Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

By Marty Logan
KATHMANDU, Jul 7 2022 (IPS)

Today we are starting a new series focused on human rights. For people working to create a more sustainable and just world – as we are – a human rights based approach makes sense as it starts from the premise that only by recognizing and protecting the dignity inherent in all people can we attain those goals.

Today’s guest, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, has immense experience in human rights. She is the founder and executive director of Tebtebba Foundation, which works to improve the lives of Indigenous peoples in the Philippines, her home country, and beyond. She was the Chairperson of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples from 2005 To 2010, and UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples from 2014 to 2020.

We cover a lot of ground in this episode — from Vicky’s analysis of her time as special rapporteur to recent rhetoric around ‘building back better’, the circular economy and other touted economic reforms, versus the reality on the ground. Indigenous communities are facing growing pressure from both states and the private sector to extract the natural resources that they are trying to protect. This dichotomy between the words and deeds of these powerful actors must be continually exposed and challenged by Indigenous peoples, says Vicky.

Asked whether governments of poorer countries are doing enough to protect human rights, without hesitating Vicky answers no. But she also points out that these countries are themselves pressured by international agreements, brokered largely by rich countries, that leave them with few options but to exploit natural resources.

She also tells me about an exciting project — the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, a body of 23 global experts, is creating a General Recommendation on Indigenous women and girls. Among other things, it recognize the individual and collective rights of Indigenous women, the latter including respect for their rights to land, languages and other culture. Vicki says it is the first time that a UN treaty body is developing a recommendation focussed on Indigenous women.

Resources

Tebtebba Foundation

UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples

UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigneous Peoples

IPS Coverage About Indigenous Peoples Rights

 

The "bodegones" are Venezuela's new commercial boom. They sell imported products, mostly from the United States despite the sanctions, and have spread into middle and lower-middle class neighborhoods in Caracas and other cities, to attract consumers who receive remittances of foreign currency from the millions of Venezuelans who have migrated in recent years. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez/IPS

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Jul 7 2022 (IPS)

Economic sanctions against countries whose behavior is reproached by the West operate as punishment although they fail in their declared political objectives, and in cases such as Venezuela the contrast is clearly on display in the windows of high-end stores that sell imported goods.

“Experience has shown that sanctions are an instrument that does not achieve the supposed objective, political change, as in the cases of Cuba and now also in Venezuela,” Luis Oliveros, professor of economics at the Metropolitan and Central universities of Venezuela, told IPS.

"There is a club of sanctioned countries, they feed off each other, share information and mechanisms to circumvent sanctions, and they cooperate with each other, such as Russia with China or Iran, or Cuba and Iran with Venezuela, even obtaining support from third party countries such as Turkey." -- Luis Oliveros
Moreover, “there is a club of sanctioned countries, they feed off each other, share information and mechanisms to circumvent sanctions, and they cooperate with each other, such as Russia with China or Iran, or Cuba and Iran with Venezuela, even obtaining support from third party countries such as Turkey,” said Oliveros.

The most commonly used sanctions are bans on exports and imports, financial transactions, obtaining technology, spare parts and weapons, and travel and trade; the freezing of assets; the withdrawal of visas; bans on entering the sanctioning country; the expulsion of undesirable individuals; and the blocking of bank accounts.

Russia became embroiled in a thick web of sanctions since its troops invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, and measures against its products, operations, institutions and authorities, which numbered 2,754 before the conflict, according to the private organization Statista, have now climbed to 10,536 and counting.

Following Russia on that list of punishments of various kinds are Iran, which faces 3,616 sanctions, Syria (2,608), North Korea (2,077), Venezuela (651), Myanmar (510), and Cuba (208).

The major sanctioners are the United States, the European Union, Canada, Australia, Japan, Israel and Switzerland.

In the case of Iran and North Korea, sanctions have mainly punished their nuclear development programs. Pyongyang has not stopped its missile tests and Tehran flips the switch on its nuclear program according to the vagaries of Washington’s international policy.

A pro-government march in Caracas against the sanctions imposed by the United States on civilian and military officials and several public companies, as a measure of pressure against the government of President Nicolás Maduro. The president blames the sanctions for all the country’s problems, which have driven 6.1 million people to migrate since he first took office. CREDIT: VTV

The Russian impact

Like a boomerang, sanctions sometimes hurt their proponents, and in the case of Russia their effects are felt in every corner of the planet.

Chinese President Xi Jinping warned on Jun. 23 that sanctions “are becoming a weapon in the world economy.”

“Economic sanctions deliver bigger global shocks than ever before and are easier to evade,” observed Nicholas Mulder, author of “The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War.”

Mulder, an assistant professor in the history department of Cornell University in the U.S. state of New York, argues that “not since the 1930s has an economy the size of Russia’s been placed under such a wide array of commercial restrictions as those imposed in response to its invasion of Ukraine.” He was referring to measures against Italy and Japan after the invasions of Ethiopia and China.

The difference is that “Russia today is a major exporter of oil, grain, and other key commodities, and the global economy is far more integrated. As a result, today’s sanctions have global economic effects far greater than anything seen before,” says Mulder.

Industrialized economies in Europe and North America have been impacted by energy price hikes, and as sanctions remove Russian raw materials from global supply chains, prices are rising and affecting the cost of imports and the finances of less developed countries, says the author.

In Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, there are fears of increased food insecurity as supplies of grain, cooking oil and fertilizers from Ukraine and Russia have been disrupted and the costs have been driven up.

“The result of these changes is that today’s sanctions can cause graver commercial losses than ever before, but they can also be weakened in new ways through trade diversion and evasion,” Mulder warned in a paper released in June by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Nazanin Armanian, an Iranian political scientist exiled in Spain, argues that “the tactic of shocking the economy of rivals and enemies suffers from two problems: neglecting the risk of radicalization of those who feel humiliated and ignoring the network of connections in a world that is a village.”

She cites the example of Iran, which has found multiple ways to export its oil. That is also the case of Cuba, which has endured and circumvented U.S. sanctions for more than 60 years.

With respect to Cuba, it was then President Barack Obama (2009-2017) who said on Dec. 17, 2014 that “It is clear that decades of U.S. isolation of Cuba have failed to accomplish our enduring objective of promoting the emergence of a democratic, prosperous, and stable Cuba.”

The U.S. sanctions against Venezuela do not prevent luxurious commercial establishments in Caracas and other Venezuelan cities from selling U.S. and European products for consumption by a minority with ample access to foreign currency, benefited by the tax exemption on remittances. Meanwhile, four-fifths of the population are immersed in poverty. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez/IPS

The case of Venezuela

It was also Obama who on Mar. 15, 2015 declared in an executive order the government of Venezuela as an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States,” and that year sanctions were initiated against Venezuelan authorities, companies and public institutions.

Since then, Washington has sanctioned with a range of measures dozens of officials and their families, military commanders, government leaders, businesspersons who negotiate with the government and some one hundred companies, both public and private.

The EU also adopted sanctions, as did Canada and Panama, and U.S. sanctions also affect third country companies that do business with the Venezuelan government.

When the United States stopped buying Venezuelan crude oil and banned the sale of supplies to produce gasoline, Caracas appealed with some success to Iran, which has also sent equipment and personnel to refurbish Venezuela’s rundown refineries.

But the most visible demonstration of the ineffectiveness of the sanctions is that imported products are displayed and sold in hundreds of stores in Caracas and other cities and towns, even if only a minority can afford to buy them regularly.

There has been a proliferation of “bodegones” – up to 800 have been counted in Caracas, a crowded city of 3.5 million people located in a valley surrounded by mountains – the name given to new or quickly refurbished stores to give them a sophisticated appearance and satisfy tastes or the need to acquire imported foodstuffs and other perishable products, after years of widespread shortages.

The bodegones, as well as appliance stores and a handful of high-end restaurants and bars, have been the battering ram of the de facto dollarization that reigns in Venezuela, alongside the disdain for the bolivar as currency and the use of the Brazilian real and the Colombian peso in the border areas with those two countries.

Washington allows the export of food, agricultural, medicinal and hygiene products, while U.S. brands or imitations are imported from Asia, as well as household appliances, telephone and computer equipment and accessories. Wines, liquors and cosmetics arrive without major problems from Europe.

An apparent “bonanza bubble” has arisen, limited to trade and consumption by a minority, fed with income from the State – which sells minerals and other resources with a total lack of transparency -, and with remittances from the millions of Venezuelans who have migrated to escape the crisis over the last eight years.

In that period, poverty has expanded until reaching four-fifths of the country’s 28 million inhabitants and they have also suffered three years of hyperinflation. For this crisis, the government of President Nicolás Maduro tirelessly and systematically blames the sanctions from abroad.

The sanctions “have been an excellent business for the Maduro administration, because not only did it unify its forces based on a common external objective, but it forgot about paying the foreign debt and, under a state of emergency, exports without transparency or accountability, in a black market,” said Oliveros.
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In addition, “a good part of the opposition put all its eggs in the sanctions basket and forgot about doing political work, and that is why the public, after so many years of difficulties, are questioning the results of that strategy,” he added.

In short, “instead of helping to bring about political change, what the sanctions have done is to keep Maduro in power,” said Oliveros.

In the cases of Venezuela and Iran, Washington and its European partners are interested in obtaining gestures of change – in the Venezuelan case, resumption of dialogue with the opposition – that would justify a relaxation of sanctions, which in turn would lead to an increase in oil supplies, now that Russian oil is facing restrictions.

Meanwhile, with respect to Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba, as well as countries opposed by the West on other continents, sanctions continue to function, in the eyes of public opinion in the countries that impose them, as a sign of political will to punish governments considered enemies, troublemakers or outlaws.

Around the world, from Syria to Libya, from Bangladesh to Ukraine, millions have become refugees in foreign lands due to war, famine, or political and economic instability in their countries. After South Africa gained freedom in 1994, Africa’s powerhouse became a magnet for migrants from politically and economically unstable African and Asian countries. But in […]

A residential building in Nairobi, Kenya. According to UN estimates, by 2050 about 68 per cent of the world’s population will be living in urban areas. Credit: UN-Habitat/Kirsten Milhahn

By Simone Galimberti
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Jul 7 2022 (IPS)

When we think of urbanization we often end up referring to the increasing number of megalopolises that are sprawling around the world.

Yet less thoughts are given on the fact that the future patterns of urbanization will be centered on secondary cities or semi urban spaces, now becoming extensions of these gigantic cities.

It means that the world will continue to urbanize even though the world share of population living in this new urban continuum is forecasted to slow down, reaching 58 per cent in the next fifty years according to data from UN Habitat.

Yet, especially in the developing world, such reduction will still bring in a whopping increase of 76% of the number of cities in low income nations that in practically terms will mean a rise of 2.2 billion residents mostly in Africa and Asia.

These are some of the key findings of the World Cities Report 2022, the flagship publication of UN Habitat that was recently launched in occasion of the 11th World Urban Forum, the biannual event that was held last week in Poland, bringing together top policy makers, experts and activists working in the area of urbanization.

The insights and discussions enabled by these publications and events are indispensable to activate the so called New Urban Agenda, a strategically important though overlooked agenda to rethink sustainability from the perspectives of those living in the cities.

Unfortunately there is still so much to be done here and unsurprisingly there are huge constraints in terms of funding to implement this vision even though more recently, several financial commitments have been done, including a massive boost in resilient infrastructures during the recently held G7.

The international community should be indeed worried and not only in terms of bridging the resource gap for a sustainable urbanization.

Global leaders need to seize the opportunity and reconsider the ways cities are governed.

While it remains paramount to think in terms of the future of the millions of people living in big cities, the trends and patterns are pointing to the urgency of systematically thinking about governing urban spaces in terms of multilevel governance.

It means we need to work on a future system of policy making and decision making that is able to function and deliver beyond a single administrative jurisdiction.

Such a model must be capable to address the needs of the people living within and in the peripheries from three key dimension, spatial, social and economic.

The opportunity here is not only about re-thinking the existing boundaries, merging existing administrative units, creating bigger and more extended centers of power with the tools and resources of governing entire metropolitan regions.

This, in itself, would be a mammoth task because it will eat away power to different, often overlapping and certainly inadequate local bodies of governance now in existence.

The real chance we need to seize is to re-think, holistically, the way local governance works and take action on the general ineffectiveness of local bodies in terms of social inclusion.

Securing stronger and more resilient cities, able to withstand the more frequent shocks and hazards, will require a new social compact, a re-distribution of powers between local governments in charge of urban spaces and the citizenry, especially those left behind.

This latter group is at the core of the recommendations World Cities Report 2022, highlighting how vulnerable citizens must shift from being “passive victims” of current patterns of urbanization to “active urban change agents”.

Such pivot towards the downtrodden can be successful if we go beyond the traditional recipe made only by stronger social policies.

This is a formula that tends to largely be centered around, on the one hand, more sophisticated and generous social protection schemes like universal basic income and, on the other, around health coverage and housing.

These three social areas of interventions, together with quality and affordable education, are extremely important but we need to imagine a new social contract in terms of participation and engagement.

Indeed, according to the so called Urban Resilience Principles, the guiding pillars for a different vision for the future of cities, it is essential to ensure a meaningful participation of the people, especially those disadvantaged, in the planning and governance of any future urban governance system.

“With ever larger cities, the distance between governments and their citizens has increased” explains the World Cities Report 2022 report.

“Effective communication, meaningful participation opportunities and accountability structures built into integrated governance relationships are all necessary responses for addressing the trust equation”.

The document goes even further, calling for new forms of collaborative governance that involve different stakeholders joining the decision making process.

That’s why deliberative democracy, often at the fringes of the political science studies, is now being rediscovered as a possible remedy to the distance between traditional decision makers and citizens.

Obviously there is one particular group that, not only has huge stakes in the future of urban spaces but also can play a vital role to re-animate the debate about more bottom up, participatory forms of democratic decision making: the youths.

Some attempts are being made in this direction.

Over the UN General Assembly High Level Meeting held on the 27th of April to review the progress taken so far in implementing the New Urban Agenda, the Youth 2030 Cities initiative brought together youths from Ecuador, Colombia and Ghana to discuss about their role and their contributions for a better urban future.

The event was a culmination of trainings and discussions in six different countries around the world, an exercise that led to the preparation of “DeclarACTIONS”, roadmaps and at the same time real blueprints for youths driven changes around sustainable urbanization.

These are not just aspirational documents but they contain concrete and practical proposals, result of a long raging series of interventions supported by UN Habitat and the Foundation Botnar.

The Youth 2030 Cities program is an example of how it is possible to enable youth to convene and discuss.

Potentially, it can be seen, as a bold attempt at expanding the decision making process at local level.

The challenge will be on how to shift from pilot mode to an approach that systematically includes all citizens, including the youth, in the policy and decision making processes.

An institution like UN-Habitat has a very important mandate to mainstream participatory processes across the developing and emerging world, enabling new transformative ways for people to be involved and engaged.

System ways partnerships, starting from within the UN System, can harness the potential shown when youths are allowed to discuss and debate.

The dynamics facilitated by Youth 2030 Cities, can truly bring transformative changes but with them, we need bold and farsighted vision from the world leaders.

Let’s not forget that, real change will happen when people, especially the youths, are empowered, not just to be consulted and be able to express their opinion, but when are enabled to take binding decisions.

The fact that also the World Urban Forum 11 saw the same Youth 2030 Cities youth to gather for a global “DeclarAction”, is promising but the road ahead is still indeed very steep.

Simone Galimberti is co-Founder of ENGAGE, a not-for-profit NGO in Nepal. He writes on volunteerism, social inclusion, youth development and regional integration as an engine to improve people’s lives.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Hidden in Pathumthaini province just outside of Bangkok, 0.24 hectares of land adjacent to Seangsan temple has been turned into an urban vegetable farm managed by members of the Association of the Physically handicapped of Pathumthani. ‘Farm Samart, Khon Sama’ consists of a large open greenhouse that sits at the back of the land. In […]

Sylvie Djacbou, Exchanging with indigenous communities and somes civil societies around the Impact of Cameroon growth and employment strategy through structural projects like Agro-industries on Indigenous communities. @inside their sacred forest, Assok/Mintom, South Region Cameroon

By Sylvie Djacbou Deugoue
YAOUNDÉ, Jul 6 2022 (IPS)

A few years ago, I found myself in the Baka indigenous sacred forest in Assok, in Cameroon in the course of my work in supporting them to preserve their forest against land grabbers. We were building a forest hut using only leaves and the knowledge of our indigenous partners.

I was skeptical when we started. “What about rain,” I thought. But the leaves were placed in a way that the rain simply flowed down the sides. Inside was warm and dry.

Indigenous forest peoples are recognized as the first inhabitants of the forests around the world. For millennia Indigenous People have lived symbiotically with nature – gathering fruits and insects; hunting, and protecting the environment they rely upon.

I’ve seen the power of Indigenous Peoples’ ancestral knowledge and wisdom about forest and biodiversity sustainable management. If we embrace this expertise we will be taking the most cost-effective ways to reduce poverty, preserve biodiversity, halt deforestation and contribute to reducing the harmful effects of climate change

In the Congo Basin, around 50 million Indigenous Peoples depend on forests yet they are the most vulnerable, the most marginalized and the poorest inhabitants of a region that stretches across some five countries including Cameroon, Gabon and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

I have interacted with various indigenous people over the last decade as part of my work as an environmental advocate. In Cameroon, where I live, the Indigenous World 2022 Report estimates Baka, Bagyeli and Bedzang peoples represent 0.4% of the total population while the Mbororo pastoralists make up 12%. These interactions include numerous field visits to their ancestral land where I have admired their solidarity and harmony in living with nature.

Over the generations, Indigenous People have developed their own codes of forest conservation, including preventing overhunting with methods that include rotational hunting and harvesting. For instance, the Baka don’t hunt in sacred sites, at a place where a newborn has been circumcised and nor do they hunt large mammals. They eat only fresh meat so hunt only that which can be consumed.

I am amazed by their extensive knowledge of forest medicinal plants and their uses. Prior to the expropriation of their ancestral land by logging and Agribusiness companies, they hardly went to the hospital. While COVID-19 and deforestation have changed that, we still have much to learn from them. For them, forest conservation is not an isolated, compartmentalized concept but an integrated part of their lives.

Yet their very rich traditional culture-and often their lives are at risk: experts say up to 10 indigenous linguistic identities are at risk of disappearing. Embedded in that language is identity and their cultural knowledge, which will also disappear.

When we mark International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples on August 9, we can expect politicians to invite them for photo ops and public appearances. But we have to ask what will be done to really prevent them and their language and expertise from disappearing?

I’ve seen the power of Indigenous Peoples’ ancestral knowledge and wisdom about forest and biodiversity sustainable management. If we embrace this expertise we will be taking the most cost-effective ways to reduce poverty, preserve biodiversity, halt deforestation and contribute to reducing the harmful effects of climate change.

Globally, this is a powerful path forward for responding to climate change, improving the environmental, and advancing justice. Indigenous Peoples make up about 6.2% of the world’s population, but they safeguard 80% of the planet’s biodiversity. Their sophisticated knowledge of the natural forest – documented by scientific research worldwide – allows forests and biodiversity to flourish. Their sustainable land use fights climate change and builds resilience to natural disasters and pandemic.

Sylvie Djacbou Deugoue

Among the recommendations made by Indigenous leaders at the last COP 26 global climate conference, was the recognition of the rights and land tenure of Indigenous Peoples’ to land, forest and water and that Indigenous Peoples, as knowledge holders, should be able to participate directly with their own voices in the UN process to ensure that their “rights, cultures, lands and ways of life” be respected. US$1.7 billion was announced during the last COP 26 to help Indigenous and local communities protect the biodiversity of tropical forests that are vital to protecting the planet from climate change, biodiversity loss, and pandemic risk. 

Little has changed on the ground, despite another recent paper further confirming that traditional ways of using and managing biodiversity are grounded in progressive principles of sustainability. In short, indigenous knowledge and management systems represent critical yet frequently untapped resources in global conservation efforts.

Despite this evidence and policy recommendations, it is business as usual where conflict, insecurity, lack of recognition of Indigenous Peoples land rights, expropriation, lack of inclusion and participation in the decision-making process continues.

COP27 will take place in Egypt, an African country, this year. It is my hope that a delegation from the Congo Basin will not only be there but will influence climate change policies and decisions.

Indigenous Forest Peoples cannot assume the burden of global conservation and climate mitigation challenges without our support. 

My question to the global climate leaders and government authorities is this: what has happened to the COP 26 IPLC forest tenure Joint Donor Statement that pledged for support indigenous people’s land tenure rights and guardianship of the world’s forests? 

Business as usual will not save us. If we don’t act to preserve our forest guardians and their knowledge and properly involve them in our conservation effort, we will lose their rich wisdom and knowledge.

Without healthy, thriving forests, we will never see the sustainable future we are aiming for.

 

Sylvie Djacbou Deugoue is a 2022 New Voices Fellow, Co-Founder of Youth in Action (YouAct) and Greenpeace Africa forest Campaigner. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

Tomasa Chávez, bundled up against the cold of the southern hemisphere winter, works at the Central Market in Buenos Aires, where she was hired in 2021 to separate edible waste that can be recovered. Until then, she went there daily on her own for 30 years to look for food and other recyclable materials among the waste that has now been given new value. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

By Daniel Gutman
BUENOS AIRES, Jul 6 2022 (IPS)

For 30 years, Tomasa Chávez visited the Central Market of Buenos Aires and rummaged through the tons of fruits and vegetables that the stallholders discarded, in search of food. Today she continues to do so, but there is a difference: since 2021 she has been one of the workers hired to recover food as part of a formal program launched by the Central Market.

“Before, I used to come almost every day and collect whatever was edible and whatever could be sold in my neighborhood. Food, cardboard, wood… Now I still come to separate edible food, but I work from 7:00 to 15:00 and I get paid some money,” the short, good-natured woman told IPS.

The Central Market of the Argentine capital is a universe that seems vast and unfathomable to those who venture into it for the first time.

Covering 550 hectares in the municipality of La Matanza, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, it is full of life; to describe it merely as a central market that supplies fruits and vegetables to a metropolis of 15 million inhabitants would be an oversimplification.

In the market there are large companies and small businesses, streets, avenues, warehouses, buildings and even areas taken over by homeless people and a rehabilitation center for people with substance abuse problems. In some places people are crowded among crates of fruit and the noise is overwhelming, but there are also large empty areas where everything is quiet.

Nearly 1,000 trucks enter the Central Market every day to pick up fresh food that is sold in the stores of the city and Greater Buenos Aires. Every month, 106,000 tons of fruits and vegetables are sold, according to official data.

There is also a retail market with food of all kinds, attended by thousands of people from all over the city, in search of better prices than in their neighborhoods, in a context of inflation that does not stop growing – it already exceeds 60 percent annually – and which is destroying the buying power of the middle class and the poor.

View of one of the 12 bays where the fruits and vegetables that supply the 15 million inhabitants of the Greater Buenos Aires region are sold wholesale. The activity begins at 2:00 a.m. and every day some 1,000 trucks enter the market and some 10,000 people work there. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

As a reflection of the social situation in Argentina, where even before the COVID-19 pandemic the poverty rate exceeded 40 percent, a common image of the Market has been that of hundreds of people like Chávez rummaging through the waste, looking for something to eat or to sell.

But since August 2021, much of that energy has been poured into the Waste Reduction and Recovery Program, which is based on two main ideas: to use food fit for consumption for social assistance and the rest for the production of compost or organic fertilizer to promote agroecology.

“There was a social and environmental problem that needed to be addressed. Today we have fewer losses, we provide social assistance and create jobs,” Marisol Troya, quality and transparency manager at the Central Market, told IPS.

 

Coping with the crisis

The 12 gigantic bays where fruits and vegetables are sold wholesale are the heart of the Central Market, which employs 800 people and where a total of 10,000 people work every day.

At 2:00 a.m. the activity begins every day in the market with frenetic movement of crates containing local products from all over Argentina and neighboring countries, which are a festival of colors. Each bay has 55 stalls.

Three people look for food in a container of discarded products at the Central Market of Buenos Aires, where more than 100,000 tons of fruits and vegetables are sold every month to supply retail stores in the Argentine capital and its suburbs. With the recovery program, the Market seeks to provide environmental and social solutions. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

 

“The search for food among the Market’s waste was spurred by the economic crisis and the pandemic,” said Marcelo Pascal, a consultant to the management. “We realized very quickly that there was a lot of merchandise in good condition that was discarded for commercial reasons but could be recuperated.

“There were even small stands that used vegetables found in the garbage. A lot of edible products were recovered, but the process was disorderly, so an effort was made to organize it,” he told IPS.

From August 2021 to June 2022, 1,891 tons of food were recovered for social aid, while 3,276 tons have been used to make compost, according to official figures from the Central Market, which is run by a board of directors made up of representatives of the central, provincial and city governments.

“We have reduced by 48 percent the amount of garbage that the Market was sending to landfills for final disposal, which was 50 tons a day,” agronomist Fabián Rainoldi, head of the Waste Reduction Program, told IPS.

Fabián Rainoldi, head of the Waste Reduction and Recovery Program of the Central Market of Buenos Aires, stands in front of one of the mountains of organic waste that are used to produce compost, which serves as fertilizer for agroecological enterprises. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

 

Orderly recovery of edible products

Justo Gregorio Ayala is working in an esplanade next to one of the wholesale bays. In front of him he has a crate of bruised tomatoes, impossible to sell at a store, but many of which are ripe and edible. His task is to separate the edible ones from the waste.

“I live here in the Market, in the Hogar de Cristo San Cayetano, and six months ago I got this job,” Ayala said, referring to the rehab center for addicts that opened in 2020 inside the Market itself.

“There were always a lot of products to recover in the Market, but now we do it better,” added Ayala, who is one of the workers hired for the Program.

He clarified, however, that the scenario varies depending on the temperature. “In summertime, because of the heat, the fruits and vegetables last much less time and the stallholders throw away more products. Now in winter we don’t find so much.”

The workers work in eight of the market’s 12 bays. There are a total of 24 workers, divided into groups of three, who separate the merchandise that the stallholders are asked to leave in the center of the bay.

The recovered goods are loaded onto trucks that are taken to a huge warehouse in the Community Action section of the Market, where they are prepared for use in social aid projects.

Justo Gregorio Ayala is one of the 24 workers who select edible fruits and vegetables discarded by vendors at the Buenos Aires Central Market. Since August last year, almost 19,000 tons of food fit for human consumption have been recovered and have gone to soup kitchens and other kinds of social assistance. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

“We deliver food to 700 soup kitchens, according to a weekly schedule: about 130 per day,” said Martin Romero, head of the Community Action section, where 22 workers perform their duties, as the first vehicles begin to arrive to pick up their cargo.

“We also put together eight-kilo bags, with whatever we have available, which we deliver to 130 families,” he added to IPS.

What is not fit for human consumption ends up in the composting yard, a plot of land covering almost three hectares, where the process of decomposition of organic matter takes about four months.

“The organic waste is mixed with wood chips made from the crates, which absorb water and reduce the leachate that contaminates the soil. The organic compost is donated to agroecological gardens which use it for fertilization and the recovery of degraded soils,” explained Rainoldi.

The goal is a Central Market that makes use of everything and does not send waste to the dump. It’s a long road that has just begun.

The ongoing financial crisis in Sri Lanka has also triggered a sharp drop in the value of the country’s currency.

By Neville de Silva
LONDON, Jul 6 2022 (IPS)

When Ceylon- now Sri Lanka- gained independence from Britain in 1948 after almost 450 years of colonial rule under three western powers, it was one Asia’s most stable and prosperous democracies.

Today, after years of misrule, rampant corruption by the ruling class and a politicised administration, the country is bankrupt, its economy on the verge of collapse, and society in disarray while a discredited president still clings to power and manipulating the political system, determined to serve the rest of his term.

While the original 18th century Beggar’s Opera was a satire on the injustice in London society of the day and Prime Minister Robert Walpole’s corrupt government, Sri Lanka has not turned to opera but to begging and possibly borrowing if any international lending institution is willing to lend to a country that has recently defaulted on debt repayment for the first time in its post-independence history.

That speaks volumes for the fiscal and monetary policies of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s government, and its unthinking and ill- considered actions in the last two and a half years, that has “collapsed” the country’s economy— as the prime minister told parliament the other day.

Under the 10-year rule of elder brother Mahinda Rajapaksa (2005-2015), the government borrowed heavily from China for massive infrastructure projects. That included a huge international airport at Mattala in nearby Rajapaksa territory in the deep south. Some of them continue to be white elephants.

A joke at the time and resonating now and then was that even herds of roaming wild elephants in the area spurn the airport because of the colour bar!

Since Gotabaya Rajapaksa came to power in November 2019 and a year later brother Mahinda led their Sri Lanka People’s Party (SLPP) to a parliamentary victory, the Rajapaksas, now at the helm of power, strengthened their already close relationship with Beijing at the expense of ties with the West and international lending institutions and alienating UN bodies such as the UN Human Rights Council.

But in the last few months it has been a begging-bowl ‘opera’ as Sri Lanka scoured the world for loans after its foreign reserves started dipping drastically and leading international rating agencies took to downgrading the country’s sovereign rating.

Eventually the Rajapaksa government reneged on its debt repayments, humiliating Sri Lanka which had never defaulted in its 74-year history.

Trapped by a plunging economy Sri Lanka turned to Bangladesh to save it from emerging bankruptcy. Nothing could be more ironic. In its early years Bangladesh was perceived as a recipient of financial support, not a lender.

At that time Sri Lanka’s economy seemed stable enough despite its near 30 years of war against Tamil Tiger separatists.

In early, June Bangladesh agreed in principle to another currency swap of US$ 200 million. This is in addition to last year’s currency swap of $200 million whose repayment date of three months was extended to one year at Sri Lanka’s request last August.

Today, the country’s 22 million people are almost without petrol, cooking gas, kerosene, food, medicines, powdered milk, and other essentials as the government has no foreign currency to import them.

A common scenario in many parts of Sri Lanka are queues of people-men, women and even children- spending many hours and even days to buy the essentials that are scarce and a food shortage is predicted in the coming months.

As I sat down to write this, news reports said the 12th man died seated in his vehicle at a queue for fuel. A few days later the Sunday Times Political Editor upped the death toll to 16.

Meanwhile physical clashes are becoming common at filling station where thugs have muscled in. The other day a soldier was caught on video assaulting a policeman.

Such is the tension building up in society that the Sunday Times Political Editor reported of concerns among local intelligence services about national security.

While the long-drawn out covid pandemic did cripple the tourism industry, a major foreign currency earner, much of the blame rests on President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s short-sighted policies as well as those of some of his ministers and close advisers whose arrogance and ignorance brushed aside warnings sounded a year or two ahead by reputed economists, former Central Bank professionals, academics and trade chambers.

Rajapaksa having denied any culpability for these errors of judgement ultimately conceded his responsibility but only when mass protests erupted in Colombo and elsewhere in the country with even the peasantry-a vital support base of the Rajapaksas- took to the streets castigating him and his government for creating shortages of essential fertilizers for agriculture.

After almost two months, thousands of anti-government protestors who set up camp on the seaside promenade opposite the presidential secretariat in the heart of Colombo, are still there raising their clarion call which has now spread across the country- “Gota Go Home”-demanding that the president return to whence he came.

While Sri Lanka struggles to survive and the Rajapaksas gradually reappear into public view, there has been a perceptible change in the government’s world view. Though Chinese leaders have often declared that Beijing is Colombo’s “all weather friend” it has been slow to come to Sri Lanka’s aid at a time of real crisis.

An appeal to China by the Rajapaksa government to restructure its loans as one of its biggest lenders had not produced the expected reaction from Beijing. Nor had there been a positive response at the time for another credit line of US$ 1.5 billion when Colombo’s foreign reserves were fast drying out.

Even President Xi Jinping’s birthday greeting to President Rajapaksa last month made no mention of any concrete assistance except references to the long-standing Sri Lanka-China relations.

Observers claimed that China was coaxing-if not actually pressuring- Sri Lanka to distance itself from India, its competitor for political positioning and an expanding stake in the strategically- located island.

While the immediate target was India, Beijing was also pointing its finger at Sri Lanka’s growing ties with the US and international institutions such as the IMF.

The fact that since January India has provided assistance to Sri Lanka with currency swaps, credit lines, loan deferments and humanitarian assistance to meet the mounting crisis and supported Colombo’s call for IMF aid, appeared unwelcome news to China which has been trying to persuade Sri Lanka to enter into a trade agreement with it.

In late June, a high-powered Indian delegation led by Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra made a quick few- hour visit to Colombo to meet President Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and discuss further strengthening of Indo-Lanka ties and bilateral investment partnerships including infrastructure and renewal energy.

New Delhi pointed out that this unprecedented recent economic, financial and humanitarian assistance including medicines and food valued at over US$ 3.5 b was guided by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Neighbourhood First” policy.

Had it not been for the Indian central government and the Tamil Nadu state government responding fast with generous assistance Sri Lanka would have been struggling to find scarce food, fuel and medicines.

Meanwhile a nine-member team of senior IMF officials spent 10 days in Sri Lanka in late June to assess whether it could come up with a reform package to restore macroeconomic stability and debt sustainability.

Since Colombo approached the IMF for a bailout programme early this year the international lending institution has been monitoring the country’s economic and political situation, neither of which presented much confidence.

It is not only sustainable economic reforms that the IMF is after. It seeks substantial efforts to improve governance and a stable corruption-free government that the IMF and other lending institutions such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank and donor nations could have confidence in.

The current government of bits and pieces could hardly provide evidence that it is fighting corruption when one of its stalwarts who was convicted the other day on extortion and sentenced to two years rigorous imprisonment but suspended for five years was reappointed to the cabinet by President Rajapaksa and made chief government whip in addition.

It is the need for clean government that causes concerns with President Rajapaksa reneging on promises he made to introduce constitutional amendments that will substantially prune the plethora of powers he grabbed on coming to power.

This is hardly likely as the world will see when the new 21st constitutional amendment is gazetted in a few days.

Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who held senior roles in Hong Kong at The Standard and worked in London for Gemini News Service. He has been a correspondent for the foreign media including the New York Times and Le Monde. More recently he was Sri Lanka’s Deputy High Commissioner in London

Source: Asian Affairs, London

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When the UN votes by secret ballot... Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 6 2022 (IPS)

A 2.0 version of an ancient Biblical saying reads: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a woman to become the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

The male/female ratio for the Secretary-General stands at 9 vs zero. And the Presidency of the General Assembly (PGA), the highest policy-making body at the UN, is not far behind either.

“Out of its 193 Member States, only four women were elected as the Assembly President,” Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury, a former Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the UN, told IPS.

The score stands at 73 men and 4 women as PGAs– even as the General Assembly elected another male candidate, as its 77th President last month, and who will serve his one-year term beginning September 2022.

https://www.un.org/pga/76/election-of-the-77th-president-of-the-general-assembly/

Since 1945, the only four women elected as presidents were: Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit of India (1953), Angie Brooks of Liberia (1969), Sheikha Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa of Bahrain (2006) and Maria Fernando Espinosa Garces of Ecuador (2018).

Foreign Minister María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés of Ecuador, who was elected President of the 73rd Session of the General Assembly in 2018—only the fourth time a woman candidate was elected. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

The General Assembly last month adopted a resolution—by consensus– to commemorate every June 24 as “International Day of Women in Diplomacy” (IDWD).

https://www.un.org/press/en/2022/ga12427.doc.htm

But how significant is this resolution? And will it help usher in the UN’s first woman SG or trigger more women PGAs? Or is this resolution another exercise in political futility?

Introducing the resolution, the Maldives Ambassador Thilmeeza Hussain stressed that “women’s participation in decision making is absolutely vital”.

She also added that yet, far too often, as women climb the diplomatic ranks, they are outnumbered by their male peers, including at United Nations Headquarters, where they represent only one fifth of the Permanent Representatives.

Currently, there are only 44 women Permanent Representatives compared to 149 men holding that post.

All permanent representatives are nominated by their respective governments—and each member state takes it turn, in geographical rotation, to field a candidate, mostly permanent representatives and occasionally foreign ministers.

A former UN diplomat told IPS that PGAs are some of the strongest advocates of gender empowerment— while in office.

But none of them, he pointed out, were politically generous enough to decline their nominations and convince their respective governments to nominate a woman for the post.

Meanwhile, in a letter to President of the International Association of Permanent Representatives (IAPR), Ambassador Chowdhury said: “I recall proudly that in September 2012, I and the IMPACT Leadership 21, issued a joint “Call to Action” to world leaders gathering at the UN asking for urgent action in four areas:

1. Appointment of a Woman as the Next UN Secretary-General. In its 77 years of existence, the world body has failed miserably to elect a woman to that post. It is truly an embarrassment.

2. Nominations of Women as Future Presidents of the General Assembly. Out of its 193 Member States, only four women were elected as the Assembly President.

3. Election of More Women as Heads of Various UN Governing Bodies, and,

4. Appointment by Member States of More Women as Ambassadors to the UN in New York and Geneva.

On the first International Day of Women in Diplomacy, he said last month, “let us commit to achieving these objectives to make the observance of the IDWD truly meaningful and worthwhile.”

“Reflecting the unfortunate reality, not much attention has been given to those so far,” said Ambassador Chowdhury, a former Senior Special Adviser to the President of the UN General Assembly (2011-2012).

Purnima Mane, a former UN Assistant Secretary-General (ASG) and Deputy Executive Director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA)., told IPS a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution which acknowledges the contribution of women globally in any sector is always a major milestone and to be applauded especially when it is unanimously passed by consensus by the UNGA.

That the Maldives which proposed the resolution had 191 co-sponsors is laudable and is apparently a record for the current session of the UNGA, she pointed out.

“While this acknowledgement of women in diplomacy is more than welcome, many will wonder at the timing of this acknowledgement especially because the UN is grappling with a multiplicity of crises on the global scene.”

Clearly the world will have to unpack what exactly this celebration of women in diplomacy means and what the aspirational goals are in the current scenario of the many challenges the UN is facing and in the context of UN reform, said Mane, an internationally respected expert on sexual and reproductive health who also served as the President and CEO of Pathfinder International.

She said the language used to explain this celebration states that it is to celebrate women at all levels of decision making who work for the achievement of sustainable development, peace, and democracy.

“Women are currently under-represented at most levels among national delegations and in the UN diplomatic corps but especially so in the senior levels,’ she said.

While the representation of women ambassadors is said to have gone up from 16 to 22 percent since 2018, the numbers are appallingly low to begin with and women continue to be grossly under-represented in diplomatic positions in most countries.

Canada and Sweden, she pointed out, have achieved equality of representation in the diplomatic corps and as per available records, UK, Norway and South Africa are not far behind but there is extensive catching up to do for most countries.

To that extent, this commemoration might wake up countries to take the matter of representation of women in diplomatic roles more seriously and also focus on providing them an enabling environment in which to work, a matter in which significant lacunae are known to exist, she declared.

Ambassador Chowdhury said the burst of applause that followed the adoption of the resolution proclaiming the annual observance of this very meaningful day in the UN’s calendar was very energizing in view of the priority accorded to the global objective of ensuring “active participation of women, on equal terms with men, at all levels of decision-making…”.

Given its energy and relevance as well as the high-level support of the UN’s top echelons, he said, it was very disappointing to accept in any case, the inclusion of a sentence in the same resolution stressing that the cost of all activities by the UN that may arise from the observance of the Day “should be met from voluntary contributions”.

For the paltry sum of resources needed for the observance, the relevant department of the UN is always in a position to accommodate the expenses from its existing budgets.

“Also, I believe that the regular budget of the Department of Global Communication should always include the observance of the international days as proclaimed by the General Assembly,” said Ambassador Chowdhury, a former UN High Representative.

Referring to the new GA resolution declaring IDWD, Mane said “this brings us back to the question why women in diplomacy was seen as a relevant priority at this point of time in the UN’s history”.

Is the major motivator of this resolution the push to alter the reality that one of the highest positions in the UN, that of the Secretary General, has never been occupied by a woman and that only 4 women have held the position of the President of the General Assembly as compared to 73 men?, Mane asked.

“Or does it come from a desire to acknowledge the vast and significant contributions of women in all diplomatic processes and an aspiration to push all parts of the UN and governments to do more?”.

Hopefully the inspiration comes from both these motivators and will lead to visible change and greater accountability within governments and the UN to pay even more serious attention to the representation and role of women in diplomacy, she declared.

Meanwhile, at a news briefing in March last year, US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield was asked by a reporter about American support for a future woman candidate for Secretary-General.

“You represent an administration which is pledging a need for diversity and change and gender rights and a whole panoply of different things. You have arrived in time for the selection of a Secretary-General, whether it will be a renewal or a new candidate”.

“Speaking in your national capacity and speaking as a woman, don’t you think after 76 years it’s time for more than half the population in the world to be represented at the United Nations by a woman as Secretary-General?,” the reporter asked.

Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield: That’s a loaded question, and I will take it as a loaded question (Laughter). We will support the most qualified candidate for the job, but we absolutely believe in and support diversity”.

“We want to support gender balance, and we will look at the candidates who are presented to us and review them accordingly,” she declared.

Thalif Deen, Senior Editor at the UN Bureau of Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency, is the author of the recently-released book on the UN titled “No Comment—and Don’t Quote Me on That” (2021). The book, available on Amazon, is a satire peppered with scores of political anecdotes—from the sublime to the hilarious. The link to Amazon via the author’s website follows: https://www.rodericgrigson.com/no-comment-by-thalif-deen/

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By Stephen Akester and Daud Khan
ROME / LONDON, Jul 5 2022 (IPS)

Over the last past several decades marine fish stocks worldwide have been under intense threat. There have been many high sounding declarations and agreements to reduce catch effort, to use more environmentally friendly fishing gear, to prevent illegal fishing and to impose “closed seasons” to allow stocks to recover.

However, these declarations have often been disregarded and ignored, particularly when it comes to the open oceans that are beyond national jurisdictions and are the common heritage of all mankind. And the main culprits have been the developed countries, with their large and sophisticated fishing fleets and super market consumers which instead of being cutback, continue to receive political support and public subsidies.

The story of the yellowfin tuna in the Indian Ocean well illustrates what has been happening.

Stephen Akester

The Yellowfin tuna is one of the most majestic fish in the oceans. It can grow to 1.8 meters in length and up to 150 kgs in weight living 10 to 14 years. It is a top predator and moves with a grace and elegance that is sheer poetry in movement.

As juveniles, Yellowfin normally hunt in surface waters in packs although, when they mature, they change their habits and tend to be solitary. They live in tropical and sub-tropical waters and there used to be large stocks in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. But that was before Europeans, Asians and Americans discovered tinned tuna was cheap, and before the Japanese developed technology to very rapidly freeze freshly caught tuna for the Sashimi market in Japan where prize cuts can go for up to hundreds, if not thousands, of US$ per kilo.

During the 1970s and 80s the Europeans, Americans and the Japanese overfished the Atlantic tuna stocks. Their fishing fleets, mainly Spanish and French with several vessels flying “flags of convenience” – then moved to the Indian Ocean. These boats are floating factories with modern radar, sophisticated fishing gear and huge freezing capacity. Over time, more aggressive techniques are being introduced such as drifting Fish Attracting Devises (FADs) -small floating rafts that facilitate the growth of algae and seaweed and which in turn attract surface swimming tunas, skipjack and juvenile yellowfin. FADs, make it easier to increase catches and reduce costs but also are highly destructive as not only facilitate the catching of skipjack, the target species, but also young yellowfin tuna.

The overfishing of yellowfin tuna has triggered various attempts to reduce effort and introduce better management. Spearheading this effort in the Indian Ocean is the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC), set up by FAO in 1996 to ensure, the conservation and optimum utilization of tuna stocks in the Indian Ocean. However, the IOTC is not well designed for handling the complexities and political pressures that stand in the way of equitable and sustainable fishing effort in the Indian Ocean. In particular, key aspects such as its membership and distribution of catch entitlement among countries, are deeply flawed.

Daud Khan

The Commission is “open to any state that has coasts within the Indian Ocean region” – this is fine and as it should be. But it is also open to states that have coasts on “adjacent seas”, “as well as any state that fishes for tuna in the Indian Ocean region.” This wording has allowed membership of the IOTC of non-coastal countries such as South Korea, China, Japan, Spain, France and the UK, as well as the EU.

Moreover, the division of allowable catch is based on how much each country fished in the past. This results in the poorer coastal states getting a small proportion of the allowable catch as compared to the richer countries that have been operating large, modern vessels capable of overfishing in the Indian Ocean since the mid-1980s. The outcome of this highly inequitable strategy is that 45% of the allowable catch of yellowfin tuna in the Indian Ocean is allocated to the EU. And the developing coastal countries have not only seen their national fisheries impacted by competition from the developed countries, they are not even entitled to any license or royalty fees from oceanic fisheries adjacent to their Exclusive Economic Zones.

Furthermore, the IOTC has been given a hamstrung decisions making process. Decisions are by consensus which prevents fundamental reforms such as limits on purse seiners or on drifting FADs. And when coastal state attempt is made to push matters to the vote, such as was the case for a proposal to ban drifting FADs, procedural issues prevent them for being adopted.

And so it goes on. Rich countries take the lion’s share of the allowable catch of yellowfin tuna, depriving the coastal states and their artisanal fishing communities of all but crumbs. They also systematically sabotage attempts to place restrictions on fishing and introduce more eco-friendly fishing practices.

As in many other areas, from climate change to the use of coal and the transition to green energy, there is much rhetoric from developed countries but efforts to change the system are not yet working.

Stephen Akester is an independent fisheries specialist working in Indian Ocean coastal countries for past 40 years……

Daud Khan works as consultant and advisor for various Governments and international agencies. He has degrees in Economics from the LSE and Oxford – where he was a Rhodes Scholar; and a degree in Environmental Management from the Imperial College of Science and Technology. He lives partly in Italy and partly in Pakistan.

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Women’s rights groups have questioned the legal provision requiring doctors to collect records on all pregnancies, saying it could be used to monitor abortions.

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Jul 5 2022 (IPS)

Women’s rights groups fear a new legal provision in Poland requiring doctors to collect records on all pregnancies could create what they have described as a ‘pregnancy register’ to monitor whether women are having abortions.

Poland has some of Europe’s strictest abortion laws with terminations allowed in only two instances – if the woman’s health or life is at risk and if the pregnancy is the result of either rape or incest.

Until last year, abortions had also been allowed in cases where the foetus had congenital defects, but this exemption was removed following a legal challenge by members of the ruling right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, which some critics accuse of systematically suppressing women’s rights.

Rights groups and opposition MPs say that in light of the tightened abortion legislation, they are worried that the pregnancy data could be used in an unprecedented state surveillance campaign against women.

“A pregnancy register in a country with an almost complete ban on abortion is terrifying,” Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk, an MP for The Left (Lewica) political alliance in Poland, said on Twitter. “Even today, Polish women avoid getting pregnant out of fear that they will be forced to give birth in every situation. There are even more reasons to be scared now,” she added.

The new provision was approved by Health Minister Adam Niedzielski on June 3 and will come into effect in October when medical staff will begin collecting additional information from patients, including data on pregnancies. This will then be entered into the country’s central Medical Information System (SIM).

Critics question why this data is being collected now, and who will have access to it, pointing out that information about pregnancies is already available in medical records, while some Polish lawyers have claimed that police and prosecutors will be allowed access to the data under certain circumstances.

Mara Clarke of the international group Abortion Without Borders said that while the collection of the information may not appear harmful in itself, against the background of the recent tightening of already very strict abortion laws, the move will only increase fears among women in Poland over their reproductive rights.

She told IPS: “There is a difference between information being gathered in a free, democratic country, and being gathered in a state with a regime suppressing women’s rights. Any talk of a pregnancy register cannot be construed as anything other than an attempt to again attack women’s rights. It will only promote more fear among women.”

Some doctors agree, saying patients have already expressed fears about what the data collection could mean.

Michal Gontkiewicz, a gynaecologist at a district hospital in Plonsk, central Poland, told local TV station TVN 24: “As a tool in itself this is not dangerous, but patients may fear it will be used as a tool of the regime. Women are afraid that if they experience a spontaneous miscarriage, which is already a huge trauma for them, someone will accuse them of terminating the pregnancy, multiplying their trauma.”

The Health Ministry has rejected claims that it is trying to create a ‘pregnancy register’ and said the provision is being implemented as part of requirements to meet EU health regulations on patient data.

A spokesman for the ministry told IPS: “We are not creating any register, only expanding the reporting system based on recommendations of the European Commission. Only medics will have access to the data.

“Information about pregnancy is important for medics, because, for example, pregnant women should not undergo a number of medical procedures, and certain medicinal products cannot be prescribed to them.”

Some local doctors have also sought to play down the significance of the data collection, pointing out that bodies such as state social insurance institutions can already check up on pregnancies and that law enforcement agencies can already access medical data in certain instances if approved by a court.

But with questions over the country’s judiciary – Poland has already been censured by the European Commission over a lack of judicial independence – critics of the provision worry the existence of the register will only make an already bad situation worse.

The Polish rights group, Women’s Strike, claims police are already involved in questioning women whose pregnancies have ended, often after being contacted by angry partners.

“Given the current state of the judicial system in Poland and the threat of investigation in cases of undelivered pregnancies, this raises a lot of concerns,” Wiktoria Magnuszewska, an activist with Lex Q, a Polish LGBT+ advocacy organisation, told IPS.

Before the provision comes into effect, activists are trying to reassure Polish women that the provision does not represent a change to legislation on terminations.

Under Poland’s abortion laws, it is not illegal to have an abortion, but it is illegal to help someone do so. Many women in Poland who want an abortion self-administer pills bought online from abroad, or travel to neighbouring countries with less restrictive legislation, such as Germany and the Czech Republic, for terminations.

“Our Polish helpline has already had a few calls from women concerned about what the situation would be if they wanted an abortion. The good news is that there is no danger that women will no longer be able to self-administer abortions,” said Clarke.

However, the fear of how the ‘pregnancy register’ could be used already appears to be driving Polish women away from the country’s doctors.

Eva Ptaskova of the Ciocia Czesia volunteer organisation in the Czech Republic which helps Polish women access reproductive services, including abortions in local facilities, says her group has already been contacted by clients looking not for terminations, but gynaecologists who will treat them during their pregnancy because they do not want their details recorded in Poland.

She told IPS: “The situation in Poland is beginning to look more and more like something from The Handmaid’s Tale. What we are seeing is women with concerns that this [pregnancy register] could open the door to investigations of pregnancies that are ‘no longer’.

“This could deter women from seeking medical care, for instance, post-abortion care, which could then be very dangerous to their health. I worry it will get to the point where women will be scared to go to a gynaecologist at all because the information will be recorded that could one day be used against them.”

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The large Citizen Action warehouse in downtown Rio de Janeiro is filled with food donated by people in solidarity for distribution to poor and hunger-stricken communities. There are 33.1 million Brazilians suffering from hunger, according to a survey by a network of researchers on the subject. CREDIT: Tânia Rêgo /Agência Brasil

By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 5 2022 (IPS)

A campaign against hunger, a problem that affects 15.5 percent of the Brazilian population, seeks to mobilize society once again in search of urgent solutions, inspired by a mass movement that took off in the country in 1993.

“Now it’s more difficult, hunger has spread throughout the country, in cities where there was none, it has expanded,” said Rodrigo Afonso, executive director of Citizen Action, one of the social organizations spearheading the campaign.

“Besides, society is anesthetized with so many tragedies, exhausted after two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, so many losses,” he lamented in an interview with IPS."Now it's more difficult, hunger has spread throughout the country, in cities where there was none, it has expanded." -- Rodrigo Afonso

And we cannot count on the current government, which in addition to deactivating policies that had been strengthening food security, adopted negative measures, the activist added, saying that for now they are looking towards civil society and companies.

“Brazil feeds one billion people in the world, we provide food security for one-sixth of the world’s population,” President Jair Bolsonaro exaggerated in his speech at the Summit of the Americas on Jun. 10 in Los Angeles, California.

But according to Brazilian agricultural researchers, who made a simple calculation based on the country’s growing grain production, Brazil’s food exports feed 800 million people.

If Brazil accounts for 10 percent of the world’s grain production, about 270 million tons this year, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply, then it feeds 10 percent of humanity.

The country is the world’s largest producer of soybeans, coffee and sugar, as well as the largest exporter of meat.

A green sea of soy is the landscape in vast areas of Brazil, especially in the midwest and southern regions of the country. They are held up as the “success” of Brazilian agriculture, which, according to President Jair Bolsonaro, feeds one billion people around the world. But paradoxically, 33.1 million Brazilians suffer from hunger. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Food for other countries, shortages at home

But the production boasted of by political leaders and large agricultural producers is basically destined for export and livestock feed. Brazilians consume only a small portion of the corn and an even smaller portion of the soybeans the country produces – most of it is exported or used for animal feed.

At the same time, Brazil is a net importer of wheat and beans, key products in the diet of the country’s inhabitants. And the production of rice, another staple, just barely meets domestic demand.

Bolsonaro and his far-right government, closely allied with export agriculture, seek to defend a sector that faces international criticism, due to its association with deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, harassment and mistreatment of indigenous peoples and the overuse of agrochemicals.

The hunger faced by 33.1 million Brazilians – 15.5 percent of the population – as reported by the non-governmental Brazilian Network for Research on Food and Nutritional Sovereignty and Security (Penssan), further tarnishes the image of this country, a major food producer.

Penssan, headed by researchers from universities and other public institutions, but open to all interested parties, released its second National Survey on Food Insecurity in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Jun. 8.

The study based on data collected between November 2021 and April 2022 pointed to a 73 percent increase over the 19.1 million hungry people reported in the first edition, published in late 2020.

In other words, in just over a year of pandemic, the number of people suffering from severe food insecurity or frequent food deprivation increased by 14 million: from nine to 15.5 percent of the Brazilian population, today estimated at 214 million.

The crisis especially affects people in the North and Northeast (the poorest regions), blacks, families headed by women and with children under 10 years of age, and rural and local populations that also suffer from water insecurity. Inequalities have intensified.

Wearing a T-shirt reading “Hunger, the greatest violence”, Herbert de Souza, Betinho (C), is honored as a symbol of the Brazilian fight against hunger. He led a massive campaign starting in 1993 and unleashed a process that allowed Brazil to be removed from the FAO hunger map in 2014. But the country returned to the map in 2018 and hunger worsened with the pandemic and the government of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro in 2021. CREDIT: Facebook

Reviving the movement against hunger

To face this new emergency situation, Citizen Action called a National Meeting against Hunger, which brought together representatives of social movements, non-governmental organizations and food security councils that operate in the Brazilian states, from Jun. 20 to 23 in Rio de Janeiro.

The meeting approved a letter addressed to the public with a proposal for ten priority measures, ranging from an increase in the national minimum wage to a fair tax reform, the resumption of agrarian reform and the demarcation of indigenous lands, interrupted under the current government, and the restoration of food security policies also abolished under the Bolsonaro administration.

These demands will serve as the basis for the new anti-hunger campaign that will be officially launched in the coming weeks, Afonso announced.

The present outlook is due to the economic crisis Brazil has been suffering since 2015 and the pandemic, aggravated as “a product of recent government decisions, which dismantled food security policies and imposed new contrary measures,” the executive director of Citizen Action told IPS.

The Bolsonaro administration has not raised the minimum wage, for example, merely adjusting it each year to keep up with the official inflation rate. The current inflation rate of 11.73 percent accumulated in the 12 months up to May reduces the purchasing power of the minimum wage month by month.

The minimum wage, set at 1,212 reais (233 dollars) a month for this year, is no longer enough to cover the cost of the basic basket of food and hygiene products for a family of four in the southern city of São Paulo, which currently costs 1,226 reais, according to the Inter-Union Department of Statistics and Socioeconomic Studies.

Bolsonaro replaced the Bolsa Familia program with Auxilio Brasil, a stipend of 400 reais (77 dollars) – double the previous amount – to 18 million families, in an attempt to win votes among the poor, a sector in which he is highly unpopular according to polls for the October presidential elections.

But there are “almost three million very poor families” still excluded from the program, who are going hungry, Afonso stressed.

Citizen Action is the non-governmental organization heir to the massive movement unleashed in 1993 by sociologist Herbert de Souza, known as Betinho, which awakened the public to the extent of hunger in the country and mobilized the solidarity of millions of people in municipal, factory, school, neighborhood and community committees.

The campaign, called Citizen Action against Hunger and Poverty and for Life, triggered a process that culminated in the creation of a national food security system, governmental but with broad participation by society in councils at the national, state and municipal levels.

“We still have regional and local committees in all 26 Brazilian states” seeking to collect food donations and mobilize the population to prioritize the fight against hunger, Afonso said.

Many companies support the campaign that will also try to mobilize political leaders, delivering the letter approved at the Meeting against Hunger to all presidential candidates in the October elections, announced the activist, confident in a new awakening of society to the problem, despite the current adverse circumstances.

By Carel du Marchie Sarvaas
BRUSSELS, Jul 5 2022 (IPS)

The ongoing discussions at the World Health Organization (WHO) around a new, landmark ‘pandemic prevention treaty’ shows that the world is starting to act on the lessons it learned from the COVID-19 pandemic.

In fact, countries have already taken the first steps towards amending the International Health Regulations that govern the reporting and national responses to emerging pandemics, which were subsequently found to fall short during the initial outbreak of COVID-19.

Yet, with countries set to discuss a working draft of the pandemic prevention treaty in August, time is increasingly of the essence to fully codify these learnings if we are to prevent future zoonotic disease outbreaks. The recent monkeypox outbreak shows that the world can ill afford to stall when building its defences to emerging diseases.

And at the same time, new vector-borne health threats – whether they originate in humans or animals – are emerging across the world, particularly as climate change creates new opportunities for disruptive outbreaks in previously less impacted regions of the world.

Preventing the next pandemic is clearly no straight-forward task. This is why a ‘One Health’ approach, one which recognizes the interconnectivity of environmental, human, and animal health, offers us the greatest chance of shoring up global defences against emerging diseases, of which an estimated 70 per cent originate from wild animals. Clearly, a ‘One Health’ approach should be the foundation of global efforts to prevent the next pandemic.

To begin with, countries should focus their efforts to create a new One Health Preparedness Unit, which will bolster and unify international preparations against emerging disease outbreaks. Presently, government disease detection and surveillance programs are too often overstretched and under-resourced, leaving countries – and by extension, the global community – unprepared for new threats.

In this context, a new international One Health Preparedness Unit could bring together existing resources, such as the World Animal Health Information System (WAHIS), USAID’s PREDICT project for boosting pandemic preparedness, or the environmental health monitoring undertaken by non-profits like the EcoHealth Alliance, in the most effective and efficient way, while also having a greater capability to undertake wargame-style planning. In doing so, the international community could better map out potential disease threats and reach collective decisions on how best to respond when they emerge.

Secondly, countries could also prioritize new rules and protocols to help products get to market faster to address acute and ongoing crises as part of any draft agreement. The COVID-19 pandemic showed that fast-tracking critical health tools, like vaccines, can save lives and help respond more rapidly to emerging pandemics.

Streamlining regulatory approval could dramatically reduce the amount of time it takes for vaccines to make their way into the hands of veterinarians, which, in turn, will build the resistance of pets and livestock to disease outbreaks.

As it stands, any tweaks to the existing stock of animal vaccines requires new safety assessments, which means it may take months or years to respond to an emerging disease variant. Allowing previous safety assessments to be used to support vaccines for new strains would streamline this process, lowering the barriers to vaccinating animals and reducing the public health risk in the case of zoonotic disease.

Finally, governments should also agree to fund and adopt new policies that expand global access to preventative animal health tools as part of any future pandemic prevention treaty. Prevention of diseases is always better than cure, yet the defences required to prevent the spill-over of zoonotic diseases from animals is uneven around the world.

More investment in preventative measures, particularly biosecurity on farms but also diagnostic technologies which can detect changes in health before serious, observable symptoms emerge, can not only reduce the frequency, but also the severity, of disease outbreaks, as it already has in many developed countries.

Europe, for instance, has not seen the emergence of a major zoonotic disease since Q Fever more than a decade ago, while the UK reduced salmonella outbreaks by 87 per cent from their 1992 peak – thanks to poultry vaccination.

The lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic are clear: the world can no longer afford to treat the threats facing the health of humans and animals, as well as the environment at large, as distinct.

To ensure the world is fully prepared to face the next pandemic, the interconnected principles of a ‘One Health’ approach should be at the core of any future pandemic prevention treaty.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

The writer is executive director of HealthforAnimals, the global animal health association
 
World Zoonoses Day, which will be commemorated on July 6, celebrates the success of the first vaccine which was created against the zoonotic disease ‘rabies’. It was developed by Louis Pasteur, a French biologist on 6 July, 1985.

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Jul 5 2022 (IPS)

Long seen as means to seek advantage on the pretext of providing mutual benefit, free trade agreements (FTAs) may increasingly be used as economic weapons in the emerging new Cold War.

Pivot to Asia, containing China
In November 2009, President Obama observed, “in an inter-connected world, power does not need to be a zero-sum game… the United States does not seek to contain China”.

Anis Chowdhury

But Obama soon changed course with his ‘pivot to Asia’, first announced in November 2011. After his re-election in 2012, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) became the economic centrepiece of the new US strategy to check China’s growth and technological progress.

His US Trade Representative (USTR) claimed the TPP was based on principles the US champions, such as protecting intellectual property (IP) and human rights. While claiming all who accept its principles would be welcome to join, China was conspicuously not among countries negotiating the TPP.

For Washington, this new rivalry with China involves strengthened US alliances with Japan, South Korea and Australia. In October 2011, the US Congress ratified the Korea-US (KORUS) FTA.

With the military and economic containment of China central to US security strategy, the TPP was concluded in 2015. Obama emphasized, “TPP allows America – and not countries like China – to write the rules of the road in the 21st century.”

Creating an “anyone but China club” was the US motive for establishing the TPP. But with changed public sentiment since Trump’s presidency, once Obama’s loyal Vice-President, now President Biden did not attempt to revive the TPP during his presidential campaign, or since.

Security alliances
“American prosperity and security are challenged by an economic competition playing out in a broader strategic context… We must work with like-minded allies and partners to ensure our principles prevail and the rules are enforced so that our economies prosper”, noted President Trump’s national security strategy.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Accordingly, the ‘Quad’ – Quadrilateral Security Dialogue group for maritime cooperation of the US, Australia, India and Japan, initiated after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami – has become a putative anti-China security arrangement.

By 2020, leaders of all four countries were more aligned in their concerns about China’s rise. In November 2020, navies of all four countries participated in their first joint military exercise in over a decade.

Meanwhile, under Shinzo Abe, Japan radically transformed its security policy. Abe has greatly expanded the Japan Self-Defence Forces’ role, mission and capabilities within and beyond the US-Japan alliance, especially in East Asia.

‘Defence cooperation’ has also been enhanced through country-to-country arrangements, such as the recent Japan-Australia Reciprocal Access Agreement as well as the earlier Japan-India Acquisition and Cross Servicing Agreement.

The US security profile in the region has been boosted by the AUKUS (Australia-UK-USA) alliance. Its clear intention is to enhance the US and its allies military presence in the Indo-Pacific, with the greatest ‘China focus’ of all regional security arrangements.

World hegemony
The US is also linking trade to its national security strategy, especially to contain China, in Africa and Latin America. As the USTR notes, “The Biden Administration is conducting a comprehensive review of U.S. trade policy toward China as part of its development of its overall China strategy”.

Her office also emphasizes, “Addressing the China challenge will require a comprehensive strategy and more systematic approach than the piecemeal approach of the recent past.”

Reflecting his Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, Biden emphasizes, “The United States must renew its enduring advantages…; modernize our military capabilities…; and revitalize America’s unmatched network of alliances and partnerships”. He notes “growing rivalry with China, Russia… reshaping every aspect of our lives”.

Biden insists his administration “will make sure that the rules of the international economy are not tilted against the United States. We will enforce existing trade rules and create new ones… This agenda will strengthen our enduring advantages, and allow us to prevail in strategic competition with China or any other nation”.

His administration announced a review of all Trump-era trade negotiations. Due to expire in 2025, President Clinton’s African Growth and Opportunity Act has offered enhanced US market access to qualifying African countries since 2000.

In April 2021, Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed US-Kenya FTA talks would resume. Observers believe the US-Kenya FTA, initiated by Trump in 2020, would help expand US ‘carrot and stick’ trade and security policies on the continent to counter China.

In the US ‘Monroe doctrine backyard’, six US FTAs already involve 12 Latin American and Caribbean countries. On 8 June, Biden announced a new regional economic partnership to counter China. His speech inaugurated a Summit of the Americas, criticized for omitting countries seen as friendly to China.

But Biden’s Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity is still seen as a work in progress. Not even offering FTAs’ standard tariff relief, the US anticipates initially focusing on “like-minded partners”. Although Biden hailed his “ground-breaking, integrated new approach”, responses suggest “waning” US influence.

Now, five years after Trump withdrew from the TPP, Biden has revived Obama’s China strategy with his own Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. Smug, he could not help but echo Obama’s TPP brag, “We’re writing the new rules”.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Recently, I watched a documentary titled Why We Can’t See Disabled People [in Korea]. It chronicled how disabled people fought for their right to mobility throughout the past 20 years—and how the public has turned a blind eye to them time and time again. South Korea is an incredibly unkind country when it comes to […]

TOPIO ("TOSY Ping Pong Playing Robot") is a bipedal humanoid robot designed to play table tennis against a human being. Photo: Humanrobo. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, USA, Jul 4 2022 (IPS)

It is time for countries, especially those with slow growing and ageing human populations, to welcome androids, i.e., humanoid robots with human-like appearance and behavior, including speech, sight, hearing, mobility, and artificial intelligence.

Androids would not only complement and broaden a country’s labor supply, but they would also increase productivity, lower costs, raise profits, offer instruction, reduce accidents, assist in disasters, and provide safety, policing, firefighting, and security.

The introduction of androids into human societies would be especially beneficial for slow growing and ageing populations. Following the rapid population growth of the 20th century, demographic growth rates are slowing down, and populations are ageing globally.

Whereas world population was growing at an annual rate of 1.3 percent at the start of the 21st century, by midcentury the rate is expected to decline to 0.5 percent. The annual population growth rates of major regions are expected to decline over that period, with Europe’s population growth rate projected to decline to -0.3 percent (Figure 1).

 

Source: United Nations

 

With respect to population ageing, countries worldwide are becoming older than ever before. The proportion aged 65 years and older for the world, for example, is expected to more than double during the first half of the 21st century from approximately 7 percent in 2000 to 16 percent by 2050.

Among the major regions, the populations of Europe and Northern America are the most aged. During the first half of the 21st century, their proportions aged 65 years and older are expected to nearly double, reaching 28 and 23 percent by 2050, respectively (Figure 2).

 

Source: United Nations

 

Over the past decades various types of androids, or humanoid robots, have appeared in films, books, video games, and futuristic exhibitions. However, technology firms have been comparatively slow in bringing to market the latest research and progress in androids, including robotics, artificial intelligence, conversation, bipedal locomotion, and related technologies.

The only notable exception to the use of androids has been the sex industries. Those firms have jumped ahead with the rapid development of “sexbots”. Those androids are lifelike robots or dolls with humanoid form, body movements, artificial intelligence, hearing, sight, speech, and designed to have sexual relations with humans.

While certain jobs will be reduced and workers displaced, employment opportunities are expected to increase in other areas of the economy. For example, while the global number of the robots in manufacturing in 2021 had grown to 126 per 10,000 employees, or nearly double the level in 2015, employment opportunities have continued to expand

The market for sexbots is believed to be huge, with some convinced they are the future of sex. The realistic looking sexbots have artificial intelligence for simple conversation, are programmed to imitate basic human emotions, and can perform sexual acts with humans.

A recent study in the United States, for example, found that 40 percent of adults would have sex with a sexbot at least once to try it. Men were 21 percent more likely than women to say that they would have sex with a sexbot.

Most people are well accustomed to interacting with artificial intelligence on their cellphones, computers, and other electronic devices. Today most of those communications, which are provided both orally and by text, center on providing directions, information, explanations, purchases, games, music, entertainment, social activities, and various sorts of data.

Like the use of robotics to manufacture goods and provide services, androids could be utilized to perform a wide range of activities and services, including tasks that are boring, repetitive, hazardous, and dangerous. Already robotic devices have driven millions of miles autonomously, participated actively in space exploration, and reduced boredom and injuries to humans by carrying out dull, difficult, and dangerous tasks.

Androids could perform a variety of jobs, such as receptionist, salesclerk, guard, attendant, translator, and informant. Androids could answer basic questions, direct people to offices and individuals, remember names and faces, translate languages, log entry information, make phone calls, assist in rescues, monitor people’s health, provide caregiving, and alert authorities when human intervention is needed.

For example, the android, Nadine, is a receptionist at a Singapore university welcoming visitors and answering questions. The android, Erica, is a newscaster on Japanese television reporting the daily news and events and Sophia is the first android to be granted citizenship by Saudi Arabia.

Androids at a field hospital in Wuhan, China, perform services, measure temperatures, disinfect devices, deliver food and medicine, and entertain patients. And the android, Kime, is a beverage and food server in Spain that in addition to serving food can pour 300 glasses of beer per hour.

In addition to performing routine tasks and providing services, androids could be utilized to reduce feelings of loneliness, which has increased as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

For those individuals suffering serious loneliness, including older persons limited by dementia and illness, androids could offer conversation and also provide companionship to those lacking a partner. Androids could also offer entertainment as well as facilitate social interaction.

Furthermore, the presence and interactions with androids can help to reduce feelings of stress, encourage wellbeing activities, and improve mental functioning. Androids could also monitor human behavior and health status.

Androids can also be available 24/7. Moreover, unlike humans, androids do not become frustrated, impatient, or angry. And as androids are not judgmental, prejudiced, or biased toward human behavior or appearance, people may feel freer to express their true feelings and thoughts.

In addition, androids could assist people with functional limitations. With speech, sight, hearing, location, and movement, androids can aid and help those with limited or lacking certain functions for daily living.

Despite androids potentially being able to contribute and enhance workplaces and households, concerns, fears, and reluctance persist about their use. For example, some are concerned that androids would replace workers as has been the case with the increased use of robotics in manufacturing, especially by the auto industry.

However, while certain jobs will be reduced and workers displaced, employment opportunities are expected to increase in other areas of the economy. For example, while the global number of the robots in manufacturing in 2021 had grown to 126 per 10,000 employees, or nearly double the level in 2015, employment opportunities have continued to expand.

Also, the numbers of robots per 10,000 employees in many advanced countries have reached substantially higher levels, such as 932 for South Korea, 605 for Singapore, 390 for Japan, and 371 for Germany. Nevertheless, demand for labor in those countries remains high and unemployment levels are comparatively low (Figure 3).

 

Source: World Robotics 2021.

 

Ethical questions have also been raised concerning the introduction of androids into human societies. For example, given that their appearance, intelligence, speech, and behavior will resemble humans, some have asked whether androids should be endowed with personhood that would entail certain rights, duties, and special laws.

While such ethical questions are not immediate concerns, similar questions are now being raised about the responsible use of artificial intelligence, such as facial recognition technology. However, some have suggested that androids rather than being feared may become allies of humans.

Still others have expressed fears that androids with artificial intelligence could revolt and harm humans. Those fears, which have been the plots in some popular science fiction films and books, tend to be highly exaggerated. Artificial intelligence achieving self-awareness or becoming sentient is unlikely any time soon and software safeguards could shut down an android.

Nevertheless, some continue to stress dangers and express warnings about the possibly imminent development of androids with machine intelligence greater than that of humans. Sentient machines, they contend, pose a greater likely threat to human societies than climate change, nuclear proliferation, or pandemics.

Proto-type androids have been introduced in various countries, including China, Germany, Iran, India, Japan, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, and Spain, and the United Kingdom. Many of the leaders in those countries have recognized the vital functions that androids could perform for societies and the market for androids is believed set for rapid expansion.

It’s time for countries to facilitate and promote the inclusion of androids in business establishments, government offices, public places, and personal households. Welcoming androids into human societies will advance the technological futures of countries as well as contribute to addressing slow growing and ageing populations.

 

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

 

Shaban Mwinji, a community scout ranger, in Ukunda, Kenya. Standing in a restored Mangrove Forest by Mikoko Pamoja. Mikoko Pamoja is a community-led mangrove conservation and restoration project based in southern Kenya and the world's first blue carbon project. It aims to provide long-term incentives for mangrove protection and restoration through community involvement and benefit.

By Juliet Morrison
Toronto, Jul 4 2022 (IPS)

Africa’s unique natural capital assets were the center of conversation at the 2022 Africa Green Economy Conference. Held in a hybrid format from June 27 to 30, participants gathered to discuss the value of nature in Africa’s economy and call for more nature-positive ventures in development.

Hosted by the Green Growth Knowledge Partnership (GGKP), Capitals Coalition, Green Economy Coalition (GEC), and World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the conference featured virtual opening and closing plenary sessions and themed in-person national conversations around the continent. These sessions took place in South Africa, Uganda, Gabon, and Mozambique.

Participants stressed that the conference was coming at a unique moment in the face of several global economic shocks affecting Africa: climate change, biodiversity loss, and geopolitical challenges.

Moderator Kevin Urama, Acting Chief Economist and Vice President for Economic Governance and Knowledge Management, African Development Bank addresses the 2022 Africa Green Economy Conference. Credit: Juliet Morrison/IPS

“The failure of the current system’s existing global cooperation mechanism to meet these challenges equitably and sustainably is leading to the current calls for the review of the global system,” moderator Kevin Urama, Acting Chief Economist and Vice President for Economic Governance and Knowledge Management, African Development Bank said.

Most countries are falling short of the climate action needed to meet their 2015 Paris Agreement emission reduction targets. Climate finance to help developing countries meet targets is also lagging.

Oliver Greenfield, Convenor, Green Economy Coalition, argued that the limited progress on environmental action resulted from policymakers’ continual emphasis on economic gains above all else.

“We accept that development is the priority and environment is the trade-off. That’s largely what’s happened for 50 years […] Avoidance of crisis is not the best investment model for most finance ministers, we know that,” he said.

Greenfield suggested policymakers consider investments that contribute to the best outcome in multiple areas—environmental, social, and economic.

Considering the environment alongside the economy would be very beneficial for Africa, stressed Dr Mao Amis, Co-founder and Executive Director of the African Center for Green Economy.

He added that in most African countries, natural capital accounts for 30-50 percent of their total wealth. In Sub-Saharan Africa, over 70 percent of people depend on forests and woodlands for their livelihoods.

“The value of nature in the economy is undisputed. We are so intricately linked to nature that we cannot disassociate our relationship with nature, and the more we recognize that, the more we can make strides in achieving the role of nature in the economy,” he said.

Tapping into nature—and pursuing nature-positive investments—is seen as an avenue for wealth creation by policymakers.

Ligia Noronha, UN Assistant Secretary-General and Head of UNEP, New York Office, views nature-positive investments as a great risk mitigation instrument and a key investment strategy for the continent.

“This is absolutely obvious, but it has perhaps not been invested in sufficiently. Africa has a tremendous amount of natural capital stocks both in minerals and biodiversity, and this can be a tremendous asset for the growth of Africa,” she said.

She added that natural capital could also create many green jobs for Africa’s population.

Multi-stakeholder engagement, however, is needed to center nature’s place in national economic development.

Dr Gabi Teren, Programme Manager, Endangered Wildlife Trust, highlighted that greater skills and communication across sectors are needed to drive action on environmental targets.

“Ultimately, without the companies being involved at all levels, there aren’t enough experts necessarily to have the skills to apply these tools. […] To really have a truly green economy, we have to have far better communication between the private sector, between [small medium enterprises], between environmental practitioners, and between policymakers,” she said.

The involvement of the finance sector, in particular, is crucial.

According to a presentation by the World Resources Institute, access to financing and the limited participation of the private sector are two of the biggest challenges to implementing nature-based solutions (NBS) in Africa.

Nature-based solutions are initiatives involving nature that solve societal challenges while building up natural ecosystems and biodiversity. For example, conserving mangrove forests can protect homes from the impacts of storms and provide nurseries for fish.

NBS can help fulfill critical infrastructure needs, explained Lizzie Marsters, Environmental Finance Manager, World Resources Institute. According to her, NBS can meet 12 percent of Africa’s 90 trillion US dollar infrastructure needs by 2035.

Marsters situated NBS as pivotal to incorporating sustainability and resilience into infrastructure investments.

“When we think about NBS, we think that there’s tremendous opportunity here to re-evaluate how we think about public budgets, how they are spent, and increased private sector participation,” Marsters said.

Closing the conference, moderator Kevin Urama emphasized Africa’s integral relationship with nature.

“Africa can and should take the lead on this … Africa’s culture has always been nature sensitive,” he said.

Natural capital ought to be intertwined in most development planning, he added.

“Let’s work on natural capital, how to invest in natural capital, how to value natural capital and factor it into our decision making, into our national development planning,” he said.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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The municipality of Puchuncaví in central Chile turns greens after days of rain, but next to it are the smokestacks of the industries located in this development pole that turned this town and the neighboring town of Quintero into "sacrifice zones", with the emission of pollutants that damaged the environment and the health of local residents, which will finally begin to be dismantled. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

By Orlando Milesi
QUINTERO, Chile, Jul 4 2022 (IPS)

A health crisis that in 20 days left 500 children poisoned in the adjacent municipalities of Quintero and Puchuncaví triggered the decision to close the Ventanas Smelter, in a first concrete step towards putting an end to a so-called “sacrifice zone” in Chile.

The measure was supported by President Gabriel Boric who reiterated his determination to move towards a green government.

The decision by the state-owned National Copper Corporation (Codelco), the world’s leading copper producer, was announced on Jun. 17, following a temporary stoppage of the plant eight days earlier, and was opposed only by the powerful Federation of Copper Workers.

The union reacted by calling a strike, which ended after two days, when the leaders agreed to discuss an organized closure of the smelter, which will take place within a maximum of five years. The smelting and refining facility will be replaced by another modern plant at a site yet to be determined.

The smelter is an outdated facility that has suffered repeated episodes of sulfur dioxide pollution, one of the chemicals causing the deteriorating health of the inhabitants of Quintero, a city of 26,000, and Puchuncaví, population 19,000.

In the last three years Codelco invested 152 million dollars to modernize the smelter but without success, admitted Codelco’s president, Máximo Pacheco.

Pacheco argued that the closure was due to “the climate of uncertainty that has existed for decades, which is very bad for the workers, their families and the community.”

Sara Larraín, executive director of the non-governmental organization Sustainable Chile, said the definitive closure of the plant does justice.

“It is the first step for Quintero and Puchuncaví to get out of the category of damage that is called a ‘sacrifice zone’ where for decades the emission standards have been exceeded,” she told IPS.

“Sacrifice zones” are areas that have suffered excessive environmental damage due to industrial pollution. Residents of poor communities in these areas bear a disproportionate burden of pollution, toxic waste and heavy industry.

The back of the Ventanas Smelter reveals the poor operating conditions of the copper processing facility in Chile, which will be replaced by a new one within a maximum of five years at an as yet undefined site. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

The two adjacent municipalities, 156 kilometers west of Santiago, qualify as a sacrifice zone, as do Mejillones, Huasco and Tocopilla, in the north, and Coronel in southern Chile, because the right to live in a pollution-free environment is violated in these areas.

In Quintero and Puchuncaví the main source of sulfur dioxide is the Ventanas Smelter, responsible for 61.8 percent of emissions of this element, causing widespread health problems.

Fisherman-diver forced to move away returns to Quintero

Carlos Vega, a fishermen’s union leader in Quintero, is the third generation of divers in his family.

“My grandfather, a fisherman, taught me how to make fishing nets. He had a restaurant on the coast,” he told IPS, visibly moved, adding that his two brothers are also fishermen and divers, who catch shellfish among the rocks along the coast.

“Fishing was profitable here. We were doing well and making money,” he said.

He added that people are well-organized in the area. “At one time we were the largest producer” of seafood and fish for central Chile, “because we had management and harvesting areas. But they had to close because of the pollution,” he said, describing the poverty that befell the local fishers in the late 1980s.

Then the health authorities found copper, cadmium and arsenic in the local seafood and banned its harvest. As a result, the small fishermen’s bay where they keep their boats and sell part of their catch lost their customers.

The crisis forced him to move to the south where he worked for 15 years as a professional diver in a salmon company.

Carlos Vega, a fisherman, diver and trade union leader, and Kata Alonso, spokeswoman for Women of Sacrifice Zones in Resistance, pose for a photo in the bay of Quintero, during the celebrations in that town and in neighboring Puchuncaví for the announcement of the definitive closure of the Ventanas Smelter of the state-owned Codelco copper company, whose polluting emissions have damaged the local environment and made local residents sick for decades. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

Today, back in Quintero, with two sons who are engineers and a daughter who is a teacher, he continues to dive, albeit sporadically. He participates along with 27 fishermen in the management area granted to the north of the sacrifice zone, where they extract shellfish quotas two or three times a year.

“The social fabric was broken down here, that is the hardest thing that has happened to us,” said Vega.

Codelco is not the only polluter

Codelco is the main exporter in Chile, a long narrow country of 19.1 million people sandwiched between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes Mountains where the big mines are located. In 2021 it produced 1.7 million tons of copper and its pre-tax income totaled nearly 7.4 billion dollars.

“Chile is the leading global copper producer and the world is going to become more electric every day,” said Pacheco. “And copper is the conductor par excellence, there is no substitute. We have to be ready for copper to be increasingly in demand in this energy transition.”

The president of Codelco emphasized that the wealth does not lie in exporting concentrate, which has 26 percent copper, but anodes with 99 percent purity, “and for that we need a smelter and a refinery.”

Young residents of Quintero and Puchuncaví came out in a drum line to celebrate the closure of the Ventanas Smelter and participate in a Festival for Life which lasted eight hours and was joined by a hundred local and national artists. Thousands of people gathered in the square which is on the edge of Quintero on Saturday, Jun. 25. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

But the smelter, he explained, must be modern and not like Ventanas, which only captures 95 percent of the gases released. In the last three years, Codelco has lost 50 million dollars in the Ventanas smelter, which has a production scale of 420,000 tons. A modern Flash furnace produces 1.5 million tons and captures 99.8 percent of the gases.

The Ventanas Smelter employs 348 people and another 400 in associated companies. Half of them do not live in the area but in Viña del Mar, Villa Alemana or Quilpué, towns that are also in the region of Valparaíso, but are located far from the pollution.

The smelter is part of an industrial cluster that includes 16 companies.

After the latest health crisis, the authorities decreed contingency plans in plants and maritime terminals of six companies for emitting volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and applied an Atmospheric Prevention and Decontamination Plan.

Four coal-fired thermoelectric plants also pollute the area, one of which was definitively closed in December 2020 and another that was to be closed last May, although the measure was postponed.

According to environmentalist Larraín, when the smelter and the four thermoelectric plants are closed “better standards can be achieved, at least with respect to sulfur dioxide and heavy metals,” in Quintero and Puchuncaví.

View from the road of the Ventanas Smelter, in central Chile, which has been temporarily shut down since Jun. 9 and whose antiquated facilities will be permanently closed in a maximum of five years. They are adjacent to populated areas that have been turned into so-called “sacrifice zones” where local residents periodically suffer environmental and health emergencies due to sulfur dioxide fumes. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

The plan to continue decontaminating

Other pollutants are VOCs linked to the refineries of the state-owned oil company Empresa Nacional de Petróleo (Enap) and the private company Gasmar.

Kata Alonso, spokeswoman for the Mujeres en Zona de Sacrificio en Resistencia (Women in Sacrifice Zone in Resistance) collective, told IPS that “the prevention plan is good so that people don’t continue to be poisoned, so that they can breathe better, and so that the companies that pollute can close their doors, instead of the schools.

“There are companies that were built before the environmental law was passed that have not taken health measures. So what we are asking is for each company to be evaluated, and those that do not comply with the regulations must leave,” she said.

The repeated crises occur despite the fact that Chile’s environmental standards are below those of the World Health Organization (WHO).

For level 10 particulate matter, the mixture of solid particles and liquid droplets in the air, the ceiling in Chile is 150 milligrams per cubic meter (m3) and the WHO ceiling is 50.

For particulate matter 2.5 (fine inhalable particles), in Chile the limit is 50 milligrams per m3, while the WHO guideline is 25. And the Chilean ceiling for sulfur dioxide is 250 milligrams per m3 compared to the WHO’s limit of 20.

Three years ago, the Chilean Pediatric Society and the Chilean Medical Association requested that Chile raise its emission standards to WHO levels.

Part of the audience at the Festival for Life, which celebrated the closure of a copper smelter, that along with 15 other industrial plants turned the municipalities of Quintero and Puchuncaví into “sacrifice zones” in central Chile. Performances by musicians and other artists from around the country were interspersed with messages calling for a life free of pollution in the area. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

Alonso the activist said that “my two neighbors died of cancer, whoever you ask in Puchuncaví has relatives who died of cancer. Today people are dying younger, breast and uterine cancer have increased in young women, and there are so many miscarriages.

“The statistic we have is that one in four children in Puchuncaví are born with severe neurological problems, down syndrome, autism. Here in Quintero there are two special education schools and many children with learning disabilities,” she said.

Larraín called for “government support for those who have been affected by irreversible diseases, asthma, lung cancer and others that have been proven to be caused by coal combustion and heavy metals.”

The Catholic University conducted a study using data on hospitalizations and mortality in Tocopilla, Mejillones, Huasco, Quintero and Puchuncaví.

“The rates for cardiovascular disease associated with industrial processes are clear. In some cases they are 900 percent higher. Calling them sacrifice zones is real, it refers to impacts that are occurring today,” said Larraín.

The environmentalist said it would be difficult to revive Quintero Bay “because it has a gigantic layer of coal at the bottom, dead phyto and zooplankton because water is used for cooling in industrial processes and is dumped back out with antialgaecides that kill marine life.”

She believes, however, that “over the years, the capacity for regeneration is possible, even in agriculture that has been lost due to sulfur dioxide emissions. There may also be a recovery in fishing and tourism.”

But Larraín demanded “a just transition that restores healthy levels and regenerates ecosystems so that local communities can sustain their economy in a healthy and ecologically balanced environment.”

The crimes of trafficking and aggravated smuggling of persons are of great concern to UNHCR. More than 3,000 people died or went missing while attempting to cross the Mediterranean and the Atlantic last year, hoping to reach Europe, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on April 2022, appealing for $163.5 million to assist and protect thousands of refugees and asylum seekers. Credit: IOM 2020/Alexander Bee

By Jan Servaes
BRUSSELS, Jul 4 2022 (IPS)

A mass attempt on June 24, 2022, of about 2000 African migrants to scale the border fence between Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Melilla left at least 37 people dead.

Several human rights organizations call for an investigation into what ranks as the deadliest day in recent memory along this section of the EU’s only land border with Africa. Spain’s Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, congratulated the coordinated action of the Spanish Civil Guard and the Moroccan security forces. He blamed the mafias and smugglers for the deaths.

On the other hand, Moussa Faki Mahamat, the head of the African Union Commission, expressed “my deep shock and concern at the violent and degrading treatment of African migrants attempting to cross an international border from Morocco into Spain.”

Also Esteban Beltrán, director of Amnesty International Spain, stated: “It is time to put an end to this policy which allows and encourages serious human rights violations. A ‘business as usual’ approach is no longer valid amid the blood and shame”. It is essential “to understand our double standards and ensure that all refugees have the opportunity – as Ukrainians have had – to escape war and repression by seeking asylum through legal and safe channels”.

Mixed Migration Centre

The Mixed Migration Centre (MMC) is a global network engaged in mixed migration data collection, research, analysis, and policy and program development. Their June 2022 report, entitled “Security costs: How the EU’s exclusionary migration policies place people on the move toward Italy and Greece at greater risk – a quantitative analysis”, puts the migration issues in perspective.

The MMC report clearly documents the main protection risks faced by Asian and African migrants and refugees as they travel to Europe along the Central Mediterranean Route (CMR), the Eastern Mediterranean Route (EMR) and the Western Balkans Route (WBR).

The report confirms that a ‘securitized approach’—one that often criminalizes refugees and migrants— coupled with a lack of legal and safe mobility pathways is reducing the protection space for people moving along the main migration routes to and through Europe.

Since its inception in 2014 and through early 2021 MMC’s 4Mi survey has conducted more than 75,000 interviews (that’s about 1,000 interviews per month). The refugees and migrants who took part in the surveys feel that their journey to Europe poses serious risks, including detention, physical and sexual violence, robbery, bribery/extortion and even death.

Children are also exposed to similar protection risks, including detention. The three routes each pose their own specific protection risks, but also share common challenges. Militias are most prevalent on the CMR, and ‘state’ actors on the EMR and the WBR, while criminal gangs are frequently reported across all three routes.

Smugglers are a concern among respondents but are rarely considered to be the main perpetrators of abuse. The CMR—and Libya in particular—is more often reported as dangerous. On the EMR and the WBR routes, migrants and refugees often indicate Turkey, Iran, and Greece as locations where protection incidents are more likely to occur.

Refugees and migrants use a number of strategies to mitigate the risks they expect to face, such as traveling in groups and carrying cash. The latter to prevent them from having to work (under lousy exploitative conditions) to pay for their travels, or to buy themselves ‘free’ and avoid other problems.

The EU’s externalization policies have worsened rather than improved the situation.

Opinions on protection risks are in line with what other studies and reports have noted: that abuse, violence and death are common when migrants and refugees travel through the countries where European externalization policies are implemented — most notably Libya, Niger and Mali across the CMR, and Turkey in the EMR.

Against this background, the externalization policies of the EU and its Member States, and their partnerships with authorities in third countries, remain a major concern in terms of their ethical and financial costs and their impact on the protection of people on the move. Only for the EU does this policy seem effective because arrivals in Europe along various migration routes have been reduced.

In fact, however, it is very likely that the current approach increases the protection risks of migrants and refugees. Indeed, studies have confirmed how these measures violate international and human rights standards set for the protection of people on the run.

A case in point is Europe’s ongoing collaboration with the Libyan coast guard to intercept and return large numbers of migrants and refugees to Tripoli, the city most often considered to be dangerous by the migrants, and one that human rights groups and international organizations have often mentioned in connection to severe forms of violence against, and the unlawful detention of migrants and refugees.

A 2021 report by Amnesty International, for example, highlighted that physical violence and other abuses in Libya had shown no indication of diminishing over the past decade.

The awareness of migrants and refugees of the protection risks in the CMR also points to something else: that there is a feeling that such risks are inevitable on these migration journeys to Europe. One explanation could be that increasingly restrictive border controls and the lack of legal routes mean that migrants and refugees seeking to enter Europe have no other options. Greece is a case in point.

Numerous reports and studies have demonstrated how the EU-Turkey Statement and tighter border controls across the WBR have stemmed the flow of people and exposed migrants to considerable protection risks by forcing them to take highly perilous routes.

Also, the widespread tendency to indiscriminately incarcerate migrants entering the country for lengthy periods of time, in line with the implementation of the EU-Turkey deal, as well as the practice of pushbacks by the Greek coast guard might have led migrants and refugees to opt for the more dangerous, yet more available, paths to Europe.

Bangladeshis, for example, for whom it seems “easier” and safer to use the EMR route, have chosen to try the dangerous crossing via the CMR from Libya to Italy. The question is therefore: why do respondents in the survey continue to use certain routes and locations, despite the many known and very real risks?

The tightening of border controls increases the reliance on smugglers to evade border controls, with smugglers decreasing the chances of arrest by employing increasingly dangerous strategies, ultimately increasing the risks to refugees and migrants.

Such strategies include departing on longer and therefore more dangerous sea and desert routes, choosing unsafe embarkation and boarding points and dumping people on ‘boats’ in rough seas.

The findings of this study regarding the most common perpetrators of abuse across the three routes raise questions about the implications of the EU approach to protecting people on the move.

The prominence of militias and armed gangs are the main perpetrators of abuse reported by respondents who have traveled the CMR. In addition, they traverse areas marked by ongoing political instability, conflict and insecurity, and the collapse of the rule of law.

Nevertheless, the role played by militias and gangs in the protection risks faced by migrants and refugees cannot be separated from the EU’s externalization policies or its interaction with local political economies.

Libya and Niger have been systematically engaged by the EU to stem migratory flows and fight migrant smuggling and human trafficking. Local militias have sometimes even become involved in fighting smuggling groups and/or intercepting refugees and migrants at sea and returning them to Libya.

In summary, while it would be simplistic to argue that EU border policy alone creates all the protection risks faced by migrants and refugees, there seems to be a worrying alignment between the perpetrators the migrants fear most and the actors who secured the funding mobilized by the EU for migration management and the fight against people smuggling.

While the data shows that smugglers remain a major concern for people fleeing to Europe, respondents say they are rarely among the most common perpetrators of violence. These findings indicate that an EU approach mainly focused on ‘securitisation’ and the fight against people smuggling – an approach based on the argument that breaking the so-called business model of smuggling would ensure the safety of refugees and migrants by ending making their perilous crossing of the Mediterranean — may not be as effective as portrayed in political and policy circles.

Recommendations

The Center for Mixed Migration calls on policy makers and authorities to improve European migration management policies, in particular the full implementation of the objectives set out in the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration and the Global Compact on Refugees. The EU and its Member States should:

• Provide detailed and evidence-based analyzes of the impact of EU cooperation with third country partners on both human rights and local economies affected by the implementation of EU externalization measures. These analyzes should be performed on a case-by-case basis for all affected communities in each partner country;

• Support the sharing of information on perpetrators of human rights violations between law enforcement actors at national and international level, including outside Europe, while ensuring that all cooperation is in line with international human rights and refugee law;

• Expanding cooperation with the Government of Turkey to increase its capacity in all provinces to properly implement refugee status and provide international protection, taking into account age-, gender- and diversity-specific vulnerabilities and protection challenges (e.g. Afghans, single women with children and young men);

• All aid that contributes to the interception, return and often detention of refugees and migrants in shutting down Libya, as it is not a safe place. Also ensure that no one is at risk of inhumane and degrading treatment in Libya and support humanitarian programs that respond to the needs of the people;

• Improving the monitoring of deaths along migration routes to Europe by including more details in the data systems on deaths along the route;

• Open new channels of legal entry and strengthen existing ones by granting humanitarian visas, creating humanitarian corridors between transit countries and Europe, expanding Member States’ resettlement programs and facilitating alternative legal routes, such as family reunification, university scholarships and training programmes.

Jan Servaes is editor of the 2020 Handbook on Communication for Development and Social Change ( https://link.springer.com/referencework/10.1007/978-981-10-7035-8 ) and co-editor of the 2021 Palgrave Handbook of International Communication and Sustainable Development. ( https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030697693)

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Dr Anne Larigauderie, the Executive Secretary of IPBES. Credit: IPBES

By Manipadma Jena
New Delhi, Jul 3 2022 (IPS)

Speaking to IPS about the importance of biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people, Dr Anne Larigauderie, Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), stressed the importance of moving from knowledge and policy silos to a more integrated approach to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially those related to food, water, health, climate change, and energy, which can only be achieved together with the two goals related to biodiversity.

Larigauderie said it was crucial to provide resources and build capacity in under-resourced developing countries where much of the remaining biodiversity is located. Financial resources were particularly needed, she said, to fund global biodiversity observing systems in order to monitor biodiversity in order to follow progress according to internationally agreed indicators and targets. She was speaking to IPS ahead of the ninth session of the IPBES Plenary (#IPBES9) in Bonn, Germany.

IPBES harnesses the best expertise from across a wide range of scientific disciplines and knowledge communities to provide policy-relevant evidence and knowledge, thus helping to catalyse the implementation of knowledge-based policies at all levels of government, the private sector and civil society.

In the face of the worsening climate crisis and rapid biodiversity loss, IPBES’ role has been growing in importance since it was established in 2012.

IPBES’ first thematic assessment, on Pollinators, Pollination and Food Production (2016) brought a global focus to issues relating to the protection and importance of all pollinators, and has since resulted in a number of strong policy changes and actions globally, nationally and locally.

At #IPBES9, 139 member governments are expected to approve two crucial new scientific assessment reports, one regarding the sustainable use of wild species and the other regarding nature’s diverse values and valuation.

Four years in development, the ‘Sustainable Use Assessment’ has been written by 85 leading experts, drawing on more than 6,200 references, while the ‘Values Assessment’ has 82 top expert authors, drawing on more than 13,000 references.

An indigenous forest dweller in India’s Andhra Pradesh, inside a protected area, sells cashew nut seeds to visitors. Indigenous communities’ knowledge of biodiversity contributes to the work of IPBES, alongside science, says IPBES’ Executive Secretary. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

Excerpts of the interview follow:

Inter Press Service (IPS): IPBES provides policy-relevant knowledge to catalyse the implementation of policies at all levels, including awareness-raising among the public. What outcome do you expect from #IPBES9? 

Anne Larigauderie (AL): We expect to have three major outcomes. Two new reports will be submitted for approval and are planned for release from #IPBES9. One is on the values and valuation of nature and the other is on the sustainable use of wild species. A third major outcome of the meeting is expected to be a decision about starting a new report on business and biodiversity, which would be produced in a couple of years.

IPS: How significant are these new reports’ findings for biodiversity conservation in particular, and more broadly for achieving a range of biodiversity-related SDGs, including food security and climate change? You have mentioned elsewhere that climate science may be working in a silo and not, ideally, together with biodiversity goals. How are IPBES scientific data-based reports helping bring working synergy to these critically interlinked SDGs?

AL: You really put your finger on a very major issue and message that IPBES has been trying to advance.

One of the key conclusions of the IPBES Global Assessment on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services was that with the current loss of biodiversity and degradation of nature, we are not going to achieve the two most directly biodiversity-related SDGs: 14 and 15. We will also miss a number of the other goals related to the production of food, water quality, health and climate change.

With the ongoing overuse of pesticides, loss in soil biodiversity and in pollinators, among others, we will for example not be able to reach SDG-2 on zero hunger.

With current high rates of deforestation, land degradation, and the overuse of fertilisers, we also cannot reach SDG-13 – to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts – because all of the actions that I just described, are either contributing to greenhouse gas emissions or reducing the capacity of natural ecosystems to mitigate against climate change.

Deforestation also threatens SDG-3 related to good health. So, protecting biodiversity is not only necessary for conserving nature, but it also really is about reaching all of those other key SDGs and protecting all of nature’s other contributions to people as well.

IPS: How can IPBES ensure wild species, hugely important but still largely under-appreciated, are sustainably used?

AL: Based on the latest scientific data, IPBES assessments inform decision-making. Then it is up to governments and a diverse set of actors to act.

IPBES’ 2016 report on the status of pollinators and the impact on food security has informed quite a lot of new legislation around the world. It triggered a new UN Food and Agriculture (FAO) international initiative on pollinators, for instance. All this contributes to reducing the loss of pollinators. We hope for a similar level of impact from the report on the sustainable use of wild species once it has been released.

IPS: How effectively and urgently are countries implementing the IPBES-informed policies that would result in much-needed transformative changes for reaching biodiversity targets?

AL: Clearly, not enough. The IPBES Global Assessment of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services concluded in 2019, that good progress had been achieved towards components of only four out of the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to be achieved by 2020. Because of the pandemic, the 15th session of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15), initially scheduled for 2020 has been rescheduled for December 2022. This is of course having an impact on many policies, which are related to the global agenda, including at the national level.

IPS: What kinds of things would the IPBES scientific community think are still needed globally to enable much greater information flow, robust databases and wider involvement of the scientific community?

AL: What we do not have currently for biodiversity is a global biodiversity observing system. The climate change community has had a Global Climate Observing System ever since the Climate Change Convention started.

As part of this system, governments have agreed on a set of essential climate variables (for example, water temperature or salinity) which are measured by all governments thanks to in-situ and remotely sensed capacity, and shared in common databases, thus enabling scientists to project future trends in climate change, among others.

For biodiversity, there is no such global observing system agreed upon and funded by governments, with the proper capacity to monitor changes in biodiversity and thus know if policy implementation has succeeded or failed.

Currently, biodiversity data are collected according to different protocols, stored in separate databases, with many gaps (for example, taxa, geographic, temporal) and no operational capacity, such as dedicated agencies, to ensure the long-term collection and proper storage of data. These gaps are particularly important in developing countries, where much biodiversity lies.

We can formulate the hope that COP15 will emphasise the need for a proper intergovernmental global biodiversity observing system and pave the way for a mechanism to properly resource such a system.

IPS: Is data collection focusing more on flagship species and not enough on other species which may not be as ‘glamorous’ but are critical for healthy ecosystems?

AL: There is definitely a general bias in data collection. Over the years, particularly in the past, people have focused their efforts on the animals they saw, liked, found attractive or interesting – think about birds, which are the most observed animals in the world because they have always fascinated people. That bias is changing, however, as new technologies provide access to environments which were too small or too difficult to reach. Studying soil microflora and microfauna or deep ocean biodiversity is becoming possible, but many of these techniques remain expensive and thus require funds and capacity building.

IPS: Are countries doing enough to preserve and promote indigenous knowledge of biodiversity?

AL: IPBES has placed a major emphasis on indigenous knowledge in its work. It was one of our guiding principles right when IPBES started. The choice was made by governments to not only rely on scientific knowledge in our reports but also on knowledge from indigenous peoples and local communities. Over the years, IPBES has invested quite a lot in developing an inclusive approach and engaging more closely with indigenous communities.

This has made the IPBES reports richer, more diverse, and more relevant to everyone, including indigenous people, who have often managed to keep their environment in better shape than others – even though their territories are threatened by climate change and other issues for which they are often not responsible.

So yes, this is an area that IPBES strongly supports and values. IPBES has actually played quite an innovative role, and inspired others with its unique approach, including the climate change community.

IPS: Can you share with our readers some clues about future IPBES assessments?

AL: We are finishing a report on invasive alien species and their control, that is planned for launch next year and then we have two new reports that are already in progress. One is on the nexus between biodiversity, water, food and health. Here IPBES is looking at how to simultaneously achieve the Sustainable Development Goals related to food, water, and health and also touching upon climate and energy together with biodiversity and ecosystems. We want to really get out of the silo approach and inform people about the options that are available to reach these goals simultaneously and not one at the expense of the other.

The other assessment is on transformative change– where IPBES is exploring the type of values and behaviours which are the origin of the indirect and direct drivers of biodiversity loss, and how they could be transformed. These underlying causes of biodiversity loss are difficult to study and often neglected but they are the root causes of all the issues and need to be better understood to be properly addressed.

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Excerpt:

IPS interviews Dr Anne Larigauderie, the Executive Secretary of IPBES