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Urgent Global Call to Save 222 Million Dreams for Children Impacted by Crises

Wed, 06/22/2022 - 11:24

Students attending class at the Souza Gare school in the Littoral region, Cameroon. The school hosts displaced children who have fled the violence in the North-West and South-West regions. Photo credits: ECW/Daniel Beloumou

By Joyce Chimbi
Nairobi, Jun 22 2022 (IPS)

It is not enough that they were robbed of their childhoods and their shattered young lives defined by bombs, bloodshed and death. Now, crisis-impacted school-aged children are falling off the academic bridge that could lead them out of the carnage.

Not only has the number of crisis-impacted school-aged children requiring education support grown from an estimated 75 million in 2016 to 222 million today, but they are also furthest left behind proficiency standards, according to a new report by the UN global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, Education Cannot Wait (ECW).

A young Palestinian refugee attends school in Lebanon.
Photo credits: ECW/ Fouad Choufany

“Around the world, 222 million children are having their education cruelly interrupted. Their dreams for the future are snatched away by conflicts, displacement and climate disasters, UN’s Secretary-General António Guterres.

The study paints an alarming picture of the academic life of crisis-impacted children inside makeshift refugee settlements, damaged classroom walls and communities torn apart by war and disaster.

Of the 222 million crisis-affected children and adolescents in need of urgent education support, “an estimated 78.8 million are out of school. Close to 120 million are in school but not achieving minimum proficiency in math or reading. One in ten crisis-impacted children attending primary or secondary education is achieving proficiency standards.

Further, 84 percent of out-of-school, crisis-affected children and adolescents live in protracted crises. Of these, about two-thirds are in ten countries, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Yemen. These countries are also specifically targeted through ECW’s ground-breaking multi-year investments.

Student attending class at a local school in Ungheni, Moldova. The school hosts Ukraine refugee children who attend class with Moldovan pupils.
Photo credits: ECW

The war in Ukraine is pushing even more children out of school, with recent estimates indicating the conflict has impacted 5.7 million school-aged children. Behind these numbers, millions of vulnerable girls and boys worldwide await a global collective action.

The ECW study shows the response to education in emergencies, and protracted crises remains chronically underfunded and that the funding gap appears to have worsened since the COVID-19 pandemic started.

In response to the urgent global education crisis, ECW and strategic partners launched the #222MillionDreams resource mobilization campaign in Geneva on July 21, 2022.

“This is a global call to action: we speak of the 222 million dreams representing each 222 million children and adolescents sustaining the extreme hardship of emergencies and protracted crises. Their dreams are profoundly driven by their experience of wars and forced displacement.

“This is our moment to empower them to turn their dreams into reality,” said Yasmine Sherif, Director, ECW.

“While the world struggles with the devastating impacts of armed conflicts, COVID-19 and climate change, 222 million children and adolescents live through these horrific experiences. They dream to become their full potential rather than a victim. Do not let them down. It is our duty to empower them through quality education and to help make their dreams come true.”

As such, the campaign calls on donors, the private sector, philanthropic foundations and high-net-worth individuals to urgently mobilize more resources to scale up ECW’s investments, which are already delivering quality education to over 5 million children across more than 40 crisis-affected countries.

“In the face of these crises, the UN’s fund for education in emergencies, ECW, is standing with children across 40 countries. We need governments, businesses, foundations and individuals to support the vital work of ECW,” says Guterres.

“We need their ideas and innovations as we look ahead to September’s Transforming Education Summit. Help us place education within reach of every child, everywhere. Help us keep 222 million dreams alive.”

Gordon Brown, UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Chair of the ECW High-Level Steering Group, says the financial resources to ensure every child and young person can receive a quality education is attainable.

“Now, we need to take responsible action for the 222 million children and youth in emergencies and protracted crises. Governments, the private sector, and foundations can and must unlock these resources. Only then can we empower them to reach their potentials and realize their dreams,” he said.

The campaign stresses that it will be too late for children waiting for wars or climate crises to end to have the opportunity to learn and thrive. Acting now empowers crisis-impacted children with the tools they need to become positive change-makers through safe, inclusive, quality education.

“We know that after school disruption and closures, many children will not continue their education. Switzerland is committed to contribute to reducing the risk of lost generations through its support of education in emergencies. We are thus partnering with ECW.”

Global leaders have committed to “ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all” through the 2030 Agenda for SDG 4. The new estimates indicate that COVID-19 and other factors have derailed two decades of education gains.

According to the UN, basic school infrastructure is lacking in many Least Developed Countries. Only 54% of schools have access to safe drinking water, 33% have reliable electricity, and 40% have hand washing facilities.

Students attending class at a school near Mugina in Cibitoke Province, an area that has experienced a rise in landslides due to climate change in Burundi.
Photo credits: ECW/Amizero

In light of these needs, Guterres is convening the “Transforming Education Summit” in September 2022. The Summit seeks to “mobilize political ambition, action, solutions and solidarity to transform education: to take stock of efforts to recover pandemic-related learning losses; to reimagine education systems for the world of today and tomorrow, and to revitalize national and global efforts to achieve SDG4.”

With the urgent need to respond to the significant education needs of vulnerable boys and girls trapped in emergencies and protracted crises, the #222MillionDreams campaign encourages people everywhere to call on world leaders and world-leading businesses to act now.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Excerpt:

“We speak of the 222 million dreams representing each 222 million children and adolescents sustaining the extreme hardship of emergencies and protracted crises. Their dreams are profoundly driven by their experience of wars and forced displacement. This is our moment to empower them to turn their dreams into reality.” Yasmine Sherif, Director, ECW

Categories: Africa

Colombia Votes for Social Justice

Wed, 06/22/2022 - 07:55

Secretary-General António Guterres talks to villagers in Llano Grande, Colombia, where he witnessed how the peace process was developing in Colombia. November 2021. Credit: UNMVC

By Oliver Dalichau
BOGOTA, Colombia, Jun 22 2022 (IPS)

On Sunday, 19 June 2022, the hopes of millions of Colombians working for a more democratic, safer, ecological, and socially just country came true.

Senator Gustavo Petro, in a duo with his Afro-Colombian vice-presidential candidate, environmental expert Francia Márquez, received approximately 50.44 per cent or 11,281,013 of the votes cast, and has been elected the 42nd President of Colombia.

Both his predecessor Iván Duque and his opponent Rodolfo Hernández publicly congratulated him on his election victory.

Some 22,445,873 people or 57.55 per cent exercised their right to vote in the run-off election on 19 June 2022, about 3.7 per cent more than in the first round three weeks ago. Only in 1998 was the turnout higher.

Getting people to the polls is not always easy in Colombia: Thousands of people in some parts of the country again had to travel for several hours, even days, to reach one of the polling stations. In some regions, heavy rain also prevented people from voting. In addition, threats, violence, and vote-buying continue to restrict voting, especially in remote rural areas.

Oliver Dalichau

For the first time in the country’s history, neither a conservative nor a member of the Liberal Party will lead the government of Latin America’s fifth largest economy.

With Gustavo Petro, the winning streak of leftist movements and parties in Latin America continues and provides further momentum for the upcoming elections in Brazil in October 2022.

Gustavo Petro’s opponents

In this historic situation for Colombia, what will matter is how the losers behave. On Sunday, Petro not only relegated his direct challenger, the anti-women and anti-migrant 77-year-old self-made millionaire and populist, Rodolfo Hernández, to second place, but with him also the country’s previous political elite.

With 47.31 per cent or 10,580,412 votes, Hernández received much less support than the polls had predicted.

However, significantly more people than in the last elections opted for neither candidate: 490,118 or 2.23 per cent gave a voto blanco.

This is a Colombian peculiarity that allows voters to express their disagreement with the candidates but, unlike abstention, allows them to exercise their democratic right.

Precisely because this triumph is so unique, President Petro should now reach out to his critics, remind the losers of their responsibility in state politics and call on the opposition to work constructively. At the moment, it is unclear whether the losers will be able to accept their new role.

The military, traditionally strong in Colombia, also remains a key player in this phase of the democratic transition. It is expected that the military leadership will soon send out signals that leave no doubt about Gustavo Petro’s election victory.

He will also be their commander-in-chief after his inauguration on 7 August. Should the recognition fail to materialise publicly, Petro’s presidency would be tainted from the outset and rumours of an imminent coup d’état would continue to do the rounds. Both Colombian NGOs and the international community should keep a close eye on this.

Six urgent challenges

In any case, the new president faces enormous challenges. It is already questionable whether Petro will find a majority in the Colombian parliament for a fundamental change of the unequal living conditions, the high unemployment, inflation rate, national debt, and the necessary socio-ecological transformation of the country.

Although quite a few deputies of his left-progressive alliance Pacto Histórico support Petro after the congressional elections in March, he lacks a legislative majority of his own.

Moreover, the newly elected representatives must first prove that they can stick together and also lead a government together, especially now that the ministers are to be appointed. Tensions are already pre-programmed in the colourful spectrum of the Pacto Histórico.

The government’s most urgent tasks include:

Reviving the peace process: In the last four years under Iván Duque’s ultra-right government, the peace process signed in 2016 with the former guerrilla group FARC was hardly implemented.

President Petro needs to relaunch it, push for its implementation, and ensure that social and local leaders are better protected from displacement, violence, and assassination. This year alone, more than 60 of these líderes sociales have been murdered.

After this process, a dialogue with the guerrilla organisation ELN would be necessary too. It is up to the new government to send out signals define conditions as to whether and how negotiations can take place.

A new economic policy: Petro takes over a country with the highest inflation rate of the last 21 years from his unpopular predecessor. With a current debt of around 63 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) and a budget deficit of over six per cent, the president-elect has announced that he will begin his term with a structural tax reform.

This envisages an increase in the tax burden for the richest 0.01 per cent of the population. This idea is vehemently opposed by the political right. During the election campaign, they left no stone unturned to discredit Petro, accusing him of preparing the country’s economic decline.

Commitment to women’s rights and greater equality: Petro proposes the creation of a Ministry of Equality led by Francia Márquez, which would be responsible for formulating all policies to empower women, people of all sexual orientations, the different generations, and ethnic and regional diversity in Colombia.

Under Petro, women in particular could expect to gain priority access to public higher education, credit, and the distribution and formalisation of land ownership.

Petro and Marquez are proposing an energy transition that will rule out new developments of future oil fields.

Land reform and protection of indigenous people, peasants, and Afro-Colombian women: The extremely unequal distribution of land is one of the structural causes of the armed conflict in Colombia. The internal displacement of recent decades has led to the expansion of arable land: the resulting tensions are at the root of conflicts between ethnic communities (indigenous and Afro-Colombian) and peasant women over access to this land.

All these groups have been and continue to be excluded from the development of the country. At the same time, they are among the most affected by the armed conflict’s violent dynamics.

Petro’s government will need to ensure a more equitable distribution that enables the integration of ethnic and farming communities into the production and development circuits.

Better education for more people: During the social protests last year (and already in 2019 and 2020), the demand for more public and quality education was one of the central messages of the mostly peacefully demonstrating Colombians.

Petro promises to provide them with a higher education system in which public universities and secondary schools in particular are properly funded.

More environmental protection: Under the Duque government, environmental and climate protection in Colombia was largely neglected, deforestation increased, and the first fracking pilot wells were approved. Petro and Marquez have announced fundamental change.

They are focusing on a more environmentally-friendly production and service model and are proposing an energy transition that will rule out new developments of future oil fields. This process is to be accompanied by a land reform on unproductive lands – mostly resulting from illegal forest clearance.

A Colombia of social justice

Beyond these urgent reform tasks, the president and his government will also have to find answers in other important areas, such as integrated security reform, a diversified new foreign policy, a different drug policy, and on the regulation of narcotics.

At the same time, they must not disregard the necessary coalition with civil society that ultimately lifted them into office.

Gustavo Petro and Francia Márquez achieved something historic on that memorable Sunday in June 2022. The expectations for both are huge, perhaps even unrealistic. On the one hand, the winning couple must stick together and remain capable of compromise.

At the same time, both have raised many hopes and are exemplary for the new Colombia: both want a more social, a more ecological, a more secure, and a more democratic republic.

President Petro will make mistakes and he will hardly be granted the usual 100 days grace period.

The fact that the ultra-conservative and liberal power elites were voted out of office by the majority of Colombians is a political turning point for the country. The losers will hardly accept the new opposition role constructively – and as an important element of a consolidated democracy.

It is more likely that they will torpedo the new government from day one and do everything they can to make it fail.

President Petro will make mistakes and he will hardly be granted the usual 100 days grace period – neither by his hopeful supporters from civil society, nor by the more than ten million people he has failed to convince of his programme and person.

He will have to govern openly, transparently, and with a certain flexibility to be able to react appropriately to national and international challenges. He will have to change his behaviour, which is often described as arrogant and self-centred.

And he should emphasise the social team spirit that was the basis for the victory of the Pacto Histórico. That is the only way he can succeed in breathing new life into the peace process and achieve the urgently needed reforms in economic and social policy for Colombia. And he will need many allies to succeed, both at home and abroad.

German and European politicians would be well advised to pledge their support to the new president and strengthen the peace process along the way. At the same time, this would contribute to the consolidation of democratic institutions after this historic change of government.

Both remain crucial for a sustainable, peaceful development of the country, and necessary for a Colombia of social justice.

Oliver Dalichau heads the office of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in Colombia.

Source: International Politics and Society (IPS)-Journal published by the International Political Analysis Unit of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Hiroshimastrasse 28, D-10785 Berlin

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa

Expensive Energy from Cheap Sources Hampers Brazil’s Economy

Wed, 06/22/2022 - 01:13

President Jair Bolsonaro launched the sale of shares of Eletrobras, the largest company in the electricity sector in Brazil, which will be privatized through its capitalization. The State will remain as a minority partner, in a privatization process approved by Congress, conditional on the construction of gas thermoelectric power plants in the interior of the country, far from gas fields and pipelines. CREDIT: Alan Santos/PR-Public Photos

By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 21 2022 (IPS)

Brazil has abundant low-cost energy, but by the time it reaches the consumer it is one of the most expensive in the world. This contradiction hinders the country’s human and economic development and the “solutions” found have actually aggravated the problem.

The rise of hydrocarbon prices on the international market, intensified by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, unleashed a battle by the government to curb energy prices, as the rising costs hurt the administration’s hopes for reelection in the October elections. Lower taxes were the chosen formula.

“It is positive, it mitigates the problem, but it does not improve energy efficiency,” said Paulo Pedrosa, president of the Association of Large Industrial Energy Consumers and Free Consumers (ABRACE), whose members are responsible for the consumption of 40 percent of the electricity and 42 percent of the natural gas used in Brazil.

Now that the debate on the subject has been sparked, the opportunity should be used to bring about structural changes, aimed at “removing from energy the costs of public policies, of many extra costs that should not be in the electricity bill,” he argued.

Energy is expensive in Brazil due to numerous subsidies, charges, taxes and various contributions that drive up prices, especially the cost of electricity. They account for half of the total cost paid by the consumer, according to ABRACE.

This is what puts the cost of energy in Brazil among the two or three most expensive in the world, along with Germany and Colombia, according to the International Energy Agency, even though the country is an oil exporter and 60 percent of its electricity comes from an abundant, cheap source: water.

The Itaipu binational hydroelectric power plant, shared with Paraguay, was the last large, low-cost plant to be located close to major consumer markets. Inaugurated in 1984 on the Paraná River, on the border with Paraguay and close to Argentina, its installed capacity is 14,000 megawatts. Brazil’s hydroelectric potential since then has been limited to rivers in the Amazon rainforest, with more expensive construction costs and the need for long transmission lines to large consumers. CREDIT: Itaipu Binacional

Industry suffers the consequences

This paradox reduces the competitiveness of the national economy, especially in energy-intensive industries, and hinders growth and human development, said Pedrosa.

As a result, the deindustrialization that Brazil has been suffering for at least three decades has accelerated.

The situation “has worsened in the last 10 years, when decision-making has been captured by particular interests in the industry’s chain, politicians and local economies,” he said in a telephone interview with IPS from Brasilia.

The Court of Accounts, responsible for public expenditure oversight, identified 16 types of subsidies included in the monthly bill that electricity distributors pass on to consumers.

All consumers are charged for the cost of fossil fuels to generate electricity in remote areas of the Amazon, for the losses suffered by distribution companies due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and even for subsidies to give polluting coal-fired power plants a longer lifespan, until 2040.

“Irrigated agriculture receives the subsidy, it does not pay for part of its consumption under the pretext of producing food. But what is the point of subsidizing the production of soy, most of which is destined for export?” asked Roberto Kishinami, head of energy questions at the non-governmental Climate and Society Institute.

Navy Admiral Bento Albuquerque was removed from his post as minister of mines and energy by President Jair Bolsonaro on May 11, 2022 for failing to impose fuel price containment on state-owned Petrobras. Bolsonaro is trying to prevent the oil hike from affecting his popularity and his slim chances of reelection in October. CREDIT: Marcelo Camargo/Agência Brasil

Social policy

Some subsidies could be justified because of their social purpose, but it shouldn’t be energy that should be taxed, but the national budget, he argued. “An income transfer program like the Bolsa Familia would be better,” he said.

Kishinami was referring to the program that since 2004 provides a subsidy of about 80 dollars a month to poor families, which was renamed Auxilio Brasil by the administration of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.

“Lowering the price of energy is also a social policy,” said Pedrosa. “Brazil has a vocation to produce cheap and clean energy, something that the world values more and more every day, and wasting this advantage harms everyone, not only industry,” he argued.

On Jun. 14, ABRACE released a study on “The impacts of electricity and natural gas prices on growth and economic development”, commissioned from the economic consultancy Ex Ante.

If a “competitive price” for electricity were achieved, with a reduction of 23 to 34 percent for industries that vary in terms of energy consumption, Brazil could raise its annual economic growth from the expected 1.7 to 4.8 percent on average over the next 10 years, and generate 6.74 million additional jobs, according to the study.

The country could thus move up 10 positions in the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Human Development Index ranking, from 84th place in 2019 to just under Mexico, which ranked 74th.

The study is aimed at broadening and guiding the energy debate, which is in the interest of the whole country, not just the industry and politicians, Pedrosa said.

In this South American country of 214 million people, energy represents 17.1 percent of the total cost of living for families, and an even higher proportion among the poor. This includes direct spending on electricity, gas and other fuel.

It also takes into account the cost of energy embedded in the goods and services consumed by the family, or indirect energy consumption. Bread, for example, contains 27.2 percent of energy in its final price, milk and meat 33.3 percent and school notebooks 35.9 percent.

In a family’s basic food basket, the study estimated the share of energy in the total cost at 23 percent.

In other words, rising energy prices cost everyone different amounts, depending on their consumption of goods and services. This is also the case for companies. The construction industry spends 14 times more on energy included in supplies and machinery than in the plant where it operates.

The timing is opportune for the debate on energy prices and their social and economic effects, because Brazil will elect its president, state governors and national and state legislators in October.

Another reason is that the rise in oil and gas prices provoked a strong reaction from the government and pro-government parliamentary leaders. Bolsonaro has tried to blame the state-owned Petrobras oil giant for increasing its prices according to international prices, a rule adopted by the company with the endorsement of the government, its majority partner, since 2017.

The Itá Hydroelectric Power Plant, on the Uruguay River in southern Brazil, is also one of the last low-cost plants due to its proximity to the consumer market. It is a concrete face rock-fill embankment dam, a low operational cost structure, with the reservoir at the top of the mountain, which was favored by the topography. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Legislators of chaos

On Jun. 15, Congress approved a law that caps the maximum merchandise circulation tax charged by state governments on fuel, energy, mass transit and telecommunications, considered essential services, at 17 percent.

This tax varied greatly among the 26 Brazilian states and the Federal District, from 25 to 34 percent, for example, on gasoline, and from 12 to 25 percent on diesel, the most important fuel for the transportation of cargo.

The same legislators who are now seeking to curb energy prices, with the risk of generating serious fiscal problems for the states, with ineffective measures, according to analysts, passed several laws in recent years that incorporate undue costs in energy.

The privatization of Eletrobrás, the largest company in the sector in Brazil, was approved conditional upon the construction of natural gas thermoelectric power plants that would produce a total of eight gigawatts of power. The costs will be high because areas were chosen far from the natural gas fields and without gas pipelines for the plants.

Pedrosa and Kishinami believe the measures were taken with the elections in mind and do not correct the tangle of errors and expenses accumulated in Brazil’s energy system. Both are betting on Bill 414, already approved in the Senate and pending in the Chamber of Deputies, which would reform the sector.

It will be the first step in separating infrastructure from electricity sales and establishing a system of competition, with the supply of different types of energy from a variety of sources, renewable or not, Kishinami told IPS in Rio de Janeiro.

Green Gas: Energy as a By-Product of Sugarcane in Brazil

Categories: Africa

Tobacco Consumption Slows in the West, Grows in Africa, say Researchers

Tue, 06/21/2022 - 14:14

As cigarette smuggling in Southern Africa becomes big business, researchers have expressed concern that tobacco consumption is increasing in younger people and developing countries. Credit: Ignatius Banda/IPS

By Ignatius Banda
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe , Jun 21 2022 (IPS)

Cigarette smuggling has emerged as one of the most lucrative enterprises between Zimbabwe and South Africa, with border authorities seizing contraband worth millions of dollars in recent years.

Last month, South African police confiscated cigarettes worth ZAR1,7 million (about USD105,000) from Zimbabwean smugglers who have taken advantage of porous border controls between the two southern African countries for years.

In November last year, another Zimbabwean was nabbed as he attempted to smuggle cigarettes worth ZAR30 million (about USD1,850,000) into South Africa, where there is a ready and expanding market for cigarettes.

The following month, another Zimbabwean was caught attempting to smuggle cigarettes worth ZAR2,6 million (USD160,300) into South Africa. The escalation of the movement of contraband highlights the complexity of not just border controls but how cigarettes and tobacco are proving to be the new gold for criminal syndicates.

As a global anti-tobacco lobby grows amid concerns of unabated tobacco-related deaths, researchers are training the spotlight on tobacco consumption and its toll on public health and national economies.

In a new report by the University of Chicago, researchers who have created a Tobacco Atlas after surveying 63 countries say global smokers now exceed 1.1 billion people.

While, according to researchers, global smoking prevalence is dropping, from 22.6 percent in 2007 to 19.6 in 2019, Africa and other developing parts of the world are recording an increase in tobacco consumption, the report says.

The findings will likely concern African governments where public health services are already struggling. The Tobacco Atlas researchers raise concerns about tobacco-related diseases and deaths in developing countries.

Tobacco-related diseases are expected to increase in future years in countries with low Human Development Index scores, the Tobacco Atlas researchers predict.

“Some African countries are seeing an increase in adult and youth smoking. What we’ve seen in Africa is the slowest decline in smoking prevalence of any region,” said Professor Jeffrey Dope, lead author of the Tobacco Atlas and a professor of public health at the University of Illinois.

“The tobacco industry is aware of this. They are working very hard to convince governments that tobacco is very important for the economy. Unfortunately, they’re having some success,” Dope said during a Zoom report launch early this month.

Further findings noted that more young girls than boys are taking a puff, with the ubiquity of social media “influencers” being a driver of the trend.

“Global progress is threatened by growing smoking rates among children aged 13 to 15 in many countries and by tobacco industry tactics such as targeting poor countries with weak regulatory environments,” the researchers said.

“We have countries where female teens smoke more than male teens and adult females, which is happening in different parts of the world,” said Violeta Vulovic, senior economist at the Institute for Health Research and Policy at the University of Chicago.

“The tobacco industry aggressively markets to children, especially through flavour products. And through social media, especially influencers, the industry clear understanding that the peer-to-peer effect is perhaps the most effective way to get kids to try smoking,” Vulovic said.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says tobacco causes more than 8 million global deaths annually. More than “7 million of those deaths resulting from direct tobacco use, while around 1.2 million are the result of non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke.”

Covid-19 has only added to global health challenges that have pushed the tobacco agenda to the periphery, researchers say.

“In the wake of Covid-19, countries are prioritising public health and investing in strategies to support health and economic growth,” said Nandita Murukutla, one of the contributors to the Tobacco Atlas research.

“For countries that want to recover, tobacco control should be high on their agenda,” Murukutla said.

However, with African countries continuing to rely on tobacco for forex earnings, findings contained in the Tobacco Atlas are not likely to persuade governments to slow down the production of what across the continent has been called “green gold.”

One way to deal with the increase in smoking, the University of Chicago researchers say, is to “raise taxes on tobacco.”

“This is so that kids cannot afford to smoke. We know from decades of research that young people are extra sensitive to price,” Vulovic said.

The researchers say this has worked in other African countries to stem the illicit cigarette trade.

“Countries should look to Kenya as an example of a country that is keeping its tobacco taxes high and controlling its supply chain – little illicit trade – successfully,” Dope told IPS. “These modest investments in tax administration in Kenya have reaped huge rewards in terms of increased tax revenues, which they then reallocate to social programmes such as health and education, among others.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa

Education Cannot Wait: 222 Million Crisis-Impacted Children in Urgent Need of Educational Support According to New Study

Tue, 06/21/2022 - 10:32

By External Source
GENEVA, Jun 21 2022 (IPS-Partners)

The United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, Education Cannot Wait (ECW), released a shocking new report today that indicates the number of crisis-impacted school-aged children requiring educational support has grown from an estimated 75 million in 2016 to 222 million today.

Of the 222 million crisis-affected children and adolescents in need of urgent education support, the study indicates that as many as 78.2 million are out of school, and close to 120 million are in school, but not achieving minimum proficiency in math or reading. In fact, just one in ten crisis-impacted children attending primary or secondary education are actually achieving these proficiency standards.

The analysis indicates that 84% of the out-of-school crisis-impacted children are living in areas with protracted crises. The vast majority of these are in countries specifically targeted through ECW’s ground-breaking multi-year investments, including Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Yemen. The war in Ukraine is pushing even more children out of school, with recent estimates indicating the conflict has impacted 5.7 million school-aged children.

These alarming new figures are released against the backdrop of a recent ECW study showing that the response to education in emergencies and protracted crises remains chronically underfunded, and that the funding gap appears to have gotten even worse since the COVID-19 pandemic.

To respond to this pressing global education crisis, ECW and strategic partners launched the #222MillionDreams resource mobilization campaign in Geneva today. The campaign calls on donors, the private sector, philanthropic foundations and high-net-worth individuals to urgently mobilize more resources to scale up ECW’s investments, which are already delivering quality education to over 5 million children across more than 40 crisis-affected countries.

The campaign rallies together donors and other strategic partners in the lead up to the Education Cannot Wait High-Level Financing Conference ¬- co-hosted by ECW and Switzerland, and co-convened by Germany, Niger, Norway, and South Sudan – taking place 16-17 February 2023 in Geneva.

“The financial resources to ensure that every child and young person can receive a quality education exist in the world. Now, we need to take responsible action for the 222 million children and youth in emergencies and protracted crises. Governments, private sector and foundations can and must unlock these resources. Only then can we empower them to reach their potentials and realize their dreams,” said The Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown, UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Chair of the ECW High-Level Steering Group.

“This is a global call to action: we speak of the 222 million dreams representing each of the 222 million children and adolescents sustaining the extreme hardship of emergencies and protracted crises. Their dreams are profoundly driven by their experience of wars and forced displacement. This is our moment to empower them to turn their dreams into reality. While the world struggles with the devastating impacts of armed conflicts, COVID-19 and climate change, 222 million children and adolescents live through these horrific experiences. They dream to become their full potential rather than a victim. Do not let them down. It is our duty to empower them through quality education and to help make their dreams come true,” said Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait.

“In times of crisis, children experience uncertainty with regard to their future and are faced with a total disruption of their routines. Going to school provides children with protection, a sense of normalcy and hope and is a means to provide longer-term perspectives. We know that after school disruption and closures, many children will not continue their education. Switzerland is committed to contribute to reducing the risk of lost generations through its support to education in emergencies. We are thus partnering with Education Cannot Wait and look forward to co-hosting the High-Level Financing Conference in Geneva,” said Patricia Danzi, Director General of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.

Global leaders have committed to “ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all” through the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDG4). The new estimates indicate that COVID-19 and other factors have derailed two decades of education gains. According to UN reports, basic school infrastructure is lacking in many Least Developed Countries. Only 54% of schools have access to safe drinking water, 33% have reliable electricity and 40% have handwashing facilities.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres is convening the “Transforming Education Summit” in September 2022. The Summit seeks to “mobilize political ambition, action, solutions and solidarity to transform education: to take stock of efforts to recover pandemic-related learning losses; to reimagine education systems for the world of today and tomorrow; and to revitalize national and global efforts to achieve SDG4.”

On the heels of the Summit, the Education Cannot Wait High-Level Financing Conference is the opportunity for leaders to turn commitments into action, by making substantive funding contributions to ECW that will help turn dreams into reality for the children left furthest behind in crises.

Read UN Secretary-General António Guterres Statement.

#222Million Dreams
The #222MillionDreams campaign encourages people everywhere to call on world leaders and world-leading businesses to address the concerning rise in the number of crisis-impacted children requiring educational support. Join the campaign by making a $222 individual donation to Education Cannot Wait, and by sharing your support on social media with videos, posts and calls to action to support #222MillionDreams.

Excerpt:

“Around the world, 222 million children are having their education cruelly interrupted. We need governments, businesses, foundations & individuals to support the vital work of Education Cannot Wait. Help us place education within reach of every child, everywhere. Help us keep 222 million dreams alive.” ~ UN Secretary-General António Guterres

Categories: Africa

OECD’s Regressive World Corporate Income Tax Reform

Tue, 06/21/2022 - 08:01

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Jun 21 2022 (IPS)

After decades of rejecting international tax cooperation under multilateral auspices, rich countries have finally agreed. But, by insisting on their own terms, progressive corporate income tax remains distant.

Tax avoidance and evasion by transnational corporations (TNCs) are facilitated by ‘tax havens’ – jurisdictions with very low ‘effective’ taxation rates. Intense competition among developing countries to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) makes things worse.

Anis Chowdhury

Developing countries need tax revenue most, but they will lose more, as a share of GDP, than wealthy countries. But a global minimum corporate (income) tax rate (GMCTR) can become a “game changer” undermining tax havens.

Minimal minimum rate
TNCs exploit legal loopholes to avoid or minimize tax liabilities. Such practices are referred to as ‘base erosion and profit shifting’ (BEPS).

Tax havens collectively cost governments US$500–600bn yearly in lost revenue. Low-income countries (LICs) will lose some US$200bn, more than the foreign aid, of around US$150bn, they receive annually.

Corporate income tax represents 15% of total tax revenue in Africa and Latin America, compared to 9% in OECD countries. Developing countries’ greater reliance on this tax means they suffer disproportionately more from BEPS.

A GMCTR requires TNCs to pay tax on their worldwide income. This discourages hiding profits in tax havens. The Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT) recommended a 25% GMCTR.

This 25% rate was around the current GDP-weighted average statutory corporate tax rate for 180 countries. Slightly below the OECD countries’ average, it is much less than the developing countries’ average. So, a GMCTR below 25% implies major revenue losses for most developing countries.

To reverse President Trump’s 2017 tax cut, the Biden administration proposed, in April 2021, to tax foreign corporate income at 21%. In June, the G7 agreed to a 15% GMCTR, endorsed by G20 finance ministers in July. This poor G7 rate is now sold as a “ground-breaking” tax deal.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Unsurprisingly, the World Bank President also rejected 21% as too high. The Bank has long promoted ‘race-to-the-bottom’ host country tax competition. Embarrassingly, its Doing Business Report was ‘suspended’ indefinitely in 2021 after its politically motivated data manipulation was exposed.

The OECD also wants to distribute taxing rights and revenue by sales, and not where their goods and services are produced. Critics, including The Economist, have pointed out that large rich economies would gain most. Small and poor developing economies, particularly those hosting TNC production, will lose out.

The OECD proposals could reduce small developing economies’ (SDEs) tax bases by 3%, while four-fifths of the revenue would likely go to high income countries (HICs). Hence, developing countries prefer revenue distribution by contribution to production, e.g., employees, rather than sales.

Undemocratic inclusion
Developing countries have never had a meaningful say in international tax matters. G20 members should have asked multilateral organizations, such as the UN and the IMF, which the G7 dominated OECD has long blocked.

Instead, the G20 BEPS initiative asked the OECD to work out its rules. After decades of keeping developing countries out of tax governance, its compromise Inclusive Framework on BEPS (IF) promotes lop-sided international tax cooperation.

Developing countries were only involved “after the agenda had been set, the action points were agreed on, the content of the initiatives had been decided and the final reports were delivered”.

Developing countries have been allowed to engage with OECD and G20 members, supposedly “on an equal footing”, to develop some BEPS standards. To become an IF member, a country or jurisdiction must first commit to the BEPS outcome.

Thus, the non-OECD, non-G20 countries must enforce a policy framework they had little role in designing. Unsurprisingly, with little real choice or voice, the 15% GMCTR was agreed to, in October 2021, by 136 of the 141 IF members.

FDI vs taxes
The proposed OECD tax reforms are supposed to be implemented from 2023 or 2024. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Investment Division recognizes it will have major implications for international investment and investment policies affecting developing countries.

UNCTAD’s World Investment Report 2022, on International tax reforms and sustainable investment, offers guidance for developing country policymakers to navigate the complex new rules and to adjust their investment and fiscal strategies.

Committed to promoting investments in the real economy, especially by FDI, UNCTAD recognizes most developing countries lack the technical capacity to address the complex tax proposal. Implementing BEPS reports and related documents via legislation will be difficult, especially for LICs.

Existing investment treaty commitments also constrain fiscal policy reform. “The tax revenue implications for developing countries of constraints posed by international investment agreements (IIA) are a major cause for concern”, the Report notes.

Although tax regimes influence investment decisions, tax incentives are far from being the most important factor. Other factors – such as political stability, legal and regulatory environments, skills and infrastructure quality – are more significant.

Nonetheless, tax incentives have been important for FDI promotion. Such incentives inter alia include tax holidays, accelerated depreciation and ‘loss carry-forward’ provisions – reducing tax liability by allowing past losses to offset current profits.

With the GMCTR, many tax incentives will be less attractive to much FDI. Tax incentives will be affected to varying degrees, depending on their features. UNCTAD estimates productive cross-border investments could decline by 2%.

Hence, policymakers will need to review their incentives for both existing and new investors. The GMCTR may prevent developing countries from offering fiscal inducements to promote desired investments, including locational, sectoral, industry or even employment-creating incentives.

Investors rule
With generally lower rates, ‘top-up taxes’ could significantly augment SDEs’ revenue. Top-up taxes would apply to profits in any jurisdiction where the effective tax rate falls below the minimum 15% rate. This ensures large TNCs pay a minimum income tax in every jurisdiction where they operate.

However, host countries may be prevented by IIAs – especially Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions – from imposing ‘top-up taxes’. If so, they will be imposed by TNCs’ mainly rich ‘home countries’.

Thus, FDI-hosting countries would lose tax revenue without benefiting by attracting more FDI. Existing IIAs – of the type found in most developing countries – are likely to be problematic.

Hence, the GMCTR’s implications are very important for FDI promotion policies. Reduced competition from low-tax locations could benefit developing economies, but other implications may be more relevant.

As FDI competition relies less on tax incentives, developing countries will need to focus on other determinants, such as supplies of skilled labour, reliable energy and good infrastructure. However, many cannot afford the significant upfront financial commitments required to do so.

Many important details of reforms required still need to be clarified. Thus, developing countries must strengthen their cooperation and technical capabilities to more effectively negotiate GMCTR reform details. This is crucial to ‘cut losses’, to minimize the regressive consequences of this supposedly progressive tax reform.

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa

Who Should Be the Next UN Climate Change Head?

Mon, 06/20/2022 - 15:49

UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa addresses the Bonn Climate Change Conference. Her second, three-year term as head of UNFCCC ends in July.

By Felix Dodds and Chris Spence
NEW YORK, Jun 20 2022 (IPS)

Patricia Espinosa’s six years as Executive Secretary of the UN’s climate change secretariat ends on July 15th. During her time in charge, she has led efforts to operationalize the 2015 Paris Agreement and inject greater urgency into the diplomatic process. Although progress has been difficult, COP26 in Glasgow added some momentum and arguably brought the UN process to the start of its next stage: implementation.

As thoughts turn to this next, critical phase, several names are already circulating for who the next leader should be. These include the UK’s Alok Sharma, who chaired COP26, former GEF head Naoko Ishii of Japan, and Egypt’s Environment Minister Yasmine Fouad, Sri Mulyani Indrawati of Indonesia Finance Minister and Ambassador Liz Thomson from Barbados among others.

So, who should step into Espinosa’s shoes? And what sort of qualities will they need to succeed?

Location, Location

Any leader who believes it is all about them, or that they can charm or compel governments to act, will be doomed to failure. This is a particular risk for candidates who have been senior politicians in the past. They would have to curb the instinct to garner headlines for themselves. In this role the ability to listen, not just talk, will be critical

For any senior UN job there is a geopolitical calculation in play. With more being asked from the Global South in combating climate change, there is an argument to be made that the next Executive Secretary should hail from a developing country. Some observers feel this would help build trust in the climate talks.

There is an equity argument in play here, too. Historically, the first three UNFCCC leaders were Europeans: Michael Zammit Cutajar of Malta, then Joke Waller-Hunter and Yvo de Boer, both from the Netherlands. The next two came from the Americas: Christiana Figueres from Costa Rica, and Mexico’s Patricia Espinosa.

An argument could easily be made that the next leader should come from Asia-Pacific or Africa. Interestingly, the next two COPs will be in these regions: COP27 in Egypt and COP28 in the United Arab Emirates.

But which should it be: Africa or Asia-Pacific? In this respect, it is worth noting that two Africans already lead the other so-called Rio Conventions: Ibrahim Thiaw is responsible for the UN’s efforts on desertification, while Elizabeth Mrema heads-up biodiversity. Based on this, there is a strong case for appointing a developing country person from Asia or the Pacific or perhaps from the Small Island Developing States as they are hit worst by the impacts of climate change.

Seeking courageous, ego-free networkers

Irrespective of geography, what sort of qualities would a future leader need? We believe someone with excellent networking skills is essential, especially as we move from negotiating into implementation mode.

A naturally-charismatic figure who can build trusting relationships and bring people together will be essential. These are qualities Christiana Figueres deployed to great effect to help birth the Paris Agreement.

Any future UN climate leader will also need to be aware of the need for subtlety. In fact, we would suggest the next leader will need to be almost “egoless” in their pursuit of progress. The best UN leaders know when to let their partners—the politicians holding the COP presidency, for instance, as well as other governments heads—take center stage.

They know not only when to step up, but also when to step back and share the limelight. In this respect, Michael Zammit Cutajar—who led the UN climate secretariat in its early years—was a master, as was deputy leader Richard Kinley (2006-2017).

There is an important lesson here: any leader who believes it is all about them, or that they can charm or compel governments to act, will be doomed to failure. This is a particular risk for candidates who have been senior politicians in the past. They would have to curb the instinct to garner headlines for themselves. In this role the ability to listen, not just talk, will be critical.

The next Executive Secretary should ideally have been active in the climate negotiations for some time. This is a complicated field and they will need to have a good understanding of not just the issues or political positions of various country groupings, but also the people who are doing the negotiating.

Diplomacy is always a complex web of geopolitical positions, but underneath this are individuals. An effective leader will get to know the people involved and seek to build personal trust. Having someone who already knows the key individuals involved will help them hit the ground running.

The role will also require both courage and persistence. These are qualities we believe are essential for any successful leader when it comes to multilateral environmental agreements. It is something we explore in-depth in our book, Heroes of Environmental Diplomacy: Profiles in Courage. Yes, the science is telling us we must supercharge our efforts and sprint to the finish line. However, persistence and the knowledge that all diplomacy is a marathon will be needed by whoever takes on this important role.

Finally, this is such an important appointment that we would propose the hiring process be undertaken in the open. What we mean by this is that there could be “hustings” for member states and stakeholders to question the candidates, as there is for the UN Secretary General’s position. “Town hall” meetings with staff would also be useful so their input can be considered.

It is not hyperbole to suggest this appointment comes at a critical time for our planet. The need for inspired, courageous and exceptional leadership has never been greater.

We wish the selectors—and their choice—the best of luck.

Chris Spence and Felix Dodds are co-editors of Heroes of Environmental Diplomacy: Profiles in Courage (Routledge, 2022). Felix is also Adjunct Professor at the University of North Carolina (UNC) and an Associate Fellow at the Tellus Institute. Chris is an environmental consultant and award-winning writer. Both have been involved in the UN climate negotiations since the 1990s.

Excerpt:

With Patricia Espinosa due to step down in a few weeks’ time as head of the UN’s climate change efforts, who should take her place? Felix Dodds and Chris Spence review the options and assess what sort of leader should fill the gap

Categories: Africa

War in Ukraine Triggers New International Non-Alignment Trend

Mon, 06/20/2022 - 15:30

View of the United Nations General Assembly, which on three occasions this year has censured the invasion of Russian forces in Ukraine and where many countries have expressed non-alignment with the positions taken by the contenders. CREDIT: Manuel Elias/UN

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Jun 20 2022 (IPS)

Numerous countries of the developing South are distancing themselves from the contenders in the war in Ukraine, using the debate on the conflict to underscore their independence and pave the way for a kind of new de facto non-alignment with regard to the main axes of world power.

Meetings and votes on the conflict at the United Nations and in other forums, the search for support or neutrality, and negotiations to cushion the impact of the economic crisis accentuated by the war are the spaces where the process of new alignment is taking place, according to analysts consulted by IPS.

Once Russian forces began their invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, the United States “activated and consolidated the transatlantic alliance with Europe to confront Moscow, and has been seeking to draw in allies in Asia, but the situation there is more complicated,” said Argentine expert in negotiation and geopolitics, Andrés Serbin, speaking from Buenos Aires."But if the confrontation escalates and spreads beyond Europe, it will be difficult to stay non-aligned. Our countries will then have to learn to navigate in troubled waters.” -- Andrés Serbin

Serbin, author of works such as “Eurasia and Latin America in a Multipolar World” and chair of the academic Regional Economic and Social Research Coordinator, believes that many Asian countries do not want any alignment that would compromise their relationship with that continent’s powerhouse, China.

The rivalry between the United States and China – a growing trading partner and investor in numerous developing nations – fuels the distancing demonstrated by countries of the so-called Global South in the face of the conflict in Ukraine, a priority for the entire West.

Doris Ramirez, professor of International Relations at the Javeriana University in Colombia, argues that “now countries are better prepared to take a position and vote in international forums according to their interests and not according to ideological alignments.

“Emblematic cases are India, which is not going to break its excellent relations with Russia, its arms supplier for decades, or Saudi Arabia, now more interested in its relationship with China as the United States withdraws from the Middle East,” Ramirez observed from Bogota.

The struggle between nations that were ideologically aligned – with the United States or the then Soviet Union – led in 1961 to the creation of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which sought to stay equally distant from the dominant blocs while promoting decolonization and the economic interests of the South.

Its promoters were prominent leaders of what was then called the Third World: Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Sukarno of Indonesia, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Josip Broz “Tito” of Yugoslavia and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana.

Over the years, the Non-Aligned Movement grew to 120 members, many of which were clearly aligned with one of the blocs and, although it still exists formally, its presence and relevance declined not only with the disappearance of its leaders, but also when the socialist bloc ceased to exist as such after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The display board of the votes at the UN General Assembly on the suspension of Russia from the Human Rights Council reflected the diversity of opinions, with more countries taking independent positions with respect to those of the Western powers. CREDIT: UN

UN display board reflects new non-alignment

The invasion of Ukraine was quickly addressed by the 193-member UN General Assembly, which on Mar. 2 debated and approved a resolution condemning the invasion by Russian forces and demanding an immediate withdrawal of the troops, reiterating the principle of respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries.

After 117 speeches, the vote – for, against, abstentions and absences – reflected on the display board at UN headquarters, became a first snapshot of the current “non-alignment” – the decision by many countries of the South not to subscribe to the positions of Moscow or its rivals in the West, led by the United States and the European Union.

The resolution received 141 votes in favor, five against (Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea, Russia and Syria), 35 abstentions and 12 absences.

“It is difficult for a country to support an invasion, it is not possible to find within the UN or international law a formula to justify it,” said former Venezuelan ambassador Oscar Hernández Bernalette, who has been a professor at the University of Cairo, in Egypt, and the Central University of Venezuela.

Therefore, “in order not to remain in the orbit of Moscow or Brussels or Washington, abstaining from voting is a way to demonstrate neutrality,” said Hernández Bernalette.

Russian anti-aircraft units during maneuvers in Egypt in 2019. Moscow’s military cooperation partly explains the political position of African countries, distant from the stances taken by their former colonial rulers, and their growing ties with powers such as Russia and China. CREDIT: MinDefense Russia

Of the 35 countries that abstained, 25 were from Africa, four from Latin America (Bolivia, Cuba, El Salvador and Nicaragua; Venezuela was unable to vote because of unpaid dues) and 14 from Asia, including countries with a strong global presence such as China, India, Pakistan and Iran, and former Soviet or socialist republics such as Laos, Mongolia and Vietnam.

A second resolution was discussed and approved at the Assembly on Mar. 24, to demand that Russia, on humanitarian grounds in view of the loss of civilian lives and destruction of infrastructure, cease hostilities.

The vote was practically the same, with 140 votes in favor, the same five against, and 38 abstentions, which this time also included Brunei, Guinea-Bissau and Uzbekistan.

A third confrontation took place on Apr. 7, to decide on the suspension of Russia from the UN Human Rights Council, made up of 47 states chosen by the General Assembly, which meets several times a year in Geneva, Switzerland.

Moscow’s critics then drummed up 93 votes in the Assembly, but there were 24 against and 58 abstentions – evidence of independence and criticism of the web of alliances and institutions that guide international relations.

This time, countries that previously abstained, such as Russia’s neighbors in Central Asia, and Algeria, Bolivia, China, Cuba and Iran, voted against the proposal, and many of those who previously supported it, such as Barbados, Brazil, Kuwait, Mexico, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates, abstained.

The Summit of the Americas this June in Los Angeles, California served as an opportunity for a group of heads of state in the hemisphere to distance themselves from Washington by boycotting the meeting in protest against the exclusion of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. CREDIT: US State Department

Grouping together, but in a different way

Bilateral and group forums and negotiations are being put on new tracks as the conflict in Ukraine drags on, with new proposals for understandings and alliances, and also new fears.

The impact of the war on the energy markets – as well as on food and finance – was immediate and created room for new realignments. Thus, the United States, as it watched the price of fuel rise at its gas stations, went in search of more oil supplies, from the Middle East to Venezuela.

Washington held two significant summits in recent weeks: one in Jakarta, with 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) interested in sustaining their relationship with the US while maintaining the ties woven with China, and another in Los Angeles, California: the ninth Summit of the Americas.

This triennial meeting served as an opportunity for governments in this hemisphere to demonstrate their independent stance and refrain from automatic alignment with Washington. In addition to the three countries not invited (Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela), the heads of state of seven other countries decided not to attend, to protest the exclusion of their neighbors.

This snub marked the Summit, in which Washington was barely able to cobble together an agreement on migration, with other issues pushed to the backburner, while Latin American countries, still lacking a united front, continue to develop their relations with rivals such as Russia and China.

In the Caribbean, in Asia and especially in Africa, the old relationship between former colonial powers such as France and the United Kingdom – which are confronting Moscow as partners in the Atlantic alliance – and their former colonies is also waning.

“The world no longer works that way,” said Hernandez Bernalette. “For many African or Asian countries, the relationship with new economic players such as China is much more important, in addition to the ties, including military ties, with Russia.”

However, the loose pieces in the international scaffolding also give rise to fears and problems that seriously affect the developing South, such as the possibility of an escalation of the conflict between China and Taiwan, or the grain shortages resulting from the war in Ukraine and affecting poor importers in Africa and Asia.

Serbin said that for the countries of the South, and in particular for those of Latin America, the conflict “offers opportunities, for the placement of energy or food exports for example, provided that the necessary agreements and balances with rival powers are maintained.”

“But if the confrontation escalates and spreads beyond Europe, it will be difficult to stay non-aligned. Our countries will then have to learn to navigate in troubled waters,” he concluded.

Categories: Africa

Plastic Pollution Will Kill All of Us!

Mon, 06/20/2022 - 14:27

Karuta Yamamoto, Dalton Tokyo Junior High School, Tokyo, Japan: “I try to not to use a (disposable) plastic bowl when I order food such as ramen noodles. I also share information about the harmful effects of plastic with my classmates. Credit: Karuta Yamamoto/IPS

By Andrew Lee, Karuta Yamamoto, SooJung (Chrystal) Cho, and Warren Oh
Seoul, Tokyo, Jakarta, Los Angeles, Jun 20 2022 (IPS)

Have you ever watched the movie “Free Willy”? A young boy, Jesse, had an Orca whale friend named Willy. Jesse freed Willy into the wild ocean believing that it was the best decision to make for his friend. Well, that was a long time ago.

If Free Willy was made in 2022, would we have the same ending?

With over 165 million tonnes of plastic waste found in the ocean these days, it makes us wonder if Willy would truly feel safe in our plastic-filled waters.

Considering that more than 100 million marine animals die every year due to plastic pollution, wouldn’t the aquarium be a safer habitat for Willy today?

Let’s explore what causes plastic waste in the ocean, how ocean ecosystems are impacted, and what actions we must take to reduce them to protect marine life and ultimately sustain our world’s biodiversity.

One day while I was watching TV, I became so disturbed by a campaign that showed images of fish suffering and sea turtles tangled up in plastic bags and fishnets.

About 8 million tonnes of plastic annually end up in the ocean, with about 5 trillion plastic pieces floating in the sea. It’s no wonder so many sea animals get entangled in them. It restricts their movements which leads to their premature death.

That is why I question if Willy would truly be free in our ocean today.

Furthermore, how do plastics end up there in the first place? Well, ALL of us human beings are the direct cause of it! The plastic trash we nonchalantly throw away flows into the rivers which carry it to the ocean – including discarded nets, lines, ropes, and abandoned boats by fishers.

Which countries are most responsible for it? According to the University of Georgia, countries like China and Indonesia top the list of countries causing plastic pollution, blocking the global sea.

However, we all know Willy is not the only marine animal affected by the plastic waste in the ocean – all marine life and ecosystems are affected by it, which directly affects our biodiversity negatively.

Why should we care? Because it affects ALL of humanity! We, too, are affected.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, 12-14,000 tons of microplastics are ingested by North Pacific fish yearly because a lot of them mistake plastics for food.

These are the same fish that we humans consume! According to Luís Gabriel A Barboza and others, in the journal Science Direct, 49% of the fish they analyzed had microplastics inside the gastrointestinal tract, gills, and dorsal muscle.

Considering we are at the top of the food web for seafood, we eat an estimated 842 microplastic items per year from fish consumption. That’s horrific!

According to a study by Joana Correia Prata and others, microplastics may disrupt immune function and cause neurotoxicity in humans.

So, in short, we end up eating the plastic trash we throw in the ocean, from which we will inevitably get sick.

Just think about it: we eat over 40 pounds of plastic (18 kilograms) in our lifetime. That’s the size of a large bag of dog food! Even worse, that plastic might even contain harmful toxins!

Now, how does that make you feel?

Similarly, marine animals also get hurt by plastic litter. According to EcoWatch, one in three marine animal species get entangled in the trash.

Isn’t it sad that 86% of innocent sea turtles get suffocated, drowned, or entangled in plastic?

What about microplastics? When marine animals ingest plastic, they can die of starvation because their stomachs are filled with plastic debris and often cut by plastic and suffer internal injuries.

If we don’t stop the accumulation of plastic waste in the ocean, what will become of our marine animals and us?

According to Condor Ferries, by 2050, fish will be outnumbered by our dumped plastic. If you were to go snorkeling by then expecting to see beautiful sea life, you’d be shocked to discover dirty plastic swimming around you in its place.

Under these circumstances, how does plastic waste impact ocean water? According to Okunola A Alabi and others, plastics in the oceans do not degrade completely. During the plastic degradation process, toxic chemicals like polystyrene and BPA can be released into the water, causing water pollution.

In addition to water pollution, plastic waste also threatens marine animal habitats. The harsh conditions and constant motion in the ocean break down plastic into particles of less than 5mm in diameter, called microplastics which are dispersed even farther and deeper into the sea, where it contaminates more habitats.

If Jesse were to free Willy into the ocean now, how would Willy feel when he ingests microplastics with every breath he takes? Something needs to be done for other animals like Willy. What action can we take to solve this problem?

Soo Jung (Chrystal) Cho: Students at Seoul Foreign School, Korea, participate in and promote a zero-waste lifestyle by using reusable water bottles instead of single-use plastic bottles. Credit: Soo Jung (Chrystal) Cho/IPS

Well, we don’t need to be great to do something grand.

Even a tiny seed of an idea can lead to a thoughtful solution.

Let us share what we do to reduce plastic waste in our daily lives.

As middle school students, we bring our reusable bottles to school and drink from the water fountain.

We use shampoo bars instead of shampoo from a plastic bottle.

Andrew Lee, Seoul Korea: Demonstrating how harmful liquid shampoos and soaps can be. This is in addition to the plastics used for their containers. Using natural soaps is environmentally friendly. Credit: Andrew Lee/IPS

In addition, instead of using plastic bags for our groceries, we carry our reusable shopping bags.

And when we go to a take-out place, we bring in our pots so that the restaurant does not need to use plastic containers. For example, when we go to a ramen noodle take-out place, we carry our pots and give them to the restaurant owner. Then he uses ours instead of disposable plastics (see main picture).

We also carry our slogans to public places such as schools and grocery stores as our campaign to educate people about reducing plastic waste and protecting ocean animals and the environment (See pictures 1~4).

These may be small actions, but they actively help reduce plastic waste. If you join us in our zero-waste lifestyle, we can make our community practice zero waste.

If our community goes zero waste, perhaps we can help our country practice zero waste. If our nation goes zero waste, our neighboring countries can join us, and eventually, we can make this whole world practice zero waste!

This type of chain reaction is not a far-fetched idea. We can make this happen!!

Warren Oh, Seoul Foreign School: “I created these slogans to use when participating in the Adidas Run for the Oceans: Help End Plastic Waste Challenge 2022. Locally, I support zero waste in my community, encourage recycling and continue to shop with Eco-Bags in Seoul.” Credit: Warren Oh/IPS

One small step is all it takes to start changing INACTION into ACTION! Many parts of the world already practice zero waste, such as Japan, Costa Rica, Dominica, and Guatemala, where over 80 percent of their waste is reused and recycled.

It is our duty as global citizens to keep marine animals and their habitats safe from our plastic wastes. Aquatic animals do so much for us.

Not only do they provide us with food to eat, but they are a part of vital ecosystems on which our world’s biodiversity depends.

So, exercise your power by doing your part to keep the ocean clean and safe for them.

Those who are able and willing to practice the zero-waste movement – COME, I ask you to join us in our action!

Use your creative minds to envision a plastic-free ocean. Marine animals like Willy will never be free unless we, as citizens of the world, take action to clean up our trash in the sea.

For the love of marine life, as Mother Teresa said, let’s do small things with great love. How would YOU like to start contributing? Our oceans need to thrive for ALL of us to survive!

Andrew Lee, Karuta Yamamoto, SooJung (Chrystal) Cho, and Warren Oh are middle school learners living in the USA and Asia. They participated in a joint APDA and IPS training on developing opinion content. Hanna Yoon led the course and edited the opinion content.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Excerpt:

This opinion piece is the second in a series written by learners from middle and high schools in Asia and the USA.

Categories: Africa

Iran’s Economy Hostage to its Foreign Policy

Mon, 06/20/2022 - 10:14

By Ghazal Vaisi
NEW YORK, Jun 20 2022 (IPS)

The Islamic Republic of Iran faces widespread anti-government protests amid an economic crisis while doing little to ease tensions with the international community as it becomes a nuclear threshold state.

Iran’s continued lack of cooperation and transparency with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) foreshadows the death of the Iran nuclear deal and poses a potential threat not only to Iran’s future but also to the international community.

Many Iranians fear Tehran’s current course of action exposes the country to a military conflict that would potentially destroy Iran and its economy as it is.

The negotiations to revive the Iran nuclear deal, which would curb Iran’s ability to build an atomic bomb, have floundered since the US refused Iran’s demand to delist the IRGC from the US Foreign Terrorist Organizations‘ list.

The Islamic Republic’s response to the IAEA’s resolution on Wednesday could deal a “fatal blow” to the stalled talks, according to Director-General of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi.

In response to the agency’s request for transparency about uranium traces found at three undeclared sites, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi rejected the resolution saying, “The Islamic Republic will not take even a single step backward from its positions.”

The regime removed 27 surveillance cameras used by the agency to monitor its nuclear facilities. The action breaks the IAEA’s “continuity of knowledge” about Iran’s nuclear facilities, inviting escalation of the case to the UN Security Council should Iran not cooperate by September.

Tehran’s lack of cooperation has already impacted Iran’s currency value and puts military confrontation on the table in September, possibly sooner, should the Islamic Republic’s leadership not change its course.

With the death of the Iran nuclear deal, Iran will face new economic challenges as it can no longer count on billions of dollars in sanctions relief, as it did in 2015.

The sanctions relief package would have included over $100 billion in oil revenues that are currently held as frozen assets in Chinese, South Korean, and Indian banks. Iran will also miss out on a flood of trade and investment opportunities and cannot count on oil exports as its primary source of income.

Additionally, over four decades of economic isolation, sanctions, and mismanagement have left Iran’s economy vulnerable to the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. When the war broke out, Iran’s inflation stood unprecedented, at 43.3%.

Russia’s prolonged assault on Ukraine exacerbates Iran’s economic decline. Since the war started, 60% of Iran’s annual grain imports from Russia and Ukraine are now at risk. Many ships carrying millions of tons of grains remain stranded in Ukraine’s Black Sea ports by Russia’s blockade.

The war also jeopardizes Iran’s last economic lifeline, revenues from oil exports, which were already heavily sanctioned. Iran now competes with Russia, the world’s second-largest oil exporter, seeking other buyers for their discounted oil, as the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union have sanctioned Russian oil imports.

Before the war, China had been Iran’s top oil buyer. However, Iran’s crude oil exports to China have plummeted since Russia launched its offensive in February, along with increased Russian oil exports to China.

The Islamic Republic’s foreign policy and allocation of resources have only hurt Iran’s financial outlook and demonstrate their priorities. Instead of compromising for the betterment of their people, Iranian leaders have cut subsidies for flour-based products amid global wheat shortages to give the IRGC financial room to operate and fund their nuclear, drone, and missile program. The decision to cut subsidies has resulted in a 300% increase in bread prices.

Many Iranians struggled to keep up with soaring prices of essential foodstuffs like cooking oil, chicken, eggs, and rice, even before global food shortages. What frustrates Iranians is that even if Iran changes its foreign policy and gains access to its financial resources, there is still a great deal of doubt that it would improve Iranians’ lives.

The dire economic climate has triggered civil unrest across Iran. Economic protests quickly turned political. Chants like, “Our enemy is here. They are lying that it is the US,” and “clergy, get lost” can be heard amongst other anti-governmental chants.

While lacking the willingness to feed their people, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, Ali Khamenei, and his network of IRGC generals have shown willingness and capability to crush mass protests using the IRGC security forces, police, and intelligence services.

Iranians’ lack of representation, political freedom, free elections, and media coverage of this failure to provide basic human necessities has forced virtually every corner of society, from students to retirees, to take to the streets, knowingly risking their lives. Sanctioned by the US, impacted by war, abandoned by Khamenei, and crushed by the IRGC, Iranians have nowhere to turn for help.

In addition to the economic woes Iranians face due to Tehran’s mismanagement, they now face a larger threat, a potential military conflict. On Thursday, after Iran rejected the IAEA’s resolution, the US proposed bipartisan legislation to help Israel and the GCC nations improve their air defense to prepare against an evolving Iranian threat. Israel is already conducting air force exercises over the Mediterranean Sea.

Tehran’s hardliner policies and lack of transparency with the IAEA jeopardize the livelihood of Iranians and the international security at large. Iran’s leadership now holds the future of not just their citizens but that of the entire Middle East and other parts of the world should Iran become a nuclear nation.

Suppose Iran fails to comply with the IAEA resolution in September, and Iran is considered a threat. In that case, Iran’s case might move to the UN Security Council, where harsher punishments, or worse, a military conflict, await Iranians.

Whether Iran remains a threshold nuclear state or decides to build atomic bombs, it will eventually invite military action against itself, which will devastate Iran’s economy beyond repair, and leave Iranians’ livelihoods as collateral damage yet again.

Ghazal Vaisi is an Iranian-born international affairs analyst focusing on the evolution of authoritarianism in the modern world. Her writings have appeared in the Middle East Institute, Independent Farsi, and Iran International.

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa

The Battle for Covid-19 Vaccines: the Rich Prevail Over the Poor

Mon, 06/20/2022 - 08:32

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 20 2022 (IPS)

The 164-member World Trade Organization (WTO) has implicitly rubber-stamped a widely-condemned policy of “vaccine apartheid” which has discriminated the world’s poorer nations, mostly in Africa and Asia, depriving them of any wide-ranging intellectual property rights.

As Max Lawson, Co-Chair of the People’s Vaccine Alliance and Head of Inequality Policy at Oxfam, said at the conclusion of the WTO’s ministerial meeting last week: “The conduct of rich countries at the WTO has been utterly shameful”.

“The European Union (EU) has blocked anything that resembles a meaningful intellectual property waiver. The UK and Switzerland have used negotiations to twist the knife and make any text even worse. And the US has sat silently in negotiations with red lines designed to limit the impact of any agreement.”

The Geneva-based WTO, whose members account for nearly 98 percent of world trade, takes decisions by consensus resulting in a rash of compromises on some of the disputed issues.

Lawson said: “This is absolutely not the broad intellectual property waiver the world desperately needs to ensure access to vaccines and treatments for everyone, everywhere. The EU, UK, US, and Switzerland blocked that text.”

This so-called compromise, he argued, largely reiterates developing countries’ existing rights to override patents in certain circumstances. And it tries to restrict even that limited right to countries which do not already have capacity to produce COVID-19 vaccines.

“Put simply, it is a technocratic fudge aimed at saving reputations, not lives”, he warned.

Summing up the conclusions of the meeting, the New York Times said last week that WTO members agreed to loosen intellectual property rights “to allow developing countries to manufacture patented Covid-19 vaccines under certain circumstances.”

”The issue of relaxing intellectual property rights for vaccines had become highly controversial. It pitted the pharmaceutical industry and developed countries that are home to their operations, particularly in Europe, against civil society organizations (CSOs) and delegates from India and South Africa.”

Oxfam’s Lawson said: “South Africa and India have led a 20-month fight for the rights of developing countries to manufacture and access vaccines, tests, and treatments. It is disgraceful that rich countries have prevented the WTO from delivering a meaningful agreement on vaccines and have dodged their responsibility to take action on treatments while people die without them.”

“There are some worrying new obligations in this text that could actually make it harder for countries to access vaccines in a pandemic. We hope that developing countries will now take bolder action to exercise their rights to override vaccine intellectual property rules and, if necessary, circumvent them to save lives.”

In a statement released last week, the People’s Vaccine Alliance, said waiving intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines have sparked worldwide debate, from Washington to Beijing and Davos to the World Trade Organization.

A group of Nobel laureates wrote to President Biden arguing that a temporary waiver of COVID-19 patent rights is essential to halting the global pandemic.

“Waiver advocates say that prioritizing the intellectual property rights of vaccine developers (many of whom have received governmental support) is making the vaccination rollout slow and unaffordable for billions of people in less-wealthy nations”.

Supporters of the status quo say a waiver would chill investment in the very pharmaceutical research that led to the vaccines’ creation, the Alliance said.

https://peoplesvaccinealliance.medium.com/open-letter-former-heads-of-state-and-nobel-laureates-call-on-president-biden-to-waive-e0589edd5704

The Alliance also pointed out that In October 2020, South Africa and India proposed a broad waiver of the Trade Related aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) agreement covering COVID-19 vaccines, tests, and treatments.

The EU, UK, and Switzerland blocked that proposal. The US supported an IP waiver for only vaccines. The final text agreed is a watered-down waiver of one small clause of the TRIPS agreement relating to exports of vaccines. It also contains new barriers that are not in the original TRIPS agreement text.

Ben Phillips, author of ‘How to Fight Inequality’ told IPS that rich countries had acted to protect the monopolies of big pharmaceutical companies to determine production levels of pandemic-ending medicines.

In doing so, he said “they are not only causing deaths in developing countries, they are causing deaths in their own countries’ too. It’s not Northern interests vs Southern interests. It’s a handful of oligarchs who cannot share vs 8 billion people who want to be safe from pandemics.”

“Almost everyone in every country in the world”, he said, “would be better off if big pharmaceutical companies made slightly less obscene profits so that enough doses of pandemic-ending medicines could be made by multiple producers across the world to reach everyone who needs them on time.

The Covid-19 crisis has exposed the rot of the system of monopolies over production of vital medicines. Everyone can see it, and it will fall. How quickly it falls is the only question left. People are organizing nationally and internationally and they won’t let this pass again,” Phillips declared.

Mandeep S. Tiwana, Chief Programmes Officer at CIVICUS, a global alliance of civil society organizations (CSOs), told IPS “unequal access to vaccines is a global scandal that flies in the face of the economic, social and technological progress we claim to have made as humanity”.

He pointed out that CSOs around the world have long called for equity in health care and an end to excessive profiteering by the pharmaceutical industry at the expense of people’s well-being.

“We need to closely examine the reasons for the lack of political will to meaningfully address these issues.”

Meanwhile, in a statement last March, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said more than 10.5 billion vaccine doses have been administered globally, “enough to protect the entire world population from severe symptoms, hospitalization and death.”

But despite this achievement, Bachelet insisted that the “grim reality” was that only around 13 per cent of people in low-income countries have been vaccinated, compared with almost 70 per cent in high-income countries.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) ,has insisted that inaction risked penalizing the planet’s most vulnerable people and countries.

“We are at an inflection point in history”, he said. “We have the tools to end the acute phase of the pandemic, if we use them properly and share them fairly. But profound inequities are undermining that chance.

“Countries with high vaccination rates are reopening while others with low vaccination rates and low testing rates have been left behind. The result is more than 60,000 deaths per week, along with an increased risk of the emergence of new variants.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa

Slave Markets Open 24/7: Refugee Babies, Boys, Girls, Women, Men…

Fri, 06/17/2022 - 15:06

Two young victims of human trafficking, who were rescued from the Dzaleka Refugee Camp, are receiving support at a shelter in Malawi. Credit: UNODC

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Jun 17 2022 (IPS)

In addition to slave selling and buying deals in public squares, as reported time ago in ‘liberated’ Libya, a widespread exploitation of men, women, and children has been carried out for years at refugee camps worldwide.

One of them is a Malawi refugee camp, where such inhumane practice has been reported by the UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the Malawian Police Service.

“I even witnessed a kind of Sunday market, where people come to buy children who were then exploited in situations of forced labour and prostitution,” on 11 June said UNODC’s Maxwell Matewere.

“I even witnessed a kind of Sunday market, where people come to buy children who were then exploited in situations of forced labour and prostitution,”
Maxwell Matewere, UNODC

The Dzaleka Refugee Camp, the largest in Malawi, was established in 1994 and is home to more than 50,000 refugees and asylum seekers from five different countries. It was originally designed to accommodate 10,000 people.

Most of the 90 victims so far rescued are men from Ethiopia, aged between 18 and 30, while there are also girls and women too, aged between 12 and 24 from Ethiopia, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

A trafficking processing hub

The UNODC report also explains that women and girls are exploited sexually inside the Dzaleka refugee camp, or transported for the purpose of sexual exploitation to other countries in Southern Africa, while male refugees are being subjected to forced labour inside the camp or on farms in Malawi and other countries in the region.

The camp is also being used as a hub for the processing of victims of human trafficking. Traffickers recruit victims in their home country under false pretences, arrange for them to cross the border into Malawi and enter the camp.

Everywhere

Other refugee camps, like the Rohingya ones in Myanmar, which host up to one million humans, are also being under scrutiny.

Add to this millions more of humans falling easy prey to traffickers and smugglers, victims of wars on Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, not to mention around six million Palestinian refugees.

A whole continent on the move

Ever greater numbers of vulnerable people are risking their lives on dangerous migration routes in Latin America, forced to move by the global food security crisis spiralling inflation, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said ahead of 2022 World Refugee Day.

“We are having countries like Haiti with 26% food inflation and we have other countries that really are off the charts even with food inflation,” said Lola Castro, WFP Regional Director in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).

The dramatic deterioration in people’s daily lives has given them little option but to leave their communities and head north, even if it means risking their lives, she explained.

“All of you are watching caravans, caravans of migrants moving, and before we used to talk about migration happening from the north of Central America, but now, unfortunately, we talk about migration being hemispheric. We have the whole continent on the move.”

The Darien Gap

One of the clearest signs of people’s desperation is the fact that they are willing to risk their lives crossing the Darien Gap, a particularly arduous and dangerous forest route in Central America that allows access from the south of the continent to the north.

“In 2020, 5,000 people passed by the Darien Gap, migrating from South America into Central America, and you know what, in 2021, 151,000 people passed, and this is 10 days walking through a forest, 10 days through rivers, crossing mountains and people die because this one of most dangerous jungles in the world.”

For these migrants the reason why they are on the move is simple, the WFP official explained: “They are leaving communities where they have lost everything to climate crisis, they have no food security, they have no ability to feed their people and their families.”

UN data indicates that of the 69 economies now experiencing food, energy and financial shocks, 19 are in the Latin America and the Caribbean region.

Highest ever number of displaced children

Conflict, violence and other crises left a record 36.5 million children displaced from their homes at the end of 2021, UNICEF estimates – the highest number recorded since the Second World War.

This figure, which was reported by UNICEF on 17 June, includes 13.7 million refugee and asylum-seeking children and nearly 22.8 million children who are internally displaced due to conflict and violence.

These figures do not include children displaced by climate and environmental shocks or disasters, nor those newly displaced in 2022, including by the war in Ukraine.

20 people on the run… every minute

Every minute 20 people leave everything behind to escape war, persecution or terror, according to UNHCR.

But while the world’s specialised bodies have been making legal distinctions between migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons, stateless people, retruerness, etcetera, the fact is that all of them are victims of stargeering inhuman suffering.

100 million… for now

At the end of 2021, the total number of people worldwide who were forced to flee their homes due to conflicts, violence, fear of persecution and human rights violations was 89.3 million, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reported ahead of this year’s World Refugee Day annual marked 20 June.

Armed conflicts in 23 countries

If ongoing conflicts remain unresolved and the risks of new ones erupting are not reined in, one aspect that will define the twenty-first century will be the “continuously growing numbers of people forced to flee and the increasingly dire options available to them.”

Regarding the conflict-driven wave of forced displacement, UNHCR citing World Bank data, reports that in all, 23 countries with a combined population of 850 million faced “medium or high-intensity conflicts.”

Poor countries host 4 in 5 refugees

Data from the UNHCR report underscored the crucial role played by the world’s developing nations in sheltering displaced people, with low and middle-income nations hosting more than four in five of the world’s refugees.

With 3.8 million refugees within its borders, Turkey hosts the largest number of refugees, followed by Colombia, with 1.8 million (including Venezuelan nationals), Uganda and Pakistan (1.5 million each) and Germany (1.3 million).

Relative to their national populations, the Caribbean island of Aruba hosted the largest number of Venezuelans displaced abroad (one in six), while Lebanon hosted the largest number of refugees (one in eight), followed by Curaçao (one in 10), Jordan (one in 14) and Turkey (one in 23).

All the above adds to the specific case of the increasing number of victims of climate change, on whom IPS has already reported in its: What Would Europe, the US, Do with One Billion Climate Refugees?

Not new, Europeans have largely traded in humans

Such horrifying practice was intensively widespread more than four centuries ago, mostly by European powers, who captured, chained and shipped millions of Africans to their descents’ country: the United States of America, as well to their colonies in Latin America and the Carribeans.

Just see what the UN secretary general, António Guterres, stated In his message on last year’s International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

Today “we honour the memory of the millions of people of African descent who suffered under the brutal system of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade”.

This trade created and sustained a global system of exploitation that existed for more than 400 years, devastating families, communities and economies, the UN chief stated.

We remember with humility the resilience of those who endured the atrocities committed by slave traders and owners, condoned by slavery’s beneficiaries, added Guterres.

“The transatlantic slave trade ended more than two centuries ago, but the ideas of white supremacy that underpinned it remain alive.”

Categories: Africa

Countering Hate Speech Through Media: A Young Caribbean Woman’s Perspective

Fri, 06/17/2022 - 05:52

"While there is no singular cure for hate speech, my wish is for young people to stand up and fight against it." Credit: University of the West Indies (UWI)

By Isheba Cornwall
MONA, Jamaica, Jun 17 2022 (IPS)

Hate speech is a phenomenon that can be defined as threatening speech or writing expressing prejudice towards a specific group, primarily based on race, religion, or sexual orientation.

As a black undergraduate student from Jamaica, especially being a part of Generation Z, I have experienced countless attacks in the form of hate speech. This phenomenon has grown immensely over the years, taking different shapes and forms. One major reason for this is the advancement of technology, and more so the creation of new media or social media.

However, what is interesting is that the same platforms used to immortalize hate speech can also be used to combat it in creative ways. We must realize that we are an unhappy generation of young people.

Because of the contrasting beliefs and viewpoints that we have surrounding identity, we are constantly struggling to embrace each other’s uniqueness. Sadness consumes us and acts as a catalyst for hate speech. Which, if left untreated, catapults into violent behaviors.

We are often unimpressed by the power of language and uninterested in how our speech can cause harm. Many reasons come to mind when I think about why the contagious disease of hatred continues to spread.

One main reason is the lack of education, which stems from being socialized in a way that glorifies hate and celebrates violence. This is not an idea based on mere observation but rather the reality for many Caribbean people — including myself— who were raised in vulnerable communities.

The sad truth is, the individuals tasked with taking care of us were themselves brought up in toxic environments that failed to teach them how to properly engage with other people, especially those who may be different from them.

Therefore, the need to voice any dissatisfaction was almost always done in a way that exudes hate. This is what they learned. And indeed, this is what they know.

It is like a full circle: older generations teach us, their children, to express hate, and so the cycle of hate continues. Although there are many ways to combat this viewpoint that promotes hate speech, including via institutions of socialization such as schools and churches, other stakeholders have a role, including the media. They are needed to grow a community of emotionally intelligent and understanding people.

From a Caribbean perspective, hatred spreads because of negative stereotypes emerging from our history, for example, through colonization. Negative stereotypes see some groups or individuals as being different or inferior to others.

For example, a lighter-skinned individual is given a job over a dark-skinned woman like me. Or a man is given more pay than my friend who is a woman who is equally qualified.

Harmful stereotyping fuels hate speech and appears when we see the idea that one group is superior and another inferior. This has pitted us against each other, and to reinforce this, we take to social media and spew hateful comments to individuals hailing from groups viewed as “less than.”

Unfortunately, this way of thinking has been embedded in our minds and without the desire to unlearn these tendencies, hate speech — and ultimately violence — will persist.

Hate speech is one of those problems that can influence society and develop into something worse. Hateful phrases and casual racist comments — the language used to highlight our distaste for something, or someone, are all-powerful, impactful, and dangerous.

Especially when many people believe them. Hate speech, if left to flourish, can lead to grave acts of violence on a large scale. And it is no secret that hate speech contributes to hate crime.

Therefore, we need innovative and creative ways to combat hate speech. I believe that both traditional and new media can provide support. For instance, by conceptualizing and creating educational, fun, and engaging programs on television and radio for young people.

But to convince youth, they must believe that whoever is sharing this information with them understands their circumstances and that the story told to them is relevant to their lives.

With cultivation theory in mind—a theory that suggests that individuals who mostly consume television programs are more likely to perceive the real world in a way most commonly depicted in television messages, we could argue that constantly showcasing programs that show acts of hate speech as unacceptable, could have a positive impact on viewers which can influence their behavior.

With the rise of social media, the transmission of information is as fast as the speed of light, and sadly hate speech, or cyberhate, follows closely behind. There has never been a time that I have been scrolling on social media that I did not come across some offensive speech. It is alarming that a single person does not engage in hate speech; rather it is often a large group of individuals—perhaps due to misconceptions and misinformation.

Creative campaigns via social media platforms can also help to combat the problem. This will not solve the issue; however, social media can be used to fight hate speech through “counter-speech.”

That is sharing easily digestible content focused on inclusivity, equality, and diversity. Imagine funny videos teaching youth how to respectfully disagree with each other, or ‘live’ sessions with influencers speaking about their experiences with hate speech.

Live sessions with influencers utilizing humor and creative campaigns would be pretty powerful nowadays and could also make a very accurate statement so loud that young people would be forced to listen and pay attention to it.

A lot more can be done, for instance, by creating codes of conduct that would somehow influence online behavior. The ultimate goal would be to educate youth so that they want to be respectful and not indulge in hate speech.

I can see and imagine a society filled with love, peace, and understanding. While there is no singular cure for hate speech, my wish is for young people to stand up and fight against it so that this disease will have no place in our society.

We must rethink and redefine our ideas about identity, gender, and race. And those working together to create new pressure points to tackle hate speech need to listen to the voices of young people.

The author is a social media strategist, radio host and producer, and undergraduate student of the Integrated Marketing Communication program in the Caribbean School of Media and Communication at the Mona Campus in Jamaica of the University of the West Indies, a member institution of the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI).

To learn more about the issues and the work the United Nations is doing to counter hate speech, visit Hate Speech | United Nations. Please join the #NoToHate campaign to counter hate speech (feel free to use assets available here)

Source: UN Academic Impact, United Nations

IPS UN Bureau

Excerpt:

On Monday June 20, there will be an informal high-level UN meeting to mark the commemoration of the first International Day for Countering Hate Speech.

Categories: Africa

Taliban: The Return of Misogynistic Gynophobes in Afghanistan

Fri, 06/17/2022 - 05:43

Afghan women. Credit: Shelly Kittleson/IPS

By Sania Farooqui
NEW DELHI, India, Jun 17 2022 (IPS)

Gynophobia is defined as an intense and irrational fear of women or hatred of women, it may be characterized as a form of specific phobias, which involves a fear that is centered on a specific trigger or situation, which in the case of gynophobia is women.

After 20 years of war in Afghanistan, in August 2021, the Taliban completed their shockingly rapid and forced advance across Afghanistan by capturing Kabul on 15th August. What followed this takeover has since then been a series of human rights violations, humanitarian catastrophe, roll back on women’s rights and media freedom – the foremost achievements of the post-2001 reconstruction effort. The country has also been enduring a deadly humanitarian crisis, with malnutrition spiking across the country with 95 percent of households experiencing insufficient food consumption and food insecurity, according to this report. The number of malnourished children in Afghanistan has more than doubled since August with some dying before they can reach hospitals.

According to this report, 9 million people are close to being afflicted by famine in Afghanistan, millions have gone months without a steady income. Afghanistan’s economic crisis has loomed for years; the result of poverty, conflict and drought. This, combined with a sudden drop-off in international aid, has made it more tough for Afghans to survive, adding to this list is illicit opium trade and the worrying drug addiction, an ongoing challenge for the country.

However the priority for the Taliban was not saving the economy and the country from these disasters, instead under the cloak of religion, it didn’t take too long for the fundamentalist group to focus and display its misogynistic gynophobia towards the women and girls in the country, as it was expected. What Taliban fears, yet again, Afghan girls attending school beyond 6th grade, a decision directly affecting 1.1 million secondary school girls, depriving them of a future.

Taliban officials have also announced women and girls would be expected to stay home and if they were to venture out, they would have to cover in all-encompassing loose clothing that only reveals their eyes, making it one of the harshest controls on women’s lives in Afghanistan since it seized power in August last year. They fear women journalists so much, they ordered all female newscasters to cover their faces while on air.

International rights groups, Human Rights Watch says the list of Taliban violations of the rights of women and girls is long and growing. Amongst many that have been listed, include appointment of an all-male cabinet, abolition of the ministry of Women’s Affairs and replacing it with the Ministry of Vice and Virtue. Banning secondary education for girls, banning women from all jobs, blocking women from traveling long distances or leaving the country alone. “They issued new rules for how women must dress and behave. They enforce these rules through violence,” it stated in this report.

Women in Afghanistan since last August have been fighting back, through protests demanding the right to work and to go to school.

Sara Wahedi

“We don’t need any more condemnation”, says Sara Wahedi, CEO and Founder of Ehtesab, Afghanistan’s first civic technology set up. “It is infuriating because most Afghan women knew this would happen, and we told the international stakeholders if they wanted to deliberate with them (the Taliban) then to have very specific points that would keep the Taliban accountable, that never happened, and now there are these flood gates where they are doing what they want to do, they are repeating everything from 1996.

“We know what is happening is terrifying, it’s unjust, it’s inhumane, what is the international community going to do to facilitate accountability measures now,” says Wahedi.

In 2021, Wahedi was named one of the Next Generation leaders by TIME Magazine, her mobile app, Ehtesab, crowd-sources verified reports of bombings, shootings, roadblocks and city-service issues, helping residents of Kabul to stay safe. As a young tech entrepreneur, Wahedi says she is amongst the few who got her education and the freedom to do what she wanted, as the times were different

“I feel incredibly guilty, I think most Afghan women who are out of Afghanistan, who were able to pursue education to the highest level feel a crippling sense of anxiety and guilt. Education is ingrained in our psyche right from the time we are born from our parents, but for our country it was also different because we have seen war, we have seen instability, it is even more pertinent to get out of this life, all Afghan girls, they know this and to have it taken away from them so violently, it’s obviously affected their mental health, and I feel an inexplicable level of guilt to be in this position,” Wahedi says.

Women and girls have continued to bear the brunt of restrictions under the Taliban and their imposed doctrine, as seen in the past. The United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (UNHCR) in this report said, “What we are witnessing today in Afghanistan is the institutionalized, systematic oppression of women.”

In this interview given to CNN, Sirajuddin Haqqani, Afghanistan’s acting Interior Minister and Taliban’s co-deputy leader since 2016 said, “We keep naughty women at home.” After being pressed to clarify his comments, he said: “By saying naughty women, it was a joke referring to those naughty women who are controlled by some other side to bring the current government into question.”

With the Taliban coming into power, there is no doubt that the women in Afghanistan will continue to face an uncertain future and in order to avert the irreversible damage being done to the female population, international communities and organizations must not just condemn the Taliban, but also hold them accountable and speak up on behalf of Afghan women, before they are all forced into invisibility. Whatever little progress was made by women in Afghanistan, the Taliban have through their rules and policies reversed them, pushing women towards invisibility and exacerbated inequalities against women. What they fear – women being educated, being seen, having an identity, agency, work, job, rights, freedom and their ability to hold them accountable. The realities of life under the Taliban control, whatever the timeline may be, remains the same.

Sania Farooqui is a New Delhi based journalist, filmmaker and host of The Sania Farooqui Show where she regularly speaks to women who have made significant contributions to bring about socio economic changes globally. She writes and reports regularly for IPS news wire.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa

Small-Scale Fishers in Central America Demand Social Security Policies

Fri, 06/17/2022 - 03:13

Salvadoran fisherman Nicolás Ayala, 63, walks to his boat at the San Luis La Herradura pier, on the Pacific coast of El Salvador, to begin a 24-hour fishing stint offshore. He said that due to the lack of a breakwater at the mouth, where the sea meets the estuary, boats have capsized and some of his colleagues have drowned, leaving their families unprotected because they have no kind of insurance. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

By Edgardo Ayala
SAN LUIS LA HERRADURA, El Salvador , Jun 17 2022 (IPS)

At the pier, Salvadoran fisherman Nicolás Ayala checked the pocket of his pants to make sure he was carrying the hypertension pills he must take when he is at sea on a 24-hour shift. He smiled because he hadn’t forgotten them.

At the age of 63, “we are just aches and pains now,” he told IPS, while showing other pills he carried with him to relieve a toothache and other ailments.

Ayala lives in San Luis La Herradura, a small town located on the coastal strip of the department of La Paz, in south-central El Salvador, on the banks of the Estero de Jaltepeque estuary, which leads to the Pacific Ocean.

Waves of vulnerability

“I am worried that I will suffer a health mishap and I won’t be able to continue working and I will be left on the street, ruined,” he added, noting that, as an artisanal fisherman, he does not have any type of coverage for illness or work-related accidents.

This should not be the case, and they should be covered, as it is one of the highest risk jobs in the world, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

But that is the reality of the thousands of people dedicated to small-scale fishing in El Salvador and the rest of Central America on the two coasts of the isthmus, an activity that is vital for the food security of a large part of the 43 million inhabitants of this region, many of whom suffer serious social deprivation.

Like other sectors of the population, artisanal fishers work in almost absolute vulnerability, without any social measures to protect them or provide adequate coverage from the accidents or illnesses they face on a daily basis, and with only precarious health systems to rely on.

Ayala said that since there is no breakwater at the mouth, the point where the estuary lined by mangroves meets the sea, the waves become dangerous and sometimes overturn small motorboats.

And even if the fishermen know how to swim, they can drown anyway, because their boats fall on them or they get entangled in the nets. Two or three people a year die this way, he added.

“We have nothing, no accident insurance or anything, here only God can bless us, if we drown. If they find our bodies, that’s good, if not, well, the crabs can eat us,” he said, only half jokingly.

According to a FAO report from January 2021, in El Salvador in 2018 the fishing sector employed about 30,730 people, with a total fleet of 13,764 boats, 55 of which were used by the industrial sector and the rest by artisanal fishers, 50 percent of whose boats were motorized.

Fishers weigh part of the day’s catch, after fishing near the Estero de Jaltepeque estuary, on the Pacific coast of El Salvador. Most small-scale fishers in Central America do not earn enough and have to work harder and harder to support their families. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

Social security for all

FAO urged the countries of Central America to begin efforts to incorporate artisanal fisheries into national social security policies, during the Mesoamerican Forum on Social Protection in Artisanal Fisheries and Small-scale Aquaculture, held in May in Panama City.

The UN agency pointed out that worldwide, small-scale fishers account for half of the world’s fisheries production and employ 90 percent of the sector’s workforce, half of whom are women.

More than 50 million families in the world depend on small-scale fishing, according to FAO data.

In the case of Central America, the regional director of the Organization of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Sector of the Central American Isthmus (OSPESCA), José Infante, commented that all of the countries have been developing social protection systems for their populations, but that not all sectors have the same access to them, which increases inequality and vulnerability for those who are excluded.

“The artisanal fishing sector is the perfect example of this,” said the OSPESCA director.

These workers, like so many others without coverage, worry about reaching old age and no longer having the energy to go to sea on a daily basis, or suffering a work-related accident that leaves them unable to work.

A Salvadoran fisherman shows some of the shrimp and other kinds of seafood he caught off the Pacific coast of El Salvador. FAO urges governments in Central America to promote social protection for small-scale fishing workers, given their vulnerability and the important role they play in food security in the region. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

The uncertain future

“It will be a very difficult situation; If we don’t have a pension tomorrow we’re going to have a tough time,” Nicaraguan fisherwoman Arelis Flores, 23, mother of one, told IPS.

She is president of the Abraham Moreno cooperative in the Venecia Community, a village of fishers and farmers where 400 families live, located in the municipality of El Viejo, on the Pacific coast of the department of Chinandega in western Nicaragua.

“Around here only teachers retire (with pensions),” Flores said in a telephone interview, adding that her community is made up of poor families with very low levels of schooling.

Fishing in their village consists mainly of breeding red snapper (Lutjanus guttatus) in aquatic cages made with nets in the mangroves.

For his part, Salvadoran fisherman José Santos Martínez, also a resident of San Luis La Herradura, told IPS that artisanal fishers are about to finalize a proposal to present to the country’s authorities, demanding social coverage, in order to reduce their vulnerability.

Martínez is the president of the Salvadoran Confederation of Small-Scale Fishing, Aquaculture and Small-Scale Livestock Farming, the first of its kind in the country, which brings together three federations with a total membership of 3,500 men and women.

“If we are sick we can go to a national hospital, like every citizen, but we have no injury or sick leave coverage for the days we have to stay at home recovering,” said Martínez, 57.

By contrast, those who have a formal sector job, working for a private or state-owned company, are covered by the Salvadoran Social Security Institute (ISSS).

The ISSS, although it has many needs, is considered to provide better service than the national public hospital network, which covers everyone in this country of 6.7 million inhabitants.

Martínez said that achieving something similar for the artisanal sector would be a great step forward, given the accidents and illnesses suffered by fishers in their line of work.

Salvadoran fishers can join the ISSS as self-employed workers, but those interviewed told IPS that they could not afford the 40 dollars a month that the coverage costs.

Martínez said that, in his case, he suffers from intense back pain because of the impact from the constant bouncing of the boat over the waves.

“Because of that, I hardly go out fishing anymore,” he said.

He added: “Illnesses become more complicated, and in the end we die, we have no pension, no decent insurance, our families are completely unprotected.”

Martínez said the government should create a mechanism that offers coverage, but the problem is how to pay for it.

However, different proposals can be analyzed, he said. As an example, he pointed out that for decades artisanal fishers have paid a road tax charged to motorists of 0.20 cents of a dollar per gallon of fuel purchased, even though they are clearly not using the fuel to drive on the country’s roads.

“We have paid millions of dollars to the State, without receiving anything in return. Well, part of that money could be returned to us in the medical coverage we need,” he argued.

This charge of 0.20 cents per gallon of gasoline was recently eliminated, since it made no sense to charge small-scale fishers for using the roads.

Gregorio Torres, president of the La Paz Federation of Fishing Production and Services Cooperatives, which brings together 900 fishers from this department in central El Salvador, complained that small-scale fishers are unprotected against illnesses and accidents at work, and need government support to obtain this type of coverage. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

Decent work

His colleague, Gregorio Torres, said that the artisanal fishing sector is key, as it provides fresh products to the country’s markets and helps boost food security, but workers have been unprotected, without pensions or accident insurance.

“We don’t have any of that, and it would be a good idea to push that FAO idea forward,” he commented, referring to the proposal to include them in the social security system.

Torres is president of the La Paz Federation of Fishing Production and Services Cooperatives, which brings together 900 fishers.

Public policy expert Nayda Acevedo told IPS that social security strategies are government tools to minimize the impact of inequalities on vulnerable populations.

In the case of Salvadoran artisanal fishers, the government should focus on promoting “decent work” in that sector, so that the seasonality and irregularity of their incomes can be overcome, she said.

And within the range of social security policies, the State could focus on the most urgent ones, such as medical coverage, she added.

In the meantime, fisherman Nicolás Ayala, at the San Luis La Herradura pier, climbed into his boat, revved up his 60-horsepower engine and headed out to sea, through the estuary.

“As long as I don’t die today, that’s good enough,” he said with his characteristic dark humor and a wry smile, as he motored off in his boat.

Categories: Africa

Challenge for 2023: Guaranteeing Sufficient Food Production

Thu, 06/16/2022 - 19:40

The potential shortages of some commodities may generate internal instability in many countries, increasing internal and external migratory flows. Credit: FAO

By Mario Lubetkin
ROME, Jun 16 2022 (IPS)

If the war in Ukraine and other conflicts around the world continue, the challenge for 2022 will be to guarantee greater access to existing food supplies, and sufficient food production by 2023.

As we approach four months since the start of the war, data continues to show a trend of rising food prices, particularly in the poorest countries, while concern grows about the possible effects of these increases.

It will be the most fragile countries in Africa and Asia that will pay the highest price, even though many European countries are 100% dependent on Russian fertilizers, the world's leading exporter. This is the case of Estonia, Finland, Lithuania and Serbia, while countries such as Slovenia, North Macedonia, Norway and Poland, among others, are also heavily dependent on these fertilizers

The potential shortages of some commodities may generate internal instability in many countries, increasing internal and external migratory flows.

Russia and Ukraine together account for 30% of world exports of wheat and corn, and 63% of sunflower seeds. According to experts, there is already a shortage of three million tons of these grains this year, despite increased exports from other countries, such as India.

Rising energy and fertilizer prices may cause an increase in hunger by several tens of millions of people, severely increasing the figure of 811 million already suffering from hunger in 2020.

That figure continued to increase due to the effects of COVID-19, by more than 100 million in 2021, putting the next global harvest at risk.

According to a recent study by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP), some 193 million people in 53 countries were already acutely food insecurity and in need of very urgent assistance in 2021, almost 40 million more than in 2020.

Famine warnings remain high in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen.

It will be the most fragile countries in Africa and Asia that will pay the highest price, even though many European countries are 100% dependent on Russian fertilizers, the world’s leading exporter.

This is the case of Estonia, Finland, Lithuania and Serbia, while countries such as Slovenia, North Macedonia, Norway and Poland, among others, are also heavily dependent on these fertilizers.

In addition, more than 50 nations in other parts of the world are at least 30% dependent on Russian fertilizers.

Egypt and Turkey are among the countries that may be most affected by their reliance on imported wheat and corn from warring European nations, as well as several African countries such as Congo, Eritrea, Madagascar, Namibia, Somalia and Tanzania.

In relation to the increase in food prices, there are countries like Lebanon where the increase has already exceeded 300%. However, even more developed countries are feeling the impact of the conflict, as in the case of Germany, where prices have risen by 12%, and the United Kingdom, where they have risen by more than 6%.

By the end of March, just over a month into the war, food products had already increased by 12.6%, the highest increase since 1990 according to FAO data.

Reduced production can lead to an immediate drop in food quality, causing an increase in the critical situation of obesity that already exceeds 600 million people, while more than 2 billion are overweight, which can also increase health risks, from cardiovascular conditions to diabetes.

“We need to keep the global trading system open and ensure that agrifood exports are not restricted or taxed,” said FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu.

According to Qu, it is necessary to increase investments in countries affected by current food prices, reduce food waste, and improve and make more efficient use of natural resources such as water and fertilizers.

There is also a need to promote social and technological innovations that will significantly reduce market disruptions in agriculture, as well as to improve social protection and personalized assistance for the farmers most affected by this crisis.

The Chief Economist of FAO, Máximo Torero, recalled the proposal of this specialized organization based in Rome to create a global instrument, called the Food Imports Financing Facility, worth 9,000 million dollars to cover 100% of the food costs for the most affected countries in 2022.

Excerpt:

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

Categories: Africa

Bilingual Intercultural Education, an Endangered Indigenous Right in Peru

Thu, 06/16/2022 - 19:29

Children in an intercultural bilingual education primary school classroom in the district of Chinchaypujio, Anta province, in the southern Andean department of Cuzco, Peru. Each of these classrooms has between 10 and 13 students in different grades, at the kindergarten, primary and secondary levels. CREDIT: Courtesy of Tarea

By Mariela Jara
LIMA, Jun 16 2022 (IPS)

“I always express myself in Quechua and I don’t feel I’m less of a person,” said Elías Ccollatupa, 47, who has been a bilingual intercultural teacher for more than two decades in the Chinchaypujio district, one of the nine that make up the province of Anta, in the department of Cuzco, in the southern Andean region of Peru.

Ccollatupa spoke to IPS by telephone from his Quechua farming community of Pauccarccoto, which is in the district of Chinchaypujio, while the laughter of children at recess resounded in the background. According to official figures, they are part of the 1,239,389 students receiving intercultural bilingual education in this South American country."It is valuable for children to learn in their mother tongue and then move on to a second language. Their cognitive structure is formed in the first five years of life and has to be strengthened in early and primary education. Teaching in the mother tongue boosts children’s intellectual development and when they learn the second language they do very well.” -- Alfredo Rodríguez

A teacher for 21 years, he expressed his concern about the government’s intention to relax the current policy that guarantees the right to intercultural bilingual education, i.e., that learning takes place respecting the student’s native language and cultural identity.

Peru approved the Bilingual Intercultural Education Sector Policy in 2016 and although implementation has been patchy, Ccollatupa, a member of the Tarea (Task) Educational Publications Association, said the existence of this regulatory framework is important.

“This way we ensure that our native languages do not disappear from the map and that our cultures remain alive,” he said.

In the middle of the 20th century, the Peruvian government began to adopt policies to guarantee the right to bilingual education for the indigenous population, within the framework of international mandates, but without putting a priority on their implementation.

The persistent demand of indigenous peoples’ organizations, other non-governmental organizations and the Ombudsman’s Office contributed to the institutionalization of these policies and to an increased budget until the National Intercultural Bilingual Education Plan was approved in 2016, after consultation with indigenous peoples.

The Plan, which includes the Sector Policy, is a five-year plan that officially expired in 2021, but will remain in effect until it is replaced.

At the national level, there are almost 27,000 schools authorized to provide bilingual early childhood, primary and secondary education in the 48 languages of Peru’s native peoples, where the teaching staff must demonstrate that they master the local language. As of February 2022, the Ministry of Education had filled 61 percent of the 44,146 bilingual teaching positions.

The alarm bells rang in January, at the beginning of the school year, when a directive of the General Directorate of Alternative Basic Education, Intercultural Bilingual and Educational Services in Rural Areas, under the Ministry of Education, requested the list of schools where there was a shortage of bilingual teachers in order to reclassify the schools, to make it possible to hire teachers who only speak Spanish.

Children in the courtyard of a school in the Andes highlands community of Pauccarccoto, Chinchaypujio district, in the southern Peruvian department of Cuzco, who receive bilingual intercultural education in Spanish and their mother tongue, Quechua. CREDIT: Courtesy of Tarea

A remnant of colonialism

The Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Jungle (Aidesep), which represents the indigenous peoples of the country’s Amazon region, issued a statement against what it described as a “policy of annihilation” of intercultural bilingual schools.

Alfredo Rodríguez, an advisor to Aidesep’s steering committee on the issue, criticized government officials for putting the right to work of non-bilingual (non-indigenous) teachers above the right of indigenous children to be educated in their mother tongue.

In an interview with IPS in Lima, he mentioned the case of the Urarina native communities, located in the Chambira river basin in the Amazonian department of Loreto, in the extreme north of the country. Twenty teaching positions were awarded there this year to monolingual Spanish-speaking teachers, even though the children at the schools in the area speak their mother tongue, Urarina.

“This is part of the colonial mentality in the minds of those people. They want to force everyone to speak only Spanish because they believe that indigenous languages are dialects without cultural importance and that the backwardness of Peru is due to diversity, that we must homogenize everyone,” said Rodriguez.

He asserted that the authorities’ lack of respect for and appreciation of the country’s cultural and linguistic diversity was part of the “political system” of the “criollos” (descendants of the Spanish colonizers).

He said that attitude was shared by President Pedro Castillo, who describes himself as a rural – but not indigenous – teacher of peasant farmer origins, who taught in villages in the northern department of Cajamarca and was a trade unionist, before entering politics.

“Those who believed that Pedro Castillo was an Indian were mistaken and today, in the educational administration, they are moving towards ethnocide, the annihilation of indigenous civilizations and cultures,” Rodríguez said.

In Peru, a country of more than 32 million inhabitants, almost a quarter of the population aged 12 and over self-identifies as Amazonian or Andean indigenous people. According to the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics, there are 5,771,885 indigenous people in the country.

Shipibo Konibo indigenous children taking part in an event held in the area of Cantagallo, a part of Lima where numerous families of that Amazonian people have settled since the 1990s. Communities of this native people are located in the Amazonian departments of Ucayali, Madre de Dios, Loreto and Huánuco. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Neglect of indigenous children

The Aidesep advisor argued that the right to intercultural bilingual education needs to be reinforced in order to reduce the inequalities affecting indigenous children and adolescents.

He referred, for example, to the fact that 94 percent of teachers in this area do not have teaching degrees, as documented by the Ombudsman’s Office. “The Ministry of Education does nothing about this. There are intercultural universities in name only, without economic resources due to the 500 years of neglect of these populations,” Rodríguez complained.

“It is valuable for children to learn in their mother tongue and then move on to a second language. Their cognitive structure is formed in the first five years of life and has to be strengthened in early and primary education. Teaching in the mother tongue boosts children’s intellectual development and when they learn the second language they do very well,” he added.

However, he considered that due to the lack of attention from the State, the current scenario is that they do not learn their mother tongue well and they learn Spanish in a distorted fashion, which is reflected in their writing and reading skills.

This situation reinforces discrimination and racism. Rodriguez explained that indigenous adolescents drop out of school or lose out on scholarships in universities because of the shortcomings of a secondary education provided by inadequately trained teachers.

Aidesep has submitted a set of proposals to the government.

These include not changing the classification of the institutions that provide intercultural bilingual education services, and implementing special training programs for indigenous teachers.

In addition, they propose the creation of a curriculum reform commission to design content appropriate to native peoples in accordance with Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO), which refers to the rights of indigenous and tribal peoples.

According to the last National Population Census of 2017, 40.5 percent of the population that self-identified as indigenous or native in the Andean and Amazon regions had partial or complete secondary education, in a country with 55 officially recognized native peoples.

Of the total number of indigenous people, 23.4 percent had primary education and 26.3 percent had higher education, while 9.4 percent had received no education at all and 10.8 percent (mainly women) could not read or write.

Raising awareness among families and communities

Teacher Elías Ccollatupa was trained in intercultural bilingual education, as was his wife. Their mother tongue is Quechua and they taught the language to their son and two daughters, who he said “are proud to speak it.”

As a teacher and now as head of Chinchaypujio’s intercultural bilingual education network, he maintains a strong commitment to the right of children to be educated in their mother tongue. He is in charge of six schools from first to sixth grade, each with an average of 12 students.

“I see with concern that in the primary grades of six, seven, eight years old they only want to be taught in Spanish, and that’s because they are children of young mothers and fathers who left the community and have the idea that Quechua is no longer useful,” Ccollatupa said.

It is a kind of language discrimination, he added, a question of social status, as if people who spoke Spanish were superior to those who spoke their native language. “But when it is explained to them, they understand; it’s a question of raising awareness among the families and the authorities: Spanish is important, I tell them, but that does not mean you have to leave Quechua aside,” Ccollatupa said.

He proposed the incorporation of a component of awareness-raising and coordination with the educational community in each territory where intercultural bilingual education is provided, a task that, although it should be the responsibility of the teachers, is not being adequately carried out due to lack of time.

Ccollatupa also raised the need to understand the educational service from a cultural point of view in order to learn about the experiences in each locality where teachers work. To this end, he remarked, it is important to establish alliances with the community’s elders and to address the question of local knowledge with them and create connections with other kinds of knowledge.

Categories: Africa

Frankincense and Myrrh Have New Economic Resonance for Women in Kenya’s Arid North

Thu, 06/16/2022 - 10:40

Women display sorted gums and gum resins at a local market in Marsabit County. The women have greatly benefited economically through harvesting and selling non-wood products. Credit: Robert Kibet/IPS

By Robert Kibet
Nairobi, Jun 16 2022 (IPS)

Clad in traditional regalia and necklaces of richly coloured beads that form magnificent patterns around their necks, an army of women from the pastoral Rendile community that resides at the heart of Marsabit, a county in Kenya’s arid north, is on a mission.

Shoulder-to-shoulder, they are walking towards economic freedom armed with relevant tools up the hill to tap gum and gum-resins from acacia trees.

“We face a myriad of challenges. First, we have to fetch water before harvesting gum from acacia trees. We then sort and dry it before taking it to the market for sale. From gums and gum-resin sales, I am able to meet my family’s needs. No need to sell my sheep and goats at a throw-away price,” says Caroline Sepina, a 47-year-old mother of six, as she carefully sorts the gum, which retails at $ 5 (Ksh 550) per kilogram.

Gums and resins are hardened plant exudates obtained from Acacia, Boswellia and Commiphora species in African drylands.

In Kenya’s drylands, human survival is continually faced with multiple challenges with minimal options for alternative livelihoods.

There are no men within the manyattas in Ndikir, a village located in the Marsabit sub-county. Because of the drought, men have had to move to the nearby Samburu county, searching for pasture and water for their livestock.

Here, the women are left behind, but unlike in the past, when they would be unemployed, they now have alternative livelihoods which complement their livestock.

According to Leuwan Kokton, assistant chief of the Ndikir sub-location, men usually migrate with the livestock to the nearby Samburu county to avoid severe drought, with a few livestock left to help cater for children’s upkeep and sometimes, medication.

“Through this economic venture, I do not have to sell sheep from my herds to cater for my household needs. All I need to do is just walk to the nearby trees and tap the non-wood products, then sell them at the market. This helps me preserve my sheep and goats,” Joseph Longelesh, a resident of Ndikir village told IPS in an interview.

The gums and gum-resins of commercial importance collected from the forests in Kenya include arabic, myrrh, hagar and frankincense. Kenya has resources of gums and resins with commercial production confined to the country’s drylands. Gum arabic comes from Acacia senegal or Acacia seyal, while commercial gum resins are myrrh from Commiphoramyrrha, Hagar from Commiphora holtziana and Frankincense from Boswellia neglecta S.

Traditionally, the resin of Myrrh Hagar is suitable for treating inflammation, arthritis, obesity, microbial infection, wounds, pain, fractures, tumours, gastrointestinal diseases, snake bites and scorpion stings.

Tommaso Menini, the managing director for African Agency for Arid Resource (AGAR), told IPS that gum and resin are directly connected to environmental conservation. The idea is to make the pastoral communities see an alternative source of livelihood apart from livestock.

“Hagar is now an incredibly sought-after product from mostly Chinese buyers because it is highly used in their traditional medicine. Having a nearly 1.4 billion Chinese population means that the demand is high,” Menini told IPS.

“In the last years, we have seen an increasing presence of Chinese buyers setting up a base in Kenya. Before, we had agents who would send several containers to China, but since they are setting up in Kenya, they are now driving prices up because there is more demand.”

For Janet Ahatho, assistant natural resources Director at Marsabit County, these non-wood products have been in existence. Still, the locals had not been exposed to its economic potential and how to exploit them for monetary gains.

“As a county government, we have mapped the areas and worked with the locals. The people who collect the products and sell them are the herders themselves. They have attached that kind of importance to these trees, hence helping in environmental conservation,” says Ahatho.

In Marsabit county, these non-wood products are commonly found in Laisamis, Moyale and North Horr sub-counties.

“Environment destruction is reduced because we have environmental management committees in each sub-county, and they are the ones engaging the collectors and the sellers of the product. They are trained to train the community on why it is important to conserve the tree species,” says Ahatho.

In 2005, the Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development, through the technical cooperation programme of the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), carried out resource assessment and mapping of gums and resins in Kenya.

For Ilkul Salgi, the World Vision’s Integrated Management of Natural Resources for Resilience in Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (IMARA) field officer, the locals who reside in arid counties, including Marsabit, are usually faced with drought, conflicts and how to conserve the environment amid the climate crisis.

Engineer Chidume Okoro, a Network for Natural Gums and Resin in Africa (NGARA) chairperson, says production is far from sustainable, particularly for frankincense, with debarking frequently damaging or killing trees.

According to Chidume, production of gum and resin in large quantities for commercial purposes should be done with great care, by training the locals on how to do it sustainably while saving the acacia trees.

“With much focus on exporting bulk raw materials and poor management of the resource, export markets are underexploited. Gender inequities and power imbalances exist and in some cases have led to unequal access and control over benefits from these natural resources,” Okoro told IPS.

Since exploring the non-wood products, Sepina says her children have always had balanced meals, and she can pay her children’s school fees.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa

Congo’s Oil Ministry Accused of Greenwashing

Thu, 06/16/2022 - 06:56

Greenpeace activists in the Forest in Democratic Republic of Congo. Credit: Kevin McElvaney / Greenpeace

By Tal Harris and Raphaël Mavambu
KINSHASA, Jun 16 2022 (IPS)

Nine of the 16 oil blocks to be auctioned in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) next month overlap Protected Areas, according to a review of official government maps by Greenpeace Africa.

Minister Didier Budimbu, who had previously insisted that “none” of the blocks overlaps Protected Areas, confirmed Greenpeace’s findings in a statement yesterday.

Plans to auction rainforest for oil were reactivated in April, five months after the signature of a $500 million forest deal signed with the Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI) at COP26.

Greenpeace Africa and others have expressed alarm that three of the blocks overlap with the Cuvette Centrale peatlands, a biodiversity hotspot containing about 30 gigatons of carbon, equivalent to three years of global emissions. Oil drilling could release the immense stocks of carbon they store, warned Professor Simon Lewis of University College London.

That Protected Areas are also at risk became apparent last month when the Hydrocarbons Ministry itself published a video featuring a map of six of the 16 blocks : five of them are clearly shown to overlap Protected Areas.

The voice-over praises the “meticulousness” with which blocks had been “selected,” mindful of environmental “sensibilities,” and claiming input from unnamed environmentalists.

Peatland Forest in DRC. Credit: Daniel Beltrá / Greenpeace

Another official online source, the Environment Ministry Forest Atlas of the Democratic Republic of Congo, shows nine of the blocks overlapping Protected Areas, including a national park, nature reserves, and a mangroves marine park.

The Ministry’s statement to Greenpeace Africa asserts: “It’s been decided that Protected Areas containing mineral natural resources of high economic value will be degazetted.”

While it describes the overlaps as “very negligible,” a simple review of the map shows significant overlap in at least three cases, including that of Upemba National Park, part of which occupies about a third of the Upemba block.

Irene Wabiwa Betoko, International Project Leader for the Congo Basin forest at Greenpeace Africa said: “The auction of new oil blocks anywhere during a climate crisis that disproportionately affects African people is mad.

Greenwashing the auction of blocks overlapping peatlands and Protected Areas is the height of cynicism. Doing so with such amateurism is particularly disturbing.”

In its statement to Greenpeace Africa, the Ministry emphasizes that no areas inside UNESCO World Heritage sites are up for auction and that overlaps are restricted to other Protected Areas. Congolese law, however, makes no distinction, in terms of oil exploration, among Protected Areas.

Block 18, one of the few that doesn’t encroach on a Protected Area, is only about twenty kilometers from Salonga National Park, a UNESCO site. In July 2021, the DRC government succeeded in removing Salonga from the List of World Heritage in Danger after it promised to update UNESCO, no later than 1 February 2022, on “the progress made towards the definitive cancellation of the oil concessions” there.

Over two months after the deadline, the government reported that the park’s steering committee decided on 14 December 2021 to “initiate actions for the[ir] definitive cancellation.” Instead of finally acting, the government continues planning to act.

“The mouth that says all the right things about the climate and biodiversity crises works separately from the hand that signs the contracts that make them worse. This disconnect also characterizes DRC’s donors: their COP26 speeches in praise of the Congo rainforest have resulted in an agreement that is an open invitation to oil companies,” added Irene Wabiwa.

The agreement signed at COP26 does nothing to protect peatlands of the Cuvette Centrale from the oil and gas industry, and is hardly more demanding with regard to the integrity of Protected Areas.

Instead of banning extractive industries in them, the 2 November letter of intent seeks only damage control. It calls for a study “to determine to what extent the titles […] of hydrocarbons overlap with and/or have an impact on protected areas, […] with a view to adopting appropriate prevention or mitigation measures […]”.

Greenpeace Africa calls on the DRC government to cancel the auction of new oil blocks: “Instead of auto-pilot steering Congo into a climate catastrophe, the government and the international community must invest in ending energy poverty by accelerating investments in clean and accessible renewable energies,” concluded Irene Wabiwa.

Tal Harris is International Communications Coordinator, Greenpeace Africa: and Raphaël Mavambu is Communications and Media Consultant, Greenpeace Africa.

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa

Ending Hunger in America: Here’s What the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health Should Do to Be Inclusive

Thu, 06/16/2022 - 00:07

By Esther Ngumbi
URBANA, Illinois, USA, Jun 15 2022 (IPS)

This September, the White House will convene a conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health. Leading up to the conference, the White House is organizing several virtual listening sessions across America to hear firsthand from people impacted by food insecurity and to collect ideas about how to end hunger and hunger-related diseases and disparities.

Hunger and food insecurity impact more than 38 million Americans. Black and Hispanic families and other minority groups including LGBTQ folks, consistently and disproportionally experience food insecurity compared with their white and straight counterparts particularly. Thus, this attention to the issue is long overdue.

African Americans still trail Whites in the overall use of the internet; 34% of Black adults do not have access to home broadband and 30.6% of Black households lack high-speed home internet. In addition, racial minorities and those with lower education levels and income are less likely to have broadband service at home

However, the strategy the White House is taking – hosting virtual listening sessions – is problematic in many ways. As much as they have good intentions, it may not yield the much-needed input necessary to accelerate progress and make significant policy changes to end hunger.

Instead, sadly, the White House hearings will likely only provide a small picture of the problem as it will be an effort the privileged are most able to join. Participating in these hearings necessitates that you have access to the Internet and you are aware of the listening sessions.

This likely means you are part of networks or have access to channels where the announcement was disseminated. Most importantly, joining the listening sessions is something that one must have the privilege of extra time to attend.

Unfortunately, Americans who are impacted hardest by food insecurity – the people President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris need to hear from – may not have one or all of these privileges. For instance, if we look at Internet access, according to Pew Research Center Report,

Moreover, according to Pew Research, 10 percent of Americans that do not use the internet live in rural areas– areas where food insecurity is prevalent. The major reason many Black families living in urban and rural communities do not have access to the privilege of having internet access is the cost.

Unsurprisingly, because of persistent racial inequities, African Americans and other minority groups that are most impacted by hunger may not have the privilege of time, since many have to work two or three jobs just to make ends meet.

Worse still, for many African Americans, despite working more every year, they hold much less wealth and experience higher rates of unemployment and have no tangible economic advancements.

Thus, rather than hold virtual listening sessions only to create a national plan on how to address hunger and food insecurity, the White House should consider adding other creative platforms to be more inclusive.

The most obvious one to implement is bringing the listening tours offline to the people in the communities and spaces where food security impacted people live in.

The easiest way to do this is to hold meetings and convening gatherings where people already go. As an example, the White House could convene in-person roundtable listening sessions at food banks across America, where according to Feeding America, close to 60 million Americans who are food insecure visit regularly.

Doing so would require the White House to partner with food banks and other organizations where people impacted by food security get food from. Another prime location for listening sessions would be churches. Churches have an existing relationship with their participating members and can be used as a platform to solicit for stories and ideas.

The Center for Disease Control and other groups that worked to increase the number of people that got vaccinated successfully undertook this same tactic and saw an increase in the number of people agreeing to be vaccinated. As an example, partnering with Black and African American churches in areas with low vaccination rates resulted in an increase in the number of people getting vaccinated.

Additionally, rather than hold a few virtual listening sessions that have set dates and times, the White House could partner and coordinate with hunger and food insecurity community-based organizations that have existing relationships with the people so that they hold multiple listening sessions.

These groups can create ways for additional feedback and ideas to be shared with the White House, and at the same time, the White House can use these community-trusted organizations to share additional updates on future White House efforts to end hunger. It’s a win -win.

Without a doubt, solving complex problems like hunger and food insecurity needs to be a united effort where everyone’s input, voice, and ideas are listened to and considered.

Achieving that necessitates that the White House considers other creative ways to solicit ideas and stories from those who have been impacted by hunger and food insecurity and to center the ideas they provide in the national plan outlining how America will end hunger. It is the right thing to do.

Dr. Esther Ngumbi is an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, and a Senior Food Security Fellow with the Aspen Institute, New Voices.

Categories: Africa

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