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2020: The Year of COVID 19

Tue, 12/22/2020 - 12:57

By External Source
Dec 22 2020 (IPS-Partners)

At the end of this year, we must pay our respects to the nearly 1.5 million people who have died from the Coronavirus.

COVID 19 has inflicted extensive damage beyond human casualties, exposing the frailties of governments, societies, economies and health systems, particularly in those countries that chose to ignore the warnings and advice of the WHO.

The virus has brought at least seven countries to the brink of famine. LIST 250 million people are now in desperate need of humanitarian aid around the world.

This global calamity should have brought us together as a species, but it hasn’t. Instead, new conflict has broken out in Azerbaijan and the Horn of Africa has begun to destabilize.

Despite the 25th Anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the Coronovirus has widened gender inequalities and we have witnessed a spike in domestic violence.

Racism, of course, has been brought back to the fore, prompted by the killing of George Floyd. And with these events muted by a raging virus, we have exacerbated an era of disinformation, misinformation and the loss of respect for factual and scientific truths.

Simply put, the climate and biodiversity crisis we face is now unprecedented.

As we stumble into 2021, the UN Secretary General has clearly defined the mission that lies ahead.

“Our planet is broken… The science is clear…. We face a moment of truth.”

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Categories: Africa

Islamic Feminists Speak on Fight to Reclaim Rights

Tue, 12/22/2020 - 10:16

By Mariya Salim
NEW DELHI, India, Dec 22 2020 (IPS)

The court victory to allow women into the inner sanctum of a Sufi shrine in Mumbai was a significant victory for a secular rights-based movement led by Muslim women. However, there is a fear the political climate in India regarding Muslims, could put the women’s rights agenda on the back foot.

Zakia Soman speaks about how the Sufi shrine victory was deeply personal.

Zakia Soman, co-founder of the Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA) or the Indian Muslim Women’s movement, in an exclusive interview to IPS, said the historic victory was important for the women-led group to check this (Patriarchal male clergy-led) arrogance.

“Most of our members have an intimate devotion to Sufism. We cannot allow a bunch of conservative men to take it away from us. We are equal humans, equal Muslims, and equal citizens in a democracy,” she says.

“When they refused to listen to us and continued to bar us from entering the shrine, we unanimously decided to take them to court.”

The BMMA in 2016 filed Public Interest Litigation when after years of unfettered access to a Sufi shrine, the Haji Ali Dargah, a sudden restriction was placed on women entering the inner sanctum of the shrine.

The submissions made by the organisation to the High Court questioned this prohibition both based on constitutional guarantees as well as women’s rights in Islam. The verdict was in their favour and in 2016 the High court held that ‘Women must be permitted to enter the sanctum sanctorum on a par with men’.

Soman says the Haji Ali victory was personally a tribute to her maternal grandmother who was a devout Sufi.

Another achievement for the BMMA has been the slow acceptance of Female Qazi’s performing the ‘Nikah’ or marriage for Muslim couples. A domain which has exclusively remained with men, despite there being nothing in the religion that prohibits a woman from solemnising a Nikah.

However, the BMMA has been at the receiving end of criticism for their fight to codify Family laws in India. Many believe the anti-Muslim communal climate in the country calls for other issues to take the lead.

“Today Indian Muslims are facing tremendous onslaught in the form of lynching, discriminatory laws citizenship laws and the looming National Registry of Citizens, so-called love jihad laws etc.,” says Soman.

“There is a direct onslaught that puts a question mark on the citizenship and patriotism of Muslims. I am not sure how many women would come forward to fight for rights in the family when faced with such huge political dangers.”

She recognises the need to keep fighting for gender-just reforms in family laws from within.

BMMA and many other Muslim women’s movements across the globe question the patriarchal interpretations of religious texts which treat women as unequal. As Islamic Feminists, they believe that their religion believes that they are equal to their male counterparts.

Zainah Anwar says engaging on women’s rights is an article of faith.

Zainah Anwar, Executive Director of Musawah, the global movement for equality in the family and Co-Founder of Sisters in Islam, Malaysia says: “For many of us Muslim women who choose to engage with religion in the realm of women’s rights, it is an article of faith that Islam is just, and God is just”.

“If justice is intrinsic to Islam, then how could injustice and discrimination result from the codification and implementation of laws and policies made in the name of Islam,” she asks in an exclusive interview with IPS, questioning the patriarchal family laws implemented in the name of religion.

Historian and academic Dr Margot Badran defines ‘Islamic feminists’ and says that they draw on the ‘Quranic concept of equality of all human beings’ and thereby insist on applying this concept to everyday life. Defining ‘Islamic feminism’ she says that it “explicates the idea of gender equality as part and parcel of the Qur’anic notion of equality of all insan (human beings) and calls for the implementation of gender equality in the state, civil institutions, and everyday life.”

Throughout the world, Muslim men have been at the realm of interpreting Quranic texts, and these interpretations have been mostly patriarchal. Islamic feminists, however, are changing the contours of these debates.

The movement has a long history and in March 2005, Amina Wadud, an Islamic scholar, and feminist was at the centre of the debate, criticism, and discussion. Dr Wadud accepted the invitation to lead a mixed prayer, and led it, in the Synod House, New York. At the receiving end of death threats and criticism from those who believed that Islam prohibits the act, the former Islamic studies professor at Virginia University said in many media interviews that followed, that, “There is nothing in the Qur’an or the hadith that forbids me from doing this.”

Post the Shah Bano judgment in India and the passage of the Muslim Women’s bill in 1986, and amidst a communally polarised atmosphere, Muslim women who developed a feminist consciousness tried to address gender injustice in the Muslim personal law being followed at the time by invoking and relying on Islamic reinterpretations of sacred texts.

As in Muslim societies at the time, in India as well, in this period, women were perceived as symbols of religious tradition with any dissent on their part being construed as a betrayal to community identity.

This paradox, however, came to a halt in Muslim societies, as the twentieth century drew to a close. Like their counterparts in the Muslim majority states, conservative (mostly Ashraf or higher caste) male clergy in India started laying greater emphasis on patriarchal gender notions which in turn provoked many women to take up activism to counter these claims.

These women saw no inherent connection between patriarchy and Islam. By the end of the 1980’s there was an emergence of a movement which was ‘feminist in its aspirations and demands yet Islamic in its language and sources of legitimacy, one version of this new discourse is Islamic feminism’.1

In recent times, there have been several efforts in various parts of the country for Muslim women to enter the religious realm interpreting the Quran and Shariat from a women’s perspective. They have worked towards reclaiming spaces using constitutional means and the law of the land as well, that have been increasingly taken away from them.

Questioning status quo, however, is not easy and Muslim women across the world challenging patriarchal norms have faced resistance from within and outside their communities. Anwar tells IPS: “We are often accused of being westernised elites, anti-Islam, anti-Shari’ah, women who have deviated from our faith and have weak Iman (faith). Reports are made against us to the police, to the religious authorities to take action against us, to silence us, to charge us for insulting Islam, to ban our groups.”

“We cannot be told that Islam is a way of life … and then confer on Muslim men the sole authority to decide what Islam is and what it’s not. That’s despotism. As we can see from Muslim women leading movements all over the world for reform and rights – we will not be silenced and intimidated,” says Anwar.

1 Ziba Mir‐Hosseini, ‘Muslim Women’s Quest for Equality: Between Islamic Law and Feminism’ (The university of Chicago Press 2006) 32 (4) Critical Inquiry 629

Mariya Salim is a fellow at IPS UN Bureau

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Categories: Africa

The Night Arafat, Facing Death Threats, Slept in the UN Chief’s Office

Tue, 12/22/2020 - 08:58

The Leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Yasser Arafat, arrived at UN Headquarters by helicopter. A view of the helicopter as it approached the North Lawn of the UN campus on 13 November 1974. But Arafat was denied a US visa for a second visit to the UN in 1988. Credit: UN Photo/Michos Tzovaras

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 22 2020 (IPS)

The United Nations, which is commemorating its 75th anniversary, continues to remain bogged down in one of the world’s most politically and militarily volatile regions: the Middle East.

Virtually every other week, the Security Council has a predictable item on its agenda: “consultations on the Middle East”—perhaps a never-ending saga.

And more recently, it includes the military conflict in Yemen (described as the world’s worst humanitarian disaster, with an estimated 24 million people – close to 80 per cent of the population –in need assistance and protection), along with civil wars and insurrections in Syria and Libya.

But the Security Council’s worst nightmare is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – and the demand for a Palestinian homeland – which remains unresolved after more than 50 years of death, destruction—and discussions.

Still, the late Yasser Arafat, the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was offered the UN podium only once in his lifetime.

When Arafat was denied a US visa to visit New York to address the United Nations back in 1988, the General Assembly defied the United States by temporarily moving the UN’s highest policy making body to Geneva– perhaps for the first time in UN history– providing a less-hostile political environment for the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Arafat, who first addressed the UN in 1974, took a swipe at Washington when he prefaced his statement by saying “it never occurred to me that my second meeting with this honourable Assembly, since 1974, would take place in the hospitable city of Geneva”.

On his 1974 visit, he avoided the hundreds of pro and anti-Arafat demonstrators outside the UN building by arriving in a helicopter which landed on the North Lawn of the UN campus adjoining the East River.

When he addressed the General Assembly, there were confusing reports whether or not Arafat carried a gun in his holster—“in a house of peace”– which was apparently not visible to delegates.

One news story said Arafat was seen “wearing his gun belt and holster and reluctantly removing his pistol before mounting the rostrum.” “Today, I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom-fighter’s gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand,” he told the Assembly. But there were some delegates who denied Arafat carried a weapon.

Iftikhar Ali, a longstanding UN correspondent for the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP), who has covered General Assembly sessions since 1971, told IPS Arafat’s helicopter landed in the UN’s North Lawn around 3 am.

Among those who received him was UN Chief of Protocol Aly Teymour of Egypt– whose father was chief of protocol for King Farouk– and who handled all arrangements for Arafat’s stay overnight in the UN Secretariat because of security risks of putting him up in a New York hotel.

The helicopter carrying Arafat was the second to land — the first one was probably a decoy, Ali said. “There were some cameramen present at that unearthly hour and only two print media reporters– the late Tony Goodman of Reuters and myself. Arafat was escorted by security men into the UN building and to the Secretary-General’s 38th floor where he spent the night in a temporary bedroom”.

But that bedroom had not been used for years, and the colour of water was brown when the bathroom’s faucet was opened. Mercifully, it was not an attempt by Israeli intelligence to poison the PLO leader.

There was also another legendary story that Arafat, who was a potential target for assassination by the Israelis, apparently never step in the same bed two consecutive nights.

Meanwhile, Palestine, which was never afforded the status of a full-fledged UN member state pulled off a coup when the 134-member Group of 77, the largest single political coalition at the UN, elected it as its chairman, back in 2018, much against US protests.

Nikky Haley, the vociferously anti-Palestine US Ambassador to the United Nations, warned member states she will “take down names” of those who vote against American interests in the world body—perhaps with the implicit threat of cutting US aid to countries that refuse to play ball with the diplomatically-reckless Trump administration.

But that vengeance-driven head count — and no ball playing — could be a tedious exercise for the US when 146 out of 193 member states voted in the General Assembly to affirm Palestine as the new chairman of the Group of 77. The 146 included some of the strongest Western allies of the US, plus four of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council: UK, France, China and Russia.

The only two countries that stood sheepishly by the US were Israel, its traditional client state, and Australia, a newcomer to the ranks of US supporters.

Although Arafat made it to the UN, some of the world’s most controversial leaders, including Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Syria’s Hafez al-Assad and his son Bashar al-Assad, and North Korea’s Kim il Sung and his grandson Kim Jong-un never made it to the UN.

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, however, did make a visit to the UN in September 2009. In its report, the London Guardian said he “grabbed his 15 minutes of fame at the UN building in New York and ran with it. He ran with it so hard he stretched it to an hour and 40 minutes, six times longer than his allotted slot, to the dismay of UN organizers”.

Gaddafi fully lived up to his reputation for eccentricity, bloody-mindedness and extreme verbiage, said the Guardian, as he tore up a copy of the UN charter in front of startled delegates, accused the Security Council of being an al-Qaida like terrorist body, called for George Bush and Tony Blair to be put on trial for the Iraq war, demanded $7.7 trillion in compensation for the ravages of colonialism on Africa, and wondered whether swine flu was a biological weapon created in a military laboratory.

Incidentally, according to one news report, there were 112 different spellings of the Libyan leader’s name, both in English and in Arabic, including Muammar el-Qaddafi, Muammar Gaddafi, Muammar al-Gathafi, Muammar El Kadhafi, Moammar el Kazzafi, Moamer, El Qathafi, Mu’Ammar, Gadafi, and Moamar Gaddafi, amongst others.

The Wall Street Journal ran a cartoon making fun of the multiple spellings, with a visiting reporter, on a one-on-one interview in Tripoli, telling the Libyan leader: ”My editor sent me to find out whether you are Qaddafi, Khaddafi, Gadafi, Qathafi or Kadhafi?”

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Categories: Africa

The Impact of COVID-19 on Child Marriage and Other Gender-Based Violence

Mon, 12/21/2020 - 14:13

By Saeda Bilkis Bani
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Dec 21 2020 (IPS)

I recently visited rural areas of Bangladesh amid the COVID-19 pandemic and returned to Dhaka with a new understanding of the impact that COVID-19 is having on child marriage, a harmful practice that is a global challenge. The fundamental shift that I saw was that child marriage, which has typically been encouraged by struggling parents, is now being encouraged by struggling girls. This worrisome trend underscores a new burden of the pandemic on the poor.

Marriage before the age of 18 is a fundamental violation of human rights. Yet UNICEF reported in April that the number of girls married in childhood stands at 12 million per year worldwide.

According to the United Nations Population Fund’s State of the World Population 2020 report, COVID-19 threatens to make even that stunning number worse. The agency estimates that COVID-19 will disrupt efforts to end child marriage, potentially resulting in an additional 13 million child marriages taking place between 2020 and 2030 that could otherwise have been averted.

The challenge is not only the disease but the response to the disease – especially the impact of school closings, which have been in effect nationally since March. The transition from in-school to online learning can easily seem like a mechanical one, but it creates new challenges for remote and poor communities.

Saeda Bilkis Bani

What I witnessed in visiting rural communities was girls totally bored and home-bound by school closings. They typically lack Internet access, television, and smartphones. Analog phones are the only readily available means of communication, and too often the parents are not able to maintain any sort of schooling at home.

The girls are home-bound because, unlike the boys, they are generally forbidden by their parents from leaving the home unnecessarily. School closings thus become confining as well as limiting.

All too often the girls whom I saw had a glazed look in their eyes. They saw no future for themselves. Without school, they were deprived of possibilities. The daily effect was crushing. The only escape was child marriage.

The shift to girls pursuing child marriage instead of their parents is a devastating one that could drive the numbers even higher. It could limit the prospects and potential of girls worldwide.

School closings also affect boys, but boys have more to do. They are freer, more mobile, outside more. In some areas, that may increase child labor, drug addiction, and gambling, but boys are not confined as girls are.

The situation is also different in urban areas, where there is greater access to the Internet, television, and smartphones. Internet access has its own liabilities, but it is available for educational purposes.

For girls and women, the response to COVID-19 has other implications, too. Lockdowns have left many men out of work and, therefore, at home during the day, often making demands of one kind or another. The burden on women – to prepare more food, do more cleaning, maintain the home life – only increases. Financial stress creates domestic stress, and the potential for violence grows, especially as husbands demand more money from wives’ families – a major cause of domestic violence.

BRAC is working to prevent child marriages and other forms of violence against women and children and to defend victims of such violence. BRAC’s Community Empowerment Programme supports Polli Shomaj, the community-based women’s groups that are active in 54 out of 64 districts in Bangladesh in combating gender-based violence. BRAC also operates 410 Legal Aid Clinics, whose cases typically involve gender-based violence. But for prevention to be maximized a cultural shift is needed.

Men and women are equal in Bangladesh’s Constitution and law, but not in its culture. And with 3 million cases backlogged in the court system, the law has limited effect.

Bringing about that cultural shift requires economic empowerment alongside social empowerment for girls and women. It requires life skills for negotiation, partnering in decision-making, and goal setting, among other things. It necessitates occupational skills training to enable girls and women to connect with the job market and to earn their own income. It also requires microfinance so that women can get loans, and mentoring so that women can see a future that they can impact.

Fortunately, BRAC has those tools in place. BRAC Microfinance has 7.1 million clients, 87% of whom are women. BRAC’s Skills Development Programme has equipped 84,581 people with training and knowledge needed for employment, and 83% of those learners – 50% of whom are women – secured jobs after graduation. Together these tools create a comprehensive package that can enable girls and women to see a vibrant future and escape gender-based violence.

But the scale of the problem is greater still. According to a 2015 survey by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics and the United Nations Population Fund, more than 70 percent of married women or girls in Bangladesh have faced some form of intimate partner abuse; about half of whom say their partners have physically assaulted them. And the problem is global.

COVID-19 has revealed that girls and women need to be able to see a future of opportunity for themselves. In combating COVID-19, the world must awaken to this revelation. COVID-19 should now become the catalyst for the world to make possible a future of opportunity for girls and women – a future without gender-based violence.

The author is a Programme Manager in the Community Empowerment Programme at BRAC, one of the largest nongovernmental organizations in the world.

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Categories: Africa

A Pakistani Farmer is Using Technology to Stop Agricultural Exploitation

Mon, 12/21/2020 - 12:56

Credit: IPS

By Rabiya Jaffery
AMMAN, Jordan, Dec 21 2020 (IPS)

Anas Shaikh is a Pakistani farmer on a mission to bring solutions to the many difficulties small and medium-scale farmer’s face in making a sustainable living.

One of the main challenges he observed has been the difficulties for farmers to sell their produce at the right time to avoid post-harvest waste and at prices that were not exploitative due to the large number of middlemen and corporations that are now involved in the agricultural supply chain.

“The agriculture community everywhere but especially in developing countries is loaded with so many difficulties, despite the crucial role farmer’s play in the economy and food security of their countries,” says George Stacey, an analyst working with Norvergence, an environmental advocacy NGO.

“There are a lot of problems contributing to this but one of the biggest is that farmers are exploited and not paid what they deserve for their produce.” Just across the border, in India, tens of thousands of farmers are currently protesting against three new agricultural laws that aim to deregulate Indian agriculture.

Even though the laws say farmers will still have price assurances, but the language is vague, and farmers are nervous about losing government support and having to sell directly to large companies. Farmers are particularly worried that they will not be able to sell their produce and go into debt.

Already, across the region, the increasing number of intermediaries, such as wholesalers and processors – as supply chains become more monopsonistic and monopolistic due to the growing influence and presence of large global companies in markets – continue to lower the returns earned by small scale farmers.

In addition the lack of road and rail connectivity and limited accessible storage or warehouse infrastructures in Pakistan and India also further increase the need to rely on middlemen.

“Lower returns continue to exploit farmers and push many further into poverty,” says Stacey. “This also impacts the quality of produce that is grown as farmers are no longer able to access many resources such as good quality of pesticides.”

Shaikh is now on a mission to use technology to find solutions to the biggest challenges small local farmers face.

He has recently founded Peepu, an easy-to-use mobile application that cuts down on the several middlemen and the time that it takes to sell agricultural products by facilitating direct transactions between farmers and traders.

Shaikh points out that the app’s simplistic interface has been designed to ensure accessibility, keeping into consideration that the target users may not all be tech-savvy.

“I have worked in the field as a small farmer and I know farmers. This is why the app has been deliberately designed in a fashion that the farmers will find it easy to use,” says Shaikh.

Peepu was launched earlier this year on Google Play in March, and is being used by more than 700 Pakistani farmers and aims to expand further in the coming months.

“Farmers are able to sell their products at the earliest possible time and at a competitive price,” says Shaikh.

“What we are trying to do is use the technology to shift the power of negotiations back to small farmers and also allow them the possibility to conduct business with anyone, regardless, without the limitations imposed by geographical proximity.”

Currently, agriculture is one of South Asia’s biggest employers. Nearly 70 percent of the region’s population is employed in agriculture and the majority of people in the region live in rural communities.

And technology, such as Peepu, can drastically help answer many of the difficulties farmers face that also have long-term social and economic impacts.

For instance, a shorter chain of intermediaries can also potentially diminish the post-harvest losses generated due to the degradation in the quality and quantity of the crop products through the stages of the supply chain from harvest to consumer use.

“Farmers directly selling to traders in a way that isn’t exploitative and without the many middlemen involved, also provides a pragmatic solution to the utilization of unavoidable post-harvest food waste which isn’t just beneficial to farmers but also important in reducing food waste and, thus, improving food security,” says Shaikh.

Several reports, such as by The World Bank, warns that ensuring food security in South Asia, as its population continues to exponentially expand, will be one of the main challenges for the region to address in the coming years.

The region is currently home to more than 1.8 billion people — with the majority living in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh — and has been the fastest-growing region for half a decade. The population of the region is expected to further increase by 40 percent by 2050, according to the UN.

And many experts agree that addressing food insecurity is going to be amongst the top policy agendas to ensure stability in what is the most populous and amongst the poorest regions of the world.

“Food availability and accessibility can be increased by increasing production, improving distribution, and reducing the losses. And the reduction of post-harvest food losses is a critical component of ensuring future global food security,” says Hina Kamal, PhD research scholar at Future Food Beacon Program, University of Nottingham.

Kamal is working with sustainable food companies to research approaches to recycling and reutilizing food waste into functional products.

“Reduction and recycling of food waste is the only possible holistic approach towards achieving sustainability for future foods”

Studies have also established the importance of policies that address securing food availability that considers the context and impacts of climate change on agriculture.

A report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), for example, states that while climate change and rising temperatures will affect food production across Asia differently, the most food insecure populations are likely to be in South Asia.

Kamal points out that the urgency of tackling food insecurity issues can led governments of developing countries to launch short term and fast tracked initiatives, without proper co-ordination resulting in slower progress and economic inefficiencies.

“This can be reversed if there is better activation of opportunities and co-ordination amongst research institutes, research and development centers, universities and private and public enterprises and ministries,” she adds. “It is innovation that, after all. increases the scope and number of emerging technological process, logistics, marketing and operating costs.”

Peepu is currently involved with the National Incubation Center (NIC) in Karachi, Pakistan’s economic center, and is seeking funding from external investors.

“While technology can be and exploitative force, it also offers a potential for small farmers to get some of their power back and have more control over how and to who they sell their crops,” says Stacey.

“It doesn’t solve the many problems small farmers experience but it can be a tool to navigate through the challenges until better policies come along that protect them.”

The post A Pakistani Farmer is Using Technology to Stop Agricultural Exploitation appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Uganda’s School Plan for Refugee Children Could Become a Global Template

Mon, 12/21/2020 - 06:52

A parent helps his children to go through work received in the study kits distributed by Education Cannot Wait (ECW) implementing partners in Uganda. ECW allocated $1 million in emergency funds to its education partners in Uganda to ensure that refugee children still continued schooling despite the nationwide coronavirus lockdown. Credit: Wambi Michael/IPS

By Wambi Michael
KAMPALA/KIKUBE/RWAMWANJA, Uganda , Dec 21 2020 (IPS)

Thirteen-year-old Wita Kasanganjo is a pupil at Maratatu Primary School in the Kyangwali Refugee Settlement based in Uganda’s Hoima district. But last month, when Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni ordered the re-opening of schools for the first time since the mid-March nationwide closure, Kasanganjo was not part of the returning group of students. The government, in a cautious lifting of coronavirus lockdown restrictions, has allowed only pupils who are part of the final year or candidate classes to return to their schooling.

“Not being in class for all this time is not fun. I miss my friends at school and my teachers too,” Kasanganjo tells IPS, saying that she looks forward to the day when the government allows all children to return to school. Kasanganjo has lived as a refugee in Uganda since 2015 when she and her mother fled from armed conflict in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ituri province.

During the coronavirus lockdown and subsequent school closures, close to 15 million girls and boys, including children living in refugee settlements across this East African nation, were affected. And while pupils in their final years of school, estimated at 1.2 million, returned last month, more than 13 million remain at home, with some still unable to access learning materials.

The most vulnerable among these children include refugee children like Kasanganjo. According to international charity, Save the Children, Uganda hosts the largest number of refugees on the continent.

The numbers are sobering. According to the NGO, 57 percent of refugee children in Uganda are out of school, in some cases for several years. “Even for those who are able to attend school, the quality of education is severely compromised by a shortage of classrooms, teachers and materials. Class sizes average more than 150 children, with some squeezing in 250 children or more,” according to Save the Children Uganda.

Kasanganjo is one of the fortunate ones. She was enrolled in Uganda’s Primary Education under the Education Response Plan for Refugees and Host Communities in Uganda (ERP), facilitated by Education Cannot Wait (ECW).

The plan, the first of its kind globally, was launched two years ago by the Ugandan government together with local and international humanitarian and development partners. “It targets children and youth in 12 refugee-hosting districts in Uganda where more than half a million children are currently out of learning and out of school,” according to UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency.

ECW, the first global fund dedicated to education in emergencies and protracted crises, provided the impetus to develop the three and a half year ERP and supports its implementation with a $33 million seed funding allocation. ECW is urgently appealing to new and current donors to step up and cover the full $389 million expected cost of the ERP. So far, an additional $93 million has been mobilised.

While other refugee children may not be attending school during the lockdown, Kasanganjo is able to continue learning from home as she has been supplied with reading material distributed by the ERP partners working in Kyangwali Refugee Settlement.

When the COVID-19 pandemic erupted, ECW immediately released additional funds through its first emergency response funding window for its partners to quickly set up relevant remote learning solutions and safe and protective learning environments, and to raise awareness of barrier gestures for children and youth and their communities to prevent the spread of the virus.

“In times of crisis, support to continuous learning opportunities is crucial to help protect vulnerable girls and boys who face high risks of permanently dropping out in case of a prolonged interruption to their education. Girls are particularly at risk of child marriage and early pregnancies,” said Yasmine Sherif, director of ECW. “In the face of COVID-19, rapid emergency interventions have been key to protect refugee children and youth and other vulnerable and marginalised girls and boys from an uncertain future and to preserve the gains of ECW’s longer-term multi-year investments in quality education outcomes.”

In total, ECW allocated $1 million in emergency funds to its education partners in Uganda. This includes $475,000 implemented by UNHCR and $525,000 implemented by Save the Children as part of a consortium of civil society organisations, including War Child Holland and ZOA Uganda. The consortium distributed 38,000 home learning kits and more than 900 solar-powered radios that were given to some of the poorest households to ensure children in refugee hosting communities were able to listen to lessons over the radio. The funding also supported classes to be conducted over local radio stations.

“I have I read all the reading materials and answer all the questions. Sometimes I have challenges because I cannot get ready answers, but my mother allows me to visit some of my friends in the community so that we can do the work together. That has really worked for me,” says Kasanganjo.

Geatano Apamaku, a radio manager at Radio Pacis in Uganda’s West Nile region – which lies along the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where Uganda’s largest concentration of refugees, numbering 750,000, are based – believes that radio classes are more effective compared to distributing the study material and having students learn by themselves.

“We have had children call in asking teachers questions. I think this was more effective because most refugee parents are illiterate. So, they could not help their children learn,” Apamaku tells IPS.

Dugale Severy, a teacher and refugee from South Sudan who lives and teaches in the Nyumanzi Refugee Settlement in Adjumani District, tells IPS that without education programmes for refugee children, many would never have entered a classroom after fleeing their countries. And despite the COVID-19 lockdown, he says that South Sudanese refugee children are receiving a good education.

“Because you cannot learn when you are hearing gunshots. Just like you cannot teach at your best when you are hearing bombshells. I pray that this type of education is extended to other refugee children all over the world,” explains Dugale.

Uganda’s National Commissioner for Basic and Primary Education Dr. Cleophus Mugenyi tells IPS that without funding from ECW, children in refugee settlements would not have been able to continue their education.

“It would be horrible. The children would be denied the right to education, and you know that education is a basic human right for all and it is important for everyone to make the most of their lives. So, children in refugee settlements deserve education, too,” says Mugenyi.

According to Mugenyi, funding from ECW has benefitted refugees and their host communities to improve learning facilities, construct classrooms and pit latrines, and train teachers, among others.

In fact, ECW reports that the primary gross enrolment ratio for refugee children improved from 53 percent in 2017 to 75 percent in 2019, following the Fund’s support to the ERP.

Despite this progress, more is needed as refugees are faced with precarious situations.

“Our appeal to partners is to continue mobilising resources towards this kind of education because from Uganda’s perspective, we have demonstrated that the Education Response Plan for Refugees and Host Communities in Uganda can help children to access education,” says Mugenyi.

But Uganda has done more for refugees than most countries by granting them access to land and services, freedom of movement, and the right to work. According to Save the Children, the Ugandan government has shown “global leadership in refugee policy and how we respond to refugee crises”.

According to the NGO, what happens in Uganda will determine an international framework for the refugee crisis.

“Uganda and the ERP is a test case for the willingness of the international community to back their commitments with practical actions, and ensure that the responsibility of responding to the refugee crisis is shared fairly,” Save the Children states.

ECW is appealing to public and private donors to urgently mobilise $400 million globally. With these resources, ECW will continue to fund emergency education support during the COVID-19 pandemic and in other sudden onset crises, and help develop and roll out multi-year response plans for refugees and other children and youth in a total of 25 protracted crises around the globe.

Meanwhile Gladys Nayema, just like Kasanganjo, is one of the many girls who will continue their home learning. “Some of our colleagues were happy when the schools were closed. They thought it was an early holiday. I didn’t. I have continued to learn from those materials from Save the Children and the government. I urge other boys and girls to read them because they are useful,” she tells IPS.

The post Uganda’s School Plan for Refugee Children Could Become a Global Template appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Online Violence, Fueled by Disinformation and Political Attacks, Deeply Harms Women Journalists

Fri, 12/18/2020 - 23:41

Credit: Unsplash, vía Thought Catalog.

By Julie Posetti
WASHINGTON, Dec 18 2020 (IPS)

An alarmingly high number of women journalists are now targets of online attacks associated with orchestrated digital disinformation campaigns. The impacts include self-censorship, retreat from visibility, an increased risk of physical injury, and a serious mental health toll. The main perpetrators? Anonymous trolls and political actors.

These findings are among the first released in a survey conducted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) on online violence against women journalists. They paint a global picture of the deeply entrenched nature of gendered abuse, harassment and sexualized attacks against women journalists, along with the obstacles to effective solutions.

The survey, which is the most comprehensive and geographically diverse survey ever undertaken on the theme of online violence, was offered in five languages and received responses from 714 women journalists across 113 countries. It is part of a broader UNESCO-commissioned study to examine online violence in 15 countries, with an emphasis on intersectional experiences and the Global South.

The women journalists surveyed said they had been subjected to a wide range of online violence, including threats of sexual assault and physical violence, abusive language, harassing private messages, threats to damage their professional or personal reputations, digital security attacks, misrepresentation via manipulated images and financial threats.

These methods of attack are growing more sophisticated and evolving with technology. They are also increasingly associated with orchestrated attacks fueled by disinformation tactics designed to silence journalists. This points to the need for responses to online violence to grow equally in technological sophistication and collaborative coordination.

Here are the top 12 findings from the report, which was published by UNESCO to mark International Human Rights Day:

(1) Nearly three in four women respondents (73%) said they had experienced online violence.

Online attacks against women journalists have been a pernicious problem for many years. Now, these appear to be increasing dramatically and uncontrollably around the world, as our respondents illustrated.

(2) Threats of physical (25%) and sexual violence (18%) plagued the women journalists surveyed.
But these threats aren’t just directed at the women being targeted — they radiate. Thirteen percent of respondents said they had received threats of violence against those close to them.

(3) One in five women respondents (20%) said they had been attacked or abused offline in incidents seeded online.

This finding is particularly disturbing given the emerging correlation between online attacks and the murder of journalists with impunity. In related findings, 13% said they increased their physical security in response to online violence, and 4% said that they had missed work due to concerns about the attacks jumping offline. This highlights both their sense of vulnerability and their awareness of the potential offline consequences of digital attacks.

(4) The mental health impacts of online violence were the most frequently identified (26%) consequence. Twelve percent of respondents said they had sought medical or psychological help due to the effects of online violence, and 11% said they had taken days off work as a result.

Online violence against women journalists causes significant psychological harm, especially when it is prolific and sustained. But our survey also demonstrated that media employers need to do much more to support the mental health and well-being of those targeted. Only 11% of our respondents said their employer provided access to a counselling service if they were attacked.

(5) Almost half (48%) of the women reported being harassed with unwanted private messages.
This highlights the fact that much online violence targeting women journalists occurs in the shadows of the internet, away from public view where dealing with the problem can be even more difficult.

(6) The story theme most often identified in association with increased attacks was gender (47%), followed by politics and elections (44%), and human rights and social policy (31%).

This data underlines the function of misogyny in online violence against women journalists. It also spotlights the role of political attacks on the press, connected to populist politics in particular, exacerbating threats to journalism safety.

(7) Forty-one percent women respondents said they had been the targets of online attacks that appeared to be linked to orchestrated disinformation campaigns.

Women journalists increasingly find themselves in the crosshairs of digital disinformation campaigns which leverage misogyny and other forms of hate speech to chill critical reporting.

(8) Political actors were the second most frequently noted sources (37%) of attacks and abuse after “anonymous or unknown attackers” (57%).

The role of political actors as top sources and primary perpetrators of online violence against women journalists is an alarming trend confirmed by this survey. Meanwhile, the proliferation of anonymous and pseudonymous “troll” accounts complicates the process of both investigating the perpetrators and efforts to hold them to account. A lack of transparency and limited responsiveness by the platforms, especially those where attacks are prolific, compounds this problem.

(9) Facebook was rated the least safe of the top five platforms or apps used by participants, with nearly double the number of respondents rating Facebook “very unsafe” compared to Twitter. It also attracted disproportionately higher rates of incident reporting among the respondents (39% compared to Twitter’s 26%).

Considering the role of Facebook and Twitter as major vectors of online attacks against women journalists, the levels of reporting to the social media companies demonstrated by the survey respondents appear relatively low. This likely reflects both a sense of futility frequently associated with such efforts, as well as a general reluctance among the women surveyed to raise these issues externally. In addition, the finding underscores the urgent need for major internet companies to fulfill their duty of care and more effectively tackle online violence against journalists.

(10) Only 25% of respondents reported incidents of online violence to their employers. The top responses they said they received were: no response (10%) and advice like “grow a thicker skin” or “toughen up” (9%). Two percent said they were asked what they did to provoke the attack.

The respondents demonstrated the existence of a double impediment to effective action to deal with online violence experienced in the course of their employment: low levels of access to systems and support mechanisms for targeted journalists, and low levels of awareness about the existence of measures, policies and guidelines for addressing the problem.

(11) The women journalists surveyed most frequently indicated (30%) that they respond to the online violence they experience by self-censoring on social media. Twenty percent described how they withdrew from all online interaction, and 18% specifically avoided audience engagement.

Such acts, which could be considered defensive measures employed by women to preserve their safety, demonstrate the effectiveness of online attack tactics: They are designed to chill critical reporting, silence women and muzzle truth-telling.

(12) Online violence significantly impacts the employment and productivity of the women respondents. In particular, 11% reported missing work, 38% retreated from visibility (e.g. by asking to be taken off air and retreating behind pseudonyms online), 4% quit their jobs, and 2% even abandoned journalism altogether.

While some of these numbers might appear small, this is a significant indicator of the perniciousness of the problem. This data also demonstrates the negative implications of online violence for gender diversity in (and through) the news media.

Ultimately, this survey’s first results illustrate that online violence against women journalists is a global phenomenon that demands urgent action. For freedom of expression to be sustained, for diversity in journalism to flourish, and for access to information to be equal, women journalists must be seen and heard.

The climate of impunity surrounding online attacks raises questions that demand answers. Impunity emboldens the perpetrators, demoralizes the victim, erodes the foundations of journalism, exacerbates risks to journalism safety and undermines democracy.

Based on these disturbing findings, nine recommendations for action are offered in the full report, targeting governments, the social media platforms and media industry employers.

This story was originally published by IJNET, International Journalists’ Network

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Categories: Africa

Afghanistan’s Historic Year: Peace Talks, Security Transition but Higher Levels of Violence

Fri, 12/18/2020 - 13:54

Shkula Zadran, Afghanistan’s Youth Representative to the United Nations, addresses U.N. Security Council. She said her generation have been the main victims of the war in Afghanistan. “We are being killed, our dreams are being buried everyday,” she told the Security Council. Courtesy: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

By Nalisha Adams
BONN, Germany, Dec 18 2020 (IPS)

While Afghanistan ends a historic year, filled with the hope for peace as the government and Taliban sat down for almost three months of consecutive peace talks for the first time in 19 years, it was also a year filled with violence with provisional statistics by the United Nations showing casualties for this year being higher than 2019.

Yesterday, Dec. 17, in a virtual meeting of the U.N. Security Council, Deborah Lyons, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan and head of the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), praised the peace efforts on the close of “one of the most momentous years that Afghans have endured”, while also highlighting the causalities of the year.

She said that the Afghanistan government and the Taliban had “made incremental but genuine progress in their peace talks”. They agreed on a preliminary deal, reportedly the first written agreement after 19 years of conflict.

“These developments are an early but a positive sign that both sides are willing and able to compromise when needed,” Lyons said.

Talks continued uninterrupted in host country Qatar for almost three months, but are currently in a three week recess.

However, despite the talks, the Taliban has refused to a ceasefire and continued its war on the Afghanistan government.

It was, however, reported this week that a top U.S. general held recent talks with the Taliban in Doha, urging a reduction in violence as this risked the peace process.

Lyons also raised the issue, stating that the “unrelenting violence remains a serious obstacle to peace and a threat to the region.” She added that one Afghan official had told her recently, “the sense and perception of violence and insecurity is higher now that ever”.

While UNAMA is still compiling this year’s data, Lyons provided some provisional statistic on the impact of the violence.

“In October and November, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) caused over 60 percent more civilian casualties than in the same period last year. In the third quarter of 2020, child casualties rose 25 percent over the previous three months; while attacks against schools in this same period increased fourfold.

“In the first 11 months of 2020, targeted killings by anti-government elements rose by nearly 40 percent compared to the same period in 2019,” she said, adding that it was no surprise that the Global Peace Index for 2020 listed Afghanistan as the least peaceful nation in the world for a second year in a row.

She highlighted some of the conflicts experienced over recent months — two separate rocket attacks in Kabul, an attack on Kabul University, and the increased conflict in some areas — and said these served to heighten fears around the emergence of new terrorists threats.

She called for all countries to continue to pressure all parities to the conflict to bring about a sustained reduction in violence. “I except this will be a top priority when the negotiations resume,” she said.

Meanwhile, Shkula Zadran, Afghanistan’s Youth Representative to the U.N. also briefed the Security Council.

She said that “while it is very difficult to represent a generation born and raised in violence and conflict,” she was honoured to speak on behalf of Afghan youth, including those who were killed in the terror attack on Kabul University and other education centres.

“I have met their families. Their pain is beyond our imagination. I have promised them that I will be their voice and I am fulfilling my promise,” Zadran, who spent her childhood as a refugee in Pakistan, told the Security Council.

“I’m representing a generation who have been the main victims of this proxy war. We are being killed, our dreams are being buried everyday.”

She called for the end to the daily killings of Afghan youth who are a majority of the country’s population as two thirds of citizens are under the age of 25.

“Terrorists are afraid of Afghan youth. And that is why they are targeting our education institutions.

“They know that an educated and informed generation will never allow terrorism and extremism to grown in their country,” Zadran said.

Zadran said that as an Afghan youth representative, her message to terrorists and their supporters was clear and obvious.

“You tried to bury us. You didn’t know that we were seeds.”

Zadran said that the youth supported the end of the conflict through the peace negotiations.

Lyons said Afghanistan’s youth were a key constituency, and were also the most educated generation of youth in the country’s history.

“Young Afghan’s have clear views on the future of their country, and we must do all we can to amplify their voices.”

“Through our youth-focused local, peace initiatives, which are conducted throughout Afghanistan, UNAMA has provided a platform for the youth of Afghanistan to have their say on peace,” Lyons noted.

“Most recently, in the rural province of Faryab, young participants issued their own declaration with strong recommendations, specifying an immediate ceasefire, setting out the role of Islam under Afghanistan’s constitution, identifying the all-important sustainable development goals and emphasising the need for transitional justice.

“These are the young people of Afghanistan, their voices deserve to be heard,” Lyons said, adding that cooperation throughout the region of Central and South Asia will be essential for enduring peace.

Lyons also noted an increasing commitment among regional players for peace in Afghanistan as this was linked to attaining peace within the region.

“Increased trade and connectivity will build the foundation for peace and regional prosperity,” Lyons said, adding it was important to support regional efforts, including the regional efforts on drug trafficking and transnational organised crime as these were considered two serious threats to peace.

Lyons said that any sustainable peace needed to be owned by Afghan’s diverse society. “This is only possible if the process is inclusive from the outset, with meaningful participation by all constituencies, including women, youth, minorities, victims of conflict, and religious leaders,” Lyons said.

She added that the ongoing security transition, with the international troop withdrawal, added to the anxiety of the Afghan population. She said in the coming months this larger security transition will become a central topic in the dialogue among Afghan officials, regional countries and the international community.

She, however, pointed out that the $3 billion raised in financial support for the country during a donor conference in Geneva was remarkable within the context of the current financial environment.

Lyons said that the full security transition, peace negotiations, the health and socio-economic challenges of COVID, the ongoing commitment of the international donors and the expected results of even more regional cooperation meant that Afghanistan would continue to move forward in this new year.

“By all accounts this was a big year. But a bigger year lies ahead,” she said.

The post Afghanistan’s Historic Year: Peace Talks, Security Transition but Higher Levels of Violence appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

San Salvador Steps Up Battle against Landslides and Floods

Fri, 12/18/2020 - 09:10

The post San Salvador Steps Up Battle against Landslides and Floods appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

How Africa can Lead the World in the COVID-19 Recovery

Fri, 12/18/2020 - 08:11

A mother homeschools her children in Shamva district, Zimbabwe, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Over 10,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Africa; Zimbabwe and South Sudan among most vulnerable. Credit: WFP/Tatenda Macheka

By Kundhavi Kadiresan
WASHINGTON DC, Dec 18 2020 (IPS)

Africa, compared to Asia, Europe and the US, has largely escaped the devastating death toll of COVID-19, accounting for a fraction of the world’s 63 million cases.

Instead, the continent has been uniquely affected by the pandemic’s impact on food supply chains, revealing underlying vulnerabilities that threaten to bring a different crisis and leaving the spectre of famine looming over several African countries.

As donors, NGOs and research organisations rally to support governments in preventing a rise in extreme hunger and poverty, we have an opportunity to transform Africa’s food systems for the better at a time when the entire world has reached an inflection point for the sustainability of food systems.

In tackling the secondary impacts of the pandemic, Africa can build greater resilience to global shocks, leapfrogging other regions by reconfiguring a food system that the continent – and the world – has long since outgrown.

This could provide a blueprint for other regions and countries in the run-up to a milestone UN summit in 2021 and help the rest of the world to leverage food and agriculture for better health, climate action and opportunities for equality.

Such a roadmap should start by recognising that the diet, nutrition and health of a population underpins all other indicators of progress and prosperity.

With this in mind, agriculture should be situated at the heart of any national or regional strategy for development and economic growth.

Since it was launched in 2003, the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) has set out clear targets for agriculture as a driver of other goals and includes more than 40 countries among its signatories.

As of 2015, public spending on agriculture across Africa under CAADP had increased by more than seven per cent a year to support more and better livelihoods, stronger food security and greater resilience.

It also provides a clear, shared vision around which partners, such as agricultural research networks like CGIAR, can unite to play their part.

Such an integrated, coordinated approach, both between governments and partners, will be essential in delivering the next decade of the programme to accelerate the transformation of African agriculture.

But while a high-level framework like CAADP is crucial for bringing together partners in pursuit of common goals, each country, district and neighbourhood will also need solutions appropriate to their specific contexts.

The world may be connected by its common need to produce sufficient healthy food in a sustainable way, but the means through which this is achieved varies enormously according to social and environmental factors.

Developing more innovations that fit geographical needs will allow food systems to be more responsive, adaptive and impactful.

Over the last 20 years, for example, CGIAR has developed 52 separate innovations across sustainable livestock, crop breeding and natural resource management in Ethiopia alone. By tailoring them to the specific challenges faced by smallholders, women and youth, these solutions have reached an estimated 11 million rural households.

Going forward, initiatives like the Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) program, led by CGIAR and funded by the African Development Bank, will integrate expertise from across research areas to continue to scale up the uptake of appropriate new technologies.

Working in 30 countries, TAAT is forecast to increase raw food production by 120 million tons per year, helping to lift about 40 million people out of poverty, by focusing on national needs across different crops and livestock, and different challenges from crop pests to soil fertility.

Finally, in reforming agriculture, Africa has the opportunity to address systematic and long-term inequality, particularly when it comes to gender inequality.

Women in Africa continue to carry out around 40 per cent of agricultural labour yet their frequent exclusion from financial services, land rights and equal opportunities for training holds back Africa’s agricultural development.

CGIAR’s COVID-19 Hub enables researchers to work collectively, while also drawing lessons learned from research across the CGIAR System that can both support the pandemic recovery, and also identify opportunities to close the gender gap.

For example, one study demonstrates the challenges women livestock keepers faced compared to men as a result of a shortage of livestock feed during the pandemic, and offered solutions that could unlock the potential of women, building resilience not only for women but also for their families and their communities.

Arguably, if research into the connected relationship between human, animal and environmental health had been better funded, the world may not be facing today’s COVID-19, health and hunger crisis.

But if there is one lesson to learn, it should be that investing now in agricultural research could help prevent the next disaster, in Africa and around the world.

It is clear now that the needs of a 21st century food system stretch further than ever, and we must rise to the challenge of redesigning a food system for Africa itself and by Africa for the world.

The post How Africa can Lead the World in the COVID-19 Recovery appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Latin American Electric Utilities COVID-accelerated Evolution

Thu, 12/17/2020 - 23:32

To increase access to electricity through lower prices and cleaner energy matrices it is imperative that the region embark on an energy integration program. Credit: Bigstock.

By Andrés Chambouleyron
BUENOS AIRES, Dec 17 2020 (IPS)

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated an evolution across Latin American electric utilities. The need for utilities to manage structural issues derived from increased deployment of Renewable Sources of Energy (RSE) such as wind and solar and Distributed Energy Resources (DER) has rapidly increased. Technology is unleashing major disruptions and challenges. In many ways, Latin America’s traditional electric utilities are in crisis.

Electric sector reforms throughout Latin America in the 1990s led to widespread adoption of liberalization measures and a paradigm of unbundling of generation, transmission and distribution in the sector. But now, there is a pronounced paradigm shift for the region’s utilities.

By allowing countries with temporary deficits (surpluses) to import (export) clean power (from or to) countries with low renewable density thus helping move faster towards decarbonization

Intermittent RSE, and more importantly, photovoltaic (PV) distributed generation (DG) and electric mobility (EV) have upended the decades-old system. In the aftermath of the COVID pandemic, there are clear directions companies and regulators should take to address the 3 Ds: decarbonization, decentralization and digitalization.

Indeed, unlike traditional thermal or hydro generation, intermittent RSE and DER require increasing network and operational (System Operator or ISO) flexibility from both supply and demand.

Most notable is the critical need to accommodate steeper and steeper (up and down) ramps resulting from more and more intermittent RSE coming off and on line as they take on larger shares of electricity supply.

The increasing adoption of intermittent RSE in Latin American countries will permanently alter the electrical landscape requiring modifications in every step of the sector’s vertical structure. The first challenge, by definition, is how to deal with intermittency.

Intermittency requires back-up traditional generation to come off (on)-line whenever the sun starts (stops) shining and the wind starts (stops) blowing.

The larger the share of intermittent RSE over total generation the steeper the slope of both down and up ramps during sunup and sundown (i.e. the duck’s “belly” becomes larger, see below) requiring faster and faster back-up generation to allow/replace PV solar panels or wind mills that go on/off line.

Alternatively, back-up generation can be (and it is already being) replaced by storage. Batteries charged during peak hours can later replace solar panels whenever the sun comes down (or wind stops) injecting energy into the grid hence shaving the evening peak (See below) thus replacing alternative traditional (and more expensive) thermal or hydro generation as the next graph shows.

Once the intermittency problem has been dealt with and solved, RSE have enormous advantages vis à vis traditional generation, namely: they are (becoming) more economical, they have zero marginal costs as natural resources (i.e. sun and wind) are of unlimited supply, they do not pollute the environment and, combined with storage, they can contribute to reduce network congestion and losses during peak hours. They may require, however, additional investment in transmission and/or storage to fully exploit their potential.

Intermittent RSEs in Latin America are normally located in low densely populated areas sometimes thousands of miles away from energy consumption centers.

The combination of faraway locations, more geographically scattered and smaller installed capacities generate more capillarity in transmission networks that in turn requires more investment in transmission lines, each of them of smaller capacity. But, it is important to note that storage can help overcome some of these problems.

To a certain degree, the intermittency problem inherent to RSE has been solved by (thermal and hydro) back-up generation and increasingly by storage. The increased investment in RSE will require additional investment in transmission capacity because of their more remote and more scattered location.

This additional investment need may, however, be mitigated by additional investment in storage that will help stabilize power flows thus reducing congestion and losses.

There is also rapidly emerging technology and what many see as an opportunity for Distribution Companies (DistCos) to island sections of the network with microgrid technology and to promote smaller projects close to loads when possible. In this manner, the microgrid would be more manageable.

A slightly different technological challenge to electric utilities will be posed by Distributed Energy Resources (DER) and electromobility (EV).

Among DER, DG adds to the intermittency problem but it is now faced directly by the(DistCos). As hundreds or even thousands of PV rooftop panels come on and off-line injecting power into the distribution grid (or charging batteries or an EV) DistCos have now to manage intermittency

in their own grids probably resorting to a Distribution System Operator or DSO and eventually also to a Transmission System Operator of TSO as the number of real time transactions multiplies by hundreds or even thousands.

The former duck chart at the generation level now also appears at the distribution level forcing DistCos to deal with their own duck belly and to run their own dispatch with a DSO and eventually also a TSO.

EV poses the challenge to DistCos of multiplicity of real-time transactions as does storage but with an additional problem: EV requires a different distribution network design as users charge EV batteries all around the distribution network, switching places all the time thus altering load factors and requiring additional investment in distributions lines and transformation substations to cope with this additional moving demand.

But, here again, emerging technology being implemented in some areas such as California have begun to seek to use EVs as storage for home usage during outages.

A sustainable electricity network

The traditional vertically separated electricity utility is clearly in crisis. New renewable sources of generation coupled with DG plus storage and EV are driving needed evolution of the traditional vertically disintegrated paradigm in the region’s electric sector.

Finally, to increase access to electricity through lower prices and cleaner energy matrices it is imperative that the region embark on an energy integration program. By allowing countries with temporary deficits (surpluses) to import (export) clean power (from or to) countries with low renewable density thus helping move faster towards decarbonization.

What is crystal clear is that the COVID pandemic and its aftermath should be embraced as a catalyst for the long-needed reform in Latin America’s power sector by addressing these key technological challenges.

Out of crisis, opportunity.

The post Latin American Electric Utilities COVID-accelerated Evolution appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Andrés Chambouleyron is Non-Resident Fellow at the Institute of the Americas and Managing Director at Berkeley Research Group

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Categories: Africa

America has a Chequered Past in International Environmental Diplomacy

Thu, 12/17/2020 - 19:43

By Yvo de Boer
THE HAGUE, Dec 17 2020 (IPS)

When it comes to international environmental diplomacy, America has a chequered past. It stood at the forefront of the international battle to fix the ozone hole and has shaped many key international agreements.

Sadly, US positions are not always built on solid political ground at home. Twice, in the climate change process, this has led to the United States forging an agreement, only to then walk away. This happened with the 1997 Kyoto Protocol which then Vice-President Gore flew to Japan to sign in the full knowledge that a Republican dominated Senate would never ratify the deal. It happened again five years ago, with former President Obama closing that landmark deal (and John Kerry signing at the UN), only for President Trump to tear it up a few weeks later.

Yvo de Boer

With such a background the international community is a little nervous when a new Democrat administration takes the helm laden with robust statements and bold promises, as President-elect Biden is doing now. But, as is so often the case, the prodigal son will get the benefit of the doubt (again) and for good reason!

Let’s look at what those reasons are.

No-one would argue the fact that the United States are a political powerhouse and an economic superpower. This makes having the US in the climate action tent critically important. But why? Is this about political posturing, or is there something more?

When the Biden administration chooses to take an ambitious lead on climate action, the world is wise to take heed. Clear signals from politicians on where the new administration plans to go, have an enormous power in the market. An example. Wind and solar energy made it to where they are today in a hostile economic environment where the playing field was everything but level.

Environmental cost is not internalised and fossil fuels are still subsidised to a huge degree. What helped to push wind and solar to the current competitive strength is the hope that, in the long term, things will change and new (climate) challenges be recognised, thus creating a viable market for these technologies.

If you are building things (powerplants, factories or refinery’s) with a technical lifetime of 40 years, you do well to think about how friendly or hostile the operating environment is likely to be over that time period. So a political statement sends strong market signals. Especially if it comes from a superpower and even more so when others are pointing in the same direction.

How the market responds to political signals has ramifications around the globe. Our economy is now truly global. This means that when key market players take a course, set an standard or make demands on their suppliers, this resonates around the world. The EU agreeing auto standards with European manufactures immediately sets a trend that Japan and Korea must follow because the European market is so big. American companies like Wall Mart have hundreds of thousands of suppliers around the world. So a direction taken at a corporate HQ is delivered-on in pretty much every country on our planet. The standards the US and other major players set become imperatives, or things you choose to ignore at your own peril.

Another important point is that climate action has increasingly become a race to the top that is driven by innovation. Innovators smell a climate market and they are rushing to seize the opportunities. Opportunities around electric vehicles, energy efficiency, clean technologies, low-asset business models, you name it. America has long stood at the forefront of discovery and innovation. Many of the key technologies we apply today have at least part of their roots in America. So the signals politicians send and how the corporate community responds, creates an innovation catalyst that will transform business opportunities both in the US and around the world.

A final point to mention here is America’s proud history in working together with other nations, providing them with the finance, technology and capacity support they need in order to climate proof their energy systems, industry and infrastructure. Reducing emissions in the economic powerhouses of today is obviously critical. But with much of future economic growth and population increase of the future set to happen in Africa and South East Asia, we need to fix the future, not only the past.

Five years after the Paris Climate Accord was reached, the international process is now in full implementation mode. The purpose of the negotiations will be to ensure that countries individually are delivering what they have promised and that the collective impact of their efforts is enough to keep global temperature increase below the agreed level.

The United States returning to the international process at this time is critical to ensuring that especially the major players show leadership, both at home and abroad. At the end of the day, ensuring this happens is in the US’s own interest for a number of reasons. First because the US has in recent years always considered action by others, especially China, as a precondition for its own engagement. Second because bold global action will ensure all nations pull their weight toward a common goal. Third because that global action will create the opportunities for the innovation economy of the future President-elect Biden is seeking to deliver, as opposed to the manufacturing economy of the past.

The model outgoing President Trump held up is what should make America great again.

The author is President of the Gold Standard Foundation and former Secretary of the UN Climate Convention.

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Categories: Africa

Five Years since the Paris Agreement: The Race to Net Zero Is On

Thu, 12/17/2020 - 19:23

GGGI has been working closely with the Provincial Government of Central Kalimantan supporting effective policymaking and planning to drive reduced deforestation and peatland degradation in the province, particularly in Utar Serapat which consists of 107,000 ha of peatlands. GGGI also supports Central Kalimantan in mobilizing public and private investment for sustainable and inclusive landscape-based projects designed to achieve low carbon development in the province.

By Frank Rijsberman, Ingvild Solvang, Kristin Deason, Julie Godin, Hanh Le, Siddhartha Nauduri, and Marcel Silvius, Global Green Growth Institute
Dec 17 2020 (IPS-Partners)

In the wake of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, there are both challenges and opportunities in ensuring that COP26, a UN climate change summit, builds confidence in the Paris Agreement as an effective tool to avoid climate crisis.

As 2020 comes to a close, the date is fast approaching for all parties to the Paris Climate Agreement to submit their updated commitments, or NDCs, that specifically delineate how each country will meet the common climate goals within the United Nations framework.

Due to the COVID-19 global pandemic, COP26 climate talks was postponed to 2021, and instead a series of virtual events including the Climate Ambition Summit was held on December 12, 2020, where countries could give updates on their adjusted NDCs.

Much has happened in recent months. While the Republic of Korea did not show very ambitious NDC targets earlier this year, President Moon Jae-in announced net zero ambitions for 2050. Likewise, China made a net zero pledge for 2060. The European Union announced enhanced ambitions to cut emissions by 55% from the 1990 level by 2030.

Many other states made commensurate pledges to tackle the climate crisis. A Race to Resilience was also launched by mayors, community leaders and insurance companies committed to safeguarding the lives and livelihoods of four billion vulnerable people by 2030, which aligns in particular with the priorities of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and Least Developed Countries (LDCs).

While these commitments are positive and more ambitious than earlier NDCs, they are still not ambitious enough to meet the 1.5 degree target and protect people and nature from climate change. UK Minister Alok Sharma has called out the world leaders’ failure to show necessary levels of ambition.

Reflecting on priorities ahead of next year’s COP26, the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) will continue supporting its Members’ and Partners’ NDC enhancement and implementation through climate and carbon finance mobilization. However, a key area of focus in 2021 will be to build synergies between climate solutions and green COVID19 recovery.

It is critical to ensure that the unprecedented economic stimulus packages result in lasting shifts toward green development pathways with explicit focus on employment potential and other socio-economic co-benefits.

The tens of trillions mobilized to recovery efforts provide a big and perhaps last chance to solve the unprecedented challenges as leverage vanishes with rising debt levels and dried-up public funding.

Green recovery packages must be put to work to decarbonize the economy. Renewable energy is now the cheapest form of energy, especially when taking account of the extended costs of our reliance on fossil fuels so far.

Circular economy options can drastically reduce waste, and alternatives to fossil fuel are available in the bioeconomy, and nature-based solutions hold tremendous untapped climate mitigation potential with employment and adaptation co-benefits. New technologies are pushing opportunities. Hydrogen can take up where RE cannot reach, and Artificial Intelligence can push energy efficiency and effective production.

These are trends moving us in the right direction. Explicit focus is required to highlight the economic multipliers and social co-benefits of climate action.

In our collaborative Green Growth Program with the Government of Indonesia, we are promoting nature-based solutions that help halt deforestation, restore carbon rich wetlands and soils, improve land productivity and water security, and deliver improved livelihoods as well as enhanced climate mitigation and adaptation actions.

Continued and improved investments in biomass-based and solar energy-based electricity generation brings more and higher quality jobs, food security and climate resilience.

In Vietnam, GGGI works with the government to enhance its NDC ambitions through promoting sustainable urban cooling, energy efficiency digital solutions and increasing green investments with innovative financial instruments such as carbon financing or green bonds through collaborating with the Government of Luxembourg.

To verify the employment potential of renewable energy, GGGI’s employment assessments in countries like Indonesia, Rwanda and Mexico show that renewable energy, Solar PV in particular, employs more people per unit of investment compared to fossil fuels-based technologies. A global solar-powered irrigation program, including Ethiopia, Burkina Faso and Uganda will improve livelihoods, food security and climate resilience.

While supporting several governments with their NDC revision processes into 2021 with the NDC Partnership and others, technical analysis incorporating employment potential and safeguarding of poor and vulnerable communities is key.

GGGI is supporting several SIDS countries in this regard – Saint Lucia is using a modeling approach to explore how reforming fossil fuel subsidy and taxation schemes can lower fossil fuel consumption while ensuring that vulnerable populations are not negatively impacted. In Antigua & Barbuda, GGGI is developing programs to ensure the inclusion of all segments of the population are included in the transition to renewable energy.

Focusing on green recovery packages and climate action simultaneously means a more effective integration of NDCs and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

While the Covid-19 pandemic has placed emphasis on the socio-economic aspects of climate action, and the importance of assessing and including long-term health and vulnerabilities of the local communities into planning processes, the notion that we must marry sustainable development and climate ambitions have been made evident by the successes and failures of climate action to date.

As the world recovers with the introduction of vaccines, and business and economic activities resume, a change in trajectory towards a green recovery should be at the center of focus. Looking ahead to COP26 in Glasgow next year, it is essential that the world does not bounce back to business as usual.

The post Five Years since the Paris Agreement: The Race to Net Zero Is On appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Aren’t We Missing Food Security Experts in the Incoming President-Elect Biden-Kamala Harris Administration?

Thu, 12/17/2020 - 15:10

We never imagined that we would witness food insecurity being an issue in developed countries such as the US. Credit: Stephen Leahy/IPS.

By Esther Ngumbi and Ifeanyi Nsofor
URBANA, Illinois / ABUJA, Dec 17 2020 (IPS)

Food insecurity across the U.S. continues to be on the rise because of the effects of COVID-19. According to Feeding America, over 50 million Americans will experience food insecurity, including 17 million children.

We both grew up in countries referred to as “developing countries,” Ifeanyi in Nigeria and Esther in Kenya. At the time, we never imagined that we would witness food insecurity being an issue in developed countries such as the U.S. like we are now. As thought leaders in global health and food security, we are compelled to amplify this inequity in the world’s richest country.

The last few months, clearly, have changed our perception of food insecurity and the narrative around it is changing.

COVID-19 is very well linked with food insecurity and failing to have a food security expert working alongside the other advisory council members would undermine the ability of the country to effectively tackle these tightly linked issues

Moreover, even as we celebrate the arrival of the vaccine, COVID-19 continues to claim the lives of many Americans, while bringing the possibilities of new lockdowns, hence, we can certainly expect food insecurity to continue to be a problem.

Impressively, measures that were in existence before the pandemic in the U.S. such as foodbanks and other Federal benefits such as SNAP and WIC that Americans have access to in order to assist with food insecurity have helped to make a difference.

Through the pandemic months, we have also witnessed a rise in resources available to citizens who at one point or another need help with finding food. From the U.S. Department of Agriculture hotline that can connect citizens to available pantries, interactive maps that reveal where help and your local food bank is, to databases of pantries and non-profit subsidized grocery to food finder apps. But the truth is these resources were designed to be supplemental.

Much more needs to be done. Here’s where to start.

First, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris should include a food security expert in the COVID-19 Advisory Council. The responsibility of the expert should be to provide advice on ways to address the current COVID-19 food insecurity in the U.S.

COVID-19 is very well linked with food insecurity and failing to have a food security expert working alongside the other advisory council members would undermine the ability of the country to effectively tackle these tightly linked issues. Moreover, this person should preferably be a person of color, the population that has been impacted most by food insecurity.

Second, develop a multi-stakeholder comprehensive food security plan as part of epidemic preparedness plans for the next pandemic.

This is imperative because no one knows when the next pandemic could occur. A major lesson from COVID-19 and the city lockdowns which followed is that during pandemics there would be life losses, job losses, schools will be closed, and some families would need food support.

The major idea is to use lessons from COVID-19 to estimate those who may be in need of food support and group them based on ethnicities, postcodes, states etc. This plan should involve government agencies, food banks, non-profit organizations, faith-based organizations, schools, university institutions and other community groups.

Third, food banks should improve their process to enable long-term storage of nutritious foods such as green vegetables, fruits, proteins, milk etc. According to Feeding America, these classes of nutritious foods are the most requested at food banks. However, due to challenges with storage, those in need hardly have these requirements met.

Fourth, prioritize the needs of under-five children and women of child-bearing age. Worryingly, science and available evidence from a comprehensive review of 120 studies done by the UN FAO suggests a correlation between food insecurity and malnutrition.

Furthermore, according to World Health Organization, and available scientific data evidence, mostly obtained from studies done in developing countries, childhood malnutrition is considered a major public health concern with long lasting impacts including impaired cognitive development, enhanced risks of acquiring other diseases, and suboptimal economic productivity.

With the risk of irreversible stunting in children and its consequences on school performance, future earning capacity and contributions to the economy, children must receive the right nutrition at the right time.

Likewise, women of child-bearing age require to be well nourished to ensure they have adequate blood, healthy milk and not anemic. Anemia in women who plan to get pregnant has adverse consequences such as intrauterine growth retardation of the fetus, low birth of their babies and more likelihood of going into shock from bleeding after birth or even death.

Lastly, encourage families to form groups and run all seasons sustainable community gardens. There is a need to have community greenhouses that can be used to grow food past summer months. This would enable them grow fresh vegetables, poultry (for proteins) and cows (for milk).

At this time, many US States are going through the winter season, and food gardens that millions of Americans relied upon during summer have no sustainability during cold seasons.

A recent UNICEF report on the persistence of child poverty above pre-COVID levels in high income countries highlights why all year around community gardens should be an alternative source of fresh foods as the country recovers from this pandemic.

COVID-related food insecurity is widening health and social inequities in the U.S. The in-coming Biden-Harris administration should make this a priority. It is an ethical thing to do.

Dr. Esther Ngumbi is an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, and a Senior Food Security Fellow with the Aspen Institute, New Voices. She has published scores of OpEds including a letter to the Editor at the New York Times. Dr. Ifeanyi McWilliams Nsofor is a graduate of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. He is a Senior New Voices Fellow at the Aspen Institute and a Senior Atlantic Fellow for Health Equity at George Washington University. Ifeanyi is the Director Policy and Advocacy at Nigeria Health Watch.

The post Aren’t We Missing Food Security Experts in the Incoming President-Elect Biden-Kamala Harris Administration? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Kashmir’s New Land Laws Could Impact Biodiversity

Thu, 12/17/2020 - 11:15

A saffron farmer in Kashmir poses with saffron crocus flowers. The most expensive spice in the world is derived from the sigma of the purple flower. Credit: Umer Asif/IPS

By Peerzada Ummer
SRINAGAR, India , Dec 17 2020 (IPS)

Walking in the middle of fields of delicately-scented purple saffron crocus flowers, 36-year-old Mubeen Yasin, a saffron farmer from the southern region of Indian Kashmir, is not optimistic that in a few years time the scenery will remain as beautiful as it is today.

Located in the southern region of an otherwise violence-strewn Kashmir valley, the town of Pampore — which is also called Saffron Town — is famous for its saffron and remains one of the few places in the world where the saffron crocus still grows. The most expensive spice in the world is derived from the sigma of the purple flower — its bright orange-red strands. Once dried, these harvested sigma are sold as saffron strands.

In Pampore more than 19,000 families are directly dependent on this crop for their livelihoods.

However, over the last decade the area has seen an unprecedented boom of cement manufacturing plants, which are proving lethal for Kashmir’s famed saffron crop.

As these cement factories mushroom across the landscape, they have impacted the saffron harvests, according to Fayaz Ahmad Dar, a research scholar.

A few years ago Dar conducted research on the ill effects of the cement industry on Kashmir’s saffron crop. He found that over 200 hectares of saffron fields were under severe threat from cement factories and as a result saffron production had been affected in fields located near cement plants, reducing production from the normal 3,000 grams to as low as 1,400 grams per hectare.

“The losses were related to the amount of dust fall from the cement factories, similarly studies on impacts of cement pollution on morphology of saffron and its productivity revealed negative impacts on both parameters. Since most cement factories are located around the only area where saffron is grown on a large scale in the valley it has adversely affected the plant,” Dar said in his research.

However, Yasin, like other farmers, fears that new plans of industrialisation for the region by the Indian government will devastate saffron cultivation.

While the government has stressed that it will not use any agricultural land for industrialisation, Yasin is not convinced saffron farmers will not be affected.

“The government is planning massive industrialisation in Kashmir. The lands, which were till now fertile, will now turn barren. The few cement factories have destroyed the saffron crop beyond imagination. Now imagine if industries in hundreds would come up here, what would be the scenario?” Yasin tells IPS.

Repeal of land laws

Kashmir was previously India’s only state with a special status and limited autonomy. And only permanent residents of this Himalayan region were eligible to sell and purchase land and property.

But after the removal of the region’s autonomy last year, this was set to change. On Oct. 27, through government order, Kashmir’s land laws were repealed and the new guidelines now allow all Indian citizens to purchase land and property in the region.

Days after the rules were amended, the government ordered the transfer of more than 3,000 acres of land to the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade in order to invite investment and generate employment in the region.

On Oct. 31, Hurriyat Conference, an amalgam of separatist outfits demanding Kashmir’s freedom from Indian rule, announced a day-long strike against the new laws. The conglomerate claimed in its official handout that the Indian government, by repealing the old laws, was planning to change the demography of the region where Muslims are more than 67 percent of the total population.

Government’s response

Kashmir’s Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha has clarified that the government wants employment generation in the region and that is the reason the old laws were repealed. He stated that no agricultural land will be acquired in the process.

“I want to say this forcefully and with full responsibility that agricultural land has been kept reserved for farmers; no outsider will come on those lands. The industrial areas that we have defined, we want that like rest of the country, here too industries come so that Jammu & Kashmir also develops and employment is generated,” Sinha said in a statement last month.

Potential environmental impact

But environmentalists and Kashmir’s civil society groups believe the move could drastically impact the biodiversity of the region where more than 19 percent of the land is covered by thick forests and has 1,300 water bodies and an estimated 147 majestic glaciers.

Dr Arshid Jahangir, who teaches Environmental Studies in University of Kashmir, told IPS that the possible construction large scale industries and subsequent overpopulation in Kashmir would have a direct impact upon the local resources of the region and could turn an otherwise picturesque valley into a concrete jungle.

“The number of brick kilns, cement factories, and aggregate crushing units will increase as you need more materials for the infrastructure build. Now imagine the level of pollution in a place which from all sides is surrounded by mountains and is completely landlocked. It will be a disaster in the making,” said Jahangir.

According to Tavseef Mairaj, a Kashmiri research scholar from the Institute of Waste Water Management and Water Protection at Hamburg University of Technology, Germany, Kashmir’s food system and food sovereignty will be among the worst affected due to the new land laws.

“Our food system is already under stress due to land use change, water scarcity, and extreme weather events. The area of land under agriculture decreased from 56 percent to 40 percent from 1992 to 2015, with a further reduction of 17 percent from 2015 to 2019. Now with the opening of land ownership to big industry, there will be further changes in land use patterns, resulting in dependence on external supplies for our food security,” Mairaj told IPS.

He said that water resources are vital for the sustenance of the food system and rapid industrialisation will endanger these resources in more ways than one.

“The area under open water has decreased by almost 50 percent in the same time period, from 4.9 percent to 2.5 percent, which is alarming given the importance of water to our food sovereignty, which mainly depends on our rice produce.

“Kashmir is already seeing the effects of non-industrial waste on our rivers and lakes due to improper waste management infrastructure. Industrial waste in comparison will be a herculean task to manage in a place like Kashmir,” Tavseef said.

Professor Nisar Ali, a leading economist from Kashmir, told IPS that Kashmir can never be a suitable place for massive urbanisation and ruthless industrialisation.

“I remember in 1973, then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was on a tour in Kashmir. She was accompanied by her finance minister who in one public rally announced the setting up of mega industries in Kashmir valley. Minutes later, in the same public event, he was rebuked by none other than Ms Gandhi herself who conveyed it to her minister that Kashmir’s scenic beauty and fragile ecology should never be disturbed by the setting up of massive industries.

“More than 40 years later, the situation seems entirely different. It appears that the government is no longer concerned about the environmental aspects of the decisions it is making vis-a-vis the industrialisation and giving land to non-residents in Kashmir,” Ali said.

The post Kashmir’s New Land Laws Could Impact Biodiversity appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Reclaim Your Rights: Defend Indigenous People’s Lands

Thu, 12/17/2020 - 09:50

Indigenous Peoples, advocates and members of IPMSDL call for continuing struggle for self-determination to combat imperialist plunder and state-terror. Credit: Carlo Manalansan, International Indigenous Peoples Movement for Self-Determination and Liberation (IPMSDL)

By Beverly L. Longid
QUEZON CITY, Philippines, Dec 17 2020 (IPS)

Rights are earned through hard-fought struggles. And for Indigenous Peoples (IP), its fulfillment comes from the collective and continuous defense of ancestral land and territory, and assertion of their ways of life and the right to self-determination.

As the pandemic ravages and the global crisis deepen, the world’s superpowers and the oppressive governments and systems continue to intensify widening inequality. Exacerbated neglect and discrimination to their access to health and basic services has been a grave threat to the 476 million Indigenous Peoples across the globe — the tip of the iceberg of today’s social and economic inequities.

For those already faced with food insecurity due to loss of ancestral lands, access to food and livelihood became everyday challenges. And while the mobility of indigenous villages are limited, there are no breaks for extractives, logging, government and private projects, and militarization in indigenous territories.

Wealth outpours to secure corporate profit at the expense of indigenous rights to land and environment protection. Imperialist plunder dominates over people’s health and lives.

The railroading of public hearings for the Teesta dam, a China-funded hydropower project approximately worth $1 billion, poses threats to the earthquake-prone environment and customary rights of Lepcha people in Sikkim, North East India.

The $ 700 million Papar Dam in Sabah, Malaysia remains a threat to indigenous communities of Papar and Penampang. In the Philippines, contractors of the $ 250 million China-funded Kaliwa Dam resume operations despite the lockdown.

Global Coordinator Beverly Longid shares how international solidarity is key to reclaim Indigenous Peoples rights. Credit: Carlo Manalansan, International Indigenous Peoples Movement for Self-Determination and Liberation (IPMSDL)

Mining in ancestral lands is now the key economic driver in Amazonian countries as the price of gold rises in time of the pandemic. An estimate of 1.5 million Indigenous Peoples depending on Amazon forest faces the attacks of criminal groups and illegal miners.

The oil spill in Coca and Napo river in Ecuador affecting 200,000 Kichwa and Shuar people remains. In India’s Assam and Manipur, permits for coal and mineral mining and exploration in wildlife centers and IP lands are hastened in the name of “seamless economic growth.”

Five-star Marriott Hotels and Resort is on its way to displace around 11,000 Juma cultivators and six villages of indigenous Mro Community in Chittagong Hill Crest, Bangladesh. Arguing the Kenyan government’s forest conservation programs, the Kenya Forest Services has demolished over 300 Ogiek homes in Mau Forest and burned 28 homes in Embobut Forest.

In countries with most aggressive projects encroaching ancestral lands, fear and terror has been the weapon of the State’s laws and armed forces to silence all resistance.

Around 40% of land defenders killed around the world belong to indigenous communities even though they make up only 5% of the world’s population. And with fascists and autocrats spewing racism, IP’s are in greater danger.

The call grows to pull out heavy military deployment in indigenous lands, which resulted in a wide array of human rights violations. Militarization not only enables plunder and land encroachments, it erodes all safeguards to protect the collective rights and rights to self-determination and governance.

In Karen territory in Burma, 1,500 villagers mobilized after Burmese soldiers killed and robbed an indigenous Karen woman in July. Another murder of West Papuan in palm oil plantation by the Indonesian military this May added to at least 100,000 West Papuans who have been killed since the Indonesian takeover in the 1960s. Militarization in Lumad communities in the Philippines aggravated forced evacuation and closure of indigenous Lumada schools.

Indigenous elders and vocal anti-mining leaders, such as Domingo Choc Che from Guatemala and Bae Milda Ansabo from Mindanao, suffered brutal murder with impunity.

In Indonesia, indigenous farmers Dilik Bin Asap and land rights activist James Watt are now jailed for harvesting fruits from a plantation company that has encroached on their lands.

Charges of illegal possession of firearms have been an old trick by the police as happened to Betty Belen, indigenous leader who led a barricade against the entry of Chevron Energy company’s geothermal power project in her village.

The United Nations identified criminalization and repressive counter-insurgency laws as a tool against IP defending and exercising rights to their lands. Indigenous leaders and members of Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA) have hit on the systematic and fully-funded State-terror to smash any dissent and resistance using online and public vilification, terrorist-tagging and harassment.

Together with massive disinformation and fake news, all these fuels ethnic divide and discrimination towards IP and their struggles.

In the commemoration of the annual International Human Rights Day, the painful state of Indigenous Peoples brought about by imperialist powers with tyrants and militarized governments benefitting from plunder, need to be challenged.

Let us build our movement for international solidarity to defend IP lands and life from imperialist plunder and State-terror. To honor our brave ancestors who paved the way, and to build a better future for the next generation, let us unite to reclaim our rights!

The post Reclaim Your Rights: Defend Indigenous People’s Lands appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Beverly L. Longid is the Global Coordinator of International Indigenous Peoples Movement for Self-Determination and Liberation (IPMSDL). Beverly is an indigenous Igorot belonging to the Bontok-Kankanaeys tribe from Sagada, Mountain Province in the Philippines. She is also the International Officer of Katribu - National Alliance of Indigenous Peoples in the Philippines, and Co-Chair of CSO Partnership for Development Effectiveness. The IPMSDL Global Secretariat is currently based in Quezon City, Philippines.

The post Reclaim Your Rights: Defend Indigenous People’s Lands appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Education Cannot Wait Interviews Colombia’s Minister of Education María Victoria Angulo

Wed, 12/16/2020 - 20:42

By External Source
Dec 16 2020 (IPS-Partners)

María Victoria Angulo is Colombia’s Minister of Education. She holds a Master´s Degree in Development Economics from the Universidad de Los Andes and a Master´s Degree in Specialized Economic Analysis from Pompeau Fabra University (Barcelona, Spain). The minister has more than 20 years of experience in educational policy development.

Education Cannot Wait recently announced US$12.4 million in catalytic grant financing for a multi-year resilience programme in Colombia. The initial programme will run for three years, with the goal of leveraging an additional US$70.5 million in co-financing from national and global partners, the private sector and philanthropic foundations. The programme will reach at least 30,000 children through early childhood education, 90,000 children through primary education, and 30,000 children through secondary education.

ECW: Colombia has set an example for the world in welcoming Venezuelans who have fled instability and insecurity back home. One important component of that response has been to receive over 350,000 Venezuelan children and adolescents into the country’s school system, mainly in public schools. It would be useful to highlight good practices that your Ministry has put in place that could help other countries respond in a similar positive manner.

Minister Angulo: In Colombia, education is a fundamental right and a public service, consecrated in our Political Constitution. We recognize that “Children’s rights prevail over those of everyone else”, regardless of nationality, migration status, race, sex and political and religious beliefs, among others. So, we recognize that equal rights includes all foreign citizens in our country.

One of the first actions we took in our country, and in particular in the education system, was to make the requirements to access the education system more flexible for children with Venezuelan origin in regards to documents and records. As a consequence, we have seen a 1,067 per cent increase in enrollment, from 34,030 Venezuelan students in 2018 to 363,126 in 2020.

Credit: Andrés Felipe Valenzuela

This exponential increase in enrollment has led us to generate innovative and transformative actions, in addition to the lines of work established in the National Development Plan “Pact for Colombia, Pact for Equality” 2018-2022, where education quality, coverage increase, school permanence and the protection of complete educational trajectories have been prioritized.

In this context we can highlight the following good practices:

Migration regularization

Special Permanence Permit for the Education Sector

This innovative process, unique in the world, will allow these children and youth to overcome the barrier of a lack of identification documents, and allow them not only to have access to education services, but also to health and social protection services offered by the Colombian government, under the same conditions as Colombian citizens.

Grade Leveling

With Decree 1288 of 2018, we have also advanced in terms of strategies of school grade accreditation. This decree established that Venezuelan children and youth can validate grades through evaluations or academic activities in the schools they are attending, with no additional cost. This process allows grade validation for preschool, primary and secondary education until 10th grade. In the case of 11th grade, the process must be done with the Colombian Institute for Education Evaluation (ICFES).

• Improvement in validation processes: To facilitate the validation of primary and secondary education studies, the National Ministry of Education has updated its orientations to define leveling strategies and proficiency tests for Venezuelan migrant and returned Colombian students. The Ministry validation platform has been improved to speed up the process for Venezuelans, and a specialized group has been created to solve them in less than 15 days.

Teacher training

• School Food: The School Feeding Program has been improved so that migrant Venezuelan students can have access to this program under the same conditions as Colombian students. The only requirement is that the school and grade they are enrolled in are focalized by the local education authority. This has allowed us to serve in 2019 around 140,000 students, and in 2020 around 260,000 students of Venezuelan origin.

• Humanitarian corridor for education purposes: The National Ministry of Education has not only strived to guarantee education access to the Venezuelan population living in Colombia, but also to the population living in a situation of back-and-forth migration in the border zone. For them we designed a humanitarian corridor for education purposes, which has benefitted, since its creation, around 4,000 students living in municipalities in the border area, who study in schools in Cucuta, Villa del Rosario and other municipalities on the Colombian side of the border. Since the creation of the humanitarian corridor, the National Ministry of Education has led the necessary normative, technical, political and financial processes needed for its effective operation. Between 2015 and 2019, $13.137 billion pesos have been allocated for its operation, and for 2020, $5 billion pesos have been allocated.

• Technical assistance: To assist territorial education authorities in regards to the education for migrant population of Venezuelan origin, actions to provide general technical assistance for local education authorities and their directive teams from different areas of the Ministry of Education have been organized. To this end, meetings are programmed to take stock of the activities that are being implemented in the territories to guarantee education service provision, as well as well-being and permanence strategies.

ECW: While there are good practices that the Government of Colombia has developed, we know that welcoming such record numbers of Venezuelans to your country has also presented challenges. Knowing how this can strain local communities, particularly those hosting large concentrations of Venezuelans, could you elaborate on the model community and communications strategies to promote social harmony and discourage xenophobia, which has had a positive impact in schools, that the Government has put in place.

Minister Angulo: As a sector, we are committed to enabling the conditions and developing in each child, adolescent, youth and adult both respect towards diversity and a positive appreciation of differences.

To this end we have been working at identifying the best strategies for providing services for the Venezuelan population with education needs, to be able to offer them a service that accommodates their needs and recognizes their prior knowledge. Education is thus one of the best tools to prevent an attitude or behavior that goes against recognizing the dignity and equality of people in regard to their rights.

For this reason, we have promoted actions that allow us to:

Understanding that migration is a social process linked to different factors, and that, until the conditions in the neighboring country and the provision of basic services like education, health and housing, among others do not improve, Venezuelan citizens will keep on seeking better life conditions in Colombia or other countries. In view of the above, we will continue working to:

ECW: With the number of Venezuelans who have fled into Colombia having reached 2.4 million, making it the largest humanitarian crisis in the Western Hemisphere and among the largest globally, ECW has just provided seed funding totaling US$12.4 million for a multi-year programme to assist the country in addressing the educational needs of Venezuelan children and youth, as well as the children and youth in the communities hosting Venezuelans. Could you comment on the impact of this catalytic grant from ECW, and more specifically what activities the Ministry, in collaboration with a range of UN and NGO partners are planning to implement?

Minister Angulo: The project presented by Colombia within the framework of the multi-annual window of ECW has been turned into a tool to activate the participation of other actors, inject new resources and delve into the strategies we are developing.

We have worked with different actors to define and agree upon the priorities of the Multi Year Resilience Programme for Colombia, convinced that this seed funding can amplify the response we are currently already giving regarding the right to education for migrant people. With ally organizations who have been with us in the formulation process, we have agreed to focus the project on four lines:

Increase access to education and permanence

Improve quality of education and learning

Promote socioemotional wellbeing and mental health

Strengthen the education sector

ECW: Recognizing that ECW’s grant is intended to kickstart the multi-year programme and acknowledging the strides the Government is making in implementing the country’s commendable peace accord, could you please comment on how important it is for the international community donors to fully fund the multi-year programme with an additional US$ 70.5 million in co-financing. What could happen to school children and their education if the funding gap is not be filled?

Minister Angulo: We thank ECW for the initial investment and ask the community of international donors and the private sector to give us support in our efforts to close the financing gap.

It is important to remember that Colombia has invested important resources to increase access to education for migrant and refugee children. We estimate that for 2020, the investment in education made by the government is close to US$120 million. However, the needs of children affected by the crisis are increasing, especially for migrant children who need more support to remain at school.

Parallel to this situation, in Colombia we must cope with multiple challenges. For example, the recent hurricane in the San Andres archipelago almost completely destroyed the education infrastructure. In La Guajira, due to flooding, many migrant and refugee children in informal settlements have lost their learning materials. The different emergencies we have had to respond to in Colombia exceed the capacity of any government.

We continue to be committed to providing quality education and protection to every child in our country. To achieve this enormous task, it is important to join efforts with the international community, made up of donors and partners in the private sector.

Our objective is that all children receive the same opportunities, are protected and can learn. If the financing gap for this programme is not covered, we run the risk of not providing an integral education service that will allow children to learn, prosper and be prepared for the work force of the XXI century. If we do not act now with enough resources, many children will not have access to education, and many others will drop out. If we do not act now, it will be more difficult and expensive to address the topic of access to quality education where children can fulfill their dreams to complete their education trajectory.

ECW: In fully funding the multi-year programme in Colombia, could you elaborate on the important role that the private sector and philanthropic foundations can play, such as the KOYAMADA International Foundation (KIF), co-led by Colombia’s own TED Talk Speaker and producer Nia Lyte and her husband, actor and producer Shin Koyamada, and perhaps give examples of other foundations providing funding for children’s education in Colombia.

Minister Angulo: In the Colombian education sector, we work with both the public and private sector, as well as civil society and international organizations. We share a common goal: to leave no one behind. This work is strengthened by an inter-institutional approach which is based on experience and optimizes efforts and resources to respond to the particular needs of each region, including challenges already overcome, and those yet to be faced.

Being able to count on organizations like KOYAMADA International Foundation (KIF) and its work for the empowerment and leadership of young people and women, means it will, without a doubt, offer a great boost to the mobilization of resources for educational care, helping us reach those most in need and ensuring our commitment to quality education in long-term crisis contexts.

ECW: ECW would like to reiterate its gratitude for your remarks at the UN General Assembly side event this year entitled “THE FUTURE OF EDUCATION IS HERE: For those left furthest behind.” With Colombia leading the way for education under the very difficult challenges that the Venezuelan situation has created in the region, it would be good if you could comment on the importance of SDG 4 quality education.

Minister Angulo: The targets set for the Sustainable Development Goals, and in particular those of SDG4, are central elements for the 2018-2022 National Development Plan. One of our main pledges is the generation of conditions that ensure, progressively, a quality educational service, within the framework of a multidimensional approach (Atención integral). We want to positively impact the consolidation and monitoring of complete educational trajectories of all students.

In this regard, the country is focusing its efforts on the following areas:

To achieve the aim of the Declaration of Incheon of Leaving No One Behind, the Colombian government has directed its efforts so that children from Venezuela, as well as all children and adolescents in Colombia, can enjoy quality education as a fundamental right and constitutionally enshrined public service. For this reason, we are committed to the assistance and protection of children to ensure their harmonious and integral development and the full exercise of their rights.

In this sense, the Ministry of Education has determined a management strategy that combines coverage and quality actions within the framework of the Welcome, Welfare and Permanence Strategy. Cross-sector coordination has been developed due to active search processes, effective enrolment, monitoring, knowledge generation and information-driven decision-making processes. This has allowed us to strengthen teacher skills, infrastructure, school food, transport and endowment, among others, which allow migrant students to benefit equally from the available strategies.

It is also important to mention that strategies are being strengthened to facilitate psychosocial support and the effective integration of this community into the Colombian citizen environment.

ECW: Our readers would like to get to know you a bit better on a personal level. Can you tell us what education means to you personally? Could you also share with us the three books that have influenced you the most personally and/or professionally, and why you’d recommend them to other people to read?

Minister Angulo: Education for me is the most powerful tool for the integral, personal and professional development of people. It also represents the epicenter where all social policy in the region comes together. Education generates social mobility and innovation, touches the lives of many people and is the axis of processes of development, resemblance and reconciliation, where I have developed my vocation of service.

As for the 3 books that have influenced me and that I would recommend that people read, they would be:

Love in the Time of Cholera by the Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez, I recommend this book because it is a literary work that reaches the soul. It is dedicated to true love, a love that survives despite the challenges of a traditional city, and the changing times of the Colombian Caribbean from the late nineteenth to the middle of the twentieth century. This book manages to portray human nature in a simple way, with beauty and humor, through a romantic story where the reader can feel the representation of love as the purest feeling, around each life is built.

Ética para amador by the Spanish writer Fernando Savater. I read this book in my teens and it really left an impression on me because it was a window into the world, and it led me to reflect on topics essential to life, which guide our decisions and explain why ethics, morality, freedom and choice are needed. This text reminds us that our greatest quality as human beings is to be able to think, to be aware and to create our future according to our expectations of it.

The last book I would recommend is Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning by Professor John Hattie. This research helps us to categorize in a very clear way how to improve the effectiveness of the school system, and I think it is a necessary book to read for those of us who work in education.

And from this text I can highlight two conclusions that are vital to me: the most influential aspect in learning is feedback, both the one offered by the teacher to the student and the one that the teacher receives from the student. In the first case, you have to distinguish between feedback and flattery, the latter has little value if it is not associated with the work that has been done. The teacher-student relationship also has a big impact. Developing a pleasant socio-emotional climate in the classroom, promoting effort, and involving all students requires that teachers step into the classroom with certain ideas about the possibilities of progress and the relationship with students.

The post Education Cannot Wait Interviews Colombia’s Minister of Education María Victoria Angulo appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Energy Efficiency for Developing Countries: Pivoting from Fewer Inputs to More Outputs

Wed, 12/16/2020 - 16:08

Future new building construction, which is an energy-intensive activity, will mostly take place in developing countries, not advanced economies. Construction site in Dubai. Credit: S. Irfan Ahmed/IPS.

By Philippe Benoit
WASHINGTON, Dec 16 2020 (IPS)

Energy efficiency (EE) is often marketed as a tool to save energy and money. The oft-repeated mantra is doing “more with less”, namely producing more goods with less energy. But, as set out in a recent World Bank report (which I co-authored), EE can do something that is often much more important for developing countries: it can produce the additional goods and services needed to raise standards of living.

Shifting the focus from savings to more goods and services can help increase the uptake of EE in developing countries, thereby enabling them to grow faster while also promoting a more sustainable future for all.

EE deployment in these countries has suffered from a narrative that has too often been targeted at advanced economies.

From the European Union to Japan to the United States (under previous administrations and likely under the incoming Biden one), EE has generally been positioned as a tool to generate energy savings. Various other benefits are also recognized, notably employment generation and improved competitiveness which are often used to mobilize local political support.

Yet, the focus has tended to remain on EE’s ability to reduce things: energy use, as well as expenditures on energy and, more recently, greenhouse gas emissions. And, indeed, through a combination of EE and other factors, major advanced economies have succeeded in reducing their energy consumption, and they plan to use EE to achieve further reductions going forward.

A different context exists in the developing world where standards of living are all too often inadequate. In these countries, the key to progress lies in generating more and higher-quality goods and services for their populations: more and better housing, more and better consumer products, more and better transport services, more and better office buildings, more and better schools, more and better hospitals – but also less pollution. The overall focus is on producing and consuming more rather than on using less.

Developing countries are looking to secure more energy to fuel this progress. From India to Indonesia, from South Africa to South America, the developing world is projected to demand increasing amounts of energy.

Total energy consumption of today’s developing countries is projected to rise by about 30% from 2015 to 2030, at which point it will nearly double that of developed countries (figure 1). This reliance of developing countries on increasing energy use to support their economic growth (in contrast to advanced economies where energy demand has generally already peaked) reflects in part their development situation.

For example, future new building construction, which is an energy-intensive activity, will mostly take place in developing countries, not advanced economies, including emerging economies such as India where over 70% of the built environment of 2030 has yet to be constructed.

Figure 1: Evolving energy consumption in developing and developed countries. Source: Energy and Development in a Changing World: A Framework for the 21st Century (Columbia University’s Center for Global Energy Policy, 2019), figure 3, based on data from the IEA.

EE can ensure that this increasing energy consumption is used efficiently to raise standards of living. The focus in the developing country context is less on producing “more with less” energy, but rather on generating “even more from more” energy.

Not only does EE help to decouple GDP growth from energy consumption, it also helps to magnify the impact of increasing energy use to power further economic expansion. Moreover, in these COVID times, EE can be particularly strategic for governments because its deployment generates employment (e.g., the hiring of workers to install energy efficient equipment).

And the coupling of EE and more energy can also provide benefits at the household and business levels. Many of the poorer families in Asia, Africa and elsewhere want the opportunity to increase their consumption of modern energy fuels, for example for a refrigerator and other home appliances that generate the higher standards of living seen in other places.

Using efficient appliances is even better, magnifying, for example, the benefits of basic electricity access. Similarly, businesses across the developing world are looking to expand their activities, increasing their outputs and growing their markets to generate larger revenues that can enable them to buy more energy to produce even more to sell. EE can help them do this in a more efficient and profitable manner.

Unfortunately, traditional metrics for EE are at times ill-adapted to many developing country contexts. These include metrics such as energy consumption/dwelling, energy for space cooling/square meter, or energy used for water heating/dwelling.

“Progress” is normally evidenced by lower levels . . . and this makes perfect sense in advanced economies whose populations will continue to enjoy high standards of living even as EE-generated energy savings deliver multiple benefits (such as energy security for the European Union).

But in the developing world, acquiring that first refrigerator (which will raise energy consumption in the dwelling), or installing air conditioning in public buildings (which increases energy use in areas previously cooled by fans) will elevate inadequate standards of living.

Irrespective of what might be inferred from a quick (albeit, incomplete and insufficient) scan of EE indicators, in the developing country context, this increased energy consumption per dwelling or per square meter of office space reflects progress. It is development . . . and EE helps ensure that the equipment to deliver this advancement is efficient.

EE is also key to reaching global climate change goals. For example, in the sustainable development climate model of the International Energy Agency, EE plays a bigger role (37%) in reducing emissions through 2050 than any other low-carbon tool, including renewables (32%).

This climate model also provides for rising energy consumption by non-OECD countries (a 16% increase between 2016 and 2040) to help to power their future economic expansion. The combination of more EE to support GDP growth, together with a deeper penetration of renewables and other low-carbon technologies, is the key to raising standards of living in developing countries while meeting global climate goals.

And achieving these goals will avoid the worst impacts of climate change that could devastate the vulnerable in the developing world and elsewhere. When it comes to deploying more EE, the climate change challenge has transformed it from a “nice thing to have” into an “imperative”.

EE is a key to creating greater prosperity across the developing world because it enables even more goods and services to be generated from greater energy use so as to raise standards of living.

For developing countries, it is not about doing “more with less”, it’s about doing “even more with more.” As illustrated by the afore-mentioned World Bank report, pivoting the focus of EE from energy savings to the additional goods and services it produces can help to increase its deployment across the developing world . . . and this will promote stronger and more sustainable economic growth and social improvements.

Philippe Benoit has worked for over 25 years on international development issues, including in previous roles as Division Head for Energy Efficiency and Environment at the International Energy Agency and as Energy Sector Manager at the World Bank. He is currently Managing Director, Energy and Sustainability at Global Infrastructure Advisory Services 2050.

The post Energy Efficiency for Developing Countries: Pivoting from Fewer Inputs to More Outputs appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Lockdown in Chains

Wed, 12/16/2020 - 15:23

Approximately 30 patients stay at Edwuma Wo Woho Herbal Centre, many with mental health conditions. At least half are shackled. Credit: Robin Hammond/Witness Change for Human Rights Watch.

By Kriti Sharma and Shantha Rau Barriga
Dec 16 2020 (IPS)

Long before the Covid-19 pandemic grounded much of the world, lockdown, confinement, violence, and isolation was the daily reality for hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities around the world. Many are locked in sheds, cages, or tethered to trees and are forced to eat, sleep, urinate, and defecate in the same tiny area, sometimes for years. Why? Simply because they have a mental health condition—a psychosocial disability.

This inhumane practice—called “shackling”—occurs because of widespread stigma surrounding mental health and a lack of access to adequate support services, both for those with these disabilities and for their families.

While Covid-19 has exposed the importance of psychological wellbeing and the need for connection and support within our communities, it has exacerbated the risk to people with psychosocial disabilities who are often shackled in homes or overcrowded institutions without proper access to food, running water, soap and sanitation, or basic health care.

Hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children—some as young as young as 10—have been shackled at least once in their lives in over 60 countries across Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America

In many countries, Covid-19 has disrupted basic services, leading to people being shackled for the very first time or returning to life in chains after having been released.

Sodikin, 34, is one of many whose life has been upended by the pandemic. For more than eight years, he was locked in a tiny, thatched shed—just two meters wide—outside his family home in West Java, Indonesia. Without government services, his family felt they had no choice but to lock him up.

Within this small radius of his life, lit by a solitary lightbulb, Sodikin slept, went to the bathroom, and ate food that his mother would pass to him on plate through a window no larger than the palm of his hand. Over time, his muscles atrophied from the lack of movement.

Despite the odds, once he got access to mental health and other services, Sodikin rebuilt his life. He started to work in a clothing factory stitching boys’ school uniforms—becoming the breadwinner of his family—and even did the call to prayer at his local mosque, a prestigious community role. And the shed in which he was confined for eight years? His family torched it and grew a garden in its place.

Sodikin, a 34-year-old man with a psychosocial disability who was shackled for more than eight years in a tiny shed outside the family home in Cianjur, West Java. Credit: Andrea Star Reese for Human Rights Watch.

But when Covid-19 hit the locality of Cianjur in rural Indonesia, Sodikin’s hard-earned life crumbled. As his community went into lockdown, the factory closed, his daily routine was disrupted and all forms of community-based support were suspended. Sodikin’s family locked him in a room once again.

Michael Njenga, chairperson of the Pan-African Network for Persons with Psychosocial Disabilities, said that “restrictions on movement, such as lockdowns and curfews, have caused a disintegration in available support services.

Even in areas where mental health or other community-based services were available, the government redirected resources to other programs, specifically to address the pandemic. This has had a huge impact in our efforts to reach out to people who could now be locked up in institutions or even shackled within their communities.”

With extended lockdowns, physical distancing, and a widespread disruption in social services, the pandemic has frayed our sense of community and ushered in a looming mental health crisis.

Out of 130 countries that responded to a survey by the World Health Organization, 93 percent reported disruption in psychosocial services. More than 40 percent of countries had a full or partial closure of community-based services. In addition, three-quarters of mental health services in schools and workplaces were disrupted on top of about 60 percent of all therapy and counselling services. And while governments around the world have recognized the need to address mental wellbeing and provide psychosocial support, this has not led to an increase in voluntary services in communities.

Covid-19 marks a turning point for governments to pay greater attention to the importance of mental wellbeing and psychosocial support. Any one of us could experience a mental health crisis or secondary trauma from the uncertainty, fear, anxiety, and distress resulting from isolation, economic hardship, increased family violence, and daily challenges of this pandemic.

But consider what that means for someone whose life is confined to chains. Irrespective of age, gender, ethnicity, socio-economic status, or cultural background, health—including mental health—is one of the most basic and necessary rights of human beings, guaranteed under international law and key to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

As countries look to build back better, governments should focus on those most at risk, including the hundreds of thousands of people with psychosocial disabilities around the world who have lived, and still do live, in chains.

The risks of the pandemic for people who are shackled should be a wake-up call to governments to ban this practice, combat stigma associated with mental health, and develop quality, accessible, and affordable community services, including psychosocial support. Sodikin and countless others deserve a life of dignity, not chains.

The post Lockdown in Chains appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Kriti Sharma is a senior disability rights researcher and Shantha Rau Barriga is the disability rights director at Human Rights Watch.

The post Lockdown in Chains appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Sid Chatterjee Epitomizes the New Leadership Model of UN Resident Coordinators Worldwide

Wed, 12/16/2020 - 09:02

Former Ministry of Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed receiving credentials from newly Appointed UNDP Resident Representative and UN Resident Coordinator Siddharth Chatterjee, at her office in 2016. Credit: UNDP Kenya

By Rodney Reynolds
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 16 2020 (IPS)

Siddharth Chatterjee, who has served with the United Nations for over 20 years, has been appointed as the new Resident Coordinator in China, the world’s second largest economy after the United States.

UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters December 15 that his appointment follows confirmation from the Chinese government.

A product of Princeton, one of America’s prestigious Ivy League universities, Chatterjee, an Indian national and currently Resident Coordinator in Kenya, will take up his new post in the middle of January next year.

Resident Coordinators, said Dujarric, are the Secretary-General’s representatives for development at the country level. They lead UN teams supporting countries to recover better from the COVID-19 pandemic through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

China’s confirmation of Chatterjee’s appointment, particularly at a time of increased political and military tensions with India, is an indication, not only of Beijing‘s determination to strengthen multilateral relationships but also its recognition of Chatterjee’s outstanding track record in the UN system.

“Sid’s exemplary leadership leaves a lasting footprint in the execution of Government/UN collaboration impacting millions of lives in Kenya and the region. We presented the gift of a giant footprint as a reminder of the unforgettable journey that he has walked with the people of Kenya,” said Kenya’s Minister for Sports Culture & Heritage, Ambassador Amina Mohamed in her farewell tribute in a tweet.

Salim Lone, UN director of communications (1998-2003) under Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and Spokesman for Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga (2005-2013), told IPS a lot of work at the highest bilateral levels goes into such senior UN appointments in any nation, leave alone China.

“Sid’s case is even more complex as he is not merely an Indian but a former senior security official in a super elite military unit, especially at a time of open military tensions,” he added.

At the same time, this is a tribute to the Chinese maturity and the UN’s boldness in proposing Sid. A winning situation on all fronts, said Lone, a one-time UN Spokesman for Sergio Vieira de Mello in Baghdad (2003).

Amado Philip de Andrés, Regional Representative of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) for Eastern Africa and the Horn, said “Sid epitomizes the new leadership model of the United Nations Resident Coordinator worldwide.”

“He has inspired us at the UN Country Team to go the extra mile to deliver the UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) in Kenya while supporting Kenya to progressively become an innovation hub in the region,” he declared.

In his current post in Kenya, Chatterjee has led 23 UN agencies, funds and programmes to support the Government’s humanitarian and development agenda since 2016.

Described as an avowed champion for gender equality and prevention of gender-based violence, Chatterjee has worked in complex emergency settings, including in Iraq, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan (Darfur), Indonesia and with the UN Peace Keeping Operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Iraqi Kurdistan.

He has also worked in United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the Red Cross movement, UNOPS and UN Security.

A highlight of his career was, the demobilization of 3551 child soldiers in South Sudan during the height of a conflict, an initiative he led in 2000.

He has also been featured by Forbes magazine for championing women’s rights and gender equality. He was interviewed by CGTN America where he commented on the important the role of Chinese peacekeepers in the United Nations and has also commended the Belt and Road initiative.

Chatterjee has written extensively on humanitarian and development issues in a variety of journals such as Newsweek, the Hill, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, Al Jazeera, Forbes, CNBC Africa, the Guardian, the Huffington Post, Reuters, Inter Press Service (IPS) the Global Observatory and mainstream Kenyan journals.

Chatterjee sees the increasing focus on South-South collaboration as an opportunity for China to provide global leadership for the acceleration of the SDGs in Africa.

He has spoken often about his passion for bridging the poverty gap in developing countries. His new focus is likely to be the push for Universal Health Coverage as well as accelerating rural development through agriculture, which provides the clearest pathways for getting out of poverty in rural areas.

Chatterjee says, “the UN and China can make available the tools, approaches and technologies to small holder farmers in developing countries so that they can increase production and productivity and leapfrog food security and the sustainable development goal on ending hunger or SDG 2”.

The new UN leadership in China will have a unique opportunity as a convenor, connector, and catalyser in the emerging partnership between China and Africa.

The post Sid Chatterjee Epitomizes the New Leadership Model of UN Resident Coordinators Worldwide appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

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