Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

Antimicrobial resistance is a consequence of overusing and misusing antimicrobials. This is a worldwide problem. But in developing countries antibiotics are easily available without prescription. Credit: Adil Siddiqi/IPS

By External Source
Nov 17 2021 (IPS)

The cost of infectious diseases is somewhere between staggering and incalculable. Around $8 trillion and 156 million life years were lost in 2016 alone. Throughout human history, pestilences have wiped out more lives than famine and violence.

Then, in 1941, the antibiotic age was born when doctors at the Radcliffe Infirmary and the Dunn School of Pathology in Oxford first tested penicillin in a patient. When I was a medical student there in the late 1970s, we felt a reverence for this world-changing achievement. Penicillin and its successors have saved millions of lives.

It can take 15 years and a billion dollars to develop a new antibiotic. And then, either the poor can’t afford them or consumption must be restricted to stave off future resistance. Meanwhile, companies that have monopoly rights over niche antimicrobials profit with abandon
So, 50 years later, as a doctor visiting Uganda’s Gulu Hospital, I was heartbroken to see patients die despite treatment with antibiotics. Sara, for example, a young Sudanese refugee, died from puerperal sepsis because she was resistant to first-line antibiotics. And modern, expensive versions were unavailable.

Antibiotics are part of a group of drugs called antimicrobials – including antivirals, anti-fungals and anti-parasitics – that prevent and treat infections in humans, animals and plants. But, as coronavirus has reminded us, all living organisms mutate. When that leads to resistant “superbugs”, we get antimicrobial resistance – the drugs are no longer effective.

Antimicrobial resistance is a consequence of overusing and misusing antimicrobials. This is a worldwide problem. But in developing countries antibiotics are easily available without prescription. The residents of Kibera, a low income settlement in Kenya, for example, consume more antibiotics than typical American families. When a poor patient cannot afford the full course, however, they make do with a few pills. That may be harmful if an infection is not fully treated, and antimicrobial resistance may follow.

Meanwhile, the parallel lack of hygiene, water and sanitation in crowded, deprived communities means more sickness. That pushes up the need for antimicrobials.

Antimicrobial resistance also compromises human health via food. Two-thirds of all antibiotics are used in farm animals. Intensive use to fatten up animals and hide poor animal husbandry is a potent source of resistance. Powerful drugs leached into soil and water recycle into us via the food chain. Antimicrobial residues in milk, eggs, meat and fish are worrisome for our health.

Antimicrobial resistance kills around 700,000 people worldwide annually. This could increase to 10 million annually by 2050, at a cost of $100 trillion. It is a top-ten global health threat.

It’s now time for a bold effort on antimicrobial resistance. That requires a dedicated organisation with the universal legitimacy of a UN body, political clout of a G20, deep pockets of a global fund, brainpower of a space agency, campaigning zeal of an NGO, mould-breaking power of a social movement, and leveraging capacity of a public-private partnership.

 

Drug resistance and health

Antimicrobial resistance has devastating consequences. For the ill, it means getting sicker for longer, wasting money they cannot afford, and impoverishing desperate families. Or succumbing to ordinary chest and urinary infections that were easily treatable earlier. Traditional public health threats such as tuberculosis, malaria and HIV are also returning as serious conditions resist first-line drugs.

Drug resistance is especially bad news for seriously ill patients with diseases ranging from COVID-19 to chronic bronchitis who are prone to secondary infections. It also becomes riskier to do organ transplants or give cancer therapy because immune-suppressed patients need antimicrobial cover.

 

A broken market

Drug resistance satisfies the definition of a pandemic and comparison with other pandemics is instructive. Investing massively in coronavirus research was worth it because there are billions of permanent customers for COVID-19 vaccines and treatments. In contrast, nothing new has entered the antibiotics cupboard since the 1980s.

It can take 15 years and a billion dollars to develop a new antibiotic. And then, either the poor can’t afford them or consumption must be restricted to stave off future resistance. Meanwhile, companies that have monopoly rights over niche antimicrobials profit with abandon.

In contrast, 20 preventable and treatable tropical diseases that debilitate 1.7 billion poor people – mostly in Africa and South Asia – are neglected. This is because the remedies are often too cheap for sufficient profit to be extracted. They include river blindness, guinea worm, leprosy, and elephantiasis.

The particular circumstances around antimicrobial supply and demand mean that inequity prevails, as with COVID-19 vaccines where developing countries are denied the intellectual property rights to make them.

An earlier generation struggled similarly at the height of the AIDS epidemic. South Africa and India led the fight to waive restrictive trade rules on generic medicine production, when public health emergencies warrant. That saved thousands of lives as cheap antiretrovirals became available.

A comparable approach is now urgent to help all countries get effective, affordable antimicrobials. But prospects are not good, if the current battle over increasing COVID-19 vaccine supplies – led again by South Africa and India – is a pointer. Polarised geopolitics is not helpful to fix the broken market for essential medicines.

 

One health

The painful lesson from pandemics such as Ebola, HIV, and COVID-19 is that human, animal, and planetary health are intertwined. That is because animals are getting closer to humans. Their habitats get compromised by development practices that create wide scale deforestation. Thus, their microbes jump to us more easily. This is exacerbated by environmental shifts due to climate change. The trend necessitates new antimicrobials to be found for diseases yet to come.

Siloed approaches won’t work in inter-connected contexts. Integrated working is needed to tackle the multi-dimensional causes and consequences of our sickening humanity, ecosystem, and planet. This “one health” approach could tackle antimicrobial resistance. But the concept remains nebulous. Society and institutions don’t have incentives to work across sectoral and disciplinary boundaries.

 

A technocratic approach is not enough

The World Health Organisation has joined up with the World Organisation for Animal Health and the Food and Agriculture Organisation to sound the alarm on antimicrobial resistance with a global action plan, several resolutions of the World Health Assembly, and a high-level global leaders group. Technical tools and guidance are available to national action plans: 89 countries have them but only 18 in Africa and 23 in Asia-Pacific. They include strengthening surveillance, promoting antimicrobial stewardship, training and capacity building.

All this is worthwhile. But there is no time to wait. A technocratic approach and sparse funding have not created the necessary momentum.

The early AIDS activists realised the same in the 1980s when many countries were devastated, especially in Africa. A massive global movement arose to shift social morays, shake up stodgy establishments, galvanise massive funding for research, prevention, and treatment. And it triggered extraordinary innovations in biological and behavioural sciences.

Its legacy has gone well beyond HIV. It also led to the creation of UNAIDS and the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria as specialised institutions to energise and orchestrate an unprecedented global endeavour.

The hugely disruptive COVID-19 crisis has sparked comparable effort with record-time technological breakthroughs, overturned economic orthodoxy, and unprecedented financing. Also innovations in how we work, design social safety nets, re-configure international co-operation, generate solidarity, and hold policy makers accountable. But we also deepened inequalities, and realised that globalisation itself needs a makeover.

There are excellent examples of the elements that could make up a dedicated global organisation to combat antimicrobial resistance. To connect them is the necessary organisational innovation. That means challenging petty institutional turf battles and sectoral boundaries, and overcoming small mindsets.

Mukesh Kapila, Professor Emeritus in Global Health & Humanitarian Affairs, University of Manchester

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

President Jair Messias Bolsonaro of Brazil addresses the general debate of the UN General Assembly’s 76th session last September. Credit: UN Photo/Cia Pak

By Noam Titelman
SANTIAGO, Nov 17 2021 (IPS)

At the United Nations General Assembly meeting in September, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro used his allotted time at the podium to recount his views on Covid-19. He extolled the virtues of treatments that have been rejected by scientists and proclaimed that he had benefitted from the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine.

Bolsonaro’s support for such ‘miracle cures’ is well known. He has appeared regularly in the Brazilian press and on social networks promoting the use of off-label treatments that have no basis in scientific fact. And he is not alone.

During his administration, former US President Donald Trump advocated for a variety of unproven remedies, and the president of Madagascar, Andry Rajoelina, has sponsored a drink derived from the herb artemisia to treat Covid-19.

To the despair of the scientific community, these politicians and others have successfully convinced a large swath of the public of such treatments’ efficacy and safety.

Misinformed people are not ignorant

Misinformation has run rampant during the pandemic, but it is not a new phenomenon. In their seminal work on the perception of welfare in the United States, the political scientist James Kuklinski and his colleagues showed that significant portions of the American population held inaccurate beliefs about the recipients of state support and the benefits they received.

Misinformation is a prime example of motivated reasoning.

They also found that the prevalence of misinformation prevented accurate information from gaining traction. Misinformed people do not simply have inaccurate information; they are heavily invested in their misconceptions.

Noam Titelman

And this is what makes misinformation so powerful: it combines misperceptions about the world with a high degree of confidence in their accuracy.

People do not believe false information because they are ignorant. There are many factors at work, but most researchers would agree that the belief in misinformation has little to do with the amount of knowledge a person possesses. Misinformation is a prime example of motivated reasoning.

People tend to arrive at the conclusions they want to reach as long as they can construct seemingly reasonable justifications for these outcomes. One study published in 2017 has shown that people who have greater scientific knowledge and education are more likely to defend their polarised beliefs on controversial science topics because of ‘nonscientific concerns.’

The role of partisan identity

One of the most powerful of these concerns is the preservation of identity. Political leaders are most effective in pushing misinformation when they exploit citizens’ fear of losing what they perceive to be defining aspects of their culture, particularly its language, religion, and perceived racial and gender hierarchies and roles.

In polarised political environments, the purchase that misinformation gains has little to do with low levels of knowledge or engagement, but rather with how information is interpreted in a way that dovetails with partisan identity. The ‘us versus them’ lens means that the different bits of information people receive are processed in a way that is amenable to their worldview.

This is why individuals can draw strikingly divergent conclusions from the same facts. When political leaders peddle unproven treatments for Covid-19, they are capitalising on this polarising tendency.

But an excessive focus on these leaders may obscure the main reason people buy into these messages. The willingness to believe misinformation is rooted in underlying aspects of cultural identity, which politicians manipulate.

The case of Brazil

Recent research by Mariana Borges Martins da Silva, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oxford, has shown that one reason Brazilians trust treatments like the ones promoted by Bolsonaro is a deep cultural belief that a ‘serious doctor’ is one who prescribes medicine.

Bolsonaro didn’t have to convince Brazilians of the benefits of ivermectin and chloroquine. He needed only to confirm the norm that potentially serious diseases always must be treated with drugs. He provided a narrative that allowed segments of the population to arrive at their desired conclusion. And that was enough.

Understanding the drivers of misinformation is critical to preventing its spread. To keep people safe from Covid-19 and encourage vaccination, it is not enough to denounce politicians who promote false information. We also must understand the underlying motivations that lead people to believe it.

Noam Titelman is an associate researcher at the Center for Public Systems at the Universidad de Chile, and a PhD candidate in social research methods at the London School of Economics (LSE).

Source: International Politics and Society, Bruxelles, Belgium

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

Korea is one of the world's top economies. Yet, behind the success, many feel alienated. Does the recent hit show Squid Game, reflect the underbelly of the society's success? Credit: Ori Song/Unsplash

By Ahn Mi Young
Seoul, Nov 16 2021 (IPS)

Immediately after its release, the Squid Game went viral, grabbing the attention of the world’s entertainment stage. The grotesque and hyper-violent thriller has reportedly become Netflix’s biggest show, the world’s most-watched and the most-talked-about streaming entertainment. Is it a case of art imitating life?

The global rise of Korean entertainment is reminiscent of South Korea’s rags-to-rich story. The once war-stricken country with per-capita GDP of 67 US dollars after the 1950-53 Korean War has become one of the world’s top economies with a per-capita GDP of 32,860 US dollars in 2020.

South Koreans enjoy high-tech conveniences, and many of their enterprises are sought after internationally, including home electronics, vehicles and ships.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, success stories abound about its business, technology or entertainment industries.

K-pop BTS is now a global star who often tops the Billboard charts. A few years ago, it was unthinkable that Korean entertainment could surpass the content produced in the United States.

Squid Game has become a global success. Is it a case of art imitating life?

“The Squid Game has become a hope for our students to go to the global stage,” Kim Sang-Hoon, a professor at Cheju Halla University who teaches future talents video-making or filmmaking or broadcasting, told IPS.

However, the storyline suggests that success is not the only parameter with which to measure Korean society. Squid Game is a story of the “losers” who dropped out from the success story.

The hero, Gi-Hoon, was in debt after losing his job and squandering his money on a horse-racing game. He got divorced and missed his ten-year-old estranged daughter. Sang-Woo was once a brilliant stockbroker but went broke after gambling away his money.

The drama director Hwang Dong-Hyeok told local media: “In fact, I used to be one of the losers.”

He elaborated that “as a boy of a single-mother at the backstreet of Seoul, I used to be a boy at the back street spending almost the whole day playing the games (all of which) appear in the Squid Game”.

Although many more South Korean people live the “most affluent life” ever in the country’s history, many people feel like they are playing the squid game, where a few winners take all at the expense of many losers.

In the Squid Game, an elderly character Ilnam said to another character, Gi-Hoon, while playing marbles: “Cheating on others is OK, but being cheated, is not OK?”

This soundbite is one that many South Koreans identified with.

“I felt thrilled when I heard this because it sounds like our reality,” said Ko June-Ho, a South Korean fan and a university student told IPS. He added he identified with so much in the story. “When the elderly character Il-Nam met Ki-Hoon after the squid game, Il-Nam said: ‘Life here (outside the game) is more hellish (than the life I spent in the squid game)’.”

In the death game, the losers are separated from their family, friends and community. Like Sae-Byok, a North Korean woman defector struggles to rebuild her lost family connections but all in vain. Or, Ali, a worker from Pakistan, is in debt because his Korean employer didn’t pay him. Even the elderly character Il-Nam, the Squid Game host, is wealthy but misses his old family ties. He tells Gi-Hoon: “I used to live with my family”.

Some experts say that the squid game losers are like South Korean losers, who feel isolated from the glory story.

Ironically, South Korea, one of the world’s most affluent countries, records one of the world’s top suicide rates. South Korea’s suicide rate in 2020 was the average of 25.7 suicides per 100,000 persons, compared with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries average of 10.9 suicides.

While technology businesses, like the online selling platform Coopang, have become successful during the COVID-19 pandemic, restaurant owners were forced to shut down because of regulations. The impact is clear.

Dr Park Chanmin, Seoul Central Mental Health Clinic, reflects this in a recent interview here.

“Since the start of the pandemic, people have become more and more worried about their jobs, they are seeing their incomes falling, and that is having an impact on their day-to-day lives.”

Asia Nikkei reported that a study by the Korea Economic Research Institute found that sales by independent merchants were down 78.5% in the first half of the year from the same period in 2020, with 58% of respondents attributing the decline to COVID.

Sanjog Lama, a Nepali student who studies hotel management in South Korea, believes the show was excellent.

“The cast and crews have done such an outstanding job. On top of that, the content of the series is just superb. It is thrilling, many scenes are gruesome, yet there is meaning in it.”

Another South Korean fan, Lee Ji-Hyeon, said: “The drama was like a puzzle game. I felt thrilled as I was putting the pieces of actors’ talk and each scene together so that I kept thinking about what it means and how it will be related to the next move.”

However, even in the extreme death game, the underlying warmth of the South Korean traditional culture is reflected.

The thriller’s punch line, with “Kkak-Ttu-gi” or “Kkan-Bu”, demonstrates Korean culture. The elderly Il-Nam says to Gi-Hoon: “Let’s make ‘Kkan-Bu” friendship between two of us.”

Kkan-Bu is a life-long friendship that lasts unchanged regardless of whether a person is a loser or a winner. Some characters made decisions that touched the heart of the fans.

Gi-Hoon did not give up their heart even in the live-or-die moment. Ji-Young gives up her life to let her game partner Sae-Byok can win the game. Even the hardened heart of the elderly Il-Nam softens as the senior and becomes friends with warm-hearted Gi-Hoon.

Another female character Mi-Nyo said: “They call me Kkak-Ttu-gi” In Korean children’s games.”

Kkak-Ttu-Gi shows how Korean culture values human connection. Even though the player is poor and cannot contribute, the team won’t kick them out.

There is irony in the money matters. Even though Gi-Hoon emerges as the winner of the game, grabbing $40 million, his life did not change. When he returns home after the game, he finds his mother dead. He remains a divorced, lonely man. Even though he has the prize in his bank account, he doesn’t spend it. Instead, he borrows Won10,000 from a banker and gives it to a street flower-selling woman.

“The drama makes me think about what matters in my life. People risk their lives for money, which turns out to be no solution,” said South Korean fan Lee Ji-Hyeon.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');   Related Articles

• Moving Beyond South Korea’s Hierarchal Business Structure for Sustainable Green Growth
• South Korea Looks at How to Accelerate its Transition to Renewable Energy

An offshore oil rig drilling platform. Globally, fossil fuel subsidies amounted to 5.9 trillion US dollars in 2020, according to an IMF report. Credit: Bigstock

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Nov 16 2021 (IPS)

It sounds incredible: while politicians have been cackling about the climate emergency and profiling in empty promises to halt it, they have spent six trillion US dollars from taxpayers’ money to subsidise fossil fuels in just one year: 2020. And they are set to increase the figure to nearly seven trillion by 2025.

Add to this that governments will double the production of energy from these very same, highly dangerous, global warming generators.

IMF study reports that globally, fossil fuel subsidies were 5.9 trillion US dollars in 2020 or about 6.8 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). And that such subsidies are expected to rise to 7.4 percent of GDP in 2025

In a 2021 study: Still Not Getting Energy Prices Right: A Global and Country Update of Fossil Fuel Subsidies, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reports that globally, fossil fuel subsidies were 5.9 trillion US dollars in 2020 or about 6.8 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). And that such subsidies are expected to rise to 7.4 percent of GDP in 2025.

According to the study, 8 percent of the 2020 subsidy reflects undercharging for supply costs (explicit subsidies) and 92 percent for undercharging for environmental costs and foregone consumption taxes (implicit subsidies).

Efficient fuel pricing in 2025 would reduce global carbon dioxide emissions 36 percent below baseline levels, which is in line with keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees, while raising revenues worth 3.8 percent of global GDP and preventing 0.9 million local air pollution deaths. Accompanying spreadsheets provide detailed results for 191 countries, IMF adds.

Commenting on this fact, António Guterres, the UN Secretary General, said that “… promises ring hollow when the fossil fuels industry still receives trillions in subsidies, as measured by the IMF. Or when countries are still building coal plants…”

Every country, city, company and financial institution must “radically, credibly and verifiably” reduce their emissions and decarbonise their portfolios, starting now, said Guterres.

 

Time running out for oil and gas?

Hard to believe when just 11 countries presented the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance at November’s UN Climate Conference in Glasgow.

Ireland, France, Denmark, and Costa Rica. among others, as well as some subnational governments, launched a first of its kind alliance to set an end date for national oil and gas exploration and extraction.

One of the Alliance members’ representative, Andrea Meza, Minister of Environment and Energy for Costa Rica commented: “Every dollar that we invest in fossil fuel projects is one less dollar for renewables and for the conservation of nature…” she added.

 

Energy Devourers

By 2050, 1.6 billion people living in cities will be regularly exposed to extremely high temperatures and over 800 million people living in cities across the world will be vulnerable to sea level rises and coastal flooding.

According to UN Habitat, which deals with human settlements and sustainable urban development, cities consume 78 percent of the world’s energy and produce over 60 percent of greenhouse gas emissions – while accounting for less than two per cent of the Earth’s surface.

Inger Andersen, the head of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) reported that “We build the equivalent of new buildings the size of Paris every week, and if that is the way we are expected to expand we need to think about how we do it because of climate, biodiversity, livability, quality of life. We need to build better.”,

According to Andersen, building and construction are responsible for 37 percent of CO2 emissions with construction materials like cement, accounting for 10 percent of global emissions.

She also pointed out that over half of the buildings that will be standing in 2060 haven’t been constructed yet.
According to UNEP, only 19 countries have added codes regarding energy efficiency for buildings, and put them in place, and most of future construction will occur in countries without these measures.

“For every dollar invested in energy efficient buildings, we see 37 going into conventional buildings that are energy inefficient. We need to move from these incremental changes because they are way too slow, we need a real sector transformation. We need to build better,” Andersen said, calling for more ambition for governments if they are to fill the promise of net-zero.

 

Cars, buses, trucks, ships…

The transport sector is responsible for approximately one quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Intergovernmental Panel of Experts on Climate Change (IPCC).

The sector’s emissions have more than doubled since 1970, with around 80 percent of the increase caused by road vehicles. The United Nations environment programme UNEP calculates that the world’s transport sector is almost entirely dependent on fossil fuels.

“A world where every car, bus and truck sold is electric and affordable, where shipping vessels use only sustainable fuels, and where planes can run on green hydrogen may sound like a sci-fi movie.”

This is how governments spend trillions of taxpayers’ pockets to subsidise fossil fuels that can only aggravate the ongoing climate emergency.

By Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana and Gillian Triggs
BANGKOK, Thailand, Nov 16 2021 (IPS)

Most countries in the Asia-Pacific region are on track to reach universal birth registration by 2030: an incredible achievement and a significant milestone in realizing human rights and equality. However, as the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed, many weaknesses remain in official recording systems, creating gaps in knowledge about the population and affecting how authorities respond to crises and reach those in greatest need.

Civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems record births and other key life events such as deaths and marriages. Birth registration is fundamental for accessing a wide range of social services, benefits and rights. It provides an individual with a legal identity and a proof of age, which are often requirements to enrol in school, receive healthcare, apply for formal work, register to vote, inherit property, obtain a passport and social protection, or open a bank account. And often it is the hard-to-reach and marginalized populations that are least likely to receive official documentation, including those living in rural, remote, isolated or border areas; minorities; indigenous persons; migrants; non-citizens; asylum-seekers; refugees and people who are stateless or of undetermined nationality.

As regional leaders gather this week for the 2nd Ministerial Conference on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics in Asia and the Pacific,1 the focus will be on regional and country-level achievements, obstacles and challenges in realizing the shared commitment that all people in the region will benefit from universal and responsive CRVS systems by 2024. It marks the midpoint of the Asia-Pacific CRVS Decade (2015-2024) and is an important milestone in the pursuit of creating national CRVS systems that are universal and responsive to the needs of entire populations.

Since 2014, more than 70 million more children in the region have greater access to education, health and social protection because their birth has been officially recorded and recognized through the issuance of a birth certificate. This is a notable achievement and testament to the resolve and commitment of governments to the shared goals made in 2014, the strength of regional cooperation, and the support of 13 development partners, including the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency.

Still, there is work to do. Robust and universal marriage registration systems are needed to prevent girls from being coerced into early marriage, which often threatens their lives and health. The region also has an opportunity to reduce the risk of statelessness and human trafficking, as well as to promote solutions for refugees and asylum seekers by documenting links to the country of origin. UNHCR’s work with national governments to strengthen and broaden civil registration systems to formally register people considered stateless or of undetermined nationality has led to profound policy changes across Central Asia and the legal recognition of every birth, irrespective of parents’ status.

Furthermore, as we have witnessed during the global pandemic, when civil registration systems fail to reach everyone in the country and not everyone is counted, a public health crisis intensifies. Whereas robust CRVS systems enable governments and health authorities to track the pandemic and respond quickly and in an informed manner, a poorly functioning civil registration system masks the true impact of a crisis: deaths go uncounted — especially among the poorest and most vulnerable — and individuals are unable to access humanitarian relief or benefit from financial stimulus measures and, more recently, national vaccination programmes.

Governments that are unable to account for the entire population face barriers to creating and implementing effective public policy and responding to a crisis in an equitable manner. A comprehensive approach to civil registration, with timely and accurate data that are put to the right use, has the power to benefit every individual and inform public policy simultaneously, including by reducing statelessness across the region.

Leaving no one behind through universal birth and death registration demands bold and ambitious outcomes from the upcoming ministerial conference. We have the knowledge, experience and technical ability to create registration systems that are responsive to the needs of the population and can guide us through current and future challenges.

1The 2nd Ministerial Conference on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics in Asia and the Pacific will take place from 16 – 19 November.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is Executive Secretary, ESCAP
Gillian Triggs is Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, UNHCR

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

January 2021 marked a historic event for African economic development –the launching of free trading under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

By Mosh Matsena
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 16 2021 (IPS)

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement promotes socio-economic growth and development in Africa through liberalised trade processes and structures. So far, the 54 African countries have signed the agreement, resulting in immense potential for the growth of trade between African countries.

In fact, it has been hailed as perhaps the “most ambitious free trade project since the creation of the World Trade Organization itself” by Martyn Davies, the managing director of Emerging Markets at Deloitte Africa.

The question is: are African countries harnessing this potential offered by the AfCFTA? According to the African Development Bank (AfDB), intra-Africa exports amount to only 16.6% of total trade.

Lwazi Mboyi, the Acting CEO of the Southern African Cross-Border Road Transport Agency (C-BRTA), says there is a need for strategic partnerships between regional and corridor-based institutions, trade and transport stakeholders (such as the Cross-Border Road Transport Regulators Forum – a regional forum of regulatory authorities) and related bodies.

This would leverage collaborative efforts towards resolving the bottlenecks affecting cross-border transport and regional trade.

“It is imperative that we decisively deal with operational constraints and Non-Tariff Barriers which negatively affect the performance of the cross-border transport system and in the corridors linking the COMESA-EAC-SADC tripartite and beyond,” said Mboyi.

He added: “As we do this, we must aim to ensure that cross-border road transport operations are underpinned by firstly, a harmonised regulatory environment and secondly; a predictable operating environment.”.

Mosh Matsena

The reality is that it’s not just policies and procedural shortcomings that have resulted in limited cross-border trade volumes in Africa. We have to look deeper into why intra-African trade has been slow to gain traction, leading to Africa’s ongoing heavy reliance on foreign imports.

The unfortunate truth is that African countries don’t always view their counterparts on the continent in a favourable light. This is due various reasons such as historical conflicts between countries or regions, as well as poor political and trade relationships.

There are also negative perceptions about doing business in Africa, including lack of basic infrastructure for trade, not living up to global quality standards, having weak governance structures and simply not being a viable choice for successful business operations.

While some of these views do hold some merit (especially in terms of past trade environments), a lot has changed over the last decade. Many African countries have continually, and consistently enhanced and improved their systems and processes relating to trade and economic development.

Sadly, negative perceptions have not always shifted in line with these positive changes and advancements despite data and projections showing huge potential for such countries, and the continent as a whole. This lack of recognition of socio-economic growth indicators negatively impacts intra-African trade.

Stimulating trade

To stimulate intra-African trade, we need to understand the current limitations and opportunities on the continent. There is need to change the narrative about Africa. The narrative needs to be future-forward and reflective of where the continent is headed.

For transformation to truly happen in Africa, we need the buy-in and support of all stakeholders, not just government and policymakers.

Private sector needs to be open to the conversation of doing more and more business on the continent and explore local partnerships to an exponentially larger extent.

However, for this to work, stakeholders and decision-makers need to be committed to tangibly improving trade and development in Africa in terms of raising the bar when it comes to excellence, service delivery, infrastructure, ethical business practice, policies and other related factors.

According to a 2021 white paper released by the World Economic Forum (in collaboration with Deloitte), the current insufficient and inert interlinkages between African economies have exacerbated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the continent’s supply chains.

The report states that “the continent can do little to counter the global forces inclining towards deglobalization, but it can itself embrace a self-supportive regionalism through enhanced intra-African trade, not to mention promoting Africa as an enhanced destination for investment from multinationals”.

Communication is key

In order to successfully boost intra-African economic trade, we need to put in a lot of work to improve trade, development and business systems that promote trade across the continent.

Most importantly, we also have to communicate effectively in order to get the message across and really change the narrative. To achieve this, we need more open channels of communication and dialogue regarding connecting African businesses and organisations to each other.

Platforms such as webinars, round-table discussions, cross-border trade shows such as the upcoming 2021 Intra-African Trade Fair in Durban, South Africa this November, and networking events are effective ways to stimulate interaction that leads to collaboration.

In fact, we all as players within the African economic eco-systems need to be “ambassadors” when it comes to brand building for the continent. Such an approach will benefit businesses, countries, and Africa as a whole – and this “bigger picture” vision is what will move the continent forward in a very intentional and tangible manner.

This communication process should be a productive cycle – make positive changes, communicate about these changes, this then leads to more positive shifts in perceptions, which comes back again to more positive changes.

The bottom line is that, as Africans, we need to take more responsibility for how we see each other, and how others see us.

Let us all rise to the challenge, using the AfCFTA as a springboard to stimulate business relations with our African counterparts. Africa’s time is now, so let’s make it happen – together.

Source: Africa Renewal, United Nations.

Mosh Matsena is the founder and CEO of 1Africa Consulting, a South African-based strategic communications and business solutions agency.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Anis Chowdhury
KUALA LUMPUR and SYDNEY, Nov 16 2021 (IPS)

Quickly enabling greater and more affordable production of and access to COVID-19 medical needs is urgently needed in the South. Such progress will also foster much needed goodwill for international cooperation, multilateralism and sustainable development.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

The World Trade Organization (WTO) will soon decide on a conditional temporary waiver of Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The waiver was proposed by South Africa and India on 2 October 2020. Two-thirds of the 164 WTO members – mainly developing countries – support it.

But sustained European efforts – of Switzerland, the UK and the EU, led by Germany – have blocked progress ahead of the WTO ministerial starting 30 November. Meanwhile, ongoing text-based discussions seem to be leading nowhere.

IP not needed for innovation
Affordable vaccines and drugs have been crucial for eliminating infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV-AIDS, polio and smallpox. But despite strong evidence to the contrary, advocates insist intellectual property rights (IPRs) are needed to incentivize innovation.

Development of COVID-19 vaccines and other therapeutics have been accelerated by considerable government financing. Only six major vaccine developers received over US$12 billion in public funding. Projected revenue from their IP monopolies will exceed tens of billions.

Supply shortages have disrupted vaccine supplies. IP monopolies block competition, making it hard to quickly increase supplies. Thanks to patent protection, for example, only four companies produce plastic bioreactor bags needed to make vaccines.

Cross-border IP enforcement has been enhanced by TRIPS in 1995. The African walkout from the 1999 Seattle ministerial highlighted the WTO’s rich country bias. As part of the compromise to revive WTO talks, TRIPS has included a ‘public health exception’ since 2001.

Anis Chowdhury

Subject to onerous conditions and paying fair compensation, ‘compulsory licensing’ allows making patented products using processes without patentholder consent. Yet, European negotiators still insist that voluntary licensing provisions are enough.

All licensing requires case-by-case, patentholder-by-patentholder, country-by-country negotiations. But licensing is only limited to patents, without requiring sharing ‘industrial secrets’ needed to make complex biochemical compounds.

Time consuming, onerous and costly, such negotiations are beyond the means of most poor countries. Worse, some high-income country (HIC) governments have blocked such licensing, even when agreed to by companies.

IP deepens inequalities
The World Health Organization Director-General has noted four-fifths of vaccine doses went to HICs or upper middle-income countries (MICs). Rich countries – with a seventh of the world’s population – had bought over half the first 7.5 billion vaccine doses by November 2020.

Meanwhile, only 1.5% in low-income countries (LICs) were vaccinated by August 2021. Much of the variation in infection and death rates is due to unequal access, not only to vaccines, but also diagnostic tests, medical therapies, protective equipment, devices, equipment and other needs.

The private-public COVAX facility had promised to deliver two billion vaccine doses by end-2021, and to reach a fifth of the people in 92 LICs. But less than half a billion doses have been delivered so far.

Australian academic Deborah Gleeson warns that even as promising new treatments become available, they will be too costly for most in LICs and many MICs. Diagnostic tests are unequally distributed, with HICs averaging over a hundred times more than LICs.

And even when governments and companies are willing to license others to supply small LICs with low-cost generics, most MICs are excluded. Worse, some high-income country (HIC) governments have blocked such licensing, even when agreed to by companies.

Some HICs have been embarrassed into sharing millions of their unused excess vaccine doses. But of the 1.8 billion doses promised so far, only 14% has gone to LICs. Such donations of funds and other needs undoubtedly help.

But such unpredictable acts of charity – e.g., by HICs who bought far more than they needed – are hardly enough. Manufacturing capacity in the developing world must still be enhanced to meet overall needs. This requires the waiver.

Contrary to the claim that the South lacks manufacturing capacity, vaccines have long been made in over eighty developing countries. Although novel, mRNA vaccine manufacture involves less steps, ingredients and physical capacity than traditional vaccines. MSF has identified many capable producers in the South.

TRIPS waiver urgently needed
TRIPS provides 20-year monopolies for patents. These have often been ‘evergreened’, i.e., extended, sometimes indefinitely, ostensibly to reward additional innovation. Thus, most developing countries have been prevented from meeting their health needs more affordably.

The temporary waiver would allow companies everywhere to produce the required items and use patented technologies without infringing IP. Supplies would increase and prices fall. Currently, access to COVID-19 needs is very inequitable, deepening the yawning gap between HICs and LICs.

The revised 21 May text clarifies the proposed waiver is for at least three years from the decision date, subject to annual review. It would cover products and technologies – including vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, devices, protective equipment, materials, components, methods and means of manufacture.

The proposal also covers the application, implementation and enforcement of TRIPS provisions on patents, copyrights, designs and other protected information, e.g., undisclosed manufacturing blueprints and industrial secrets.

Thus, the waiver has long been urgently needed to contain the pandemic worldwide. But rich countries have successfully blocked progress thus far despite the heavy human and economic toll it has taken.

Game changer
Unlike the more flexible arrangements of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the WTO framework and negotiating priorities have undermined developmental aspirations.

The South has been undermined by rich countries’ betrayal of the 2001 Doha compromise. After ‘softly’ killing the ‘Development Round’ promised then, rich countries can now redeem themselves by supporting the waiver.

Almost two years after COVID-19 was first recognized, the pandemic continues to threaten the world, with poor countries and people now worse affected. The devastation could be partly mitigated if developing countries could meet their pandemic needs without fear of litigation for IP infringement.

A TRIPS Council meeting is scheduled for 16 November, before the four-day WTO Ministerial Council meeting from 30 November. The waiver would also encourage renewed international cooperation, long undermined by destructive rivalry and competition.

By refusing to make concessions, rich countries would not only jeopardize the WTO, but also the world’s ability to urgently contain the pandemic. With complementary financial resource transfers, they can restore the goodwill urgently needed for international cooperation and to revive multilateralism.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');   Related Articles

• End Vaccine Apartheid
• End Vaccine Apartheid Before Millions More Die
• IP, Vaccine Imperialism Cause Death and Suffering, Delay Recovery
• Intellectual Property Cause of Death, Genocide
• Intellectual Property Monopolies Block Vaccine Access

Georgina Wabano and her mother cooking traditional food for school children in Peawanuck, ON, December 18, 2019. : © 2019 Daron Donahue

By Shantha Rau Barriga
Nov 15 2021 (IPS)

“Nothing about us without us” – that was the call from the indigenous rights advocate Ghazali Ohorella from the Alifuru people in the Maluku Islands, Indonesia during a panel at the climate summit in Glasgow.

This plea was echoed by many activists from groups marginalized by systemic oppression whom I met at COP26: young activists, women, people with disabilities, older people, refugees, people from the Global South – all of whom are the most affected but have contributed the least to the climate crisis.

These experts spoke firsthand of the impacts of the climate crisis on their communities, the ongoing struggle to have their voices heard, and the concrete actions needed to solve this existential crisis which affects us all.

Worldwide, women farmers make up nearly half of the agricultural labor force, and produce up to 80 percent of food crops in developing nations yet, in many countries, women have less access to resources, such as land rights, credit, markets, education and technology

Instead of shutting out these voices, governments should listen and learn from them.

The slogan I heard from Ohorella has long been used by disability rights advocates and the session reminded me of the negotiations toward the UN treaty on the rights of people with disabilities, which was adopted in 2006.

During that process, I saw firsthand the benefits of inclusion. Governments came to respect and recognize the expertise of people with lived disability experience, which led to major advancements on their rights. It also resulted in changed mindsets, where people with disabilities were no longer seen as objects of charity, but holders of rights.

Fifteen years later, climate activists at COP spoke about the disconnect between the knowledge held by those with lived experience and the governments seated at the table making decisions on their behalf. Activists like Gabriele Peters from British Columbia and Ayakha Melithafa from South Africa urged world leaders to work with them and learn from them.

We should listen to and incorporate this know-how to build the kind of systems change we need to respond to the climate crisis, with equity. For example, involving women in local forest management has had positive effects for both livelihoods and conservation. This is already happening in Indonesia and Brazil.

Worldwide, women farmers make up nearly half of the agricultural labor force, and produce up to 80 percent of food crops in developing nations yet, in many countries, women have less access to resources, such as land rights, credit, markets, education and technology.

By leveling the playing field through legal reforms, targeted investments, and increased women’s meaningful participation, according to Project Drawdown, a resource for climate solutions, farm yields will rise and there is less pressure to deforest. Ensuring that women are included in the design and implementation of climate planning would heighten chances of success.

Overall, lands securely held and managed by Indigenous peoples also have lower rates of deforestation than comparable areas, evidencing their successful forest management practices. Advancing the rights of marginalized groups – an urgency in and of itself – has major climate benefits for the planet.

Not every impact of climate change can be solved with new technologies. Front line communities with deep knowledge of their lands are also carrying out successful adaptation strategies. In Australia, first responders are learning from aboriginal people, who lower the risk of bushfires by reducing fuel levels on the forest floor. In Mexico, farmers hit by increasingly long droughts and diminishing crop yields are developing groundbreaking solutions to restore degraded land to productivity.

In Canada, some First Nations maintain strong traditional food sharing networks that have helped address climate-driven loss of food through sharing harvests with at-risk members of the community, while others have built up community science programs that monitor climate change impacts on their environment.

Frontline communities are also developing healing practices to process grief caused by the permanent loss or alteration of ecological features that once sustained livelihoods and cultural practices. Artists are also leading the movement from artistic expression to policy change. As the climate crisis increasingly takes a toll on mental health, particularly among youth, we should support the arts, culture, and healing advanced by climate and environmental justice and Indigenous rights movements.

Meaningful participation in decision-making processes that affect citizens’ lives is not only a demand, it’s a right. While the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement recognize the importance of participation, including “a country-driven, gender-responsive, participatory and fully transparent approach” for adaptation, states (and COP organizers) aren’t meeting these requirements. For Indigenous people, their free, prior, and informed consent is required for implementation to be successful.

As Ridhima Pandey, a youth climate activist from India, told us this week: “If we really want to treat the climate crisis as a crisis, it’s really important for the governments, organizations and activists to all come together, to start taking concrete action.”

Wise words from a 14-year old. Will governments listen?

Excerpt:

Shantha Rau Barriga is the disability rights director and the lead on Strategy Development at Human Rights Watch

Credit: EBRD

• EBRD Transition Report 2021-22 highlights growing gaps in the use of online services and digital skills since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic
• Investment returns on digital services are far higher in economies with greater digital skills
• A “brain drain” of digitally skilled workers is affecting some countries’ prospects

By Richard Porter
LONDON, Nov 15 2021 (IPS)

A growing digital divide is emerging as a major threat to a robust recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, according to new research by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

The Bank’s Transition Report 2021-22 ‒ System Upgrade: Delivering the Digital Dividend reveals the increasing gap between economies that have stepped up their use of online and digital services and those that have fallen further behind.

The report focuses on the 38 economies in which the EBRD invests. The Bank found that, since the start of the pandemic, people who are wealthier, living in cities and more advanced economies are better able to order goods and services online, do their banking through the internet and work from home.

Elsewhere, large parts of the population remain excluded from these opportunities and are more at risk of losing their jobs as digital technology becomes more widely used. Furthermore, many economies in the EBRD regions are experiencing significant “brain drain”, as people with strong digital skills move abroad.

While highlighting the digital divide, the report also shows how much progress has been made on the provision and use of digital and online services since the start of the Covid-19 crisis.

EBRD Chief Economist Beata Javorcik said: “In many countries, large parts of the economy, as well as schools and universities, went online in a matter of days when the Covid-19 pandemic hit. The digitalisation process is destined to continue and will remain one of the key forces shaping our world. Yet there are large digital divides between the EBRD regions and the advanced economies, between the various economies in the EBRD regions and within individual economies. Addressing these divisions is vital to their success.”

Helping countries and clients with their transition to digital technology is one of three strategic priorities for the EBRD, along with tackling climate change and supporting economic inclusion.

The EBRD announced its new strategic approach on accelerating the digital transition setting out how it will use all the instruments at its disposal ‒ policy, investment and advisory activities ‒ to unleash the transformational power of digital technology in the economies where it invests.

A new index of digital transformation

The Transition Report 2021-22 introduces a new index of digital transformation as a way of assessing the divide between and within countries. In the economies where the EBRD operates, only Estonia scores in excess of the average of more developed economies. The index calculates a score based on 22 different measures of the availability and use of digital technologies.

Estonia’s index score of 92.2 is the highest in the EBRD regions. Turkmenistan’s is lowest, at 16.1, while Tajikistan’s is next, at 23.7. The quality of regulation and online access to government services is one of the main reasons for these low scores.

Among other EBRD investee economies, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco post low scores for digital skills, while Lithuania and Slovenia come in higher, alongside Estonia.

The key constraint on digital development is insufficient skills. There is evidence that more educated people in the EBRD regions have been improving their digital skills, catching up with the most developed nations. However, older people and those with lower levels of education and income are increasingly being left behind.

This is having an increasing impact as digital technologies are used more widely in all industries. Occupations that are more exposed to automation through the use of artificial intelligence have seen more job losses. Workers with fewer digital skills find it harder to adapt to new roles that become available.

The report also looks at the effect on economies and on financial services of investing in digital technologies.

On investment, it finds that the returns on digital-intensive capital are significantly higher in economies with stronger digital skills. A case study looking at high-speed broadband in Turkey shows that firms with better connectivity are more likely to export and introduce new products.

In Russia, smaller firms have increased staff numbers by about 19 per cent, on average, following the roll-out of 4G mobile technology.

Access to financial services for households and small businesses has been improved by the growth of digital finance. However, at the same time, banks have been reducing the number of physical branches.

And while some alternative finance platforms have emerged, they have been primarily focussed on debt rather than equity funding – unlike some more developed markets.

Beata Javorcik said: “The future is digital, and our task is to deliver the digital dividend as quickly and smoothly as possible. I firmly believe that with the right kind of digital transition, the economies of the EBRD regions will enjoy increased prosperity, better social outcomes and greater environmental sustainability.”

Lack of trust and low levels of digital skill constrain remote working

Richard Porter is Director of Communications at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

Groundnut farm in Torit, South Sudan. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS.

By External Source
Nov 15 2021 (IPS)

Africa has pinned its hopes on agriculture for the creation of jobs and the resulting reduction of poverty. But its role is being stymied by the high cost of financing.

Limited investment, high interest rates and restricted support means African businesses are losing out to foreign competitors.

If we want to transform the continent’s food security and fortunes, then African Governments must help create an economic environment conducive to local investment by, for example, amortizing loan rates and driving billion dollar investments into the sector.

And all stakeholders—including government, donors, and the private sector— must work towards a more equitable and inclusive approach to build local investment for sustainable agricultural growth.

Agriculture in Africa is the sector that offers the greatest potential for poverty reduction and job creation, particularly among vulnerable rural populations and urban dwellers with limited job opportunities.

Dr. Mavis Owureku-Asare

To transform the continent’s food security and fortunes, African Governments should urge the mainstream banks to amortize loan rates and drive billion dollar investments into the sector. All stakeholders—including government, donors, and the private sector—must align and target their investments towards a more equitable and inclusive approach that will support the locals and lead to a sustainable growth in agriculture.

Agriculture today accounts for 23% of GDP in Sub Saharan Africa, and growth generated by agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa is estimated to be 11 times more effective in reducing poverty than GDP growth in other sectors—a vital multiplier given that 65% of the continent’s labor force is engaged in agriculture.

While an absolute increase in investment is essential, Africa has been the land of opportunity for foreign investors. African entrepreneurs are facing some of the world’s most challenging business conditions. The resources necessary to grow a business—such as finance, human and social capital, and infrastructure are less accessible in Africa. Finance, in particular, is costlier in Africa than in other parts of the world.

The most obvious of all the challenges, most African-led start-ups have difficulties in raising capital. Entrepreneurs and small business owners cannot easily access finance to expand business. They are usually faced with problems of collateral, high interest rates, extra bank charges, inability to evaluate financial proposals, limited financial knowledge, making it difficult for small businesses to access finance.

On the other hand, American venture capital and private equity is dominating Africa, but it’s mostly funding other foreign founders as native entrepreneurs struggle to raise financing. Some attribute the funding inequity to a mix of issues, including lack of experience with and understanding of the African market, general mistrust, and the tendency to fund companies based in the West that are operating in Africa.

For example, in Ghana, foreign businesses who borrow from their home countries assess 3-5% loans to do business in Ghana whereas the locals have to borrow at 23% to compete with these companies. Even with continental free trade these foreign businesses have about 20% advantage over local companies and startups who borrow from within. Even with efforts from the government to compel prevailing commercial banks to reduce loan rates, Ghanaian businesses and startups are still losing out with the implementation of continental free trade agreement.

Dr. Cedric Habiyaremye

Even though some agro-processing businesses registered with the Ghana Free Zone Authority and Ghana Investment Promotion Centre are exempt from income tax for ten years from paying duty on the importation of equipment, lowering interest rates will go a long way to solidify some of these interventions for startups who must borrow money to start a business.

Tax incentives alone cannot account for other challenges for the lack of infrastructure and problems faced in Ghana’s investment environment. The government should also address land acquisition challenges with local and traditional authorities who own most of the land in Ghana.

By having inequity in funding, Africa’s start-up environment is missing out on a lot of talent and losing out on building many great companies to transform the continent’s food systems.

To build the continent’s next start-up giants, a few things are needed; setting up SME help desks and developing relevant products for the emerging African entrepreneurs; government agencies should engage to provide credit support to help de-risk bank lending, reducing the need for collateral as well as the cost of borrowing; banks across the continent need to work with entrepreneurs to help them prepare viable business proposals in accordance with their lending rules.

Public-private partnerships are a strong pillar and a good support system for agribusiness start-ups to leverage. For example, a high-yielding economic opportunity in the agri-food systems sector needs numerous components: capacity development adapted to local entrepreneurs’ needs and labor markets opportunities; facilitation and mentorship in adequately accessing land, credit, and markets; and enhancing the opportunities for agripreneurs inclusion in policy and strategic debates.

To be sure, there are exciting steps in the right direction. Organizations like Food Systems for the Future are offering capital and wraparound services tailored to Agtech, Foodtech, and Innovative, scalable market businesses with a potential for increased profitability and nutrition impact in Sub Saharan Africa. In addition, Norrsken Foundation is building East Africa’s largest hub for entrepreneurship and innovation in Kigali, Rwanda, for education, innovation, and entrepreneurship—forming an ecosystem that enables entrepreneurs to build strong companies that solve local and global challenges. Google, The Tony Elumelu Foundation, and Seedstars World (to name a few) are also playing an active role in providing funding for these green entrepreneurs.

However, this challenge is still very far from being resolved on the entire continent.

There is a need to enable African entrepreneurs in the food systems to develop or enhance their business ideas and create a high-quality business plan to support the launch or growth of their agri-business.

Until then, agriculture will fail to live up to its potential for economic growth in Africa.

 

Dr. Mavis Owureku-Asare is a Food Scientist based in Ghana. She is The Head of Senior Research Scientist at the Biotechnology and Nuclear AaAgriculture Research Institute where She is leading research and providing solar drying technologies to reduce postharvest losses in the Tomato value chain. She is a Food Safety Consultant and a 2020 Aspen New voices fellow.

Dr. Cedric Habiyaremye is a Rwandan crop scientist, Research Associate at Washington State University, Research Lead at Food Systems for the Future Institute, and agricultural entrepreneur developing solutions for a zero-hunger and malnutrition-free world. He is a New Voices Senior Fellow at The Aspen Institute. www.CedricNotes.Com

 

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 15 2021 (IPS)

The United Nations, which consists of 193 member states, has long been accused of discrimination against staffers who number over 315,000 and spread across 56 UN agencies and entities worldwide.

But most of these are deeply rooted system-wide. A wide-ranging staff survey, both in New York and Geneva last year, revealed that discrimination was based either on race, religion, gender or nationality.

Last year, the UN Secretariat in New York, faltered ingloriously, as it abruptly withdrew its own online survey on racism, in which it asked staffers to identify themselves either as “black, brown, white., mixed/multi-racial, and any other”.

But the most offensive of the categories listed in the UN survey was “yellow” – a widely condemned Western racist description of some Asians, including Japanese, Chinese and Koreans.

https://www.globalissues.org/news/2020/08/21/26749

The Asian Group at the UN, comprising over 50 member states, is one of the largest among regional groups in the world body, and UN staffers of Asian origin have now formed a UN Asia Network for Diversity and Inclusion (UN-ANDI).

Shihana Mohamed of Sri Lanka, a founding member, and one of the coordinators of UN-ANDI, told IPS: “Our mission is to work towards a culture in which inclusivity is integrated into all aspects of work and life in the Organization and diversity is the foundation of talent and productivity.”

“We believe that we all have the power to stop discrimination, eliminate oppression and bring an end to ignorance and indifference. We stand against racial prejudice and intolerant attitudes and actions around the world and within the Organization,” said Mohamed, who is currently Human Resources Policies Officer at the International Civil Service Commission (ICSC).

“We strongly support all initiatives for promoting inclusion, justice, dignity, and combating racism and discrimination in all forms, inside and outside the United Nations.”

“We believe that our perspectives will enrich the discussions on any organizational culture-related issues and facilitate the journey towards the paradigm that is engrained in the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, said Mohamed, who has more than 20 years of experience in the UN system, having previously worked at UNESCAP, UNDESA, UNOHRM and UNDPKO.

The other co-ordinators of UN-ANDI include Abul Hasnat Monjurul Kabir of Bangladesh (UN System Coordination Advisor/Team Leader, Gender Equality and Disability Inclusion in UN Women), Cirila Villaflores of the Philippines (Human Resources Associate, UNDP) and Xuejun Wen of China (Reviser, Chinese Translation Service, DGACM, UN Secretariat).

A zoom meeting of Asians last month. Credit: UN-ANDI

In a concept paper released recently, the Network says it welcomes Asian staff and affiliated personnel within the UN system — including diplomats, interns, consultants and former staff, who are either Asians or of Asian descent.

Meanwhile, a 2014 General Assembly Resolution, proclaiming the “International Decade for People of African Descent”, called upon Member States and international organizations to take action “to promote equality and inclusion of persons of African descent and to directly engage with persons of African descent for the purposes of doing so”.

The call for action resulted in the inauguration by staff members of the United Nations People of African Descent (UNPAD). One of its primary goals was “to establish a platform for the coordination of the engagement between the UN Administration and UN personnel of African descent, promoting equal inclusion, and facilitating access for persons of African descent in the UN system while increasing the visibility to the issues facing them.”

Currently, there are also other interest groups such as UN Globe for LGBTQ community and UN Feminist Network for women and gender parity in the UN system.

http://www.ipsnews.net/2020/08/racism-un-practice-preach/

Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury, a former Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations (1996-2001), told IPS raising awareness is important, but raising one’s voice is more important. He described a recent zoom meeting as a landmark event with Asian staffers meeting publicly for the first time as a group.

“You have to raise your voice, you have to speak up loudly as an Asian, as a member of this network, and in a focused way to speak up whenever there is an opportunity or create an opportunity to speak up,” he said, while addressing the Group last month.

“That is what we need— attention, global attention– that is what I believe is important for us to remember”.

The African group’s power comes from their solidarity as a group — wherever they are, as civil society, as staff, as member states, and they are very solidly together, and they are supportive of each other, said Chowdhury, a former UN Under-Secretary=General and High Representative of the UN (2002-2007).

He pointed out that the African network also includes ambassadors and other diplomats. “That is a very wonderful example for us, the Asians, to follow because staff members can do only so much.”

“But member States’ understanding and support to their objective, their demands, their needs, their frustrations are essential. So, Asian network should make an effort to reach out to the ambassadors or diplomats and start telling them about this network, tell them that we need your support, we need you to back us up when the moment comes in the 5th Committee most of the time or in some occasions in their “umbrella” statements in the General Assembly,” he advised.

But “we need to say that this should apply to the Asian staff members also. That way we will be able to raise our voice and make ourselves heard very well and that that is very important.”

“As you approached me, you should approach also the former staff members from Asia who are available in New York. It is better to consult them and to get to learn from their experience, from their energy, from their ideas”, he declared.

According to the 2021 annual report of the International Civil Service Commission (ICSC A/76/30), the largest number of unrepresented (17) and underrepresented (8) countries in the UN system were in the Asia and the Pacific region (para. 148).

In 10 or more organizations with no formal guidelines for geographical distribution, staff were not represented from 64 countries and among them, 25 countries were from the Asia. Twelve countries did not have staff in 15 of the organizations, with seven of these countries from Asia and the Pacific (para. 155).

At the recent zoom meeting, Akiko Yuge of Japan, a former Assistant Administrator of the UNDP, said: “As the world advances towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, countries, communities, and people in the Asia and the Pacific region have shown remarkable progress, success, and resilience.”

Their local knowledge and wisdom, resourcefulness, and innovation have certainly promoted the SDGs in many ways.

“The great diversity and wealth of backgrounds, cultures, and abilities in our region make us stronger and creative. This is indeed the power and strength of Asia and the Pacific nations and people”.

“As we build back better, let us maximize this power of diversity while ensuring inclusion of every person in our society and economy”, said Yuge who has served in UNDP offices in Thailand, Indonesia, and Bhutan, and also travelled to many countries in the Asia and the Pacific region.

Xuejun Wen, Coordinator of UN-ANDI/Reviser, Chinese Translation Service, DGACM, UN Secretariat, New York, said inequality and racism have long been problems in human history and the pandemic has seen them become more acute and apparent. That has led to the founding of UN-ANDI.

“It is a very very young network, but we have started to see a great deal of interest in it, because many of us as Asians have experienced or seen the impact and harm that unfair practices have brought on us. The problems will not be solved overnight, but we believe that a thousand-mile journey is composed of a great many single steps. Every tiny effort will count”.

Cirila Villaflores, Coordinator of UN-ANDI/ Human Resources Associate, UNDP, New York, said UN-UN-ANDI believes in the sharing of human experiences which reveal the dynamism and complexity of human nature.

“Any social or cultural discrimination in our basic personal rights on the grounds as indicated in the UN charter is incompatible with our calling to love what is true and good. UN-ANDI serves as a platform to freely exchange such ideas in order to grow and learn to cherish what is right”

Yuan Lin, UN-ANDI member/ Information Systems Officer, MONUSCO, Goma Office, Democratic Republic of Congo said “UN-ANDI provides an excellent platform to bring voices to the UN staff of Asian heritage. It allows many of the talented and hard-working UN colleagues from Asian member states and background to address organizational matters that are relevant to them.”

Purna Sen, Visiting Professor at London Metropolitan University and the former Executive Coordinator and Spokesperson on Addressing Sexual Harassment and Other Forms of Discrimination, said beyond cultural and regional representation, the UN-ANDI has a key role to play to become a trusted route through which issues that are troubling the UN are addressed increasingly, responsively.

Acknowledging that neither racism nor sexual harassment should exist inside the UN, the Secretary-General has acknowledged that they both do. UN-ANDI can aspire to offer support, advice and succor to those so harmed and advise the SG on how to address these issues in ways that build upon the experiences of survivors, said Sen.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

One of the family photos taken after the laborious end of the 26th climate summit in Glasgow, which closed a day later than scheduled with a Climate Pact described as falling short by even the most optimistic, lacking important decisions to combat the crisis and without directly confronting fossil fuels, the cause of the emergency. CREDIT: UNFCCC

By Emilio Godoy
GLASGOW, Nov 13 2021 (IPS)

Developing countries will surely remember the Glasgow climate summit, the most important since 2015, as a fiasco that left them as an afterthought. That was the prevailing sentiment among delegates from the developing South during the closing ceremony on the night of Saturday Nov. 13, one day after the scheduled end of the conference.

Bolivia’s chief negotiator, Diego Pacheco, questioned the outcome of the summit. “It is not fair to pass the responsibility to developing countries. Developed countries do not want to acknowledge their responsibility for the crisis. They have systematically broken their funding pledges and emission reduction commitments,” he told IPS minutes after the end of the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) on climate change in Glasgow.

The 196 Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) ignored the public clamor, which took shape in the demands of indigenous peoples, young people, women, scientists and social movements around the world for substantive measures to combat the climate crisis, even though the goal of containing global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is barely surviving on life support.

The Glasgow Climate Pact that came out of the summit finally mentions the need to move away from the use of coal. But it had to water down the stronger recommendation to “phase out” in order to overcome the last stumbling block.

In addition, COP26 broke a taboo, albeit very tepidly, after arduous marches and counter-marches in the negotiating room and in the three drafts of the Glasgow Pact: there was a mention of fossil fuels as part of the climate emergency. And it also stated the need to reduce “inefficient” subsidies for fossil fuels.

But the summit, where decisions are made by consensus, avoided a strong stance in this regard. It also avoided moving from recommendations to obligations for the next edition, to be held in Egypt, and those that follow, while the climate crisis continues causing severe droughts, devastating storms, melting of the polar ice caps and warming of the oceans.

In a plenary session that was delayed by several minutes, the final declaration underwent a last-minute change when India, one of the villains of the meeting – along with Saudi Arabia, Australia and Russia – asked for the phrase “phasing out” of coal to be replaced by “phasing down”, a change questioned by countries such as Mexico, Liechtenstein and Switzerland.

A paradoxical fact at the close of COP26, where civil society organizations complained that they were left out, was the decision of several countries to endorse the final text even though they differed on several points, including the fossil energy face-lifts.

“Today, we can say with credibility that we have kept 1.5 degrees within reach. But its pulse is weak. And it will only survive if we keep our promises. If we translate commitments into rapid action,” said conference chairman Alok Sharma, choking back tears after a pact – albeit a minimal one – was reached by negotiating three drafts and holding arduous discussions on the fossil fuel question, right up to the final plenary.

COP26 chair Alok Sharma blinked back tears during his closing speech at the climate summit, expressing the tension of negotiating the Glasgow Climate Pact, due to the hurdles thrown in the way of a consensus by the big coal and oil producers. CREDIT: UNFCCC-Twitter

The South is still waiting

Lost amidst the impacts of the climate emergency and forgotten by the industrialized countries, the global South failed to obtain something vital for many of its nations: a clear plan and funding for loss and damage, an issue that was deferred to COP27 in Egypt.

Mohamed Adow, director of the non-governmental Power Shift Africa, said the pact is “not good enough…There is no mention of solidarity and justice. We need a clear process to face loss and damage. There should be a link between emission reduction, financing and adaptation.”

The final decision by China, the United States, India and the European Union to turn their backs on a global fossil fuel exit and deny climate support to the most vulnerable nations left the developing world high and dry.

“There are things that cannot wait to COP27 or 2025. To face loss and damage, the most vulnerable countries need financing to battle the impacts on their territories,” Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, global climate and energy leader for the non-governmental World Wildlife Fund, told IPS.

Climate policies were, at least on the agenda, the focus of COP26.

The summit focused on carbon market rules, climate finance of at least 100 billion dollars per year, gaps between emission reduction targets and needed reductions, strategies for carbon neutrality by 2050, adaptation plans, and the working platform for local communities and indigenous peoples.

But the goal of hundreds of billions of dollars per year has been postponed, a reflection of the fact that financing for climate mitigation and adaptation is a touchy issue, especially for developed countries.

The corridors of the Blue Zone of the Scottish Events Campus, where the official part of the 26th Climate Conference was held in the city of Glasgow, were emptying on Saturday Nov. 13, at the end of the summit, which lasted a day longer than scheduled and ended with a negative balance according to civil society organizations. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Offers and promises – on paper

One breakthrough at COP26 was the approval of the rules of the Paris Agreement, signed in the French capital in December 2015, at COP21, to form the basis on which subsequent summits have revolved. By 2024, all countries will have to report detailed data on emissions, which will form a baseline to assess future greenhouse gas reductions.

The agreement on the functioning of carbon markets creates a trading system between countries, but does not remove the possibility of countries and companies skirting the rules.

Industrialized countries committed to doubling adaptation finance by 2025 based on 2019 amounts. In addition, COP26 approved a new work program to increase greenhouse gas cuts, with reports due in 2022.

It also asked the UNFCCC to evaluate climate plans that year and its final declaration calls on countries to switch from coal and hydrocarbons to renewable energy.

Apart from the Climate Pact, the summit produced voluntary commitments against deforestation, emissions of methane, a gas more polluting than carbon dioxide, and the phasing out of gasoline and diesel vehicles.

In addition, at least 10 countries agreed to put an end to the issuing of new hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation licenses in their territories.

Furthermore, some thirty nations agreed to suspend public funding for coal, gas and oil by 2022.

Demonstrations demanding ambitious, substantive and equitable measures to address the climate crisis continued throughout the 14-day climate summit in Glasgow, which ended on the night of Saturday Nov. 13 with disappointing results for the global South. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Finally, more than 100 stakeholders, including countries and companies, signed up to the elimination of cars with internal combustion engines by 2030, without the major automobile manufacturers such as Germany, Spain and France joining in, and a hundred nations signed a pact to promote sustainable agriculture.

All of the 2030 pledges, which still need concrete plans for implementation, imply a temperature rise of 2.8 degrees C by the end of this century, according to the independent Climate Action Tracker.

The climate plans of the 48 least developed countries (LDCs) would cost more than 93 billion dollars annually, the non-governmental International Institute for Environment and Development said in Glasgow.

In addition, annual adaptation costs in developing countries would be about 70 billion dollars, reaching a total of 140 to 300 billion dollars by 2030, according to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

But the largest disbursements are related to loss and damage, which would range between 290 billion and 580 billion dollars by 2030, and hence the enormous concern of these nations to obtain essential financing, according to a 2019 study. And their disappointment with the results of the Oct. 31-Nov.13 conference.

During his presentation at the closing plenary, Seve Paeniu, a climate envoy from Tuvalu, an island nation whose very existence is threatened by the rising sea level, showed a photo of his three grandchildren and said he had been thinking about what to say to them when he got home.

“Glasgow has made a promise to guarantee their future. It will be the best Christmas gift that I can bring home,” he said. But judging by the Climate Pact, Paeniu may have to look for another present.

IPS produced this article with the support of Iniciativa Climática of Mexico and the European Climate Foundation.

Related Articles

• Social Movement Voices Fall on Deaf Ears of Governments at COP26
• In Glasgow, Indigenous People Pound the Table for Their Rights

Diabetes test, Mauritius. Credit: Nasseem Ackbarally/IPS

By Bruno Kappa
NAIROBI, Nov 12 2021 (IPS)

Although for different reasons, diabetes appears to be one of the few cases that put rich and poor societies at equal footing. In either case, diabetes is caused by wrong, dangerous to health nutritional habits.

In fact, people in industrialised countries tend to consume the so-called “junk food”, while in poor nations diabetes is caused by malnutrition and undernourishment.

And it is a seriously worrying health problem. In fact, globally, an estimated 422 million adults were living with diabetes as of 2014, compared to 108 million in 1980. Since then, the figure has doubled.

Now have a closer look: every five seconds one person develops diabetes…every 10 seconds one person dies of diabetes…every 30 seconds a limb is lost to diabetes.

The rate at which the global prevalence of diabetes has nearly doubled since 1980 is that it has risen from 4.7% to 8.5% in the adult population.

This reflects an increase in associated risk factors such as being overweight or obese, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

 

What is it about?

WHO defines diabetes as a chronic disease, which occurs when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin, or when the body cannot effectively use the insulin it produces. Insulin is a hormone that regulates blood sugar.

This leads to an increased concentration of glucose in the blood (hyper-glycaemia).

 

Types of diabetes

Type 1 diabetes (previously known as insulin-dependent or childhood-onset diabetes) is characterized by a lack of insulin production.

Type 2 diabetes (formerly called non-insulin-dependent or adult-onset diabetes) is caused by the body’s ineffective use of insulin. It often results from excess body weight and physical inactivity.

Gestational diabetes is hyper-glycaemia that is first recognised during pregnancy, with blood glucose values above normal but below those diagnostic of diabetes.

Women with gestational diabetes are at an increased risk of complications during pregnancy and at delivery. These women and possibly their children are also at increased risk of type 2 diabetes in the future.

 

The impact

The United Nations has repeatedly warned that diabetes is a major cause of blindness, kidney failure, heart attacks, stroke and lower limb amputation.

Why? Hyper-glycaemia, or raised blood sugar, is a common effect of uncontrolled diabetes and over time leads to serious damage to many of the body’s systems, especially the nerves and blood vessels.

Between 2000 and 2016, there was a 5% increase in premature mortality from diabetes.
And in 2019, an estimated 1.5 million deaths were directly caused by diabetes. Another 2.2 million deaths were attributable to high blood glucose in 2012.

 

Faster rise in low and middle income countries

Over the past decade, diabetes prevalence has risen faster in low and middle-income countries than in high-income countries.

The Middle East and North of Africa are among the highest impacted due to wrong diets. In this region, people consume excessive amount of carbohydrates, pastries with high doses of sugar and honey, and very sugary drinks, in addition to incorporating “junk food” in their diet.

 

Obesity and diabetes: the cause-effect

Overweight and obesity are defined as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that may impair health.

Body mass index is a simple index of weight-for-height that is commonly used to classify overweight and obesity in adults. It is defined as a person’s weight in kilograms divided by the square of his height in meters (kg/m2).

The World Health Organisation reports the following facts and figures:

• Worldwide obesity has nearly tripled since 1975.

• In 2016, more than 1.9 billion adults, 18 years and older, were overweight. Of these over 650 million were obese.

• 39% of adults aged 18 years and over were overweight in 2016, and 13% were obese.

• Most of the world’s population live in countries where overweight and obesity kills more people than underweight.

• 39 million children under the age of 5 were overweight or obese in 2020.

• Over 340 million children and adolescents aged 5-19 were overweight or obese in 2016.

 

Access to diabetes care

Every year, 14 November marks World Diabetes Day. The theme for World Diabetes Day 2021-23 is access to diabetes care.

According to it, 100 years after the discovery of insulin, millions of people with diabetes around the world cannot access the care they need. People with diabetes require ongoing care and support to manage their condition and avoid complications.

A healthy diet, regular physical activity, maintaining a normal body weight and avoiding tobacco use are ways to prevent or delay the onset of type 2 diabetes.

In view of the above, change in nutritional habits appears to be almost a matter of life or death.

Efforts to improve nutrition of breastfeeding mothers has resulted in an innovative maize product which includes small fish which often go to waste. Credit: Zany Jadraque/unsplash

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Nov 12 2021 (IPS)

During the COVID-19 lockdown in Uganda, a breastfeeding mother struggled to improve the health of her malnourished child. With the closure of her local health centre, she worried the child could die without urgent medical treatment.

Her child was saved. The mother was given a fish-enriched maize meal, developed by a local team of researchers under the NutriFish project and donated to the local Mulago Hospital in Kampala.

It is not hard to see why the food innovation was effective. The fish-enriched maize meal flour is packed with essential micronutrients and protein. A 200g serving of the fish-enriched maize meal, known locally as posho, provides up to 50 percent of a mother’s daily requirements in terms of calories, vitamin A, iron and zinc.

“Posho is good for me even though its appearance can put one off, it is delicious,” a breastfeeding mother wrote in hospital comments after receiving the maize meal, developed to help tackle widespread nutritional deficiencies, particularly among women of reproductive age and children under five years.

According to the 2017 Uganda Demographic and Health Survey, 29 percent of children under five years are stunted while 4 percent are wasted, and 11 percent are underweight. Furthermore, about 32 percent of women aged 15-49 are anaemic, making it vital for them to access foods rich in micronutrients such as iron, zinc and calcium, which are found in fish.

A nutritionally enhanced maize meal suitable for breastfeeding mothers has been developed by the NutriFish project and donated to hospitals in Uganda. Credit NutriFish

NutriFish researchers developed the nutrient-enriched meal using under-utilized small fish (USF) species. The meal is created by blending maize with Silverfish – a small lake fish species locally known as “mukene”, which is less preferred despite being highly nutritious because of its pungent smell and grittiness.

Dorothy Nakimbugwe, one of the co-principal investigators in the NutriFish project, explained that the enriched maize meal had been developed with other products, including baby food, a seasoning, a snack, and a sauce. All the products contain under-utilized fish and Nile Perch by-products (NPB), rich in calcium, zinc and iron, making them ideal micronutrient deficiency busters for vulnerable groups in Uganda.

“The fish-enriched maize meal was evaluated by breastfeeding mothers to improve their ability to produce adequate breast milk to feed their babies,” Nakimbugwe told IPS.

NutriFish researchers are helping reduce losses of underutilized small fish and Nile Perch by-products through improved post-harvest and processing technologies such as solar tent dryers.

The NutriFish project is an initiative of the Cultivate Africa’s Future (CultiAF) Fund, a partnership between the Australian’s Center for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and Canada’s International Development Research Centre. The project promotes the handling and processing of small fish to improve the quality and shelf life and avoid waste.

Researchers from the National Fisheries Resources Research Institute (NaFIRRI) estimate that up to 40 percent of the small fish caught in Ugandan lakes are lost due to poor handling and rudimentary processing methods.

These losses have negative implications for fish supply and the incomes of actors in the small fish value chains, particularly women who dominate fish processing, says Jackson Efitre, a senior lecturer in fisheries and aquaculture at Makerere University and the NutriFish project’s principal investigator.

Currently, the small fish are processed using open sun drying or on raised racks which take a long time, exposing fish to dust, insects, and bacterial contamination, Efitre said. He added there are persistent challenges with the current methods of processing and preserving fish to avoid loss.

Each Ugandan consumes between 10 and 12 kg of fish per year which is lower than the 25 kg per person per year recommended by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, according to Efitre.

Declining stocks of large fish species, coupled with high exports, gender inequalities and post-harvest losses, have affected supply, Efitre said.

The Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition (BCFN) has developed the Double Pyramid Model to raise awareness of foods’ environmental and nutritional impacts. The Health Pyramid orders food according to the frequency of consumption with the base, including foods that should be eaten more frequently, such as fruit, vegetables and whole grain.

Legumes and fish are recommended protein sources, while red meat and high glycaemic foods should be eaten in moderation. The Climate Pyramid indicates that animal-based products have the highest contribution to climate change while plant-based ones have the smallest.

Research by BCFN also notes that fish and legumes should be the primary source of protein in diets for many communities. The researchers note that sustainably increasing fish production also faces challenges related to large scale exploitation and experience of domestic fish production and climate change, making it important for consumers to aim for a balanced and diverse diet.

“The Double Health and Climate Pyramid shows that all foods can be part of a healthy and sustainable diet when consumed with appropriate frequency. Typically, foods that have a low climate impact are also those that should be consumed at a higher frequency for personal health,” according to the report.

The report further notes that food waste occurs during industrial processing, distribution, and final consumption of food. In developing countries, food waste occurs mainly through losses upstream in the production chain.

BCFN has identified possible ways to prevent food waste through information, diet education, and the involvement of governments, institutions, producers, and distributors in the food value chain.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');   Related Articles

• Barilla Foundation Report Highlights Need for Food Companies to Align with Sustainable Development Goals
• Table Banking Helping Women in Kenya to Put Food on the Table
• If Women Farmers were Politicians, the World Would be Fed, says Danielle Nierenberg

By External Source
Nov 12 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Patricia Danzi was appointed Director General of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) in May 2020. For nearly three decades, she has dedicated her career to serving the world’s vulnerable populations.

Danzi was with the International Committee of the Red Cross since 1996, serving as a delegate, with increasing responsibilities, in the Balkans (Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo), Peru, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola. At head office, she was appointed Deputy Head of Operations for the Horn of Africa and Political Advisor to the Director of Operations. She served as Head of Operations for America between November 2008 and April 2015 and has been Regional Director for Africa from May 2015 until she assumed the post of director general of the SDC on 1 May 2020.

Danzi studied in Lincoln, Nebraska, and in Zurich and holds a master’s degree in agricultural economics, geography and environmental science. She undertook postgraduate work in development studies in Geneva and speaks seven languages.

Born in Switzerland, Danzi is the daughter of a Swiss German secondary school teacher and a Nigerian diplomat and the eldest of six siblings. In her student days she taught mentally challenged children and spent time teaching in a township in South Africa just after Nelson Mandela was elected President. Danzi represented Switzerland in athletics at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. She has two adult sons.

ECW: The Geneva Global Hub for Education in Emergencies was officially launched in January. How will this new hub impact our global efforts to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals, most specifically SDG4?

Patricia Danzi: In emergencies, protracted crises and forced displacement situations, education plays a key role for affected children. A structure and the possibility to learn helps them and their families to project themselves into a brighter future and not to lose hope.

Yet education is still too often a rather neglected sector in humanitarian action and tends to fall through the cracks when durable solutions are discussed or development interventions in crisis contexts are designed.

That is why Switzerland pledged at the 2019 Global Refugee Forum to promote Geneva as the Global Hub for Education in Emergencies – a hub which will strive for collective action to raise the profile of EiE, both politically and operationally. Geneva is an excellent place to host the Global Hub for Education in Emergencies. The city is the humanitarian capital and the second UN HQ. A large number of member states representations, hundreds of NGOs, the private sector, academic institutions and many actors across sectors that are relevant for education are present in Geneva. This provides a perfect opportunity for collective thinking and action.

As co-founding members of the Geneva Global Hub for EiE, the pledge was co-signed by Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the Global Education Cluster (GEC), the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE), UNICEF, the University of Geneva, UNESCO and UNHCR. Switzerland is extremely happy that, since its launch in January 2021, already 21 new organizations have joined the EiE Hub and we welcome many more, including other member states. Only together can we bring EiE to scale and positively impact the education of crisis-affected girls and boys and make a steps towards achieving SDG4!

ECW: Since its inception, Education Cannot Wait (ECW) has mobilised US$827 million through its trust fund and over US$ 1 billion in aligned funding through its Multi-Year Resilience Programmes (MYRPs). Switzerland has been a key partner in achieving our goals and delivering for the millions of children and adolescents that are being left behind by conflict, COVID-19 and the climate crisis. But a huge US$1 billion funding gap remains. How can we fill this gap and align public sector funding, private sector funding and blended finance modalities to achieve our goals?

Patricia Danzi: First, awareness has to rise! The world needs to understand better that if education is not addressed in a timely and proper manner, human capital is lost – sometimes for generations. Investing in education is therefore key.

Second, providing funds for EiE is a collective responsibility. It should be both an act of solidarity and a genuine interest of bilateral and multilateral donors, of the private sector and of crisis-affected countries themselves. In addition, we should all become better in engaging more in preventive and preparing action to make national education systems more crisis resilient. This demands forward-looking approaches of actors working in development and better collaboration between different stakeholders.

Third, we need to become more creative and more flexible in finding new ways of working and of financing. Public donor models of grants have their limits, so has ODA. Engaging the private sector more actively – and holding it accountable – will be important. SDC is, for example, piloting a new way of generating funding and impact for education through a recently initiated project called “Impact Linked Financing for Education” where public and private money is pooled.

ECW: Localisation is a key component of ECW’s global movement to provide crisis-impacted children and adolescents with the safety, hope and opportunity of a quality education. How can we accelerate efforts to achieve the targets in the Grand Bargain Agreement through ECW-financed programmes?

Patricia Danzi: We congratulate ECW for the efforts it makes in this regard. Switzerland endorsed the Grand Bargain. Strengthening local capacity – be it Ministries of Education, decentralized education authorities, local communities or national civil society and NGO actors – is an important concern for Switzerland’s engagement in education, such as it is in other sectors. Only local ownership can bring sustainable change. Moreover, in many emergency contexts, the first responders are parents, teachers, local civil society organizations or educational authorities before the international community arrives and – sadly – often overruns what already exists instead of building upon it and strengthening it.

Every EiE-intervention run by an international actor should have a local counterpart. Capacity strengthening must be a building block in any partnership. Handing over ownership, engaging more flexibly and predictably is key.

ECW: You represented Switzerland in the women’s heptathlon during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. What a remarkable achievement! How can sports benefit girls caught up in emergencies and protracted crises and how can we empower a future generation of powerful women advocates, athletes, doctors, engineers and leaders?

Patricia Danzi: Sports can provide boys and girls with a lot of self-confidence. It can help channel anger, frustration and increase resilience. It prepares one well to be humble when winning and resilient when losing. These are great lessons for life. Generally, we can all mentor young people, learning from and with them rather than lecturing them.

ECW: Before your appointment as the Director-General for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), you worked with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). How can education help to prevent and limit human suffering and contain the harmful effects of armed conflict on people’s lives and dignity?

Patricia Danzi: If education is not available, opportunities are lacking. Wars often last for decades and sometimes generations have not seen the inside of a classroom. During war, it is important that parties to a conflict respect international humanitarian law. Uneducated fighters lack that knowledge.

When people are forced to flee fighting, families often choose the location where to displace to according to the education that is available for their children. Education helps children to have a structured life and to forget the dire situation they are facing. They can become children again. When equipped accordingly, school can also help them overcome trauma and start the healing process.

ECW: You are living an interesting life! As the daughter of a Swiss-German teacher and a Nigerian diplomat – and a leading role model for women and girls everywhere – we believe that readers are leaders. Can you please share with us two books that have positively influenced you and that you would recommend to others?

Patricia Danzi: Two books that have influenced me and which I recommend are A Long Walk to Freedom and Half of a Yellow Sun. My thoughts on both:

• A Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela: Humbling, a must-read for every person that aspires for leadership. A lesson of how to overcome one’s prejudice, judgements and lead selflessly, taking in lessons from life and showing a true interest in people.
• Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Describing the different sides of the Biafra Civil War – the author wasn’t even born then – makes the reader slip under the skin of the characters, gives readers a different look at what war does to people, how it affects their lives and how it makes them do things they never thought they were capable of (good and bad). It sheds a different and nuanced light on “victims” and “perpetrators”. My grandfather was killed in that war and the book, therefore, brings many accounts of my relatives to life again.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

Photojournalist Eti-Inyene Godwin Akpan reported on the 2020 protests against police violence in Nigeria. Cedit: Eti-Inyene Godwin Akpan via CP

By Jonathan Rozen
NEW YORK, Nov 12 2021 (IPS)

The photos showed blood-soaked concrete, a gashed open thigh, and an injured protester grimacing in pain on the ground. Taken by photojournalist Eti-Inyene Godwin Akpan on October 20, 2020, the images tell the story of Nigerian forces’ mass shooting of anti-police brutality protesters at Lagos’ Lekki Toll Gate, an incident the government continues to deny.

One year after Akpan published the photographs on social media, he planned to display them in Lagos at a museum exhibit marking the anniversary of the protests against police brutality that swept Nigeria late last year.

But he postponed the show indefinitely after receiving two calls summoning him, without explanation, to the local offices of Nigeria’s Department of State Services (DSS), a federal security agency.

“I now sleep with one eye closed, trying to watch my back every second,” Akpan told CPJ in a phone call. “They know I know some things and I have some images…”

The calls came minutes after Akpan gave a live interview on local TV about his work documenting the 2020 protests. Akpan said that he asked the callers for a formal, emailed summons.

He feared that without it, the DSS might mistreat him or hold him for a prolonged period without access to a lawyer or his family, the kind of behavior that CPJ has documented in the past. The calls echoed intimidation tactics he said he faced a year earlier following his posting on social media about the toll gate shooting – tactics that led him to temporarily flee the country.

Reached by CPJ via messaging app, DSS spokesperson Peter Afunanya denied that his agency called Akpan in early October 2021. He also dismissed concerns over the DSS’ history of detaining journalists.

“Right in front of my eyes, I saw dead bodies,” reads the caption on Akpan’s Instagram post from the October 2020 shooting that killed protesters, according to local and international media and rights groups. It was the deadliest incident in last year’s protests, known as the End SARS movement – a reference to the protesters’ call to dismantle Nigeria’s Special Anti-Robbery Squad unit.

Journalists covering the protest movement were beaten, harassed, and fined by law enforcement. One reporter, Onifade Emmanuel Pelumi, was found dead at a mortuary on October 30, 2020; he was last seen alive in police custody after he covered unrest around the protests in Lagos.

Images of the Lekki Toll Gate killings are particularly sensitive, Akpan told CPJ, because they contradict the government’s account. In a press conference, Nigerian Minister of Information and Culture Lai Mohammed marked October 20 this year by calling it “the first anniversary of the phantom massacre,” which took place “without blood or bodies.” Last year the Nigerian army admitted it used live rounds at the toll gate, but said its forces only shot into the air.

After Akpan first published the pictures, he told CPJ that anonymous callers pressured him to take down the Instagram post and replace it with one saying the images were fake. He said his bank account was frozen and that DSS agents arrived at his office looking for him, which DSS spokesperson Afunanya denied.

After that, Akpan decided to heed friends’ advice to leave the country. In the days before he fled, Akpan told CPJ that he believed the images he had captured could contribute to the historical record of the protests. But to protect this evidence for future generations and continue his work, he needed to be safe.

He fled to Ghana by crossing over land through Benin and Togo – a journey of hundreds of miles facilitated by CPJ and Maxime Domegni, an editor with the Global Investigative Journalism Network.

Akpan did not know anyone in Benin or Togo. Nor did he speak the local languages of those two francophone countries. But CPJ introduced him to two local investigative journalists — Igance Sossou in Benin and Ferdinand Ayité in Togo – whose help would prove invaluable.

Sossou and Ayité have both faced reprisal for their work and told CPJ in separate interviews that they agreed to assist Akpan out of journalistic solidarity.

“I understand the risk hanging over journalism in the West African sub-region,” Sossou, who was arrested in late 2019, imprisoned for six months, and fined over social media posts, told CPJ via messaging app. “If you are a journalist who experienced what I experienced between 2019 and 2020 in Benin, you are necessarily sensitive to the case of Eti-Inyene.”

After Akpan slipped across Nigeria’s western border, he met Sossou in Cotonou, Benin’s economic capital. Sossou said he assisted Akpan with changing his money into local currency and finding a car and driver to transport him to Togo’s border, which Akpan crossed on foot before finding a cab to Lomé, Togo’s capital.

Ayité, whose newspaper L’Alternative has been repeatedly suspended and who continues to face harassment by authorities, told CPJ he met Akpan in Lomé. Ayité arranged and paid for Akpan’s dinner and overnight accommodation as well as a motorcycle driver who could safely navigate the border with Ghana the following morning. Once across, Akpan caught a bus from the Aflao border town to Accra.

“We are just journalists and we have no borders. Wherever one of us is threatened, all journalists are concerned,” Ayité told CPJ. “Solidarity must be the cardinal value of our profession and I think that this is what guided Ignace Sossou and my modest self to come to the aid of [Akpan].”

Akpan told CPJ that his travel across Togo and Benin would have been “so difficult, if not impossible” without this assistance. “I would have been attacked or duped,” he said. “It was an amazing collaboration.”

After arriving in Accra, a friend helped Akpan find accommodation. He stayed in hiding for four months but decided to return to Nigeria in February 2021. The stresses of exile, exacerbated by the pandemic, made him struggle with loneliness and depression, he said.

“I felt that there was still work for me to do in Nigeria. These stories [of the protests] still need to be told,” Akpan said, adding that he initially avoided telling his mother and sisters of his return because it would make them worry.

Despite one sister’s advice never to set foot back in Nigeria, he felt that the protests had diminished enough to reduce the risk. But the intimidating calls returned this October, as Akpan promoted his photo exhibition.

Akpan told CPJ that the callers claiming to be DSS agents never sent him an emailed summons, as he had requested. After their calls, he received other calls from people asking him questions about his photography.

He said the people claimed to be potential clients, but when he requested the callers send their details over email, they never followed up, compounding his fears. He said he now takes extra precautions to secure his communications and store his information.

Yet, Akpan has not stopped trying to record historic events. He went out with his camera on this year’s October 20 anniversary to photograph a memorial marking the Lekki Toll Gate killings, where journalists were again attacked by police.

The solidarity he experienced over the last 12 months has given him courage and strengthened his commitment to speaking the truth, he told CPJ. “I rest assured that I’m not alone,” he said.

Jonathan Rozen is Senior Africa Researcher at the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

WTO is hoping for an end to fishing subsidy negotiations which have been ongoing for more than 20 years. Fishmonger in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, displays his catch for sale. Credit: Ignatius Banda/IPS

By Ignatius Banda
Bulawayo, ZIMBABWE , Nov 11 2021 (IPS)

With subsidies of global fisheries back on the World Trade Organisation’s agenda, experts are calling for African governments to upscale the protection of the sector long plagued by activities that continue to threaten the continent’s blue economy.

The chair of the negotiations, Ambassador Santiago Wills of Colombia, earlier in November 2021 presented a revised draft text on fisheries subsidies. This will be used for discussions aimed at resolving remaining differences ahead of the 12th Ministerial Conference from November 20 to December 3.

The Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala called the subsidies “harmful” when the ministers met on July 15.
She said she was cautiously optimistic that there could be an agreement on how to cap subsidies that contribute to overfishing.

Now she is more emphatic and has been engaging political leaders at the highest level to get their support for a successful conclusion to the highest levels, to get their support for a successful conclusion to the 21-year-long negotiations.

“The eyes of the world are really on us,” she said. “Time is short and I believe that this text reflects a very important step toward a final outcome. I really see a significant rebalancing of the provisions, including those pertaining to special and differential treatment, while, at the same time, maintaining the level of ambition.”

Meanwhile, independent researchers say harmful practices ranging from overfishing and too much reliance on fisheries for livelihoods have to be addressed by African governments.

Researchers at the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies say unfair subsidies go towards inputs such as fuel and larger fishing vessels which often go beyond regulated permits while also pushing out smaller players.

Amid those challenges, African countries still have to compete in global fish markets with rich countries which heavily subsidise the sector. This creates sustainable development gaps that will slow the realisation of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SGD) 14, which seeks the sustainable use of marine resources.

Guided by the SGDs, the WTO gave the trade ministers ahead of the July 15 meeting the “task of securing an agreement on disciplines to eliminate subsidies for illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and to prohibit certain forms of fisheries subsidies and contribute to overcapacity and overfishing,”

Developing and least developed countries will take centre stage of these negotiations to ensure they get a fair deal, with the meeting at the end of November, according to remarks by Okonjo-Iweala.

According to FAO, Africa is home to thriving artisanal fishing communities, employing more than 12 million people, with global demand projected to increase 30 percent by 2030.

There are concerns that low-income coastal fishing communities face the harshest challenges of depleting stocks as they compete with more sophisticated illegal fishing syndicates.

Experts warn that African countries need to develop strategies that will ensure less reliance on fisheries, ensuring the sector’s long-term sustainability.

Rashid Sumaila of the Fisheries Economics Research Unit at the University of British Columbia, Canada, says African governments have to do more to see fewer nets cast in the continental waters.

“Governments must remove the incentive to overfish,” Sumaila told IPS.

“They must also improve national fisheries management and push for regional cooperative management of the sector and make illegal fishing unprofitable,” he said.

How African governments achieve that on a continent plagued by low incomes and a thriving informal sector could prove difficult, researchers from the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies contend.

By WTO estimates, global fisheries subsidies stand at around USD35 billion per year.

Citing data from the Food and Agriculture Organisation(FAO), the WTO says fish stocks are at risk of collapsing in many parts of the world due to overexploitation. It estimates that 34 percent of global stocks are overfished, “meaning they are being exploited at a pace where the fish population cannot replenish itself.”

While the WTO has cited what it calls “lack of political impetus” in the past two decades to resolve the contentious fisheries subsidies and protect smaller global players, Alice Tipping, a researcher at the International Institute for Sustainable Development’s Sustainable Trade and Fisheries, says despite the challenges of the past 20 years, collective action among both high- and low-income countries is the only way forward.

“The WTO negotiations are both technically and legally challenging because they require collective action from governments, but there is a clear benefit in having rules applied at the multilateral level so that everyone has to contribute to the solution,” Tipping told IPS.

Experts say the two-decade deadlock highlights the weak negotiating clout of African and other low-income countries, with some rich countries insisting on an exemption from the harmful subsidies ban while simultaneously allowing their fishing fleets to operate illegally on African shores.

As DG Okonjo-Iweala put it, “the fisheries subsidies negotiations are a test both of the WTO’s credibility as a multinational negotiating forum.”

“If we wait another 20 years, there may be no marine fisheries left to subsidise – or artisanal fishing communities to support,” Okonjo-Iweala warned.

The African continent finds itself in a bind as the African Union’s Agenda 2063 describes the fisheries as “Africa’s Future,” recognising the sector’s key role as a “catalyst for socio-economic transformation.”

This, however, highlights the continent’s reliance on fisheries when researchers are pushing for the decongestion and up-scaled regulation of artisanal fishers.

“A lot of artisanal fisheries is unreported and unregulated mainly because authorities do not affect enough means to document and manage those fisheries,” said Beatrice Gomez, Coordinator of the Coalition for Fair Fisheries Agreements (CFFA).

The CFFA is a platform of European and African groups raising awareness on the impact of EU-Africa agreements on African artisanal fishing communities.

“It would be better to have the activities of artisanal fishers documented properly to show their real importance for jobs and food security to ensure sustainability and long-term future,” Gomez told IPS by email.

“Ideally, for this work, artisanal fisheries have to be co-managed in collaboration with fishing communities, but it takes money, time and human resources which (African) governments do not have or do not want to devote to this.”

The World Bank says fisheries contribute USD24 billion to the African economy, making it a huge attraction for the poor.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');   Related Articles

• WTO Inches Closer To Agreement on Harmful Fishing Subsidies
• What Africa Expects of New WTO Chief Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

The biofuel from this mini biogas power plant in the municipality of Entre Rios do Oeste, in the southern Brazilian state of Paraná, is supplied by local pig farmers, who earn extra income while the municipality saves on energy costs for its facilities and public lighting. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 11 2021 (IPS)

The number of victims of serious burns, some fatal, has increased in Brazil. Without money to buy cooking gas, the price of which rose 30 percent this year, many poor families resort to ethanol and people are injured in household accidents.

A larger number of poor Brazilians have returned to using firewood, less explosive but also a cause of accidents and of health-damaging household pollution. It is cheaper in the countryside, while in the cities people burn boards and old furniture, not always as widely available as alcohol or ethanol, which can be purchased at any gas station.

In fact, biofuels, such as wood, ethanol, biodiesel and biogas, have been competing with fossil fuels since the industrial use of coal began in England in the 18th century. Economic and environmental factors influence private and public decision-making with regard to their production and use.

A commitment made by 103 countries at the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) on Climate Change, which is taking place in the Scottish city of Glasgow during the first 12 days of November, to reduce methane emissions from 2020 levels 30 percent by 2030, may now give biofuels a new boost.

Replacing oil, gas and coal with other sources will help contribute to that goal.

“In Brazil, the demand for ethanol was imposed for economic reasons: high oil prices; and energy reasons: the risk of shortages,” said Regis Leal, an aeronautical engineer and specialist in Technological Development at the state-owned National Laboratory of Biorenewables.

Ethanol in the seventies

Ethanol is a fuel produced from sugarcane, corn or any vegetable with a high sucrose content, which is mainly used in motor vehicles. Brazil is the world’s second largest producer of ethanol, after the United States.

The National Alcohol Programme (Proalcohol) was created in Brazil in 1975, two years after the first big oil crisis that more than tripled the price of a barrel of oil. Brazil, which at the time imported more than 80 percent of the crude oil it consumed, lost the momentum of an economy that had grown by more than 10 percent per year between 1968 and 1973.

With alcohol or ethanol replacing gasoline or mixed with it, the aim was to reduce dependence on imported oil, while intensifying the search for hydrocarbon deposits for self-sufficiency, which Brazil only achieved three decades later.

This sugar mill and ethanol distillery are in the southern Brazilian state of São Paulo, much of whose territory has been turned into one large sugarcane field. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

In the United States, the use of ethanol began to be fomented in the 1980s, but for environmental reasons, Leal told IPS in an interview by telephone from Campinas, a city in the interior of the state of São Paulo, near the country’s largest sugar and ethanol-producing area.

In cities located at high altitudes, such as Denver, the capital of the western U.S. state of Colorado, at 1,600 metres above sea level, lower oxygen levels lead to incomplete combustion of petroleum derivatives and, consequently, greater carbon monoxide contamination and health damage, he explained.

Mixing in MTBE (methyl tert-butyl ether), a combination of chemicals, added oxygen, but because it was a highly toxic product it was soon replaced by ethanol, made from corn in the case of the U.S.

In both Brazil and the United States, biofuel production also bolstered or stabilised the price of sugar and corn by absorbing surplus production.

This is an aspect that is misunderstood by those who condemn biofuel production for apparently reducing food production. This is a false dilemma, because it must be analysed on a case-by-case basis, said Suani Coelho, coordinator of the Bioenergy Research Group (GBio) of the Energy and Environment Institute at the University of São Paulo.

“In Tanzania, a FAO (U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation) study evaluated the production of ethanol from manioc. The hypothesis seemed doubtful, also because the energy balance of cassava is not so good. But in Tanzania there is a surplus of the crop that cannot be exported. So it is worth taking advantage of it to make ethanol,” said Coelho, a chemical engineer with a doctorate in energy.

In Brazil, where ethanol is made almost exclusively from the more locally productive sugarcane, corn was incorporated in the industry in 2017, with a distillery in Lucas do Rio Verde, in the state of Mato Grosso, the country’s largest producer of soybeans, corn and cotton.

Lucas do Rio Verde is in the state of Mato Grosso, the region of Brazil with the highest soybean and corn production, which is crowded with agribusiness warehouses and silos. The first corn ethanol distillery was set up there to take advantage of the surplus corn production. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

“Corn is produced there as a second crop, after soybeans, in the same area, in a volume that is not viable for export. So it makes sense to use it for ethanol,” she told IPS by telephone from São Paulo.

Ethanol led to a great improvement in the urban environment.

In Brazil it has already replaced 46 percent of gasoline, according to the sugarcane industry association (Unica), with an annual production of 35 billion litres. It is used as fuel alone in motor vehicles or as a 27 percent blend in gasoline.

The United States produces 50 to 70 percent more than Brazil, depending on the year. Together, they account for about 84 percent of world production, a level of concentration that hinders free international trade in ethanol.

Biofuels or electrification

Coelho and Leal do not agree with the claim that the electrification of transportation tends to hinder the expansion of biofuels to other countries and major producers.

Developing countries do not have the capacity to make large investments to build new infrastructure, such as electric recharging points for vehicles. Moreover, “Brazil is going through a crisis, it is increasing fossil fuel thermoelectric generation, making the energy mix dirtier, and it has no other way to increase the supply of electricity,” argued Coelho.

Leal said the demand for ethanol can grow a great deal. “Any increase in its blend in the United States, which accounts for half of the world’s gasoline consumption, will have a huge impact,” he said.

The ethanol expert also questions the environmental and climatic advantages of electric vehicles, taking into consideration the entire production cycle, transportation, batteries, employment and other aspects.

View of a vast oil palm plantation in Tailandia, a municipality in the state of Pará, in Brazil’s eastern Amazon rainforest. The intent to turn palm oil into biodiesel did not work out, because the oil serves a more attractive market in the food and chemical industries. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Biodiesel was not as successful as ethanol, but it also improved the urban environment and has a future, with some additional effort.

It is produced from vegetable or animal oils, even used, and other fatty materials.

Its main problem is that it is more expensive and therefore cannot compete with diesel fuel in order to replace it, Leal pointed out. Currently the diesel blend has been reduced from 12 to 10 percent, so as not to further drive up the cost of diesel fuel, the price of which is rising worldwide.

Another biofuel, which has been around for a long time but is now expanding, is biogas.

It is not only clean, but actually helps to reduce pollution, since it is the gas generated from garbage, wastewater, agricultural waste and animal excrement, which is no longer released into the air, thus reducing greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

Its use is incipient in Brazil, but it has the potential to replace 70 percent of the diesel fuel consumed in the country, at a lower cost, according to the Brazilian Biogas Association. And big cities and the country’s enormous agricultural sector offer plenty of raw materials.

By means of a simple refining process, biogas is converted into biomethane, equivalent to natural gas and, therefore, a fuel that can even be used to run heavy vehicles. If used for electricity generation, it could meet 36 percent of national demand, the association of companies in the sector estimates.

Small biodigesters produce biogas that could prevent the use of firewood and ethanol, and the resultant accidents and pollution, among poor families, especially in the countryside, noted Coelho.

“Appropriate public policies and low-interest loans for investments” could boost biogas and its environmental benefits, at a time when international financial institutions are cutting financing for coal-fired and other fossil fuel power plants, Leal said.

The two experts stressed that all these biofuels play an important role in making green hydrogen, produced from renewable energy sources, viable and recognised as central to the world’s energy future.

Biofuels have served humanity since its earliest past, not always in a sustainable way. The first was firewood, on which 2.8 billion people in the world still depend, according to an October 2020 World Bank report. But it is environmentally unsound, and leads to deforestation and household pollution.

The oils and resins that illuminated cities and homes in centuries past, before the advent of electricity, were also destructive. Oils extracted from whale blubber and from the eggs of Amazonian turtles are examples, almost driving certain species to extinction.

The main drivers of antimicrobial resistance include the misuse and overuse of antimicrobials; lack of access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene for both humans and animals; poor infection and disease prevention and control in health-care facilities and farms; poor access to quality, affordable medicines, vaccines and diagnostics; lack of awareness and knowledge; and lack of enforcement of legislation. Credit: Bigstock.

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Nov 11 2021 (IPS)

The following information is based on investigations and studies carried out by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Antimicrobials – including antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals and antiparasitics – are medicines used to prevent and treat infections in humans, animals and plants.

 

What is antimicrobial resistance?

Antimicrobial Resistance occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites change over time and no longer respond to medicines making infections harder to treat and increasing the risk of disease spread, severe illness and death

Antimicrobial Resistance occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites change over time and no longer respond to medicines making infections harder to treat and increasing the risk of disease spread, severe illness and death.

As a result of drug resistance, antibiotics and other antimicrobial medicines become ineffective and infections become increasingly difficult or impossible to treat.

 

Why is it a global concern?

The emergence and spread of drug-resistant pathogens that have acquired new resistance mechanisms, leading to antimicrobial resistance, continues to threaten our ability to treat common infections.

Especially alarming is the rapid global spread of multi- and pan-resistant bacteria (also known as “superbugs”) that cause infections that are not treatable with existing antimicrobial medicines such as antibiotics.

Furthermore, a lack of access to quality antimicrobials remains a major issue. Antibiotic shortages are affecting countries of all levels of development and especially in health-care systems.

 

Change or loose

In other words, new antibacterials are urgently needed – for example, to treat carbapenem-resistant gram-negative bacterial infections as identified in the WHO priority pathogen list.

However, if people do not change the way antibiotics are used now, new antibiotics will suffer the same fate as the current ones and become ineffective.

Without effective tools for the prevention and adequate treatment of drug-resistant infections and improved access to existing and new quality-assured antimicrobials, the number of people for whom treatment is failing or who die of infections will increase.

Medical procedures, such as surgery, including caesarean sections or hip replacements, cancer chemotherapy, and organ transplantation, will become more risky.

 

What accelerates the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance?

AMR occurs naturally over time, usually through genetic changes. Antimicrobial resistant organisms are found in people, animals, food, plants and the environment (in water, soil and air).

They can spread from person to person or between people and animals, including from food of animal origin.

The main drivers of antimicrobial resistance include the misuse and overuse of antimicrobials; lack of access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene for both humans and animals; poor infection and disease prevention and control in health-care facilities and farms; poor access to quality, affordable medicines, vaccines and diagnostics; lack of awareness and knowledge; and lack of enforcement of legislation.

 

Present situation

For common bacterial infections, including urinary tract infections, sepsis, sexually transmitted infections, and some forms of diarrhoea, high rates of resistance against antibiotics frequently used to treat these infections have been observed world-wide, indicating that we are running out of effective antibiotics.

 

Drug resistance in malaria parasites

Another example is the case of the emergence of drug-resistant parasites which possess one of the greatest threats to malaria control and results in increased malaria morbidity and mortality.

 

Drug resistance in fungi

The prevalence of drug-resistant fungal infections is exasperating the already difficult treatment situation. Many fungal infections have existing treatability issues such as toxicity especially for patients with other underlying infections (e.g. HIV).

This is leading to more difficult to treat fungal infections, treatment failures, longer hospital stays and much more expensive treatment options.

 

A week to raise awareness

This year’s World Antimicrobial Awareness Week (WAAW) marked 18 to 24 November was previously called the World Antibiotic Awareness Week.

But from 2020, it would be called the World Antimicrobial Awareness Week to include all antimicrobials including antibiotics, antifungals, antiparasitics and antivirals.

The Week is a global campaign aiming at raising awareness of antimicrobial resistance worldwide and encouraging best practices among the general public, health workers and policy makers to slow the development and spread of drug-resistant infections.

Is obtaining more and more commercial benefits a reason enough to transform the healers into killers?

Extreme weather like widespread drought is causing economic losses amongst farmers in Africa. Credit: UN Photo/Albert González Farran

By Nibal Zgheib
LONDON, Nov 11 2021 (IPS)

Targeted action in agriculture could have a massive impact on climate change, according to a joint brief by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the Investment Centre of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), published at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow scheduled to end November 12.

The mitigation potential of crop and livestock activities, including soil carbon sequestration and better land management, is estimated at 3 to 7 percent of total anthropogenic emissions by 2030.

The potential economic value of mitigating these emissions could amount between US$ 60 billion and US$ 360 billion, the two institutions say.

“Agriculture must become the focus of a global coalition for carbon neutrality and we need to support both mitigation and adaptation. We must enable smallholder farmers to adapt and to benefit economically through the provision of environmental services,” said Mohamed Manssouri, Director of the FAO Investment Centre.

“Now is the time to grasp this vital opportunity to reduce emissions and increase carbon sequestration, while restoring biodiversity, supporting health and nutrition and generating new business opportunities through food and land-use systems.”

The brief highlights the huge potential for engaging food and land-use systems in the fight against climate change. It also shows how the agriculture sector is uniquely placed to be part of the carbon-neutral solution by reducing emissions, while maximizing its potential to act as a carbon sink by absorbing more carbon from the atmosphere than it releases. A full report will be published in early 2022.

The agriculture sector generates a high amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, with agri-food systems causing an estimated 21 to 37 percent of total global emissions. But agriculture is also a victim of emissions.

Farmers are often among the first witnesses to climate change. Rising temperatures, changing rainfall patterns and supply-chain disruptions are already impacting food production, undermining global efforts to end hunger.

The EBRD/FAO brief shows how sustainable, targeted investments and interventions will make agriculture part of the climate solution. Reaching carbon neutrality for agri-food systems essentially means lowering GHG emissions throughout the entire value chain, improving farming practices, using agricultural lands for carbon sequestration, promoting sustainable agriculture and avoiding land clearance.

The brief sets out key action areas for policymakers and investors, including the development and enhancement of sound governance mechanisms and the mainstreaming of carbon neutrality in corporate strategies.

Achieving the right policy mix and agreeing on carbon accounting methods can unlock major investments in greening across agri-food systems.

“The investment universe is evolving quickly, as banks align their lending with the net zero objective and asset managers look for opportunities to decarbonise their portfolios while managing risks associated with climate change,” said Natalya Zhukova, EBRD Director, Head of Agribusiness.

One of the main actors in addressing climate change is the private sector. Country policies, strategies and roadmaps are all important in signalling regulatory changes and creating incentives to drive the accurate valuation and pricing of carbon.

While the private sector will be needed to mobilise billions, equally, it stands to gain by reducing costs, mitigating risks, protecting brand values, ensuring long-term supply-chain viability and gaining competitive advantage.

Nibal Zgheib is Communication Adviser, EBRD and former Programme Assistant, World Food Programme

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');