Zimbabwe”, and “New Dispensation”.

At this point, Auxillia, a former spy from the Central Intelligence Organisation and a former member of parliament who married Mnangagwa in 1984, was seen by many Zimbabweans as a “loving, peaceful and caring woman” popularly known as Amai. This Shona name translates to mother.

After the swearing-in ceremony, Auxillia focused on her philanthropic work supporting and uplifting marginalised communities, including women, young girls, and people with disabilities.

However, nearly five years later, Auxillia has gone into overdrive and seems to be following in the path of her predecessor, Grace Mugabe, nicknamed ‘Gucci Grace’ for her lavish shopping sprees in New York, Paris and Singapore.

Auxillia’s philanthropic work is now heavily funded by the State, she takes up space in the State-owned newspaper Herald and on Zimbabwe Television, and she officiates at the government’s official business.

Zimbabwean journalist and writer Douglas Rogers, in his book Mugabe: Two Weeks and journalist Geoffrey Nyarota with his Graceless Fall of Robert Mugabe: The End of a Dictator’s Reign, captures the story of Grace.

The shy receptionist Grace, who officially married Mugabe in 1996, was conferred a controversial Doctorate in Sociology by the University of Zimbabwe at a time her ally Jonathan Moyo was a Higher Education minister.

Reports emerged that Grace did not defend her thesis and did not spend enough time required for one to complete a doctorate, and the conferment was challenged in court.

Grace rose to power that same year when she got herself heavily involved in Zanu-PF’s shameful politics and State affairs.

She influenced her husband Mugabe to appoint young politicians from her faction, Generation 40, and even summoned government ministers and attended hearings.

Grace had Joice Mujuru and seven cabinet ministers aligned to the war veteran, fired by Mugabe in December 2014 before turning on Mnangagwa in a fierce battle that ended in November 2017 – a few weeks after Mugabe had sacked his deputy.

She used Zanu-PF gatherings to rant against her opponents, including military generals accusing them of working hand in hand with Mnangagwa to topple the long-time ruler and Africa’s strongman.

In 2018, Mnangagwa and his Lacoste faction, who accused Grace of taking over government functions before the coup, warned his wife, Auxillia, from interfering with his government official duties.

Since then, however, things have changed. In the Herald, a team of reporters seems to have become Auxillia’s personal reporters. They cover her philanthropic work, and people from the ‘Office of the First Lady’ apparently have the final say on what the editors publish.

Kudakwashe Munemo, a political analyst, told IPS that there is a lack of transparency on sources of funds channelled to Auxillia’s philanthropic work.

“As a country, we do not have an official office of the spouses of whoever is elected President. That distinction is key, for we ought not to have a conflation between programmes conducted by the President’s spouse and those by the government, especially where state resources are involved at the expense of official government business,” he said.

Maxwell Saungweme, a political analyst, said the problem Zimbabwe is facing is that there is no clear distinction between Mnangagwa’s family, the ruling party, Zanu-PF and State business.

“What she is doing is part of the rot of party-State-military conflation and, in this case, first family-State conflation,” he said.

“She is certainly not learning from Grace and other first ladies elsewhere in Africa who did not keep to their lane while their husbands do government and state business. Everything she is trying to do is wrong.”

Auxillia, who travels around the country using blue lights security detail and sometimes with road-clearing and traffic-blocking police motorcycles, a privilege enjoyed by few top government officials, has been conferred various titles from ambassadors to patrons of some State institutions.

In May, Auxillia was conferred a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) (Honoris Causa) degree at GD Goenka University in Gurugram Haryana, India, in recognition of her philanthropic work.

Also, in May, Auxillia officially opened the African Elephant Conference, held in Hwange, a resort town 335 kilometres from Zimbabwe’s second-largest city Bulawayo, ahead of the 2022 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

Even though Auxillia is Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry patron, political analysts say that she took over a government function as the conference was an inter-State meeting attended by ministers from 14 African countries.

“Roles of First Ladies or spouses of leaders vary across political jurisdictions, with some preferring them to remain in the background while others allow a more active role,” Vivid Gwede, a political analyst, told IPS.

“Where they are allowed to play an active role, this does not clash or compete with officials and ministers of government being usually ceremonial.”

He said in Zimbabwe active first lady easily oversteps the boundaries and causes problems.

“This is apart from questions of transparency and accountability in the use of public resources,” said Gwede.

Rashweat Mukundu, a political analyst, said the “Office of the First Lady” should reflect the soft side of the President.

“There is nothing wrong with Auxillia doing philanthropic work. What is of concern is to abuse that office for partisan politics. It could be political campaigning or any other office that excludes other groups. This is because the Office of the First Lady must be a unifying office. It must be an office that reflects the interests of the generality of citizens across the political divide,” he said.

He said accountability is an area that needs to be looked at to guarantee that State resources are not used for partisan politics.

“The challenge is that we have no mechanisms for accountability determining how much the State allocates to the Office of the First Lady. If the First Lady is energetic as the current First Lady is, it is an opportunity for the First Lady to do activities that unite us rather than those that divide us further,” he said.

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By External Source
Aug 26 2022 (IPS-Partners)

The long and distant epoch of pre-history, dated to the time before the start of the Common Era, is conventionally divided into three periods: the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. Subsequently, in the era of written history, we generally have not relied upon specific metals or minerals to define our periods. Too many metals and minerals, harnessed by new production techniques and new labour patterns, have contributed to our immense capacity to generate large surpluses. There is the Age of Industry but not, for instance, the Age of Steel, the core metal of our period.

‘We grow out of iron’, wrote the Russian poet Aleksei Gastev in 1914. He watches the furnaces and the forges, the hammers and the machinery, and then:

Gazing upon them, I draw myself up straight.
Pouring into my veins is a new, iron blood,
And I begin to grow.
I myself am growing steel shoulders and infinitely strong hands.
I am merging with the iron edifice.
With my shoulders, I am pushing the rafters and the beams up to the roof.
My feet are grounded, but my head is higher than the building.
And while I am still choking from my inhuman efforts,
I am already crying out:
a word, comrades, a word!
The iron echo has heeded my words, the whole building
trembles with impatience.
I continue to rise upwards; I am on level with the pipes.
And there is no story here, there is no speech.
There is only the cry:
we will triumph!

The virus of deindustrialisation that beset North America and Europe in the 1970s created a field of scholarly literature on post-work and post-industrial society. These writings led to the curious assumption that the digital economy would be the primary motor of capital accumulation; there was marginal interest in the fact that even the digital economy needed infrastructure, including satellites and undersea cables as well as plants to generate electricity and gadgets to link to the digital highways. This digital economy is grounded in a range of metals and minerals – from copper to lithium. Old steel, tempered in large factories, however, continues to be the foundation of our society. This steel – a thousand times stronger than iron – is as ubiquitous in our world as plastic.

Visual Capitalist, 50 Years of Global Steel Production Visualised, 2021.

Over the past fifty years, steel production has tripled. The major steel producers are now China, Europe, India, Japan, Russia, and the United States. During the pandemic, steel production only fell by 1%, largely because internal demand in countries such as China and India kept the furnaces burning. While steel production in China decreased moderately due to concerns about overproduction, Indian steel factories have increased steel production over the course of the pandemic.

Many of these factories in India are in the public sector, built with state funds and administered by state and para-statal entities. Amongst these factories is Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL), a steel complex in Visakhapatanam in India’s south-eastern state of Andhra Pradesh. The factory, affectionately called Visakha Steel, was born out of a mass struggle led by the people of Andhra Pradesh that began in 1966 and lasted till the furnaces were lit in 1992. The factory complex was established at a time when the Indian state – under pressure from the Indian ruling class and the International Monetary Fund – began to liberalise the economy, including through the privatisation of state assets. The factory was born into a liberalised world with the government eager to scuttle its possibilities to sell it off to private capital in a wave of privatisation that could better be called piratisation.

The inspirational story of Visakha Steel is the subject of our dossier no. 55 (August 2022), The People’s Steel Plant and the Fight Against Privatisation in Visakhapatanam. The dossier describes the struggles of the people of Andhra Pradesh to force the government to build a factory, a ‘temple of modern India’, as India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru called them. Visakha Ukku, Andhrula Hakku, the youth and students chanted: ‘Visakha Steel is the Andhra people’s right’. In 1966, the struggle was met by terrible state violence that resulted in the death of thirty-two people and the arrests and torture of many, many more. Unable to crush the movement, which was shaped by the communists, and understanding the imperative of more steel for an India that desperately sought to transcend the problems of hunger and illiteracy, the government agreed to build the factory and spent Rs. 17 billion till the mid-1980s to start building the plant.

Since Visakha Steel emerged at a time when the religion of privatisation had become dominant, the Indian government sought on several occasions to scuttle its ability to survive in the public sector by preventing the steel factory from acquiring captive mines, building a captive port nearby in Gangavaram, building sufficient capacity in its steel melt shop (to process the crude iron into steel), and receiving adequate and timely government funding. The government instead tried to let a private company set up a steel melt shop that would use molten iron from Visakha Steel’s blast furnaces to produce processed steel which could be sold in the market at high profit margins – a move that the workers defeated. At no point did the government demonstrate its commitment to either the production of steel or to improving the living conditions of the steel factory workers and their families.

The workers, on the other hand, had their own ideas. Led by the Centre for Indian Trade Unions (CITU) and other unions, the workers fought to restructure government loans and convert them into state equity, to allot a captive iron ore mine for the plant, and to increase the capacity of the steel melt shop. As our dossier notes, the steel workers have been ‘strongly committed to the company’s growth as a technically efficient and financially viable plant, whether by fighting to expand the plant, gain captive mines, or resolve technical glitches and issues. Whenever a technical problem has arisen in the plant, be it with coke ovens, power plants, steel melt shop, or otherwise, the workers and trade unions have tirelessly conducted thorough study and analysis to come up with and implement adequate solutions’. What we have here is a government eager to cannibalise Visakha Steel and workers committed to production at ‘the people’s steel plant’.

Instead of setting up the Gangavaram Port in the public sector as initially envisaged, the government has given the port to the Adani Group – whose owner has intimate ties with Prime Minister Narendra Modi – which charges Visakha Steel substantial fees. It is important to note that this port was built on land that originally belonged to the steel plant. Further, while Visakha Steel pays property taxes in the city, Adani’s private port is exempt from paying taxes. At the same time, Modi’s government tried to deliver Visakha Steel’s land to the South Korean steel giant POSCO to set up its own rolling mills to produce special auto grade steel products using the steel from the Visakha plant. In a typical example of privatisation by stealth, the dossier explains, ‘Visakha Steel was being asked to handle the most complex, dangerous, and messy kinds of work – procuring ore, running coke ovens, oxygen plants, and various furnaces – while POSCO would take over the most lucrative part of the value chain’.

Nothing doing, said the workers. Drawing from the historic struggle that built the plant in the first place, the workers began a movement to save Visakha Steel. The tidal wave of this movement – which has received key support from the farmers’ struggle, unionised rural childcare workers, and the people of Andhra Pradesh – stayed the hand of the government. While the government dithered during the pandemic, it was the steel workers who ran their oxygen plants continuously to produce medical grade oxygen for the hospitals.

Not much is written about struggles such as this one, led by the brave steel workers who are mostly forgotten or, if remembered, then maligned. They stand beside the furnaces, rolling the steel out, tempering it, wanting to build better canals for the farmers, to build beams for schools and hospitals, and to build the infrastructure so that their communities can transcend the dilemmas of humanity. Our dossier is built through our interactions with the steel workers and their union, who told us how they see their past and how they understand their struggle. They also shared with us their photographs (as well as photographs taken by Kunchem Rajesh of the Andhra Pradesh-based newspaper Prajasakti), out of which our art department made the collages which illustrate the dossier (some of which are shared in this newsletter).

At their demonstrations, the workers sing, chant, and recite poems that tell them to get ready for battle ‘before the earth disappears under our feet, before the steel slips away from our hands’. If you try to privatise the factory, they sing, ‘Visakha city will turn into a steel furnace, North Andhra into a battlefield… We will defend our steel with our lives’.

Source: Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

By Michelle Bachelet
GENEVA, Aug 26 2022 (IPS)

As you know, after four years as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, my mandate ends next week, on 31 August.

The world has changed fundamentally over the course of my mandate.

Michelle Bachelet

I would say the profound impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the ever-increasing effects of climate change, and the reverberating shocks of the food, fuel and finance crisis resulting from the war against Ukraine have been the three major issues.

Polarization within and among States has reached extraordinary levels and multilateralism is under pressure.

Important protest movements occurred in every region of the world demanding an end to structural racism, respect for economic and social rights, and against corruption, governance deficits and abuse of power – in many instances accompanied by violence, threats and attacks against protesters and human rights defenders, and at some times against journalists.

Some led to real change in the country. In other cases, rather than listening to the voices of the people, governments responded by shrinking the space for debate and dissent.

Over the past few months – once the COVID situation allowed me to resume official country visits – I have been to Burkina Faso, Niger, Afghanistan, China, Bosnia, Peru and Bangladesh. I have been able to see first-hand the impact of climate change, armed conflict, the food-fuel-finance crisis, hateful rhetoric, systematic discrimination, and the human rights challenges around migration, among other issues.

The UN Human Rights Office has worked, in a myriad of ways, to help monitor, engage and advocate for the protection and promotion of human rights. As I have said before, at the UN, dialogue, engagement, cooperation, monitoring, reporting and public advocacy must all be part of our DNA.

We have worked to try to help bridge the gap between government and civil society, to support national implementation of human rights obligations and advise on reforms to bring laws and policies into compliance with international standards, to expand our presences in-country so we are a in a better position to work closely with the people on the ground. We have spoken out in private and public on country-specific and broader issues. And we have seen some progress.

The recognition of the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment by the UN General Assembly last month marked the culmination of many years of advocacy by civil society. I am proud of my Office’s support and strong backing of this movement throughout the course of my mandate.

The extreme weather events of the past few months have again driven home, powerfully, the existential need for urgent action to protect our planet for current and future generations. Meeting this need is the greatest human rights challenge of this era – and all States have an obligation to work together on this, and to walk the talk, to fully implement the right to a healthy environment.

The response to the triple planetary crisis of pollution, climate change and biodiversity loss must be centred in human rights, including the rights to participation, access to information and justice, and by addressing the disproportionate impact of environmental harms on the most marginalized and disadvantaged.

There has also been steady progress towards abolition of the death penalty – some 170 States have abolished or introduced a moratorium, in law or in practice, or suspended executions for more than 10 years. The Central African Republic, Chad, Kazakhstan, Sierra Leone and Papua New Guinea are among those who have taken steps to fully abolish the death penalty.

Other States, including Liberia and Zambia are also actively considering abolition. Malaysia announced that it will abolish the country’s mandatory death penalty, including for drug related offences. As of today, 90 States have ratified the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the key international treaty prohibiting the use of the death penalty.

Concerns remain, however, about the increased use or resumption of capital punishment in other countries, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar and Singapore, and others like China and Viet Nam continue to classify data on its use as a state secret, limiting the possibility of scrutiny.

I have – from the beginning of my mandate – pushed for greater recognition of the indivisibility and interdependence of economic, social and cultural rights with civil and political rights. The effects of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine have brought into stark focus this interdependence.

States must draw lessons from the pandemic and the current food-fuel-finance crisis by designing long-term measures to build better and stronger universal public health and social protection systems.

Social protection coverage must facilitate access to health care, protect people against poverty and ensure essential economic and social rights, including food, water, housing, health and education. I also call on States to adopt proactive measures, including food, agriculture and fuel subsidies, to mitigate the impact of the crises.

All of this needs to be designed with people as part of the solution, through investment in inclusive, safe and meaningful channels for debate and participation at all levels.

Governing is tough – I know because I have twice been President of my country, Chile. There are always many pressing demands, challenges and problems to address. But governing is about prioritizing – and human rights must always be a priority. In many situations my Office has been covering, there is a lack of political will to take the necessary steps to really tackle a situation head on. Political will is key – and where there is a will, there is a way.

States often invoke their own particular context when faced with allegations of human rights violations and when called upon to take steps to address them. Context is indeed important – but context must never be used to justify human rights violations.

In many instances, sustained advocacy on key human rights issues, grounded in international human rights laws and standards, bears fruit. In Colombia this month, the incoming administration has pledged a shift in its approach on drug policy – from a punitive to a more social and public health approach.

By addressing one of the deep-rooted causes of violence in Colombia, this approach could be instrumental to better protect the rights of peasants, indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities and of people who use drugs, both in Colombia and globally.

My Office has been advocating – globally – for a human rights-based approach on drug policy, and is ready to assist.

The worldwide mobilization of people for racial justice, notably in 2020, has forced a long-delayed reckoning with racial discrimination and shifted debates towards a focus on systemic racism and the institutions that perpetrate it.

I call on all States to seize this moment to achieve a turning point for racial equality and justice. My Office is working on its second report to the UN Human Rights Council on this issue, to be presented next month.

I have always sought – even on the most challenging issues – to encourage dialogue, to open the door for further exchanges. This means listening as well as speaking, keeping our eyes and ears to the context, identifying entry points and roadblocks, and trying to build trust incrementally, even when it seems unlikely.

During my four years as High Commissioner, I had the privilege of speaking to so many courageous, spirited, extraordinary human rights defenders:

The brave, indomitable women human rights defenders in Afghanistan;

The determined mothers of the disappeared in Mexico;

The inspirational staff working at a health centre in Bunia in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, serving victims of sexual violence;

The wisdom and strength of indigenous peoples in Peru, who are on the frontlines of the impact of climate change, illegal mining and logging, and defend their rights in the face of serious risks;

And the empathy and generosity of communities hosting internally displaced people in Burkina Faso.

I found allies in traditional village leaders in Niger, who were working in their own ways to advance human rights in their communities; I met young people from Malaysia, Sweden, Australia, Costa Rica and elsewhere whose resourcefulness, creativity and ambition was palpable;

I shared the pain of the father in Venezuela who showed me the sports medals his teenage son had won, before he was killed during protests in 2017;

And I shared the tears of the mother I met in Srebrenica who carried hope that 27 years after her son disappeared, she will one day find his remains and lay him to rest next to his father’s grave.

Last week, I spoke with Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar.

One teacher I met told me he had earned distinctions in all his classes at school in Myanmar and had dreamed of being a doctor. Instead, he has spent the past five years in a refugee camp, having had to flee his country – because he is Rohingya. “I still cry at night sometimes when I remember my dream,” he told me, adding that “my Buddhist friends are now doctors in Myanmar.”

My own experience as a refugee was much more comfortable, with the means to continue my education and with a good standard of living – but the yearning for one’s homeland, the desire of so many of the Rohingya to return home resonated deeply with me. Sadly, the conditions needed for them to be able to return to their homes in a voluntary, dignified and sustainable way are not there yet.

Today marks five years since more than 700,000 Rohingya women, children and men were forced to flee Myanmar for Bangladesh – and Myanmar’s human rights catastrophe continues to worsen, with the military (the Tatmadaw) maintaining military operations in Kayah and Kayin in the southeast; Chin state in the northwest; and Sagaing and Magway regions in the Bamar heartland.

The use of air power and artillery against villages and residential areas has intensified. Recent spikes in violence in Rakhine State also seemed to indicate that the last fairly stable area of the country may not avoid a resurgence of armed conflict. Rohingya communities have frequently been caught between the Tatmadaw and Arakan Army fighters or have been targeted directly in operations. Over 14 million need humanitarian assistance.

We continue to document gross human rights violations and serious violations of international humanitarian law on a daily basis, including repression against protesters and attacks against civilians that may amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes.

I urge the international community to intensify pressure on the military to stop its campaign of violence against the people of Myanmar, to insist on prompt restoration of civilian rule, and accountability for violations committed by security forces.

Yesterday marked six months since Russia’s armed attack. Six unimaginably terrifying months for the people of Ukraine, 6.8 million of whom have had to flee their country. Millions of others have been internally displaced. We have documented at least 5,587 civilians killed and 7,890 injured. Of these casualties, nearly 1,000 are children.

Six months on, the fighting continues, amid almost unthinkable risks posed to civilians and the environment as hostilities are conducted close to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.

I call on the Russian President to halt armed attack against Ukraine. The Zaporizhzhia plant needs to be immediately demilitarized.

Both parties must respect, at all times and in all circumstances, international human rights law and international humanitarian law.

The international community must insist on accountability for the many serious violations documented, some of which may amount to war crimes.

I am alarmed by the resumption of hostilities in northern Ethiopia. Civilians have suffered enough – and this will only exacerbate the suffering of civilians already in desperate need. I implore the Government of Ethiopia and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front to work to de-escalate the situation and immediately cease hostilities.

I also urge a renewed focus by the international community on protracted – often forgotten – crises including the situation in Yemen, Syria, the Sahel and Haiti.

And I urge continued support for the UN Human Rights Office, the UN human rights treaty bodies, and the UN Special Procedures mechanism, all of which work tirelessly in defence of international human rights laws and standards.

The journey to defend human rights never ends – and vigilance against roll-backs of rights is vital. I honour all those who, in their own ways, are working to defend human rights. As a woman and a lifelong feminist, I want to pay particular tribute to women human rights defenders, who have been at the forefront of social movements that have benefitted all of us. They have often been the ones bringing to the table the unheard voices of the most vulnerable. I will continue to stand with you as I return home to Chile.

To end, I would like to thank you journalists, based here in Geneva and across the globe, for the indispensable work that you do. When we in the UN Human Rights Office raise the alarm, it is crucial that it rings loudly, and this is only possible when the world’s media gets the stories out there.

Michelle Bachelet is the outgoing UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. This article is based on her address to reporters on August 25. She was elected President of Chile on two occasions (2006 – 2010 and 2014 – 2018). She was the first female president of Chile and served as Health Minister (2000-2002) as well as Chile’s and Latin America’s first female Defense Minister (2002 – 2004).

IPS UN Bureau

 

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The Nueva Zelandia school is leading a pioneering experience of community electricity generation with solar panels that will reduce the cost of consumption for the school and 20 local families taking part in the project in the poor municipality of Independencia to the north of Santiago. To this initiative, the school will add another one to recycle gray water to irrigate the gardens. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

By Orlando Milesi
SANTIAGO, Aug 25 2022 (IPS)

Renewable energies, especially solar and wind power, are growing inexorably in Chile, driven by large companies. But community generation of alternative energy is not taking off, despite a law promoting it.

This long, narrow country of 19.5 million people, rich in solar energy due to the northern Atacama Desert as well as wind thanks to its location between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes Mountains, can accelerate the transition to carbon neutrality, thanks to non-conventional renewable energies (NCRE), which also include hydroelectricity.

On Jul. 28 at 15:00 hours, NCRE broke the record for hourly participation in electricity generation in the country, accounting for 62.3 percent of the total. In 2021, renewable generation accounted for 44.8 percent of all electricity generated, equivalent to 35,892 gigawatt hours (GWh). The total generated that year was 80,116 GWh.

Ana Lía Rojas, executive director of the Chilean Association of Renewable Energies and Storage (Acera), which brings together companies in the field, said that all sectors are making progress in NCRE, especially energy and mining.

Acera estimated that 2022 could end with 13,000 to 14,000 megawatts (MW) of NCRE installed, and in fact there were already more than 12,370 MW in May.

“It’s been a long while since we represented 10 percent, we surpassed 20 percent five years before the date set by law and NCRE are currently above 35 percent of the total. This is a worldwide milestone,” said Rojas.

The target is now 50 percent in the next few years and 70 percent by 2030.

Andrés Díaz, director of the Center for Sustainable Energy and Development at the private Diego Portales University, said “the increase in the share of NCRE in the energy mix, as well as the promotion of storage systems, is fundamental as part of the energy transition we are facing.

“When it comes to meeting the greenhouse gas emission reduction targets resulting from the retirement of coal-fired plants, NCRE must be able to ensure stability in the electric power system,” he told IPS.

Díaz added that this implies providing the capacity to act in the event of possible failures in the transmission systems.

“There is a pedagogical aspect, the solar panels teach children how elements of nature can contribute technologically to making available a resource essential for human life that does not harm the environment,” says Rita Méndez, principal of the Nueva Zelandia school, in the municipality of Independencia on the northern outskirts of Santiago, Chile. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

Community generation lacks momentum

These enormous advances in NCRE have not gone hand in hand with the meager development of community generation projects, the distributed or decentralized generation modality focused on self-consumption, mostly solar and collectively owned.

Nicolás O’Ryan, an electrical civil engineer and founding partner of Red Genera, promoted a community NCRE project at the Nueva Zelandia school in the low-income municipality of Independencia, on the northern outskirts of Santiago, by installing solar panels on the roof of the gymnasium.

The initiative is one of the very few promoted using Law 21118, which has been in force for two years, to encourage community electricity generation, also known as citizen generation.

The government’s Energy Sustainability Agency financed 50 percent of the 21,000-dollar investment. A further 3,158 dollars were contributed by Red Genera and the remaining 7,368 dollars were raised by five individuals and a campaign of donations from individuals and companies.

The panels will provide 26,703 kilowatt hours (kWh) per year. Of that total, 29.67 percent will go to the school and 3.52 percent to each of the beneficiaries and investors.

The connection process with Enel Chile, the subsidiary of the Italian transnational electricity group Enel, “is well advanced and only the last step remains – notifying the connection,” O’Ryan told IPS.

The energy will serve the school’s consumption and that of 20 neighboring families. The rest will be managed through a process known locally as Net Billing, the simultaneous measurement of consumption and injection of energy into the grid, which enables any user to self-generate electricity and inject the surplus into the grid, receiving a payment for it.

“By the end of the year I hope we will be ready…we need institutional support to channel the process and resolve difficulties such as the change of administration of the school, that will be transferred to the Local Education Service,” he said.

The school’s principal, Rita Méndez, told IPS that the plant contributes to the education of the 393 children (more than 50 percent of them sons and daughters of immigrants, mostly Venezuelans) who are in the 10 grades in the school in this underprivileged neighborhood, starting in kindergarten.

“The plant helps us to train new citizens in environmental awareness, who help care for the environment and think about how to use clean energy to contribute to the development of life,” she said in an interview at the center.

Part of the 33,600 solar panels installed in August 2020 in the vicinity of Til Til, in northern Santiago, with an investment of 15 million dollars and a useful life of about 30 years. In this municipality, one of the poorest in Chile, the project covers 23 hectares and will generate nine megawatts of electric power. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

Pioneer project, five years on

Environmental lawyer Cristian Mires, co-founder of the non-governmental Energía Colectiva, presides over Buin Solar, the first initiative in Chile aimed at generating electricity on a community basis, founded in 2017.

At the time 100 people contributed upwards of 52 dollars each to finance a 10 KW solar panel plant installed at the energy laboratory of the Environment Institute (Idma) in Buin, a town 47 kilometers south of Santiago.

The energy is consumed by the Institute and any surplus is injected into the grid. After 10 years of operation, the plant will be transferred to Idma.

Idma pays about 215 dollars a month for the energy, but without panels the cost would have been twice as much. And it consumes clean energy, an important aspect for an Institute that trains professionals to combat climate change.

“Buin Solar was a pioneer collective project to build the first community plant. It is a successful project that has been a great learning experience and has highlighted the importance of working in associative projects,” said Mires.

He added that “community energy is an urgent solution to address the climate crisis. Buin Solar has social, environmental and economic benefits.”

However, the environmentalist regrets the slow progress made in community generation despite the existence of a legal framework that promotes its development.

“The promotion of community energy is very weak, the democratization of energy is very low,” he argued.

According to Mires, trust must be built to work collectively, but incentives are also needed to overcome the financing barrier and the lack of technical capabilities.

“It would be very important to have instruments for promotion. There is a commitment in the government program of President Gabriel Boric (in power since March), which mentions community generation. We are committed to greater development of this kind of energy generation. Up to now, most of them are individual projects,” he said.

The Los Cururos wind farm, inaugurated in 2014, is located in the middle of the desert of the Coquimbo region, facing the Pacific Ocean. The plant contributes 109.6 megawatts of power to Chile’s Central Interconnected System. It belongs to the private EPM Group and has 57 wind turbines of 1.8 and 2.0 megawatts. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

Distributed generation – a minimal contribution to the energy mix

Distributed generation is characterized by small power plants that do not exceed 300 kilowatts (kW), as opposed to centralized generation, with large plants that inject all their production into the transmission grid. And while it has grown in terms of the number of individual actors, their contribution to the system is very small.

Felipe Gallardo, a research engineer at Acera, told IPS that as of June there were 12,365 distributed or decentralized NCRE generation facilities in private hands, totaling 125 MW, equivalent to 0.4 percent of the country’s installed capacity.

“Of the Net Billing installations, over 98 percent involve solar photovoltaic technology,” he said. The largest number are in the central regions of Chile.

Diaz, meanwhile, stressed the importance of increasing the number of individuals who generate energy for their own consumption and contribute their surpluses to the grid.

“Energy self-management allows customers not only to receive income for the energy injected into the grid, but also to avoid contingencies in the national electricity system,” he said.

A view of the sunrise amid the steam from the geysers of El Tatio, in the Antofagasta region, where geothermal energy, a non-conventional, clean, infinite source of energy from the earth’s internal heat that abounds in northern Chile, has begun to be harnessed. CREDIT: Marianela Jarroud/IPS

Obstacles to NCRE

A worrying figure is the explosive growth in the dumping of non-conventional renewable energy, due to difficulties in transporting it because of the lack of transmission lines to large consumption centers.

This year 290 GWh of wind and solar energy could not be used.

“Future development depends on storage systems to ensure the stability of NCRE while we move forward in fulfilling the agreements for the retirement of coal-fired plants,” said Diaz.

Gallardo regretted the impact of dumping energy at the country level “because as long as there are these types of limitations, thermal power plants are necessary, which have a higher variable cost and generate polluting emissions.”

“As renewables expand and, on the other hand, coal-fired plants are retired, it will be necessary to adopt additional measures to increase the levels of maximum NCRE participation,” he said.

The Acera advisor believes that in the medium term, storage systems should be implemented to avoid NCRE dumping.

He also says it will be necessary to continue improving the regulatory framework for storage systems.

In the United States, race is the number one indicator of whether or not you live near potential toxic exposures. Credit: Courtesy of the author.

By Chandler Blythe Duncan
BIRMINGHAM, USA, Aug 25 2022 (IPS)

Built in 1942 and still operating today, Camp Lejeune is a military base covering over 153,000 acres in Jacksonville, North Carolina. Shortly after it was founded, it became heavily contaminated with toxic chemicals like perchloroethylene, benzene, trichloroethylene, vinyl chloride, and later on PFAS. However, the military only realized the severity of the issue in 1982, when the Marine Corps discovered volatile organic compounds on base.

Perchloroethylene is a colorless liquid used for the dry cleaning of fabrics. The source of the perchloroethylene contamination was a dry-cleaning firm ABC One-Hour Cleaners, situated off-base. The benzene and trichloroethylene contamination, both industrial solvents, came from years of improper use and disposal of chemicals on Camp Lejeune employed for cleaning weapons and equipment.

Black Americans breathe in 56% more polluted air than they produce, while Latinos inhale 63% more. In comparison, white people breathe in 17% less toxic air than they release

PFAS, a group of dangerous chemicals that may take over a thousand years to break down in the environment, is found in firefighting foam (AFFF). As a result of firefighters using and training with AFFF on base, PFAS ended up polluting at least 14 sites of the military base. AFFF, a fire suppressant, contains between 50% and 98% PFAS and was used regularly at Camp Lejeune.

The level of perchloroethylene detected at the military base was 43 times higher than the safe limit, while the level of trichloroethylene exceeded the safe limit by 280 times. PFAS were found at Camp Lejeune in a concentration over 2,450 times higher than the safe limit. Exposure to such a hazardous mix of chemicals may result in debilitating health problems such as lung cancer, Parkinson’s disease, kidney cancer, leukemia, multiple myeloma, and ovarian cancer.

 

How black service members are impacted by toxic exposure to a greater extent than their white counterparts

More than one million people lived at Camp Lejeune between 1953 and 1987 when toxic exposure on the military base was most extreme. During this time over 20,000 men trained on a racially segregated Marine base known as Montford Point, which is now part of Camp Lejeune, in preparation for World War II. 

The living conditions at Montford Point were inferior compared to Camp Lejeune. The Marines stationed at Montford endured racism and were not permitted to enter Camp Lejeune without being accompanied by a white servicemember.

The military used Montford Point until approximately seven years before the federal government prohibited racial segregation. Although this military base was not part of Camp Lejeune at the time, it was also heavily contaminated with some of the same toxic agents.

Regarding active duty military members, it is important to note that black individuals currently represent only 19% of all enlisted personnel. Only 9% of those are officers. Several decades ago, there were even fewer black service members, and a very small number had a high rank.

According to data from the Pentagon and the Veterans Affairs Department, black service members are less likely to become officers. As a result, they are more prone to being injured while serving their country than their white counterparts. 

Some black military members became injured by being exposed to toxic chemicals daily on military bases such as Camp Lejeune. Since most have a lower rank, they must spend time on contaminated military installations, unlike most officers, lieutenants, and generals. Therefore, the risk of toxic exposure among black servicemembers as a whole, is considerably higher. 

 

Toxic exposure, significantly more prevalent among communities living near polluted military bases

In the United States, race is the number one indicator of whether or not you live near potential toxic exposures. There is a consistent pattern in this country of placing hazardous waste and hazardous industry in disenfranchised areas, often predominantly neighborhoods of color.

The availability of affordable land, poverty, historical discrimination, and lack of political power to fight corporations all contribute to environmental racism. Consequently, minority neighborhoods are clustered around industrial sites, military bases, truck routes, ports, and other air pollution hotspots.

Right now, the population of Jacksonville, North Carolina, is 74,313. An additional 170,000 people live at Camp Lejeune. Half of the city’s population inhabits the military base, which places the civilian community at high risk of toxic exposure. Consequently, 37,156 individuals may come to struggle with awful, life-threatening diseases in the near future. This is not uncommon, as there are civilian communities living on or near the 679 contaminated military bases in the United States.

Alarmingly, the military ordered the clandestine burning of over 20 million pounds of AFFF and AFFF waste between 2016 and 2020, despite no evidence that incineration can destroy PFAS. The largest amounts of AFFF remains were burnt in New York, near Plattsburgh Air Force Base, Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station, and Griffiss Air Force Base. By burning this fire suppressant and the waste it left behind on military bases such as Camp Lejeune, the communities that live nearby, will inevitably be affected by the toxins emitted into the air by this reckless process.

 

How can we combat environmental racism?

To combat environmental racism, we must attempt to curb environmental crime and seek justice for its harm. Approximately 1/3 of the total burden of disease worldwide can be attributed to environmental hazards. Black Americans breathe in 56% more polluted air than they produce, while Latinos inhale 63% more. In comparison, white people breathe in 17% less toxic air than they release. 

When industry creates an environmental hazard that harms communities, legislative efforts and criminal conviction can sometimes be an effective deterrent. However, efforts to restrict environmental crime in this way have often been met with opposition from professional organizations who see policy as a hindrance to economic interest.

If the state turns a blind eye private law can aid disenfranchised, harmed communities through toxic tort and class action lawsuits. Grassroots efforts and coalitions with legal groups and private firms can be a successful option for redress. 

 

Chandler Blythe Duncan is a lawyer and MPH at Environmental Litigation Group P.C., whose main practice area is toxic tort law. Chandler’s expertise is providing quality legal assistance in cases involving water contamination and toxic exposure. She is also a member of the American Bar Association, the Birmingham Bar Association, and the Birmingham Volunteer Lawyers Program. 

 

As of 2019, the total value of the annual world shipping trade had reached more than 14 trillion US Dollars. Credit: Bigstock

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Aug 25 2022 (IPS)

‘There is a prevailing doctrine among the right and far-right political parties who are still in the opposition and are most likely to jump to power in those countries where they are not already ruling. It is the doctrine of “the worse things go, the better for us.”

Their markets-influenced neo-liberal thinking implies that their already existing or about-to-be governments will have the golden chance of overriding the present and past rights’ achievements in fields like social public services including health, education, pensions, and migration policies, let alone the fight against gender violence.

 

Business opportunities

Take this example: Wilbur Ross, the US Secretary (Minister) of Commerce under President Donald Trump’s Administration, was said to have commented on the looming COVID-19 in China that it was ‘a business opportunity.’

In its Wilbur Ross says Coronavirus could boost US jobs, the BCC on 31 January 2020 reported that “In response to a question on Fox Business News about whether the outbreak is a risk to the US economy Mr Ross said: “I don’t want to talk about a victory lap over a very unfortunate, very malignant disease.”

The Arctic has warmed nearly four times faster than the rest of the world over the past 43 years. This means the Arctic is on average around 3℃ warmer than it was in 1980

However, he also said: “The fact is, it does give business yet another thing to consider when they go through their review of their supply chain… So I think it will help to accelerate the return of jobs to North America.”

A day earlier, Kevin Breuninger on 30 January 2020 reported on the CNBC that: “The China’s deadly coronavirus could be good for US jobs, manufacturing, says Trump Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.”

 

And so it has been and still is

In fact, several specialised reports coincide that the revenues of three pharmaceutical giants: Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna have indeed quickly and greatly increased.

As reported in May 2021 by Megan Redshaw’s in her documented “As COVID Vaccines Drive Record Profits, CEOs Get Ultra Rich Off Massive Pay Packages, Questionable Stock Sales,” the revenues of Pfizer had by then reached an estimated 24 billion US dollars, while those of Moderna were calculated at 14 billions.

Those revenues quickly increased. In fact, on 3 November 2021, Redshaw reported that Top-Selling Drug in the World—Pfizer COVID Vaccine 2021 Sales: $36 Billion

 

$1,000 profit… every second

More shocking data emerge from OXFAM 16 November 2021 report: Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna making $1,000 profit every second while world’s poorest countries remain largely unvaccinated

 

Now it comes to the fast melting of the Arctic

The “the worse, the better” doctrine is most likely applicable to the recent alert that the Arctic is warming nearly four times faster than the rest of the world.

In fact, a study published on 11 August 2022 by prestigious Nature shows that the Arctic has warmed nearly four times faster than the rest of the world over the past 43 years. This means the Arctic is on average around 3℃ warmer than it was in 1980.

 

Good news for the shipping business?

The faster the Arctic ice melts, the current shipping routes grow, the new ones open, the business profits increase at least as much as the dangers.

See what the leading intergovernmental forum promoting cooperation, coordination and interaction among the Arctic States, Arctic Indigenous peoples and other Arctic inhabitants on common Arctic issues: the Arctic Council, said on this in its May 2021 report Navigating the future of Arctic shipping:

“The Arctic marine environment is undergoing extraordinary environmental and developmental changes, it reports. Access to the Arctic Ocean is changing quickly as sea ice extent reduces and thins – enabling longer seasons of ship navigation and new access to previously difficult to reach regions.”

At the same time, it said, “the promise of shorter shipping routes and growing access and demand for natural resources is piquing the interest of nations and industries around the globe.”

 

The trends

The Arctic Council’s Working Group on the Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment (PAME) shows in its first Arctic Shipping Status Report that “between 2013 and 2019, the number of ships entering the Arctic grew by 25 percent, from 1,298 ships to 1,628 ships.”

The majority of ships (41 percent) entering the Arctic are “commercial fishing vessels,” it adds.

“Other types of ships that commonly navigate in the region include bulk carriers, icebreakers, and research vessels. Growing Arctic marine tourism also has its share – 73 cruise ships sailed in Arctic waters in 2019.”

 

Fuels used by ships in the Arctic

PAME’s second Arctic Shipping Status Report provides information on fuels used by ships in the Arctic in 2019 with a focus on heavy fuel oils (HFO).

“HFO is extremely viscous and persists in cold Arctic water for weeks or longer if released, increasing potential to cause damage to marine ecosystems and coastlines…

… In ice-covered waters, an HFO spill could result in oil becoming trapped in and under the ice, it goes on. “When burned as fuel by ships, HFO has some of the highest concentrations of hazardous emissions…”

While the number of unique ships in Arctic waters in 2016 is nearly identical to the number of unique ships in those waters in 2019, fuel consumption grew by 82 percent, reports the Arctic Council.

 

The dangers

“In 2016, there were no liquid natural gas (LNG) tankers in Arctic waters as compared to 29 LNG tankers in 2019. These 29 LNG tankers consumed over 260,000 tons of fuel, making up the greatest portion of total fuels consumed by ships in the Arctic in 2019.”

Many major dangers are fast looming: lethal oil spills, toxic leaks from refineries and infrastructures, dangerous ballast waters, rapid urbanistan, tourist resorts, extinction of marine biodiversity, harmful invasive species, water and air contamination, and more disastrous weather extremes.

Furthermore, the Arctic is already a vast mining field, searching for oil, gas and many other highly commercially valuable minerals.

Let alone the grim fate of the Arctic communities, including the region’s numerous indigenous peoples.

 

What does the business say?

Wondering what the International Chamber of Shipping thinks about all that? Well, it represents the world’s national shipowner associations, and over 80% of the world merchant fleet.

It says that its membership comprises national shipowners’ associations, through which structure “ICS uniquely and legitimately speaks for and represents the significant majority of international shipping.”

It also says that its national member associations represent shipping companies from all sectors of the shipowner community.

“These include dry bulk carriers, oil tankers, chemical tankers, gas carriers, container ships, general cargo ships, offshore support vessels, and passenger ships.”

 

How big is the shipping industry?

The very same International Chamber of Shipping reports that “As of 2019, the total value of the annual world shipping trade had reached more than 14 trillion US Dollars.”

What do you think?

Dr Mohsina Chaklader, a doctor with Humanity Auxilium, walks through Cox’s Bazar. Chaklader says while physical conditions in the refugee camps that house more than 900,000 more needs to be done. Credit: Humanity Auxilium

By Sania Farooqui
NEW DELHI, India, Aug 25 2022 (IPS)

It has been five years since the forced exodus of the Rohingyas from Myanmar, and their plea for justice and accountability continues.

On August 25, 2017, “Myanmar military began a sweeping campaign of massacres, rape, and arson in northern Rakhine State”, said Human Rights Watch in its latest report, Myanmar: No Justice, No Freedom for Rohingya 5 Years On: Anniversary of Atrocities Highlights International Inaction.

Today, this day is marked as Rohingya Genocide Remembrance Day, the day that forced almost 750,000 Rohingyas to flee to Bangladesh, while about 600,000 remain under “oppressive rule” in Myanmar.

Patients throng the Humanity Auxilium medical centre in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. More than 900,000 Rohingyas from Myanmar live in the refugee camps in the region. Credit: Humanity Auxilium

“No one has been held accountable for the crimes against humanity and acts of genocide committed against the Rohingya population. This anniversary should prompt concerned governments to take concrete action to hold the Myanmar military to account and secure justice and safety for the Rohingya in Bangladesh, Myanmar, and across the region,” the report said.

For the hundreds and thousands of Rohingya refugees who entered southern Bangladesh through beaches and paddy fields in 2017, “they brought with them accounts of the unspeakable violence and brutality that had forced them to flee,” UNICEF said in this report.

“Those fleeing attacks and violence in the 2017 exodus joined around 300,000 people already in Bangladesh from previous waves of displacement, effectively forming the world’s largest refugee camp,” the report said. As of August 2022, about one million Rohingya live in refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh.

Dr Mohsina Chaklader, a doctor with Humanity Auxilium, in an exclusive interview with IPS, said: “Rohingya refugees arrived with physical and mental trauma that were directly attributable to the offenses from the Myanmar army – which includes physical violence, deaths of loved ones, many days of journey with no food.”

Humanity Auxilium is a health-based NGO that provides health care and training to the world’s most marginalized communities.

Chaklader said she treated visible wounds and deep psychological trauma.

“The conditions I witnessed included fractures, deep wounds, malnutrition, infections, and post-traumatic stress disorders. Rohingya women and girls comprised more than 50 percent of the population that came to these camps. They faced unique challenges as many were tortured and gang-raped during the genocide, and many gave birth to children as a result of those rapes. These victims were also rejected by their husbands due to the rape and assault. These days women are worried about the future of their children who are born in these camps.”

While there have been improvements, the Rohingya refugees’ conditions are still dire.

“From my very recent visits, I saw greater structural organization, but camps still continue to lack infrastructure – proper drainage systems, toilets, safe, clean water supply, and mudslides across the camps hinder mobility. The challenges are still enormous. Medical care is not sufficient to meet the demands of a population living in cramped and unhealthy conditions,” Chaklader said.

About half a million Rohingya refugee children are exiled from their home country. Many born into this limbo today have little access to education.

According to a study by the Norwegian Refugee Council, approximately 96 percent of surveyed youth aged 18 to 24 are currently unemployed, and 9 out of 10 aged 18-24 are in debt, having borrowed money within the last six months. Ninety-nine percent of women aged 18 to 24 are unemployed.

“In the absence of a political solution and resettlement of refugees in third countries, it will be important to develop economic self-sufficiency within the camps,” says Chaklader.

“While Bangladesh has been generous in receiving the refugees, the government can do more to provide educational and economic opportunities to the people in the refugee camps. Bangladesh, being a developing country, needs more urgent cooperation and funding from the international community in order to deliver to the needs of the refugees,” said Chaklader

Earlier this year, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet met with religious leaders and women and visited camps in Cox’s Bazar housing Rohingya refugees during her first visit to Bangladesh.

The High Commissioner reiterated the importance of ensuring that “safe and sustainable conditions exist for any returns and that they be conducted in a voluntary and dignified way. The UN is doing the best we can to support them, we will continue doing that, but we also need to deal with the profound roots of the problem. We need to deal with that and ensure that they can go back to Myanmar –  when there are conditions for safety and voluntary return”.

In Myanmar, however, most Rohingyas have no legal identity or citizenship, and statelessness remains a significant concern. Rohingya children in Rakhine State, meanwhile, “have been hemmed in by violence, forced displacement and restrictions on freedom of movement”.

Until the conditions are in place in Myanmar that would allow Rohingya families to return, they continue to remain refugees or internally displaced persons living in overcrowded and sometimes dangerous conditions.

With looming evidence of human rights violations committed by Myanmar security forces against ethnic minorities in Myanmar, in November 2019, the Gambia initiated proceedings against Myanmar based on the Genocide Convention, invoking state responsibility for Myanmar’s self-described “clearance operations” in 2016 and 2017 against the Rohingya, an ethnic Muslim minority in Myanmar.

Based on this application filed in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), in 2020, the court issued a provisional measures order pursuant to Article 41 of the ICJ Statute ordering Myanmar to prevent the commission of genocidal acts; to ensure its military, police, or any other irregular force supported or directed by it or under its control not commit genocidal acts, and to submit a status report every six months until a final judgment by the Court.

Dr Mohsina Chaklader, a doctor with Humanity Auxilium, pictured here in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, says she has Rohingyas refugees for physical and psychological wounds after they were forced to flee unspeakable brutality in Myanmar. Credit: Humanity Auxilium

In February 2022, court hearings were held to consider Myanmar’s objections to the jurisdiction of the ICJ and the admissibility of the case filed in January 2021. The court rejected Myanmar’s four contentions prima facie in the 2020 provisional measures order.

Welcoming the progress at the ICJ despite concerns regarding the military representing Myanmar at the ICJ, Asia Justice Coalition, in a press statement, said: “The case provides an opportunity to see the junta respond to allegations of genocide before an international legal forum and to fight against entrenched impunity in Myanmar. The proceedings before the ICJ are a significant means to hold Myanmar accountable for the mass atrocities against Rohingya.”

Garnering some momentum for justice and to end the rampant culture of impunity in Myanmar, in March 2022, the United States government formally determined that the Myanmar military committed crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity against ethnic Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State.

While human rights groups have welcomed these efforts, there is still a rising concern about the migrant flow into South Asian and Southeast Asian countries, as these regions continue to see an increase either in anti-Muslimism, anti-refugee, or uneven refugee protection sentiments. It would also be necessary for governments to adhere to international conventions regarding refugees when addressing these ongoing migration and mass humanitarian crises.

With Myanmar’s unstable state since the military seized power in February 2021, conditions for safe repatriation to this region are not yet an option. On the fifth anniversary of the Rohingya Genocide Remembrance Day, any further delay in international justice processes for genocide, reporting of gross human rights violations, or lack of the much-needed humanitarian support from neighbouring countries, funding, and international community support, we are only going to continue prolonging the plight of the most persecuted minority in the world.

They have already lost their homes, they have been unable to claim citizenship in a country as it refuses to recognize them, are living in camps, fleeing on boats, and have been beaten, raped, abused, displaced, and many killed. In any international legal discourse, human dignity always performs a central role. It is time the world gives the Rohingya the one thing that has been stripped off them: their right to human dignity.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Hanadi (far left) and family at her father, Abu Kareem’s, home in Za’atari refugee camp, Jordan. Credit: Toby Fricker / UNICEF

By Toby Fricker
ZA’ATARI REFUGEE CAMP, Jordan, Aug 25 2022 (IPS)

“I think I’m making a difference. I’m really helping,” Hanadi tells me, as she reflects on her work in the Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan.

She is teaching computer skills to a class of Syrian children aged 11 to 16. The students are animated and engaged by Hanadi’s lesson as she walks them through some basics.

“I teach them enough to get a start,” she says.

I first met Hanadi in 2013 – eight months after Za’atari camp opened in response to the huge refugee influx from across the border in Syria. She was 17 years-old and attending a similar vocational training centre in the camp, which is supported by UNICEF.

She had arrived at Za’atari three months before, having fled with her family and whatever they could carry from their home near Damascus. Back then, she told me about her relief that she could return to school and the desire to keep learning.

Fast forward almost a decade, and it’s inspiring to see how Hanadi has gone from student to teacher. Like so many of her peers, Hanadi has experienced things in her young life that no one should. But despite the immense challenges, she persevered and now dedicates her life to creating a better future for the next generation.

Hanadi teaches Syrian children computer skills at a UNICEF Jordan supported Makani centre in Za’atari refugee camp. Credit: UNICEF/Toby Fricker

Unlike many young people in the camp who struggle to find meaningful opportunities as they leave high school, Hanadi completed her education, went to university and earned a degree.

Now she’s married to Tariq, is bringing up two delightful children and is encouraging young Syrians to develop the practical skills needed to help them achieve their full potential.

Still, fleeing war and a decade of life in a refugee camp for 80,000 people inevitably takes a toll. “My hope is to get back [home],” Hanadi told me in 2013, tears in her eyes. That hasn’t happened, and her own children have never lived in a house, let alone set foot in the family home.

A life in limbo

There’s little shade from the brutal midday sun as we approach the home of Abu Kareem, Hanadi’s father. The camp looks much as it did during that first year, when families moved out of tents into large containers, and school compounds sprang up, run by the Ministry of Education with UNICEF support.

Gone are the queues at water points, from which women and children once lugged heavy jerrycans in the extreme heat of the day. Instead, an innovative and environmentally-friendly water and sanitation system has fully replaced the need for the water trucks that used to stir up dust storms as they navigated narrow desert paths across the camp. Now, water flows from a tap into Abu Kareem’s kitchen.

The services on offer for children and young people, from learning support to vocational training and sports, are today largely managed by Syrians themselves, providing much-needed income and ensuring a more sustainable, community-owned operation.

This has been critical as funding has decreased in the wake of multiple global crises that are vying for the world’s attention.

“We’re dealing with young people who have grown up amidst the trauma of war and are now transitioning to adulthood at a very uncertain time when opportunities can seem limited,” Tanya Chapuisat, UNICEF’s Representative in Jordan, tells me.

“In the rush to provide lifesaving services to refugees fleeing the border ten years ago, I’m not sure that any of our UNICEF colleagues could have imagined that we would be here a decade later,” she says.

This uncertainty clearly weighs on Abu Kareem’s mind. His family have transformed their home, watering the courtyard to create some welcome green space and expanding the structure as the family has grown over time.

It’s impressively homely, as it always has been. But the impact on his family of living within the confines of a camp is an ongoing concern.

“Our children have only lived in the camp,” he says. “It’s a wider world out there, [but] they don’t know how it works.” Life beyond the camp’s perimeter remains a distant dream.

Staying afloat

A five minute drive away, on the edge of the camp, we meet Abu Thaer, who is finishing a shift at one of Za’atari’s schools. We first met when the school – the third one in the camp – opened in 2013. Abu Thaer has played a key role in its growth, with some 2,200 children now attending classes.

His daughter, Omaima, now 21, attended the school. Like Hanadi, she is an inspiration to other young people in the camp. Omaima is the only Syrian refugee studying at the Law Department of a nearby university and her sole focus now is ensuring her studies are a success.

“I don’t have time to even make friends. The days at university I’m so tired, I can’t do anything else,” Omaima says. She received a scholarship to help her move into higher education, although Abu Thaer continues to do what he can to support his five children.

“I want to keep my family floating. I want to give the children a start in life,” he says. Over a delicious Majboos (a chicken and rice dish) at the family home, Abu Thaer reflects on a decade in the camp.

“We’re still safe and have adjusted to the circumstances and we are grateful for that,” he says. “The kids have grown up in this set-up and we don’t know what the future holds. That’s the most negative thing.”

The hospitality, generosity and warmth of Abu Kareem, Abu Thaer and their families – indeed of everyone I’ve ever met in Za’atari – never ceases to amaze me. But as the eyes of the world have shifted to other emergencies, a generation of children in Za’atari are transitioning into adulthood and raising their own children.

While I was in Romania and Ukraine a few weeks earlier, I couldn’t help but think of children like Hanadi and Omaima. As another war forces children into refuge and upends young lives, we owe it to them to continue to provide them with the opportunities they need to survive and progress. Especially when a distant home remains out of touch, for now at least.

Toby Fricker is Chief, Communication and Partnerships, UNICEF South Africa.

Source: UNICEF Blog

IPS UN Bureau

 

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By External Source
Aug 24 2022 (IPS-Partners)

 

About the Podcast

Regarded as one of the modern world’s icons of diplomacy, what is Kofi Annan’s legacy today? What can we learn from him, and how can we prepare for tomorrow, based on his vision for a better world?

In this exclusive 10-part podcast, Ahmad Fawzi, one of Kofi Annan’s former spokespersons and communication Advisor, will examine how Kofi Annan tackled a specific crisis and its relevance to today’s world and challenges.

Kofi Annan’s call to bring all stakeholders around the table — including the private sector, local authorities, civil society organisations, academia, and scientists — resonates now more than ever with so many, who understand that governments alone cannot shape our future.

Join us on a journey of discovery as Ahmad Fawzi interviews some of Kofi Annan’s closest advisors and colleagues including Dr Peter Piot, Christiane Amanpour, Mark Malloch-Brown, Michael Møller and more.

Listen and follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and SoundCloud

Brought to you by the Kofi Annan Foundation and the United Nations Information Service.

 

Kofi Time: The Official Trailer

Join us as we take a journey of discovery about Kofi Annan’s leadership style and what makes it so relevant and important today.

Kofi Time: The Podcast · Kofi Time: The Podcast | Official Trailer

 

Multilateralism: Then & Now | Kofi Time with Lord Mark Malloch-Brown | Episode 1

In this episode, Lord Malloch Brown shares insights with podcast host Ahmad Fawzi on how Kofi Annan strengthened the United Nations through careful diplomacy and bold reforms, and how significant advances were made during his tenure as Secretary-General. He comments on the state of multilateralism today, as the organization is buffeted by the crisis in Ukraine and the paralysis of the Security Council.

Kofi Time: The Podcast · Multilateralism: Then and Now | Kofi Time with Lord Mark Malloch-Brown

 

Making Peace: Then & Now | Kofi Time with Christiane Amanpour | Episode 2

In this episode of Kofi Time, host Ahmad Fawzi interviews renowned journalist Christiane Amanpour. Together, they discuss a world in turmoil, and what would Kofi Annan – who did so much for peace – do today?

Christiane shares her thoughts on the ‘Kofi Annan way’, the difficult job mediators and peacebuilders face, and the courage they must show. With Ahmad, they deliberate whether there is a type of ‘calling’ for those who work in this field.

Kofi Time: The Podcast · Making Peace: Then and Now | Kofi Time with Christiane Amanpour

 

Health Crises: Then & Now | Kofi Time with Dr Peter Piot | Episode 3

In this episode of Kofi Time, our special guest is Dr Peter Piot. Dr Piot discusses how he and Kofi Annan worked together to reverse the HIV/AIDs tide that swept through Africa in the 1990s, through patient but bold diplomacy, innovative partnerships and an inclusive approach that brought to the table previously marginalized communities. Dr Piot and podcast host Ahmad Fawzi discuss whether this approach be replicated today as the world enters the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic and must prepare for future heath emergencies.

Kofi Time: The Podcast · Health Crises: Then and Now | Kofi Time with Dr Peter Piot

 

Fighting Hunger: Then & Now | Kofi Time with Catherine Bertini | Episode 4

In episode 4 of Kofi Time, our special guest is Catherine Bertini. Ms. Bertini discusses how she worked with Kofi Annan to fight hunger and malnutrition around the world. Not only is access to food far from universal, but it is also severely impacted by conflicts and climate change. As food prices increase and access becomes even more challenging, how can we replicate Kofi Annan’s approach to improving food systems to make sure no one gets lefts behind on the path to food security globally?

Kofi Time: The Podcast · Fighting Hunger: Then and Now | Kofi Time with Catherine Bertini

 

Leadership: Then & Now | Kofi Time with Michael Møller | Episode 5

In episode 5 of Kofi Time, host Ahmad Fawzi interviews diplomat Michael Møller on Kofi Annan’s special kind of leadership. A respected leader among his peers and the public, Kofi Annan served the people of the world with courage, vision and empathy. Embodying moral steadfastness and an acute political acumen, his leadership was one of a kind. What drove him, and how can we emulate his leadership style to face today’s global challenges?

Kofi Time: The Podcast · Leadership: Then and Now | Kofi Time with Michael Møller

 

Human Rights: Then & Now | Kofi Time with Zeid Raad Al Hussein | Episode 6

In episode 6 of Kofi Time, our special guest is Zeid Raad Al Hussein. Zeid discusses his friendship with Kofi Annan and how they worked together to protect human dignity and promote human rights. Through the creation of the Human Rights Council and International Criminal Court, Kofi Annan played a critical role in establishing the mechanisms that we have today to protect human rights and fight impunity. How can we uphold Kofi Annan’s legacy and ensure that respect for human rights is not just an abstract concept but a reality?

Kofi Time: The Podcast · Human Rights: Then and Now | Kofi Time with Zeid Raad Al Hussein

 

Podcast Host & Guests

 

Ahmad Fawzi Kofi

Time Podcast Host

Mr Fawzi is the former head of News and Media at the United Nations. He worked closely with Kofi Annan both during his time as Secretary-General and afterwards, on crises including Iraq and Syria. Before joining the United Nations, he worked for many years in broadcast journalism, as a news editor, reporter and regional news operations manager. From 1991 to 1992, he was the News Operations Manager for the Americas for Visnews — now Reuters Television. Also with Reuters Television, Mr Fawzi served as Regional News Manager for Eastern Europe, based in Prague, from 1989 to 1991 — a time of tumultuous political change in that region. Concurrently with his assignment in Prague, he coordinated coverage of the Gulf war, managing the war desk in Riyadh, as well as the production centre in Dahran, Saudi Arabia. In 1989, Mr Fawzi was Reuters Television Bureau Chief for the Middle East, based in Cairo. Prior to that, he worked in London as News and Assignments Editor for Reuters Television. Previously, he was Editor and Anchor for the nightly news on Egyptian Television.

 

Lord Mark Malloch-Brown

Episode 1 Guest

Mark Malloch‐Brown is the president of the Open Society Foundations. He has worked in various senior positions in government and international organizations for more than four decades to advance development, human rights and justice. He was UN Deputy Secretary‐General and chief of staff under Kofi Annan. He previously Co-Chaired the UN Foundation Board. Malloch-Brown has worked to advance human rights and justice through working in international affairs for more than four decades. He was UN deputy secretary‐general and chief of staff under Kofi Annan. Before this, he was administrator of the UNDP, where he led global development efforts. He covered Africa and Asia as minister of state in the United Kingdom’s Foreign Office. Other positions have included World Bank vice president, lead international partner in a political consulting firm, vice-chair of the World Economic Forum, and senior advisor at Eurasia Group. He began his career as a journalist at the Economist and as an international refugee worker. He was knighted for his contribution to international affairs and is currently on leave from the British House of Lords. Malloch-Brown is a Distinguished Practitioner at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government, an adjunct fellow at Chatham House’s Queen Elizabeth Program, and has been a visiting distinguished fellow at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization.

 

Christiane Amanpour

Episode 2 Guest

Christiane Amanpour is a renowned journalist, whose illustrious career has taken her from CNN where she was Chief international correspondent for many years, to ABC as a Global Affairs Anchor, PBS and back to CNN International for the global affairs interview program named after her. She has received countless prestigious awards, including four Peabody Awards, for her international reporting and her achievements in broadcast journalism. She served as a member of the board of directors of the Committee to Protect Journalists and a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Freedom of Expression and Journalist Safety. She is also an honorary citizen of Sarajevo and was made a Commander of the British Empire in 2007 by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth.

 

Dr Peter Piot

Episode 3 Guest

Dr Peter Piot co-discovered the Ebola virus in Zaire in 1976. He has led research on HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases, and women’s health, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. Peter Piot was the founding Executive Director of UNAIDS and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1995 until 2008. Under his leadership, UNAIDS has become the chief advocate for worldwide action against AIDS. It has brought together ten organizations of the United Nations system around a common agenda on AIDS, spearheading UN reform Peter Piot was the Director of the Institute for Global Health at Imperial College; London and he held the 2009/2010 “Knowledge against poverty” Chair at the College de France in Paris. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and was elected a foreign member of the National Academy of Medicine of the US National Academy of Sciences.

 

Catherine Bertini

Episode 4 Guest

An accomplished leader in food security, international organization reform and a powerful advocate for women and girls, Catherine Bertini has had a distinguished career improving the efficiency and operations of organizations serving poor and hungry people in the United States and around the world. She has highlighted and supported the roles of women and girls in influencing change. She was named the 2003 World Food Prize Laureate for her transformational leadership at the World Food Programme (WFP), which she led for ten years, and for the positive impact she had on the lives of women. While in the US government, she expanded the electronic benefit transfer options for food stamp beneficiaries, created the food package for breastfeeding mothers, presented the first effort to picture healthy diets, and expanded education and training opportunities for poor women. As a United Nations Under-Secretary-General, and at the head of the World Food Programme for ten years (1992 to 2002), she led UN humanitarian missions to the Horn of Africa and to Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel. During her time serving with WFP, Catherine Bertini was responsible for the leadership and management of emergency, refugee, and development food aid operations, reaching people in great need in over 100 countries, as well as advocacy campaigns to end hunger and to raise financial resources. With her World Food Prize, she created the Catherine Bertini Trust Fund for Girls’ Education to support programs to increase opportunities for girls and women to attend school. At the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, where she is now professor emeritus, she taught graduate courses in humanitarian action, post-conflict reconstruction, girls’ education, UN management, food security, international organizations, and leadership. She served as a senior fellow at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation early in its new agricultural development program. Bertini is now the chair of the board of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN). Concurrently, she is a Distinguished Fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. She has been named a Champion of the 2021 United Nations Food Systems Summit. She is a professor emeritus at Syracuse University.

 

Michael Møller

Episode 5 Guest

Mr Møller has over 40 years of experience as an international civil servant in the United Nations. He began his career in 1979 with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and worked for the United Nations in different capacities in New York, Mexico, Iran, Haiti, Cyprus and Geneva. He worked very closely with Kofi Annan as Director for Political, Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Affairs in the Office of the Secretary-General between 2001 and 2006, while serving concurrently as Deputy Chef de Cabinet of the Secretary-General for the last two years of that period. Mr Møller also served as the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Cyprus from 2006 to 2008 and was the Executive Director of the Kofi Annan Foundation from 2008 to 2011. From 2013 to 2019, Mr Møller served as Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva as well as Personal Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General to the Conference of Disarmament. He currently is Chairman of the Diplomacy Forum of Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator. A Danish citizen, Mr Møller earned a Master’s degree in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University, and a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations from the University of Sussex, in the United Kingdom.

 

Zeid Raad Al Hussein

Episode 6 Guest

Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein is IPI’s President and Chief Executive Officer. Previously, Zeid served as the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2014 to 2018 after a long career as a Jordanian diplomat, including as his country’s Permanent Representative to the UN (2000-2007 & 2010-2014) and Ambassador to the United States (2007-2010). He served on the UN Security Council, was a configuration chair for the UN Peace-Building Commission, and began his career as a UN Peacekeeper in the former Yugoslavia. Zeid has also represented his country twice before the International Court of Justice, served as the President of the Assembly of State Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court from 2002-2005, and in 2005, authored the first comprehensive strategy for the elimination of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in UN Peacekeeping Operations while serving as an advisor to Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Zeid is also a member of The Elders, an independent group of global leaders working together for peace, justice and human rights, founded by Nelson Mandela. Zeid holds a PhD from Cambridge University and is currently a Professor of Practice at the University of Pennsylvania.

 

An International Labour Organisation report found that the COVID-19 pandemic impacted youth employment more than any other group. Credit: Dominic Chavez/World Bank

By Juliet Morrison
United Nations, Aug 24 2022 (IPS)

When COVID-19 prompted economic shutdowns across the globe, many analysts predicted that youth would be especially at risk. This is because young people tend to have fewer economic assets and limited experience in the labor market.

A recent International Labour Organisation (ILO) report published on August 11, 2022, confirmed this vulnerability. The Global Employment Trends for Youth 2022 found that the pandemic set employment rates for youth back more than for any other age group.

Certain regions struggle with youth employment more than others. High-income countries would see their youth employment rates back to pre-pandemic levels by the end of the year, the report revealed. In Africa, however, the decline would only serve to worsen a state of affairs that was already growing perilous.

Africa hosts the world’s youngest population. Seventy percent of Sub-Saharan Africans are under 30. But, only 3 million jobs are available for the 10-12 million young people on the market each year.

One in five African youths were not in employment, education, or training in 2020, according to the ILO.

Young people across Africa face both unemployment and underemployment. Both situations have potentially serious long-term consequences for young people.

In South Africa, the unemployment problem is acute. The current rate for youth is 63.9 percent.

Dr Lauren Graham, Director of the Centre for Social Development in Africa at the University of Johannesburg, explains one of the underlying challenges is the nation’s high bar labor market.

“Much of the challenge sits on the demand side – high levels of unemployment are related to low job growth over many years – insufficient to absorb the large numbers of work-seekers. Young work-seekers often enter the labor market at the back of the labor market queue with limited experience and qualifications.”

Elsewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa, young people are more likely to be underemployed. Unable to find formal jobs, many end up in the informal economy, engaging in precarious work to earn a wage.

Limited economic opportunity for youth can pose significant problems for societies. It can often lead to an increase in alcohol and drug abuse and crime. Academics have pointed out that swathes of unemployed youth have also led to political turmoil, the most notable example being the Arab Spring.

In its report, the ILO issued several recommendations for governments around the world to boost youth employment. Prime among them were investing in the blue (activity involving the marine environment) and green (activity aimed at reducing environmental risk) economies.

Such investments could generate up to 8.4 million jobs globally for young people, per the ILO. This has been a particularly loud cry for Africa, given the breadth of its natural assets.

The ILO also suggested governments support youth-led entrepreneurship—a position that Carleton University professor Dr Tony Bailetti echoes.

“The immediate task that lies ahead for all of us is in formulating and executing actionable policies at the country and regional levels. The most effective policies will be those that leverage cross-border, digital and inclusive entrepreneurship to transform the future of young people.”

Many NGOs in Africa are also supporting the entrepreneurship idea. One, Junior Achievement (JA) Africa, has found considerable success with its entrepreneurship education program.

The organization partners with ministries of education in 13 different countries to bring programs around work readiness and skills development to students. So far, they have reached more than 300,000.

Senanu Adiku, JA Africa’s communications, and marketing officer told IPS that the company believes it can make an impact in tackling Africa’s youth employment problem.

“JA Africa sees entrepreneurship education as the solution to this gap, not only to create entrepreneurs but to skill young people for the few jobs that are actually available because they need upskilling,” he said.

This education also has ripple effects, he added. Empowering one student to start a business will lead other students to be employed by the business. More students will also be inspired to create their own enterprises.

Over 72 percent of students who participated in JA Africa’s program went on to create businesses, according to a company survey. Most of these initiatives also gave back to their community.

“These usually create businesses that are community-oriented, looking at addressing some of the serious issues in their communities, like plastics, plastic pollution. They look at youth empowerment themselves. They try to bring solutions to some of the things that they see around them. So really, we are creating solution providers, who are also going to go on and help others.”

The organization has goals to expand to 20 countries, reaching a million young people across the continent.

Closing its report, the ILO noted that the COVID-19 recovery presents opportunities for governments to pursue policies that boost youth employment.

“What young people need most is well-functioning labor markets with decent job opportunities for those already participating in the labor market, along with quality education and training opportunities for those yet to enter it,” Martha Newton, ILO Deputy-Director General for Policy, stated in the report’s press release.

On South Africa’s unemployment problem, Graham stressed that no matter what policies get selected to tackle the crisis, policymakers should consider poverty-related barriers that may hinder young people’s ability to access employment.

“Young people in [South Africa] also struggle to transition into the labor market at the same time as they face multiple forms of deprivation including food and income insecurity, care responsibilities, and in some cases strained mental health.”

The suggested policies were all necessary and welcome, Graham told IPS, but they will need to be evaluated to see how young people fare in their wake to measure their true impact.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM, Aug 24 2022 (IPS)

When I was a child, a friend asked me: “How would you describe a tree to someone who has never seen one?” I looked at the trees surrounding us and realised it was impossible, considering their versatility, beauty and utter strangeness. Since that time, I have often wondered about trees, as well as I have been worried by the indiscriminate destruction of trees and forests.

Trees are a prerequisite for life and intimately connected with humans’ existence. In these times of climate change, many of us are becoming increasingly aware of the life-promoting function of trees. How they produce oxygen, fix the carbon content of the atmosphere, clean and cool the air, regulate precipitation, purify the water, and control the water flow.

Throughout history, humans have been intertwined with the trees. Our shared cultural history bears witness to the fascination humanity has felt when it comes to the power and mystery of trees. Trees are present in many mythologies and religions: – Yggdrasil, the cosmic tree of Nordic mythology, Yaxche, the Mayan peoples’ Tree of the World, the Sycamore, Isis’ (godess of all feminine divine powers) sacred tree in ancient Egypt, Asvattha, the sacred fig tree in Southern India, the Bodhi tree, Tree of Awakening, among Buddhists, the Kien Mou, Tree of Renewal, among the Chinese, and the Sidrat al-Muntaha, Tree of the Farthest Boundary, in Islam.

The shape of the tree has for the human mind come to represent logical systems and helped us to bring order into chaos. As thought models we still use trees to depict genealogy, or explain the course of evolution and the grammar and origins of languages. Even our body structure seems to mimic the trees; skeleton, lungs, blood vessels, lymphatic vessels and neural pathways. We breathe through the tree-like network of the lungs – the bronchioles.

A walk through a forest can in a mysterious manner confirm our intimate connection with trees. If we are attentive enough, we might be seized by the feeling of another presence; incomprehensible, though nevertheless mighty and complete. It is as if the forest embraces us, observes us, speaks to us. The wind makes the forest foliage speak. Trees and bushes feed and protect songbirds and other animals. Trees thus contain the miraculous power of music – most musical instruments are made of wood.

There are several indications that our ancestors were arboreal creatures. Something our way of thinking and not least our physical constitution testify to – a flexible spine, extended arms and highly efficient hands. Claws have turned into fingernails and delicate fingertips. Our set of teeth and digestive organs have been adapted to food found among the trees – nuts, fruits, eggs, small animals. We have become omnivores and unlike cattle who feel the solid ground beneath their feet, and whose bodies have been adapted to it, human beings have developed their thinking, hearing, sight, and sense of smell to the unstable reality of tree crowns.

The creatures we descended from were constantly at risk of missteps leading to fatal falls, something that sharpened their minds and made them plan for uncertainty, danger and the unexpected. They learned to notice subtle, environmental changes and observe how other creatures adapted to them. They didn’t feel safe in open landscapes, feared the void, and only felt relatively safe if surrounded by the reassuring enclosure of greenery. We still prefer to walk among trees, rather than along sterile transport routes, filled with noise and air ollution, lined by ugly facades, supermarkets, industries, and parking lots.

The presence of trees pleases and calms us. A forest walk, or a restful time spent in a leafy park, invigorate us. Studies carried out in offices and hospitals have proven that people who do not have a view of and/or access to leafy surroundings are more prone to stress and depression, while sick people surrounded by a sterile environment, without an open view to greenery, recover more slowly than those who perceive the closeness of nature. Perhaps one reason to why older hospitals and sanatoriums generally were surrounded by tree-rich parks and flower plantations. It is energising to find oneself within a natural realm, far away from computer screens, plastic and concrete.

Contrary to humans, who generally exploit nature for their own benefit, trees take and give. They receive power and nourishment from the heat and energy of the sun, which through the photosynthesis is converted into oxygen and organic matter. The root system connects trees to earth’s nutrients, which in the open are converted into leaves, wood, and fertilisers.

Trees make up the main part of the earth’s biomass, both above and below ground. Through branches and leaves they create a maximum contact surface with the air and their wide-spread roots provide them with a firm anchorage, while helping them to assimilate nutrients. Trees support and provide for themselves, at the same time as they support and provide for the entire world.

A tree is never alone, it merges with its environment. It adapts to the atmosphere’s mixture of gases and the earth´s subterranean water. Through a constant symbiosis with its environment a tree contributes to the creation and maintenance of its life- preserving substances.

Each branch and leaf adapt itself to the presence of its neighbours. Plants support each other. They unite death and life. Dead branches and leaves fertilize the soil, while roots and capillaries pump water out of the ground. A life-giving cycle that transforms, regulates and creates. Through evapotranspiration forested areas charge the atmosphere with water vapour and thus create rains, nourishing vegetation and replenishing the groundwater. Leaves capture part of the solar energy, which they transform into organic matter saturated with cosmic energy. The life cycle of trees is determined by the length of the days and varied temperatures. They constitute a living source, which flow of oxygen and nutrients is consumed by animals and humans. Furthermore, trees contribute to the formation of an ozone layer, which protects us from the sun’s excessively strong ultraviolet rays.

Roots intertwine/communicate with other roots. Together with the mycelial threads of fungi, an underground life-promoting biosphere is created—the mycorrhiza, where bacteria fix nitrogen and supply the trees with minerals that otherwise would be difficult to obtain, such as phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, copper, zinc and manganese. If you give the plants nutritional supplements in the form of artificial fertilizers, they stop feeding the symbiotic fungi, which die and disappear. A growing tree becomes increasingly complex. Filled as its crown is with buds and new shoots it is constantly renewed. It spreads out and protects the earth. Flowers, leaves and fruits flourish within its crown. Trees are always directed towards the future. They are never completed, growing and developing in unison with the time
cycles of Cosmos. Quietly, they compromise with the forces surrounding them. The patient adaptability of trees is completely different from humans’ everyday life, which increasingly is built up from fragments in the form of e-mails, text messages and tweets, communication processes that alienate us from life, from closeness to nature and our fellow human beings.

The tree has an inner time, manifested through its annual rings. When we experience how a tree we have planted begins to grow we sense the future and gain confidence in it. Trees adapt to difficult conditions and can provide us with life and beauty. They meet our expectations.

Leaves are the elementary, structural and functional unit of a tree. A large tree carries millions of leaves diligently transforming light and water into matter and not the least fruits and seeds. Trees are firmly rooted in the earth, though that hasn’t hindered them from spreading across the world. Their seeds break free from the anchorage of roots and branches, to be carried away by animals, people, wind and water.

Even though trees sustain life and provide us with joy and inspiration, we do not revere them. Instead, we abuse them, exploit them mercilessly, killing them for personal gain and profit. We have left the geological epoch of Holocene behind and entered Anthropocene (when everything is changed by humans). Even if we, against all odds, were to experience a population decline and if agriculture became dependent on sustainable farming methods, we have irreversibly altered our living conditions – the atmosphere, the hydrosphere and the biosphere. Is there any hope for humanity to survive? Can trees give us hope?

Many of us assume that tropical forests generate their abundance from fertile soil. But the soil they grow upon is generally quite poor and constantly washed by abundant rains. It is not on the ground that we find the greatest fertility, but in the tree crowns. Jungles believed to be primeval forests have often taken over land earlier used for agriculture. Large parts of the Amazon Forest were once populated by farmers who perished and disappeared through smallpox and other deadly diseases brought to them by the Europeans. Many of today’s lush and abundant tropical forests grow upon on land that has been depleted either by rain, or intensive agriculture.

The adaptability of trees is amazing. Deserted land, even if it has been devastated by industrial/harmful mono-cultivation and/or once harboured forests subjected to reckless depredation, have demonstrated a remarkable ability to revive itself, creating hybrid ecosystems where life of the old kind mix with newly introduced plants while adapting to drastically changing environmental conditions. Such regenerated, self-planted forests exhibit an unexpected diversity of species that protect soil and plant life, fix atmospheric carbon, and begin to produce timber, wood and charcoal. For example, in the Brazilian District of Para, 25 percent of the area taken from the Amazon jungle has become forest land again and strangely enough its capacity to bind carbon dioxide is twenty times greater than that of the old forests, while birds and other animals have returned.

However, this cannot mean that we can continue exterminating earth’s essential life-sustainers. i.e. trees and forests. Soon it will be far too late to save them, ourselves and our descendants.

Main source : Tassin, Jacques (2018) Penser comme un arbre. Paris: Odile Jacob.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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A man removes debris around a residential building in Kyiv, Ukraine. The war in Ukraine exposes the weaknesses of nuclear deterrence. Instead of opting for a nuclear build-up, the West should advocate for ‘no first use’. Credit: WHO/Anastasia Vlasova

By Caroline Fehl, Maren Vieluf and Sascha Hach
FRANKFURT/BERLIN, Aug 24 2022 (IPS)

This month, the Tenth Review Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is taking place in New York (and scheduled to conclude August 26). The meeting of states parties, postponed four times because of the Covid-19 pandemic, had originally been scheduled for April 2020.

With Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, the geopolitical context has since deteriorated to the point where progress on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation seems almost impossible. The war and Russia’s nuclear threats are fostering a renaissance of nuclear deterrence and rearmament and are threatening to deepen pre-existing fissures in the NPT.

To counter the looming erosion of this cornerstone of global arms control, we need to acknowledge the darker side of nuclear deterrence that the war is exposing. Understanding the current situation as a crisis of nuclear deterrence can open up opportunities for de-escalation, disarmament, and arms control – similar to the transformative effects of the Cuban Missile Crisis during the Cold War.

Despite its overall positive track record, the NPT has also been plagued by disputes and crises since it was signed in 1968. These crises have included regional proliferation crises – North Korea and Iran pushed ahead with nuclear armament even though they had ratified the NPT – but also a lack of substantial progress on nuclear disarmament: During the Cold War, especially in the 1980s, nuclear powers expanded their arsenals dramatically.

Although the arsenals were subsequently reduced again, the number of warheads remained very high (currently estimated at 12,705 warheads worldwide). For this reason, the indefinite extension of the original 25-year treaty was almost in danger of collapse in 1995.

Today, all NPT-recognised nuclear weapon states are pursuing comprehensive modernisation programs of their arsenals and developing new delivery systems. China and the United Kingdom are even increasing the number of their warheads.

The growing attractiveness of nuclear weapons

Russia’s war of aggression exacerbates these problems. From the perspective of many Western policymakers and commentators, the events since 24 February demonstrate the reliability of nuclear deterrence. After all, they argue, the West is not directly intervening in Russia’s war. Others doubt the credibility of NATO’s nuclear deterrent and believe its weakness has emboldened Russia’s aggressive behaviour.

Both assessments result in calls for nuclear (re)armament. In Germany, for the first time, a majority of the population supports NATO’s nuclear sharing and deterrence policy.

At the same time, the war could lead to an aggravation and multiplication of regional proliferation crises. An argument often presented in social networks and media commentary is that Russia’s war of aggression would not have taken place if Ukraine had possessed nuclear weapons.

In fact, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine never had the command over the arsenal stationed on its territory. Nevertheless, nuclear weapons have become more attractive to some states in light of the Russian invasion. The breach of the Budapest Memorandum has shaken confidence in negative security guarantees.

Instead of employing its nuclear arsenal to defend or prevent conventional military escalation, Moscow uses nuclear threats to increase the chances of a favourable outcome of the war and to hedge its imperialist aspirations.

For nuclear-weapon states and their allies, the mutual threat of total annihilation serves to prevent wars and thus guarantee peace and security. In the current crisis, however, it is above all the downsides of nuclear deterrence that are becoming visible.

In the war against Ukraine, Russia is taking the nuclear threat to the extreme by deliberately using nuclear weapons to facilitate war: instead of employing its nuclear arsenal to defend or prevent conventional military escalation, Moscow uses nuclear threats to increase the chances of a favourable outcome of the war and to hedge its imperialist aspirations.

This undermines both the UN Charter’s prohibition of the use of force and the right to individual and collective self-defence.

In 1985 and early 2021, the US and Soviet Union and later the Russian presidents declared that a nuclear war cannot be won and must therefore never be fought. However, the understanding of nuclear weapons as a last resort in the event of a nuclear attack has long ceased to be shared by all nuclear powers.

Tactical nuclear weapons and scenarios of ‘limited’ nuclear warfare have long been gaining importance for Russia – but also for the United States. This broadening of nuclear deterrence, as demonstrated by Russia’s threatening posturing, challenges the nuclear taboo that nuclear doctrines are supposed to reinforce.

This reveals a paradox of nuclear deterrence: the more it is used and the broader nuclear threats are framed, the higher the likelihood of a nuclear escalation.

At present, NATO and Russia have a mutual interest in not extending the war beyond Ukraine’s borders. However, if Moscow fears a comprehensive defeat as the war progresses, it could resort to the use of tactical nuclear weapons.

The war on Ukraine exposes the fragility of nuclear deterrence. After all, in the absence of the necessary common understanding of the conditions under which nuclear weapons would be used, their predictability is lost.

Learning from the Cuban Missile Crisis

What does all this mean for the NPT Review Conference? As the 191 NPT member states gather in New York, they will do so in the long shadow cast by the war in faraway Ukraine. And yet, it is also worthwhile for delegates to look back into the past: the ‘Cuban Missile Crisis’ nearly 60 years ago was, like the war on Ukraine, a stress test of nuclear deterrence.

In the fall of 1962, the deployment of Soviet medium-range missiles in Cuba and the subsequent US naval blockade brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. After 13 days, the crisis ended with the withdrawal of Soviet nuclear weapons in return for US concessions (both public and private).

At that time, too, Western analysts and policymakers viewed the crisis and its outcome as evidence that (US) nuclear deterrence was working. Then, too, it was used to justify nuclear arms build-up.

Nevertheless, the Cuban Missile Crisis also became a ‘transformative event’ that was crucial in shaping confidence-building and risk-reduction measures between the two nuclear powers. These included the establishment of direct contacts at the highest military and political levels, as well as dialogues on strategic stability.

At the global level, Russia and the United States cooperated to keep the nuclear order stable, admittedly to their advantage. Examples were the expansion of the role of the International Atomic Energy Agency – and the very NPT whose members are meeting in New York in August 2022.

Transformative potential

The war on Ukraine also holds such a transformative potential if the escalation dangers arising from nuclear deterrence are taken seriously. The Biden administrations and NATO’s de-escalating signalling were steps in the right direction.

Also, the use of highest military contact points to avoid misperceptions have thus far helped prevent an unintended expansion or even nuclear escalation of the war so far. These risk reduction efforts need to be further strengthened and consolidated – including within the NPT framework.

The US, France, the UK, and their allies should take the initiative at the Review Conference to strengthen the nuclear taboo. The most convincing step they could take would be a joint declaration to renounce first use, coupled with a legally binding international commitment not to launch nuclear attacks against states that are parties to the NPT and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons or a nuclear-weapon-free zone.

Reducing deterrence to a minimum – nuclear defence in the event of a nuclear attack – is necessary to end the risky blurring of deterrence of recent years. Since NATO first-use is likely to be ruled out anyway, a public declaration would not mean a loss of military options. Rather, it would allow the West to forge an anti-nuclear war alliance on a global scale without forcing other states to take sides in the ongoing war.

Other major powers (China, India, Brazil, and South Africa) and numerous non-nuclear-weapon states support a policy of nuclear restraint, but do not want to be drawn into a new East-West conflict. A broad alliance against the use of nuclear weapons could increase pressure on Russia to refrain from further nuclear threats so as not to isolate itself.

At the same time, the Western nuclear-weapon states should restore the confidence in negative security guarantees destroyed by Russia and thus bolster the nuclear non-proliferation regime.

Dr Caroline Fehl is a research associate at the Leibniz Institute Hessian Foundation for Peace and Conflict Research (HSFK) in Frankfurt/Main.

Maren Vieluf is a researcher in the Challenges to Deep Cuts project at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy in Berlin.

Sascha Hach is a researcher in the programme area ‘International Security’ at the Leibniz Institute Hessian Foundation for Peace and Conflict Research in Frankfurt and teaches at the University of the Federal Armed Forces in Munich.

Source: International Politics and Society, Bruxelles, Belgium

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Displaced children in Burundi wait for class to begin. Credit: ECW/Amizero

By Juliet Morrison
United Nations, Aug 23 2022 (IPS)

Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait (ECW) issued a wake-up call for the global community to support efforts on facilitating education in crisis areas. She was speaking at the United Nations at the launch of the global fund’s annual report titled We Have Promises to Keep.

The UN global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crisis chief also cited highlights from the report, which revealed that ECW and its strategic partners had reached a total of nearly 7 million children and adolescents since becoming operational in 2017.

In 2021 alone, the organization raised more than US$388.6 million and helped 3.7 million children and adolescents in 32 countries.

According to the report, half of all children reached by ECW to date have been girls, and nearly 43 percent have been of refugee or internally displaced status.

Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait, speaks to reporters at the United Nations in New York. Credit: Juliet Morrison/IPS

Sherif noted that 2021 had been ECW’s biggest year for resource mobilization. The organization has had to expand its efforts to try to meet the increased need caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the outbreak of conflicts.

The current amount of those in need is “shocking”, Sherif said.

In 2017, 75 million children and adolescents were deemed in need of educational support. Now, 222 million require ECW’s assistance.

Recent analysis from the organization showed that 78.2 million crisis-afflicted children and adolescents are not in school, and 119.6 million are failing to reach the minimum competencies in reading and mathematics, despite being in school. An additional 24.2 million youth are in school and achieving the minimum proficiency but are still affected by crises and in need of support.

To address this surge, ECW has issued a call to action. The organization’s #222MillionDreams campaign aims to engage governments, foundations, and the private sector to support the organization through financial donations.

Discussing the initiative, Sherif emphasized the importance of education for those in conflict areas.

“222 million youth are not only suffering from armed conflict and COVID-19 and forced displacement but on top of that they are taken away from their last hope—the access to a quality education.”

Access to education is important, she added, as it can not only change the lives of children and adolescents but also the lives of those around them.

Supporting ECW programs was also critical, given the organization provides psychosocial support for those in conflict zones, Sherif noted.

“We are dealing with deeply traumatized children and young people. You can just imagine the excruciating pain of losing your family, being disposed of, running from villages that are on fire, sexual violence […] the human misery up there is so much more than we imagine. The least you can do if you can’t imagine it is to use financial resources, at least, to remove it.”

She noted that the global community had pledged to ensure youth had access to education no matter their circumstances.

“We have made promises through the sustainable development goal 4 and through the human rights convention that every child, even if you are left behind in conflict and emergencies, in climate disasters or as a refugee, we promised them a quality education.”

Sherif told reporters she was confident action to meet the 222MillionDreams goal could be taken. The organization is hosting a High-Level Financing Conference in February 2023 with the Government of Switzerland, and she noted that the conversation would continue with the UN Transforming Education Summit that will take place in September.

Above all, prioritizing education is key to meeting sustainable development goals (SDGs), Sherif said.

“Education is the key to all sustainable development goals. How can we, without education, achieve gender equality and [end] extreme poverty? It’s also the key to achieving all human rights. Without education, how can you have a free and fair trial, freedom of expression, and so forth? Education is the very foundation.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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• Keeping the Promise of Education for Crisis-Impacted Children and Adolescents
• Urgent Global Call to Save 222 Million Dreams for Children Impacted by Crises

Rohingya refugee girl Rohima Akter, 13, is excited about learning to write in the Burmese language in the UNICEF learning centre in Cox's Bazar.​ ​The new curriculum provides Rohingya refugee children with formal and standardized education.​ Credit: UNICEF Bangladesh

By Joyce Chimbi
United Nations, Aug 23 2022 (IPS)

Syrian refugee children are among the most disadvantaged in Iraq. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, only 53 percent of school-aged Syrian refugee children in the country were enrolled.

Across the globe, in Bangladesh, more than 890 000 Rohingya refugees live in 34 congested camps in Cox’s Bazar. COVID, fire, monsoons, floods, and landslides impacted education.

In Nigeria, since the conflict began in north-eastern Nigeria in 2013, at least 2,295 teachers have been killed, more than 1,000 children abducted, and 1,400 schools destroyed.

Yet, Education Cannot Wait, the global fund for United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, believes that progress can be made to prevent the children from Syria, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Chad, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Pakistan, and South Sudan among other regions, from falling off the education system and consequently missing out on lifelong learning and earning opportunities.

“There is no dream more powerful than that of an education. There is no reality more compelling than to attain one’s full potential. We must keep our promise: to provide inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all, as enshrined in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG4) and Human Rights Conventions,” says Gordon Brown, the United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education and former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

“While progress is being made, we still have a long way to go. Today, we are faced with the cruel reality of 222 million children and adolescents worldwide in wars and disasters in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and South America who need urgent financial investments to access a quality education.”

This progress has now been documented in ECW’s We Have Promises to Keep: Annual Results Report released today. The annual report comes on the back of ECW’s estimates laying bare the plight of crisis-impacted children and adolescents and how this plight remains less visible to the global community.

A young girl in her classroom in Yemen, where an ECW-funded programme is supporting educators and students by improving access to quality education. Credit: Building Foundation for Development Yemen

According to ECW, 222 million school-aged children and adolescents caught in crises urgently need educational support. These include 78.2 million who are out of school and 119.6 million who are in school but not achieving minimum competencies in mathematics and reading.

Worst still, an estimated 65.7 million of these out-of-school children—or 84 percent—live in protracted crises, with about two-thirds or 65 percent of them in just ten countries, including Afghanistan, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Yemen.

Conflict, forced displacement, climate-induced disasters, and the compounding effect of the COVID-19 pandemic fueled increased education in emergency needs, with funding appeal of US$2.9 billion in 2021, compared with US$1.4 billion in 2020.

While 2021 saw a record-high US$645 million in education funding—the overall funding gap spiked by 17 percent, from 60 percent in 2020 to 77 percent in 2021, according to the newly-released annual report.

“ECW’s solid results in our first five years of operation are proof of concept that we can turn the tide and empower the most marginalized girls and boys in crises with the hope, protection, and opportunity of quality education. We can make their dreams come true, whether it’s to become a nurse, a teacher, an engineer, or a scientist,” said Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait.

“With our strategic partners, we urge governments, businesses, and philanthropic actors to make substantive funding contributions to ECW to help turn dreams into reality for children left furthest behind in crises.”

Towards delivering the promise of lifelong learning and earning opportunities, the report shows ECW investments with strategic partners reached close to 7 million children and adolescents, 48.4 percent of whom are girls, since becoming operational in 2017.

Despite the ongoing multiple and complex challenges of COVID-19, conflict, protracted crises, and climate-related disasters, the annual report reveals that the fund and its partners continue to expand the response to education in emergencies and protracted crises globally.

In 2021 alone, ECW mobilized a record-breaking US$388.6 million. Total contributions to the ECW Trust Fund are now top US$1.1 billion.

Across 19 countries supported through ECW’s Multi-Year Resilience Programmes, donors and partners mobilized more than US$1 billion in new funding for education programmes.

Through its strategic partnerships, ECW reached 3.7 million children and adolescents across 32 crisis-impacted countries in 2021 alone, including 48.9 percent girls. An additional 11.8 million children and adolescents were reached through the fund’s COVID-19 interventions that same year, bringing the total number of children and adolescents supported by COVID-19 interventions to 31.2 million, of which 52 percent are girls.

But these highlights are tempered by concerns over an increase in the scale, severity, and protracted nature of conflicts and crises, continued attacks on education, and record-high displacements driven by climate change, conflicts, and other emergencies.

For instance, the COVID-19 pandemic significantly deepened the global learning crisis. In 2020 and 2021 alone, 147 million children missed over half of in-person instruction, and as many as 24 million learners may never return to school, according to UN estimates.

These challenges notwithstanding, the report provides more evidence of progress made by focusing on quality learning outcomes for the most marginalized children in crises. Of all children reached by ECW’s investments to date, half are girls, and 43 percent are refugees or internally displaced children.

Additionally, ECW grants indicate “improved levels of academic and or social-emotional learning; 53 percent of grants that measure learning levels showcase solid evidence of increased learning levels compared to 23 percent of grants active in 2020.”

Overall, the share of children reached with early childhood and secondary education increased substantially. Early childhood education increased from 5 percent in 2019 to 9 percent in 2021. Secondary education increased from 3 percent to 11 percent for the same period.

On inclusivity, estimates show that 92 percent of ECW-supported programmes demonstrated an improvement in gender parity. Today, more girls and boys are completing their education and or transitioning to the next grade or level, with a weighted completion rate of 79 percent and transition rate of 63 percent.

Teachers were not left behind as nearly 27,000 teachers—52 percent female—were trained and demonstrated increased knowledge, capacity, or performance in 2021.

To address the special needs of children and adolescents traumatized by war and conflict, over 13,800 learning spaces now have mental health and or psychosocial support activities. The number of teachers trained on mental health and psychosocial support topics doubled in 2021, reaching 54,000.

Ahead of its High-Level Financing Conference in Geneva in February 2023, the organization called on government donors, the private sector, foundations, and high-net-worth individuals to turn commitments into action by making substantive funding contributions to ECW.

The funding has already made a difference in Nigeria, where since January 2021, ECW partners facilitated 26,775 new school enrolments, an increase of 49.4 percent over the previous year.

In Cox’s Bazar, where 77 percent of children study at home, ECW partners supported the caregivers with bi-monthly visits and through radio broadcasting and the distribution of educational materials.

And in Syria, a consortium of partners was able to significantly improve conditions for children, with 74 percent of children showing an improvement in mathematics.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Excerpt:

‘We Have Promises to Keep’ – Education Cannot Wait results report shows how investments reach 7 million crisis-impacted children and adolescents in the world’s toughest contexts. However, the report indicates there is still much work to be done as 222 million school-aged children and adolescents caught in crises urgently need educational support.

There are those cows watching the fight in the mud of rusty Soviet cars; there are those tethered dogs that bark next to bathtubs full of rainwater, or those cats that frolic in freedom. This is Armenia, a state of three million deep in the heart of the Caucasus region. At 30 kilometers west of […]

Ecuador, Peru and their three shared water basins: the Puyango-Tumbes, Catamayo-Chira and Zarumilla Watersheds and Aquifers. Credit: UNDP Ecuador

By Andrew Hudson and Katharina Davis
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 23 2022 (IPS)

We tend to associate rivers and lakes with the countries in which they are located. Yet a little-known fact is that more than half of the world’s freshwater bodies are shared.

Indeed, 153 countries share at least one of the world’s 256 transboundary river and lake basins. In an age of rapid development and climate change, the equitable and sustainable management of precious natural resources such as water are essential to global food security, economic development, and to reducing poverty.

Freshwater systems also provide the vital basis for energy production, transport, tourism and other economic activities. Around the world, many shared freshwater ecosystems face severe degradation, having been battered by poorly planned dams, pollution, habitat loss, overfishing, climate change, and the introduction of invasive species.

That’s why the UN Water Convention is so significant, and worth commemorating on its 30th anniversary, as the United Nations did on June 30th. Formally known as “The Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes,” it outlines how to improve transboundary cooperation.

Opened in 2003 for global membership, the Water Convention has 44 parties, and many more have asked to join. According to progress tracked for the UN Global Goal on transboundary waters, barely more than half of the shared waters are covered by an operational arrangement.

Given the degraded state of shared freshwater ecosystems and knock-on socio-economic effects, it is critical that we put proper cooperative arrangements in place.

Beyond the formal commitment to cooperate on transboundary waters, the convention has in many cases served as inspiration and a model for the development, negotiation, adoption and coming into force of individual shared waterbody legal frameworks and their associated institutional mechanisms.

The benefits go beyond the equitable and sustainable use of water resources. The convention has promoted and advanced regional economic integration, reduced the risk of multi-country conflict, contributing to regional security and peace.

UNDP is active in more than 30 transboundary river and lake basins, and groundwater systems in four continents. The UN Development Programme (UNDP) created dedicated support for the political aspects of transboundary water cooperation, or water diplomacy, through the Shared Waters Partnership.

To assist countries to operationalize management on shared water systems, UNDP supports joint waterbody assessments and diagnostics; the establishment of multi-country institutions and their secretariats; joint development and management of a vision, strategy and action plans; institutionalization of regular exchange of data and information; and exchange of regular, formal communication between countries.

Cooperation between neighbours can affect water management and broader peace and security. UNDP’s transboundary waters portfolio, largely financed by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), includes many projects:

1. The Drin Basin in the southeast Balkans: Connecting five countries and five water bodies in Albania, Greece, Kosovo*, Montenegro and North Macedonia, the Drin Basin sustains unique ecosystems and endemic biodiversity, while supporting the economic activity of over 1.6 million people. This initiative addressed increasing ecological degradation and climate change in the basin through the Drin Coordinated Action agreement developed in 2011. Key achievements include the Drin Core Group, the de facto joint coordination body; the Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis as well as the endorsement of the Strategic Action Programme, including the steps to address the main transboundary problems.

2. Ecuador, Peru and their three shared water basins: the Puyango-Tumbes, Catamayo-Chira and Zarumilla Watersheds and Aquifers: This collaboration takes place in the context of a long history of border disputes in the Amazon basin.

In 2017, a Binational Commission for Integrated Water Resources Management in the Ecuadorian-Peruvian transboundary basins were established to consolidate bilateral cooperation for peace, as well as for the use and management of water resources. The project strengthened the Binational Commission to facilitate cooperation and joint action and developed stakeholder capacities to improve the management of water resources.

As we consider the mounting pressures facing our rivers and lakes, it is important that all transboundary water basins are governed and managed collaboratively.

The Water Convention has set formal transboundary cooperation in motion, and the 2030 Global Goals, with a dedicated target – SDG 6.5 – on integrated water resources management at all levels, including through transboundary waters, represents an important goalpost.

Given that nearly half of the world’s transboundary waters still lack an operational cooperative arrangement less than eight years before the 2030 mark, there is an urgent need to support countries to develop the capacity to sustainably manage shared waters.

The UN Water Convention will continue to inspire and support progress towards this key target.

* References to Kosovo shall be understood to be in the context of Security Council Resolution 1244 (1999)

Andrew Hudson is Head of Water and Ocean Governance Programme, UNDP and Katharina Davis is Thematic Expert on Water, Climate and Urban Resilience, UNDP.

Source: UNDP Blog

IPS UN Bureau

 

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