Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

A man photographs an apartment building that was heavily damaged during escalating conflict, in Kyiv, Ukraine. Credit: UNICEF/Anton Skyba for The Globe and Mail

By Alon Ben-Meir
NEW YORK, Apr 6 2022 (IPS)

Prime Minister Bennett’s “neutrality” in the Russian war against Ukraine is outrageous and contemptable. It runs contrary to every moral principle that Israel is supposed to stand and fight for. Bennett must join the Western alliance in opposing Putin — a merciless tyrant who is committing crimes against humanity and must pay for it

Righting the Wrong

One cannot help but feel outraged by the conduct of Israel’s PM Naftali Bennett. He, like millions of people around the world, is witnessing the unfolding horror of the Russian invasion of Ukraine but chooses to remain neutral. Neutral in the face of a shattered country that sought nothing but to be free, and neutral in the face of indiscriminate bombing raining death and destruction.

How can a prime minister of Israel remain neutral in the face of cities being reduced to ashes and millions of refugees petrified of what tomorrow will bring? As a father, how can he maintain absurd neutrality when children are dying in the arms of weeping mothers and helpless young girls cower in fear with no place to hide?

How can a devout man no less exhibit such sickening aloofness when he sees the wanton destruction of schools, hospitals, and institutions and the ruthless defiance of human rights, when ten million Ukrainians became refugees or internally displaced, and when so many innocents are on the verge of death from thirst and starvation?

One might ask, what does it mean to be neutral? If you are neutral, what does this really translate to in the context of the unspeakable crimes Putin is committing against innocent Ukrainian citizens?

In this case it simply means that while these crimes against humanity are happening in broad daylight, Bennett refuses to condemn the Russian butcher because of cold-blooded political calculations, which he justifies in the name of Israel’s national security.

Whether Bennett’s decision to assume neutrality is because he wanted to act as a credible interlocutor between Ukraine and Russia or because he wanted Russia’s continued cooperation in Syria to bomb Iranian military installations or because he wanted to elicit Russian support against a new Iran deal or a combination of all three, Bennet has gravely betrayed Israel’s founding moral principles.

Bennett’s absurd position of neutrality has profoundly disappointed Israel’s allies, especially the US, which is the only credible power that has committed itself to Israel’s national security, be that against Iran or any other foe. In light of what is happening we should examine Bennett’s reprehensible behavior from two perspectives: Israel’s moral standing, and Israel’s relations with the United States.

Israel’s moral standing: Can Israel, given that its founding is intertwined with the Jews’ long and troubled history, assume a neutral posture when war crimes of such magnitude are occurring for all to see? How can Bennett abandon Israel’s basic moral tenets presumably because of national security concerns over Iran’s nuclear weapons program?

By maintaining “neutrality,” Bennett is siding with a thug and a ruthless killer, who has become a pariah and war criminal who dishonors everyone who has not condemned him in the strongest terms.

When the Prime Minister of Israel does not rise to the fateful cry for help and do what is morally right by standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel’s democratic allies and save the lives of thousands of innocent civilians, he is dangerously compromising the country’s international standing both on moral and political grounds.

With the indiscriminate bombardment, missile strikes, and drones killing thousands of people, the summary execution of civilians, and the flattening of whole cities, the invasion of Ukraine is itself a horrendous crime against a sovereign nation and a gross violation of international law.

Mass graves discovered in Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv, confirm that Russian forces have indeed committed war crimes. Civilians were executed with their hands bound and their bodies placed in shallow graves containing hundreds of bodies.

These war crimes are a further trespass against humanity, a compounding of Russia’s transgression of all that we hold dear and sacred – including the dignity of human life and the right to live free from violence, brutality, and cruelty.

With all that unfolding horror, Bennett still refuses to provide air defense systems to stop these atrocities. Indeed, by refusing to offer such systems which can intercept projectiles without killing Russian soldiers, which, understandably he wants to avoid, he has become indirectly complicit in the horrifying death and destruction.

Israel’s detractors rightfully raise the question: has the decades-long Israeli occupation and the harsh way the Palestinians are treated made Bennett so morally numb and apathetic to the growing tragedy of the Ukrainian people?

It is no wonder; Bennett was born only five years after the occupation began; to him and many others, the oppressive and cruel occupation is simply a natural phenomenon. Bennett and his followers should recall what the philosopher and theologian Abraham Heschel once said: “Who is a Jew? A person whose integrity decays when unmoved by the knowledge of wrong done to other people.”

Bennett must remember, politically or otherwise, Putin will vanish sooner or later, but Israel’s moral failure under his stewardship will haunt it for decades to come.

Israel’s relations with the United States: For Bennett to openly and repeatedly express total opposition to the US’ efforts to strike a new Iran deal, and by refusing to heed President Biden’s call to aid Ukraine militarily, Bennett has effectively defied the only significant power that is unshakably committed to Israel’s national security.

Although Biden made it abundantly clear that the US will never allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, Bennett asserted, like his predecessor, that Israel will act against Iran as it sees fit, as if Israel can take on Iran’s nuclear program entirely on its own, which is an illusion.

This is where Bennett has demonstrated acute shortsightedness. America stood by Israel through thick and thin and never wavered. As the philosopher Cornel West observed, “We have to recognize that there cannot be relationships unless there is commitment, unless there is loyalty…”

It is America, not Russia, that provided massive economic and military aid in the tens of billions of dollars over the last decade alone. It is America, not Russia, that shielded Israel politically on every international forum and vetoed scores of anti-Israel resolutions at the UNSC and neutralized any threat to its national security.

Bennett seems to forget that the US, not Russia, will come to Israel’s aid on every front when needed, especially if it became necessary to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities, which Israel can never do alone with all that might imply. And finally, it is the US, not Russia, whose strategic alliance with Israel stood the test of time.

Thus, when Israel does not join the US in support of Ukraine in this desperate hour of need, Israel is opening itself to the questioning of its loyalty and strategic relevance to America when nearly all the democracies in the world stood by the US and mobilized their resources against Putin’s evil design.

The disaster which is being inflicted on Ukraine by Putin also raises the question as to whether Israel deserves better treatment from the US, especially now that it has rebuffed Biden’s call to aid Ukraine in a meaningful way to save lives.

Although the US continues to support Israel publicly, as Secretary of State Blinken recently expressed while visiting Israel, the Biden administration hopes that Bennett will change his mind by offering to help and coming on board with NATO and the EU.

Bennett must answer the desperate plea of Ukraine’s President Zelensky by providing air defense systems, such as the Iron Dome, to intercept the bombs and missiles that are turning Ukrainian cities into piles of rubble.

Bennett’s betrayal of Israel’s moral foundation because of cold-blooded political calculations will haunt him and leave him morally naked in the eyes of Israel’s friends and foes alike. Bennet must also realize that Israel’s fate is tied to America’s and the closer he ties it, the better it is for Israel.

There must be no daylight between them, especially in the way of dealing with Iran’s nuclear threat. That is where Israel’s ultimate security rests while still remaining strong to deter any enemy. This may well be Bennett’s last chance to redeem himself and put Israel on the right side of history.

The whole world is watching.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a retired professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University (NYU). He taught courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies for over 20 years.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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This year’s World Health Day launched a new warning: more than 13 million deaths around the world each year are due to “avoidable environmental causes”. Credit: Bigstock

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Apr 5 2022 (IPS)

While the world’s top scientists and experts continue their arduous work to finally submit to politicians at the 27th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 27) in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt (7-18 November 2022), a new alert now emerges: the climate crisis has already become the single biggest health threat to humankind.

But this new alert should be no surprise: it rather constitutes the logic, expected consequences of the more and more intensive pressure of the life-keeping and life-saving natural resources.

No wonder: there are too many chemicals, lead, mercury, microplastics and a long etcetera, poisoning the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink, the oceans, the soil, the forests, the indispensable biodiversity and now also the world’s large reserves of water in both the North and South Poles.

Several of these consequences are visible –though apparently unwanted to be seen: destructive floods, deadly droughts, unprecedented heatwaves, the Earth’s lungs are suffocated, biodiversity is lost. And there is an increased risk of new zoonotic diseases transmitted between animals and humans.

This year’s World Health Day, marked on 7 April, launched the new warning. In fact, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that more than 13 million deaths around the world each year are due to “avoidable environmental causes.”

This includes the climate crisis which is “the single biggest health threat facing humanity.” “The climate crisis is also a health crisis.”

 

The impacts

The world body reminds of the following facts:

• Over 90% of people breathe unhealthy air resulting from burning fossil fuels.
• Polluted Planet increases diseases like cancer, asthma, heart disease.
• A heating world is seeing mosquitoes spread diseases farther and faster than ever before.
• Extreme weather events, land degradation and water scarcity are displacing people and affecting their health.
• Pollution and plastics are found at the bottom of our deepest oceans, the highest mountains, and have made their way into our food chain.
• Systems that produce highly processed, unhealthy foods and beverages are driving a wave of obesity, increasing cancer and heart disease while generating a third of global greenhouse gas emissions.
• Floods can cause poisoning
• Climate change makes wildfires more likely
• Above 40 degrees, heat strokes might happen, causing organ failure and even death
• Wildfires can cause death and injury from suffocation.
• Wildfires can cause trauma impacts on mental health
• Climate change is making floods more dangerous
• Zoonotic diseases – those diseases that can spread between animals and people – continue to have major impacts on human health. Every year, nearly 60.000 people die from rabies, and other zoonotic diseases such as avian influenza, Ebola or Rift Valley fever constitute additional threats.

 

2 billion people lack safe drinking-water globally, and 3.6 billion people lack safe toilets. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

Half of humanity already lives in danger zone

In spite of these and other dangers, the world is visibly doing too little, not to say almost nothing. In fact, the goal to limit future warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, highlighted in the Paris Agreement on climate change, and driven home in last November’s COP26, gathering in Glasgow, is now on “life support” and “in intensive care,” the UN chief told the Economist Sustainability Summit on 21 March 2022.

The United Nations’ Secretary-General António Guterres highlighted some of the progress made at COP 26 last year but pointing to “the enormous emissions gap” conceded that “the main problem was not solved – it was not even properly addressed.”

 

Worsening

According to current national commitments, however, global emissions are set to increase by almost 14 percent during the rest of the decade.  Last year alone, global energy-related CO2 emissions grew by six percent “to their highest levels in history,” Guterres said, as coal emissions surged “to record highs.”

With the planet warming by as much as 1.2 degrees, and where climate disasters have forced 30 million to flee their homes, Guterres warned: “We are sleepwalking to climate catastrophe.”

 

“This is madness”

If we do not want to “kiss 1.5 goodbye…we need to go to the source – the G20” (group of leading industrialised nations), the UN chief said.

Noting that developed and emerging G20 economies account for 80 percent of all global emissions, he drew attention to a high dependence on coal but underscored that “our planet can’t afford a climate blame game.”

“Countries could become so consumed by the immediate fossil fuel supply gap that they neglect or knee-cap policies to cut fossil fuel use,” Guterres insisted. “This is madness.”

As fossil fuels reliance continues to put the global economy and energy security at the mercy of geopolitical shocks and crises, “the timeline to cut emissions by 45 percent is extremely tight.”

 

No cure in sight

In spite of all the feasible remedies indicated by the world scientific community –and the visible effects of the ongoing climate emergency– there is no actual cure in sight.

 

See what is at stake:

Politicians subsidise fossil fuel with six trillion dollars in just one year. In fact, they have spent such a huge amount –six trillion US dollars– from taxpayers’ money to subsidise fossil fuels in just one year: 2020. And they are set to increase the figure to nearly seven trillion by 2025.

Moreover, governments will double the production of energy from these very same, highly dangerous, global warming generators.

Carbon dioxide is the single most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, accounting for approximately 66% of the warming effect on the climate, mainly because of fossil fuel combustion and cement production

There are more lethal gases and fewer, weaker sinks

With one million species endangered, the web of life is at risk of extinction

Half world’s population, exposed to floods, storms, tsunamis, by 2030

The “Kidneys of the Earth” Are Disappearing, as Wetlands, which are considered as a natural solution to the global threat of climate change. They absorb carbon dioxide, help slow global heating and reduce pollution, hence they are often referred to as the “Kidneys of the Earth”. Specifically, peatlands alone store twice as much carbon as all the world’s forests combined

Projection indicate that there will be a severe water stress, absolute scarcity for 2 to 4 billion humans by 2025

Meanwhile, the too harmful march of salt and plastics continue unabated on world soils

And there is another major consequence: millions of humans are attempting to escape the devastating impact of the climate crisis, fleeing their homes as migrants and refugees. What would Europe, the US, do with one billion climate refugees?

 

Pandemics fueled by climate change

Should all the above not be enough, please also know that the World Health Organization has just launched a global bug-busting plan to prevent new pandemics, which are feared to be fueled by climate change.

The plan is aimed to stop the spread of common, mosquito-borne diseases – known as “arboviruses” – which threaten more than half the world’s population. And the main target of the initiative is four of the most common arboviruses: Dengue, Yellow fever, Chikungunya, and Zika.

The World Health Organization poses some sound questions: Are we able to reimagine a world where clean air, water and food are available to all? Where economies are focused on health and well-being? Where cities are liveable and people have control over their health and the health of the planet?

Up to you to judge!

Migrant encampment in the border town of Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico. Credit: Adam Isacson.

By Adam Isacson
WASHINGTON DC, Apr 5 2022 (IPS)

“The migrants try to organize themselves to stay safe,” a humanitarian worker told me as we stood near a town square in Reynosa, Mexico, steps away from the U.S. border. More than 2,000 people from many countries, blocked from asking for asylum in the United States, were packed into this square block, living under tents and tarps, amid port-a-potties and cooking fires. Children were everywhere.

“They move the women and children to tents closer to the center of the square, to protect them from kidnappers.” Many nights, men raid the square, guns drawn, taking people away and holding them for ransom under brutal conditions.

It was my fourth day of a mid-March visit to the Texas-Mexico border region, and my second day visiting Mexico’s easternmost border state, Tamaulipas. Part of me was beginning to wonder whether the United States’ border and migration policies were somehow being designed with input from the Mexican organized crime groups that prey on migrants. It would be hard to devise a system that benefits these “cartels” more than the current one does.

Part of me was beginning to wonder whether the United States’ border and migration policies were somehow being designed with input from the Mexican organized crime groups that prey on migrants. It would be hard to devise a system that benefits these “cartels” more than the current one does

Tamaulipas is a large state, bordering more than 200 miles of Texas from Laredo to the Gulf of Mexico. Of Mexico’s six border states, it is the only one to have a level-four “Do Not Travel” warning from the U.S. State Department, “due to crime and kidnapping.”

Two cartels, and smaller factions, fight frequent running gun battles with each other and with security forces—while also corrupting and penetrating government institutions so thoroughly that the population has long ceased to view them as protection.

Given all this, one might expect migrants to try and avoid Tamaulipas and its dangers. Though many do, for the past nine years this has been the busiest part of the U.S.-Mexico border. The U.S. Border Patrol apprehends more migrants in south Texas’s Rio Grande Valley (McAllen, Brownsville, and surrounding towns), across from most of Tamaulipas, than it does in any other of the nine sectors into which it divides the border.

As Texas dips down far to the south here, this is the closest point on the border to Central America, so the agency encounters tens of thousands of Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Hondurans, and Nicaraguans here each year, along with Mexicans displaced by violence elsewhere in the country.

Many are parents with children. I also met some of a growing number of migrants now coming from Colombia, Haiti, and Venezuela. The vast majority hope to turn themselves in to U.S. authorities and ask for a chance to petition for asylum in the United States, claiming threats to their lives if returned.

This is also a busy route for migration because Mexican organized crime has locked down the routes across the border. Those who can pay several-thousand-dollar fees, selling everything they own and borrowing the rest, cross with cartel-sanctioned smugglers. It’s a huge moneymaker for organized crime, and for the corrupt Mexican security and migration officials who get paid to look the other way.

I was struck by the level of control that organized crime has over the lives of residents, and especially of migrants, in the Tamaulipas border cities of Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa, and Matamoros. Cold War-era East German officials would be impressed.

Nobody is allowed near the Rio Grande: riverfront parks sit empty. Those who try to cross without having paid a fee are beaten, or worse. Those who lack a “password” or other proof that they have paid cartels’ exorbitant fees are kidnapped.

Migrants, including parents and children, get held in fetid stash houses, while their captors text terrifying videos to relatives in the United States, instructing them to transfer ransom payments in the thousands of dollars. If nobody pays, they are disappeared, enslaved—forced to perform labor for the cartels—or even killed. Mexican security forces almost never come to the rescue.

In Nuevo Laredo, groups of kidnappers circulate in vehicles near the bridges from the United States, looking for recently removed migrants lacking the right “passwords,” whom they then kidnap. (Five days after my visit to Nuevo Laredo, Mexican soldiers arrested the cartel leader who had maximum control over the city’s criminal activity, unleashing days of mayhem with burning vehicles, shootouts, and grenades lobbed at the U.S. Consulate.)

In Matamoros, I asked whether “maybe 20 percent” of migrants waiting there had been kidnapped before. “Oh, it’s higher than that,” a humanitarian worker replied.

And every day, though the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is aware of the dangers and the consequences, the U.S. government delivers more victims to the criminals. The “Title 42” pandemic policy, which the Trump administration launched in March 2020 and the Biden administration is prolonging until May 23, has expelled non-Mexican migrants into Tamaulipas roughly 250,000 times since Joe Biden’s inauguration, without giving them a chance to ask for asylum in the United States.

Mexican citizens were expelled into Tamaulipas 160,000 times during that period. To them, we must add 25,000 Mexican deportees, mostly migrants whom Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested in the U.S. interior.

After Customs and Border Protection (CBP) leaves them at the bridges, kidnappers are often waiting. Meanwhile, with the pretext of reducing COVID exposure, Title 42 closed the official border crossings to asylum seekers, making it impossible to exercise the right to ask for protection as laid out in U.S. and international law.

Those expelled, and the adults and children bottled up waiting for a chance to approach the ports of entry, are among the most vulnerable populations in the Western Hemisphere, and they’re just steps from the U.S. border. In February, researchers from the University of Texas estimated that roughly 9,500 people were waiting in Tamaulipas border cities for an opportunity to ask for protection in the United States.

Border-wide, Human Rights First has collected evidence of at least 9,886 cases of kidnappings, torture, rape, and other violent attacks on asylum seekers whom Title 42 has stranded since 2021. In Tamaulipas the count of abuses is greater than the statistics indicate, because the security situation makes data collection so difficult.

This is why it feels as though the current U.S. policy was designed to benefit the cartels. If migrants who fear return to their countries could safely cross Mexico, then report to a port of entry and have their cases processed, considered, and adjudicated as quickly as due process allows, the cartels’ business model would implode.

But instead, closing the ports of entry and delivering migrants to danger have created ideal incentives for that business model.

This vulnerable population can’t wait for the rule of law to arrive in Tamaulipas. The U.S. government must act to take the business away from the criminals preying on migrants. What it needs to do is already laid out in U.S. law. No new legislation is required.

Since 1980, U.S. immigration law has made clear that the official ports of entry are a proper place for asylum seekers to approach and express to CBP officers their fear of return to their countries. For more than two years, though, Title 42 made it impossible to approach a port of entry.

Once Title 42 ends in late May, asylum seekers must be able to come to a port of entry, not pay criminals’ “tolls” to cross the Rio Grande. Then they should be processed—checking backgrounds and health records, beginning asylum paperwork, evaluating the credibility of fear claims—in facilities with the space and manpower to do it quickly.

Robust alternatives-to-detention programs can keep people in the system. Years-long adjudication backlogs can be shrunk by adding asylum officers, and by rebuilding and rethinking the creaky immigration court system.

While working toward these reforms, the administration must immediately curtail unsafe removals of migrants, which enable violent abuse and provide money-making opportunities to organized crime. Deportations, expulsions, and other removals to border cities must minimize the likelihood of kidnapping.

That means avoiding removals at night, avoiding removals when no Mexican authorities are present, helping Mexican migrant shelters meet their needs including security, and avoiding “lateral” removals that send migrants into territory controlled by different criminal organizations.

Failing to take these steps will enrich cartels and feed terror, with Tamaulipas being the most extreme and riskiest example. Ending Title 42 and building up the sort of asylum process that our own laws envision isn’t just humane.

By draining away the profits along with the cruelty, it’s one of the smartest counter-organized crime strategies the U.S. government can pursue at its southern border.

 

Excerpt:

Adam Isacson is Director for Defense Oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America

Zimbabwe has been urged to invest in road safety including improving its poor road infrastructure. Credit: Busani Bafana/ IPS

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Apr 5 2022 (IPS)

When driving at night in Zimbabwe, watch out for a pair of eyes on the road and slow down. You may hit a giraffe inside a pothole. So goes an often-told joke.

It may be an unflattering hyperbole about the quality and safety of Zimbabwe’s roads, but it is not far from reality.

Zimbabwe’s roads are not famous for their aesthetics, nor quality and least of all, their safety. Last year more than 2000 people died on the country’s roads, and scores of others were injured.

About five people on average die every day in road crashes in Zimbabwe, according to a review report on the country’s road safety launched in January 2022. However, the World Health Organisation reckons the realistic figure is three times more.

The discrepancy may result from the government counting only deaths on the scene of the crash. In contrast, global practice counts deaths within 30 days after the crash, says Lee Randall, an occupational therapist and road safety researcher, explaining that many countries in Africa have poor statistical systems and do not generate timely and accurate crash data.

Zimbabwe’s road safety review, conducted by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in partnership with the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Road Safety, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and the government, sought to reduce road crash deaths and injuries in the country.

High road crashes, a toll on the economy

Road traffic crash deaths in Zimbabwe rose by 34 percent between 2011 and 2019, while fatalities rose from 1 836 deaths in 2016 to an average of 2 000 deaths per year between 2017 and 2019, the report found. Bus drivers and passengers accounted for 50 percent of the fatalities.

Road crashes, blamed mainly on a combination of human error, poor road infrastructure and defective vehicles, take a toll on lives and the economy in terms of health care costs.

Launching the review, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) Executive Secretary Vera Songwe noted that the cost of road crashes is heavy on the African economies, especially as they try to rebuild amidst the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Anything that takes away from Africa’s GDP growth becomes important because we need every bit of it to move forward better,” said Songwe. “The request by the Zimbabwe authority to review their transport and safety is encouraging given the dire road safety situation in the country but also the economic context that is very difficult.”

Research in 2018 by the Traffic Safety Council of Zimbabwe indicates that the country experiences an average of 40 000 road traffic crashes which cost about US$406 million annually, and these account for an estimated 3 percent of Zimbabwe’s GDP at $14 billion.

“Zimbabwe is the only one of the SADC countries that have called for this kind of road review and good for the government for doing it because it is a big step towards rectifying the situation of road crashes,” Randall told IPS. “It is a wake-up call to see these grim realities of road crashes for countries especially low- and middle-income countries where crashes consume a huge proportion of GDP that could instead be used for development and alleviating poverty.”

Even the Global Economy’s Survey rates Zimbabwe’s roads poorly with a score of 2.8 in 2019 compared to the world average for quality of roads based in 141 countries at 4.07 points.

After Cameroon, Ethiopia and Uganda, Zimbabwe is the fourth African country to launch a road safety performance review report that takes stock of progress in implementing the first United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011–2020. The Second Decade of Action for Road Safety targets to reduce road traffic death and injuries by at least 50 percent by 2030.

Randall, who has researched widely on the bioethics of road safety, believes that road crashes should not be happening in the first place because most are avoidable and could be minimised with proper attention to the overall road traffic system.

Enforcement of road rules is critically important, and robust, well-resourced enforcement systems are important, but Randall said you cannot have traffic cops on every kilometre of every road every hour of every day.

“We have to appeal to our inner traffic cop, which is our moral sense that rests on a good level of insights into what the crash risks are and into human behaviour and literal training on what the laws are in a particular country. We need to drill road safety concepts into people at an early enough age to influence their behaviour in the road traffic system over their lifetimes,” said Randall. He is a founder of the Road Ethics Project, a non-profit company that engages people in ethical conversations and recognises individuals who have effectively contributed to reducing road crashes, injuries and deaths.

Second-hand cars and poor safety checks

Songwe also noted an increase in the importation of second-hand vehicles in Zimbabwe and other African countries, urging for a reduction in the importation of cars that are not up to standard that cost lives and are detrimental to economic development.

“As a continent, we need to take off importation of vehicles that are not up to standard that end up costing lives and are detrimental to economic development,” Songwe said.

Zimbabwe imports vehicles worth over $340 million annually, according to figures from the national data agency, Zimstat.

In 2021 Zimbabwe, through a Statutory Instrument, banned the importation of second-hand vehicles ten years and older. But that has not stopped the grey imports, which ordinary Zimbabweans can afford to drive, a sharp contrast to the top-end luxury vehicles government splurges on.

High deaths, low investment in road safety awareness

The review made several recommendations for Zimbabwe to improve road safety, noting that the country had the worst road crash mortality rates among its neighbours.

Jean Todt, United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Road Safety, said Zimbabwe could reverse its high crash deaths rate if it implemented the review report’s recommendations.

Todt said 90 percent of people and goods in Africa are moved by road and that transport and mobility can only be sustainable if it is safe. Africa has the highest road fatality rates per 100 000 people. Globally 1.3 million people are killed every year from road crashes, and over 50 million are injured.

It was recommended that Zimbabwe establish a road Crash Database and improve its statistical indicators and disaggregated data while implementing a post-Crash Care Response and Coordination System. Currently, Zimbabwe does not have a single national three-digit emergency call number to facilitate timely road crashes and response reporting.

The review report also recommended developing a 10-year national road safety strategy and action plan to improve road safety in Zimbabwe by 2030 and the establishment of a Road Safety Fund.

Speaking at the launch of the review report, Zimbabwe’s Deputy Minister of Health and Child Care, John Mangwiro, said the country was committed to road safety by implementing recommended actions, including opening a crash and emergency reporting institution.

Poor medical health systems had meant that many survivors of road crashes died when they reached hospitals owing to the lack of post-crash care.

The review had good news. Zimbabwe can accelerate road safety and reverse road crashes by investing in public education on road safety, implementing effective policies and improving the road system infrastructure.

On the road to better roads

Last year the government declared the country’s road network a state of disaster. It announced an allocation of $400 million to fund road rehabilitation and upgrading through the Emergency Roads Rehabilitation programme. The Zimbabwe government recently announced an ambitious road development plan to rehabilitate the country’s road network, which covers more than 78 000 km. Some of the roads are more than 30 years old.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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During the last couple of decades, the mountain gorilla population in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park has steadily increased to more than 400. Credit: UNEP / Kibuuka Mukisa

By Leslé Jansen
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Apr 5 2022 (IPS)

On the battleground that has become African wildlife conservation, rural communities find themselves in the middle of a tug-of-war that is bound to the past on one side, and their future, on the other.

And judging from political developments in former colonial power, Britain, these communities – the custodians of wildlife in several southern African countries – are holding fast in their fight to secure a future in which the power to use their natural resources for their own good, rest firmly in their hands.

The UK government intends passing anti-hunting legislation containing a ban on British hunters bringing their trophies home. For African communities that rely on so-called trophy hunting as a major source of income, such bans not only undermine their right to sustainably use and manage their wildlife, which includes hunting, to their benefit but also threaten their livelihoods.

And there’s evidence, as in the case of Kenya, that they harm conservation as well.

According to reports, the government no longer intends to introduce its Animals Abroad Bill in the current parliamentary session, citing a lack of parliamentary time. Similar planned legislative restrictions in the United States, intended to undermine hunting tourism in Africa, have also failed to materialise. There also now appears to be legislation proposals with a similar objective in the making in Italy and Belgium.

The hunting trophy import ban represents a conflict between two distinct schools of thought on conservation. One is an approach supported by African governments’ policies and international conservation authorities, which holds up the sustainable use of natural resources practices by hundreds of communities across several African countries.

The other, which has become increasingly popular in western nations and urban areas where people no longer have a direct link to the natural environment, holds animal rights and welfare as paramount, even to the detriment of the rights and welfare of the people responsible for the conservation of that wildlife.

While the legislative attempts in the UK, US and possibly now Europe as well, aimed at curbing so-called trophy hunting in Africa might reflect current Western notions of animal rights, they are way out of touch with current African thinking, international conservation bodies and treaties.

This broader view takes cognisance of the key role that indigenous people and local communities play in conserving their environment, and how ignoring their rights and customs has contributed to our current environmental crisis.

Rights that have been won the hard way are not easily relinquished. Current African governments that have successfully overturned colonial laws in favour of their citizens can therefore be expected to strongly resist all attempts to undermine these policies.

In the field of conservation, these policies include recognising the rights of rural African communities to use their wildlife sustainably. Sustainable use includes developing wildlife-based industries – including hunting and photographic tourism – that links these communities with global, high-value markets for African wildlife.

Colonialism decimated traditional systems, which existed for centuries, in which African communities lived with wildlife and used it in sustainable ways. These people suddenly became poachers of animals that overnight were no longer their property to use freely anymore.

Restoring the rights of rural communities to their natural resources is by no means straightforward. Many communities have been displaced from their former territories and in some cases need to rebuild their social and cultural norms and learn to work within modern policy frameworks.

Traditional relationships with nature have been disrupted as a consequence of historical upheavals and modern urbanisation trends. Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) is therefore a journey that communities and southern African governments have embarked upon in post-colonial era, towards the future of African conservation. Given the complexities of modern-day Africa, this journey will not be short or easy.

These devolution of rights efforts were given a recent boost from the African Union’s human rights agency, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, in the form of Resolution 489, which calls on African states and non-state actors to both recognise and support the rights of local communities to manage and use their resources sustainably.

This resolution was taken within the context of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights that affirms the rights of all peoples to “freely dispose of their wealth and natural resources” (Article 21) and their right to “economic, social and cultural development with due regard to their freedom and identity” (Article 22).

This hand of support comes at a time when this concept is being threatened on many fronts. The Namibian CBNRM programme, as the most advanced of its kind on the continent, has become a special target for those who seem to prefer the former colonial methods of animal protection that were imposed on Africans.

Similarly, the proposed anti-hunting legislation in the UK and the US focused on animal protection, while ignoring the rights of local communities to practice their approach to conservation.

The over-emphasis on hunting caused by this ideological battle detracts from the real issues that need to be urgently addressed if conservation in Africa is to succeed. As expressed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the global authority on the status of the natural world and measures needed to safeguard it, world authority and the African Commission, local communities are in desperate need of support from all stakeholders, especially in the wake of COVID-19.

Rather than poking holes in community conservation efforts or trying to impose romanticised ideas about animals on people living with wildlife, time and money would be far better spent on finding solutions to the many challenges faced by rural people.

Ultimately, the future of African wildlife will be determined by African people – especially those living in rural areas. These communities have faced human rights abuses and marginalisation for decades, so it behoves all state and non-state actors to provide the kind of support they need to fully exercise their rights.

Further, none of these supporting stakeholders should dictate how these rights should be exercised, but rather create an enabling environment that allows for democratic, informed decision-making at the lowest possible levels of governance.

Rather than opposing African nations that have active hunting industries, global North could become true partners in African conservation by supporting community conservation efforts. While African states must heed the call of Resolution 489 by enacting and implementing their own community conservation policies, this would be easier if the UK, the US and other governments supported them in these endeavours.

Given the current environmental crisis and the history of colonialism in Africa, creating barriers to community-based conservation is both counter-productive and unjust. Despite its many detractors, African community conservation is here to stay.

The only question that external stakeholders must answer is: Are you willing to put aside ideology in order to support African communities conserve their wildlife for the good of us all?

Leslé Jansen is CEO of Resource Africa Southern Africa, an NGO that supports rural African community efforts to secure their rights to access and sustainably use their natural resources in order to sustain their livelihoods.

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By Menghestab Haile
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Apr 5 2022 (IPS)

Food systems are under severe stress around the world now. The thresholds of tolerance are already exceeding limits with millions facing acute food and water scarcity throughout all continents. Over a quarter of Africa’s population are facing hunger and food insecurity. Conflict, droughts, flooding, rising unemployment, inequality, economic crises, and the impacts of Covid-19 pandemic have been ravaging the Continent on an unprecedented scale.

Menghestab Haile

In Southern Africa, the food systems are heavily dependent on traditional small holder farmers who are mostly women and old men and is largely reliant on rainfed agriculture which is highly vulnerable to climate change. These are compounded by very high youth unemployment and unfortunately the youth are not interested in working in agriculture in its current form.

Evidence points out that more than 50 million people are acutely food insecure, mostly women and children with 36 million of them in Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) 3 and 4. Weather extremes that disrupted recent growing seasons are again wreaking havoc. The last quarter of 2021 was one of the driest for 40 years in southern Madagascar, southern Tanzania, northern Mozambique, southern Angola, Namibia and most of Malawi. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the world’s biggest hunger emergency, home to Africa’s largest population of IDPs and biggest source of refugees, a staggering 26 million children, women and men are acutely food insecure. The impact of the worst drought in four decades in Southern Angola has left 1.6 million in misery and destitution. In Mozambique 1.9 million are experiencing hunger and acute food needs. These statistics are based on the field assessments of international partners.

Rural and urban populations are equally affected. In Zimbabwe, severe poverty and food insecurity has increased in urban areas representing 2.4 million people or 42 percent of the urban population. There is an increase in internally displaced people within the region. In February this year we have witnessed how recurrent powerful storms have battered coastal areas on Madagascar and Mozambique causing dozens of fatalities, forcing hundred of thousands people from their homes, knocking out power and crippling other infrastructure. Added to these is recurring levels of acute and chronic malnutrition among children.

It has dawned upon us that there is a global food crises and supply chains are badly affected throughout continents. There is an awareness that food systems are interconnected between sectors- i.e, directly linked to energy supply (fuel, fertilizer), health, education, economy, water shortages, infrastructure, social services, climate adaptation and transportation. The Sustainable Development Goals ( SDGS) are challenged.

To address this unprecedented alarming situation, where needs are competing, this imperative must be addressed with focus on every continent equally. In the Southern Africa region we require immediate support to help the exhausted communities.

National governments are central to country both in humanitarian and development spheres. The best way is to support the government plans. This is the time to revisit and realign priorities with clearly defined goals. Strong political will and leadership are required. A combination of both international and national assistance should focus on supporting government priorities. Resources, both national and international are necessary. Impact can be better when International organizations, including UN agencies, regional financial and development institutions, together with NGOs commit to support national priorities with enhanced coordination and collaboration.

With a multi-dimensional and targeted approach gains can be achieved. The Southern Africa Development Agency (SADC) plays an important role both regionally and extending to the Continent. In this context, the African Union (AU) Heads of state has endorsed the outcomes of the Third Africa Rural Development Forum (ARDF-3) in Kinshasa held in January this year recognizing the imperative for a multi-dimensional and a holistic food systems approach. The Region is endowed with vast lands and water resources for agriculture and other natural resources. With urgent investments good gains can be realized in the immediate term in food production. In the medium to longer term, with climate adaptation and support to resilience building activities, there is hope for recovery and stability.

Prosperity and progress will show their full faces when the dignity of women, children and the youth, together with other vulnerable is recognized and accorded due place in the society. Development will be meaningful when their roles are accommodated into every activity. The future generation needs to be well nourished, preserved in an integrated and inclusive way.

Advocacy and a holistic engagement are the requirements to address hunger, food insecurity and nutrition with the provision of evidence based data and information in the Southern Africa region. Technical support to data collection and analysis through the use of latest technologies and tools will ensure evidence driven decision making. Strong political will can help formulate appropriate policies and programs that create conducive environment for development. Innovative solutions can be developed through South South collaboration building on good practices and with the support of development partners.

There is certainly hope in overcoming the current situation in the region by strengthening the nexus between humanitarian and development. To attain results a “Culture of Cooperation” must be forged.

Dr. Menghestab Haile, is the Regional Director for the Southern Africa Region for the UN World Food Programme. With a background in meteorology, Dr. Haile has been integrating climate and weather analysis into food security systems in many parts of the world.

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

The world is sailing into a perfect storm as key leaders seem intent on threatening more war, albeit while proclaiming the noblest of intentions. By doing so, they block international cooperation to create conditions for sustainable peace and shared prosperity for all.

Anis Chowdhury

Monetarist counter-revolution
The 1970s saw Milton Friedman disciples’ monetarist counter revolution blaming stagflation on ostensibly Keynesian economic policies. In 1974, Nixon replacement President Gerald Ford declared inflation “public enemy number one” and US “determination to whip inflation”.

Monetarists wanted tighter monetary policies to fight inflation. Curbing rising prices was deemed urgent, even though it would increase joblessness. They advocated abandoning expansionary fiscal measures for more growth and jobs.

But US Federal Reserve Bank chair Arthur Burns still considered ensuring full employment his top priority. For Burns, addressing inflation ‘head-on’ – as urged by his detractors – was too costly for the economy and people’s wellbeing.

Nevertheless, the monetarist ascendance was confirmed when the 1946 Employment Act was replaced. The successor 1978 Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act is better known as the Humphrey-Hawkins Act for its sponsors, including the Democrats’ 1968 presidential nominee.

In early 1980, Burns’ Fed chair successor, Paul Volcker insisted, “[M]y basic philosophy is over time we have no choice but to deal with the inflationary situation because over time inflation and the unemployment rate go together.… Isn’t that the lesson of the 1970s?”

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Thus, ‘fight inflation first’ became the clarion call in 1980. This was the pretext for sharply raising US interest rates, while claiming that reducing inflation would somehow eventually create many more jobs. The UK and many other industrial countries followed, deepening recessions and raising unemployment.

By post-1950s’ Western standards, the 1980s saw very high unemployment. Unemployment in rich developed OECD countries averaged 7.3% during 1980-89, compared to just under 5% during 1974-79, and under 3% during the 1960s.

Debt crises, lost decades
The sharp US interest rate spike triggered debt crises in Poland, Latin America and elsewhere in the early 1980s. Earlier, US commercial banks had enjoyed windfall gains following the two oil price spikes in the 1970s.

The US government had long provided concessional low interest rate loans to allies to secure support during the Cold War. Flush with deposits from Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members in the 1970s, they pushed loans to borrowing governments, many in Latin America.

With the interest rate spikes, borrowing countries suddenly faced liquidity crises, also creating systemic risks for their US and UK bankers. Successive US Treasury Secretaries, James Baker and Nicholas Brady, came up with various debt restructuring schemes to contain the problem, with the latter adopted.

Meanwhile, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank financial support was tied to short-term stabilization programmes and medium-term liberalizing reforms, packaged as structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) with explicit policy conditionalities.

The liquidity crises were due to the sudden sharp interest rate increases. But instead, these were portrayed as solvency crises stemming from weak ‘economic fundamentals’, blamed on ‘over regulation’ and protectionism.

Although African countries were generally not able to borrow as much, they too faced problems as commodity prices collapsed with the growth slowdowns. Many were forced to seek financial support from the IMF and World Bank, and thus obliged to implement SAPs as well.

The liberalizing and deregulating SAP reforms were supposed to usher in rapid growth. Instead, however, both Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa experienced “lost decades of development”.

Stagflation in Europe
Stagflation in our times is expected to be initially most severe in Europe. This has been caricatured as fighting for Ukraine until ‘the last European’ as it bears the brunt of NATO imposed sanctions on Russia. Besides oil and gas, they will pay more for imported wheat, fertilizers and other Russian exports.

But other economic trends will likely make things worse. First, some rich economies – particularly the UK and the US – are weaker now, having lost much of their manufacturing edge. Others have been experiencing declines in productivity growth since the mid-1970s.

Second, low wages – due to labour market deregulation and ‘off-shoring’, i.e., relocating production abroad – have meant less productive activities have survived. Very low interest rates – due to ‘unconventional’ monetary policies since the 2008-09 global financial crisis – have allowed unviable ‘zombie’ enterprises to stay alive.

Third, the declining labour income share has increased income inequalities, lowering aggregate demand. But demand has been sustained by rising household debt. Low, if not negative real interest rates have also encouraged more corporate debt, but with less used for productive new investments.

Fourth, the pandemic has raised all types of debt – household, corporate and government – to record levels. Fifth, countries, especially smaller ones, are now far more internationally integrated – via trade and finance – than in the 1970s.

Therefore, small interest rate increases can have devastatingly large impacts on household, corporate and government finances. Advanced countries are thus likely to see severe economic contractions and rising unemployment.

Meanwhile, more racism and intolerance in recent decades show little sign of receding. Worse, these are likely to worsen as political elites compete in the ethno-populist league to blame Others for their problems. The recent European decision to privilege Ukrainian refugees is a poignant reminder of what is in store.

But impacts on developing countries are likely to be far worse due to capital outflows, declining development finance and aid, as well as slowing world trade after decades of globalization. Increasing inequality since the 1980s and declining growth since 2014 – now worsened by the pandemic – will not help.

Thus, instead of striving to ensure sustainable peace, necessary to improve conditions for all, the world seems set for sustained conflict. This has involved easy resort to sanctions, namely war by economic siege, hurting all. We all thus risk the prospect of mutual destruction instead of shared prosperity for all.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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By Shyam Khadka
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Apr 4 2022 (IPS)

India began its journey as an independent nation in 1947 with fresh memory of the Bengal Famine of 1943 which claimed 1.5 to 3 million lives. Against this backdrop, the First Five Year Plan (1951-56) prioritized agriculture which, however, shifted to heavily industrialization in the second Plan.

Shyam Khadka

The mid-1960s was a difficult time when consecutive droughts hit food production and India had to import about 11 million metric ton (MMT) of wheat per year – about 15% of its domestic food grain production – under US Public Law 480. With the availability of high yielding miracle seeds of wheat and rice accompanied by increasing use of chemical fertilisers, provision of minimum support price (MSP) for rice and wheat, expansion in irrigated area, and gradual mechanization of farms, Indian agri-food system fortunately took a definitive positive turn beginning late 1960s. As a result, India has become the largest producer of milk (187.7 MMT in 2019-20) and cotton (37.5 million bales in 2019-20) and the second largest producer of rice (117.5 MMT in 2019-20) and wheat (106.2 MMT in 2019-20), fruits (97.97 MMT in 2018-19) and vegetables (183.17 MMT in 2018-19). India today is not only food self-sufficient but also a net exporter of agricultural produce. In short, the success of Indian agriculture in last six decades has been nothing less than spectacular.

The success, however, has come with significant costs. The resource intensification that the Green Revolution requires has adversely affected natural resources and environment. India pumped 245 million cubic meters – about 25 percent of total groundwater withdrawn globally – for irrigation in 2011. As a result, ground water in 1,034 blocks (16% of total blocks) are over-exploited. Worse, ground water table has become critical in 4% and semi-critical in 10% of the blocks. Similarly, some 37% of land area in the country (120.4 mn ha) is affected by various types of land degradation. Subsidy policy-induced non-judicious use of fertilizers has led to the chemicalization of soil and pollution of water through leaching and run-off. Despite abundant supply of food grains, in 2020 41.7% of under-5 children suffered from stunting. India is home to 208.6 million – or over a quarter – of world’s undernourished people. Other challenges that Indian agriculture faces today include uneven regional growth, rising fiscal constraints, mounting and unsustainable level of subsidies, small holding size and further fragmentation of holdings and accompanying land tenurial issues, and low resource use efficiency, particularly of water. These factors act as serious impediments for sustained agricultural growth and farmers’ livelihoods.

Amidst the success and emerging challenges NITI Aayog, the apex public policy think tank of the Government of India and the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) decided to facilitate a national dialogue among key stakeholders including government agencies, academia, civil society organisations, farmers, private sector, international organizations, media and others to articulate a vision for 2030 and pathways for the remandating of agriculture in India. To this end, 10 thematic papers were commissioned from distinguished professionals. A 3-day national dialogue entitled, ‘Indian Agriculture Towards 2030: Pathways for enhancing Farmers’ Income, Nutritional Security and Sustainable Food and Farm Systems” was held in January 2021. NITI Aayog and FAO have now come up with a publication with the same title (Chand, R., Joshi, P, and Khadka, S., Editors (2022), Springer).

In addition to the challenges enumerated above the books also deals with issues of climate change and its impact on agricultural production and farmers’ incomes and the strategies to mitigate such change; growing incidence of pests, pandemics, and transboundary diseases and threat to biosecurity affecting agricultural production; and alternative farming systems for transformative and sustainable agroecology and biodiverse future. The role of science, technology and innovation is identified as key to sustainable and resilient agriculture. Similarly, role of structural reforms and governance are discussed in detail and the role of price policies, market reforms and institutions are being highlighted for an efficient, inclusive and sustainable agriculture.

The National Dialogue identified pathways for transformation with emphasis on remandating Indian agriculture in a way that makes it more productive, efficient, resilient, resource conserving, nutrition centered and globally focused. These transformational outcomes are to be achieved by focusing on following pathways:

• Increasing investment in agriculture, first to reverse the declining trend and then achieving ‘efficient’ growth rather than growth alone, increased adoption of improved technology, reorienting agricultural science, technology and innovations, applying digital solutions and artificial intelligence, better use of information and communication technology, application of One Health concept;
• Making Indian agriculture globally-focused, shifting attention from self-sufficiency to adding value through increased processing and achieving a high rate of export growth
• Enhancing the efficiency of the water and other resources, mainly by correcting distorted water pricing, adopting water conserving technologies and agro-ecological approach, changes in the cropping pattern, and reversing neglect of rainfed areas;
• Making agriculture climate resilient, by adopting several no-regret technological and institutional options as well as by undertaking more targeted research, use of big data analytics, and adoption of a science-based and green growth approach;
• Tackling nutrition and food safety, by diversifying diet, reducing post-harvest losses, encouraging bio-fortifications, empowering women, enforcing food safety standards, improving water sanitation and hygiene, and promoting food safety awareness and nutrition education;
• Focusing sharply on innovations, incentives and institutions that contribute to enhance productivity, enhance resilience to climate change, incentivize water and energy conservation, and by adopting more conducive regulatory environment such as for exploiting ground water; and
• Adopting appropriate policies and improving governance such as by reducing distortion caused by the MSP, accelerating rural infrastructure creation, ensuring greater engagement of the state governments, enhancing access to credit and extension services, and expansion of contract farming.

As emphasised by Honourable M. Venkaiah Naidu, Vice-President of India in his foreword, the book ‘provides a sound basis for reflection because they distil important lessons and present an array of policy options for the government to choose from’.

Shyam Khadka is a former senior official of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations who served as representative in India (2015-18) and was Senior Portfolio Manager in United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (1997-2014). An international development professional, Khadka works on policies, programs and projects that aim at developing agriculture, ensuring food security, and reducing poverty globally.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Brasil Biofuels' biodiesel plant in Envira, Amazonas state. The company foresees investments of 1.8 billion reals in a biorefinery in Manaus that will begin production in 2025 (Image: Brasil BioFuels)

By Monica Prestes
MANAUS, Brazil, Apr 4 2022 (IPS)

Oil palm, known as dendezeiro in Brazil, can produce up to ten times more vegetable oil per hectare than other crops, but it is regularly condemned as harmful to the biodiversity of tropical forests in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Now, its cultivation looks set to advance in the Brazilian Amazon.

In December, Brasil BioFuels (BBF) and Vibra Energia – the country’s largest distributor of biofuels – announced plans to build a biorefinery for “green diesel” in Manaus, the capital city of Amazonas state. Produced from soybean and/or palm oil, the fuel is seen by many as desirable for low-carbon futures, as it is less polluting than fossil-based diesel.

“This is the crop with the most devastating potential in the world being implemented in the heart of the world’s largest tropical forest,”

Lucas Ferrante, researcher at the National Institute for Amazonian Research


The refinery is currently in the study phase, and is still without an environmental license or deadline to start construction. But with planned investments of 1.8 billion reais (US$378 million) and a start of operations in 2025, the venture could produce up to 500 million litres of diesel per year.

To reach this volume of production, BBF plans to plant 120,000 hectares of oil palm by 2026, in areas yet to be defined. This would increase the area devoted to oil palm in Brazil by about 60%, with the crop used in a variety of consumer products already occupying 201,000 hectares in the country, according to data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).

Brazilian law states that oil palm should only be cultivated in areas that were deforested before 2007. BBF’s president, Milton Steagall has assured that the crop already follows these sustainable standards, and also contributes to carbon sequestration in previously degraded areas.

“Oil palm does not occupy forest space. We are talking about areas that were ‘anthropised’ before 2007, and which would be difficult to recover, because frequently they have already turned into pasture,” Steagall told Diálogo Chino. “We take degraded areas and make a perennial crop, which is not mechanised, does not require much fertiliser, and produces for 35 years.”

Steagall added that the refinery will help to power 20 thermoelectric plants in operation and another 14 being planned in the Amazon. For this reason, he said, it will be vital to offer a source of clean energy to the region’s thermoelectric plants, which currently operate with fossil diesel.

However, researchers and environmentalists have criticised the expansion of infrastructure for the production of palm oil in the Amazon.

“This is the crop with the most devastating potential in the world being implemented in the heart of the world’s largest tropical forest,” said Lucas Ferrante, a researcher at the National Institute for Amazonian Research (INPA). He described oil palm as “a proven predatory crop, which causes enormous loss of biodiversity”.

There are multiple impacts that the advance of oil palm plantations can have on tropical forests – which have mainly been seen in the palm hotspot of Southeast Asia, where habitat loss has put at least 193 species at risk of extinction. And according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, only 15% of species that inhabit tropical forests can survive in oil palm plantations.

 

Palm oil in Brazil goes against the world

In 2010, the Brazilian government launched the Sustainable Palm Oil Production Programme with the expectation of leveraging Brazilian production and developing in the Amazon region, but the programme has not taken off. Less than 3% of Brazil’s biodiesel today comes from oil palm, according to the National Petroleum Agency.

Palm oil uses

From soaps to margarine and biofuels, palm oil is used in almost everything, including in the generation of the electrical energy we use. It is the world's most widely used oilseed product
Even though more than 90% of the crop’s planting is in the states of the Amazon, it has not brought the expected benefits to the region, partly due to the weak action of environmental agencies, says Carlos Rittl, a specialist in public policies from the Rainforest Foundation.

“There is no way to fulfil the commitment of only producing in an already deforested area without governance, without control and without enforcement of environmental laws,” says Rittl, reinforcing that, even though oil palm contributes to sequestering carbon by replacing degraded pastures, it stimulates new deforestation. “Oil palm is pressuring cattle ranching into new areas of native forest,” he adds.

This is occuring, Rittl recalls, amid the ongoing dismantling of environmental protection agencies in Brazil and successive record years for deforestation and invasions of protected areas. Between 2019 to 2021, the average annual deforestation in the Amazon was 56.6% higher than the 2016 to 2018 period.

Although palm oil has little share in Brazil’s fuel matrix and it is not even self-sufficient in that it requires imported oil. Cultivation of oil palm has almost doubled in the last decade in the country, according to IBGE, driven by fiscal stimuli that helped attract agribusinesses to the Amazon.

But while Brazil invests in oil palm to target biofuel and energy markets, growing international pressures are leading two major buyers – Europe and the United States – to discuss import barriers.

The EU also hopes to eliminate palm oil-based fuels by 2030 – five years after the Brazilian refinery goes into operation – while Germany has announced the end of the use of palm oil for the production of biofuels as of 2023.

In China, there are discussions aimed at reducing the import of palm oil without certification, says Rittl. The certification body, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), has been working to reduce the environmental impact of the country’s procurement, as it is also a major importer.

“If we have an expansion of production in Brazil beyond domestic use, there will soon be no room in the market,” says Rittl.

 

Expropriation of land for oil palm plantations in quilombola communities has generated conlfict (Image: Negritar Produções)

 

Palm oil impacts on traditional Amazon communities

The advance of palm oil has already had negative impacts on traditional communities in the Amazon, according to André Carvalho, a professor at the Federal University of Pará (UFPA). “Studies confirm the almost complete loss of character of the way of life in the region, food insecurity, besides the expropriation of land and violence in the field, including murders,” he told Diálogo Chino.

Did you know...?

Brazil is the world's tenth largest palm oil producer. In Latin America, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras and Ecuador are also major producers. 11 companies account for Brazil's production
This is the case for Acará, a municipality in the northeast of Pará state, where Afro-Brazilian quilombola communities claim an area from which they say they were expropriated by Agropalma, a palm oil producer with RSPO certification.

José Joaquim Pimenta, president of the association that brings together six quilombola communities, said that the expropriation occurred more than three decades ago. At first, Agropalma’s expansion occurred “on a small scale”, Pimenta says, through land purchase. But starting in 1987, the company acquired a farm and went beyond the limits of the property.

Pimenta says the company “invaded traditional territories, initiating grilagem [land grabbing]. Between 1987 and 1990, it cut down a very large natural reserve area to plant oil palm.” In 2015, the legal fight to return to these areas began.

In 2018, the Federal Court suspended the registration of two Agropalma farms on suspicion of illegal occupation, falsification of documents and notary fraud, following a request from the State Public Ministry of Pará (MPE-PA).

Agropalma argued that the lands were “acquired in good faith”. After the Federal Court confirmed the irregularities, the company said it “did not oppose the court decision to cancel the registrations” and is waiting for the land title to be regularised.

However, even with the registrations suspended, Agropalma continues to occupy the area, and conflicts with the quilombolas have been intensifying. “Recently, we have been prevented by Agropalma from accessing part of the forest, stretches of the Acará river where we used to fish, and even cemeteries where our ancestors are found,” says Pimenta.

In February, the restrictions “almost led to a confrontation” against armed Agropalma security guards, Pimenta says. At the time, quilombolas were camping in the disputed area as a protest against the company’s failure to comply with a recommendation by the MPE-PA to allow access to the site. Human rights organisations have been trying to mediate the dialogue between them.

 

Quilombola communities are resisting the encroachment of oil palm plantations onto their territories (Image: Joaquim Pimenta)

 

Oil palm reduces Amazon biodiversity

Oil palm already brings harmful consequences to biodiversity in the Amazon. Alexander Lees, a researcher at Manchester Metropolitan University, is one of the authors of a paper warning of the loss of bird habitat in the municipalities of Moju and Tailândia, in northeast Pará, where there are extensive oil palm plantations.

“Oil palm is an extremely predatory crop for Amazonian biodiversity,” Lees told Diálogo Chino. “While in primary forest, we easily find more than 300 species of birds, in the midst of oil palm this number is around 20. It is even lower than in pastures.”

Incompatible with family-based agriculture, the palm also ends up competing with subsistence crops such as cassava, an important source of income for small farmers, according to Auristela Castro, researcher at the Federal University of West Pará. She explains that oil palm generates “an atmosphere of uncertainties and threats” to the quality of life of small farmers.

“Oil palm production practices are still far short of the pillars of social equity and environmental sustainability,” adds Castro.

Asked about the environmental impacts and the intensifying land disputes related to palm oil, Steagall replied that the company seeks to “respect the rules and plant only within the zoning areas [intended for oil palm]”.

 

Palm oil or renewable energy

Despite palm oil’s high yield per hectare, and even though it guarantees a cleaner fuel than those from fossil sources, Lees believes that the best way forward is to reduce its demand in the market. “Exchanging fossil fuels for biodiesel in thermoelectric plants and cars is very good, but even better would be to replace thermoelectric plants for solar and wind energy, replace cars for bicycles and electric buses,” he says.

The researcher adds that replacing palm oil for others derived from vegetables would not solve the deforestation problem. This is because the production of a tonne of palm oil requires 0.26 hectares of land. Though this is less than for soybean oil, for example, which demands at least two hectares, according to a WWF survey, it is not insignificant.

Carlos Rittl agrees that it is necessary to prioritise renewable sources over thermoelectric plants, currently the main end use of palm oil from the Amazon. For him, photovoltaic energy is the best bet for Brazil: “In 2025, it will be the cheapest energy in the world.”

 

This article was originally published by ChinaDialogue

Pooja Shukla may have lost an election, but the 25-year-old activist is determined to ensure the poor are catered for and women are protected. Credit: Mehru Jaffer/ IPS

By Mehru Jaffer
Lucknow, India, Apr 4 2022 (IPS)

Pooja Shukla, 25, a socialist candidate, has lost her maiden elections to the provincial parliament in Uttar Pradesh (UP), India. But Shukla is no loser.

A day after the results were announced on March 10, Shukla was back to a rousing reception in her constituency in North Lucknow to thank her supporters for polling 1,04,527 votes for her.

She was with the people again on March 18 on Holi, the festival of colour held annually to celebrate the end of winter and in anticipation of new beginnings.

Shukla told the IPS that she was hoping to win. Of course, she is disappointed, but electoral defeat would not stop her from continuing her struggle to get economic and social justice for the people of her constituency.

Although Shukla belongs to the upper caste community of Brahmins, she has worked hard to develop a personal connection with a cross-section of those who live in North Lucknow, one of the city’s nine constituencies. Lucknow is the capital of UP, the country’s largest, but economically and socially, it is one of its least developed states. More than 400,000 voters are registered in North Lucknow, nearly half of whom are impoverished women.

The constituency is home to Muslims, upper-caste Hindus and thousands of impoverished people belonging to communities who have been living for decades in makeshift shanties, often on the bank of open drains. Some are daily wage earners, and others are without paid work.

Shukla won hearts because she has knocked on every door in North Lucknow and continues to spend time with citizens.

“I have visited every single home in every single neighbourhood in North Lucknow. I will continue to do so as I really care for members of all communities that reside within my constituency,” Shukla adds.

This first-time contestant had faced Dr Neeraj Bora, a seasoned politician from the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), a right-wing party. Despite the formidable challenge, Shukla was leading on the day the votes were counted. She was ahead before her rival finally defeated her by 33,985 votes until noon.

Out of 403 seats in the UP-state parliament, the socialists won 111 seats. The Samajwadi Party (SP) of socialists came a distant second to BJP’s 255 seats, but the party has emerged as the largest opposition party in UP.

This was a golden opportunity to strengthen democracy by converting the numbers won by the SP into a viable opposition to the ruling party, Shukla believes. A well-meaning, vocal opposition is needed, she says, when the ruling party seems to want to wash its hands of all its social responsibility in favour of outsourcing businesses and privatising even essential services like education, health, and employment opportunities.

“Democratic values strengthen when the opposition to the ruling party is strong,” says Shukla, who believes that elections are held to elect representatives who will provide affordable homes, education, and health facilities to voters.

Shukla feels that socially conscious people don’t have to be Marxists to dream of justice in society. The desire to want to see all citizens cared for fairly and equally by the state is a desire of all decent human beings.

Shukla was the youngest candidate in the polls, nursing a constituency that is a sprawling, chaotic cluster of college campuses, traffic jams, markets spilling from every corner and rows of slums with open drains that overflow and swallow up lives during rainfall.

Her dream is to invite educationists to open model public schools for the majority of the poor people in her constituency. She wants low-cost houses for the poor and free health services. She says that time is on her side. She will find many more opportunities to contest elections.

“To win elections is important for me as I want to be a lawmaker and make sure that people-friendly legislation is passed in parliament to protect the interest of the most vulnerable in the country,” Shukla says.

Until she makes it to parliament, she plans to work tirelessly to raise literacy in her constituency and lower the poverty rate. She wants clean drinking water, cleaner drains, and better roads. Women’s safety is her priority, as is a regular and fair wage for the many communities of artisans like potters and weavers.

Shukla has witnessed the police lathi-charge citizens who dared to ask the government for jobs. Social activists have been jailed, kicked around, and beaten in lockdown for participating in protests and questioning the government in UP. There are countless incidents of gruesome crimes perpetrated against women.

Most political parties want women’s votes but are reluctant to share power with them. Therefore, politics in UP today is a constant struggle for any woman who joins the male-dominated world of politics. Shukla’s biggest strength is her belief in herself.

The daughter of a small property dealer, Shukla, learnt to be fearless from Beena, her mother. At first, Beena wanted her to marry a suitable Brahmin boy. However, the constant cry to marry died down after she decided to contest the elections.

Her parents suggested that Shukla choose a more respectable profession like teaching instead. The parents were pained when she was jailed in 2019, and countless criminal cases were filed against her for participating in street demonstrations.

Shukla is the eldest of three sisters, and she feels responsible for her siblings. The family reminded her she was a role model, but she refused to give up her politics. Her determination to remain engaged in public life is less frowned upon now. At least her immediate family members and neighbours are supportive. She is no longer considered a black sheep within the Brahmin community that sees itself as exceptionally respectable.

Shukla has been in the limelight since 2017 when she and fellow students waved black flags at the motor convoy of those in power. She was part of a group of students protesting against the use of Lucknow University funds for a political party event.

She was angry when jailed for protesting peacefully. After 20 days in jail, the University refused her admission for postgraduate studies. Shukla started a hunger strike and forced the University to allow all the students to continue their studies.

Today she is a youth icon. She has emerged as a leader and a role model not just for her siblings but for thousands of other youngsters, students, women and some male members of society.

Shukla says that she stands for a democratic, secular and inclusive India. How will she realise her dream in the cutthroat political culture where all that matters is power and money?

There is no substitute for commitment and hard work, she says with a smile.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Students eating lunch at Shivbhawani Primary School, Deulekh, Bajhang, Nepal. Credit: Marty Logan

By Marty Logan
KATHMANDU, Apr 4 2022 (IPS)

When Canada and Nepal are used in the same sentence it’s usually because the former is supporting development efforts in the latter. Not when it comes to feeding children at school.

Worldwide 388 million students, or 1 in 2 schoolchildren, received at least one meal or snack per day at school before the COVID-19 pandemic in what the World Food Programme (WFP), quoting the World Bank, calls the world’s “most extensive social safety net.”

When Covid-19 hit and schools shut their doors, roughly 370 million students in 161 countries went without education and a meal or snack, “suddenly deprived of what was for many their main meal of the day”

Nepal is in a unique position because it is poised to completely take over school feeding from the WFP, which still serves some remote areas of the South Asian country, by 2024. Canada is also being watched because it is just now taking steps to create a centrally-managed programme, the last G7 country to do so, to buttress current patchwork provincial initiatives.

Motivations for governments to launch school feeding programmes vary, but are not solely linked to socioeconomic status, says Donald Bundy, Professor of Epidemiology and Development and Director of the Global Research Consortium for School Health and Nutrition, at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK.

“Nearly all countries view the programmes as providing a safety net for the most in need,” writes Bundy in response to email questions. “Many view the programmes as contributing to the creation of good health and education, and thus human capital. A substantial group recognize the local economic value to the agricultural sector. A small but increasing number view the contribution to environmental sustainability as important.”

When Covid-19 hit and schools shut their doors, roughly 370 million students in 161 countries went without education and a meal or snack, “suddenly deprived of what was for many their main meal of the day” says WFP’s report State of School Feeding Worldwide, 2020.

In response, governments, development agencies, donors, academia, the private sector, UN agencies and civil society organizations launched the global School Meals Coalition. Its main goals are to restore by 2023 the school feeding programmes lost worldwide because of the pandemic and, by 2030, to launch new ones to feed the 73 million students globally who lacked school meals before Covid-19.

So far, 60+ countries have joined the coalition, including Nepal but not Canada. Its success will depend on the choices that governments make, says Bundy. “Since Covid has affected economies, there has been a contraction of fiscal space which makes getting back to the original situation more difficult… It would seem that countries are prioritizing this investment in their future generations, as indicated by the creation of the coalition, but this has yet to be seen in practice.”

Nepal demonstrated its commitment to school feeding before Covid-19. From 2017 to 2020 the school meals budget almost quadrupled (from $20 million to nearly $70 million), and external funding fell from $4.2 million to $2.8 million in 2020), according to the WFP report.

 

Lunch time at Janajagriti Basic School in Dhangadhi, Nepal. Credit: Marty Logan

 

Interestingly, there have been no evaluations in Nepal of the impact of school feeding on students’ nutritional status, says WFP. The country’s School Sector Development Plan (2016-2022) calls for “midday meals in schools to reduce short term hunger among schoolchildren, and address micronutrient deficiencies through multi-fortified foods and diversifying the food basket, including with fresh and locally produced foods.”

While Nepal has drastically cut malnutrition in children under five in recent decades, progress has slowed in the past few years. For example, the 36% rate for stunting (too short for age) in 2016 was greater than the developing country average of 25% and the Asia average of 21.8%.

Today the government’s diya khaja (midday meal) programme covers 71 of 77 districts and WFP is scheduled to hand over operations in the remaining districts (which are already co-funded by Kathmandu) by 2024.

While media reports highlight examples of problems, such as schools handing out dry food to students instead of cooking a hot meal and possible corruption in handling money, reactions at schools recently visited in Nepal’s Far West Province were mainly positive. Officials, teachers and parents stressed attendance had risen, and that pupils were remaining for the entire school day instead of leaving for lunch and staying at home.

Ten local food menus—based on seasonally available foods in particular regions and designed to meet nutritional targets—were credited for the change. “Students are more satisfied now because the meals change daily. With the WFP system there was only one item,” says Headmaster Dev Bahadur Chand at Nanigad Basic School in Baitadi District.

Chand was the only person we spoke to who was satisfied with the programme’s budget of 15 rupees (US$0.12) per meal per child (20 rupees in five remote districts). Others said that while the amount could cover food costs it didn’t leave enough to pay a cook or fuel and transport fees.

At the Nepal Government office that manages the burgeoning programme, the Centre for Education and Human Resources Development (CEHRD), Director Ganesh Poudel acknowledges that issue. “Each child is allotted only 15 rupees; this is the main challenge. This amount is very low—prices are increasing day by day and there are management costs. How can we survive? We have very limited resources,” he says in an interview in his office.

The other major challenge, says Poudel, is human resources. “Nearly one million people are involved in preparing and delivering the school meal programme, directly and indirectly. Some will cook, some will manage, some will pay… How can we prepare them? It requires a big amount of money and preparation.”

While WFP will no longer implement a school feeding programme from 2024, it will remain a partner in the effort, says Nepal Representative and Country Director Robert Kasca. Today, it’s working with the government to upgrade physical and human resources for school feeding in Nuwakot district, a two-hour drive from Kathmandu. Kitchens are being renovated, menus developed and an SMS-based system tested to monitor how the Rs15 allocation is spent.

“Our plan in the next five years will be to try to replicate it around the country,” says Kasca. “If we only do it in Nuwakot it’s not going to automatically happen around the country. We need to do it in many more places to start gaining momentum.”

 

Students at James S. Bell Community School in Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada where they have a salad bar style lunch programme, first developed in southern California. Credit: FoodShare/Laura Berman/Greenfuse Photography

 

In Canada, the issue is not launching more school meals programmes but getting the central government to play a guiding role, says Debbie Field, Coordinator of the Coalition for Healthy School Food. Why now? “Basically every country in the North comes up against a new crisis, which is the crisis of fast food and the crisis of health problems related to an industrialized food system,” says Field.

“First and foremost for me, it is a crisis of food and the way in which parents of all incomes are really struggling to feed their children healthy food.” Compared to 1948, when the federal cabinet last discussed school meals, “we have a vast difference of women’s participation rates in the workforce and a complete shift in our school day—most schools have a half hour a day for lunch,” adds Field.

In a written response to questions, Karina Gould, Canada’s Minister of Families Children and Social Development, wrote that the school food policy being developed would “provide access to healthy, diversified and balanced food as a matter of equity, which is essential to addressing food insecurity, reducing the risk of chronic disease and enabling every child to reach their full potential.”

Thirty-five percent of publicly-funded schools in Canada offered a programme in 2018-2019, covering 21 percent of students, from junior kindergarten to Grade 12, found a recent survey. But coverage varied immensely, with one province covering at least 90 percent of schools another just 10 percent.

Field says she is expecting the government to announce C$200 million in the upcoming budget to develop the framework for the eventual programme. But her coalition wants some of that money allocated to existing programmes in the provinces and territories. Eventually, says Field, the central government should provide $2.7 billion, or half the cost of a universal programme, with the provinces and territories contributing the rest.

“We want (the central government) to take a leadership oversight role and provide a federal framework that will allow for development of the best school food programme in the world. We want them to be visionary… and they’re responding well to this idea.”

This work was supported by a Global Nutrition and Food Security Reporting Fellowship from the International Center for Journalists and the Eleanor Crook Foundation.

There were widespread reports over the weekend of hundreds of demonstrators demanding the resignation of the family-run Rajapaksa government. Credit: Sunday Times, Sri Lanka

By Neville de Silva
LONDON, Apr 4 2022 (IPS)

With the economy in freefall and basics such as food and fuel in dangerously short supply, there is mounting public anger against a failing and desperate government in Sri Lanka.

‘O tempora, O mores,’ said the Roman orator Cicero in a plaintive cry, denouncing the political and social norms of Rome in 70 BC.

Unlike the Romans, the people of Sri Lanka have not left it to politicians or orators to berate what they perceive as their rudderless rulers. They have taken on the task themselves, going into the streets to decry their government in words more telling and malignant than any Cicero might have employed.

They watch as their once ‘Resplendent Isle’ hurtles downhill while confused rulers try desperately to halt its economic and social collapse.

Never in the history of modern Sri Lanka have its citizens queued up for hours to purchase one or two cylinders of cooking gas or a few litres of petrol or kerosene, while a wide range of other shortages continue to plague the country.

If in Ukraine civilians are dying because of the indiscriminate and inconsiderate shelling and bombing by Russian forces, in Sri Lanka they are dying on their feet, some having waited for pre-dawn hours for gas or kerosene to cook what little food they could muster to feed hungry families.

As I write this in late March, reports are pouring in of four people from different parts of the country dying within 48 hours. That is not surprising at a time when the Covid pandemic still persists.

But these four died while waiting in gas or petrol queues, three of then possibly of exhaustion after standing for many hours, and the fourth of stab wounds during an altercation at a filling station.

Today, history is being made. But it is not in the manner the country’s rulers –the powerful Rajapaksa family from Sri Lanka’s south, whose political antecedents go back to the 1930s–ever expected.

Today, the wheel of political fortune has inexorably turned.

It was over a decade ago that two of the Rajapaksa brothers, Mahinda and Gotabaya, were hailed as national heroes for their roles in defeating the dreaded Tamil Tiger separatists in May 2009, after a war that lasted nearly three decades.

Mahinda was then Sri Lanka’s president and Gotabaya his defence secretary.

In April 2019, a couple of days after jihadist terrorists suicide-bombed three churches and three luxury hotels on Easter Sunday, killing some 270 locals and foreigners and wounding another 500, Gotabaya Rajapaksa announced his presidential ambitions.

Politically untested, the former military officer promised enhanced national security, peace, political stability, economic recovery and preservation of Sri Lanka’s 2500-year Buddhist heritage.

In November that year he won the presidential election with 6.9 million votes and in August 2020 Mahinda Rajapaksa led the Sri Lanka People’s Party (SLPP) to victory at the parliamentary election with a near two-thirds majority.

But today, the wheel of political fortune has inexorably turned. Last month in a Gallup-style opinion poll conducted by a local think tank, Veritḗ Research found that only 10 per cent of those queried said they approved of the current government.

Rudderless Rulers

Such is public antipathy that long queues of people spending hours to buy a packet or two of powdered milk booed the president as he passed by.

Some days later busloads of women, led by a former MP whose politician father was shot dead by a rival, who was convicted of murder, sentenced to death but then pardoned by President Gotabaya last year and given a state job, demonstrated outside the president’s private residence.

Teachers, health workers and other trade union-led employees have gone on strike at various times. Farmers have taken to the streets, protesting against the overnight ban last May of chemical fertiliser that saw some rice fields and other agricultural land abandoned and export-earning tea and rubber plantations affected.

Over the past months effigies of the Agriculture Minister have been burnt and posters of the Rajapaksas (four of the brothers are cabinet ministers and so is Mahinda’s eldest son) have been torn or otherwise defaced in blatant displays of public anger and lack of faith in a government that has failed to provide uninterrupted supplies of basics such as electricity, gas, petrol and kerosene, and essential foods and medicines.

It has been said that even the dead have no peace. Some crematoriums have stopped functioning unless they can be certain of continuous electricity.

Outages lasting several hours have often brought factories to a halt. Thermal power stations and other power providers cannot operate continuously for lack of fuel and coal.

Fast depleting foreign reserves have forced the government to slash imports of food, fuel, diesel and gas, compelling many restaurants, bakeries and wayside eateries, as well as other enterprises, to close or restrict their business.

Meanwhile, prices of food and domestic essentials and transport costs have skyrocketed, driving many families, particularly daily wage earners, into penury and starvation.

With foreign reserves at the end of February down to a perilous US$ 2.3 billion and some $7 billion in sovereign debt and loan repayments due this year – including a $1 billion repayment in July – the Rajapaksas turned from their traditional friend and ally China, which that has extended financial help over the years, to neighbouring nations.

A currency swap was arranged with Bangladesh, and last month Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa flew to New Delhi for meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, urging help to rescue Colombo from its foreign exchange crisis.

Never in the history of modern Sri Lanka have its citizens queued for hours to buy fuel

New Delhi extended a $1 billion credit facility to enable the purchase of food, medicines and other essentials. This brought Indian assistance this year to $1.4 billion, which included a $400 million currency swap, besides another half a billion-dollar line of credit for essential fuel imports, and the deferring of a $500 million loan and.

Meanwhile China is considering another $2.5 billion in fresh assistance, China’s ambassador to Sri Lanka stated while turning down the deferment of a loan.

Even as Sri Lanka turns to Asia’s two leading powers, both vying for larger footprints in Sri Lanka, with its strategic location in the Indian Ocean, Colombo has finally turned to the IMF for belated assistance due to internal dissension in the ruling coalition.

President Rajapaksa recently sacked two ministers from minor coalition partners for criticising government policy and attacking Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa, who has dual Sri Lankan-US citizenship, for bending backwards to satisfy American interests.

Some other state ministers have resigned or been removed as internal squabbles begin to take a toll on stability in the 11-party coalition.

With the economy in tatters and mounting public wrath against President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, with calls of ‘Gota Go Home’, he summoned an all-party conference late last month in the hope of showing a friendly face and seeking solutions to the country’s economic catastrophe.

While some minority Tamil parties which had long sought a meeting with the president and some other parties attended, two of the leading opposition parties, which recently launched anti-government demonstrations, boycotted the conference.

It started on a sour note, with many-time prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe putting the Governor of the Central Bank Nivard Cabraal in his place for unwanted political remarks, for which President Rajapaksa apologised to Mr Wickremesinghe.

To the average Sri Lankan who has witnessed such conferences over the years, including ones to bring racial peace to a divided country, they are an exercise in political waffling and time-wasting.

With Sri Lanka’s biggest national celebration, the Sinhala and Tamil New Year, in mid-April, the working and middle-class families now struggling to survive wonder whether there will be anything to celebrate. Even if families can get together for the traditional meals, will they be able to cook them for lack of gas and kerosene?

Will this April be the cruellest month?

Source: Asian Affairs, London

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 foreign media, including the New York Times and Le Monde. More recently, he was Sri Lanka’s deputy high commissioner in London

IPS UN Bureau

 

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By Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury
SINGAPORE, Apr 1 2022 (IPS-Partners)

One of my great joys, if present in America on Independence Day, has been being out at the fireworks on the Fourth of July with my daughter, son-in-law, and my two grandchildren. The glorious denouement of the event has often been a final spray of brightly lit colours against the azure sky, with delighted crowds cheering along with the resounding crescendo of the volley of cannon-fire, the flamboyant finale of Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture! Can those happy moments of such experience be at the risk of being altered or even eliminated from our lifestyle?

Dr. Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury

They very well may be. Particularly if one is to go by the logic of the prescriptions of the Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra in Wales in the United Kingdom. On 18th of March at the City’s St David’s Hall a concert of the Russian composer was scheduled to be held. It was to have included his famous 1812 Overture that was composed to commemorate the battle of Borodino that managed to halt, albeit temporarily, another invasion at that time. It was that of Napoleon’s Grand army, which was fiercely opposed by the Imperial Russian forces of Czar Alexander. Tchaikovsky and his historic piece celebrating that occasion, were considered inappropriate for the programme in Cardiff at this time, given Russia’s current military operations in the Ukraine. This was although the composer, who had lived in and was much loved in the Ukraine, had striven to ‘westernize’ Russian music, and was never known to have been a nationalist. Furthermore, Tchaikovsky, who also gifted the world, apart from classical music immortal ballets like the ‘Swan Lake’ and the ‘Nutcracker’. Sanctioning Tchaikovsky, who died in 1893, over the current crisis in the Ukraine would surely be taking the war a tad too far!

Incidentally, this is not the first time Tchaikovsky has been banned. It happened once before: By the Nazis in Hitler’s Germany. Understandably this blatant weaponization of music drew immediate flak. The former British Member of Parliament George Galloway called it “fascistic book burning. The Bloomberg commentator Martin Ivens said: “Banning Tchaikovsky is not the way to win a war! “The Cardiff Orchestra authorities did offer an explanation though, about a member of their team having family directly involved in the Ukraine war, which was perhaps factually correct but lame as an excuse for the action. It is somewhat ironical that Tchaikovsky himself was a critic of this overture, whose fame reflected public fascination for the theatrical over quality. The composer had remarked thus about his composition: “very loud and noisy, completely without artistic merit”. But the Cardiff Philharmonic did not base its decision on this account.

Tchaikovsky was by no means the only victim of the cancellation culture that occurred in the wake of the Ukrainian conflict. The Munich Philharmonic dismissed the Russian Valery Gergiev from the position of its conductor on the plea that the artist had failed to condemn the Russian action. Some other Russian artistes are confronting similar fate. As yet, however, things have not reached the level of what the English author, Graham Greene, described at the start of the First World War. It was that in a display of near-comical jingoism and fierce anti-German sentiments, the author’s neighbors in England stoned a dachshund dog in his local high street!

But conflicts have brought out courage among ardent lovers of the arts as well. Also, during that war, the British conductor Sir Henry Wood informed the government that he would continue to perform Richard Wagner whose eulogies to the German blond-haired blue-eyed heroic legend was said to have inspired the ideas of Aryan racial supremacy. This noble spirit has also prevalent among common humanity during periods of stresses. My mother-in-law, a German, left a war battered country as a teenager to find solace and succour in England, among English friends. Years later she would hum the tune of the Marlene Dietrich version of “Lilli Marlene “, a German song about war-time love that had brought comfort equally to both Allied and Axis troops.

Art, music and literature have no nationality. They only serve to provide conduits of connectivity between peoples, even when divided and separated by conflict and war. Yes, unarguably there are products of artistic predilections that can do society harm, but the human intellect must be allowed to separate the wheat from the chaff. John Milton has made this telling point in the golden pages of his “Areopagitica”, an immortal paean of praise to the freedom of expression.

History demonstrates that whenever the political institutions of the polity has sought to intervene to judge the arts nothing good has come of it. Alas, as the adage goes, the one thing we learn from history is that there is nothing that we learn from history. Yet we fervently hope that the day would never come when we must hide our copy of Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” for fear that they may come to take it away from us and burn it!

Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury is the Honorary Fellow at the Institute of South Asia Studies, NUS. He is a former Foreign Advisor (Foreign Minister) of Bangladesh and President and Distinguished Fellow of Cosmos Foundation. The views addressed in the article are his own. He can be reached at: isasiac @nus.edu.sg

This story was originally published by Dhaka Courier.

By External Source
Apr 1 2022 (IPS-Partners)

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) refers to a broad range of conditions.

Each person with autism has a distinct set of strengths and challenges.

Sometimes, they show as challenges with social skills.

Sometimes they manifest in repetitive behaviors, speech or nonverbal communication.

There is no one type of autism, but many.

According to the WHO, about one in 100 children has autism.

Boys are four times more likely to be diagnosed than girls.

Approximately 1 in 44 children in the U.S. are diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder.

In South Korea, that number is closer to 1 in 38.

Major progress has been made towards increasing access to education generally, as well as for persons with autism specifically.

However, the COVID-19 Pandemic impacted more than 90 per cent of students worldwide.

The disruption has reversed years of progress and has exacerbated inequalities in education.

Many students with autism have been especially hard hit.

They have been disproportionately affected by disruptions to routines, as well as services and support they rely on.

This year’s World Autism Awareness Day addresses inclusive education.

Inclusive education is the key to the transformative promise of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals

 

By Saima Wazed and Zain Bari Rizvi
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Apr 1 2022 (IPS)

When is too much Autism awareness still not enough? This thought recurs every April as we near World Autism Day on April 2, and parents reach out to me after reading enthusiastic and well-meaning news and journal articles – which are actually harmful and hurtful.

Saima W. Hossain

In 2008, along with a few dedicated parents and professionals, we began our effort to raise awareness around Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). We eventually came together to form an advocacy, capacity-building, and research-based not-for-profit organization (Shuchona Foundation) established in 2014.

Today, we feel our work in Bangladesh, through effective national and international partnerships with equally dedicated parents and professionals, has impacted the country. Professional training, extensive awareness activities, and inclusion in social situations are demonstrable. The best part is that parents no longer view themselves as victims punished by fate for having a child with a disability.

Despite all the efforts in educating people in the many sectors of our country, including the formulation of a detailed National Strategic Plan, it is shocking to still find blatant disregard for the truth. I have, therefore, requested a parent, a former Shuchona Foundation head of operations and now a member of our executive board, to share her thoughts. Nothing speaks the truth louder and stronger than the person who has been on the receiving end of the discriminatory, hurtful, and unethical behaviour than the parent who hears it over and over again.

Here below excerpts of what I learned from Zain Bari Rizvi

If I had a Taka (Bangladesh currency) for each time someone said: ‘But he looks so normal,’ when I share that my son is on the Autism Spectrum, I would have been able to take early retirement at a villa in the Maldives!

Zain Bari Rizvi

I do not blame these mostly well-meaning people and their lack of awareness when widely read, and circulated dailies choose to use photos of children with Downs Syndrome to illustrate what children with Autism look like. Autistic traits cannot be captured with a still photograph, and most individuals with ASD look just like any other typical peer.

This sort of misrepresentation is not innocent and borders on dangerously harmful.

Deliberately associating a congenital genetic condition with a neurodevelopmental one will confuse the readers into thinking they are the same. This may also prevent parents and caregivers of children with Autism from seeking early intervention services that could potentially improve outcomes because they will have the false sense of comfort that their child ‘looks normal’, aka neurotypical.

There is no one true face of Autism because it is a not-one-size-fits-all spectrum disorder. It stays true to this famous quote by an Autism Advocate and Autistic person, Dr Stephen Shore: “If you’ve met one individual with autism, you’ve met one individual with autism.”

I am not a psychologist nor an expert, but as a parent who had the privilege to be educated and used my spare time and resources to do research, this incorrect and harmful visual misrepresentation enrages and upsets me.

Bangladesh has made considerable strides in Autism advocacy and policy changes due to extraordinary efforts by the leadership team at Shuchona Foundation. The Foundation has selflessly spearheaded the job of educating and opening the minds and hearts of people about what it entails to be on the Autism Spectrum. Because of their single minded dedication to this cause, we, in Bangladesh, are finally having a discourse on what Autism is and acknowledge and accept the differences in our children with Autism. We also have access to world-class services like early interventions such as ABA therapy and parent/caregiver engagement without shame or guilt.

And if there is one thing I learnt working closely with Shuchona Foundation, the key to making a difference is “to acknowledge that people will not always get it right but to look out for whether they want to learn to make it right”.

As World Autism Day on April 2 nears, my humble request to journalists and mainstream media is to do your duty of imparting factual and medically sound knowledge and information. Learn from your mistakes and ensure your stories and visual representations are accurate because media has the power to help or harm.

As I watch my feisty, opinionated and uber affectionate ASD child thrive in a typical school and social setting thanks to early childhood interventions and therapy, I shudder at the thought of what could have been our reality if I had paid heed to the photos of what Autism looks like in Bangladesh media.

I hope those reading this will take heed. Autism is a complex state of being, and no two autistics are alike. Every time I meet and spend time with someone with Autism, I am amazed at how unique, creative, and what a gift they are to the world. I want to change how we treat those we deem to be different, not change who they are.

For centuries all we have done is find creative ways to separate the majority from the minority. I hope the two years of the global pandemic will finally make us realize that when one group of people mistreat another, be it through military, financial or social power, we all suffer, not just the ones we discriminate against.

Saima Wazed Hossain is Advisor to the Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO), on Mental Health and Autism. She is Chairperson, National Advisory Committee for Autism and NDDs, Bangladesh and Chairperson, Shuchona Foundation. She is a specialist in Clinical Psychology and an expert on Neurodevelopment disorders and mental health. Her efforts have led to international awareness, policy and program changes, and the adoption of three international resolutions at the United Nations and WHO.

Zain Bari Rizvi is a Board Member of Shuchona Foundation, an Operations and Finance professional who is a passionate advocate for people with Autism and a mother of two children.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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In India, nearly one-fourth of women aged between 20 and 24 were reported to have been married before 18. Credit: Jaideep Hardikar/IPS

By External Source
NEW DELHI, Apr 1 2022 (IPS)

On December 22, 2021, the Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill, 2021, which seeks to raise the legal age of marriage for women from 18 to 21, was sent to a parliamentary standing committee for further discussion.

The bill is built on the assumption that raising the age of marriage will eradicate the practice of child marriage. However, this rationale doesn’t have any prior evidence to support it, because even when the legal age was set at 18, child marriages continued to take place without any fear of the law. This begs the question: Can legislation alone possibly curb child marriage?

 

Prevalence of child marriage

In a patriarchal society such as India, girls are often raised with the ultimate goal of marriage. They are confined to the household and not educated or expected to enter the workforce. Thus, until they are married, they are seen as a financial burden by the families, and marrying them off early is not only consistent with tradition but also more economically feasible

Child marriage, according to UNICEF, is defined as “a marriage of a girl or boy before the age of 18, and refers to both formal marriages and informal unions in which children under the age of 18 live with a partner as if married”. It is a consequence of deep-rooted socio-cultural norms and entrenched gender inequalities, which end up disproportionately impacting girls.

In a patriarchal society such as India, girls are often raised with the ultimate goal of marriage. They are confined to the household and not educated or expected to enter the workforce. Thus, until they are married, they are seen as a financial burden by the families, and marrying them off early is not only consistent with tradition but also more economically feasible.

The risk of an extramarital pregnancy—which can endanger marriage prospects and make the girl a financial liability for an indefinite period—also makes child marriage seem to be a solution instead of a problem for many Indian communities.

Thus, even though they’re illegal, child marriages have wide societal sanction. This is evident from the recently released fifth round of the National Family Health Survey, according to which nearly one-fourth of women aged between 20 and 24 were reported to have been married before 18.

The decrease is marginal from the last round of the survey conducted in 2015–16, despite the fact that the existing child marriage law has been in place for over four decades. While there was an impressive drop in child marriages from 2005–06 and 2015–16, this might be attributable to better educational opportunities and other factors rather than the law.

 

Concerns about the proposed legislation

The proposed legislation to raise the legal marriage age for girls to 21 can have several harmful consequences.

 

1. Possible misuse of the law

According to a survey by Partners for Law in Development, 65 percent of the cases under the existing child marriage law were in response to elopement (not necessarily involving marriage) and were filed by disapproving parents or families.

These cases would be wrongfully filed to harass the couple, their age or legality of the marriage notwithstanding. Increasing the age to 21 will bring more consenting adults who choose to marry under the threat of such harassment, and could become a tool for people to oppose inter-religious and inter-caste marriages.

 

2. Disempowerment of women
A 2008 Law Commission report on reforming family law recommended a uniform age of marriage for boys and girls at 18 years and not 21. The reason: If all citizens can vote, enter contracts, be guardians, tried as adults for crimes they commit at 18, why shouldn’t they be allowed to get married as well, regardless of their gender? The new law could curtail the freedom of choice of a greater number of women.

 

3. Possible increase in sex-selective practices
The current socio-economic system makes people want to marry their daughters as soon as they can or choose not to have a daughter at all. Increasing the legal marriage age without changing patriarchal social norms can result in parents feeling even more ‘burdened’ by what they view as additional responsibility of the girl child, which in turn could lead to an increase in sex-selective practices.

 

Recommendations

There are several strategies that have worked globally in reducing the incidence of child marriages. Some solutions that might work in the Indian context are discussed below.

 

1. Bringing about parity in the legal age of marriage

We endorse the recommendation of the 2008 Law Commission to make the legal age of marriage for boys and girls uniform at 18 years and not 21. When individuals can vote at 18, they should also be allowed to choose their partners at this age.

 

2. Investing in girls’ education

There is clear evidence that allowing girls to complete their education delays marriage and provides them with the opportunity of being financially independent. According to the NFHS-4, the median age of marriage increases from 17.2 years for women with no schooling to 22.7 years for women with 12 or more years of schooling. Education enables them to fulfil their aspirations and live a life of dignity, and affords them the agency to uphold their sexual and reproductive rights in their choice to marry.

Child marriages are closely tied to low levels of education, poverty, and rural residence. The NFHS-4 reveals that girls living in rural areas with little or no education and belonging to the lowest wealth quintile are more likely to be married before they turn 18.

The government must address the barriers to girls’ education by providing a safe environment, improving the quality of education, and making girls’ education a more useful investment for parents.

 

3. Economic and social empowerment of girls

Investing in the capacity and skill building of adolescent girls is critical for them to realise their economic potential. Financial empowerment often gives individuals a greater say in their households and their own future. It can give girls the ability to say no to early marriage, and the family won’t see them as a liability. Greater attention to creating safe opportunities for paid work among women and girls is also required.

 

4. Targeted social and behaviour change communication (SBCC) campaigns

To end child marriage, we must make investments in targeted SBCC. Social norms that exclude girls and boys from marriage-related decision-making need to change.

Evaluation findings from the Population Foundation of India’s flagship SBCC initiative ‘Main Kuch Bhi Kar Sakti Hoon’ showed that reinforced messaging brought about increased awareness of the perils of child marriage and a positive shift in the attitude of girls and parents exposed to the programme.

We need more comprehensive SBCC initiatives that are supported by local leadership—including elected representatives, community, and religious leaders—to transform gender stereotypes of submissiveness and institutional discrimination that denies women agency.

 

5. Policies and programmes that reach the most marginalised

Marginalised communities are more vulnerable to early marriages. According to the NFHS-4, general category women tend to get married at a later age, with the median age of marriage for women aged 25–49 being 19.5 years. This figure is 18.5 years for women from other backward castes, 18.4 for scheduled tribes, and 18.1 for scheduled castes.

We need more policies and programmes that connect girls and young women, and their families, especially from marginalised communities, to financial institutions, education, information, health (including sexual, reproductive, and mental health), and nutrition services.

 

6. Ensuring registration of marriages

Despite a Supreme Court ruling making registration of marriages mandatory, state governments have done little to implement the verdict. The governments must develop a mechanism to ensure that all marriages (including civil, religious, and customary unions), births, and deaths are mandatorily registered through a system, as a means to track marriages and the age of marriage.

Moreover, action should be taken against those authorising and facilitating child marriages in rural areas.

Any approach to end child marriage needs to be geared towards securing the rights of girls, especially those vulnerable to early marriage. We have to think beyond punitive measures and legislations and transform the patriarchal socio-economic system that fosters child marriages.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Martand Kaushik works as a media and communications specialist at the Population Foundation of India.

Alok Vajpeyi is the lead for knowledge management and core grants at the Population Foundation of India.

Poonam Muttreja is the Executive Director of the Population Foundation of India

 

This story was originally published by India Development Review (IDR)

Anila Noor, Founding member of the European Coalition of Migrants & Refugees & European Lead of the Global Refugee-led Network (GRN)

By Sania Farooqui
NEW DELHI, India, Apr 1 2022 (IPS)

It has been a month since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has now created one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times. More than 3.7 million people have left the country, in what has become the fastest exodus globally since World War II.

According to this statement by UNICEF, one month of war in Ukraine has led to the displacement of 4.3 million children – more than half of the country’s estimated 7.5 million child population. This number includes more than 1.8 million children who have crossed into neighboring countries as refugees and 2.5 million who are now internally displaced inside Ukraine.

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency has said, intense fighting could continue to trigger further displacement, as an estimated 13 million people remain stranded in conflict-affected areas or unable to leave their homes due to lack of alternative options or safe routes out.

At a recent press briefing, UNHCR’s Representative in Ukraine, Karolina Lindholm Billing, said “a massive humanitarian crisis that is growing by the second. The seriousness of the situation cannot be overstated. Overnight, lives have been shattered and families torn apart. Millions are living in constant fear, with many sheltering in bunkers from indiscriminate shelling and heavy bombardments,” Billing said.

Most have fled to neighboring countries such as Poland, Hungary, Moldova, Romania, Slovakia, while a few have moved towards various other European countries. The “situation looks set to become Europe’s largest refugee crisis this century”, UNHCR said.

While early responses to refugee displacement address urgent functional and practical issues, such as meeting basic needs, resettlement efforts, security, food, living or just basic human survival, over the course of time, the humanitarian disaster needs a much broader and a more strategic response which would be most useful to people experiencing the displacement.

Anila Noor, one of Founding members of the European Coalition of Migrants and Refugees and European Lead of the Global Refugee-led Network (GRN) in an exclusive interview given to IPS says, while there have been normative shifts towards the inclusion of refugees and the value of Refugee-led organizations in international processes regarding refugees, but much work still needs to be done.

Last December, the international community gathered virtually (due to Omicron) for the High Levels Officials Meeting (HLOM), which was the two year check in on the progress the international community has made towards implementing the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR). While Refugee participation was largely relegated to the side and lead-up events, voices of refugees were largely absent from the actual HLOM itself, says Noor. “For every small gain, we have numerous battles, before this meeting was converted to a fully virtual format only 10 of the 500 people in the room were going to be refugees.”

“There was some positive progress, as both the US and Germany had refugees on their delegations for the first time, and Canada for the second time. The US signed onto our Refugee participation pledge, which is a commitment to meaningfully include refugees in discussions and policy making,” said Noor.

Currently there are at least 82.4 million people around the world who have been forced to flee their homes. Among them are nearly 26.4 million refugees, around half of whom are under the age of 18. More than 56 percent of refugees came from three countries: Syria (6.7 million), Afghanistan (2.7 million), and South Sudan (2.3 million). Adding to these numbers will be displacement due to the ongoing war, which has already left an estimated 3.7 million leave their country.

While resettlements become the most urgent priority, what follows is often a system that disenfranchises the refugees, depriving them of civil and political rights – which often leads to being excluded from multilateral arenas by their host country and/or their country of origin.

Through advocacy and appeals, GRN has been working towards pushing the international community for meaningful engagement of refugees, inclusion in international and domestic conversations and policy decisions. “UNHCR should commit to 25% refugee participation in the 2023 Global Refugee Forum and create a refugee seat in UNHCR’s governing body, EXCOM, by 2023.

“We have lived the experiences we are seeking to influence, these are our personal experiences of displacement, the fact that we have come this far is directly attributable to the strength of our fight and the truth of our message. We know what type of help would be most useful to people experiencing displacement, and we know how to get this help directly to them,” says Noor.

These large scale humanitarian crises come with the challenge to international laws and state responsibility with their roots in political and diplomatic failure, when laws of war are breached, it sets a bad precedent, impunity increases refugee flows and displacement, which in itself is a source of instability. Addressing the causes calls for a shared political agenda and a need to introspect and work towards a more humanitarian inclusive approach, keeping in mind the most vulnerable are always women and children.

As countries continue to open their borders for this large-scale ongoing global humanitarian crisis – from Afghanistan to Ukraine to Syria, this is also a reminder that without taking into account the rights and needs of refugees, internally displaced and stateless people, the common goals of those who have committed to the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development which offers a universal, integrated, transformative and human rights-based vision for sustainable development, peace and security will remain an unfinished business.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Credit: UNESCO

By Pawan Ghimire and Simone Galimberti
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Apr 1 2022 (IPS)

The International Day of Sport for Development and Peace, which will be commemorated on April 6, is a day that celebrates the positive effects that sports can have on the society.

The humanity needs to confront existential challenges but few remember that in September 2019 the United Nations declared the then upcoming decade as the ‘Decade of Action”, ten precious years where the world would act at unison to achieve the Agenda 2030.

Then the international community could not imagine that a devastating pandemic was about to come and the consequences of Covid-19 are still being experienced throughout the world.

The suffering and painful experiences that many of us have been going through in the last two years show that the vision enshrined in the Agenda 2030 is still a far cry from being realized.

The United Nations Secretary General’s response to these daunting challenges is called “Our Common Agenda”, a blueprint for a stronger, fairer and more inclusive multilateral world.

In this special day we need to ensure that sports can play a significant role in putting such bold plans into action, turning ambitious goals into a real opportunity to mobilize millions of people.

This is the power of sports and it is key that we think of sports for development and peace not as a standing alone sub-area.

Rather our efforts should be to turn the entire sports industry into a tool for social change.

Credit: United Nations

Certainly, when we talk about sports for development and peace, we refer to thousands of not-for-profit organizations, the vast majority of whom, despite their small in size and budgets, are active on the ground, trying to offer solutions to myriad of problems at local level.

For example, sports can bring people together and be an enhancer of a society that is more equal and just where women, vulnerable groups can have a stronger voice and agency.

If we think about disability, we know that millions of persons with disabilities in the developing world, still face multiple problems that deny them their rights to have a dignified life.

Investing in inclusive sports practices can be a powerful tool that can bring people together, persons with disabilities but also persons without disabilities.

It can be an important advocacy tool for a better level playing field, allowing people without disabilities to think and reflect about their privileges and the lack thereof for their disable peers.

In short sports can be a glue that connects people but it can also be a potent platform where disadvantaged persons can train their skills and fulfill their ambitions.

Let’s call this the uniquely transformative power of sports.

We know many stories of sports celebrities, champions admired throughout the world that could find their path to glory because of their achievements in the field of sports.

That’s why this special day should not be just celebrated as a day for committed advocates and practitioners alone but rather as an opportunity to push for a better leveraging of sports to help those left behind and at disadvantage to find a way forward in life.

For this to happen, we need a comprehensive strategy able to attract the interest of all stakeholders involved in sports.

The true is that, while sports for development and peace is more and more recognized worldwide as a social innovation, there is still huge divide between such practices and the mainstream sports industry.

Many global sports clubs with resources and phenomenal outreach are doing their bit to promote a positive use of sports within local communities but we need to be more ambitious.

What it is indispensable is to reach a new global understanding on the transformative role sports can have.

That’s why the United Nations Secretary General needs to elevate sports at the core of his Our Common Agenda, ensuring that sports can be, not only the unifying factor, the glue but also the toolkit that can bring the required change.

United Nations agencies should do a better job not only at mainstreaming sports in their programs but also enabling partnerships with professional sports as well, engaging and working with clubs and leagues to truly harness sports for the common good, not as just a nice “add on”, through the usual CSR projects, but as a key strategy for their success.

The Our Common Agenda envisions a series of global gatherings and initiatives focused on different themes, including education and the future of job market and gender equality.

Interestingly, within this blueprint, there is a commitment to do more to involve and engage youth meaningfully.

The ideal goal for Secretary General Guterres would be a different United Nations that can do a much better job to prioritize youth’s needs and aspirations, putting them in the driving seat.

It will certainly take a lot of effort to shift gear and move from words to deeds in making the United Nations more youth centric.

Starting truly investing in sports, bringing them at the center of the development and social agenda in the developing as well higher income countries, is certainly one of the best ways to implement the Agenda 2030.

It will bridge the generational divides and allow more and more youth to be in the “game” not as spectators but as key protagonists.

If you think about, there is really no better way to get into actions in this decade.

Pawan Ghimire is chairman – Cricket association of the blind Nepal and treasurer of World Blind Cricket Limited, UK

Simone Galimberti is the Co-Founder of ENGAGE. He can be reached at simone_engage@yahoo.com

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Madeleine Albright. Credit: NATO

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 1 2022 (IPS)

When Madeleine Albright was nominated to be the first female US Secretary of State back in 1997, some apparently questioned whether “a woman could go toe-to-toe with world leaders”.

“Madeleine quickly quashed those misguided doubts,” says Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a tribute to Albright, who passed away last week at the age of 84. “There was simply no doubt that, in any room, she was as tough as anyone and often tougher. That said, it wasn’t always easy.”

Blinken says she reportedly walked into her first meeting of the UN Security Council, as the new U.S. ambassador, and quipped: “15 seats and 14 men, all looking at me.”

But when she saw the plaque at her seat that read THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, her nerves vanished: “I thought, if I do not speak today, the voice of the United States will not be heard. When I finally did speak, it was the first time that I represented the country of my naturalization, the place where I belonged.”

Albright, known for her courageous stand on international diplomacy, was also a feminist and a strong advocate of gender empowerment. When she campaigned for Hillary Clinton, who was running for the US presidency in 2016, Albright famously told a gathering of potential women voters: “There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women”.

But when she was the US envoy to the United Nations (1993-1997), Albright had a rousing, long running battle with UN Secretary-General (UNSG) Boutros Boutros-Ghali, a former deputy prime minister of Egypt.

The independence of the Secretary-General is a longstanding myth perpetuated mostly outside the United Nations. But as an international civil servant, he is expected to shed his political loyalties at the UN’s revolving door at the entrance to the Secretariat building, when he takes office, and more importantly, never seek or receive instructions from any governments.

But virtually every single Secretary-General—nine at last count– has played ball with the world’s major powers in violation of Article 100 of the UN charter.

Boutros-Ghali, the only Secretary-General to be denied a second term because of a negative US veto, and who passed away in February 2016, unveiled the insidious political maneuvering that goes inside the glass house by the East River.

That single negative vote was cast by Albright.

The US, which preaches the concept of majority rule to the outside world, exercised its veto even though Boutros-Ghali had 14 of the 15 votes in the Security Council, including the votes of the other four permanent members of the Council, namely the UK, France, Russia and China.

Boutros-Ghali, who held the post of UNSG from 1992-1996, continued a strong contentious relationship with Albright.

In its tribute to Albright, the New York Times wrote last week that she was largely unknown until Bill Clinton took office as president in 1993 and named her chief delegate to the United Nations.

Over a four-year period, the Times said, she became a tough advocate for the global interests of the United States. But she and Clinton “clashed repeatedly with Boutros-Ghali over peacekeeping operations in Somalia, Rwanda and the Bosnian civil war.”

UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

In his 368-page book titled “Unvanquished: A US-UN Saga” (Random House, 1999), Boutros-Ghali provided an insider’s view of how the United Nations and its Secretary-General were manipulated by the Organization’s most powerful member: the United States.

In in late 1996, Albright, on instructions from the US State Department, was fixated on a single issue that had dominated her life for months: the “elimination” of Boutros-Ghali, according to the book.

UN Under-Secretary-General Joseph Verner Reed, an American, is quoted as saying that he had heard Albright say: “I will make Boutros think I am his friend; then I will break his legs.” After meticulously observing her, Boutros-Ghali concluded that Albright had accomplished her diplomatic mission with skill.

“She had carried out her campaign with determination, letting pass no opportunity to demolish my authority and tarnish my image, all the while showing a serene face, wearing a friendly smile, and repeating expressions of friendship and admiration,” he writes.

“I recalled what a Hindu scholar once said to me: there is no difference between diplomacy and deception,” wrote Boutros-Ghali, in his book.

During his tenure, Boutros-Ghali pointed out that although he was accused by Washington of being “too independent” of the US, he eventually did everything in his power to please the Americans. But still the US was the only country to say “no” to a second five-year term for Boutros-Ghali.

The former UN chief recalls a meeting in which he tells the then US Secretary of State Warren Christopher that many Americans had been appointed to UN jobs “at Washington’s request over the objections of other UN member states.”

“I had done so, I said, because I wanted American support to succeed in my job (as Secretary-General”), Boutros-Ghali says. But Christopher refused to respond.

Boutros-Ghali also recounted how Christopher had tried to convince him to publicly declare that he will not run for a second term as secretary-General. But he refused.

“Surely, you cannot dismiss the Secretary-General of the United Nations by a unilateral diktat of the United States. What about the rights of the other (14) Security Council members”? he asked Christopher. But Christopher “mumbled something inaudible and hung up, deeply displeased”.

One of his “heated disputes” with Albright was over the appointment of a new executive director for UNICEF back in 1995. It was a dispute “that seemed to irritate Albright more than any previous issue between us”.

President Bill Clinton wanted William Foege, a former head of the U.S. Centres for Disease Control, to be appointed UNICEF chief to succeed James Grant.

“I recalled,” says Boutros-Ghali, “that President Clinton had pressed me to appoint him (Foege) when we had met in the Oval Office in May 1994.”

“I replied to her (Albright) as I had then to President Clinton: that while Dr. Foege was without doubt a distinguished person, unfortunately, I could not comply,” writes Boutros-Ghali.

He also told Clinton that he was personally and publicly committed to increasing the number of women in the top ranks of the United Nations, and UNICEF would particularly benefit from a woman’s leadership.

Since Belgium and Finland had already put forward “outstanding” women candidates – and since the United States had refused to pay its U.N. dues and was also making “disparaging” remarks about the world body – “there was no longer automatic acceptance by other nations that the director of UNICEF must inevitably be an American man or woman.”

“The U.S. should select a woman candidate,” he told Albright, “and then I will see what I can do,” since the appointment involved consultation with the 36-member UNICEF Executive Board.

“Albright rolled her eyes and made a face, repeating what had become her standard expression of frustration with me,” he wrote.

When the Clinton administration kept pressing Foege’s candidature, Boutros-Ghali says that “many countries on the UNICEF Board were angry and (told) me to tell the United States to go to hell.”

The U.S. administration eventually submitted an alternate woman candidate: Carol Bellamy, a former director of the Peace Corps.

Although Elizabeth Rehn of Finland received 15 votes to Bellamy’s 12 in a straw poll, Boutros-Ghali said he appealed to the Board president to convince the members to achieve consensus on Bellamy so that the United States could continue a monopoly it held since UNICEF was created in 1947.

And so, Boutros-Ghali ensured that the post of UNICEF executive director will remain the intellectual birthright of the Americans for the last 75 years—and even to this date.

This article contains extracts from a newly-released book on the United Nations titled “No Comment – and Don‘t Quote Me on That”, described as a satire peppered with scores of political anecdotes. Authored by Thalif Deen, the book is available at Amazon. The link follows: https://www.rodericgrigson.com/no-comment-by-thalif-deen/

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Aerial view of the biogas plant located in the industrial park of Zárate, a municipality in eastern Argentina, featuring three large biodigesters. CREDIT: Courtesy of BGA Energía Sustentable

By Daniel Gutman
ZÁRATE, Argentina , Mar 31 2022 (IPS)

Three giant concrete cylinders with inflated membrane roofs are a strange sight in the industrial park of Zárate, a world of factories 90 kilometers from Buenos Aires that heavy trucks drive in and out of all day long. They are the heart of a plant that is about to start producing energy from agro-industrial waste, for the first time in Argentina.

“This is the first plant that will generate biogas with waste from the food industry. For example, fats from dairy companies or leftovers from meat processing plants where beef, chicken and pork are processed,” Ezequiel Weibel, one of the partners in the company that designed and executed the project, tells IPS.

“Until now, in this country we were used to biogas production using livestock effluents or crop residues, but not other kinds of organic waste,” adds Weibel, as he walks around the site and points to the sector where dozens of gigantic bags of pig blood meal are stockpiled.

Weibel is a young agricultural engineer who in 2011 created the company BGA Energía Sustentable together with his fellow student Martín Pinos, with the support of IncUBAgro.

IncUBAgro is a program of the School of Agronomy at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), which encourages innovative projects aimed at solving agricultural, environmental and productive problems.

The plant’s three biodigesters have a capacity of 12,000 cubic meters and are set up to receive some 146 wet and 35 dry tons of waste per day from the eastern province of Buenos Aires. In the huge tanks the waste will be stored without oxygen so that the bacteria can do their work.

The organic matter will undergo an accelerated decomposition process, which will convert it into biogas, composed of 60 percent methane and 40 percent carbon dioxide.

The biogas, in turn, will be fed to a generator that will produce electricity and inject it into the national power grid, which will distribute it throughout the country. The plant, which has an installed capacity of 1.5 megawatts (MW), is already completed and is only awaiting the clearing of the final red tape to start operating.

The plant is located at the end of a short dirt road about 10 kilometers from the highway to Buenos Aires, within the Zárate district, on the banks of the Paraná River, on an area of one and a half hectares.

Ezequiel Weibel (l) and Ezequiel Tamburrini stand with two of the three biodigesters in the background in Zárate, 90 kilometers from the capital of Argentina, which will convert waste from the agri-food industry into biogas. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

A better solution for organic waste management

“This is a family business that was founded by my father,” Agustín Patricio, one of the shareholders of Eittor, the company that owns the plant, tells IPS. “We have been treating industrial waste for more than 20 years. The organic waste was mainly used to generate compost, to be used as fertilizer…even though we knew it could be used to produce energy.”

Through international trade fairs, for several years the company had been following solutions for recycling and reusing waste for energy production developed in countries such as Italy and Germany.

“We are increasingly aware of the scarcity of energy and the pollution caused by its generation and use, and we believe that the idea of producing biogas with organic waste is a better solution,” Patricio adds.

The opportunity to carry out the project came when public policies in favor of the energy transition were adopted in Argentina – long dependent on natural gas and oil production – much later than in other countries in the region.

In September 2015 Congress gave an important signal in favor of clean energies by passing a law to promote renewable sources of electricity.

The new law set the goal for 20 percent of Argentina’s electricity to come from renewable sources by 2025. It also established that renewables would have dispatch priority, so they are the first to be injected into the grid when different sources are available.

As a result, on days of lower demand, the proportion of renewables is higher. According to official figures, the historical peak occurred on Sept. 26, 2021, when 28.84 percent of electricity consumption was covered by renewables.

This electricity generator will be powered by the biogas produced from agro-industrial waste. The Eittor company’s plant, located in the municipality of Zárate, will be connected to the Argentine national power grid. Renewable sources provided 13 percent of the electricity consumed in Argentina in 2021. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

Renovar’s spring

With the momentum from the new law, the government launched – between 2016 and 2018 – the Renovar Program, which held three tenders for the construction of renewable energy projects.

The big incentive for private investors was that the purchase of electricity was guaranteed for a 20-year term at a fixed rate in dollars and a fund was set up to ensure payment, with guarantees from the World Bank, the Argentine Investment and Foreign Trade Bank and other international and national credit agencies.

Thus, renewable energies, which provided an insignificant proportion of Argentina’s electricity until 2015, experienced explosive growth from 2016, to the point that in 2021 they covered 13 percent of total demand, according to official data from the energy ministry.

Today, the country has 187 operational renewable energy projects with a total installed capacity of 5182 MW. Most involve wind power (74 percent), followed by solar power (13 percent), small hydroelectric projects up to 50 MW (seven percent), and bioenergies (six percent), such as the Zárate plant, which was one of the successful bidders in the last of the Renovar Program’s three tenders.

The Argentine electricity system has a total capacity of almost 43,000 MW and continues to be supported mainly by natural gas and oil-fired thermal power plants and large hydroelectric power plants.

However, the brief clean energy spring in Argentina is over: there are currently no new renewable energy projects.

Moreover, 33 projects awarded under the program that had not started due to lack of financing were cancelled this year.

“The Renovar Program was successful from its launch until 2018, when Argentina was hit by a serious financial crisis, foreign credit dried up and the government turned to the International Monetary Fund,” Gerardo Rabinovich, vice president of the Instituto Argentina de Energía General Mosconi, a private research center, tells IPS.

Ezequiel Weibel stands inside one of the biodigesters of the biogas plant that his company, BGA Energía Sustentable, built in Zárate in northeastern Argentina to use agro-industrial waste. The young engineer developed his renewable energy enterprise with the support of the innovative projects incubator of the Faculty of Agronomy at the University of Buenos Aires. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

“This meant that the projects, even some of the ones already awarded, were no longer financially feasible. Foreign investors left and there is no capital market in Argentina to finance these capital-intensive projects,” says Rabinovich.

The expert points out that an additional problem is the saturation of the electric transportation system, which is especially important in a large nation like Argentina, where big urban areas are concentrated in the center of the country.

The Eittor plant is thus unlikely to be replicated for a long time in this Southern Cone country, which is the third largest economy in the region after Brazil and Mexico.

“This is a double solution, because energy is generated at the same time the environmental problem of waste disposal is solved,” Ezequiel Tamburrini, head of the biogas plant, tells IPS.

“I would say that in Argentina there is no collective awareness of the environmental problem of waste generation, and most people do not know that energy can be generated with waste. That is why we have to bring visibility to this type of initiative in the country,” he argues.