Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

Doris Martínez gets ready to start cooking at her food kiosk in Valles del Tuy, an area of small dormitory towns near Caracas. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez/IPS

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Mar 18 2022 (IPS)

Doris Martínez was a cook in a Venezuelan restaurant that closed its doors; she emigrated to Colombia, got sick from working long hours standing in front of a stove, and returned to her country where, together with her husband and children, she runs a busy fast food kiosk on a road in Valles del Tuy, near the Venezuelan capital.

Johnny Paredes of Peru was a security guard and employee of a restaurant in Lima until he decided to become a self-employed street vendor selling fancy clothes in the mornings and food and beverages in the afternoons in the upscale neighborhood of Miraflores.

Mexican computer technician Jorge de la Teja works much longer hours in Mexico City than at his former job in a service company, but with forced telework increasing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, his clients and income have grown over the past two years.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, 140 million workers (51 percent of all employed people) work in the informal sector and have been strongly impacted by the pandemic. But, often working on the streets, they take the pulse of the crisis and take on new tasks or ventures to support their families.

Since the pandemic broke out in March 2020, 49.6 million jobs, both formal and informal, have been lost in the region, 23.6 million of which were held by women, according to data from the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) latest labor overview, published in February.

Informality “continues to be one of the most important characteristics of the region’s labor markets,” Roxana Maurizio, an Argentine labor economics specialist with the ILO, told IPS from the agency’s regional headquarters in Lima.

Studies by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) have shown that of the 51 percent of informal workers, up to 37 percent work in the informal sector of the economy, more than 10 percent in the formal sector and four percent in households.

In practice, one out of every two employed persons in the region is in informal employment, according to the ILO, and one third is self-employed, according to ECLAC.

The ILO considers informal employment to be all paid work (both self-employment and salaried employment) that is not registered, regulated or protected by legal or regulatory frameworks. For the workers who perform it, it adds, remuneration depends directly on the benefits derived from the goods or services produced.

Street vending is one of the expressions of labor informality that dominates many streets in the region’s large cities, as in this open-air market in Lima. CREDIT: Courtesy of Johnny Paredes

Faces behind the numbers

Paredes, 46, told IPS from Lima that “in my case it worked out better, because of the independence of having my own schedule and being able to shorten or lengthen it depending on how the workday turns out, and because on the street I earn between 25 and 35 dollars a day, double what I was paid in my previous jobs.”

De la Teja, 37, agrees and explains that in Mexico City he supports his family “comfortably, with regard to food and other day-to-day expenses, because I earn more than 2,000 dollars a month. But extra expenses, such as insurance, or traveling for vacation, are difficult.”

Martinez, a 50-year-old mother of two sons and three daughters and grandmother of three, works as a domestic and caregiver in the mornings and in the afternoons she helps run the family kiosk, the “Doris Burger”, with her husband and two sons.

At the kiosk she earns “about 30 or 35 dollars a day from Monday to Friday, and up to 50 on weekends. Much more than in the jobs I have had standing in front of a stove since I was young, and it’s also better because it brings in money for several members of the family.”

The situation is different for Wilmer Rosales, a 39-year-old “todero” or jack of all trades in Barquisimeto, a city 350 kilometers west of Caracas, who said that “here in the interior (of the country) there is almost nothing to do and when there is, the pay is very low – two, three, or five dollars for a day’s work, at the most.”

Home delivery of food and other products has become a source of informal sector work in Latin American cities, in a sector driven by the COVID pandemic. CREDIT: ILO

Recovery with fewer jobs

In its February report, the ILO showed that the region’s 6.2 percent economic growth in 2021 was insufficient for the labor market to recover, and the regional unemployment rate stood at 9.6 percent.

Of the 49 million jobs that were lost at the peak of the crisis, in the second quarter of 2020, 4.5 million have yet to be recovered, the vast majority of them jobs previously held by women. And in total there are some 28 million people looking for work.

After the onset of the pandemic, the crisis manifested atypically and instead of affecting more formal occupations, there was a greater loss of informal jobs, leaving millions of people without an income.

In Argentina, Mexico and Paraguay, for example, the reduction in informal sector jobs accounted for more than 75 percent of the fall in total employment during the first half of 2020. In Costa Rica and Peru the proportion was somewhat lower, 70 percent, while in Brazil and Chile it was around 50 percent.

The situation has now been reversed, and the countries with available data indicate that between 60 and 80 percent of the jobs recovered up to the third quarter of 2021 were in the informal sector.

Among the factors favoring recovery of the informal sector are the destruction of formal sector jobs due to the pandemic, the greater ease of interrupting an informal salaried relationship, its greater incidence in small businesses and enterprises, as in the case of Martinez, and the impossibility of many informal workers to do telework.

Women are lagging behind in this recovery, due to their greater presence in sectors strongly affected by the crisis that are rallying slowly, such as hotels and restaurants. In highly feminized sectors, such as domestic service work, the rate of informality exceeds 80 percent.

Nor is informality benign to young people, who face greater labor market intermittency, explained in part by the intense inflows and outflows of the labor force; and greater labor instability is associated with their prevalence in informal, precarious, low-skilled activities.

Telework is an informal work option that has thrived during the COVID-19 pandemic in Latin America and is a refuge for women, who were especially hard-hit by the abrupt drop in employment during the confinement and shutdown of non-essential activities at the beginning of the health crisis. CREDIT: ILO

Leave no one behind, especially women

Against this backdrop, informality represents a challenge to the need and proposals in the region to produce, at the pace of the pandemic and as a way to overcome it, a sustainable and inclusive recovery, “leaving no one behind”, as the mantra already embedded in the discourse of various international organizations goes.

Maurizio is clearly committed to the formalization of employment. “Today, more than ever, the recovery needs to be people-centered; in particular, the creation of more and better jobs, formal jobs,” she said.

Informality “continues to be one of the most important characteristics of the region’s labor markets. Economic and social recovery will not be possible unless significant progress is made in reducing its incidence,” said the ILO specialist.

A necessary condition is “to advance in a process of economic growth with stability, reconstruction of the productive apparatus and persistent improvements in productivity.”

There must be, according to the expert, “a particular focus on the digital transition and young people; strengthening of labor institutions such as, for example, the minimum wage; care policies that allow women to return to and remain in the labor market; and support for small and medium-sized enterprises.”

Maurizio also called for the extension of unemployment insurance, social protection policies and “income guarantees for the population that continues to be strongly affected by the crisis.”

The gender perspective takes on “a central relevance in the recovery, taking into account the fact that of the 4.5 million jobs still to be recovered, 4.2 million are in traditionally female occupations.”

Among other measures, it is necessary to “facilitate the return of women to the labor market through a policy of investment in comprehensive care services with greater coverage, which at the same time should be a source of formal employment. Also, to support the recovery of economic sectors with a high female presence.”

Precarious working conditions have been a characteristic of informality associated with poverty in Latin America. CREDIT: Marcello Casal/Agência Brasil

Unions for a new working class

In the world of the trade unions, Brazilian Rafael Freire, secretary general of the Trade Union Confederation of the Americas (TUCA), added the challenge of “having a trade union for today’s working class, which in large part is precarious, outsourced, or working from applications.”

This workforce, “without job contracts, is increasingly part of the informal sector, in large proportions, for example 70 percent in Honduras and 80 percent in Guatemala,” said the leader of the 55 million-member central trade union from its headquarters in Montevideo.

Informality, which is structural in the Latin American social and labor panorama, is a major hurdle for economic recovery and social justice in the region, and while governments design strategies, define policies and take measures, millions of informal workers rely on their resilience to bring home food for their families.

Across Yemen, 2.2 million children are acutely malnourished, including nearly more than half a million children facing severe acute malnutrition, a life-threatening condition, according to new IPC report. Credit: United Nations.

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Mar 18 2022 (IPS)

Yemen’s already dire hunger crisis is teetering on the edge of outright catastrophe, with 17.4 million people now in need of food assistance and a growing portion of the population coping with emergency levels of hunger, three UN agencies warned on 14 March 2022.

“The humanitarian situation in the country is poised to get even worse between June and December 2022, with the number of people who likely will be unable to meet their minimum food needs in Yemen possibly reaching a record 19 million people in that period.”

This has been the strong alarm launched by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), following the release of a new Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) analysis on Yemen.

At the same time, an additional 1.6 million people in the country are expected to fall into emergency levels of hunger, taking the total to 7.3 million people by the end of the year, the agencies added.

The IPC report also shows a persistent high level of acute malnutrition among children under the age of five. Across Yemen, 2.2 million children are acutely malnourished, including nearly more than half a million children facing severe acute malnutrition, a life-threatening condition. In addition, around 1.3 million pregnant or nursing mothers are acutely malnourished.

 

Situation deteriorating

“The new IPC analysis confirms the deterioration of food security in Yemen. The resounding takeaway is that we need to act now. We need to sustain the integrated humanitarian response for millions of people, including food and nutrition support, clean water, basic health care, protection and other necessities,” said the Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen, David Gressly.

“Peace is required to end the decline, but we can make progress now. The parties to the conflict should lift all restrictions on trade and investment for non-sanctioned commodities. This will help lower food prices and unleash the economy, giving people the dignity of a job and a path to move away from reliance on aid,” he added.

 

War, the primary driver

Conflict remains the primary underlying driver of hunger in Yemen. The economic crisis – a by-product of conflict – and the depreciation of the currency have pushed food prices in 2021 to their highest levels since 2015, warn the United Nations agencies.

The Ukraine war is likely to lead to significant import shocks, further driving food prices. Yemen depends almost entirely on food imports with 30 percent of its wheat imports coming from Ukraine.

“Many households in Yemen are deprived of basic food needs due to an overlap of drivers,” said FAO Director-General QU Dongyu.

“FAO is working directly with farmers on the ground to foster their self-reliance through a combination of emergency and longer-term livelihood support, to build up their resilience, support local agrifood production, and offset people’s reliance on imports.”

 

Famine to rise five-fold

An extremely worrying new data point is that the number of people experiencing catastrophic levels of hunger — IPC Phase 5, famine conditions — is projected to increase five-fold, from 31,000 currently to 161,000 people — over the second half of 2022.

“These harrowing figures confirm that we are on a countdown to catastrophe in Yemen and we are almost out of time to avoid it,” said WFP Executive Director David Beasley. “Unless we receive substantial new funding immediately, mass starvation and famine will follow. But if we act now, there is still a chance to avert imminent disaster and save millions.”

WFP was forced to reduce food rations for eight million people at the beginning of the year due to a shortage of funding. With these reductions, households are receiving barely half of the WFP standard daily minimum food basket. Five million people who are at immediate risk of slipping into famine conditions have continued to receive a full food ration.

 

Severe acute malnutrition among children and mothers

Meanwhile, acute malnutrition among young children and mothers in Yemen has been on the rise. Among the worst hit governorates are Hajjah, Hodeida and Taizz. “Children with severe acute malnutrition are at risk of death if they don’t receive therapeutic feeding assistance.”

 

The world’s worst food crisis

“More and more children are going to bed hungry in Yemen,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell. “This puts them at increased risk of physical and cognitive impairment, and even death. The plight of children in Yemen can no longer be overlooked. Lives are at stake.”

Yemen has been plagued by one of the world’s worst food crises. Parents are often unable to bring their children to treatment facilities because they cannot afford transportation or their own expenses while their children are being assisted.

The ongoing war on Yemen was launched seven years ago by a Saudi Arabia/United Arab Emirates coalition, heavily armed by the United States and Europe with arms deals amounting to an estimated 100 billion US dollars.

 

Other brutal wars

In addition to the dramatic consequences of the Western sanctions on Venezuela, with 95% of Venezuelans living in extreme poverty, hundreds are forced every day to walk to neighbouring Colombia in search of work, as reported on 12 March 2022 by Catherine Ellis on openDemocracy.

But there are other brutal wars. Just two examples:

Syria. Syria’s 11 years of brutal fighting has come at an “unconscionable human cost”, subjecting millions there to human rights violations on a “massive and systematic scale”, said the UN chief on 11 March 2022], marking yet another tragic anniversary.

South Sudan Bracing for ‘Worst Hunger Crisis Ever: More than 70 percent of South Sudan’s population will struggle to survive the peak of the annual ‘lean season’ this year, as the country grapples with unprecedented levels of food insecurity caused by conflict, climate shocks, COVID-19, and rising costs, the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) warned on 11 March 2022.

Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya fall among those countries suffering the dramatic effects on civilian population of the US-led war coalitions.

Shouldn’t ALL wars be condemned?

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 18 2022 (IPS)

The United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund (UNJSPF), which is expected to provide retirement, death, disability and related benefits for staff, upon cessation of their services– has a staggering portfolio amounting to over $81.5 billion ranking far, far ahead of the UN’s annual budget of $3.1 billion and its average peacekeeping budget of over $6.4 billion.

The thousands of UN retirees and their beneficiaries, numbering over 71,000 at last count, who depend on their pensions for economic survival, are relentlessly protective of the Fund—while protesting all attempts at risky investments.

The Coordinating Committee for International Staff Unions and Associations of the UN system (CCISUA), which represents over 60,000 staffers worldwide, is protesting a new proposed plan to “outsource a large part of the pension fund’s investments to Wall Street”.

In a letter to Pedro Guazo, Representative of the Secretary-General for the investment of UNJSPF assets, Prisca Chaoui, the CCISUA President warned last week that the proposed outsourcing “ultimately calls into question the nature of our pension fund.”

“Is it one that continues to be managed prudently by experts employed by the fund, who by being UN staff have a stake in its long-term health, a system that employs the fund’s economies of scale to keep down costs and that has by the fund’s own telling outperformed the private sector up to now?” she asked.

“Or is it one that is outsourced to Wall Street to be the victim of a short-term get-rich-quick bonus culture with little regard to the welfare of beneficiaries around the world?”

“Based on the information that has been shared with us”, says Chaoui, “we fail to understand the reasons behind the move to external management, given the unnecessary and costly duplication of internal capacity.”

“We also believe that your intention to “stop the bleeding” has been addressed by the management changes you have implemented in response to issues highlighted by the UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), and through a new Strategic Asset Allocation that significantly reduces our exposure to risky assets”.

Credit: UN Joint Staff Pension Fund (UNJSPF)

Given that the pension fund has access to the same financial instruments as Wall Street, and employs equally experienced investment officers, she argues, there should be no reason for a lower performance.

“Indeed, the pension fund’s other portfolios have worked fine under internal management.”

“We stand today at a fork in the road that will decide the future of our fund. We ask that you reverse the outsourcing strategy and keep the management of our assets safely in-house,” she declared.

Meanwhile, a petition currently in circulation among retirees and UN staffers, says Secretary-General Antonio Guterres claims this is a temporary measure that will increase performance.

“However, the plans authorize an increase in outsourcing over a period of three years. And over the long term, our conservative, internally-managed UN pension fund has performed better than many externally-managed final salary funds that have since been forced to close. Indeed, our fund is in actuarial balance,” says the petition seeking signatures.

“Under the proposal, up to 75 percent of the fund’s fixed-income portfolio will be externally managed.”

The Secretary-General is proceeding with the outsourcing despite strong concerns expressed at the February meeting of the pension board, despite a letter of protest from CCISUA (https://www.staffcoordinatingcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/PF-protest-letter.pdf) and despite the UN’s own Board of Auditors noting that the fund is not able to effectively evaluate its external managers.

In 2007, one year before the global financial crisis and the collapse of many financial institutions, former Secretary-General Kofi Annan considered outsourcing to Wall Street. But he wisely changed course following staff protests and kept our fund safe, says the petition.

“By handing our pension fund to Wall Street in these financially turbulent times, it risks becoming the victim of a short-term, greed-is-good bonus culture that has little regard for the welfare of our staff and retirees around the world and little regard for the ethical values of the UN”, says the petition titled “Secretary-General Antonio Guterres: Don’t hand our UN pension fund to Wall Street.”

“By signing this petition, you call on the Secretary-General, to once again stop the outsourcing of our pension fund and keep its management in-house. Please share this with your colleagues across the UN and specialized agencies”.

Responding to the ongoing protests, Pedro Guazo, Representative of the Secretary-General for the investment of UNJSPF assets, said on 16 March the Fund is aware of additional concerns expressed on the temporary outsourcing of part of the fixed income portfolio.

“As presented at the last Pension Board meeting on 24-25 February 2022 (see here) and in my message of 12 March 2022, the investments of the UN Pension Fund are doing very well overall, given the current economic and geopolitical context.”

However, argued Guazo, the Fund can do better in the fixed income portfolio. For many years that portfolio has underperformed against its benchmark, as outlined on the Fund’s website here.

He pointed out that the Fixed Income Team of the Fund’s Office of Investment Management put a proposal to manage part of the portfolio internally (35%) and, temporarily, using an external advisor under the supervision and control by the same internal team (65%).

This 65% of the fixed income portfolio represents around 18% of the total portfolio managed by the Office of Investment Management.

“This proposal has been reviewed by the internal committee, by the Pension Board and the Fund’s Investments Committee, concurring this is a good temporary solution to raise the performance of the fixed income portfolio. The use of temporary external advisors is a best practice in the pension fund industry to address underperforming asset classes,” he noted.

The immediate benefit for the UN Pension Fund, he said, will be additional USD 60 million a year in profits and this solution is only temporary. When the team is ready in some months the Office of Investment Management will again manage the portfolio internally.

“I hope this clarifies the objective and the benefits of this operation, that will, again, be applied only for a limited time,” he added.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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In 2021, an employee in Chernihiv, Ukraine, exhibits grains of wheat on a conveyor belt as they are loaded for storage in granary tanks. Photo: Anatolii Stepanov/FAO

By Mario Lubetkin
ROME, Mar 17 2022 (IPS)

The effects of COVID-19 over the past two years, in addition to the increase in wars and conflicts, climate change and economic crises, have aggravated global food insecurity, generating serious concerns for 2022.

The main annual report on agrifood insecurity of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) presented in the second half of 2021, the subsequent reports on the crises in areas facing the greatest risk of food insecurity, and the current war between Russia and Ukraine, confirm these pessimistic global trends affecting every region of the world.

In 2020, more than 800 million people were already suffering from hunger. The dramatic effects of COVID-19 projected an increase of 100 million in these past two years, continuing in the negative trend of the last five years.

Around 50 of the least developed countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, with low incomes and large food deficits, obtain more than 30% of their wheat from the area currently in serious conflict

With just eight years before 2030, the date established by world leaders to eliminate poverty and hunger within the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), global food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms persist. Insufficient progress is being made to allow us to consider the possibility that these objectives will be achieved within the agreed time.

The COVID-19 pandemic made clear the causes of vulnerability and deficiencies in global agrifood systems – the activities and processes affecting the production, distribution and consumption of food.

The challenge of overcoming hunger and malnutrition in all its forms (including undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, overweight and obesity) goes beyond obtaining enough food for survival. Food for people, especially for children, must also be nutritious.

The high cost of healthy diets, which is likely to increase as a result of the war between Russia and Ukraine, will drive a growing number of families around the world further away from the goal of improving nutrition.

The dramatic European conflict that began on February 24th, whose effects are still difficult to understand in its full capacity, suggests that these trends will worsen.

Just think that Russia is the world’s largest exporter of wheat and Ukraine stands as the fifth largest. Together, they provide 19% of the world’s supply of barley, 14% of wheat and 4% of corn, and 52% of the world market for sunflower oil, and Russia is also the main producer of fertilizers.

Around 50 of the least developed countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, with low incomes and large food deficits, obtain more than 30% of their wheat from the area currently in serious conflict.

According to a recent FAO study, food prices started to rise in the second half of 2020, reaching an all-time high in February 2022 due to the high demand for products, input, and transport costs.

The study is still unable to record clear trends in the effects of the war that began in February, but considering the difficult conditions for carrying out the traditional June harvest in Ukraine, the massive displacements in many areas of the country that are causing a reduction in the number of agricultural workers, as well as the difficulty in accessing agricultural fields, transportation, among other aspects, makes us foresee a very complicated situation.

Countries with large populations, such as Bangladesh, Egypt, Iran and Turkey, are the main importers of wheat, buying more than 60% of that product from Russia and Ukraine. Other countries with strong internal conflicts, such as Libya and Yemen, and nations such as Lebanon, Pakistan and Tunisia also depend heavily on wheat from these two European countries.

If the situation continues in this direction, the number of people suffering from hunger will inevitably increase, which in the Middle East reached 69 million in 2020 due, in particular, to conflicts, poverty, climate change, the scarcity of natural resources and the economic crisis, in addition to the effects of COVID-19.

In Asia and the Pacific, during the same period, more than 375 million people were in a situation of hunger, facing high levels of poverty, economic contraction, climate change and COVID-19, among other aspects.

In Africa, the unstoppable increase in hunger continues for reasons similar to those of the other two regions. Latin America and the Caribbean is not far behind, reaching 9.1% of the regional population, slightly below the world average of 9.9% of the population.

Faced with the possible acceleration of this global scenario, aggravated by the war between Russia and Ukraine, FAO´s Director-General, QU Dongyu, called for keeping the world trade in food and fertilizers open to protect the production and marketing activities necessary to meet national and global demand.

He also asked to find new and diverse food suppliers for importing countries that would allow them to absorb the possible reduction in imports from the two European countries in conflict. He also focused his concern on supporting vulnerable groups, including internally displaced persons in Ukraine, expanding social safety nets, and anticipating that around the world “many more people will be pushed into poverty and hunger by conflict”.

QU called on governments to avoid ad hoc policy reactions because of their international effects, “since the reduction of import tariffs or the use of export reduction restrictions could help solve agrifood security problems for individual countries in the short term, but it would push prices higher on world markets.”

He also requested to strengthen transparency on world market conditions for governments and investors, relying on existing instruments such as the Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS) of the Group of 20 (G20).

Excerpt:

This is an op-ed by Mario Lubetkin, Assistant Director-General of FAO

During this year’s sixty-sixth session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW66), we are eager to see the global community pivot towards more inclusive approaches to advocacy. It’s imperative to put the spotlight on women’s rights and youth-led organizations in communities that are often left out of key discussions. By handing the mic […]

By Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana
BANGKOK, Thailand, Mar 17 2022 (IPS)

2022 marks the second anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, and while an end to the pandemic is in sight, it is far from over and the consequences will be felt for decades to come. At the same time, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is becoming increasingly distant. The region must use the 17 Sustainable Development Goals as a roadmap to a fairer recovery.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

This year’s edition of the Asia and the Pacific SDG Progress Report published by ESCAP reveals three alarming trends. First, the region is losing ground in its 2030 ambitions. In addition to our slowed progress, human-made crises and natural disasters have also hampered our ability to achieve the Goals. We are seeing the gaps grow wider with each passing year: at its current pace, Asia and the Pacific is now only expected to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals by 2065 – three-and-a-half decades behind the original goalpost. The region must seize every opportunity to arrest this downward trend and accelerate progress.

Second, while headway on some of the Goals has been made in scattered pockets around the region, we are moving in a reverse direction for some of them at a disturbing rate. Although the climate crisis has become more acute, there has been regression on responsible consumption and production (Goal 12) and climate action (Goal 13). And the news is marginally better for targets dealing with industry, innovation, and infrastructure (Goal 9) and affordable and clean energy (Goal 7) as they fall short of the pace required to meet the 2030 Agenda.

Lastly, the need to reach those who are furthest behind has never been greater. The region is experiencing widening disparities and increased vulnerabilities. The most vulnerable and disadvantaged groups — including women, children, people with disabilities, migrants and refugees, rural populations and poorer households — are the victims of our unsustainable and non-inclusive development trends. Some groups with distinct demographic or socioeconomic characteristics are disproportionately excluded from progress in Asia and the Pacific. Understanding the intersection of key development challenges with population characteristics such as age, gender, race, ethnicity, health, location, migratory status and income is critical to achieving a more equitable recovery. We must work together as a region to ensure that no one or no country falls behind.

Although these trends are extremely worrying, there is some good news that helps our understanding of them: The number of indicators with data available have doubled since 2017. Collaboration between national and international custodian agencies for the indicators of the Sustainable Development Goals has significantly contributed to enhancing the availability of data. We must, however, continue to strengthen this cooperation to close the remaining gaps, as 57 of the 169 SDG targets still cannot be measured.

The sole focus on economic recovery post-pandemic is likely to hinder progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, which was already lagging to begin with. As the region strives to build back better and recover, the 2030 Agenda can serve as a guiding mechanism for both economic and social development. We – the governments, stakeholders and United Nations organizations that support them – must maintain our collective commitment towards a more prosperous and greener world.

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

IPS UN Bureau

 

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One phase of Colombia's sugarcane agroindustrial production consists of burning bagasse to generate biofuels. In the picture, workers arrange sugarcane waste in a field in the municipality of El Cerrito, in the southwestern department of Valle del Cauca. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

By Emilio Godoy
BOGOTA, Mar 17 2022 (IPS)

As a visitor drives across the plains of the department of Valle del Cauca in southwestern Colombia, green carpets dominate the view: sugarcane fields that have been here since the area got its name.

The long tentacles of dirt roads draw the visitor into the thicket of golden-crested flowering green plants, which will be cut to ground level in a few months, the start of an industrial process and the restart of an annual agricultural cycle.

But this crop has left a lasting and damaging imprint on the soils, some of the most fertile in this South American nation of 51.7 million people.

Irene Vélez, an academic at the public University del Valle, said legislative changes and the opening of the market to imported sugar have led to the shift from sweetener to fuel.

“One of the consequences of this process is the expansion of the agricultural frontier to other regions of the country, because the land is cheaper and there is a different system of relations between landowners and the agro-industrial sector,” she told IPS from the Portuguese city of Coimbra, where she is doing post-doctoral studies.

Along with sugar and molasses for industrial consumption, sugarcane also provides ethanol or ethyl alcohol, which by law has been blended since 2005 in a volume of 10 percent per liter of gasoline in Colombia.

Proponents argue that this biofuel helps curb dependence on oil, and improves the octane rating of gasoline by oxygenating, which reduces urban pollution.

But in contrast, a vehicle consumes more blended fuel for the same trip due to its lower calorific value than gasoline and, the higher the mix, the higher the emission of the carcinogens formaldehyde and acetaldehyde and ozone, especially in winter, which cause respiratory problems, according to a 2007 study by researchers at Stanford University in the United States.

Colombia is the world’s 15th largest sugarcane producer, supplying 22.87 million tons of milled sugarcane per year, according to data from 2021, when it fell by a slight three percent compared to the previous year, according to data from the Sugarcane Association (Asocaña), which groups sugarcane producers.

In parallel, the country refined 396 million liters of ethanol in 2021, 0.5 percent less than the previous year. But domestic production does not meet demand, so last year it imported an additional 64 million liters, mostly from the United States, a drop of almost 400 percent compared to a year earlier, according to Asocaña.

Colombia is the third largest ethanol producer in the region, after Brazil and Argentina. This South American nation extracts ethanol from sugarcane and biodiesel from palm oil. The industry enjoys tax exemptions and subsidies, thanks to the Sugar Price Stabilization Fund, which has been in operation since 2000.

The expansion of sugarcane cultivation in Colombia has its epicenter in the Cauca River valley, in the southwest of the country, and has left a trail of water exploitation, reduction of biodiversity and pollution from the use of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, which is not compensated by the use of part of the crop to produce biofuels. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Problematic expansion

The appearance of ethanol on the energy scene extended the sugarcane frontier in Colombia and fortified the vertical integration of the industry.

In the Cauca River valley, where most of the country’s crop is concentrated, sugarcane covers more than 225,000 hectares, which “is close to the total area available for planting sugarcane” in the region, according to Asocaña.

There are 14 sugar mills operating in the area, which directly cultivate 25 percent of the fields, while buying the rest of the cane from some 2,750 producers. The average size of the 3,300 farms that supply the mills is 63 hectares. In addition, they operate 12 energy cogeneration facilities, powered by sugarcane bagasse.

But that expansion has left social, environmental, economic and cultural impacts on local communities, says the report “The Green Monster. Perspectives and Recommendations from the Black Communities of Northern Cauca, Colombia regarding the Sugar Sector in Colombia”, published in June 2021 by the non-governmental organizations Palenke Alto Cauca-PCN and the UK-based Forest Peoples Programme.

The main impacts include the effects on soil, rivers and groundwater due to the use of pesticides such as glyphosate, soil compaction caused by the intensive use of agricultural machinery, soil erosion, polluting emissions due to the practice of burning sugarcane fields before replanting, deforestation arising from the increase in the area planted, and the monopolization of water sources.

The expansion of large-scale sugarcane plantations in Valle del Cauca has resulted in loss of land, damage to water resources, health problems, displacement and violence.

Carlos Molina, director of the El Hatico nature reserve in the municipality of El Cerrito, in the southwestern Colombian department of Valle del Cauca, stands in the middle of a cut sugarcane field on his farm. He advocates the transition from conventional sugarcane to an organic crop that contributes to the use of biofuels for energy decarbonization. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Seeking more sustainable sugarcane production

Carlos Molina, legal representative and one of the owners of the El Hatico company, said it is possible to reverse the damage caused by sugarcane, as he gestured to the surrounding fields.

“If we don’t restore now, we are going to run out of fuel. If they don’t change things, producers are going to go bankrupt. The solution is to show the alternatives and offer incentives for transformation,” he told IPS during a tour of his farm’s sugarcane crop in the municipality of El Cerrito, in Valle del Cauca.

El Hatico is a 285-hectare farm, of which 110 hectares are used for organic sugarcane production and 76 hectares for 245 grazing dairy cows. Thanks to the farm’s sustainability, it has achieved nature reserve status.

Faced with the loss of income due to soil deterioration, in the early 1990s the owners began a shock therapy program to abandon irrigation, pesticides and synthetic fertilizers and introduce natural fertilizers and other agroecological practices.

“We made an abrupt transition and that cost us 30 percent of our production, then we recovered. Sustainable management and value-added improve yields,” said Molina, who belongs to the eighth generation of sugarcane growers in his family.

For example, a conventional hectare requires about 180 kilograms of nitrogen and 12 billion cubic meters of water per year, while an organic farm needs much less.

The legal framework for biofuels began in Colombia in 2001 with regulations on their use and the creation of incentives for their production, use, marketing and consumption. In 2004, another regulation expanded the conditions to stimulate the production and marketing of biofuels of plant and animal origin to obtain biodiesel.

Thus, the introduction of the blend began in 2005 with the E10 combination, while the production of biodiesel began in 2008, with the addition of five percent of this fuel.

That same year, the National Council for Economic and Social Policy, which brings together seven ministries and the governmental scientific sector, issued guidelines to promote the sustainable production of biofuels in the country, proposing strategies to this end.

As a result, sugarcane refineries for biofuels started up in 2006, six of which operate in Valle del Cauca and one in the central department of Meta.

In 2013, the blend of ethanol per liter of gasoline increased to 10 percent and that of biodiesel to 12 percent.

A sugarcane plantation in the municipality of El Cerrito, in the department of Valle del Cauca, in southwestern Colombia. Cutting, slashing and burning are the three steps of cultivation: cutting the sugarcane, harvesting the crop and setting fire to the residues, a practice that is harmful to the health of the soil and the air. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Pros and cons

The shift of sugarcane towards ethanol production is paradoxical, as the crop causes environmental impacts but the fuel reduces emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the gas generated by human activities that is responsible for global warming.

Sugarcane ethanol reduces 74 percent of polluting emissions, compared to corn and canola ethanol – 45 percent and 25 percent, respectively – according to the 2012 study “Life Cycle Assessment of the Biofuels Production Chain in Colombia“, sponsored by the Inter-American Development Bank and the national Ministry of Mines and Energy.

By law, ethanol emissions have had limits in the country since 2017. Data from the non-governmental Sugarcane Research Center for six mills indicate that the average in 2016 was 551 kilograms of CO2 per cubic meter of fuel and 558 in 2017.

These results were below the regulatory ceiling of 924 kilograms for 2017 and 889 for the following year. In 2021, the ceiling stood at 780 kilograms.

The sugarcane manufacturing process generates the greatest amount of pollution, with 249 kilos of CO2, followed by planting and harvesting (181 kilos), effluent treatment (89) and transportation to blending centers (39).

Biofuels, part of the NDC

In its 2020 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) update, Colombia pledged to reduce its emissions by 51 percent by 2030, down from 258 million tons of CO2 in 2015, the base year, to 169 million tons, mainly by combating deforestation.

Within this voluntary goal, Colombia pledged that at least 20 percent of its energy mix would be made up of biofuels by that year, subject to financial support from industrialized countries.

The independent Climate Action Tracker calls the NDC “highly insufficient”, as other approaches are needed, especially in energy and transportation. Although transportation accounts for 12 percent of the country’s total emissions, mitigation actions, such as the deployment of electric cars, are insufficient.

The Colombian government projects stable ethanol demand between 2022 and 2025, of about 60,000 barrels per day of the biofuel.

“The agroecological transition could be completed in three years, without any problem,” said Molina.

But Vélez disagreed. “It is associated with an agro-technological package that involves improved seeds that need pesticides, fertilizers and privatized seeds from transnational corporations. There is no point in switching from sugarcane to organic pineapple, for example. If land grabbing continues, we are not generating the necessary transition,” he said.

Children in Paoua, in the Central African Republic, celebrate being at school which is often interrupted by armed conflicts. They are beneficiaries of an Education Cannot Wait funded multi-year resilience programme, delivered by the Norwegian Refugee Council, Plan International, UNICEF, and UNHCR. Credit: UNICEF

By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri
Bangui, Central African Republic, Mar 17 2022 (IPS)

Nine-year-old Marguerite Doumkel sits among other children in a classroom in Paoua, a sub-prefecture of Ouham Pende, in the Central African Republic (CAR).

With a smile on her face, she writes down the lesson for the day in her book. “I like to study history and French,” says Marguerite.

Education for children in communities such as Paoua has on several occasions been disrupted by military unrest and armed groups interventions leaving hundreds of children like Marguerite out of school for months.

“When there are soldiers, we don’t go to school. We stay at home. But I am happy I can continue my education now,” Marguerite tells IPS.

According to the Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO) CAR 2022, at the end of the 2020 – 2021 school year (July 2021), 27% of schools were not functional, and 65% of children aged 3-17 were not attending school regularly (38% not enrolled at the beginning of the school year, 7% dropped out during the year, and 20% not attending regularly).

In this grim picture, there is some hope. Marguerite and thousands of other children are able to return to school to continue their education thanks to the investments of Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises.

Through its multi-year resilience programme, delivered by the Norwegian Refugee Council, Plan International, UNICEF, and UNHCR, ECW is funding interventions that ensure access to education in safe, inclusive, and protective learning environments for displaced and returnee children in CAR.

ECW has been supporting communities in CAR for the past three years, reaching over 126,300 children – out of whom 41 per cent are girls.

“The children and adolescents in CAR are among the most vulnerable in this world. They have endured years of conflict, violence, human rights violations, extreme poverty, and repeated displacements,” says Yasmine Sherif, the Director of Education Cannot Wait. “Education is crucial to protect them and empower them to become the generation that will support a more peaceful and prosperous future for the country.”

The programme improves learning environments with the rehabilitation and construction of classrooms and school infrastructure. It also provides training for teachers, learning materials for school children, birth certificates for children, dignity kits to improve access to education for girls, psycho-social support activities, and skills training for the youth in the beneficiary communities.

“I had no school supplies at the beginning of the school year, but with the distribution of learning materials by UNICEF in our school, I have books and a slate to write on,” Marguerite tells IPS. “I have learned to write correctly, and I play teacher at home with my sister.”

Yasmine Sherif, the Director of Education Cannot Wait, says the children in CAR are among the most vulnerable in the world. Credit: ECW

ECW funds have also been essential to respond to a critical time of school closure and disruption of education at national scale caused by Covid19 as well as post-electoral security crisis, says Noemi Robiati, Education Manager at UNICEF CAR

“ECW’s support helped to scale up radio education, including through airing lessons on radio stations across the country and distributing radios with pre-registered lessons to households and schools. Education is a human right, and ECW funds have been critical to support such a fundamental right for the children of CAR,” she says.

Education specialist at the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) Chanel Ntahuba says that with ECW funding, NRC provides education for out-of-school children.

“We have been able to support students in school. We also support students who are out-of-school through the Accelerated Learning Programme for over-aged children, catch-up programmes for children who have missed a few weeks or months of the school year due to the conflict as well as through professional education that we call the Youth Education Package (YEP),” he adds.

Ntahuba tells IPS that the public budget allocated to education is low representing 1.6% of GDP and 13.3% of public expenses in 2019. Therefore, communities hire teachers to ensure that their children go to school.

These teachers, he says, are not paid by the government but through the contribution of the population. But, in situations where families struggle to make ends meet, they can’t afford to pay the teachers regularly.

“This is why with ECW funding, we support the payment of the teachers who are supporting the Accelerated Learning Programme, Catch-up class as well as those in the youth class,” he adds.

Ntahuba further notes that the program supports the training of teachers to improve the quality of teaching.

“We train teachers on the content of the teaching, also on how to prepare and present their lessons,’ he indicates.

A teacher poses in front of her class in Paoua, in the Central African Republic. Education Cannot Wait funding supports the payment of teachers who are involved in the Accelerated Learning Programme, catch-up class and the youth class. Credit: UNICEF

Justine Banguereya, a teacher at Paoua, says apart from the training she received, the money the programme offers to teachers has greatly impacted her livelihood. It also removes the financial burden from parents who do not have the means to pay for their children’s schooling.

“Today, I am paid up to 35,000 FCFA (about US$60) by month as an incentive bonus. This program has helped us meet the challenges of the inability of parents and the state to take care of the schooling of Central African Republic children,” Banguereya tells IPS.

She also mentions that she has become a better teacher after attending the ECW funded training. “I can prepare a lesson plan for any subject, and I have also learned how to provide psychosocial support and other forms of support in school to vulnerable children, especially girls and those with disabilities.”

Ntahuba says the financial assistance to teachers is one of the program’s greatest achievements, “it is why teachers come to school every day.”

ECW funds also support awareness campaigns to mobilize parents in sending their children to school. “Many parents do not send their children to school as they prefer to have them working on household tasks, gardening and farming, hence depriving them of an education,” says Ntahuba.

This is particularly important to get more girls in the classrooms. “The education of girls is not prioritized as compared to the boys. Keeping the school operational and encouraging parents to send them to school is one of the ways girls can escape early marriage and teenage pregnancy,” he explains.

He adds that the target of ECW is to reach 60 per cent of girls as beneficiaries.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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An 18-month-old in Afghanistan suffers from severe acute malnutrition with medical complications. Credit: UNICEF/Hasinullah Qayoumi

By Kern Hendricks
KABUL, Mar 17 2022 (IPS)

While all eyes are on Ukraine, Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis has been forgotten. But only with international aid can Afghans build a future.

When US President Joe Biden delivered his State of the Union Speech on 2 March, the eyes of the world were understandably locked on Ukraine. As he waxed lyrical about foreign and domestic successes under his administration, Biden emphasised ongoing American support for the Ukrainian people, even as nearly half a million Ukrainian refugees fled fighting in their backyard.

But there was another crisis that was glaringly absent from his address: the end of America’s two-decade war in Afghanistan, and the resulting humanitarian disaster. Although his silence on Afghanistan wasn’t surprising — the American withdrawal in August of 2021 was an optics disaster — Biden’s omission sent a clear message. The US, and much of the international community, has forgotten Afghanistan.

Kern Hendricks

While images of Afghans falling from the landing gear of aeroplanes and mothers handing their babies over concertina wire at Kabul airport captivated the world for a fleeting moment, once the Taliban rolled into Kabul, the story was already on the wane for many international observers.

A broken economy fuelled by American mistakes

The chaotic events of August 2021 sent Afghanistan’s already flagging economy into freefall. Inflation skyrocketed as residents in major cities across the country scrambled to withdraw their savings in cash.

ATMs quickly ran dry and cash transfer services closed completely or enforced strict withdrawal limits that forced the lucky few to spend days or even weeks waiting in line to take out tiny increments of their savings. While unemployment soared, the cost of living also skyrocketed, pushing large, multi-generational families to breaking point.

Biden announced that half of the frozen $7bn would be reserved not for the Afghan people, but for settling billions in lawsuits brought against the Taliban by the families of 9/11 victims.

When the Taliban entered Kabul on 15 August 2021, the US Federal Reserve froze $7bn in assets belonging to Afghanistan’s central bank, Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB). Although this was meant to prevent the Taliban from accessing the funds directly, the result was the parting of thousands of Afghan families and business owners from their savings.

In the months following, prices continued to rise, and families continued to struggle waiting for the money to be released. Then, on 11 February 2022, Biden announced that half of the frozen $7bn would be reserved not for the Afghan people, but for settling billions in lawsuits brought against the Taliban by the families of 9/11 victims.

The announcement caused uproar, even amongst some of the very families who were set to benefit from the announcement. Even now, the US government has failed to clearly outline how the money will be used despite the dire needs on the ground.

Meanwhile, the international community is stuck in limbo, trying to work out how it can get money and aid into the hands of struggling Afghans without directly financing the Afghan government. Organisations like the ICRC have started to directly pay the salaries of doctors and health staff, so that hospitals and clinics can continue to function.

A child is vaccinated against polio, in Kandahar, Southern Afghanistan. Credit: UNICEF/Frank Dejongh

Although it’s been slow, some progress has been made on this front. On 25 February 2022, the US issued the latest in a series of ‘General Licences’, aimed to ‘ensure that US sanctions do not prevent or inhibit transactions and activities needed to provide aid to and support the basic human needs of the people of Afghanistan’.

Although this greatly expands the latitude of American businesses and organisations to interact with and contribute to the Afghan economy, it does not untangle Afghanistan’s dysfunctional domestic banking sector.

Less severe than expected

Despite the economic upheaval, in March of 2022, life in the capital appears deceptively normal. The city’s oldest bazaar still hums with customers, and groups of young women chat as they cross the road near Kabul university, dodging taxis and motorcycles.

Young kids still traverse lines of stalled peak-hour traffic, selling pens and gum to bored drivers. Bored looking traffic police wave cars through packed intersections, and ice cream sellers patrol the shuffle their carts along the sidewalks. It’s not the image many would expect.

Many of the most severe restrictions that people expected the Taliban to impose have not yet materialised. Many restaurants still play music. Women walk the streets of Kabul without burkhas or male guardians, and many men are still clean shaven — although there are certainly more stubbly chins than before.

Women attend (gender segregated) classes at university, and girls’ high schools are scheduled to reopen when the school year begins in spring (although this will have to be seen to be believed. Will these developments stick? Are more severe restrictions only a matter of time? Some are sure that tighter restrictions are coming, others are cautiously optimistic.

If the Taliban cannot provide jobs and income for their fighters, they risk losing these men to other conflict actors with deeper pockets.

Despite some small concessions, the outlook for women is by no means sunny. Women’s rights activists have been jailed without explanation. Several have disappeared. Although some women have returned to public life in larger cities like Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif, others remain at home, fearful that the Taliban’s tact may quickly change.

Security across the country has undoubtably improved. Vast stretches of road that were impassable due to fighting and IEDs seven months ago are now clear. But there are signs that the respite from conflict may be short lived.

If the Taliban cannot provide jobs and income for their fighters, they risk losing these men to other conflict actors with deeper pockets. This includes the Afghan offshoot of ISIS, known as Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), who claimed numerous attacks in the eastern provinces of Nangarhar and Kunar over the past seven months, including direct attacks against Taliban forces.

A looming catastrophe

In the first week of March, Taliban security forces began an unprecedented campaign of house-to-house searches across Kabul and several other provincial capitals, moving methodically from neighbourhood to neighbourhood as panicked messages circulated on social media.

Many searches were polite and cursory, others were violent. Although the searches were intended to seize private weapons that could be used by criminals, the operations demonstrated the government’s willingness to cast personal privacy and property rights by the wayside if they wish to.

Press freedom has undeniably been rolled back. Some Afghan journalists, both male and female, have been detained, others tortured. Although most national broadcasters are still operating, overt criticism of the current government has largely disappeared from local media.

In January the UN warned that 23 million people are facing extreme food insecurity — over half of the entire population.

Roughly 75 per cent of the Afghan population lives in rural districts, rather than in cities. In these areas, many of which saw constant fighting over the past two decades, peace is a welcome change. But rural Afghans are in desperate need of food, cash, and other basic forms of aid.

And although fighting has stopped, hunger can be just as deadly as bullets and IEDs. A UNDP study conducted in December of 2021 found that a staggering 97 per cent of Afghans may be living in poverty by the end of 2022. In January the UN warned that 23 million people are facing extreme food insecurity — over half of the entire population.

Short of another bloody military intervention, the Taliban will remain in control of Afghanistan in the near term, this much is clear. It is also clear that the situation is very far from ideal, especially for woman, and those who wish to chart a more inclusive and liberal course for their country.

The Taliban’s treatment of woman, and ethnic minorities has, in many cases been appalling. But neither is the situation the charred hellscape that some would have the rest of the world believe. To acknowledge the realities may give a sense of moral superiority to some, but those who demand an all or nothing approach to dealing with the Taliban are seldom the ones who will pay the true cost on the ground.

Many Afghans are already forging ahead, but they cannot continue if the rest of the world turns away.

Kern Hendricks is an independent photojournalist covering issues of social upheaval and the effects of long-term conflict. He has been based in Kabul, Afghanistan since 2017.

Source: International Politics and Society, based in the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung’s Brussels office.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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When schools reopened in Uganda in January, Atim’s baby was 3 months old. The 17-year-old wished to go back to classes but she faced a dilemma—whether to disclose to her teachers that she was a lactating mother. Atim chose to open up to some of the teachers who offered to help her return. The school […]

Youth activists Peace Umanah, from Nigeria and Aurelia Naa Adjeley Sowah-Mensah from Ghana ensure that young people are made aware of their Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights. Credit: ICFP

By Joyce Chimbi
Nairobi, Kenya, Mar 16 2022 (IPS)

Travelling in northern Nigeria, Peace Umanah noticed teenage girls with multiple children – they would be walking with one strapped to their back, holding another by hand and with a protruding belly.

“These were worrisome sights that got me thinking about whether these young girls knew about contraceptive choices or if they were not given information to make beneficial decisions.”

The same question weighed heavily on young Aurelia Naa Adjeley Sowah-Mensah from Ghana, who grew up in a community where teenage pregnancies are common – mirroring the situation in many developing countries.

These questions set the young women on a trailblazing path to change the trajectory of adolescent and teenage pregnancies in their countries.

The pair have joined forces with other young people, world leaders and actors in Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) to give young people in every corner of the world much-needed tools to navigate their sexuality. They hope to remove SRHR-related challenges to enable young women to benefit from socio-economic growth and development opportunities.

“Through the International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP) Youth Trailblazer Award, young leaders in the field of family planning and SRHR aged 18-35 years old were invited to submit creative short videos that integrate this year’s conference theme,” says Jose G Rimon II, director of the Bill and Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Jose G Rimon II, director of the Bill and Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Credit: ICFP

Rimon II, who is also the chair of ICFP’s International Steering Committee, tells IPS the videos “also highlighted youth perspectives, experiences, and voices in family planning and SRHR”.

The videos reflected the conference’s theme: ‘Universal Health Coverage and Family Planning: Innovate, Collaborate, Accelerate’.

Sowah-Mensah and Umanah were among 50 youth leaders working in family planning and SRHR awarded scholarships to attend ICFP this year in Pattaya City, Thailand, on November 14-17, 2022.

Other award winners include Tanaka Chirombo from Malawi, Alison Hoover from Atlanta, USA, and Muhammad Sarim (Saro) Imram from Pakistan.

Awardees are from countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America, selected from a pool of more than 300 youth worldwide who applied for the Youth Trailblazer Award. The award recognises youth leadership and innovation in family planning and SRHR.

“Selected youth demonstrated strong ideas and commitment, creative thinking that pushed the field forward and challenged norms, and successfully conveyed a clear and powerful message,” says Rimon II.

Youth Trailblazer Award winners will be integrated throughout the ICFP, the world’s largest scientific conference on family planning and reproductive health, to amplify and highlight the voices of young leaders globally, he adds.

“Awardees will actively participate in planning activities for the ICFP, including integral participation on the ICFP subcommittee(s) of their choice, engagement as speakers and moderators at sessions, as well as other conference engagement opportunities that will magnify the voices, perspectives, and experiences of the youth.”

Youth participation will bring to life ICFP’s stance that countries’ universal health coverage packages should include youth-friendly family planning and SRH products and services.

“As of 2021, the modern contraceptive prevalence rate shows only 17 percent of all women of reproductive age in Nigeria use contraceptives,” Umanah says.

In the absence of youth-friendly services, myths and misconceptions influence young people’s understanding of contraceptives. She says they sometimes use lime, soda, antibiotics, and salt to prevent unplanned pregnancies.

Adolescent and teenage pregnancies are the most pressing issues. Consequences include life-threatening health complications and the risk of missing out on lifelong learning and earning opportunities.

According to government statistics, one in every five girls in Kenya between the ages of 15 to 19 is either pregnant or already a mother. Complications during pregnancy and childbirth are a leading cause of death for 15- to 19-year-old girls in this East African nation.

As a youth champion engaging adolescents and young people, Umanah says the cohort needs safe spaces free of stigma and judgment, where they can find answers and solutions to their SRHR needs.

“For young women and girls, being able to speak up and be heard is critical. Social media tools such as 9ja Girls Now gives girls a platform to get connected across distances,” Umanah observes.

“9ja Girls is a Facebook platform and a safe space where girls learn and ask questions about love, life and health and find answers.”

Sowah-Mensah is an SRHR mentor of adolescent girls and young women under the Girl Boss initiative with the Youth Action Movement (YAM) of the Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana.

Without support, Sowah-Mensah says, “some girls exchange sex for food or money, ending up in unplanned pregnancies. To avoid stigma, they turn to unsafe ways (to terminate the pregnancy), such as grinding and consuming glass bottles or drinking a mixture of sugar and alcohol. Some lose their lives.”

A dedicated ICFP Youth Pre-conference will take place November 11-13 to support youth leaders and their programmatic work, advocacy, and research.

Rimon II says youth involvement is the “best way to ensure diverse voices are heard and strategies are developed that are sustainable, inclusive, culturally competent and representative of sexual and reproductive health and rights at the global level.”

SRHR youth experts such as Sowah-Mensah and Umanah agree.

Sowah-Mensah says young people are the demographic majority and a powerful instrument for development because they have many innovative ideas.

“But a large percentage of our leaders are not young and are thus unable to address young people’s most pressing needs for SRHR services. You have one generation making bodily autonomy decisions on behalf of a totally different generation,” she says.

The awardees assert that the status quo must change to achieve a desirable outcome. Umanah says, “In designing solutions to challenges that face adolescent girls and young women, their concerns and voices should be the loudest. They should lead conversations towards desired solutions.”

ICFP is supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health at Johns Hopkins University and more than two dozen other public, private, and non-profit sponsors, including the World Health Organization and United Nations Population Fund.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Activist-Nodeep-Kaur-Speaking-at-Farmers-Rally-at-the-Kundli-Manesar-Palwal-Expressway-in-Haryana. Credit: Sania Farooqui

By Ines M Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Mar 16 2022 (IPS)

The 66th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) was just launched. Due to the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the main annual global forum on gender equality is once again taking place in a hybrid format – both at the UN’s New York headquarters, where government delegations will be meeting, and online, where most civil society activity will take place.

This has disappointed women’s rights movements from all over the world – for the third time in a row. Back in 2020, CSW’s 64th session was due to begin on 9 March, and the spreading pandemic resulted in a dramatic restructure: from a two-week event with around 12,000 confirmed participants to a one-day procedural meeting. The following year, CSW 65 was held in a hybrid format, but mostly virtually.

For more than two years non-stop, the pandemic impacted disproportionately on the rights of women and girls. Gender-based violence raged and femicides increased. The burden of unpaid work on women’s shoulders multiplied, economic hardship differentially affected women, who are heavily employed in the informal sector, and the virus itself disproportionately affected women who are over-represented in frontline jobs.

When women most needed a space where they could advocate for their rights and demand that the pandemic and post-pandemic recovery were tackled through a gendered lens, the main such global space almost completely collapsed.

While much was initially made of the inclusive potential of virtual events, it soon became clear that access challenges faced by women in real life were replicated in the online sphere. This year, many women’s voices may again go unheard, since they lack the same status as the government representatives allowed into the room.

Fortunately, mobilised women’s rights groups have worked extra hard to prevent that from happening. On 8 March, International Women’s Day (IWD), feminists from all over the world took to the streets again, showing that they had not been defeated by the pandemic – if anything, they were emerging stronger. They articulated a clear and coherent agenda for equality.

The right to life free of violence

IWD mobilisations demanded action on gender-based violence (GBV) everywhere around the world, but nowhere were these demands louder than in Latin America, where streets in city after city were taken over by green – the colour of the rising tide for abortion rights that originated in Argentina – and violet – the traditional colour of the feminist movement.

Mass marches, along with feminist strikes against all forms of violence – domestic and sexual violence but also institutional and economic violence – were held in Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador and Uruguay, among others.

In Mexico City, the day started with a giant airship streaking across the skies with a sign reading ‘10 feminicides a day, none of them forgotten’, followed by a mass march in the capital and in states across the country.

In Bolivia, ahead of IWD hundreds of women marched for justice and an end to impunity. Convened by the Mujeres Creando collective, they carried photographs of men accused or sentenced for rape, and of judges and prosecutors who freed perpetrators of GBV and femicides.

In Honduras, protesters condemned femicides and urged the approval of the Shelter House Law for victims of GBV. In Panama, women called for greater protection for girls and adolescents from sexual violence, as well as better guarantees of labour rights.

Most IWD protests were held in a celebratory atmosphere: even while they were sharing grievances and expressing anger, women were out there experiencing sisterhood and togetherness, either celebrating victories or giving each other strength to overcome defeat.

This was no invitation to violence, but still there were instances in which repression – unprovoked and unjustified – came. Such was the case in Ecuador, where protesting women were met by police with pepper spray, baton beatings, horses and dogs.

Halfway around the world in South Asia, dozens of IWD events, known as the Aurat March, were held across Pakistan for the fifth year in a row. Recent high-profile femicide cases had intensified calls for stronger legal protections against so-called ‘honour killings’.

As in previous years, protesters experienced intense backlash, including attempts to stop them protesting. The minister of religious affairs called for IWD events to be cancelled, for the Aurat March to be banned and for 8 March to be rebranded as ‘Hijab Day’.

At least one right-wing organisation accused marchers of ‘obscenity’ and threatened to beat them. In Lahore and other cities, counterprotests known as ‘hijab marches’ also mobilised, with women from conservative religious groups calling for the preservation of ‘Islamic values’.

Where Asia meets Europe, the Azerbaijani Feminist Movement gathered in Baku to urge the adoption of the Istanbul Convention – the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence – and demand proper investigations of GBV cases. Instead of investigating reports, the police typically advise victims to return home and reconcile with their husbands.

Women also rallied against GBV in nearby Turkey. Campaigners warned that skyrocketing femicide numbers may be gross underestimates, as femicides are often recorded as suicides or accidents. In the evening, women held their annual feminist night walk in Ankara and Istanbul. Here, as in Quito, riot police used pepper spray against protesters to try to disperse a crowd of several thousand gathered in the city centre.

GBV and femicides were under the spotlight in Africa and Europe as well. In Albania, the Feminist Collective protested outside the Prime Minister’s office in Tirana to demand freedom from violence in all its forms. Simultaneously, a performance was staged in a central square, where dozens of pairs of red shoes were laid down to symbolise the victims of femicide.

In Belgium, close to 5,000 women took to the streets of Brussels to call for equality and an end to GBV and sexual harassment. Rallying cries included ‘Victime, on te croit. Agresseur, on te voit’ (‘Victim, we believe you. Perpetrator, we see you’), a reference to testimonies shared by women who have experienced sexual harassment.

In the UK, campaigners laid flowers outside an immigration detention centre for women, stating that most women held there are survivors of rape and other forms of GBV and victims of trafficking and modern slavery. They vowed to continue protesting until the site is closed down.

In Nairobi, Kenya, hundreds of women marched to the national police headquarters to demand justice for sexual assault in public spaces and call for the regulation of the commuter motorbike sector, after a video showing a woman being sexually assaulted by motorbike riders on a busy road went viral. Protesters held placards with messages such as ‘usinishike’ – ‘don’t touch me’ in Swahili.

Global sorority and abortion rights

Many protests that focused on GBV also demanded sexual and reproductive rights. This was no coincidence, as GBV and the denial of sexual and reproductive rights have a common root: women’s deprivation of the personhood and autonomy to decide over their bodies and lives.

This focus could be seen in El Salvador, which has one of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the world. On IWD, around 2,000 women from feminist organisations and university groups marched against femicides and to demand the immediate legalisation of abortion on three grounds: to save the pregnant person’s life, in cases of life-threatening foetal malformation and when pregnancy is the result of sexual violence.

Something similar would have happened in Poland, where in 2020 a near-total ban on abortion was introduced under cover of the pandemic, if it hadn’t been for the emergency caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In less than two weeks, over 1.2 million Ukrainian refugees, mostly women and children, had crossed the border into Poland, and Polish civil society set to work to help in whatever way they could. Everything else took a temporary back seat.

This happened throughout Europe, and beyond: demands for women’s rights shared the stage with calls for solidarity with Ukraine. Blue-and-yellow rallies were held in several European capitals, including Brussels, where a ‘Women stand with Ukraine’ demonstration took place, and Berlin, where hundreds of people, mostly women, gathered outside the Russian Embassy to protest against the invasion. In Turkey, the Ankara Women’s Platform publicly sided with Ukrainian women and children as ‘the first victims of the war’. Further away in Central Asia, an IWD rally in Kyrgyzstan also denounced the invasion.

In Spain, where hundreds of thousands mobilised, protesters advanced demands for equality while also protesting against the war; in wars, they pointed out, women are always treated as bargaining chips. In Barcelona, the mic was passed to two Ukrainian women who acknowledged the courage of the women putting their bodies on the line to stop Russian tanks.

Political representation a key demand

Women’s organisations that have spent years calling for legislative bodies comprising mostly of men to pass laws that benefit women know only too well that fairer political representation is a key that opens many doors.

Political representation was at the centre of IWD mobilisations in Cameroon, where more than 20,000 women came out in Yaoundé to insist on a proper role in decision-making. Protesters demanded gender quotas, saying they would no longer accept being treated as inferior to men. The call was echoed in protests that took place in towns and villages across Cameroon.

Something similar was seen in Almaty, Kazakhstan, where feminist groups organised a rally for equal rights attended by more than 1,000 people. Protesters carried posters reading ‘Women’s opinions matter’, ‘More women in politics’ and ‘Feminism will save Kazakhstan’. They demanded more modern gender policies, measures against GBV and the hiring of more women by government institutions.

In Nigeria, hundreds of women marched to the National Assembly in Abuja to urge lawmakers to take another look at a series of bills aimed at closing the gender gap, which failed to get the required number of votes to be included in a constitutional amendment.

Women’s protests started the day after lawmakers voted on 1 March to reject all women’s rights-related bills. These bills would have established legislative representation quotas for women, provided for affirmative action in political party administration and granted citizenship to foreign-born husbands of Nigerian women.

In Sudan, thousands marched on IWD in Khartoum and elsewhere to denounce the 25 October military takeover. The day was dedicated to ensuring that women’s concerns are not left out of the struggle for freedom, peace and justice: resistance committees must include women in decision-making processes and respect the women’s rights agenda so that democracy, when it is restored, does not leave women behind once more. Predictably, as they approached the presidential palace protesters were met with teargas to force them to disperse.

Social, economic and environmental justice

Social, economic and environmental demands were at the forefront of major mobilisations, including in countries such as Peru and Venezuela, where protesters focused on poverty and food security.

In Brazil, women from an array of popular movements, grassroots organisations, trade unions, feminist collectives and political parties held massive protests against the exclusionary policies of President Jair Bolsonaro. Under the slogan ‘Bolsonaro Never Again’, protesters also blamed Bolsonaro’s negligence for more than 600,000 COVID-19 deaths.

Throughout the world, the effects of the pandemic shone the spotlight on the uneven distribution of care work within families. Among women’s movements in Latin America, this triggered a profound process of reflection on the structural conditions that determine the unequal distribution of care tasks, the way in which the entire social edifice rests on such inequality and the life-defining consequences this has for women.

As a result, feminist CSOs began to insist ever more strongly on the inclusion of state-managed care systems in any pandemic recovery plan. On the streets, this was reflected in a slogan that is now part of the regular repertoire of feminist protests: ‘it’s not love, it’s unpaid work’.

Other protests highlighted gender-specific health issues. In Chad, for instance, the CSO Rehabilitation and Technical Training used IWD to raise awareness of the problem of obstetric fistulas, a serious but all too common ailment that is the result of obstructed labour without timely medical intervention.

Other organisations, such as Zambia’s WingEd Girls, focused on menstrual health and stigma and demanded that more resources be committed to public healthcare systems.

Across Africa and worldwide, activists and organisations seized the opportunity to put forward longstanding demands for social and economic rights, including land rights. Such was the case of the Stand for Her Land campaign, which called for women’s land rights and an end to gender bias in land distribution.

Almost 100 groups in Ethiopia, Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda, among others, participated in the campaign. Similarly in Tunisia, CSOs used the day to denounce the deprivation of rural women’s right to inheritance and demanded the review of the law on GBV to include economic violence, since inheritance should be recognised as an economic right.

The clearly gendered impacts of climate change, along with the underrepresentation of women in climate negotiating bodies, also motivated many organisations, including the Extinction Rebellion network, to make climate demands on IWD. A 24-hour vigil and rally for climate justice was held in Edinburgh, UK.

A clear agenda for CSW

The feminist demands made on IWD were remarkably coherent responses, locally, nationally and globally, to the problem diagnoses made by civil society active in the field and deeply connected with the daily realities of women.

Those demands are not dying down once IWD has passed. Feminist movements know they can’t let their guard down even if they are winning, because every victory is followed by a predictable anti-rights backlash.

They will continue to push their agenda forward on the streets, in the courts, in parliaments, in the twists and turns of national, regional and local public administrations – and, of course, whenever possible in global forums.

These are the voices the CSW should heed.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

The writer is Senior Research Specialist at CIVICUS

By Genevieve Donnellon-May
MELBOURNE, Australia, Mar 16 2022 (IPS)

The recently published “No 1 central policy document” (“No 1 document”), China’s national blueprint for rural policy, further demonstrates Beijing’s commitment to safeguarding food security and advancing rural revitalisation. The document’s release comes against an increasingly complicated geopolitical environment which, along with factors, such as disruptions to the global food chain supplies and worsening climate change impacts, have forced Beijing to rethink how its national goals can be achieved.

Genevieve Donnellon-May

For the past few decades, safeguarding food security has been a critical goal for the Chinese central government. Over the past decades, Beijing has aimed to strengthen its focus on food security by diversifying imports (e.g. Food Silk Road), decreasing domestic consumption, and increasing its agricultural production. More recently, speculation has grown over the likelihood of the Chinese central government approving the commercialisation of genetically modified (GM) crops and “future foods” (e.g. lab-grown meat and plant-based eggs) to help ensure China’s food security by increasing self-sufficiency.

The recently published “No 1 document” by the State Council, China’s cabinet, further demonstrates Beijing’s commitment to safeguarding food security and promoting rural revitalisation. The “No 1 document” is usually the first policy document to be released by the Chinese central government at the beginning of each year. As China’s annual rural policy blueprint, it sets out agricultural and rural development plans and tasks related to “the three rurals” (“三农”) (agriculture, rural areas, and farmers) for the coming year.

The areas of focus in this year’s “No 1 document” can be divided up into two major categories: safeguarding food security and supporting rural revitalisation:

1. Safeguarding food security

Increasing agricultural production

Aside from encouraging the continued diversification of food imports to enhance China’s food security, boosting agricultural production at home remains a top priority. With grain self-sufficiency as the main overarching goal of China’s food security strategy, China has undertaken enormous political and fiscal efforts alongside spatio-temporal changes in China’s grain production patterns to strengthen its grain production.

Under this year’s “No 1 document”, China will continue to stabilise the full-year grain sown area and keep annual grain output above 650 billion kilograms. These goals follow the Chinese central authorities’ announcements of various plans and policies to encourage domestic agricultural production, including a new grain security law, annual grain production targets, and planting acreage targets. As Chinese president Xi Jinping and other top Chinese officials have publicly noted, such policies will ensure that “Chinese bowls are mainly filled with Chinese food”.

Vitalising the seed sector

In recent years, the importance of the seed sector has grown, with top policymakers noting its significance to safeguarding food security and national security. Last year, for instance, China’s Minister for Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Tang Renjian, highlighted seeds as a critical component of food security. Minister Tang noted the importance of seeds, calling them “the ‘computer chips’ of agriculture,” and cultivated land, the “‘lifeblood’ of food production.”

As part of the efforts to safeguard China’s food security, the Chinese government will introduce measures to vitalise the seed sector according to the “No 1 document”. This includes but is not limited to undertaking efforts to strengthen intellectual property (IP) rights protection in the seed sector and advancing progress on agricultural seed sources.

2. Rural revitalisation

The Chinese government will continue promoting rural revitalisation as part of efforts to avoid the re-emergence of widespread poverty in the countryside. First put forward by President Xi in 2017 as a vital national initiative, rural revitalisation is a critical component of the Chinese government’s 2020-2025 work plan. The strategy aims to turn China into “a modern, socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced and harmonious” by 2049. As highlighted in the “No 1 central policy document, ” a primary aim of the rural revitalisation strategy is the push for digital rural transformation. Notably, the document proposed establishing measures to help rural households at risk of falling back into poverty.

In addition, this year’s “No 1 document” has set out policies to support the rural economy and the sustainable development of the countryside. The overarching aim of this is to solve China’s imbalanced and inadequate development issues in agriculture, rural areas, and rural residents. Aside from boosting domestic agricultural production, this also includes, for instance, encouraging the development of the solar power industry in various regions for a sustained source of additional income for residents. Further supporting other income streams for residents and the digital rural transformation, the policy document encourages promoting e-commerce and live streaming in the countryside. This may boost the sales of domestic agricultural products, which would further intersect with other policies such as dual circulation.

By undertaking such initiatives, the gap in living standards between urban and rural residents and between richer and poorer provinces may be reduced. This could thus mitigate the consequences of China’s rising socio-economic inequalities such as social, economic, and political instability.

The “No 1 document” for 2022 further emphasises China’s inter-connected ambitions of encouraging rural revitalisation and safeguarding food security. Although the blueprint sets out policy goals to transform China and the lives of its rural residents while also protecting food security, realising these goals will not be without challenges. For instance, the push to increase domestic agricultural production to safeguard food security may encounter difficulties from factors including higher fertiliser costs, severe land and water contamination, water insecurity, and more frequent and extreme climate change-related events. This could also influence the success of the rural revitalisation strategy with, for instance, poor harvests and increased production costs alongside outbreaks of zoonotic diseases impacting the ability of farmers and other rural residents to earn money.

Furthermore, questions may be asked about the long-term sustainability of both significant aims. Noting the output target in the “No 1 document”, how much water and energy are needed for Chinese farmers to meet these targets? How much energy and water will be required to carry out rural revitalisation? Will competing domestic demands between urban, industry, and agriculture affect its success? How may this impact the food-water-energy nexus? To what extent could the expected energy consumption of rural revitalisation and increased agricultural production hinder Xi’s declarations that China will reach peak carbon emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060? To what extent can increased agricultural production in China safeguard the country’s food security and support rural revitalisation?

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Rizwana Hasan

By Sania Farooqui
DHAKA and NEW DELHI, Mar 15 2022 (IPS)

In an exclusive interview given to IPS UN Bureau, journalist Sania Farooqui is in conversation with Bangladeshi lawyer, Rizwana Hasan who was recently awarded the 16th Annual International Women of Courage Awards by the U.S Department of State. Hasan works primarily to protect the environment and defend the dignity and rights of marginalized Bangladeshis. Through landmark legal cases over the past 20 years, Hasan has changed the dynamics of development in Bangladesh to include a people-centered focus on environmental justice.

In her capacity as Chief Executive of the public interest law firm Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association, she has argued and won monumental cases against deforestation, pollution, unregulated ship breaking, and illegal land development. In 2009, Hasan was named as one of 40 Environmental Heroes of the World by TIME magazine and was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2012 for her activism. In the years since, she has continued her crucial work in the courtroom to combat environmental degradation and the local effects of climate change, despite significant resistance from powerful interests and threats of violence to herself and her family.

In this interview, Rizwana Hasan and Sania Farooqui touch upon various topics, including winning the International Women of Courage Awards, growing up in a patriarchal society to changes in the attitude towards women professionals, Hasan’s personal journey and challenges, what it took to become a lawyer and an environmentalist, and lastly impact of climate change, especially on marginalized communities.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Survey of more than 2,300 respondents across 90 countries reveals global sentiment around Russian military operations in Ukraine

By External Source
NEW YORK, Mar 15 2022 (IPS-Partners)

LexisNexis Legal & Professional®, a leading global provider of information and analytics, today released global data and public sentiments regarding the Ukrainian invasion. The ongoing feedback is being collected via the LexisNexis Rule of Law Monitor, which continuously surveys the world’s population on issues related to the Rule of Law.

The results demonstrate that 67% of the people polled disapprove of Russian military operations in the Ukraine – a number that increases to 76% outside of Asia.

Key Takeaways

• Within Russia, less than half (47%) of the people polled approve of the invasion (27% disapprove)
• Within the Ukraine, 88% of those polled disapprove, with 6% approving
• Australia has the highest disapproval rating (96%) and the lowest approval rating (0%); Argentina also showed 0% approval towards the conflict
• India had the highest approval rating (50%) – more than Russia itself
• China and India had the lowest disapproval ratings after Russia (33% and 34%, respectively)
• Across the globe, strong gender differences with female respondents (72%) significantly more likely to disapprove than males (62%)

“The LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation strongly condemns the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” said Ian McDougall, President of the LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation. “This is a clear violation of international law and the Rule of Law. We hope that by continuing to shed light on the global public condemnation of this war that it will help end the conflict sooner and restore peace and justice in Ukraine.”

“We believe that the Rule of Law is defined by equality under the law, transparency of law, an independent judiciary, and accessible legal remedy – and the stronger each of these components, the stronger the Rule of Law. We’re working to provide free and open data that enables citizens and nations to better understand each element of the Rule of Law and, in this case, world opinion on Russia’s breach of Rule of Law.” said Steve Carroll, VP Customer Insights at LexisNexis Legal & Professional.

Key Charts

Results by Continent

Results by Country

Results by Gender

Methodology:

• 2,346 respondents were surveyed across 90 countries from March 1 to March 3,2022
• Respondents were asked: “What do you think about the Russian military operation in Ukraine?” (strongly approve, approve, no opinion, disapprove, strongly disapprove) and “Why?”
• Surveys were conducted in English, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian & Ukrainian
• Respondents were prompted for feedback via apps on their phones (via a network of 150,000 apps)

Table 1: Respondent Distribution

*Russia & Ukraine purposely oversampled to enable deep dives into reaction within both countries. These countries are excluded from global statistics.

For more information about the LexisNexis Rule of Law Monitor, visit www.rolmonitor.org.

About the LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation
The LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation is the not-for-profit entity established by LexisNexis Legal & Professional to further achieve its mission to advance the rule of law around the world. The foundation plans and executes projects which enhance one or more of the key elements of the rule of law: equal treatment under the law, transparency of the law, access to legal remedy, and independent judiciaries. These projects focus on a range of local, national, regional and multiregional jurisdictions around the world.

Excerpt:

Survey of more than 2,300 respondents across 90 countries reveals global sentiment around Russian military operations in Ukraine

Women sell fruit and vegetables on a sidewalk in the Philippines. Credit: ILO/Minette Rimando

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Mar 15 2022 (IPS)

More than 60 percent of the world’s adult labour force –or about 2 billion workers– work in the informal economy. “They are not recognised, registered, regulated or protected under labour legislation and social protection. The consequences can be severe, for individuals, families as well as economies.”

The International Labour Organization (ILO) on 18 February 2022 on this issue reported that despite major efforts over the years, there are few signs of the informal economy shrinking in size.

“In fact, the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed more workers into informal work to survive while highlighting the vital role access to social protection plays to support workers, especially when they are unable to work.”

Just what is life like for workers in the informal economy, what are the global solutions to intransigent informality and will the growth of the ‘gig’ economy help informal economy workers gain the security and social protection they so badly need?

The informal economy comprises more than half of the global labour force and more than 90% of Micro and Small Enterprises worldwide, the ILO informs in another report.

“Informality is an important characteristic of labour markets in the world with millions of economic units operating and hundreds of millions of workers pursuing their livelihoods in conditions of informality.”

The expression “informal economy” encompasses a huge diversity of situations and phenomena, the world body explained.

 

Fast facts

• 60 percent of the world’s adult labour force – approx. 2 billion workers – work in the informal economy.
• The informal economy accounts for some 90 per cent of micro and small enterprises (MSEs) worldwide.
• 4.1 billion people worldwide (53 per cent) obtain no income security at all from their national social protection system.
• 1.6 billion across Asia and the Pacific lack access to social health protection.

 

What is the informal economy?

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in July 2021 explained five facts needed to be known about the informal economy.

The informal economy, it says, is a global and pervasive phenomenon. Some 60 percent of the world’s population participates in the informal sector. Although mostly prevalent in emerging and developing economies, it is also an important part of advanced economies.

 

In what activities. And where?

The informal economy consists of activities that have market value but are not formally registered, adds IMF.

“It embraces professions as diverse as minibus drivers in Africa, the market stands in Latin America, and the hawkers found at traffic lights all over the world.”

In advanced economies, examples can range from gig and construction workers, through domestic workers, to registered firms that engage in informal activities.

The International Labour Organization estimates that about 2 billion workers, or over 60 percent of the world’s adult labour force, operate in the informal sector–at least part time.

“While the informal economy is a global phenomenon, there is great variation within and across countries. On average, it represents 35 percent of GDP in low- and middle- income countries versus 15 percent in advanced economies.”

Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa have the highest levels of informality, and Europe and East Asia are the regions with the lowest levels of informality.

 

Difficult to measure

The informal economy, adds the International Monetary Fund, is difficult to measure.

This is because activities within it cannot be directly observed, and for the most part, participants in the informal economy do not want to be accounted for.

Anyway, informality can be measured in two different ways.

The direct approach is based on surveys, voluntary replies, and other compliance methods to directly measure the number of informal workers and firms.

Indirect methods focus on certain characteristics, or proxies, that can be observed and are related to informal economic activity.

“Examples of proxies include electricity consumption, night-light satellite data, and cash in circulation. Using these methods, the share of the informal economy in total output can be measured.”

 

COVID-19 pandemic hits informal workers particularly hard

According to the IMF, this uneven impact of the pandemic is because the majority of informal workers are employed in contact-intensive sectors (such as domestic workers, market vendors, taxi drivers…) and in insecure jobs that do not offer paid leave or the ability to work from home.

“Close to 95 million more people —many of them informal workers– are estimated to have fallen below the threshold of extreme poverty in 2020 compared with pre-pandemic projections.”

 

Women, hit the hardest

Gender inequality is also increasing as millions of women who are informal workers, have been forced to stop working since the start of the pandemic.

For example, says the IMF, women make up 80 percent of domestic workers globally, and 72 percent of them have lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic.

In sub-Saharan Africa, 41 percent of women-owned businesses closed, compared with 34 percent of those owned by men.

The UN Women reports on the percentage of women in informal employment is:

– 95 percent in South Asia,

– 89 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa,

– 59 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean

From street vendors and domestic workers to subsistence farmers and seasonal agricultural workers, women make up a disproportionate percentage of workers in the informal sector, adds the UN Women.

“Working in this informal, or grey economy, as it’s sometimes called, leaves women often without any protection of labour laws, social benefits such as pension, health insurance or paid sick leave.”

“They routinely work for lower wages and in unsafe conditions, including risk of sexual harassment. The lack of social protections has a long-term impact on women.”

For example, fewer women receive pensions globally, and as a result, more elderly women are now living in poverty. Even in developed economies, such as in France, Germany, Greece and Italy, women’s average pension is more than 30 per cent lower than men’s.

 

In what sectors do women work informally?

According to the UN Women, they are involved mostly in the services sector, with up to 61 percent, followed by agriculture (25 percent), and industry (13,5).

“Women are concentrated in lower-paid, lower-skill work with greater job insecurity and under-represented in decision-making roles and fields such as science and technology.”

 

UN Women also informs that:

– Today, half the global working population works in services, a sector where women dominate.

– The share of women in services reaches as high as 77 per cent and 91.4 percent respectively in East Asia and Northern America.

– Where women work varies greatly by region and income-level though: In high-income countries, women are concentrated in health, education, wholesale and retail trade sectors, whereas in low-income and lower-middle-income countries women are concentrated in agricultural labour.

– Sectoral and occupational segregation is a consequence of structural barriers and gender-based discrimination, such as poverty, inflexible working hours, limited or no access to affordable quality childcare, poor parental leave policies and social attitudes, among many other factors.

A Liberian participant in BRAC’s Graduation pilot in her store. Credit: Alison Wright

By Adolphus B. W. Doe
MONROVIA, Liberia, Mar 15 2022 (IPS)

For the past three years, BRAC International has been piloting in Liberia an adaptation of its acclaimed Graduation approach, whose impact on reducing extreme poverty was first proven in Bangladesh. The success of the Liberia pilot, which I managed, provides not only further proof of impact but vital lessons that can enhance and accelerate scaling of the approach globally.

BRAC’s Graduation approach is a multifaceted, proven, researched set of interventions based on a deep understanding of the challenges faced by those living in extreme poverty. BRAC – one of the largest nongovernmental organizations in the world – pioneered the Graduation approach 20 years ago and is the largest-scale implementer, having reached more than 2.1 million households (approximately 9 million people) in Bangladesh alone.

The key pillars of the Graduation approach include a stipend to support participants’ basic needs; a productive asset such as livestock, equipment, or seed capital; training in life skills, finance, and business skills; and regular coaching and mentoring. A rigorous evaluation by the London School of Economics showed that 93% of participants experienced sustained benefits seven years after starting the program. This included a 37% increase in earnings, a 9% increase in consumption, a ninefold increase in savings rate, and a twofold increase in household assets and access to land for livelihoods.

The pilot in Liberia ran from April 2018 to September 2021 and was made possible by generous support from the Dutch Postcode Lottery. Through it, 751 women-headed households in two counties participated, and 85% graduated, climbing the ladder of economic self-reliance into a sustainable future.

According to the baseline assessment, these women earned barely $1 (US) per day before they joined the Graduation program, working as seasonal wage laborers, cassava pickers, and charcoal makers. Their low income – or no income – left them vulnerable, with little hope or confidence. Many had faced domestic violence and abandonment by their husbands and were the sole source of income for their children.

Now, they are micro-entrepreneurs earning their livelihoods through livestock rearing, vegetable farming, and running businesses like grocery shops. Of the pilot participants, 88% doubled their income sources, 96% had access to safe drinking water, 98% were regularly eating nutritional meals, 98% were practicing safe hygiene and sanitation, and 100% saved regularly (biweekly) by the end of the program. Households’ housing conditions also greatly improved, including 88% of beneficiary children attending school.

In making this transition, participants in the Graduation program demonstrated their ability to create pathways toward self-reliance, once they have access to the right resources and tools.

The lessons from the pilot in Liberia are considerable and can facilitate replication far more broadly. They are especially powerful, as Liberia is among the world’s 10 poorest countries.

First, the Graduation approach works in Liberia. Poverty likelihood declined sharply from 50% to 31% after program intervention. The food consumption score improved from 28 to 44.

This is consistent with a study of Graduation pilots in six other countries on three continents conducted by Nobel Prize-winning economists Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, among others.

Communities in Liberia are receptive to the approach and enthusiastic about participating. But implementers must be focused on ensuring that it serves those in greatest need. While more than half the population of Liberia lives in poverty, it’s the 16% living in extreme poverty that must be the focus.

Second, reaching those living in extreme poverty must be strategic. How do you find them? We first asked county-level leaders to identify locations of extreme poverty. We then used a “participatory rural appraisal” to map the size of those communities, the number of households, and specific clusters within them. From there we could create a list of households.

With households identified, we could rank them based on economic indicators and administer a questionnaire to those in greatest poverty to assess their assets, savings, and food security. Based on the results, a visit to individual homes confirmed their living conditions.

Third, the program design and research tools must be adapted for local circumstances. The assets that are transferred to program participants, for instance, must be suited to the local context. In Bangladesh, participants are typically given cows; in Liberia, that is not appropriate. A market study was, therefore, conducted to ensure that the assets to be transferred would be rightly marketable. Such adaptation is consistent with the Graduation program’s experience elsewhere.

Fourth, understanding and challenging traditional gender norms can be essential to breaking patterns of extreme poverty. In Liberia, the issue of women’s access to land – to raise livestock and produce crops – had to be addressed.

In rural areas of Liberia, land is typically owned by a few families, who are often initially willing to provide free access to facilitate poverty reduction. But once they see a woman increasing her income, they may demand rent. We learned, therefore, to confirm at the outset in writing that access to land would be free for at least five years.

Fifth, we fully expect that the cost of the Graduation approach in Liberia can be reduced over time. For this pilot, the cost per participating household was $2,000 (US). That is consistent with overall implementation costs per household of Graduation in other countries of between $300 and $2,000 (US). We estimate in Liberia that the future cost will be between $1,000 and $1,200 per household.

Cost reductions in Liberia are possible because initial research results can be applied more broadly, as can localized tools. Once an initial phase of the approach is complete, extending it is also less labor-intensive.

Academics outside Liberia estimate that for every dollar spent on a Graduation program there is a return of $2 – $5 (US) worth of benefits, depending on program design. The return is highly affected by the context, the specific program, and the particular time.

These lessons are affirming and instructive. They underscore the enormous potential for replicating the Graduation approach, and the opportunity to do so with increasing efficiency. They provide reason for optimism that this proven solution can soon be applied globally.

The author is Program Leader of Ultra-Poor Graduation and Interim Country Director for BRAC International in Liberia.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Credit: United Nations
 
Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations
Addressing the Press on the war in Ukraine

By António Guterres
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 15 2022 (IPS)

Ukraine is on fire. The country is being decimated before the eyes of the world. The impact on civilians is reaching terrifying proportions.

Countless innocent people – including women and children – have been killed. After being hit by Russian forces, roads, airports and schools lie in ruins.

According to the World Health Organization, at least 24 health facilities have suffered attacks. Hundreds of thousands of people are without water or electricity. With each passing hour, two things are increasingly clear:

First — it keeps getting worse. Second — whatever the outcome, this war will have no winners, only losers.

The United Nations and humanitarian partners are working to ensure safe passage from besieged areas and to provide aid where security permits. More than 600,000 people have received some form of aid.

As millions of people in Ukraine face hunger and dwindling supplies of water and medicine, I am announcing today that the United Nations will allocate a further $40 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund to ramp up vital assistance to reach the most vulnerable, as we wait for the nations to come.

This funding will help get critical supplies of food, water, medicines, and other lifesaving aid into the country, as well as provide cash assistance to the needy.

But the avenues in and out of encircled cities are more precarious by the day. I underscore the crucial importance of respecting international humanitarian law. At least 1.9 million people are displaced inside the country, and growing numbers are escaping across borders.

I am deeply grateful for the solidarity of Ukraine’s neighbours and other host countries, who have taken in more than 2.8 million refugees in the past two weeks. The vast majority of those making the treacherous journey are women and children who are increasingly vulnerable.

For predators and human traffickers, war is not a tragedy. It is an opportunity. And women and children are the targets. They need safety and support every step of the way.

I will continue to highlight the desperate plight of the people of Ukraine as I am doing again today.

Yet there is another dimension of this conflict that gets obscured. This war goes far beyond Ukraine.
It is also an assault on the world’s most vulnerable people and countries.

While war rains over Ukraine, a sword of Damocles hangs over the global economy – especially in the developing world. Even before the conflict, developing countries were struggling to recover from the pandemic – with record inflation, rising interest rates and looming debt burdens.

Their ability to respond has been erased by exponential increases in the cost of financing. Now their breadbasket is being bombed.

Russia and Ukraine represent more than half of the world’s supply of sunflower oil and about 30 percent of the world’s wheat. Ukraine alone provides more than half of the World Food Programme’s wheat supply.

Food, fuel and fertilizer prices are skyrocketing. Supply chains are being disrupted. And the costs and delays of transportation of imported goods – when available – are at record levels. All of this is hitting the poorest the hardest and planting the seeds for political instability and unrest around the globe.

Grain prices have already exceeded those at the start of the Arab Spring and the food riots of 2007-2008. The FAO’s global food prices index is at its highest level ever.

Forty-five African and least developed countries import at least one-third of their wheat from Ukraine [or] Russia – 18 of those countries import at least 50 percent. This includes countries like Burkina Faso, Egypt, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

We must do everything possible to avert a hurricane of hunger and a meltdown of the global food system. In addition, we are seeing clear evidence of this war draining resources and attention from other trouble-spots in desperate need.

I renew my appeal for countries to find creative ways to finance increased humanitarian and development recovery needs worldwide, and to give generously and to immediately release pledged funds. My plea to leaders is to resist the temptation of increasing military budgets at the expense of Official Development Assistance and climate action.

In a word, developing countries are getting pummeled. They face a cascade of crises – beyond the Ukraine war, we cannot forget COVID and the impacts of climate change – in particular, drought.

Against the backdrop of these immense inter-connected challenges, I am announcing today the establishment of a Global Crisis Response Group on Food, Energy and Finance in the UN Secretariat.

I have also asked the Deputy Secretary-General to lead an inter-agency steering committee with partners to oversee this effort. In the coming days, we will be consulting with Member States willing to champion the actions needed to carry forward the global emergency response that will be required for these looming crises.

Make no mistake: everyday people, especially women and children, will bear the brunt of this unfolding tragedy. The war also shows how the global addiction to fossil fuels is placing energy security, climate action and the entire global economy at the mercy of geopolitics.

Finally, further escalation of the war, whether by accident or design, threatens all of humanity. Raising the alert of Russian nuclear forces is a bone-chilling development.

The prospect of nuclear conflict, once unthinkable, is now back within the realm of possibility. The security and safety of nuclear facilities must also be preserved.

It’s time to stop the horror unleashed on the people of Ukraine and get on the path of diplomacy and peace. I have been in close contact with a number of countries – including China, France, Germany, India, Israel and Turkey – on mediation efforts to bring an end to this war.

The appeals for peace must be heard. This tragedy must stop. It is never too late for diplomacy and dialogue.

We need an immediate cessation of hostilities and serious negotiations based on the principles of the UN Charter and international law.

We need peace. Peace for the people of Ukraine. Peace for the world.

We need peace now.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Ukrainian refugee, Valia, recalls the ‘terrible conditions’ during her 1000 km journey to safety with her 13-year-old son. Credit: Ed Holt/IPS

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Mar 15 2022 (IPS)

“I never, ever, believed that anything like this could happen,” says Valia*. “Not for a second.”

Just two weeks ago, the English teacher says, she had been living a normal life in Kropyvnytskyi in central Ukraine with her 13-year-old son. But on February 24, she woke up to the news that Russia had invaded her country.

After spending one night in a school basement with scores of other people afraid that her town could come under Russian fire, she decided she had to try and get herself and her son to safety and began a 1,000-kilometre journey out of the country.

She spent days travelling in what she describes as “terrible conditions” on dangerously overcrowded trains where people became sick. It was sometimes hard to breathe properly because many people were packed into carriages. She then took buses to the border with Slovakia.

There, she waited four hours in the cold before she and her son made it over the border and then on to friends in the Slovak capital, Bratislava

“My journey may sound bad, but when I think about it, I see myself as lucky. I know some people who came from Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine, and they had a terrible journey. It took some of them six days,” she tells IPS.

Valia is just one of the estimated more than 2,8 million people, overwhelmingly women and children, who have fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion began.

The UN has described the exodus as the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since WWII. International humanitarian organisations warn there are likely to be many millions more trying to leave the country in the coming weeks as what they have repeatedly described as a humanitarian catastrophe is set to only get worse.

“The humanitarian situation in Ukraine is increasingly dire and desperate. Hundreds of thousands of people have no food, water, heat, electricity, or medical care. Two million people are reported to have left their homes for neighbouring countries, while hundreds of thousands more are trapped in cities desperate for a safe escape,” Christoph Hanger, spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), told IPS.

Humanitarian organisations have described the scenes in some parts of the country as “apocalyptic”.

The conflict – which has so far claimed the lives of at least 549 civilians as of March 11, according to the UN, although the real figure is thought to be much higher – has left some towns and large parts of cities destroyed.

Infrastructure damage, Russian troops blocking roads, and constant shelling, means that in some places, there is no way to get in even basic humanitarian supplies to residents.

In the city of Mariupol, which has been surrounded by Russian troops and whose authorities have said it is essentially under siege, the situation is said to be desperate.

There have been reports of people fighting each other for scraps of food on the streets as residents begin to starve. Others are simply unable to leave their homes because of constant shelling.

Svitlana, a 52-year-old hairdresser, said her life now in the city was spent largely in bomb shelters.

“Life in a shelter is not a life. We are surviving as long as we can. People bring their food and share it in the shelter while the bombing goes on above us. We try to pretend all will be ok, but we all know many of us will die,” she told IPS.

But even in places where there has not been fierce fighting, the toll of war is being felt.

Oksana, 35, who lives in Kyiv, told IPS: “Even though the bombs are not falling here yet, the atmosphere of war is so stressful. The worst thing is that after a day or two, you realise it is not a movie but a fight for life and death. It is hard to explain how terrified I feel. A friend of mine filmed on his phone a Russian warplane crashing in his neighbour’s garden. My mind is simply unable to understand that this is really going on. This has to stop. Otherwise, I don’t know how people will survive and what will happen to food and medicine supplies for people.”

All across the country, medical supplies, in particular, are dwindling while hospitals and healthcare facilities have been targeted by Russian forces putting pressure on healthcare provision.

People who spoke to IPS said in some places, services are increasingly being focused solely on emergency healthcare and treating war wounded, limiting the capacity for treatment of people with chronic or potentially fatal diseases.

There have also been unconfirmed reports of medics and ambulances being targeted by Russian troops

Evgenia, who works in the healthcare sector, managed to escape her hometown Irpin, outside Kyiv, just days before it came under heavy fire by the Russian army and was eventually largely destroyed.

She is now in Kyiv, where, she says, many healthcare services are continuing to run relatively normally. But, she says, “in some parts of the country, the only healthcare now is emergency healthcare, nothing else”.

She said any healthcare that involves outreach work has stopped in some towns and cities “because it is now very dangerous, you can get shot just being out on the street” while drug supplies are dwindling because “the roads are occupied by Russian military, and so it is impossible to move medicines from one area to another even if anyone tried to”.

And there are growing problems in the Ukrainian capital, too.

“The queues outside drug stores are long, and they’re often out of medicines now anyway,” she told IPS, adding that NGOs and other groups involved in the response to chronic diseases like TB, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, social outreach groups for vulnerable populations, including in the LGBT community, had been forced to turn to delivering humanitarian aid on the streets of the capital rather than their usual work.

The deteriorating security and humanitarian situation is driving more and more people to flee their homes. The UNHCR reports that there are as many as 1 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the country due to the conflict, and as fighting continues, that number is expected to rise, putting more and more strain on resources.

“If the fighting gets closer and closer to more towns and cities, especially in the west, the numbers of refugees will increase, and then there will, because of the numbers, be an even greater strain on services, within Ukraine itself as people move to escape fighting elsewhere, but also in neighbouring countries receiving refugees,” Toby Fricker, Chief of Communications and Partnerships at UNICEF, told IPS.

This is already being seen in some parts of the west of the country, which, so far, has seen relatively little fighting and is perceived to be safer, notably in Lviv, a major city in the west of Ukraine.

The UNHCR has forecast as many as 4 million people will be forced to leave Ukraine because of the war.

But while leaving Ukraine provides some hope of safety, for many, the journey itself is fraught with danger, and once across the border, the effects of the conflict remain.

Many refugee journeys can be days long, are made in freezing weather, sometimes involve treks for dozens of miles on foot, and sometimes with limited food and water supplies.

Meanwhile, because Ukrainian men aged between 18 and 60 have been ordered not to leave the country to help defend it if needed, the overwhelming majority of refugees are women and children.

Humanitarian organisations have warned women refugees face an increased risk of exploitation and gender-based violence, while the abrupt separation from partners and fathers can also be traumatic for women and, especially, children, others say.

“Kids are going through having to cope with seeing, for instance, their parents have a last embrace as they go separate ways, and trying to understand why daddy isn’t going with them,” James Elder, UNICEF spokesperson, told IPS.

Organisations helping with reception of refugees in receiving countries told IPS that many people who arrive are often exhausted and deeply traumatised.

“What we are seeing very much is that people are turning up in a very deep sense of shock and trauma. Because of the speed at which everything happened, a lot of them are still in a state of confusion. The adults, most of whom are women with children, are still in a state of denial about what has happened to them, about having to leave their countries, businesses, homes, and husbands and partners suddenly,” said Fricker.

Valia, who is now working as a volunteer at Bratislava’s main train station helping the thousands of Ukrainians coming in every day from further east in the country, agrees.

“People are traumatised, but it happened so quickly that a lot of them are just in a state of massive shock. They still can’t quite believe what’s happened,” she said.

Uncertainty is also a worry for many refugees, she says. Some have lost everything, and many have been left with little money as the Ukrainian currency they brought with them cannot be changed now in many countries, and because many people cleared out their bank accounts before they left, any bank cards they have with them are largely useless.

Valia herself says she does not know how long she will stay in Slovakia, and her son wants to return to Ukraine as soon as possible. But she admits she has “no clear idea” what the future holds for her, and others.

“It’s troubling for a lot of people I speak to,” she says.

However, Valia believes she will one day go back to her homeland when peace returns to it.

“I believe I will go back to Ukraine. I speak to other Ukrainians who say they will never forgive Russia for what it has done. But I don’t hold it against the Russian people. Everyone has to come together to stop things like this happening. The world has so many other problems with climate change, poverty, diseases, etc – people should be putting energy into that and not fighting wars like this.”

*Valia is identified by her first name for her safety.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 14 2022 (IPS)

Finger pointing in the blame game over Russia’s Ukraine incursion obscures the damage it is doing on many fronts. Meanwhile, billions struggle to cope with worsening living standards, exacerbated by the pandemic and more.

Losing sight in the fog of war
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken insists, “the Russian people will suffer the consequences of their leaders’ choices”. Western leaders and media seem to believe their unprecedented “crushing sanctions” will have a “chilling effect” on Russia.

Anis Chowdhury

With sanctions intended to strangle Russia’s economy, the US and its allies somehow hope to increase domestic pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to retreat from Ukraine. The West wants to choke Russia by cutting its revenue streams, e.g., from oil and gas sales to Europe.

Already, the rouble has been hammered by preventing Russia’s central bank from accessing its US$643bn in foreign currency reserves, and barring Russian banks from using the US-run global payments transfer system, SWIFT.

Withdrawal of major Western transnational companies – such as Shell, McDonald’s and Apple – will undoubtedly hurt many Russians – not only oligarchs, their ostensible target.

Thus, Blinken’s claim that “The economic costs that we’ve been forced to impose on Russia are not aimed at you [ordinary Russians]” may well ring hollow to them. They will get little comfort from knowing, “They are aimed at compelling your government to stop its actions, to stop its aggression”.

As The New York Times notes, “sanctions have a poor record of persuading governments to change their behavior”. US sanctions against Cuba over six decades have undoubtedly hurt its economy and people.

But – as in Iran, North Korea, Syria and Venezuela – it has failed to achieve its supposed objectives. Clearly, “If the goal of sanctions is to compel Mr. Putin to halt his war, then the end point seems far-off.”

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Russia, major commodity exporter
Undoubtedly, Russia no longer has the industrial and technological edges it once had. Following Yeltsin era reforms in the early 1990s, its economy shrank by half – lowering Russian life expectancy more than anywhere else in the last six millennia!

Russia has become a major primary commodity producer – not unlike many developing countries and the former settler colonies of North America and Australasia. It is now a major exporter of crude oil and natural gas.

It is also the largest exporter of palladium and wheat, and among the world’s biggest suppliers of fertilizers using potash and nitrogen. On 4 March, Moscow suspended fertilizer exports, citing “sabotage” by “foreign logistics companies”.

Farmers and consumers will suffer as yields drop by up to half. Sudden massive supply disruptions will thus have serious ramifications for the world economy – now more interdependent than ever, due to earlier globalization.

Sanctions’ inflation boomerang
International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva has ominously warned of the Ukraine crisis’ economic fallouts. She cautions wide-ranging sanctions on Russia will worsen inflation and further slow growth.

No country is immune, including those imposing sanctions. But the worst hit are poor countries, particularly in Africa, already struggling with rising fuel and food prices.

For Georgieva, more inflation – due to Russian sanctions – is the greatest threat to the world economy. “The surging prices for energy and other commodities – corn, metals, inputs for fertilizers, semiconductors – coming on top of already high inflation” are of grave concern to the world.

Russia and Ukraine export more than a quarter of the world’s wheat while Ukraine is also a major corn exporter. Supply chain shocks and disruptions could add between 0.2% to 0.4% to ‘headline inflation’ – which includes both food and fuel prices – in developed economies over the coming months.

US petrol prices jumped to a 17-year high in the first week of March. The costs of other necessities, especially food, are rising as well. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has acknowledged that the sanctions are worsening US inflation.

The European Union (EU) gets 40% of its natural gas from Russia. Finding alternative supplies will be neither easy nor cheap. The EU is Russia’s largest trading partner, accounting for 37% of global trade in 2020. Thus, sanctions may well hurt Europe more than Russia – like cutting one’s nose to spite one’s face.

The European Central Bank now expects stagflation – economic stagnation with inflation, and presumably, rising unemployment. It has already slashed its growth forecast for 2022 from 4.2% to 3.7%. Inflation is expected to hit a record 5.1% – way above its previous 3.2% forecast!

Developing countries worse victims
Global food prices are already at record highs, with the Food Price Index (FPI) of the Food and Agricultural Organization up more than 40% over the past two years.

The FPI hit an all-time high in February – largely due to bad weather and rising energy and fertilizer costs. By February 2022, the Agricultural Commodity Price Index was 35% higher, while maize and wheat prices were 26% and 23% more than in January 2021.

Besides shortages and rising production costs – due to surging fuel and fertilizer prices – speculation may also push food prices up – as in 2007-2008.

Signs of such speculation are already visible. Chicago Board of Trade wheat future prices rose 40% in early March – its largest weekly increase since 1959!

Rising food prices impact people in low- and middle-income countries more as they spend much larger shares of their incomes on food than in high-income countries. The main food insecurity measure has doubled in the past two years, with 45 million people close to starvation, even before the Ukraine crisis.

Countries in Africa and Asia rely much more on Russian and Ukrainian grain. The World Bank has warned, “There will be important ramifications for the Middle East, for Africa, North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, in particular”, where many were already food insecure before the incursion.

The Ukraine crisis will be devastating for countries struggling to cope with the pandemic. Unable to access enough vaccines or mount adequate responses, they already lag behind rich countries. The latest food and fuel price hikes will also worsen balance-of-payments problems and domestic inflationary pressures.

No to war!
The African proverb, “When two elephants fight, all grass gets trampled”, sums up the world situation well. The US and its allies seem intent to ‘strangle Russia’ at all costs, regardless of the massive collateral damage to others.

This international crisis comes after multilateralism has been undermined for decades. Hopes for reduced international hostilities, after President Biden’s election, have evaporated as US foreign policy double standards become more apparent.

Russia has little support for its aggressive violation of international law and norms. Despite decades of deliberate NATO provocations, even after the Soviet Union ended, Putin has lost international sympathy with his aggression in Ukraine.

But there is no widespread support for NATO or the West. Following the vaccine apartheid and climate finance fiascos, the poorer, ‘darker nations’ have become more cynical of Western hypocrisy as its racism becomes more brazen.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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