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International Women’s Day, 2022Women Demanding Justice & Peace in the Streets of Myanmar

Wed, 03/02/2022 - 10:30

Activists in Myanmar taking part in the 'Sarong Revolution'. Credit: Khin Su Kyi

By May Sabe Phyu
NEW YORK, Mar 2 2022 (IPS)

This will be the second International Women’s Day since the brutal coup erupted in Myanmar – and women remain fiercely in the lead in demanding justice and peace in the streets and behind closed doors.

Last February, the coup threw Myanmar into further chaos and violence. The military used excessive force, indiscriminate killings, arbitrary arrests, forced disappearances, limits on civic space, nightly raids, and more.

With this complete upheaval, combined with the COVID-19 pandemic, we are in the midst of a set of complex emergencies. The world watched in horror, but as usual, the situation quickly faded from the headlines, the public conscious, and policy priorities.

Under these circumstances, the people of Myanmar have held steadfast. With the onset of the coup, people expressed their dissent and opposition against the seizure of political power. Everyday sheroes and heroes shunned the security of their secure jobs and pensions to join the Civil Disobedience Movement.

Myanmar has seen protracted civil war for 70 years, but what makes this time difference is the scope of the conflicts. There are new armed clashes across the country with local forces standing up to defend their lives and their communities.

Meanwhile, old conflicts have also re-emerged due to the military’s crackdown of the pro-democracy movement. There is widespread violence against the civilian population and on humanitarian workers. The junta has committed atrocities., prompting the UN General Assembly to declare the army’s actions as crimes against humanity.

This year, the women activists of Myanmar will be campaigning with the themes of “Break the Bias, End Discrimination” and “Break the Bias, End Dictatorship.” It takes a lot to keep the women of Myanmar off the streets, but escalating threats are forcing many to raise their voices and awareness through different means.

In addition to some public protests, social media and digital campaigns are sharing women’s stories of discrimination. Any act of resistance under the military rule brings risk, but we will not be silenced.

May Sabe Phyu. Credit: Aye Thada Hla

Women account for more than half of those participating in the protests and aid response, and they face heightened risks for violence and more. Women peacebuilders and girls in the community face gender-based violence without warning, and we must protect them from these risks before and after they develop.

Women often need to flee without notice, but the current system does not meet their specific needs. We would like to develop a special fund for women who are forced to leave their communities abruptly.

More than the very real threats of physical violence, NGOs and civil society organizations face other challenges that block the assistance they aim to provide – many organizations cannot access their funds and are unable to formally register their organizations because the Central Bank of Myanmar is controlling the foreign money coming into the country.

Despite these hurdles in all directions and threats to themselves and their families, first responders continue to jump into the fray, scrambling to find resources necessary for their work.

Even after many countries condemned the SAC’s egregious acts against their own people, we have seen little concrete action or improvement in the situation. It feels like many in the international community are overwhelmed and therefore paralyzed, but international solidarity and pressure makes a difference at all levels and is needed more than ever.

We appeal for leaders to listen to the people on the ground and to be willing to support for women’s human rights organizations with the creativity and flexibility that is necessary to meet our specific and changing needs.

The United States has tools at their disposal to support the people of Myanmar and bring accountability to those committing atrocities – and one in particular that could move the needle:

The Burma Act is an important piece of legislation that provides urgently-needed resources to civil society, pro-democracy organizations, and humanitarian agencies. It also calls for the United States to exert pressure on the UN to take decisive actions on Burma.

The Burma Act also outlines the unconditional release of all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience in Myanmar. The Burma Act is very much in line with what the people of Myanmar have been calling for. I and my fellow activists urge Congress to pass this legislation urgently.

The Burma Act would be a vital step, but it’s one of many we need to see real and lasting progress: The United Nations, the international community, and leaders must do all in their power to support the women-led movement for peace and democracy in Myanmar.

Activists – with women at the forefront – continue to bravely flash the three-finger salute, wave the sarong flags, and tell their stories. The international community must match their bold acts to make sure their insistent dream of democracy, human rights, and peace can be realized.

May Sabe Phyu is a Kachin social worker and activist from Burma. She is the director of the Gender Equality Network and founded the Kachin Women’s Peace Network and the Kachin Peace Network to promote the rights of Kachin women.

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Excerpt:

The following opinion piece is part of series to mark International Women’s Day, March 8.

Categories: Africa

International Women’s Day, 2022Collective Solutions to Improve Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights in Climate Action

Wed, 03/02/2022 - 09:05

Adolescent girls attend a support group discussion on women’s health. Sexual and reproductive health rights, are human rights, the independent UN expert on the right to health reminded Member States in the General Assembly, saying that it was essential to restore services in the field, that have been eroded during the COVID-19 pandemic. October 2021. Credit: UNICEF/Tapash Paul

By Ayomide Oluseye and Gabriela Fernando
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Mar 2 2022 (IPS)

The devastating effects of climate change continue to disproportionately affect women and girls in the poorest regions, who have contributed the least to global warming.

Oftentimes, climate change impacts exacerbate socio-economic factors, environmental factors, and the health of women and girls, particularly their Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR). Yet, the solutions to address climate change impacts fail to prioritise the needs of SRHR of women and girls in climate action.

Currently, women and girls in the Global South face the double injustice of having limited access to SRHR services and having disproportionately higher exposure to climate change risks.

For example, extreme weather patterns increase the vulnerability to food insecurities, infectious and vector-borne diseases, combined with disruptions to essential services such as antenatal care, due to climate-related infrastructural damages, have had significant implications for maternal and child health outcomes.

In the Asia Pacific region, where water levels are rising, pregnant have a higher risk of malaria infection due to pregnancy-induced physiological changes. These have also been associated with a higher prevalence of premature delivery, stillbirths, and low-weight births.

Geographical isolation and displacement due to climate change increases the risk of gender-based violence and sexual violence and reinforce poor access to SRHR services. This is evident in South Sudan and Yemen, where the effects of the climate crisis- such as drought and flooding- worsen the humanitarian crisis of famine and conflict.

As such, there have been grave implications on the SRHR of women and girls, including the disruption to family planning, antenatal care, and increasing rates of sexual violence of women and girls.

Furthermore, financial hardships caused by climate shocks also increase the likelihood of school dropouts of girls, resulting in childhood marriages, teenage pregnancies, and sexual trafficking of girls and women. In Uganda, for example, loss of livestock, crop failures, and food insecurities due to extreme droughts, and locust invasion were found to increase school dropouts, reinforce the practice of forced labour among girls, and increase the incidences of child marriages in exchange for food.

During climate emergencies, we have seen the sudden diversions and disinvestments of sexual and reproductive health resources to disaster management, further compromising efficient SRH service and delivery.

This is well documented in the current COVID-19 pandemic, where the burden of the pandemic, combined with the impacts of the climate crisis, particularly on low-resource health systems, has further accentuated the diversion of funds and resources away from routine and essential sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services.

While the demand for SRH services, such as contraceptives, increased during the pandemic, it was found that women and girls faced greater barriers to accessing family planning services, skilled-assisted deliveries, and antenatal care visits.

Additionally, the pandemic halted essential sexual and reproductive health-oriented programs and interventions, which has resulted in increasing rates of female genital mutilation, childhood marriages, and pregnancies.

Despite this evidence, there is little discussion and delayed action in integrating the needs of SRHR in climate adaptation and mitigation plans. This lack of attention will undoubtedly cause major future setbacks in advancing SRHR and reverse some of the hard-won gains in gender equality, particularly for the poorest and most vulnerable women and girls.

The message is clear; we cannot deliver sustainable climate change interventions and adaptations if we do not strengthen the reproductive health and rights of women and girls. Therefore, it is essential at this critical juncture of recovering from the pandemic and addressing the climate crisis, that we look for solutions for collective action. We provide some key suggestions:

Document good practices.

In a UNFPA Nationally Determined Contributions report of 50 African countries, only nine countries referenced SRHR in their climate change adaptation strategies. This missing component of how climate change intersects with SRHR and limited discussions on risk management plans are concerning.

A starting point is to take a more proactive approach by documenting good practices of how countries and organisations have previously worked to ensure strengthened access to SRHR services before, during and after disasters.

These can serve as guiding strategies to improve targeted local and national interventions to support women’s SRHR in the context of climate change. Additionally, dialogue between key actors working on climate change response and those working in SRHR provides valuable opportunities to share lessons and exchange hard-won solutions to advance gender equality in health programmes.

In this regard, the Gender and Health Hub at The United Nations University, International Institute of Global Health (UNU-IIGH) is organising a side-event at the CSW66, focusing on applying these transferrable lessons from the SRHR space to climate change responses.

Shifting focus of the climate change responses.

Most climate change-related mitigation efforts advocate family planning as a win/win approach due to evidence linking reduced population growth to improved climate change outcomes. This approach is both problematic and simplistic. First, it is problematic as it shifts responsibility from the Global North – the largest contributor to global warming – to women in the Global South and emphasises reproductive control.

Second, it is simplistic as it fails to address how underlying drivers of vulnerability– such as power dynamics, access, intersectionality, and poor health systems – combine to create significant barriers that prevent women’s improved SRH and resilience to climate change.

Thus, there is a need to shift focus from reproductive control to managing the SRHR outcomes of vulnerable women and girls as part of climate change adaptation strategies. This involves strengthening health systems and reducing other SRHR vulnerabilities (e.g., FGM, child marriage) that may be exacerbated due to climate shocks.

Engage women and girls.

Women and girls of diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds and identities need to be recognised as key actors and be given prominent roles in planning climate change adaptation strategies that address social vulnerabilities at all levels.

Equal partnerships and consultations with feminist organisations, advocacy groups, and female-led community groups are also important to raise awareness, promote the acceptability of interventions, and increase reach to vulnerable women (e.g., women with disabilities). This ensures that reproductive health needs are considered and met as part of disaster management plans.

Increase SRHR financing as part of emergency preparedness.

There is a need to move beyond a ‘zero sum’ game of diverting resources from SRHR during emergencies to seeing the mutual benefits that can occur when SRH services are strengthened during climate shocks.

This involves increasing public spending on the scale-up of SRH programmes, improving affordability, and building the capacity of reproductive health systems to effectively sustain SRH services and deliver timely responses during climate shocks.

Women and girls face heightened vulnerabilities to both climate shocks and access to SRH services. The adverse effects of climate change are already exacerbating an already stark problem of unmet need with regards to SRHR.

Recognising that women’s rights are human rights, a shared agenda between strengthening women’s reproductive health and building climate change resilience is needed to achieve a sustainable tomorrow and ensure that no one gets left behind.

Ayomide Oluseye and Gabriela Fernando are Postdoctoral Fellows at the United Nations University International Institute for Global Health (UNU-IIGH) based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Excerpt:

The following opinion piece is part of series to mark International Women’s Day, March 8.

Categories: Africa

Safe Space to Express, Share and Grow

Wed, 03/02/2022 - 07:03

Riya Sinha and Shraddha Varma, co-founders of Fuzia developed their online platform to enhance their audiences' health, well-being, education and to encourage diversity.

By Fairuz Ahmed
New York, Mar 2 2022 (IPS)

Manjo Sheik, a 25-year-old entrepreneur from India, says women have multiple obstacles to overcome.

“From early childhood, a girl born into a middle-class family or even a higher middle class are always reminded that we have to work harder to prove our worth and we are born with a disadvantage that we are not males,” she says.

Then there is the superficiality of “being pretty, having fair complexion, education, and merits.”

Despite the obstacles, Sheik has succeeded. She runs an online boutique where clothes are tailored to the customers’ requirements. She partners with a few influencers to help promote it.

She is taking advantage of the growing online markets.

According to a study published by Omnimonster University, online shopping is growing incredibly fast, and the global online shopping market reached 4 trillion US dollars in 2020. There will be 300 million online shoppers in the US alone in 2023, representing nearly 91% of the country’s population.

But Americans aren’t the only ones who shop online. People all over the world understand the benefits. According to Invesp, the countries with the leading average eCommerce revenue per shoppers are: USA ($1,804), UK ($1,629), Sweden ($1,446), France ($1,228), Germany ($1,064) and Brazil ($350).

Thousands of online shops and boutiques stem from need and gain traction online from word of mouth and social platform-based forums.

Sheik and her partner Jamila Begum from Bangladesh pull up their i-Pads to explain their efforts.

Begum says she is a single mother of two five-year-old twins.

“When I first arrived in the United States, I could not speak a word of English. I used to watch movies and try to read the subtitles. Now seven years later, I speak fluently.”

“I have established a whole new business and earn enough for the entire family. My ex-husband does not pay a single dollar in child support, and I am no longer worried about our future because now I am self-sufficient and selling outfits online. This has opened a whole new world for us.”

Begum and Seik are part of an online selling group that supports and bounces ideas off each other to capture new territories and launch new products worldwide. Their market is a niche, and they have adapted to that.

Begum says their support network includes 145 members on a private ground on Facebook.

“Influencer marketing is the key to our sales. Immigrants, religious minorities, and young women professionals who wish to shop for themselves and their families are our clients,” Begum says.

“Do you have any idea how empowering it is to see girls of dark skins who look like us on Instagram, Facebook and other places having millions of followers? We now have a voice, and presence online is opening doors left and right.”

Their online forum is part of a growing social media phenomenon where websites and live forums have niche demographics catered for and where people from various walks of life can come together and form a bond. This removes barriers to entry, languages gaps, and geographical boundaries. Fuzia (https://www.fuzia.com) founded by Riya Sinha and Shraddha Varma, is one such platform.

With a 5 million user base, Fuzia has created a space where users can network, have a conversation, share their creativity and find work opportunities. This is a safe space for their community. They also ensure that profanity and hate speech is eliminated, and so the engagement, which includes pre-teens to seniors, is affirming and positive.

Christina Desuza, who lives in the United States, speaks three languages and has cultural ties with Asia.

“On Fuzia’s forums, I get the chance to speak with other teens and young adults from all around the world. We talk about our relationships, music, studies, and future,” she says. “I have grown a lot, and speaking with various types of users from all around the world has made me more tolerant of differences and cultural norms. It has also opened my eyes to new possibilities. I love that here, I feel free, and there is always something to read about and a safe place to share. Here no one passes comments for my looks and social standing.”

Fuzia also acts as a virtual creative hub that promotes a supportive and inclusive community where all members, male, female and third genders, are accepted and encouraged to express their beliefs in their inner powers, creativity, and potential. They thrive on speaking on otherwise taboo topics. Emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual health is given their own space, and users can voice their concerns. The community grows on collaboration, sisterhood, support, and learning. It is central to the Fuzia philosophy, which provides women and others with a safe, bully-free, non-judgmental, and criticism-free virtual online space.

Shraddha Varma, the founder of Fuzia, says their initiatives align with the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations of ensuring good health, well-being, education for all, and diversity inclusion. By taking advantage of the growing population of women who turn to social media for inspiration and knowledge, especially in the Indian subcontinent, Fuzia sets up workshops, support groups, live sessions, podcasts, and more.

Co-founder Riya Sinha says Fuzia is empowering. “It makes learning and skills development accessible to all. 2022 will be all about stepping up the empowerment game by leveraging learning, earning, and self-improvement messages. So that people feel encouraged to join our platform to level up their personal and professional identity. We provide and nurture a space of judgment-free socialization. Having this on its own creates a space to share and grow.”

This article is a sponsored feature.

Categories: Africa

African Governments Urged to Support Plastic Pollution Solutions

Tue, 03/01/2022 - 15:17

Negotiators at the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) in Kenya. African countries have been encouraged to adopt circular plastic policies which will lower greenhouse emissions. Credit: UNEA

By Aimable Twahirwa
Nairobi, Kenya, Mar 1 2022 (IPS)

Environmental experts gathered in Nairobi, Kenya, have urged African governments to take advantage of ‘circular plastic opportunities’ to lower greenhouse gas emissions and stop environmental degradation. They were speaking to IPS on the sidelines of the fifth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA).

The key approach to a circular economy for developing countries in Africa and elsewhere, according to experts, should focus on addressing plastic pollution by reducing the discharge of plastics into the environment by covering all stages of the plastic life cycle. Plastic waste would be reduced through restorative and regenerative projects using the material without allowing leakage into the natural environment.

Inger Andersen, the Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), outlined critical steps on halting plastic pollution, stopping harmful chemicals in agriculture, and deploying nature to find sustainable development solutions.

“Ambitious action to beat plastic pollution should track the lifespan of plastic products – from source to sea – should be legally binding, accompanied by support to developing countries, backed by financing mechanisms, tracked by strong monitoring mechanisms, and incentivizing all stakeholders – including the private sector,” Andersen said.

The main challenge is how countries should move towards a more circular economy that benefits from reducing environmental pressure. Scientists stress the need for most African governments to strengthen the science and knowledge base on plastic pollution and improve their policies.

Mohammed Abdelraouf, chair of Scientific and Technological Community Major Group UNEP, told IPS that while there are many solutions to plastic pollution, research should complement these efforts by developing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.

“It is important for governments to make decisions that stimulate innovations,” he said.

According to the draft resolution being debated at UNEA, signatories to an internationally legally binding agreement would commit to reducing plastic pollution across the entire lifecycle of plastics, from preventive measures in the upstream part of the lifecycle to downstream ones addressing waste management. Rwanda and Peru drew up the resolution.

For a smooth implementation and compliance by stakeholders, the UN agency in charge of environmental protection is engaged with stakeholders, including governments, the business community, researchers, and civil society. The engagement aims to understand priorities, challenges, what’s needed to foster a plastics circular economy that works for industry, economies and meets environmental and social objectives.

Experts describe private sector support as crucial in managing plastic waste. Some business community members will benefit during implementation from grant financing to encourage the move towards the circular economy.

Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), says ambitious action is needed to beat plastic pollution. Credit: UNEP

With different industries across the plastic value chain now facing a shifting dynamic, Andersen noted that company shareholders and consumers are increasingly paying attention to the pollution challenges arising from their investments and purchasing decisions.

For example, one waste management initiative has supported public-private investment projects in three African countries, including Algeria, Ethiopia, and Rwanda, to advance sustainable waste management and the circular economy.

Margaret Munene, a Kenyan woman entrepreneur and chair of Business and Industry Major Group of UNEP, told delegates that the successful reduction of plastic pollution requires testing solutions.

“The private sector remains critical to creating innovative and technological solutions to address plastic waste,” she said.

Norwegian Minister of Climate and Environment, Espen Barth Eide, has initiated a project to identify requirements and options for designing a science-policy interface. The project aims to develop different proposals on how to create the interface to operate as effectively as possible, especially for developing countries.

“Plastic pollution has grown into an epidemic of its own. Paradoxically, plastics are among the most long-lasting products we humans have made – and frequently, we still just throw it away. Plastic is a product that can be used again, and then over and over again, if we move it into a circular economy. I am convinced that the time has come for a legally binding treaty to end plastic pollution,” Eide said.

Beyond plastics, experts say other major interventions needed concern the design of buildings that make efficient use of limited materials and use building processes that are less energy-intensive to lower greenhouse gas emissions and stop environmental degradation.

Official estimates show that Africa is the second most populous continent globally, and its urban population is expected to nearly triple by 2050 to 1.34 billion.

It’s estimated that between 60% and 80% of the built environment needed by 2050 to support this growing population has yet to be laid.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa

Protecting Workers & Enabling a Green Recovery from COVID-19

Tue, 03/01/2022 - 10:19

Gig economy has boosted employment of Indian women in the formal sector. Credit: UNDP India

By Haoliang Xu
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 1 2022 (IPS)

2022 is a decisive year for all of us as recovery prospects remain highly uncertain.

Global human development has witnessed a decline for the first time since the measurement began in 1990. As UNDP’s new Special Report on Human Security also reveals, 6 in 7 people worldwide are plagued by feelings of insecurity.

The pandemic has placed employer and worker organizations under increased pressure. It is posing new challenges with respect to safeguarding workplace safety and health, including in but not limited to frontline and other sectors critical to the day-to-day functioning of economies and societies, and ensuring respect for labour rights more generally, including in digitally enabled remote work arrangements which have expanded substantially during the crisis.

At the same time, sectors such as tourism and hospitality, culture, aviation, and some manufacturing and personal services continue to struggle, as do many smaller firms, resulting in many workers shifting from formal to informal and often insecure employment where labour protections, tax administration and social protection is considerably weaker.

Redoubling our efforts to effectively protect and empower vulnerable workers and enterprises, particularly those in the informal economy is clearly paramount.

Desna Dabhade has diligently facilitated online training on Warli Art for 70+ volunteers in Mumbai, India, supported by UNDP. Credit: UNDP India

Whilst this requires action on multiple fronts, there are four key levers to address the challenges:

First, data and analytics. We need more, better granular data to understand the realities and risks facing vulnerable workers and businesses, especially those in the informal economy. Efforts towards better understanding the ecosystems in which informal workers and businesses operate and building evidence, including through expanding labor market and Micro-Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) databases, should continue alongside efforts to bring the voice of workers and businesses into the mainstream.

Second, digital transformation. We need digital solutions that point to the potential of digital technologies, products and platforms. Our review of the social protection response to COVID-19 in the global South clearly indicates that greater investments in digitized registries, on-line mobile registration platforms, as well as digital delivery are instrumental to improve outreach and access for uncovered groups, including informal workers.

Likewise, digital solutions hold great promise for increasing the productivity and resilience of MSMEs, through expanding their access to financing, skills and market opportunities.

Uganda, for instance, has helped on-boarding over 3,500 informal vendors on a leading African e-commerce platform (Jumia) who are now selling over 300,000 products online and have doubled their daily turnover. The digital move gets obvious traction, and there is scope for scaling up.

Cambodia is accelerating digital transformation with over 1,500 MSMEs transitioning to e-commerce for business continuity, livelihoods, and employment. This secured jobs for 6,527 people (41% women).

Third, fostering gender equality and inclusion. We need to massively invest in digital and financial literacy while closing the gender digital divide. 2.9 billion women, mostly in developing countries, have no access to the internet. Our collective action should seek to fully protect and empower women workers and women-owned enterprises, particularly those in the informal economy. Integrating the needs of migrant workers and people with disabilities is another imperative.

Fourth, greater focus on resilience and sustainability. Sustaining enterprises and their capacity to preserve and create jobs requires improving their capacities to better prevent, anticipate and manage shocks. Equally critical is the need to encourage more environmentally and socially sustainable business practices.

For example, in India, a circular economy creates value from plastic waste. Ghana’s multi-stakeholder ‘Waste’ Recovery Platform connects all actors, formal and informal, public and private across waste management value chain and also create decent green jobs.

While considering pathways towards recovery, the informal economy cannot merely be approached from a ‘vulnerability’ or ‘deficit’ lens. The informal economy is an untapped opportunity to chart pathways for prosperity for all. It is also a world of innovation and creativity, with many invisible contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals.

One enabler to charting such pathways is to harness digital transformations, while connecting it to green transitions. Digital solutions can significantly improve informal actors’ access to social protection, skills, markets, trade, and financial opportunities.

Moreover, efficiency and productivity gains enabled by digital technologies, products and platforms and on-line one-stop shops, that bring together several registration procedures to accelerate the transition to larger, formal firms with greater scope to create jobs.

We need to move away from short-term towards long-term action that can spur transformative change in health and social protection systems, the world of work and business ecosystems.

Excerpt:

The writer is UN Assistant Secretary General and Director, UNDP’s Bureau for Policy and Programme Support

Categories: Africa

Will Russia Follow USSR Expelled from League of Nations for Invading Finland in a Bygone Era?

Tue, 03/01/2022 - 09:57

The UN Security Council meets on the situation in Ukraine, 27 February 2022. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

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

The Russian Federation, condemned worldwide for invading a founding member of the United Nations– and violating the UN charter– came under heavy fire during a rare Emergency Special Session of the 193-member General Assembly, the highest policy-making body in the Organization.

The emergency meeting, for the first time in 40 years, took place on a request by the UN Security Council (UNSC).

Having survived a critical resolution in the UNSC last week because of its veto, Russia remained politically isolated once again as criticisms poured in from over 100 speakers who participated in the day-long debate.

The meetings in the Security Council and the General Assembly, however, left two questions unanswered: Would civilian killings in Ukraine lead to an investigation of war crimes? And will Russia eventually face the unlikely prospect of being suspended from the General Assembly?

Harking back to history, the League of Nations, the predecessor to the United Nations, formed at the end of World War I, expelled the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) in December 1939, in response to the Soviet invasion of Finland the previous month.

Louis Charbonneau, United Nations Director at Human Rights Watch, told IPS Russia may have vetoed a resolution in the UN Security Council last week, even though, as a party to the Ukraine conflict, it was required to abstain. It stood alone– even its stalwart comrade China abandoned Russia and abstained.

But if Russia’s goal was to silence UN member states, it has failed miserably, as evidenced by the historic Emergency Special Session of the UN General Assembly, he said.

“We hope that the General Assembly will adopt a strong resolution demanding respect for human rights and international humanitarian law, protection of civilians, and stress the need for accountability for war crimes and abuses,” Charbonneau declared.

Families carry their belongings through the Zosin border crossing in Poland after fleeing Ukraine. Credit: UNHCR/Chris Melzer

“And we hope either the General Assembly or Human Rights Council will quickly establish a commission of inquiry to investigate war crimes, atrocities and other violations by parties to the conflict. They need to know that if you violate the laws of war, you’ll have to answer for your crimes’, he noted.

The last Emergency Special Session, requested by the Security Council, was in 1982 on the crisis on Golan Heights.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on February 28 that fighting in Ukraine has pushed roughly half a million people across the country’s borders, as they escaped the advancing Russian military forces.

There were also reports of over 350 civilians killed, including women and children, triggering a humanitarian crisis.

In 1974, South Africa was suspended from the General Assembly, following a 1973 resolution which labeled apartheid a “crime against humanity”.

But it is unlikely the current General Assembly will go in that direction because the Russian Federation, a successor state to the USSR, is a veto-wielding permanent member of the Security Council.

Credit: South Africa History Online

Meanwhile, even as the emergency special session was continuing, the United States informed both the United Nations and the Russian Permanent Mission to the United Nations that it was in the process of expelling 12 “intelligence operatives from the Russian Mission who have abused their privileges of residency in the United States by engaging in espionage activities adverse to our national security”.

“We are taking this action in accordance with the UN Headquarters Agreement. This action has been in development for several months,” the US State Department said February 28.

Thomas G. Weiss, Distinguished Fellow, Global Governance, The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, told IPS while the nuclear-sabre-rattling Russia is as much a pariah as apartheid South Africa, there is no chance that Russia will be suspended.

“There are different rules, as we all know, for the major-power ganders that do not apply to most member-state geese,” he pointed out.

The “Special” Session of the General Assembly is, well, “special” and has been used only a handful of times in three-quarters of a century of UN history. The number of co-sponsors suggests how isolated Moscow is, he added.

Perhaps there is hope that the usual chorus of voices that see sovereignty as sacrosanct—think China and India—will begin to be willing to say “nyet” to Russian irredentist imperialism? declared Weiss, Presidential Professor of Political Science and Director Emeritus, Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY).

Told about the expulsion of Russia from the League of Nations in a bygone era, he remarked: “The League was on its last legs. Let’s hope the UN is not!”

Barbara Crossette, a former UN Bureau Chief for the New York Times and currently contributing editor at PassBlue.com, told IPS Russia’s position in the global community has been very much weakened, by the savage unprovoked assault, spurring huge pro-Ukrainian protests around the world, which are non-partisan and non-ideological, seeming to demand that some sort of UN meaningful member action state could hardly be avoided.

“My own Eastern European family — or what remains of it — did not get this kind of attention with the invasion of Hungary or Czechoslovakia”, she said pointing out the images now of well-dressed refugees fleeing their homeland- -as well as the Brandenburg Gate and the Empire State Building (among so many places ) illuminated in Ukrainian colors may be making a difference, said Crossette, a senior fellow of the Ralph Bunche Institute at the City University of New York, and co-author with George Perkovich of a section on India in the 2009 book Powers and Principles: International Leadership in a Shrinking World.

Jens Martens, Director, Global Policy Forum, based in Bonn, told IPS the inability to respond to Putin’s flagrant violation of international law once again proved the ineffectiveness of the Security Council and
its anachronistic composition and veto rules.

The veto power of the P5 – namely the US, UK, France, China and Russia — have always been a major obstacle to resolve global conflicts, he said, pointing out the emergency special session of the General Assembly under the Uniting for Peace resolution is the only way for the UN members to condemn Russia’s violation of the UN Charter.

“It demonstrates that the vision of the UN remains highly relevant. It will probably not change Putin’s mind but it can give moral support to Russia’s civil society and the opposition groups, which reject the war and fight for peace and democracy.

In view of the paralysis of the Security Council, the General Assembly, as the only global body with universal membership, must play a much more important role. In this respect, the emergency special session of the General Assembly can have an important signaling function and set a precedent for the future, said Martens.

Addressing delegates, the President of the General Assembly Abdulla Shahid said the ongoing military offensive is an affront to the founders of this Organization and everything it stands for.

“The violence must stop. humanitarian law and international humanitarian law must be respected. And diplomacy and dialogue must prevail.”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told delegates that although Russian strikes are reportedly largely targeting Ukrainian military facilities, “we have credible accounts of residential buildings, critical civilian infrastructure and other non-military targets sustaining heavy damage.”

Civilians, including children, have been killed in the violence. “Enough is enough,” he said.  “Soldiers need to move back to their barracks. Leaders need to move to peace. Civilians must be protected.  International humanitarian and human rights law must be upheld.”

The world is facing what is a tragedy for Ukraine, he added, but also a major regional crisis with potentially disastrous implications for all.

Guterres also said Russian nuclear forces have been put on high alert. “This is a chilling development. The mere idea of a nuclear conflict is simply inconceivable. Nothing can justify the use of nuclear weapons,” he said.

Some 352 Ukrainians, including 16 children have been killed to date, he reported, while more than 2,000 were injured. He said now is the time to help his country.

Ukraine’s Ambassador, Sergiy Kyslytsya, said that for the first time since the UN was established, a full-fledged war was unfolding in the centre of Europe.

“If Ukraine does not survive, international peace will not survive. If Ukraine does not survive, the United Nations will not survive, have no illusions. And if Ukraine does not survive, we cannot be surprised if democracy fails next,” he warned.
Should the United Nations fail to respond to the crisis, it will face much more than criticism — it will face oblivion, he said.

He also pointed out that while the Russian Federation has done everything possible to legitimize its presence at the United Nations, its membership is not legitimate, as the General Assembly never voted on its admission to the Organization following the fall of the Soviet Union in December 1991.

Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia of the Russian Federation said the root of the conflict lies at the feet of the Ukraine authorities and Western countries supporting them. Right now, lies are being spread across media outlets, including that the Russian Federation is shelling civilians.

“Nationalists, however, are deploying heavy equipment and operating in civilian areas — tactics used by terrorists that must be condemned”. For eight years, he said, a human rights body has reported how the neo-Nazis were born and are being maintained in Ukraine, with condemned criminals and convicts carrying out grave crimes, 25,000 machine guns being distributed without documentation, and with parties being tasked with slaughtering communities.

The Russian Federation did not begin these hostilities, which were unleashed by Ukraine, he said, adding that “Russia is seeking to end this war.”

Ambassador Zhang Jun of China, a country that abstained on the Security Council vote against Russia, told delegates, that as a permanent member of the Security Council, China is unequivocal that all countries’ sovereignty and territorial integrity must be upheld.

“The cold war has long ended, and nothing can be gained from stirring up a new cold war,” he said, warning that one country’s security must not come at the expense of another’s and cautioning against the expansion of any military blocs.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa

The Very Hungry Dragon: Meat-ing China’s Self-sufficiency Targets for Dairy and Protein

Tue, 03/01/2022 - 08:43

By Genevieve Donnellon-May
MELBOURNE, Australia, Mar 1 2022 (IPS)

Food security has long been a high priority for the Chinese central government and has been linked to China’s national security in recent years. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs recently released a national five-year plan under which China will seek to maintain a target to produce 95 percent of the protein domestically until 2025: China aims to become self-sufficient in poultry and eggs, 85 percent self-sufficient for beef and mutton, 70 percent for dairy, and 95 percent self-sufficient in pork. These targets intersect with many of the Chinese central government’s current aims to meet the growing demand for protein and dairy, safeguard food security, and other major policies.

Genevieve Donnellon-May

Since the 21st century, global protein consumption has risen and is projected to increase. This is also the case for China which has an insatiable appetite for meat. Today, China is estimated to consume 28% of the world’s meat, including half of the world’s pork.

China is also the world’s fourth-largest dairy producer and the second-largest in Asia. However, it is still the largest importer of dairy products.

Dual circulation and self-sufficiency to safeguard food security

Increasing self-sufficiency in protein and dairy fits in with Beijing’s “dual circulation” development strategy and food security aim which seek greater self-reliance, including in agricultural production, to reduce external uncertainties.

Higher grain demand to feed China’s livestock

To achieve the self-sufficiency targets in protein, China will likely increase its animal feed. Currently, China holds significant quantities of the world’s grain reserves. According to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, by mid-2022, China is expected to have 69 percent of the world’s maize (corn) reserves and 37 percent of its soybeans. As an official from China’s National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration noted recently, supply in the domestic grain market is “fully guaranteed” while grain reserves are at a “historical high level”.

China’s push for greater self-sufficiency in protein and dairy may result in even greater imports of grains, potentially resulting in higher global food prices and China controlling a greater share of the global livestock feed. However, the Chinese central authorities are further encouraging domestic production through a new grain security law, annual grain production targets, planting acreage targets, and the expansion of growing areas.

Challenges

Aside from outbreaks of African Swine Fever, China is also facing many other pressures, leaving domestic food production unable to maintain current lifestyles and consumption habits. For instance, China is grappling with land, energy, and water insecurity issues. Such concerns are compounded by climate change impacts, extreme weather events, a smaller rural workforce, and shifting demographics. Noting China’s climate change commitments and green agenda, how much water and energy are needed for Chinese farmers to meet these targets? To what extent could the new self-sufficiency targets hinder China from reducing its carbon emissions?

Potential solutions

Cultivated (lab-grown) meat

One potential (partial) solution is the domestic production of cultivated meat. Lab-grown meat aims to overturn traditional animal agriculture by replacing slaughterhouses with laboratories. It could help meet growing consumer demand for meat while avoiding diseases, antibiotics, growth hormones, and greenhouse gases associated with livestock farming.

Despite regulatory approval for the commercial sale of cultivated meat in China having not yet been given, other alternatives (e.g. plant-based meat) are already available in China. Additionally, the inclusion of cultivated meat and “future foods” for the first time in the recently released five-year plan from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs suggests that regulatory approval may soon be granted.

Smart farming and agricultural technology (agtech)

Another potential (partial) solution is smart farming to increase both the quality and quantity of agricultural produce while optimising the human labour required by production. It is already in place in various parts of China, including in Heilongjiang Province, Chongqing Municipality, and Zhejiang Province.

Expanding smart farming practices and agtech would intersect with China’s other major aims, including agricultural modernisation and the national transportation networking planning outline (2021-2035). This may also reduce concerns brought on by the labour shortage while also meeting growing food demands.

Genetically modified (GM) crops

To meet increased demand for animal feed, the Chinese government may consider the commercial planting of GM crops. Although commercialisation has not been approved due to public opposition to GM food. Nonetheless, the country’s top policymakers have urged progress in biotech breeding. Announcements from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs further suggest that China is preparing to allow greater use of GM technology in agriculture.

Achieving greater self-sufficiency in meat and dairy is ambitious and intersects with many of China’s other significant policies. Increasing domestic production and reducing reliance on exporting countries also means that millions of tonnes of meat may be imported by other countries, potentially affecting both global market supplies and prices. However, these self-sufficiency targets may encounter difficulties from external factors, such as the higher cost of fertilisers, which could add to production costs.

Innovative solutions and technological developments in China, including lab-grown meat and other alternative proteins (e.g. insect-based ingredients and plant protein) may also help to satisfy consumers’ growing demand and domestic production. If regulatory approval is granted, China may become the world’s leader in this area, further supporting domestic production by establishing ‘agricultural Silicon Valley hubs’ for research and development. Nonetheless, concerns over the sustainability of innovative solutions and food safety may need to be addressed.

Genevieve Donnellon-May is a research assistant with the Institute of Water Policy (IWP) at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. Her work has been published by The Diplomat, Inter-Press Service, and the Wilson Center’s China Environment Forum.

Categories: Africa

Before It Kills, War Whispers

Tue, 03/01/2022 - 07:50

By Elena L. Pasquini
ROME, Mar 1 2022 (IPS)

A small yellow puppet hangs from the butt of a gun. The eyes and shorts of the figure that children love are just traces of faded black.

“It’s a detail, but it tells what the war is.”

The sunlight of spring is a promise. It covers the joyful space of the restaurant where I am sharing lunch with friends on an April day. Rome is blindingly beautiful.

Elena L. Pasquini

I am displaying a photograph taken by a colleague reporting from the field while we are wine tasting and calmly discussing how the world can be revealed through an image.

The small yellow puppet is the gift of a son to a soldier father. The father has brought it with him to the frontline, a remembrance of playtime and maybe hugs.

“Where was that photo taken?” asks a young woman sitting at the table.

“Donetsk.”

“Where is Donetsk?”

“It is a city close to the border with Russia. Self-proclaimed republic of Donetsk or Ukraine. There is a war there,” I answer.

“Is there a war in Europe?” she says, astonished.

It is 2019 and no one at the table is aware that the country no more than a day’s drive from us has been fighting for five years. They do not know it, or they have forgotten it, because very few journalists are still covering the crisis after its eruption in 2014.

They don’t remember this conflict not because they ignore the news, but because it seems to play a marginal role in our daily lives.

“On the frontline of Europe’s forgotten war in Ukraine,” read a 2017 headline in The Guardian.
“Ukraine: the forgotten war,” Al Jazeera warned in 2019.

“While Russia masses troops and the West warns against escalation, in Ukraine the fighting grinds on as it has for years,” Politico reminded us in December of last year.

According to the humanitarian organization CARE, which publishes an annual ranking of the most underreported humanitarian crises, in 2021 Ukraine was second among the ten most neglected. Last year, about 3.5 million people were already in need of humanitarian assistance; 68 percent of them were women and children.

Out of 1.8 million online articles analyzed, only 801 worldwide were devoted to that crisis.

Today, the mortar rounds have awakened Rome. Afraid, we wonder how far those almost 1,700 kilometers that separate Trieste, the last strip of Italy, from Kiev really are. The Ukrainians flee, terrified. Their pain upsets us. We feel close to them, we empathize.

Is it their pain or our fear that moves us?

We ask ourselves how this conflict will impact us here, in the middle of the Mediterranean; if Russian money will no longer be fueling our economy; if the sanctions will be a boomerang; if and how much the cost of our food will increase; if heating our homes will become a privilege. We hear the roar, we hear the violent noise of war, but we didn’t listen to the Ukrainian war whispering on our doorstep. Nor do we hear the whispering of conflicts in other parts of the planet, which should frighten us as well.

“Where are you? Are you OK?” Messages swooped like avalanches while I was at the Italian Embassy in Kinshasa. They wanted to know if the news were true. “I’m fine, I’m on the other side of the country, far from the war.”

A war that whispered the one being fought in the East of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It roared when a diplomat, Luca Attanasio, was killed. Then it quickly returned to oblivion.

I was there when the World Food Program’s convoy was attacked on the road leading from Goma, the capital of North Kivu, to Uganda. I had traveled along National Route 2 just two days before the assault. I slept where for decades people have died at night, slaughtered, shot. I went there to report from a place where lives are swallowed by silence, while, also in silence, an ocean of gold, minerals, and cocoa invades global markets.

We discovered the Congo war when it struck Europe through the flesh of that young ambassador and of the men who were with him. However, we still do not understand that this conflict in the heart of Africa whispers at our doors every day, too.

When I left Rome for DRC, no one thought I was going to write about war.

War announces itself. It stems from a seed that slowly germinates. It is the seed of a weed that suffocates every flower and becomes hard as a bramble.

If we talked about what happens far from us, if we paid attention, we would see that weed growing. If we paid attention, we could eradicate it. We could judge those in power by how they uproot it before it becomes too vast.

In 2019, while a father measured the space of his life in a trench just one day’s journey from us, I was travelling to Ethiopia for the last time. Ethiopia was still the country of the African miracle, a story of hope led by a young prime minister, Aby Ahmed, who was freeing political prisoners and making peace with Eritrea. That peace earned him a Nobel Prize.

No one noticed the checkpoints along the road connecting the airport to the city of Macalle. No one was aware that controls had tightened like never before. The war was whispering, the seeds were sprouting, the arrests were starting, the tensions between the ethnic communities were growing, but Europe was distracted – a Europe that does not feel the pain of millions of besieged people, sealed off for over a year in the Tigray plateau where not even humanitarian aid arrives. “Since 12 July, only 8 per cent of the 16,000 trucks with the needed humanitarian supplies entered Tigray,” stated the latest UNHOCA report.

Ethiopia is in the heart of the strategic Horn of Africa overlooking the Gulf of Aden, the cradle of Islamist fundamentalism, the land of arms trafficking and commercial penetration by more or less large powers. The region of the Great Lakes where Luca Attanasio died is strategic, too.

As it is Kabul, which fell into the hands of the Taliban after twenty years of war: if we had listened to the few journalists who had visited that country in recent years, we would have predicted what happened.

Are Africa and Ukraine really that far apart? Does the Sahel, with its wars and coups, have anything to do with the conflict in Europe, with the roar of Kyiv? Where are the stress points between countries?

The alphabet of war goes from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe and is filled with a pain that does not affect us until it becomes fear. What happened before Russia invaded Ukraine? What was living in that disputed piece of Europe?

We do not know anything about those women, men, and children who flee. We do not know if and how our frightened country has contributed to making the lives of the Ukrainian people so desperate. We do not know anything about them, like the Ethiopians or the Afghans.

Yet we know everything about working from home. In 2021, there were 1,636,992 online articles about smart-working, 239,422 pieces on Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk’s space travels, and 362,522 on Harry and Meghan’s interview with Oprah Winfrey.

What is not reported does not exist, and if it does not exist, nothing can be done to change it. Ukraine has not existed until today. There is no Ethiopia, just as there are no Congo, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Burundi.

We all bear the brunt of wars, however distant they seem. Fear, too, is the same, in the African night as in the dawn of Europe. A daily and uninterrupted fear.

We have the duty of reporting before a conflict erupts, of eradicating the seeds of war and planting those of peace, of keeping the spotlight on them. But the pain of the world hardly makes the headlines until it’s too late.

This feature was first published by Degrees of Latitude

Categories: Africa

Inflation Targeting Voodoo

Tue, 03/01/2022 - 07:46

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 1 2022 (IPS)

All over the world, people expect policies by central bankers trained in economics to have a sound scientific base. But in fact, inflation targeting is an article of faith with neither theoretical nor empirical basis.

Policy inspiration
The two per cent (2%) inflation target is now virtually an “economic religion”. US Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell noted it had become a “global norm”.

Anis Chowdhury

In 1989, New Zealand became the first country to adopt a 2% inflation target. “The figure was plucked out of the air”, acknowledged Don Brash, then Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ), its central bank.

It was prompted by a “chance remark” of NZ Finance Minister Roger Douglas during “a television interview on April 1, 1988, that he was thinking of genuine price stability, ‘around 0, or 0 to 1 percent’.” Meanwhile, Brash seemed to think his role was to keep inflation positive, but under 2%.

In the RBNZ’s annual report to March 1989, Brash was “confident that inflation could be reduced below 2 percent by the year to March 1993”. The finance minister welcomed this, asking “whether it might be feasible to achieve that by the end of calendar year 1992 – he liked the sound of ‘0 to 2 by ’92’”!

Thus, “‘0 to 2 by ’92’ became the mantra, repeated endlessly”. Brash and his colleagues “devoted a huge amount of effort” preaching this new mantra “to everybody who would listen – and some who were reluctant to listen”.

This involved “many hundreds of informal speeches to Rotary Clubs, Chambers of Commerce, farmers’ groups, church groups, women’s groups, and schools”. A new cult – inspired by RBNZ’s inflation targeting – was thus born.

Parliamentary mandate
When the bill setting the RBNZ inflation target between zero and 2% reached the legislature, parliamentarians were about to adjourn for Christmas. Also, “one of the bill’s strongest opponents was laid up in the hospital”.

Nevertheless, the debate over the legislation was robust. Labour unions were worried that an inflexibly narrow target would raise unemployment. The New Zealand Manufacturers’ Federation warned, “This is wrong in principle, undemocratic and inflexible”.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

A real estate developer asked Brash to announce his body weight, for him to work out what rope would be needed to hang the RBNZ Governor from a lamppost in NZ’s capital, Wellington. But the bill passed as leaders of the ruling Labour Party brushed aside concerns.

Weak evidence, strong conclusion
Since the RBNZ’s adoption of 2% inflation, “plucked out of the air” as a target, leading economists – some of whom have served as senior officials at the major international financial institutions and central banks – studied long time series for many countries.

However, none could find any strong evidence to justify a single digit inflation threshold beyond which inflation may negatively impact economic growth. Yet, they concurred with a single digit inflation target!

For example, Stanley Fischer concluded, “however weak the evidence, one strong conclusion can be drawn: inflation is not good for longer-term growth”. And Robert Barro asserted, “the magnitude of [negative] effects are not that large, but are more than enough to justify a keen interest in price stability”.

A Reserve Bank of Australia study found “Average inflation is…a fragile explanation of economic growth”. Yet, it concluded, “While the results are not as robust as one would like, the most obvious interpretation of the evidence … is that the negative correlation between inflation and growth arises from a causal relationship”.

Pierre Fortin – past President of the Canadian Economics Association – emphasized, “Strong claims that there are large macroeconomic benefits to be reaped … are not presently founded on robust quantitative evidence. They are premature”.

Cheerleaders claim inflation-targeting has delivered low inflation. But others have alternative explanations for the Great Moderation. The “one-size-fits-all” mantra has also effectively shut the door to alternative strategies for robust, sustainable and inclusive growth.

Harm’s way
Inflation targeting can be harmful, especially as monetary authorities have little control over external sources of inflation. Current inflationary pressures are largely due to rising international food and fuel prices.

Targeting also harms the economy when inflation is caused by supply shocks, such as production and distribution disruptions, e.g., due to pandemic related lockdowns or other restrictions.

Raising interest rates or monetary tightening to achieve targets when inflation is largely due to external or supply shocks will exacerbate the debt burdens of households, businesses and governments, thus reducing economic growth and employment prospects.

Central bankers trying to “cool” labour markets in their anti-inflation crusade hurt labour by raising unemployment and worsening working conditions. It is likely to be socially less costly to ‘accommodate’, i.e., accept supply or external shock inflation than mechanically achieving an arbitrary inflation target.

Inflation targeting has also privileged price stabilization at the expense of other central bank responsibilities, including maximizing employment, growth and progress.

Of course, central bankers should be monitoring prices of key goods and services (e.g., food, fuel, housing, healthcare) which weigh heavily on consumer spending. Policymakers must design alternative policy tools to address such essential price rises rather than relying solely on raising interest rates.

Targeting a specific inflation rate is against the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s Articles of Agreement. Article IV states, “each member shall: (i) endeavor to direct its economic and financial policies toward the objective of fostering orderly economic growth with reasonable price stability, with due regard to its circumstances”.

Thus, IMF members are obliged to foster economic growth, and maintain “reasonable” price stability – not chasing a fixed inflation target, presuming that growth would follow. There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ policy or universal target. And policy design depends on country specific circumstances.

Counter revolution
Inflation targeting should never have become monetary policy. It should have been rejected long ago if policymaking was informed by theory and experience. But central banks have been targeting inflation, supposedly to enhance growth and employment!

Some assert money is “neutral”, insisting central bankers cannot affect real economy variables, e.g., output, employment, investment. Thus, they have “discounted the role of money in … monetary policy more than is justified”.

But money is far from neutral, impacting the real economy quite significantly. This was evident after the 2008-2009 global financial crisis and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Policymakers should instead be primarily concerned about the real economy – output, employment, sustainable development.

Unsurprisingly, inflation targeting has not accelerated growth, especially in developing countries. Even in developed countries, it seems to have exacerbated “secular stagnation”, i.e., anaemic growth.

Thus, instead of increasing growth, employment and structural transformation, the inflation obsession has slowed economic growth. Universal rejection of the inflation targeting hoax will thus advance human progress.

Categories: Africa

The Anti-Corruption Compass in Mexico

Mon, 02/28/2022 - 13:56

By Rosi Orozco
MEXICO CITY, Feb 28 2022 (IPS)

For a country like Mexico, which in recent years has made the fight against corruption one of its highest priorities, a story published earlier this year fell like a bucket of cold water.

One of the most important international rankings on public administration, the Corruption Perception Index created by Transparency International, stated that Mexico was paralyzed during the pandemic: the country, for the second consecutive year, had a rating of 31 points out of 100.

Rosi Orozco

In the school system that means failing the class. Entrepreneurs, public servants and specialists who evaluated the fight against corruption in the country concluded that, from 2020 to 2021, there has not been a step backwards… but not forward either.

The 31 points put Mexico on a par with nations ravaged by corruption and experiencing recent democratic crises, such as Gabon, Niger and Papua New Guinea.

Denmark, Finland and New Zealand are in the first places and Mexico seems closer than previously thought to the worst ranked countries, such as Syria, Somalia and South Sudan.

To make the news worse, the 31 points obtained by Mexico puts it in a dishonorable place: the worst evaluated country in terms of corruption of the 38 countries that make up the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

The information revealed earlier this year is especially harsh for the current administration, which came to power in December 2018 with the promise of rooting out corruption and establishing a new public morality.

The efforts of the current government have been extensive and well known. Among them, the simplification and digitization of procedures, the use of technological platforms to make public purchases transparent, more audits in real time and detailed publication of the federal budget. All of that fuels the battle against the rottenness in government.

However, there is still a long way to go, especially in the areas of law enforcement and victim assistance, where pending issues remain.

A few months ago, one of the most important events for public administration — the III Convention of Anticorruption Prosecutors brought together top experts to discuss how to move Mexico towards the best international practices.

The venue was the state of Coahuila, which in ten years achieved an amazing transformation: from being a drug cartel land to one of the safest regions in the country.

The key was to make changes that were apparently insignificant, but that dealt strong blows to the social base of organized crime: since 2011, the illegal businesses that corruption in government kept open —such as casinos, cockfights, clandestine bars, table dance and newspaper ads promoting prostitution were banned.

These measures had an immediate effect on peace in the region, since they cut off an important flow of money to the drug cartels, which were unable to pay bribes to public officials and buy the wills of the people who lived in their strongholds.

In 2016, following the path of Coahuila, Tamaulipas closed those illegal businesses and went from the third most insecure state to the 26th, according to official figures. Edomex has also advanced with a firm hand to prevent human traffickers from disguising themselves as businessmen.

Specialists such as the prosecutor in the Fight Against Corruption at the Attorney General’s Office, María de la Luz Mijangos Borja, the Coahuila anti-corruption prosecutor Jesús Homero Flores, prosecutor Gerardo Márquez Guevara, among others, discussed these measures and new public policies that can lead Mexico to the next frontier of human rights.

They focused on the road ahead: the urgency of installing state anti-corruption systems, creating citizen councils on public security, implementing external audits and articulating crime prevention networks

During my speech I focused on the debts of the past: the need to recognize the burdens that stagnated us with the dishonorable 31 points out of 100 that Transparency International evaluated.

In Mexico, it is a reality that there are still public servants who sit down with owners of illegal businesses to accept the bodies of girls and women in exchange for impunity.

There are still judges who close cases by putting piles of dirty money on top of victims’ files. And there is still the habit of purposely losing lawsuits that affect the entire country so that a few get richer.

I remember the case of the former president of the Federal Court of Fiscal and Administrative Justice in the state of Tlaxcala, Juan Manuel Jiménez, supposedly a great judge, who today is out of that important position because he had 52 folders with irrefutable evidence of human trafficking, kidnappings and rapes and yet he freed the criminals involved.

For the fight against corruption to advance, it’s urgent to stop the flow of dirty money, but that is not enough.

The conclusions of the III Convention of Anti-Corruption Prosecutors are clear: small actions can lead to big changes, but only if it is accompanied by a moral renewal and the certainty that we all have the right to a life free of the evils of corruption.

That compass must be the dignity of people and their value as human beings. If we’re heading there as a country, there’s no way we can go wrong. We will move in the right direction.

Categories: Africa

Not Exactly Sun Tzu: Russian Military Blunderings & the Global Democratic Deficit

Mon, 02/28/2022 - 09:49

Security Council votes on draft resolution on Ukraine, 25 February 2022. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten

By Purnaka L. de Silva
NEW YORK, Feb 28 2022 (IPS)

Russian President and former intelligence officer Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has been at the helm of power since 1999, promoting jingoistic nationalism to keep his hold on power and creating a democratic deficit on the home front.

In a long list of extrajudicial crimes under the aegis of Mr. Putin, it is alleged that critics and potential rivals generally meet an untimely demise – ranging from helicopter crashes (e.g., LTG Alexander Lebed), murdered in elevators (e.g., in the high profile case of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya), falling out of windows (e.g., former third secretary of Russia’s delegation to the United Nations in Vienna found at the bottom of the Russian Embassy in Berlin) to Polonium poisoning (e.g., Alexander Litvinenko) or getting incarcerated on trumped up charges like Russian opposition leader Alexie Navalny.

A throwback to Soviet totalitarian times Mr. Putin is a vocal proponent of ongoing hybrid militarized ‘foreign policy’ aggressions that aim to reclaim Russia’s sphere of influence in former Soviet Republics, as well as further afield, primarily in the continent of Africa.

Kremlin-controlled Spetsnaz mercenaries from the Wagner Group, who it is alleged hold Russian diplomatic passports, conduct military spearhead operations on behalf of the Kremlin and maintain bureaus in all 55 member states of the African Union – for more details see: https://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/world/russia/vagner.htm.

The antecedents of this hybrid militarized ‘foreign policy’ stratagem follow a trajectory that begins in Chechnya with the Second Battle of Grozny from 25 December 1999 to 6 February 2000 during the premiership of Mr. Putin – where the world’s democratic powers were silent witnesses to the devastation of a city of almost 400,000, which led to a pratically halving of the population through an exodus of internally displaced persons.

In 2003, the United Nations called Grozny “the most destroyed city on earth”. It could be speculated that at the time democratic Western powers were largely silent given that the Chechens were perceived as Islamist terrorists.

After ‘success’ in Chechnya, in November 2007 Mr. Putin next withdrew Russia’s participation in the 1990 Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty, which limited the deployment of heavy military equipment across Europe. It enabled Mr. Putin and the Kremlin to thereafter experiment with a hybrid militarized ‘foreign policy’ adventure in the 5-day, 2008 August War in Georgia.

Russian troops invaded and established control over the occupied Tskhinvali region (now called South Ossetia) and Abkhazia constituting over 20% of Georgian territory – for more details see: https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-hybrid-aggression-against-georgia-use-local-and-external-tools. Once again, the world’s democratic powers were little more than passive bystanders.

While the world’s leading democratic powers stayed silent, a timeline of notable hybrid militarized ‘foreign policy’ aggressions orchestrated by Mr. Putin and the Kremlin, demonstrating their global reach in Europe and Africa, includes:

successful

failure

inconclusive

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-58009514

ongoing

Since November 2007 the slippery slope towards a global democratic deficit – attempting to prove that might is right – was taking shape and gathering momentum, harbingers of the return of authoritarianism, imperialism, and possibly totalitarianism.

A democratic deficit occurs when seemingly democratic governments fail to fulfill the principles of democratic governance for the benefit of their citizenry. When that happens in many countries worldwide it becomes a global democratic deficit with the rise to power of authoritarian and antidemocratic political leaders as in the case of Russia, North Korea, China, Hong Kong, The Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan under the Taliban, and most recently in West Africa – Burkina Faso, Mali, Guinea.

All countries are susceptible, including countries like Brazil, and the United States of America, as was the case during the Trump presidency from 2016-2020.

The biggest fear of authoritarians of the ilk of Mr. Putin is that the common people will be able to exercise their democratic rights through free and fair elections, and popular protests to repudiate the egregious corruption and misgovernance of political leaders, as was the case in Ukraine when pro-Kremlin president Viktor Yanukovych abandoned his country and fled in the aftermath of the 2014 Ukrainian revolution.

A similar fate was reversed in Belarus with the illegitimate reinstatement of Mr. Alexander Lukashenko, and its tacit occupation in plain sight by the Russian military in January-February 2022.

To the thus-far silent democratic powers it must strongly be pointed out that parallels can be drawn to Mr. Putin’s extrajudicial hybrid military ‘foreign policy’ actions to what Pastor Martin Niemöller said about crimes against humanity during the Nazi reign of terror under Adolf Hitler:

First, they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
— Martin Niemöller

Having noted the above in all its gory detail, it must be pointed out to Mr. Putin and the Kremlin that their perceived ‘successful’ hybrid militarized ‘foreign policy’ blunderings will only further weaken Russia’s economic and political standing in the 21 Century – especially once draconian long-term sanctions start to bite with alacrity, and deeply.

It all depends on the sleeping giant of democratic world powers waking up, uniting in common purpose, and responding to an existential threat to peace, security, and democracy. Sun Tzu was right all along Mr. Putin – “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting”.

Dr Purnaka L. de Silva is Adjunct Professor UN Studies (M.A. Program) at the School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University, and Director, Institute of Strategic Studies and Democracy (ISSD) Malta.

Excerpt:

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting” – Sun Tzu

Categories: Africa

Gender Lens Crucial to Leaving No One Behind (Part 2)

Mon, 02/28/2022 - 08:28

Creative ways are needed to meet the ICDP 25 goals. Here girls and young women are learning to code in North Darfur as a way to increase future job prospects and economic empowerment. Credit: UNFPA Sudan

By IPS Correspondent
Johannesburg , Feb 28 2022 (IPS)

A crucial two-day meeting of Parliamentarians from the Asian, Arab and African regions will put human-rights-based legislative frameworks under the spotlight as the regions work to implement the ICPD Programme of Action.

In the first part of this series, IPS spoke exclusively to the Regional Director of UNFPA ASRO, Dr Luay Shabaneh. He outlined the many responses the UNFPA had to gender-based violence, child marriage, and eradicating female genital mutilation in the Arab region.

In part 2, IPS spoke to Dr Rida Khawaldeh, MP Jordan, and Larry Younquoi, MP Liberia, Member of Executive Committee of the African Parliamentary Forum on Population and Development (FPA).

Larry Younquoi, MP Liberia, Member of Executive Committee of the African Parliamentary Forum on Population and Development (FPA) and Dr Rida Khawaldeh, MP Jordan spoke to IPS about creating a just, equitable and sustainable society post-COVID-19.

Here are excerpts from the interviews:

IPS: How are parliamentarians in your country ensuring adequate laws to protect women?

Dr Rida Khawaldeh, MP Jordan

There is a Women’s Rights Committee at parliament and is considered one of the major and most influential committees. It includes specialists and lawyers, and they are acutely aware of developing a legal framework to protect women’s rights.

Larry Younquoi, MP Liberia, Member of Executive Committee of the African Parliamentary Forum on Population and Development (FPA)

The Liberian Legislature has taken a number of steps to ensure there are adequate laws to protect women’s rights. For instance, the body has passed the devolution law, which provides enhanced women’s land rights. Women are guaranteed equal participation through the amendment of the electoral acts.

IPS: How are parliamentarians in your country ensuring the justice system (from the police to the courts) are adequately sensitized to GBV and have the budgets to ensure that perpetrators are charged, and women supported adequately?

Khawaldeh: The Legal Committee is one of the parliament’s major committees in Jordan, and specialists on this committee ensure the law, regulations, and practices are sound and supportive of women.

Younquoi: Parliamentarians in my country are on record for fighting against GBV. For instance, she has passed laws to amend the Gender Ministry Law and strengthened its role in protecting women and girls from GBV. Equally, the lawmakers have passed a law to establish the Women and Children Unit at the National Police. Of course, they ensure adequate budgetary appropriations for implementing the regulations.

The provisions of the Rape Law also criminalize sexual relationships with girls below 18 years of age. The Legislature has made rape a non-bailable crime. Through the National Budget, it provides funding allocations to enhance the welfare of the girls while in school.

IPS: As parliamentarians, what programmes are you putting in place to ensure that child marriages are eradicated?

Khawaldeh: Women Rights Committee ensures that the laws conform to good marriage practices. This issue is emphasized by both the Women’s Rights Committee and the Legal Committee to provide better protection and follow up on the implementation of the legislation.

Younquoi: The Legislature has taken practical steps by not only raising the age of marriage to 18 years but making it a criminal offense to engage in sexual activities with girls under the age of 18. This is irrespective of whether or not the girl consents.

To ensure that the laws are implemented, legislators create awareness about them during town hall meetings with their constituents. They further sensitize them not to keep the issue of such statutory rape secret within the family. Additionally, they speak openly against early marriage.

IPS: How are parliamentarians in your country ensuring that the practice of FGM is being eradicated?

Khawaldeh: This issue is consistently raised and addressed by the Women’s Rights Committee to ensure better practices and eradicate any misuse of the regulations.

Younquoi: Legislators’ major step towards eradicating FGM is the passage of a law that states that no one should be forced to undergo FGM. The Legislature is contemplating passing a law to eliminate it. However, the practice is deeply rooted in the culture of the people – despite this, the legislators continue to persevere.

IPS: Is your country on track to achieve ICPD 2030 agenda, and if not, what is required to ensure that the country moves towards this objective?

Khawaldeh: Jordan’s Parliament is aware and working toward the ICPD 2030 agenda. The National Council for Family Affairs, in the Department of Family Affairs at the Police Directorate, civil societies organizations, and NGOs involved in family affairs and gender issues are working towards the ICPD25 PoA.

Hon. Larry Younquoi,

My country is on track to eradicate GVB by 2030, in line with ICPD25.

IPS: What is your expectation of the inter-regional meeting in Cairo?

Khawaldeh: I expect a thorough discussion of different aspects of human security. We will learn from the experiences of others. In addition, I would expect coordination at the regional level to help achieve the 2030 goals.

Younquoi:

At the upcoming inter-regional meeting in Cairo, I expect a robust cross-fertilization of ideas and lessons learned from the various countries in attendance.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa

Cuba Steps Up Pace on Renewable Energy Expansion

Mon, 02/28/2022 - 08:27

Wind turbines at the Gibara 1 wind farm generate electricity in the municipality of the same name in Holguín province, eastern Cuba. The aim is for at least 37 percent of Cuba’s electricity to come from clean energies by 2030; this is a first step towards a much more ambitious goal that envisions an energy mix made up 100 percent of domestic sources. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

By Luis Brizuela
HAVANA, Feb 28 2022 (IPS)

Cuba has readjusted its plans to achieve at least 37 percent of electricity from clean energy by 2030, a promising but risky challenge for a nation that is a heavy consumer of fossil fuels and has persistent financial problems.

This is a first step towards a much more ambitious goal: an energy mix made up of 100 percent domestic sources, in order to achieve sovereignty.

Approved in 2014, the Policy for the Prospective Development of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) and their Efficient Use projected that solar, wind, biomass and hydroelectric power would account for 24 percent of electricity generation by 2030.

Currently, 95 percent of the electricity produced in this Caribbean island nation comes from burning fossil fuels, including natural gas.

Based on government indications and research by the Electric Union and Cuban universities, “it was determined that we can reach 37 percent (by 2030) with RES,” said Rosell Guerra, director of Renewable Energies at the Ministry of Energy and Mines, in an interview with IPS.

The official pointed out that since it is an island nation, “Cuba is not interconnected with any major power system,” which means that as the use of RES gradually expands, “it is important to ensure the stability of the electric system and the quality of the service, voltage and frequency, as well as the storage of electric power for the night time.”

This archipelago consumes just over eight million tons of fuel annually, of which 4.4 million tons are used for electricity.

Nearly 40 percent of the fuel must be imported, mainly fuel oil and diesel, which have higher prices on the international market.

The country spends some 2.8 billion dollars annually on the electricity sector, including the purchase of fuel, the operation and maintenance of aging thermoelectric plants and the purchase of energy from independent producers.

“We have no alternative, the country cannot continue to pay such large energy bills, which together with food purchases (estimated at some two billion dollars annually), are our largest,” Guerra stressed.

Cuba’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions decreased in the last five years, to 22.9 million tons in 2020, according to international data, but energy generating activities are still the main domestic sources of polluting gases.

Achieving 37 percent generation with sustainable energies “will mean the emission of nine million fewer tons of carbon dioxide per year,” added the official.

A floating power plant arrives at Havana port from Turkey in November 2021. In Cuba, 95 percent of the electricity produced comes from the burning of oil and oil derivatives, together with natural gas. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

Picking up the pace

The largest island nation in the Caribbean will have to step on the gas if it wishes, within eight years, to have 3954 megawatts per hour (MW/h) of installed capacity in renewable energies, as outlined in the government’s plan.

“The implementation of the RES Policy is behind schedule; by the end of 2021 we should have had 649 MW/h in operation, but today only 47 percent of what was planned, 304 MW/h, has been achieved,” Guerra acknowledged.

He attributed the delay to the country’s three-decade-long economic crisis, with its main sources of income impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led the authorities to request a moratorium on debt interest payments to international creditors.

Guerra also referred to the effects of the U.S. government’s embargo against Cuba, in force since 1962, which hinders access to credit and technology, increases the cost of freight for transporting fuel and keeps investors away.

However, he clarified, since 2014 “500 million dollars were invested in RES,” which provide energy for some 300,000 households at noon, in a country of more than 3.8 million homes and 11.2 million inhabitants.

The shift in the energy mix by 2030 will require an investment of some six billion dollars “that will have to be sought from external sources, whether through credits or foreign direct investment,” since the country is not in a position to assume the cost alone, said the official.

He pointed out that “in addition to the economic and environmental analysis, the vision in this matter is based on the need to move towards energy independence.”

Ongoing projects

Cuba has eight thermal plants with an average operating life of more than 30 years.

Most of these plants process heavy domestic crude oil, with a sulfur content between seven and 18 degrees API, which makes more frequent repairs necessary, that are sometimes postponed due to lack of financing.

Malfunctions in the facilities have caused generation crises in recent years, the most recent from April to July 2021, affecting industrial production and Cuban families, most of whom use electricity to cook food, among other uses.

Distributed in Cuba’s 168 municipalities, fuel engines and diesel generators, also suffering from a lack of parts, complement the electric power system.

The rest of the electricity is generated by the natural gas produced along with domestic oil, floating units (patanas), together with five percent renewable energies.

The solar program appears to be the most advanced and with the best growth opportunities in a nation whose solar radiation averages more than five kilowatts per square meter per day, which is considered high.

Solar parks contribute 238 MW/h, a little more than 78 percent of the renewable energy in the country, according to the statistics.

Guerra said that “Cuban universities are very proactive with RES and energy efficiency, with several innovative and applied science projects, and with funding, both nationally and in collaboration with the European Union.”

Marlenis Águila, an expert with the Renewable Energy Directorate, told IPS that “some of these programs or projects are based on national technologies, applied on farms, and with results in the field of agro-energy, which are worth replicating widely.”

Both experts referred to the installation, especially in rural areas, of more than 1,000 pumping systems with solar panels that save energy and provide water to livestock and farming families, while a 4,000 cubic meter biogas plant is planned to generate electricity.

“There are seven biogas plants in the country. They are small, the largest has a capacity of 250 kW/h, but they contribute during peak hours, when they are most needed,” said Guerra.

In addition, two new bioelectric plants with a capacity of 40 MW/h, three wind farms (151 MW/h) and two small hydroelectric plants (3.4 MW/h) are under construction, among other projects in different phases with foreign investment and credit management.

A store specializing in household appliances sells equipment to obtain electricity from renewable sources in the municipality of Playa, Havana. In recent years, Cuba approved regulations with tariff and tax benefits for foreign investors who participate in the expansion of renewable energies, and began selling solar panels and heaters to promote their use by the public. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

Opportunities

The second edition of the Renewable Energy Fair, scheduled to take place in Havana Jun. 22-24, will seek to attract foreign investors for the transition to renewable energies in Cuba.

“The first fair, in January 2018, was modest in size but very useful,” Guerra said. “Prestigious international agencies came and transferred knowledge to us. This time we intend to emphasize solar energy – both photovoltaic and thermal – and biomass.”

Representatives of international agencies, projects and companies such as the International Renewable Energy Agency, the World Wind Energy Association, the International Solar Alliance, the Green Climate Fund, the Belt and Road Energy Partnership, the French Development Agency and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) are expected to attend.

In recent years, Cuba approved regulations to encourage the presence of foreign investors in the development of sustainable energy, both in large and small local projects.

Resolution 223 of the Ministry of Finance and Prices, published in June 2021, exempts wholly foreign-owned companies implementing electricity generation projects with RES from paying taxes on profits for eight years, from the start of their commercial operations.

Other regulations, such as Decree-Law No. 345 of 2019, contain incentives to promote self-supply, the sale of surpluses to the National Electric System, as well as tariff and tax benefits for individuals and legal entities that use them.

The government strategy also proposes the installation of the more efficient LED bulbs in public lighting and the sale of solar water heaters and efficient equipment, which despite their high prices are aimed at expanding the use of renewable energies among the public.

Cuba’s Power Crisis Drives Home Need to Accelerate Energy Transition

Categories: Africa

Pacific Islanders: Failure to Commit to 1.5 Degrees at COP27 will Imperil the World’s Oceans

Mon, 02/28/2022 - 08:05

Pacific Islanders depend on coastal fisheries for food and commercial livelihoods. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
CANBERRA, Australia , Feb 28 2022 (IPS)

Oceans play a pivotal role in regulating the world’s climate and maintaining the conditions for human life on earth. And they are a crucial source of sustenance and economic wellbeing in many developing countries, including small island developing states. But Pacific Islanders are deeply concerned about the fate of the oceans if world leaders fail to secure the pledges needed to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 Degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels at the next COP27 climate change summit in November.

“We all need to do more. The target has been set. In the coming year, in the lead-up to the next climate change conference, there is a huge emissions gap. We are not translating that into tangible commitments on the ground that enable us, as humanity, to say we are on the right trajectory,” Cameron Diver, Head of the Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability Programme at the regional development organisation, Pacific Community (SPC), in Noumea, New Caledonia, told IPS.

The Pacific Ocean is the world’s largest and covers one-third of the planet’s surface. It’s a major carbon sink. Oceans absorb nearly one-quarter of all carbon emissions associated with human activities every year. But, after mid-century, continuing high emissions will generate a decline in the capacity of oceans to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, reports the IPCC. And this will compromise their role in regulating climate and weather extremes.

The socioeconomic impacts of climate change in this scenario “could be catastrophic. It will have a massive impact on people who ultimately live their lives with the ocean,” Diver emphasised. He elaborated that sea-level rise would diminish arable land and lead to population displacement, while higher levels of ocean acidification will threaten coral reefs and coastal fisheries. Food insecurity is a very real risk, given that 70 percent of Pacific Islanders derive their protein from inshore fisheries.

In the Polynesian atoll nation of Tuvalu in the Central Pacific Ocean, “all communities in Tuvalu live around the coast. We are surrounded by the sea, and coastal erosion is a great issue impacting on our food, especially inundating our pulaka pits,” Teuleala Manuella-Morris, Country Manager for the Live and Learn environmental non-governmental organisation, told IPS. “Pulaka is a root crop and is grown in pits dug down to reach the rainwater trapped in the water pan. However, these can become salty during droughts or cyclones when the waves manage to get into the pulaka pits.” Sea surges and cyclones are destroying many of these crops, she said.

Pacific Islanders have emerged as some of the world’s strongest campaigners for the conservation and sustainable development of the sea, a role that is driven by their dependence on the ‘Blue Continent’.

“All Pacific Islands have a reliance on tuna and other marine resources for government income, food security, livelihoods, and ecosystem services. In terms of income, this is particularly notable for many Pacific small island developing states and territories where there are limited resources to provide alternative revenue streams, such as in Tokelau and Kiribati,” Dr Graham Pilling, Deputy Director of the Pacific Community’s Oceanic Fisheries Programme told IPS.

The Pacific is the world’s largest ocean and plays a vital role in regulating the earth’s climate. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

It’s not just the Pacific but the world’s oceans that will be threatened if carbon emissions continue to rise. And this would have serious consequences for the more than 260 million people across the globe with livelihoods that rely on marine fisheries and developing countries which benefit from the US$80 billion which the sector generates in export revenues.

Over time, rising greenhouse gases lead to greater acidification and depletion of oxygen in the seas and changes in the circulation of sea currents. Rising temperatures are boosting thermal stress on coral reefs. Mass coral bleaching would lead to the deterioration and mortality of corals and the marine life they support.

The breakdown of reef and coastal marine ecosystems will have repercussions for coastal populations which depend on coastal fisheries and tourism for food and incomes. By 2050, only an estimated 15 percent of coral reefs worldwide will be capable of sustainable coral growth, according to the sustainable development organisation, Pacific Environment (SPREP).

Meanwhile, offshore fisheries, especially the tuna industry, provide essential government revenues and tens of thousands of jobs across the Pacific Islands. The tuna market is a global one, and the western and central Pacific Ocean is the source of 60 percent of the world’s tuna catch. Two-thirds of all tuna caught is acquired by foreign fishing vessels, with 90 percent taken by other countries for processing, reports the Pacific Islands Forum. The main nations that ply Pacific waters include Japan, the United States, Korea, China, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Indonesia.

Fishing access fees, for example, amount to US$128.3 million or 70.6 percent of government revenue per year in Kiribati and US$31 million or 47.8 percent of government revenue in the Marshall Islands.

However, a recent study by a group of international scientists, including several such as Steven R. Hare, Dr Graham Pilling, Dr Simon Nicol and Coral Pasisi, from the Pacific Community, highlights the serious consequences of global warming for the future of the region’s tuna fisheries. Changes in the ocean are projected to drive tuna populations away from tropical waters.

“Modelling results suggest that overall, climate change may lead to reduced abundance of tuna in the waters of many Pacific Island countries and territories, and key tuna resources are likely to move further east into the high seas outside the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) of Pacific Islands,” Dr Simon Nicol, Principal Fisheries Scientist in the Pacific Community’s Fisheries Division told IPS. “Given the contribution of tuna to annual GDPs of Pacific nations, reduced abundances and greater variability in annual catches will enforce ‘Global Financial Crisis’ type stressors on government services provided by the Pacific Islands on a regular basis.”

The study, published in the Nature Sustainability journal, concludes that, by 2050, the purse-seine catch of tuna in 10 Pacific Island nations could decline by an average of 20 percent, leading to a loss of US$90 million in foreign fishing fees per year. The broader effects on islanders’ lives could be more precarious economies, food insecurity and higher unemployment.

The repercussions of climate change on the oceans will be experienced not only in the Pacific but also in nations dependent on the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. This could affect the lives of more than 775 million people worldwide who rely on marine resources for socioeconomic survival and jeopardise the global market for marine and coastal resources and industries, which is currently valued at about US$3 trillion every year.

Last year, Pacific Island Forum countries’ leaders issued a statement calling for meaningful global action. We “note with significant concern that based on current trends, we will exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius as early as 2030 unless urgent action is taken, with significant adverse impacts on the ocean.”

Diver also emphasised that climate pledges had to be embraced not only by world leaders but by everyone. “We need a whole of society approach. We need the whole of society to meet their obligations. We can’t just rely on the public sector to do this; it has to go right across every sector. An integrated approach is needed,” he said.

COP27 will be held in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, on 7-18 November 2022.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa

6 in 7 People Worldwide Experience ‘High Levels of Insecurity’ – Why?

Sun, 02/27/2022 - 14:43

Credit: Parvez Ahmad/Unicef

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Feb 27 2022 (IPS)

Safety and security are at the base of the ‘hierarchy of needs’ pyramid, second in importance only to life’s absolute necessities—air, water, food and shelter, warns a new report.

The report “Why we don’t feel safe,”elaborated by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and released on 8 February 2022, adds that in the years leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic, people were on average living healthier, more prosperous and better lives than ever.

“Yet still a growing sense of unease has taken root and is flourishing.”

Insecurity is everywhere, among the poor and the rich

It says that six out of seven people all over the world—including in the wealthiest countries— were experiencing high levels of insecurity even before the pandemic.

COVID-19 may have supercharged this feeling. Unlike any other recent crisis, it has laid waste to many dimensions of our wellbeing and set human development back.

“As well as the appalling health consequences, the pandemic has upended the global economy, interrupted education and life plans, disrupted livelihoods and stirred political division over masks and vaccines.”

Even with the distribution of vaccines and the partial economic recovery that began in 2021, the crisis has been marked by a drop in life expectancy of about one and a half years, UNDP further goes on.

Unequal level of suffering, unsafety

So far so good. However, the human suffering is most spread among the poor, rather than the rich. Just take the Sahel region as an example. Africa’s Sahel region is facing ‘horrendous food crisis,’ the World Food Programme (WFP) on 16 February 2022 warned.

As the Sahel region “stares down a horrendous food crisis”, the UN emergency food relief chief warned that the number of people on the brink of starvation has “increased almost tenfold” over the past three years and “displacement by nearly 400 percent.”

The vast Sahel, which runs nearly the breadth of the continent, south of the Sahara Desert, is experiencing some of its “driest conditions” in years.

“In just three years, the number of people facing starvation has skyrocketed from 3.6 to 10.5 million, in the Sahelian nations of Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger.”

And insecurity, COVID-induced poverty, dramatic food cost increases and other compounding factors, have put those countries and others in the region, on a trajectory that would surpass any previous crises, according to WFP.

“I’ve been talking with families who have been through more than you can possibly imagine”, Beasley said. “They have been chased from their homes by extremist groups, starved by drought and plunged into despair by COVID’s economic ripple effects”.

On the brink of starvation

The number of people on the brink of starvation across Africa’s Sahel region is ten times higher than it was in 2019, the World Food Programme warns, while the number of people who are displaced is up by 400 percent.

The combined effects of conflict, the COVID-19 pandemic, climate, and rising costs are putting basic meals out of reach for millions.

Afghanistan tragedy

Let alone Afghanistan, where conflict last year (2021) had forced more than 700,000 Afghans to leave their homes and added to the 5.5 million people already displaced over past years, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on 8 February 2002 reported.

“The ongoing crisis in Afghanistan is intensifying humanitarian needs and increasing displacement risks both inside the country, as well as across borders to countries in the region”, according to a statement issued by Ugochi Daniels, the IOM Deputy Director-General for Operations.

Growing distrust

Back to the UNDP special report on unsafety and insecurity, it also warned that in tandem with this comes a growing distrust in each other and in the institutions which are, in theory, designed to protect us.

Change

“The world has always been in flux, but the challenges we face today as technology advances, and we experience inequality and conflict, are playing out on a different stage.

“Because we are now in the Anthropocene, the era in which humans are changing the planet in dangerous ways that our species has never seen.”

A deadly dance

It’s a deadly dance and no-one is immune from its consequences, UNDP warns.

“Despite global wealth being higher than ever before, a majority of people are feeling apprehensive about the future and this feeling has likely been exacerbated by the pandemic.”

“In our quest for unbridled economic growth, we continue to destroy our natural world while inequalities are widening both within and between countries,” said Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator.

Climate change is likely to become a leading cause of death. With a moderate decline in carbon emissions, it could still cause 40 million deaths before the end of the century.

“The Anthropocene era is adding fuel to conflict, as human lives become more precarious. Conflicts involving the state—raging in 37 countries—are the highest since the end of World War II.”

Violence, normalised

According to the UNDP report, violence is becoming normalised in many places, and the number of people forcibly displaced due to conflict or disaster has risen over the past decade, reaching more than 80 million in 2020.

“About 1.2 billion people live in areas affected by conflict—almost half of them in countries not considered to be fragile.”

Old inequalities, new realities

“Old inequalities are still with us despite advances in wealth and living standards. And a new generation of inequalities is opening up. These include the ability to flourish in a modern economy, and access to now-necessary technology such as broadband internet.”

Technology is a two-edged sword—bringing vast opportunities and potentially catastrophic risks, says the UNDP report.

“At the same time as digitalization can connect communities, encourage new skills and education, and promote human security, social media is spreading misinformation and fueling polarisation.”

Cybersecurity in Africa, below “poverty line”

In 2017, an estimated 95 percent of companies in Africa were rated on or below the cybersecurity ‘poverty line’, unable to protect themselves from malicious attacks, the report adds.

“The damage of cybercrime was estimated to cost about US$6 trillion in 2021, a 600 percent increase since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020.”

Categories: Africa

Gender Lens Crucial to Leaving No One Behind (Part 1)

Sun, 02/27/2022 - 10:17

Getting back on track post-COVID-19 is crucial says Regional Director of UNFPA ASRO, Dr Luay Shabaneh. The UNFPA runs several programmes for women and girls, here girls listen to a youth educator network Y-PEER presentation on the harms of female genital mutilation at their school in Garowe, Puntland. Credit: UNFPA Somalia/Tobin Jones

By IPS Correspondent
Johannesburg , Feb 27 2022 (IPS)

Parliamentarians’ leadership in a post-COVID-19 recovery is crucial to achieving the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) agenda. The involvement of lawmakers in ensuring a more equal, just, and sustainable society will come under the spotlight during a two-day inter-regional meeting organized by the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA) and the Forum of Arab Parliamentarians on Population and Development (FAPPD,) and supported by UNFPA ASRO in early March 2022.

The Regional Director of UNFPA ASRO, Dr Luay Shabaneh, spoke exclusively to IPS.

Under the spotlight at the meeting will be efforts by lawmakers to ensure that no one is left behind.

“To this end, parliamentarians’ leadership is vital in ensuring population issues are addressed using a human rights approach and a gender lens and in securing rights and choices for all,” Shabaneh says.

At the Cairo hybrid meeting, APDA, with support from UNFPA ASRO and FAPPD, will engage parliamentarians in a debate on issues impacting human rights and gender-based violence (GBV). The aim is to champion a rights-based approach to policies and legislation to achieve the 2030 Agenda and ICPD PoA.

Regional Director of UNFPA ASRO, Dr Luay Shabaneh.

Here are excerpts from the interviews:

Inter Press Service:

UNFPA works extensively with women displaced, often affected by wars/conflicts, living in crises, and now over the past two years, has had to deal with COVID protocols characterized, in many countries, by lockdowns and restrictions. How has UNFPA continued with its GBV services during this time?

Regional Director of UNFPA ASRO, Dr Luay Shabaneh

It is well known that the pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on women and girls and has exacerbated pre-existing inequalities, resulting in alarming health and economic impacts for women and increased reports of GBV.

UNFPA adjusted its support to mitigate against some of the impacts through programmes like Women and Girls Safe Spaces. UNFPA and partners have adopted different delivery modalities due to COVID-19 restrictions such as hotlines and online counseling instead of face-to-face engagement. It is increasingly investing in cash and voucher assistance (CVA) in the Arab States region to address economic barriers to access SRH and GBV services or purchase necessary items.

On the ground, UNFPA continues to address GBV prevention and response through sensitizing national partners on intersections of gender and public health and how to manage the increased risk of GBV ethically and effectively.

UNFPA works to ensure barriers and risks of exclusion faced by women and girls with intersecting and multiple forms of discrimination are lowered. It developed online tools on GBV prevention and response during COVID-19 supported hotlines to address the immediate needs of GBV survivors. It distributed dignity kits adapted to COVID-19 for female healthcare workers, women and girls in quarantine and isolation, and refugees and asylum seekers. UNFPA updated the GBV referral pathways to compensate for the disruption of services, particularly for clinical management of rape and offering GBV prevention and response essential services package at UNFPA-supported safe spaces.

At the regional level, UNFPA continues to provide capacity building and support to government and civil society representatives responsible for delivering GBV services to ensure that service provision continues to meet international human rights standards in light of COVID-19 restrictions.

In 2021, capacity-building training was delivered online to officials in Iraq, Tunisia, Jordan, Morocco, Lebanon, and Bahrain based on a regional handbook on essential services for GBV developed by the UNFPA ASRO.

IPS: In the Arab region, as in other areas, child and early marriage, harmful practices like FGM continue. How is UNFPA working with parliamentarians to ensure legislation, budget, and support services for women and girls?

Shabaneh: The collaboration with the parliamentarians in Somalia includes advocacy efforts for the passage of the draft sexual offenses bills, which considers child marriage as a violation of the bodily autonomy of young girls and therefore is considered a sexual offense. The women’s caucus of the national parliament is the focal point for child/women-related policies and strategies.

On June 10, 2021, Puntland State in Somalia passed a zero-tolerance FGM bill to the parliament. It is expected that this bill, once passed into law, will have a ripple effect in the campaign to end FGM in Puntland. The approval of the FGM bill in Puntland makes it one of the first constituencies in Somalia to approve a zero-tolerance FGM bill.

Substantial advocacy efforts have been invested ahead of the passing of this legislation. The Ministry of Justice in Puntland, which is among the key recipients of UNFPA UNICEF Joint Program funds, has been vigorously pushing to endorse the zero tolerance of FGM. UNFPA supported consultations with religious leaders, parliamentarians, and communities and in drafting the FGM Zero Tolerance Bill. UNFPA has also supported FGM campaigns in Puntland, leading to many abandoning the practice. Currently, UNFPA Somalia is working with the women caucus in the parliament and the human rights committee to ensure the passage of the zero-tolerance bill.

In Djibouti, the UNFPA has put two strategies to end harmful practices and child marriages.

This includes article 333 of the penal code and Article 13 of the 2013 Family Code now stipulate that the legal age of marriage is 18 years old. In February 2020, a law on the promotion, protection, and care of victims of gender-based violence with the technical support of UNFPA was adopted by a presidential decree.

UNFPA continues to implement activities through a joint program against FGM. UNFPA has also supported the development of a national protocol for the care of victims of GBV, including FGM. It established a circuit for the care of victims through the adoption of essential service packages by the three key sectors such as health, justice, and social.

IPS: How is UNFPA supporting parliamentarians in developing human rights-based legislative frameworks in the region?

Shabaneh: ICPD affirmed the application of universally recognized human rights standards to all aspects of population programmes. Its Programme of Action (PoA) provides that the promotion rights for all people in reproductive health, including family planning and GBV, is deeply rooted in gender inequality. It is a notable human rights violation in all societies.

To this end, parliamentarians’ leadership is vital in ensuring population issues are addressed using a human rights approach and a gender lens and securing rights and choices for all.

ASRO proved to have interlinkages between the executive and legislative authorities to collaborate and work closely towards implementing Nairobi commitments and the ICPD’s unfinished agenda through Parliamentarians’ declarations.

These declarations rolled out at the country level, for example, Lebanon, Morocco, Djibouti, Palestine, to ensure concrete implementation and linkage between the regional and national levels, promoting and advocating for the UNFPA mandate.

IPS: Many countries are far off course to meeting the ICPD25 agenda. How can parliamentarians assist in getting the Programme of Action back on track?

Shabaneh: Parliamentarians can support the enforcement of laws and policies to respect and protect human rights-based approaches and eliminate GBV to accelerate the implementation of the ICPD PoA.

IPS: Is there anything else you would like to add?

Shabaneh: It is important to plan for growing numbers and proportions of older persons and ensure budgetary issues to achieve the goals laid out in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

There is a need to invest in young people (life cycle approach) by promoting healthy habits and ensuring education and employment opportunities. We also need to broaden access to health services and social security coverage for all workers to improve the lives of future generations of older persons.

Overall, opportunities to strengthen partnerships to use informal support systems and unveil the potential capacities can significantly drive the agenda forward.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa

Firm, Unified Response Needed to Russia’s Aggression

Fri, 02/25/2022 - 09:46

A woman stands in an abandoned school, damaged after a shell strike, in Krasnohorivka, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. The world is facing “a moment of peril,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres told a General Assembly session, 23 February, dedicated to the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. Credit: UNICEF/Ashley Gilbertson

By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Feb 25 2022 (IPS)

It is now clear diplomacy matters little to Vladimir Putin. Despite the efforts of a string of presidents and prime ministers to prevent conflict, on 24 February, Putin started the war he’d been itching for.

What now seems evident is that Putin expects to maintain a Cold War-style sphere of influence around Russia’s borders. It isn’t only his treatment of Ukraine, seemingly punished for orienting a little more towards the west and entertaining a vague idea of joining NATO, that shows this.

Putin intervened decisively to prop up a fraudulently elected dictator in Belarus; in return, Belarus became Russia’s client state, the launching point for forces now heading towards Kyiv.

In January Russian troops were despatched to suppress a protest movement for political and economic change in Kazakhstan. It’s now established that demands for democracy or even displays of autonomy will not be allowed in what Putin sees as Russia’s buffer zone, and force will be used if required.

Power without accountability

The invasion began with Putin’s recognition of two areas of Donetsk and Luhansk, which have been Russian-controlled and Russian-aligned since the 2014 conflict. Russian troops were despatched to those regions shortly after, even though they remain part of Ukraine’s sovereign territory.

That was the prelude to the bigger invasion now under way.

This decisive move was preceded by a bizarre televised ceremony of statesmanship in which one by one members of Putin’s security council lined up to give an opinion that coincided with his, in scenes reminiscent of a Soviet-era show trial.

The staged discussion began with the delivery of an angry speech from Putin, not for the first time, in which he denied Ukraine’s right to an existence separate from Russia.

This is what untrammelled, unaccountable power looks like, and this is where it leads: to the making of erratic, emotional and possibly catastrophic decisions. Putin has eliminated all real political opposition. He’s changed the rules to stay in power as long as he likes, won elections that weren’t remotely free or fair and jailed opponents – or even ordered them killed.

He’s crushed independent civil society and media, ordering organisations to close, smearing them as foreign agents and making virtually all forms of protest illegal. Even solo protests by brave Russian citizens against the law have been brought to a quick end.

The disastrous results offer a powerful reminder of the value of democracy, accountability and independent scrutiny of power. The cost of Putin’s unchecked, unpredictable rule is clear: this conflict will bring death and human rights violations on a large scale.

At a time when the world should be fighting climate change, conflict zones will see further environmental devastation. Unimaginable resources will be spent not on addressing climate change, developing essential infrastructure or improving the lives of local communities but on destruction and immiseration.

This has costs for Russia too. Putin’s aggression will cause his country immense diplomatic and economic harm. Having extracted some potential concessions, he’s thrown them away. The conflict has potential to become an extended one.

Although Russia has far superior forces, it could still incur heavy losses. Conflict could even revivify NATO and encourage more countries to join – the opposite of what Putin might have been trying to achieve.

Conflict in short, is bad not just for Ukraine but also for Russia. But there’s no one left who can tell Putin that. This is terrible news for Russians, and it’s increasingly endangering the world.

Need for an international response

A response of international censure must follow, and it must be a unified response. As Russia’s neighbours, the 27 states of the European Union (EU) and other European states such as the UK must hold a strong common line. States that have previously kept on friendly terms with Putin, such as Germany and Hungary, should get on board.

This means the cessation of trade that benefits Putin’s military machinery and his inner circle. As part of this, Nord Stream 2, a gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, must stay offline whatever the short-term pain for Europe’s gas supplies; Germany acted commendably fast on this and now must stick to its position.

The UK, long a safe haven for the fortunes of Russian oligarchs and Putin allies, must finally get tough on Russian money laundered in London. Not nearly enough has been done here so far.

Putin moved to buffer himself from sanctions by reaching new trade and energy deals with China on the eve of the Winter Olympics, but these would not be sufficient to mitigate economic pressure exerted by unified action by democratic states.

EU countries also have a responsibility to accept and respect the rights of refugees who may be driven from Ukraine by conflict. They must respond with empathy and compassion – something they have rarely shown so far.

At the global level, it must be recognised that Russia’s invasion is a clear violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty – ironically from a state that is quick to rebuff any international questioning of its appalling human rights record as intrusive foreign interference in its sovereign affairs.

Since China’s international representatives always push a public position of respect for sovereignty and non-interference, it should face sustained diplomatic pressure to distance itself from its ally.

Given the disparity between the military strength of the two countries and Russia’s evident determination to go to war, it should be clear that this is a war of aggression – a conflict without the justification of self-defence – which is one of the most serious crimes in international human rights law.

No one is buying Putin’s lame attempts to somehow position Ukraine, a country that has repeatedly made clear it does not want war, as the aggressor.

This act threatens to undermine the international order – and it is coming not just from a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, but one that signalled its contempt by launching its invasion even as the Security Council was meeting.

There are signs that Russia is already losing friends at the UN. Current Security Council member Kenya, which previously abstained on a vote on Ukraine, spoke out powerfully against Russia’s latest imperial action.

Russia’s status as a Security Council permanent member means the body can do nothing. This sorry state of affairs only strengthens civil society’s longstanding calls for Security Council reform.

But at the very least more states – and more global south states – should follow Kenya’s lead and condemn Russia’s aggression, on the basis that Putin’s trampling of international norms endangers us all. There should be no path back to respectability for Putin.

Vital role of civil society

In the context of conflict, there’s a need to monitor and collect evidence of human rights violations – with the aim of one day holding the perpetrators and commissioners of crimes to account in the international justice system.

Civil society can play a vital part here – not only in defending human rights and monitoring violations, but also in building peace at the local level and providing essential humanitarian help to people left bereft by conflict.

As Russia’s propaganda machine goes into full effect there’s a need to build links of mutual understanding and dialogue between Russian and Ukrainian citizens. To do this, alongside their other efforts, democratic states should invest in local civil society, which in these bleak times is needed more than ever.

Excerpt:

The writer is Editor-in-Chief, CIVICUS, a global civil society alliance of over 12,000 members in 175 countries.

Categories: Africa

World’s Custodian of Peace Remains Glaringly Irrelevant

Fri, 02/25/2022 - 09:24

Russian military operations inside the sovereign territory of Ukraine “on a scale that Europe has not seen in decades, conflict directly with the United Nations Charter,” Secretary General Antonio Guterres told journalists February 24. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 25 2022 (IPS)

As a new political twist to an old saying goes: the dogs bark but the military caravan moves on.

Despite ominous warnings from an overwhelming majority of member states both in the General Assembly and the Security Council— against a military attack on Ukraine —Russian President Vladimir Putin stood defiant when he ordered a full-scale invasion of a sovereign territory.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, in a hard-hitting statement, said the invasion was a violation of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine– and inconsistent with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

But a lingering question remained: has the 15-member UN Security Council (UNSC), which is mandated with the task of maintaining international peace and security, outlived its usefulness.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir, a retired professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University (NYU), told IPS there is no more glaring example of how irrelevant the United Nations Security Council, which is the custodian of global peace and security, has become, than the debate at the UNSC.

Despite overwhelming opposition from both the Security Council member states and the General Assembly, he pointed out, Putin went ahead with his planned invasion of the Ukraine, knowing full well that he is grossly violating the UN Charter.

“What has transpired was a clear reflection of how the Security Council has outlived its usefulness, and demonstrated the dire need to reform it to meet the changing global order,” he added.

While the UN General Assembly has the ability to pass resolutions criticizing individual member states, he argued, it has no power to enforce any measure.

“The UNSC does have the power to take action, but it is limited to establishing peacekeeping missions. More often than not, the five permanent UNSC members with veto power almost always exercise that power to defend their interests, regardless of how the issue being debated impacts world peace and security”.

Thus, it is a given, he said, that the Russian ambassador will veto any of security resolutions to which the Kremlin objects. There is really no other recourse that the UN can take to correct what is fundamentally flawed in its current structure.

“The time is overdue to reform the UN so that the Security Council reflects the changing geostrategic reality and its impact on the global order to ensure that the UNSC lives up to its founding premise to ensure peace and security,” he declared.

Ian Williams, President of the Foreign Press Association in New York, told IPS: “If Moscow wants to play by the rules, according to the Charter, Russia is not on the Security Council and does not have a permanent seat.”

The Soviet Union is in the Charter and Russia usurped the seat with no resolution at the General Assembly or on the Council. Russia never applied or was formally accepted into membership, he pointed out.

Maybe the Secretary General and the President of the General Assembly, along with other members, could simply deny them.

“Unless such decisive action is taken it’s difficult to see the organization surviving this League of Nations moment. Others have stretched the Charter – but Putin has taken it past breaking point, said Williams, a former President of the UN Correspondents’ Association (UNCA) and author of UNtold: The Real Story of the United Nations in Peace and War.

Thomas G. Weiss, Distinguished Fellow, Global Governance, The Chicago Council on Global Affairs and Presidential Professor of Political Science, told IPS this is precisely what the Security Council voted to halt when Iraq invaded Kuwait (in August 1990).

“Even if one mouths the fiction that Ukraine was created by the Bolsheviks, Ukraine is more of a “state” than Israel or all countries “created” after decolonization. The UN is as central or peripheral as it always has been”.

The veto was agreed so that action versus one of the P5 was unthinkable. The only remaining option is the General Assembly which would at least force China to take a public stand as to whether state sovereignty matters, said Dr Weiss, Director Emeritus, Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, The CUNY Graduate Center.

Samir Sanbar, a former UN Assistant Secretary-General who headed the Department of Public Information, told IPS the U.N. could prove its useful role by taking initiatives —perhaps through back channels and the “good offices of the Secretary General ‘ to offer practical proposal to diffuse escalating tension.

He pointed out the role “discreetly played” by the first Asian secretary General, U Thant, to diffuse the escalating Cuban Missile crisis and Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold’s efforts to avert a big power confrontation over an American pilot held by China and also over the conflict in the Congo.

Also, a group of third world member states could move to make potential proposals, said Sanbar, who served under five different Secretaries-Generals during his tenure in office.

Asked about the irrelevance of the UNSC, Martin Edwards, Professor and Chair, School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University in New Jersey, told IPS: “This is an old claim. I remember all the handwringing after the Iraq war. The Security Council didn’t go away then, and it’s not going away now”.

Even though Putin launched this savagery during the meeting of the Council Wednesday, ”we need to remember that permanent members are not constrained by the Council. The veto ensures this.”

But that having been said, the Council still has value for efficient coalition building. While Russia can’t be meaningfully censured by the Security Council, the speeches from two nights ago make clear that Russia is isolated, thus making it easier for Ukraine’s allies to cooperate by imposing harsh sanctions, he noted.

“And Russia is not getting expelled because no proposal to expel Russia will make it through the Security Council to go to the General Assembly”.

So, the fact that diplomacy is going to shift away from the UN is not necessarily surprising. The US and Europe have a better sense of who stands with them and who supports Russia, and they can work with these allies to impose harsh sanctions quickly, declared Edwards.

Web: https://sites.google.com/view/martin-s-edwards/home

Asked if there is a precedented for a member state, in violation of the UN charter, being suspended or ousted from the UN, Dr Ben-Meir said although the UN Charter includes a provision for suspending any country that violates the charter, no country had ever been suspended or ejected, regardless of how egregious its violation of the charter might have been.

And while many UNSC resolutions have condemned specific countries, such as Israel for violating the Palestinians’ human rights, or threatened to take punitive action against a state, they have largely been rebuffed, as the UNSC fundamentally lacks an enforcement mechanism.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa

Migrant Workers’ Remittances Fund Development-Make It Easier for Them: Podcast

Fri, 02/25/2022 - 00:40

By Marty Logan
KATHMANDU, Feb 24 2022 (IPS)

I hope you had a chance to listen to our last episode, Environmental disasters creating more migrants within countries. We talked about the rising number of people who are forced out of their homes because of climate or environmental disasters. Nearly 30 million men, women and children in 149 countries were displaced in 2020, temporarily or for good and the signs are, that those numbers will only grow. Today we’re continuing our series of conversations about people on the move globally, talking about remittances and the migrant workers worldwide who send these earnings home to their families—$200 each month on average according to today’s guest, Pedro de Vasconcelos. He is the Senior Technical Specialist/ Coordinator at the Financing Facility for Remittances of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, or IFAD.

The size of global remittances is astounding—$554 billion US dollars in 2019. More surprising to me is that this sum is greater than combining all of the foreign direct investment (FDI) and overseas development assistance (ODA) sent to the countries of the developing world.

In effect, the workers of the world’s poorest countries are doing more to lift themselves out of poverty than anyone else, but that’s not something you often hear in development discussions.

Of course we couldn’t have this conversation without noting the impact of Covid-19 on remittances and migrant workers. Here in Nepal there were horrifying stories in the media of groups of workers, many in Persian Gulf countries, who were forced out of work during lockdowns, eventually ran out of money, then food, and had to rely on the kindness of friends and even strangers, until they could raise enough cash to buy an air ticket home—when flights were available—or just wait out lockdowns.

Pedro predicts that Covid-19’s impact on remittances will be a wake-up call to the public and private sectors about the crucial role that the earnings generated by the world’s migrant workers play in keeping economies afloat. If those involved can sync their efforts to ensure that the money can be sent home as efficiently as possible and that workers are given more and better options to use their earnings, it is possible to imagine a day when migration for work will be a choice and not a necessity.

Please listen now to my conversation with Pedro de Vasconcelos.

Thanks again to Pedro de Vasconcelos of IFAD for sharing his time with me, especially for agreeing to a second interview within days, and when he was travelling, after online connection problems during our first chat. If you have any thoughts about this episode, you can share them with us on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn—our handle is IPSNews. We’d also love to hear your ideas for future episodes about People on the Move around the world. Don’t forget—you can follow or subscribe to Strive on Spotify, Google, Apple Podcasts and most other podcast players.

My name is Marty Logan, you can email me at mlogan(at)ipsnews.net. Strive will be back soon and is a production of IPS News.

Categories: Africa

Pandemic Hit Domestic Workers Especially Hard in Brazil

Thu, 02/24/2022 - 18:44

Faces of a group of domestic workers in Brazil, during a meeting of one of their unions – a reflection that they are mostly black and poor. They have been fighting for decades for their labor recognition and rights. Today they are organized in 22 unions in states or municipalities and, since 1997, they have a national federation that represents them. CREDIT: Trabalhadoras Domésticas/Flickr

By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb 24 2022 (IPS)

“Woman, poor, black and illiterate” – most domestic workers suffer quadruple discrimination in Brazil, which made them more vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic, says one of their leaders, Gloria Rejane Santos.

President of the Paraíba Domestic Workers’ Union for the past 12 years, she found herself out of work after coronavirus appeared on the scene.

Of the 6.2 million domestic service jobs in Brazil in 2019, 1.5 million were lost in 2020, estimated Hildete Pereira de Melo, an economics professor at the Federal Fluminense University who has been researching gender and economics for four decades.

Vaccination against COVID-19, which began in January 2021, made it possible to recover only part of the lost jobs.

Paraíba is one of the nine states of the Northeast, Brazil’s poorest region, which is home to 4.06 million of the country’s 214 million inhabitants.

In its largest inland city, Campina Grande, population 415,000, police and labor inspectors freed a woman on Feb. 2 who was working in a home under slavery-like conditions including overwork, unhealthy conditions, rarely being allowed to leave the workplace, and no labor rights.

Helping her colleagues and combating discrimination against domestic workers, who are overwhelmingly black women, is the mission of Gloria Rejane Santos, president of the Domestic Workers Union of Paraíba, a state in Brazil’s poor Northeast region. CREDIT: Courtesy of Santos

Lingering slavery

“The pandemic aggravated the continuation of slavery,” Santos told IPS from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba, a city of 825,000 inhabitants, where two cases of slave labor were discovered and are still under investigation, she said.

Modern-day slavery in Brazil tends to be a more rural phenomenon. There were 1937 workers rescued from slavery conditions in 2021, almost all of them in the countryside of the Brazilian hinterland.

“Many employers demanded that their domestics stay at work all the time,” fearing that they would bring coronavirus back and forth to their homes. “The day laborers who could not accept it, we lost our jobs,” Santos said, referring to live-out domestic workers.

The pandemic thus created conditions for a return to work without time limits, without time off, and with a greater violation of labor rights, which have never been well-respected in domestic work.

The domestic labor market has changed since the 1980s. Live-in maids who worked an unlimited number of days have disappeared, as have domestics who work exclusively for one employer with a monthly salary.

There was an increase in the number of domestics who lived in their own homes and were hired for a limited number of days, who were more autonomous, in a process that accompanied advances in society, with new technologies and new habits, such as eating out more frequently, Melo noted. In addition, homes have become smaller and have lost the “maid’s room,” she said in an interview with IPS in Rio de Janeiro.

Domestic workers from Paraíba, a state in the Northeast region of Brazil, hold a protest organized by their union demanding respect for their rights and compliance with the laws that regulate their activity in the country. CREDIT: STDP

Female and informal

But informal employment is predominant. Nearly 70 percent of domestic workers do not have an employment contract. As a result, they do not have legal rights and are subject to the employer’s discretion, which has facilitated dismissals during the pandemic.

Their vulnerability is aggravated by the fact that 92 percent are women and 66 percent are black women, according to data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics in 2019, the year before the outbreak of the COVID pandemic.

Domestic workers’ trade unions have included the feminine form of the word “workers” – trabalhadoras – in their names, recognizing the overwhelming majority of women in the sector.

Santos, despite presiding over the union, was left without regular work as a day laborer throughout the pandemic, as were “more than half of the domestic workers in Paraíba,” she estimated.

Getting by

Work in the trade unions is voluntary. It only offers limited per diem income from a few sponsored projects, generally for the training of female workers, but “lately we don’t even get that,” lamented the 64-year-old trade unionist, who has six grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

In the last two years she has survived on food basket donations and the emergency aid that the government granted to the poorest of the poor, worth 600 reais (about 115 dollars) in 2020, reduced by half during 2021, when it was only made available for a few months.

“I managed to get it after much struggle, with the support of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, because I was registered as a town councilor, although I was an unelected candidate,” said Santos.

She attributes her decision to accept the presidency of the union to her “vocation”. “I am the daughter of a domestic worker, I suffered a lot watching my mother work hard for scraps of food, some clothes or shoes,” she said.

When she became a trade union leader at the age of 52, she decided to go back to school, and completed primary and middle school. Going to school with adolescents was very difficult, she said, as she was rejected as an “old woman”, especially when it came to group projects.

She then attended an adult education course for high school, where everything went well. But she did not make it into university, where she wanted to pursue a degree in social work. She has channeled that inclination at least partly into her union work.

During the pandemic, the union carried out a permanent campaign to collect food and aid for unemployed members. “We provided assistance to more than 400 families” at the João Pessoa headquarters and the subheadquarters in Campina Grande, she said.

The pandemic forced Roseli Nascimento to replace beef in her diet with chicken, eggs and legumes. A live-out domestic worker in Rio de Janeiro, she lost four of the five days she worked weekly in 2020 and only regained them in mid-2021, when her employers felt protected by the widespread vaccination against COVID-19. CREDIT: Courtesy of Nascimento

Rights

But her main ambition is to “fight discrimination and make society recognize the value of domestic work.” She pointed out that she receives almost daily complaints of mistreatment and other conflicts from her colleagues. In these cases she receives help from a lawyer who has been working with the union on a pro bono basis since 2019.

To illustrate, she cited the case of “a maid who came to the union in tears” after she was accused of having stolen one hundred reais (19 dollars) from her employers. She was saved by a phone call from a son of the family, who confessed to taking the money without telling his parents.

The marginalization suffered by domestic workers in Paraíba is probably stronger than in other states because in that state “90 percent of them are black women,” said Santos.

“I am black, poor and the daughter of a domestic, but since I have an active voice, I decided to use it for the collective good,” she said.

Roseli Gomes do Nascimento, a 60-year-old resident of Rocinha, one of the large, famous favelas or shantytowns of Rio de Janeiro, had slightly better luck than Santos. Also a live-out domestic worker, of the five days she worked during the week, she lost four at the start of the pandemic.

It was not until the middle of the following year that she was able to return to work five days a week, when a good part of the Brazilian population was vaccinated against COVID. Only one supportive employer had kept her continuously employed and even paid her for her day of work during three months in which, for health safety reasons, she stayed away from her employer’s home.

That small income and 115 dollars a month in emergency government assistance for one quarter of 2020 and a fourth of that for nine months of the following year were barely enough to survive on. She lives alone, as her two daughters are now on their own, with her six cats. “I used to have nine, but I gave three away,” she told IPS.

A drastic reduction in beef consumption, sometimes replaced by less expensive chicken and eggs, and a diet with more fruits and vegetables, as well as fewer outings, helped her to live on a reduced budget, with the advantage of losing “about eight kilos, without even dieting.”

Legislators and trade unionists celebrate the first anniversary of the constitutional amendment establishing the rights of domestic workers in Brazil on Apr. 2, 2014. CREDIT: José Cruz/Agência Brasil

Context

Domestic work employed 75.6 million workers, or 4.5 percent of all wage earners around the world, according to a 2021 report by the International Labor Organization (ILO).

Latin America accounted for 18 percent of these workers and Brazil for nine percent, a much higher proportion than the size of the population, which represented 7.4 percent of the total in the case of Latin America and 2.7 percent in the case of Brazil.

In other words, the region has a higher proportion of paid domestic work, a product of its history and slavery, noted economist Melo. Only 20 percent of Brazil’s 60 million families hire domestic workers, a privilege of the upper-middle and upper classes.

Categories: Africa

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