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Soil stores nutrients, carbon and micro-organisms. Credit: Xavi Fernández de Castro/IPS

By Esther Ngumbi
ILLINOIS, United States, Oct 1 2020 (IPS)

Recent months have brought all sorts of climate-linked disasters, from raging wildfires in California and Oregon to flooding in Alabama. As we think of the incalculable losses that are associated with these extremities linked to the changing climate, I cannot help but think of the belowground web of life that is burning, being flooded and washed away, affected, or lost.

Indeed, these climate-linked disasters present a less obvious challenge: they are robbing us of the same allies that are supposed to help us in fighting climate change: the allies are the beneficial soil microbes and the complex network of microorganisms inhabiting the soil, referred to as the soil microbiome.

Climate-linked disasters are robbing us of the same allies that are supposed to help us in fighting climate change: the beneficial soil microbes and the complex network of microorganisms inhabiting the soil
Unseen to the naked eye, the soil microbiome comprises of a web of microscopic life that includes trillions of bacteria, fungi, archaea, viruses, protozoa and fungi.  Research has shown that they teem in the soil near the roots of plants.

A growing body of scientific research has generated the evidence of the many benefits that are derived from the associations among microbes and crops such as corn, tomato, cotton and bell peppers. These benefits include improving soil health, promoting plant growth, improving plants ability to absorb nutrients and enhancing the ability of plants to fight stressors such as flooding and extreme heat, and fending off attacking insects.

Moreover, recent reviews continue to demonstrate the many microbe conferred benefits while pointing to outstanding research questions that remain to be explored, to further facilitate the use of beneficial soil microbes in agriculture.

These important microorganisms are suffering in the current slew of disasters. For instance, what does fire do to microorganisms? According to research, fire alters the abundance, composition, and activity of both microbial and fungal communities.

The survivors of fire are left with a fundamentally different habitat. Depending on the conditions after fires, life can bounce back quickly, or that would be the end of it. And without a healthy and functional soil microbial community, the nutrients are not recycled, and insect pests can invade plants. Moreover, in the end, soils lacking these helpers become unhealthy.

Given all the devastation these climate crises are creating, concern about microorganisms is low on people’s lists. Indeed, understandably, humans tend to only care about visible things. We are yet to learn about losses of things unseen to the naked eye.

Yet, this web of microscopic life is no minor matter: its healing will provide the foundation for the recovery of ecosystems including agricultural ecosystems. We must be sure to address it in the coming months of recovery.

Importantly, there is need for more research to uncover the impact of fire and flooding on beneficial soil microbe’s communities and to further uncover the best approaches and strategies that can be used to help soils to recover from these climate-linked disasters that are projected to happen more frequently in the future.

As we seek to rebuild, we must not forget to incorporate efforts geared at restoring the life below ground. Doing so will help these important microorganisms that live in the soil to bounce back faster and to thrive and then deliver their many benefits.

 

Dr. Esther Ngumbi is an Assistant Professor at the Entomology Department and African American Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. She is a Senior Food security fellow with the Aspen Institute.

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Face masks hanging on window bars in Havana, Cuba. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Joseph Chamie
NEW YORK, Oct 1 2020 (IPS)

Covid-19 deaths worldwide have surpassed 1 million. With new cases of coronavirus infections rapidly mounting again, the numbers of Covid-19 deaths are feared to surge in the coming months. 

It took approximately 40 weeks to reach the first million Covid-19 recorded deaths. Some have projected the second million Covid-19 deaths to take about 10 weeks, arriving in late December, and the third million to take an additional 4 weeks, arriving in late January.

Approximately 60 percent of the 1 million Covid-19 deaths to date have taken place in 6 countries (Figure 1). The United States continues to maintain its dominant lead in Covid-19 deaths as well as in coronavirus cases. With only 4 percent of the world’s population, the U.S. accounts for 21 percent of all Covid-19 deaths worldwide, or approximately 210,000 deaths that have jettison Covid-19 to the third leading cause of death in the U.S. after heart disease and cancer. 

 

Source: Worldometer.

 

The country in second place is Brazil, which with less than 3 percent of the world’s population accounts for 14 percent of all Covid-19 deaths. Brazil is followed by India at 10 percent, Mexico at 8 percent, and the United Kingdom and Italy both at 4 percent.

In several months India is projected to overtake the U.S. as the country with the largest number of  Covid-19 deaths. India’s daily virus-related deaths are currently around 1,100 versus 760 for the U.S. In addition, India’s daily virus infections have surpassed 90,000 compared to about 42,000 for the U.S.

Due to differences in the population size of countries, Covid-19 death rates provide a meaningful comparative perspective on the performances of countries in confronting the coronavirus pandemic. While the Covid-19 death rate for the world is about 130 deaths per million population, the rates of the dozen deadliest countries, which except for the U.S. are located in Latin America and Europe, are about 600 or more Covid-19 deaths per million population (Figure 2).

 

Source: Worldometer.

 

The top two countries are Peru and Belgium, with rates of 980 and 860 Covid-19 deaths per million population, respectively. The countries with the next highest death rates of approximately 670 Covid-19 deaths per million population are Spain, Bolivia, Brazil and Chile. 

The high Covid-19 death rate of Peru is believed due in part to the country’s poor health system, which failed to conduct effective testing and contact tracing, and the fact that 70 percent of Peruvian workers are in the informal sector with most not able to afford to isolate as they are dependent on daily earnings. 

In the case of Belgium, government officials say their high Covid-19 death rate is likely due to a number of factors including their exceptional way of counting unconfirmed Covid-19 deaths, the high level of elderly placed in care homes and poor initial preparations at home care centers permitting the virus to spread rapidly and have devastating effects. 

In striking contrast to the rates of the deadliest dozen countries are the substantially lower Covid-19 death rates of many other countries around the world. Denmark and Germany, for example, report Covid-19 death rates of 112 and 114 per million population, respectively. Even lower rates are observed in Norway, Australia and Japan, of 50, 35 and 12 Covid-19 deaths per million population, respectively.

It took approximately 40 weeks to reach the first million Covid-19 recorded deaths. Some have projected the second million Covid-19 deaths to take about 10 weeks, arriving in late December, and the third million to take an additional 4 weeks, arriving in late January

Unfortunately, in many countries a combination of denial, deception and defiance stands in stark contrast to the overwhelming public health evidence concerning the dissemination of the coronavirus and lethality of Covid-19.

The interaction of the pandemic’s fallout with the growth of populism and extremism around the world hindered effective responses. In too many instances, the recommended mitigation measures became politized and openly ignored, denigrated and resisted by some groups.

Some contend that the various public health measures to limit the spread of the coronavirus, including masking wearing, social distancing and sheltering-in-place, are infringements on their liberties and freedoms and constituted unconstitutional violations of their basic rights.

However, it is widely recognized that measures and regulations intended to promote the health and safety of the general public are well within a state’s authority.

Many of the deaths in the high Covid-19 mortality countries likely would have been prevented by the early intervention and widespread use of face masks, social distancing, hand hygiene, sheltering-in-place, testing, contact tracing and related other measures.

Downplaying the threat of the pandemic, making misleading pronouncements, sending confused messages, offering unfounded reassurances, maligning health officials, delaying/resisting public health measures and deflecting blame to others contributed to the disastrous spread of the disease and subsequent rapid rise of Covid-19 deaths in many countries. 

For example, if the United States response to the pandemic had been more successful and had been able to achieve the relatively low Covid-19 death rate of Germany (114 versus 638 per million population), the U.S. Covid-19 death toll would have been approximately 38,000 rather than 210,000.

Even the relatively higher Covid-19 death rate of neighboring Canada (246 deaths per million population) would have more than halved the US death toll, avoiding approximately 130,000 U.S. Covid-19 deaths (Figure 3).

 

Source: Author’s estimates based on data from Worldometer.

 

Similarly, the different approaches of Sweden and Denmark resulted in significantly higher Covid-19 death rates for Sweden, 583 versus 112 deaths per million population. While Sweden adopted libertarian policies of minimal regulations perhaps with the aim to achieve herd immunity, Denmark imposed social distancing, mask wearing and related public health measures.

If Sweden had been able to achieve the Covid-19 death rate of nearby Denmark, the Swedish death toll from Covid-19 would have been substantially less, about 1,100 rather than 5,900. 

While in mid-April the world’s daily Covid-19 deaths peaked at around 8,500, the average daily number of deaths near the end of September was approximately 5,300. In recent weeks, however, growing numbers of countries in various regions are reporting surges in daily coronavirus cases.

In the third week of September, nearly 2 million new Covid-19 cases were reported worldwide, the highest number of reported cases in a week since the start of the pandemic. 

In Europe weekly cases are now exceeding those reported when the pandemic first peaked in March. Those growing numbers of coronavirus cases point to the beginning of a second surge of Covid-19 deaths, especially for many of the countries in the northern hemisphere where approaching cold weather will drive more people indoors.  

A vaccine for the coronavirus, which now has approximately three dozen candidates in human trials, is unlikely to be widely available before the expected second wave of the pandemic. If the second wave follows the path that some now fear, the current number of one million Covid-19 deaths could triple in a matter of months.

Moreover, if the world’s Covid-19 death rate were to begin to approach the current level of the United States or the United Kingdom, the million Covid-19 deaths could more than triple in the coming year.

It is widely recognized that a vaccine for the coronavirus will not be 100 percent effective. Some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies place the effectiveness of a hoped for vaccine at around 60 percent.  In the United States the Food and Drug Administration has indicated that any coronavirus vaccine must be at least 50 percent effective to secure approval from regulators. 

Some scenarios envision the coronavirus pandemic continuing for the long haul, perhaps for at least several more years. Some fear that an approved vaccine may offer only limited seasonal protection, similar to other coronaviruses in circulation. 

Also, significant numbers may decide to avoid getting inoculated while many others may simply delay their decisions fearing vaccine safety may have been seriously compromised due to political influence. In addition, the global distribution of an approved vaccine may remain limited for some time due to insufficient supplies, relatively high costs for those in low income countries and international political disputes.

Consequently, in order to check the spread of the second and subsequent waves of coronavirus infections and limit the numbers of Covid-19 deaths, public health mitigation measures, including mask wearing, social distancing, hand hygiene, sanitizing, sheltering-in-place, quarantining, testing, contact tracing and staying at home when sick, will remain the primary tools in the medical arsenal to confront the pandemic for the foreseeable future.

Joseph Chamie is an independent consulting demographer and a former director of the United Nations Population Division.

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More than 60 percent of the world’s coral reefs are endangered due to overfishing, destructive practices and climate change, according to the United Nations. Yesterday the first-ever U.N. Summit on Biodiversity concluded with world leaders and experts agreeing on the urgency to preserve biodiversity globally. Credit: Nalisha Adams/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 1 2020 (IPS)

“Investing in nature is investing in a sustainable future,” was one of the key messages from yesterday’s first-ever United Nations Summit on Biodiversity where world leaders and experts agreed  on the urgency to act swiftly to preserve biodiversity globally. 

“More than 60 percent of the world’s coral reefs are endangered due to overfishing, destructive practices and climate change,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said in his opening remarks  at the biodiversity summit, which was held as the 75th Session of the U.N. General Assembly wrapped up this week.

This loss doesn’t come without a cost.

Guterres added that according to an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimate, the amount of money required for sustainability of nature is about $300 – 400 billion, which is less than “current levels of harmful subsidies for agriculture, mining and other destructive industries”.

Guterres also pointed out how this disproportionately affects poor communities.

According to the Convention on Biological Diversity, between 50 to 90 percent of the livelihoods of poor households comes from ecosystems.

“Nature offers business opportunities to poor communities, from sustainable farming to eco-tourism or subsistence fishing,” Guterres said.

This year was especially crucial given the COVID-19 pandemic and the havoc it wreaked across communities around the world.

Volkan Bozkır, president of the General Assembly, pointed out the world’s  inability to ensure preservation of biodiversity severely impedes the ability to fight diseases — a result that is being witnessed first hand this year. It also negatively affects food security, water supplies, and livelihoods, among other issues.

“We must be pragmatic: our healthcare systems rely upon rich biodiversity,” Bozkır said. “Four billion people depend upon natural medicines for their health, and 70 percent of drugs used for cancer treatments are drawn from nature.”

“More than half of the world’s GDP – $44 trillion – is dependent on nature,” he added. 

Chinese president Xi Jinping addressed the meeting, extending a warm welcome for next year’s Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 15) scheduled to take place in China. 

“COP15 offers an opportunity for parties to adopt new strategies for global biodiversity governance,” Xi said. 

Xi proposed a list of steps that leaders can take in order to ensure biodiversity preservation around the world:

• Adhere to ecological civilisation and increase the drive for building a beautiful world, given that a sound ecosystem is crucial for the prosperity of civilisation. “We need to respect nature, follow its laws, and protect it,” he said. “We need to find a way for man and nature to live in harmony, balance and coordinate economic development and ecological protection.”
  
• Uphold multilateralism and build synergy for global governance on the environment. “Faced with the risks and challenges worldwide, countries share a common stake as passengers [on] the same boat, and form a community with a shared future,” Xi said. “To enhance global governance on the environment, we must firmly safeguard the U.N.-centred international system, and uphold the sanctity and authority of international rules.”
  
• Continue with green development and increase potential for high quality economic recovery after COVID-19.
  

Meanwhile, panelists at a “Fireside Chat” panel brought up the importance of including indigenous communities in the conversation.

Inger Andersen, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme, said the indigenous community is “critical” to this conversation.

“Let’s recall they are the owners and managers of one quarter of global land area, and one third of protected areas,” Andersen said. “So safeguarding their right to their land is part of safeguarding biodiversity.”

Ana Maria Hernandez Salgar, the first woman chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), also shared a similar sentiment as she reflected on what, in her experience, has led to true change.

“We have to work collectively: governments, individuals, private sector, academia, we need to address the root cause of biodiversity loss – it works,” Salgar said.

Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, the appointed Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, also spoke on the same panel and added that it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that biodiversity, on top of being a concern, is also a solution to some of the sustainable development goals (SDGs).

“We know, 14 out of the 17 SDGs depend on biodiversity, from nature-based solutions, to climate, to food, water, security, sustainable livelihood: biodiversity remains the basis for sustainable future and sustainable development,” Mrema said.

Perhaps the conversation on the link between biodiversity preservation and humans was most aptly put forth by Achim Steiner of the U.N. Development Programme who moderated the panel.

At the core of the preservation efforts is how we view the issue, Steiner said.

It’s not just about nature, it’s about humans too.

“Biodiversity has as much to do with nature as it has to do with people, people’s dependence on nature, people’s inability to see the complexities of nature, people’s blindness and sometimes greed and ignorance and also the planetary blindspots of our economies.”

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The triple humanitarian crisis. Photo Credits from left and in clockwise direction-UN Habitat, Kenya Red Cross and FAO Kenya.

By Siddharth Chatterjee
NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct 1 2020 (IPS)

The United Nations Deputy Secretary General, Ms Amina Mohammed recently commended “Kenya’s exemplary role in its response to COVID-19 and in advancing Agenda 2030”.

On Monday, 28 September 2020, the President of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta hosted a national conference on COVID 19. I was invited to speak about Kenya’s response, and without equivocation I restate what I said–Kenya deserves an A + rating.

Here’s why!

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck Asia, Europe and the US, experts began to worry about what it would do to poor countries, with predictions of thousands of deaths, serious infections as well as the near-total collapse of already ailing health systems.

How would Africa, characterised by crowded living conditions, widespread poverty and a lack of basic hygienic facilities deal with such a devastating and largely unknown pathogen? Months later, such horror scenarios have not materialised and the question has changed to why most of Africa is seeing comparably less devastation.

As explained by President Uhuru Kenyatta during the National Covid-19 Conference, “the reason why we have managed to flatten the curve is because Kenyans have exercised an impressive civic responsibility and duty.”

A reality that tends to be lost in all the discussions about this novel coronavirus in Kenya is just how much pummelling the country’s social and economic structures have received lately.

2020 was a particularly difficult year for Kenya. A triple crisis, coming on the heels of a protracted period of droughts, a cholera epidemic and not to underestimate the spectre of cross-border terror attacks, which dented one of Kenya’s biggest foreign exchange earners-tourism.

Consider this. In 2017, nearly half the counties of Kenya was reeling from the effects of probably the worst drought in the last 20 years. With nearly 3.4 million people food insecure, Kenya’s food security prognosis looked gloomy, with climate change and natural resource depletion set to pose even greater risks in the long term.

Often unnoticed is the insidious effect on the country’s economy, with experts estimating that there have been, “12 serious droughts since 1990”. The average annual costs of the damage caused estimated at around KHS 125 billion ($1.25 billion) — with each drought reducing the country’s Gross Domestic Product by an average of 3.3 percent.

The two consecutive national elections in 2017 also took a massive financial toll.

Given the dire financial situation, it is quite remarkable, the resilience, tenacity and optimism, Kenya has displayed in the face of such adversity, and done so with their head held high, with stoicism and compassion in its fight against the triple threat.

Since the beginning of the year, Kenya has gone through a series of unprecedented crises, where within six months it has experienced the worst desert locust invasion in 70 years, heavy unusual flooding that has left scores of people dead and thousands displaced, and the pandemic that is taking a toll on health services and the economy.

Aware of the technological and financial handicaps facing the health sector, the government has responded commendably in leading the fight against COVID-19, from mandating physical distancing and wearing of masks, promoting hand and respiratory hygiene, promptly dealing with rumours, to specialised facilities in hospitals, to working with industry to deliver local equipment such as PPEs, to delivering economic relief to impacted families. And above all not allowing politics to hijack the wisdom of science.

In about six months after the first case was reported, Kenya increased the number of infectious diseases isolation beds from eight to just over 7,000 across the country, thus keeping the casualty rates low. This was a remarkable feat achieved through unity of purpose between the national and county governments.

The government rolled out moderate stimulus packages to help families ride out the economic turbulence and cushion companies from financial shocks. The Treasury instituted tax relief for low-income earners and reduced VAT rates as well as corporate sales tax for businesses. In a country already facing slow GDP growth, these were commendable actions of national self-sacrifice and coming together in times of crises.

When you look at some of the most developed countries in the world, buckling to the microscopic and highly virulent coronavirus and their national responses are properly examined, Kenya does score an ‘A+’ in how quickly and decisively the government acted in the COVID-19 crisis. Measures such as travel restrictions, curfews and school closures were implemented early in the country, before the number of infections rose.

As testament to the spirit of coming together to confront a common adversary, there was broad support from the public for these measures. In social media and elsewhere, citizens were quick to express responsible outrage where they felt those responsible for the response at various levels were not keeping to the expected standards.

This grit and determination to rise to the occasion even where resources are hard to come by was key in getting on board international donor agencies and private sector to mobilise funding to support the national response. The UN in Kenya repurposed $45 million from the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) towards the COVID response, and deployed over 150 staff and volunteers to the government response structures.

In partnership with the Government of Kenya, the UN launched a Flash Appeal to mobilize $267.5 million to support more than 10 million vulnerable people affected by the pandemic, of which nearly US$ 60 million was raised. An additional US$ 10 million dollars was allocated by the UN Secretary General, Mr. Antonio Guterres, to construct a specialised 100 bed COVID 19 hospital in Nairobi, which will remain as additional capacity even after the pandemic is over.

The UN in Kenya has prepared a COVID-19 socioeconomic response and recovery plan to address the health care system, social protection, employment opportunities and social cohesion. The recovery plan will be implemented in the next two years and will cost $155 million to focus on recovering better from the pandemic for the Sustainable Development Goals.

“The country is still in the maelstrom of the pandemic. The devastating consequences of the pandemic have not fully played out and important challenges remain, some wrought by the pandemic but many that continued long before, such as high health care costs for millions of Kenyans, gender inequalities, widespread poverty, youth unemployment, environmental degradation, corruption and terrorism”.

The country must converge at every level to address these threats today or suffer the consequences tomorrow. Recovery will be made much tougher by the economic toll of COVID-19 as well as an exhausted and depleted health system.

Still, the pandemic has shown that Kenya can overcome partisanship, think anew and work on short and longer-term sustainable development priorities towards ‘building back better’, with more resilience to future shocks.

As the UN Deputy Secretary General, Ms Mohammed said, “I am convinced that Kenya will continue demonstrating that results and transformation are possible and I call upon all of you to double your efforts to invest at scale in those critical interventions that will unlock benefits across all the goals, to make bold choices, to take decisive action and to leave no one behind in your pursuit of a better future.

Kenyans can be fully assured of the commitment of the United Nations to overcome every adversity, leapfrog socio-economic recovery and progress to realise Vision 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals.

Siddharth Chatterjee is the United Nations Resident Coordinator to Kenya. This article was originally published in Forbes Africa.

 

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A child from the Za’atari Refugee Camp in Jordan raised a flag to represent Goal 6, Safe Water and Sanitation. Credit: UNICEF Jordan/badran

By Rabiya Jaffery
AMMAN, Jordan, Oct 1 2020 (IPS)

Jordan is one of the driest countries in the world, raking the fifth most water-stressed nation in an analysis by the World Resources Institute.

The middle eastern country gets 60% of its water from aquifers that lie in a dozen groundwater basins. And 10 of them are currently being pumped at a deficit.

“Not all aquifers are renewable and the ones that are storing rainwater that is released by springs,” says George Stacey, an analyst working with Norvergence, an environmental advocacy NGO. “No aquifer holds an endless amount of water and Jordan is extracting more water each year is getting replenished by rain.”

Three-quarters of Jordan is desert and desert steppe and is one of the countries that receive the least amount of annual precipitation.

“Climate change has made Jordan drier and the coming decades will see temperatures rising further and rain becoming more unpredictable,” adds Stacey. “Water scarcity is only going to get much worse in the coming years.”

And while rising temperatures and reducing rainfall reduce the available water supply, Jordan’s demand for water is increasing due to a rise in the country’s population as it continues to take in refugees from nearby countries.

Jordan became a state in 1946 and has since absorbed millions of refugees – mainly from Palestine, Iraq, and Syria as well as a number of Yemenis, Sudanese, and Somalis. There are currently 750, 000 refugees registered in Jordan but government figures estimate that the total number, including unregistered migrants, exceeds a million and excludes those who have gained citizenship.

“Water scarcity in Jordan will affect both refugees and Jordanians,” says Lilly Carlisle, from United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) – Jordan. “The increase in population and resulting increase in water demand have caused enormous pressure on the limited water resources and created a chronic poor water supply and demand imbalance.”

Although some government players have stated that the large influx of refugees in the country is worsening water scarcity in the country and opinions in many amongst the public and the media have implied that refugees threaten Jordan’s water security, experts disagree.

“The vast majority of refugees in Jordan come from Syria and from the Southern Governorate of Dar’a. With similar cultures and availability of water to where they now live in Northern Jordan, refugees are well aware of the need for water conservation,” says Carlisle.

“Added to this, over the past ten years of the Syrian conflict and refugee crisis, UNHCR and partners have enacted various campaigns to promote water conservation.”

In Zaatari Camp, for example, UNHCR has been running hydroponics projects since 2017 to educate refugees about water consumption within agriculture and establish new practices among refugees working in the agricultural sector to reduce water usage.

Roughly 45% of the water used in Jordan goes to agriculture and one of the key points on Jordan’s 2008–22 National Water Strategy has been efforts to stop over-pumping groundwater through reducing the amount of water that is given for free to farmers as well as water theft.

Water theft has been a regular problem in the country and, in 2013, the Ministry of Water and Irrigation launched a dedicated campaign to crack down on water violations. Between 2013 and 2017, over 30,000 violations on water mains and resources had been prevented and millions of cubic meters of stolen water have been retrieved.

Carlisle stated that the UNHCR is jointly tackling with the Jordanian Government and partners to “ensure that all people who live in Jordan, refugees and Jordanians alike, continue to have access and are aware of steps they have to take towards water conservation”.

Other solutions that the government is looking into include desalinated water from the Red Sea, which makes up 27 kilometers of coastline in Jordan, but the process requires a high amount of energy and the country lacks the necessary oil and gas deposits.

The country has, however, been in the talks with Israel for a joint mega-project, the Red Sea-Dead Sea Water Conveyance Project, that would bring desalinated water from the Red Sea to Jordan and dump the brine into the Dead Sea through a canal to stabilize the shrinking lake.

The agreement for the joint project was first signed by Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority, in 2013 but the work has been stalled several times. When completed, the Red-to-Dead canal would contribute roughly 10% of the country’s water needs.

However, environmentalists are concerned about the damage to coral reefs and other species in the Red Sea and Dead Sea if the project is completed.

“Water scarcity results in food shortage, internal migration, and can create conflicts between groups,” says Stacey. “These conflicts can also pore out to nearby countries – this is why ensuring water security in Jordan a matter of regional security.”

In 2017, a report by the Atlantic Council highlighted how water scarcity had been an indirect factor that lead to increasing tensions in, both, Yemen and Syria.

“The regional and international community needs to come together to work on sustainable solutions to Jordan’s water crisis to maintain the relative stability it has in a region that has seen multiple conflicts in the past few decades,” says Stacey.

“The country is already facing many major economic and political challenges and if the government does not adapt and implemented an effective policy to solve the water crisis, the situation will significantly worsen.”

Social frustrations about the country’s economic crisis, stemming from the IMF-backed austerity adopted by the government to tackle the country’s growing debt, have increased in the past few years. In 2018, as increasing youth unemployment and price hikes, and also resulted in a series of protests.

https://www.unicef.org/jordan/stories/water-security-critical-issue-children-jordan-today-and-future-generations

 

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Excerpt:

Rabiya Jaffery is a freelance journalist covering climate change, migration, and human rights in the Middle East and South Asia. She is currently a reporting fellow for Norvergence, an international climate communications NGO.

The post Water Security in Jordan is Crucial to Maintaining Stability in the Country appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: Equality Now, Tara Carey

By Antonia Kirkland
NEW YORK, Sep 30 2020 (IPS)

In September 2017, Secretary-General António Guterres launched the “System-wide strategy on gender parity”, which set the goal of reaching gender parity within the United Nations by 2028 and outlined a strategy on how to achieve this, including the introduction of special measures, senior appointments, targets and accountability, amongst other things.

Three years have passed and it is heartening to hear that the UN has made significant progress towards this goal by achieving gender parity within its senior management. We look forward to the organization hopefully achieving this at all levels by 2028, or preferably sooner.

The principle of equal rights for women and men is one of the pillars upon which the UN was founded. It is rooted in the recognition that gender equality is a fundamental human right and that empowering all women is essential for a peaceful, prosperous, and sustainable world.

The blueprint to achieving this was outlined by the UN in 2015 with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which enshrines the ambition in Sustainable Development Goal 5 to “achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”.

As an agenda-setting organisation that plays an influential role on the world stage, the UN has a responsibility to lead by example in advocating for gender equality from the inside out. This entails ensuring that women from a variety of backgrounds are equally represented at all levels of the UN system, and is necessary for both its credibility and effectiveness in applying a gender lens to its policies and programs.

An inclusive, gender-balanced and culturally diverse workforce, operating within a system that support’s women’s equal access to decision-making, will enable the UN to carry out its mandate more successfully.

Although gender parity is an important component of achieving gender equality within the UN, what is also needed is a frank examination and enhancement of the organizational culture and ways of working. The UN has spoken of the need to “create a working environment that embraces equality, eradicates bias, and is inclusive of all staff.”

Whilst it is encouraging to see the progress being made at the UN, there are still areas where commitments must be translated into effective action, and this pertains particularly to the handling of sexual abuse and harassment within the work environment, even as the workplace itself is evolving in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2018, UN Women appointed an Executive Coordinator and Spokesperson on Sexual Harassment and Discrimination. This office was tasked with “supporting States, government administrations and the private sector to ensure actions are taken to respond to women’s experiences of sexual harassment.”

It contributed to the adoption of the UN System Model Policy on Sexual Harassment by the Chief Executives Board, as well as promoting much-needed awareness raising and open discussion of the issue at the highest levels of the UN itself.

Unfortunately, this office has just been closed permanently, undermining the Secretary-General’s “zero-tolerance” policy on sexual harassment and putting into question the UN’s commitment to priortizing this as in important issue in need of addressing.

Greater attention and improvement are required regarding the handling of sexual harassment and abuse cases involving UN staff, including those in senior management. A staff survey investigating sexual harassment within the organization was carried out in 2018.

Only 17.1 percent of staff responded but of those who did, a third reported they had experienced harassment, with junior and temporary staff being particularly targeted. 12 percent of the perpetrators were in senior leadership positions and incidents were cited in which offenders were not punished or condemned, despite numerous charges being levied against them.

This type of failure was clearly illustrated when the UN’s own internal Dispute Tribunal called the “accountability gap deplorable” in a recent case involving compensation for sexual harassment committed by a previous chair of the International Civil Service Commission against a UN staff member who worked under him.

Although the chair was a UN official elected by the UN General Assembly, he was deemed to be outside the jurisdiction of the UN Secretary-General and as such, no action was taken by the Tribunal. This demonstrates a systemic failure in dealing with cases of this kind.

Sexual harassment and abuse thrive where there is a culture that fosters a lack of accountability that enables perpetrators to act with impunity. Tackling it requires clear and effective leadership to ensure the implementation of adequate safeguarding measures.

Senior management must enact changes to embed transparency across the board, tackle the continuing problem of under-reporting, and provide better support to victims and whistle-blowers who disclose allegations. Only then, will the UN truly be on course to achieve gender equality within its own ranks and stand as a role model for others.

For media enquiries and interview requests please contact Tara Carey at tcarey@equalitynow.org; +44 (0)20 7304 6902; +44 (0)7971 556 340.

*Equality Now is an international human rights organisation that works to protect and promote the rights of women and girls around the world by combining grassroots activism with international, regional and national legal advocacy. It’s international network of lawyers, activists, and supporters achieve legal and systemic change by holding governments responsible for enacting and enforcing laws and policies that end legal inequality, sex trafficking, sexual violence, and harmful practices such as female genital mutilation and child marriage.

For details of current campaigns, go to www.equalitynow.org, Facebook @equalitynoworg, and Twitter @equalitynow.

 

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Antonia Kirkland is Global Lead on Legal Equality & Access to Justice at Equality Now*

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Azadpur Mandi-Wholesale Market, New Delhi, India, Credit: Vaishali Dassani, IFPRI.

By K Nirmal Ravi Kumar and Suresh Chandra Babu
ANDHRA PRADESH, India / WASHINGTON D.C., Sep 30 2020 (IPS)

Farm policy in India is in its own conundrum. If you ask, “what are the major challenges for increasing farmer income?”, any farmer in India would tell us that it is the low remunerative prices for their produces and he or she will add that most of the market margins goes to the middlemen.

Finally, the Government of India is getting the policies right to address these problems through passing three Ordinances viz., Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Ordinance, 2020; the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Ordinance, 2020; and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020, which may have far-reaching implications for agricultural transformation in India.

Though progress in Indian agricultural market reforms has been slow, these ordinances could be a watershed moment for Indian agriculture if they are implemented well. Yet, their implementation solely rests with the state governments making the next move through developing their own contextualized strategies

And yet, the general public are at awe to see that farmers are protesting these policies, which may indeed be a boon to them in the long run. Among the myriad of writings on this issue in the media recently, we seek to inform the reader, “why these legislations have become so contentious and why the farmers are protesting them? We look at them in turn.

 

Ordinance 1 relates to The Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Ordinance, 2020: The provisions of this ordinance intends to create an ecosystem, where farmers and traders enjoy the freedom to sell and buy the farm produce outside the markets notified under the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC).

No market fee will be levied on any farmer or trader in these designated non-mandi trade areas. It also permits free intra-state and inter-state trade movements of farm produces.

The supporters of this legislation argue that it facilitates farmers to transact the produce anywhere in the country. The creation of non-mandi trade areas will provide farmers the freedom of choice to conduct trade for their produce.

The absence of market fees will reduces transaction costs in selling the farm produce. So, this legislation offers a win-win situation for all farmers, consumers and entrepreneurs and will further motivate APMCs to improve their efficiency of operations substantially to serve the farmers better.

The following are seemingly the reasons for the protests. As per Section 2(m) of this Ordinance, the creation of an additional non-mandi trade area may confine APMC mandis to their physical limits and allow big corporate buyers to operate freely.

As per Section 2(n) of this Ordinance, farmers contend that a “trader” cannot be trusted, as the “Arhatiyas” in mandis have the licence approval from APMCs.

Further, due to removal of market fees, it leads to loss of revenue to APMCs and this does not provide a level playing field to compete with private traders. This may lead to gradual collapse of existing APMC mandi system and may end up the MSP based procurement system. The failure of Bihar experiment (which repealed the APMC Act in 2006) may be repeated with this new law.

 

Ordinance 2 relates to The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Ordinance, 2020.

Through its provisions, the farmer or an FPO may enter into a contract with a sponsor only by written Farming Agreement and there is no provision for verbal agreement between them. This facilitates farmers to transfer market unpredictability to the sponsor and in the process, farmers can enjoy access to cost-effective production technologies, high-quality production systems, direct marketing of farm produce, full price realization and effective dispute resolution mechanisms.

This Ordinance promotes organized agriculture with assured buy-back arrangement with the sponsor, unlike the existing APMC system (led to a cartel formation by traders). This system further ensures regular supply of pre-determined quality of a produce on a steady seasonal basis to meet both domestic demand and international requirements.

However, the farmers opine that they will be the weak players in this sort of agreement, as they must deal with big corporate companies or sponsors. Further, the provisions allow dispute settlement at the Sub-Divisional Magistrate level, which is difficult for the farmers to fight against the big corporates.
Ordinance 3 relates to: The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020.

Provisions of this ordinance empower the Central Government to designate certain commodities (such as food items, fertilizers, and petroleum products) as essential commodities and to regulate the production and supply of certain food items including cereals, pulses, potato, onion, edible oilseeds, and oils, only under extraordinary circumstances like war, famine, extraordinary price rise and natural calamity of grave nature.

Stocks limit may be imposed only if there is 100% increase in retail price of horticultural produces and 50% increase in the retail price of non-perishable agricultural food items. Thus, there will be no storage limit or movement restriction for these commodities.

Supporters of this bill argue that it can help liberalize business operations of private investors, promote ease of doing business, enhance market competition, safeguards the interests of farmers and consumers against irrational spikes in prices of essential commodities etc. It will promote investments in processing, cold storages and thereby, modernize the existing food supply chains.

However, the farmers fear that this ordinance will give corporates the trade advantage through hoarding of commodities and quoting higher prices. The terms used such as ‘extraordinary circumstances’, ‘extraordinary price rise’ or ‘natural calamity of grave nature’ in the Ordinance are subjective in nature which may result in interpretational disputes.

There we have it. While these policy moves are broadly in the right direction to make Indian agricultural sector competitive, they can be the sources of contention in a democratic set up.

Though progress in Indian agricultural market reforms (1990s and 2000s) has been slow, these ordinances could be a watershed moment for Indian agriculture if they are implemented well. Yet, their implementation solely rests with the state governments making the next move through developing their own contextualized strategies.

 

K Nirmal Ravi Kumar, Professor & Head, Department of Agril. Economics, Agricultural College, Bapatla, Acharya NG Ranga Agricultural University (ANGRAU), Andhra Pradesh, India

Suresh Chandra Babu, Senior Research Fellow, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, D.C.

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By External Source
Sep 30 2020 (IPS-Partners)

CGIAR-IITA Deputy Director General, Partnerships for Delivery, Kenton Dashiell, has encouraged Nigerians to take up sustainable and profitable opportunities in the country’s agriculture sector. He made this appeal during his keynote address at the National Conference on Agricultural Innovations for Food Security in the Post COVID-19 Era.

In his presentation, Dashiell highlighted multiple technologies and solutions that could help sustainably achieve food security. He emphasized that farmers and other actors in the different agricultural value chains must use proven technologies appropriately and precisely to succeed. Adhering to excellent farm practices and standards will guarantee high levels of productivity, including increased crop yields.

IITA DDG-P4D, Dr Kenton Dashiell spoke extensively about opportunities in the Nigerian agriculture sector

Dashiell also advocated the use of location-specific advice and reviews to optimize the knowledge of local experts. “If you are working to improve your production practices and you are in Kano State, you need to find experts and advice from people in Kano because they know the right way to do it. If you are in Oyo State, go to your experts in Oyo State,” he said. He encouraged people to work with State Agriculture Development Programs or other local experts such as seed companies, agro-dealers, and universities.

Many still think of the old manual methods of farming as representative of the agriculture sector today. However, Dashiell debunked this view and cited several professional opportunities in the different value chains, which he insists people should approach as a business. He spoke of the importance of a business plan, a theme on which other speakers at the conference also focused.

Dashiell outlined some of the innovations that the Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) initiative is deploying at scale to strengthen the cassava, maize, rice, aquaculture, and poultry value chains.

NABDA Assistant Director of Agricultural Biotechnology, Dr Rose Gidado, giving a keynote address.

Earlier, the Assistant Director of Agricultural Biotechnology at the National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA), Dr Rose Gidado, spoke about the need to diversify the economy to attain economic growth and food security. Representing the NABDA Acting Director-General Prof. Alex Akpa, she commended the Nigerian government for implementing policies that have strengthened the agriculture sector. Still, she called for more action to help achieve optimum food production levels.

“Nigeria cannot attain food security with the current way agriculture is practiced,” said Gidado. For this to change, she continued, “the nation’s economic growth must be accompanied by diversification of the economy by adopting sustainable and innovative technologies that advance food production.”

The virtual conference, organized by the AgroBusiness Times, focused on aggregating sustainable innovations for food security during the challenging times of the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria and globally.

This story was first published by IITA

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New research reveals significant gender data gaps in the Latin America and Caribbean region.

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Coral Reefs restoration at the coast of Banaire in the Caribbean. Credit: UN Environment Programme

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 30 2020 (IPS)

The coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed the lives of over one million people worldwide and destabilized the global economy, also upended the UN’s ambitious socio-economic goals, including the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger by 2030.

While extreme poverty rates have fallen in past years, says Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, “it is projected that between 70 and 100 million people could be pushed into extreme poverty as a result of the pandemic”.

And by the end of 2020, she warned, an additional 265 million people could face acute food shortages.

According to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, ocean levels are rising quicker than expected, “putting some of our biggest and most economically important cities at risk”. More than two-thirds of the world’s megacities are located by the sea. And while the oceans are rising, they are also being poisoned,” Guterres warned.

And as the planet burns, one million species in the world’s eco-system are in near-term danger of extinction.

Meanwhile, the international community has failed to live up to its commitments – and meet all of its targets — on biodiversity

Just ahead of the first-ever UN Biodiversity Summit on September 30, Volkan Bozkir, President of the General Assembly lamented the fact that none of the 20 biodiversity targets agreed by Member States in Aichi, Japan a decade ago, “have been fully achieved”.

“Words and good intentions are clearly not enough. They will not clean the oceans, save elephants, or prevent deforestation. Only our actions can do that,” he declared.

The recently-released United Nations’ Global Biodiversity Outlook 5 reveals that biodiversity is declining at record rates, and only six of the 20 goals laid out by 2010’s Aichi Biodiversity Targets have been “partially achieved.”

The study shows some areas of progress, but it found “the natural world is suffering badly and getting worse.” And if the world continues on its current trajectory, biodiversity– and the services it provides– will continue to decline, jeopardizing the achievement of the UN’s highly-touted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it warned.

Asked for the reasons for this shortfall, Dr. Anne Larigauderie, Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) told IPS the Global Outlook confirms and builds on the findings of the IPBES Global Assessment Report – including the new report-card on the progress towards the Aichi Biodiversity targets.

“One of the reasons for this shortfall is that we, collectively, including Governments, but also the private sector, have failed to seriously address the direct causes of biodiversity loss, including land use change (deforestation, urban sprawl etc.), overexploitation of resources (terrestrial and marine), and climate change, as well as the underlying causes, which relate to our economy, institutions, governance, and which are all deeply anchored in our values and behaviors.”

“We need to better understand and address the causes of these losses and act upon them. Another main reason is that considerations about biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people have still not been brought to the centre of decision-making,” she noted.

Dr. Larigauderie pointed out that the “health of our natural environment very directly influences almost every aspect of development – from food and water security, to livelihoods, health and even peace and security”.

To achieve SDGs requires nature to be a key consideration in decisions, policies, investments and actions across all parts of the economy and society.

“This is how we can achieve the transformative change needed to address our increasingly frayed relationship with the rest of nature”, she declared.

Meanwhile, a study released mid-September noted that, since 1993, and the Convention on Biodiversity, up to four dozen animal species have been saved.

This was done, said the President of the General Assembly, with local, national and international action and included habitat protection, species reintroduction, and legal protections, amongst other efforts.

“This demonstrates that we can deliver”, he declared.

The goal is to build political momentum for the Convention on Biodiversity’s Conference of the Parties (COP15), in Kunming, China in 2021, where world leaders will agree to an ambitious plan of action on biodiversity.

“Kunming needs to turn biodiversity into a household concern and political issue. Everyone must realize the risks of inaction,” said Bozkir.

Asked how devastating has been the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the state of biodiversity worldwide, Dr. Larigauderie said direct impacts of the pandemic on global biodiversity are not yet well-researched – “but we are all aware of anecdotal evidence, both positive and negative, such as reports about the resurgence of nature in some areas and improved air quality, as well as increased waste related to disposal of personal protective equipment and the unfortunate and unjustified targeting of some species of wild animals”.

“But the way you phrase the question is also indicative of a challenge – the impact of COVID-19 on people and economies cannot be separated from a proper analysis of its impact on biodiversity, because the two are totally interlinked”.

She argued that lockdown has essentially halted eco-tourism in many areas, not only damaging livelihoods but also massively reducing resources available to conservation.

Stimulus packages to drive economic recovery contain within them either nature-positive measures or more regressive ones that could in fact raise the risk of future pandemics by accelerating nature loss, she declared.

IPS: What are your expectations of the UN’s first-ever Summit on Biodiversity which is aimed at providing political direction and momentum for the development of a post-2020 global biodiversity framework?

Dr.Larigauderie: To achieve the SDGs requires the implementation of an ambitious and well-resourced post-2020 biodiversity framework. The UN Nature Summit is the best opportunity for decision-makers in Government, the private sector and civil society to already raise the levels of ambition for the negotiations next year and to recommit to policies, decisions and actions informed by the best-available science and expertise.

IPS: How adequate is the proposed funding for actions related to biodiversity– estimated at between $78 – $91 billion per year– compared with the estimated $500 billion spent on fossil fuels and other subsidies that cause environmental degradation?

Dr. Larigauderie: The IPBES mandate is to provide evidence and policy options for better-informed decisions – we do not prescribe or make normative judgements. That said, the IPBES Assessment Report on Land Degradation and Restoration found, for instance, that on average, the benefits of restoration are 10 times higher than the costs, and, for some regions the cost of inaction in the face of land degradation is at least three times higher than the cost of action.

The IPBES Global Assessment Report also identified the removal of harmful incentives and the promotion of nature-positive ones as some of the specific possible actions that would drive transformative change for people and nature. Harmful subsidies include, for instance, Government grants for pesticides, to unsustainable fishing, and to fossil fuels, which all drive the loss of biodiversity.

IPS: Any indications of the new set of targets currently under negotiation, for 2021-2030, and to go before the 15th Conference of Parties of the Convention of Biological Diversity, scheduled to be held in Kunming, China, in May 2021?

Dr. Larigauderie: These are exactly the discussions that have started and will continue under the Open-Ended Working Group on the post-2020 biodiversity framework and which have already resulted in a publicly available zero-draft of the framework to be negotiated, and subsequent comments thereon.

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By Ana María Hernández Salgar
BOGOTA, Colombia, Sep 30 2020 (IPS)

This week, Heads of State and Government from 64 countries announced one of the strongest pledges yet to reverse the loss of biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people by 2030. Advancing from powerful pledges to concrete policy and action, however, means that nature must be moved to the heart of global, national and local decision-making. It’s time for nature to be reintegrated into everything we do.

Ana María Hernández Salgar

The Leaders’ Pledge for Nature is an explicit declaration of a planetary emergency, driven by human actions that are degrading nature and our climate at rates and levels unprecedented in human history.

As a firm re-commitment to urgent action ahead of the United Nations Summit on Biodiversity, taking place today in New York and virtually around the world, it can be a vital and positive turning point towards the transformative change needed for people and nature – but this will require a fundamental, system-wide reorganization across technological, economic and social factors, including paradigms, goals and values.

Biodiversity is the foundation of human life and well-being. When we destroy the natural world, we endanger our own lives and livelihoods. Effective action on nature must, therefore, be based on the best-available science and expertise – to properly understand our challenges and the options available for a better future.

The undertaking in the Leaders’ Pledge – that the design and implementation of policy will be science-based – is therefore extremely welcome. The science, evidence and expertise already exist in the IPBES Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services and other key IPBES reports.

It is evident, from the science, that we are living in an unsustainable downward spiral of land- and sea-use change, over-exploitation, pollution, climate change and invasive species – and that we are the cause. This drives the devastation of nature and directly impacts our own quality of life through food, health, the economy and even peace and security.

Placing nature at the center of decisions in key sectors – including agriculture, fisheries and forestry, energy, tourism, health, infrastructure, extractive industries, and trade – will help to end this vicious cycle. Nature makes invaluable material and non-material contributions to our lives across every sector of human development and activity. The whole of Government approach described in the Pledge is, therefore, grounded in solid science, and is absolutely necessary.

Sustainable use, wise management and effective conservation of natural resources – strengthened by the full and effective participation of indigenous peoples and local communities, are key components of a more effective and integrated approach.

The fact that the first-ever UN Summit on Biodiversity is taking place amidst the COVID-19 pandemic – is framing the urgency of our frayed relationship with nature in terms that make biodiversity loss extremely personal and undeniably significant. Humanity now stands at a crossroads for meaningful change. If we fail to take this opportunity to voluntarily change course, we risk entering uncharted waters where pandemics, for instance, are more likely and more devastating.

As the UN Secretary-General said during the UNGA75 High-Level Week, “solidarity is self-interest.” Our shared challenge – as leaders and citizens – is to rally around nature as our common ground and our common home – to recognize that nature itself contains most of the solutions to address our shared threats of biodiversity loss and climate change.

Perhaps the most encouraging element of the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature is the explicit commitment to meaningful action and mutual accountability, beyond words on paper. If we are to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and to build a sustainable future, we must leave behind the outdated ‘business-as-usual’ models, informed by the current, limited paradigm of economic grow at all costs.

We begin by rediscovering that nature is inextricably linked to every decision we make – in economic, social, political and technological spaces – and seizing this unprecedented opportunity to shift our world towards a more sustainable future, with nature at the heart of our approach.

As hundreds of the world’s leading scientists found, and intergovernmental representatives from more than 130 Member States agreed last May: “By its very nature, transformative change can expect opposition from those with interests vested in the status quo, but such opposition can be overcome for the broader public good.”

The author is Chair of IPBES

________________________

About IPBES:

IPBES is an independent intergovernmental body comprising 137 member Governments. Established by Governments in 2012, it provides policymakers with objective scientific assessments about the state of knowledge regarding the planet’s biodiversity, ecosystems and the contributions they make to people, as well as the tools and methods to protect and sustainably use these vital natural assets. To some extent IPBES does for biodiversity what the IPCC does for climate change. For more information about IPBES and its assessments visit www.ipbes.net

 

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Following an almost unanimous 97.7 percent referendum vote in November of last year for Independence from PNG, the people of Bougainville returned to the polls last month to decide on a new government. Bougainville's main town of Buka. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
CANBERRA, Australia, Sep 29 2020 (IPS)

Ishmael Toroama, a former revolutionary leader and fighter during the decade long civil war which engulfed the remote islands of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea (PNG) in the 1990s, has been elected the autonomous region’s new President ahead of high-level talks about its political future.

“I, as your mandated President, am ready to take Bougainville forward, focussing on law and order, anti-corruption policies, the [referendum] ratification process and improving the fiscal self-reliance of Bougainville,” Toroama said in a public statement on the occasion of his swearing in as President in the region’s main town of Buka on the Sept. 25. He will be supported in a caretaker government for the next two weeks by his new Vice President, Patrick Nisira, MP for Halia constituency in North Bougainville, and Therese Kaetavara, Women’s Representative for South Bougainville.

Toroama, who defeated 24 other presidential candidates, is a strategic choice. Following an almost unanimous 97.7 percent referendum vote in November of last year for Independence from PNG, the people of Bougainville returned to the polls last month to decide on a new government. It is now tasked with carrying the autonomous region on a challenging political journey toward the long held local aspiration for nationhood.

“The referendum was a turning point…looking at all the 25 candidates, people were looking for who could deliver and successfully talk about Independence [with the PNG Government],” Aloysius Laukai, Manager of the local New Dawn FM radio station, told IPS. Laukai claims that “the election was conducted well” and widely accepted as free and fair. The campaigning and voting periods were reported as organised and peaceful, in spite of some alleged cases of misplaced voting papers.

The islands of Bougainville, with a population of about 300,000 people, are located more than 900 kilometres east of the PNG mainland. Bougainville hit the world headlines in 1989 when an indigenous landowner uprising against the then Rio-Tinto majority owned Panguna copper mine on Bougainville Island escalated into a civil war which raged on until a ceasefire in 1998. The peace agreement, signed in 2001, provided for establishing an autonomous government, which occurred in 2005, and a referendum on the region’s future political status.

Despite having only one recorded case of COVID-19, to date, the Bougainville government declared a state of emergency in March, which led to the delay of the general election, originally planned during the first half of this year.

Former President John Momis, who has led Bougainville for the past 10 years and been a prominent local political leader and figure of stability for more than four decades, bowed out of the race, having served the maximum two terms in office.  The field then mushroomed into an unprecedented more than 400 candidates vying for 40 parliamentary seats and 25 hopefuls for the presidency.

Alluding to the stakes ahead, Momis called for unity as voters turned out to cast their ballots from Aug. 12 to Sept. 1. “Let us all walk this journey together as one people and one voice to decide our leaders for this next government that will lead us to our ultimate political future that is within the confines of democratic values and international best practice standards,” Momis stated on Aug. 17.

While also a pro-Independence advocate, Momis, a former Roman Catholic priest with extensive experience in peacetime politics, is a contrasting figure to Toroama. His achievements include serving in the national parliament, playing a major role in the region’s peace negotiations and serving as Bougainville’s governor after the conflict from 1999 to 2005.

The new President was a commander in the Bougainville Revolutionary Army, a guerrilla force which instigated an armed uprising following grievances about the environmental devastation and economic inequity associated with the foreign-owned Panguna mine. He has not been a political leader or served in government administration, although he played a vital role in the peace talks which ended the conflict. More recently, he has been a successful cocoa farmer.

Geraldine Valei, Executive Officer of the Bougainville Women’s Federation, offered another perspective on the overwhelming support Toroama received at the ballot box. “The reason why we say that he is the right person is because, in our Melanesian way of resolving conflicts, if you start the war then you are the one to resolve it,” Valei told IPS, adding that, “he [Toroama] will, of course, need support from very good advisors to lead as President.”

Toroama’s rivals for the top office included James Tanis, who held the office of President briefly from 2008 to 2010, another former rebel ex-combatant, Sam Kauona, and local businessman, Fidelis Semoso. There were also two female candidates in the running: Ruby Miringka, a healthcare professional who has also worked for the Bougainville Referendum Commission, and Magdalene Toroansi, a former Bougainville Minister for Women.

Bougainville’s fourth government will face enormous challenges in the next five-year term to build a weak economy, improve governance and the capacity of institutions, all still in need of reconstruction and development following widespread destruction on the islands during the conflict. 

Valei told IPS that she would like to see the new President “strengthen good governance, have zero tolerance of corruption, strengthen law and order and advocate for the ratification of Independence from Papua New Guinea”.

Toroama also faces huge public expectations to bring about the region’s long held dream of Independence.  Aspirations for self-determination in the region pre-date both the civil war and PNG’s Independence. The islands of Bougainville were brought under the umbrella of the new Papua New Guinean nation in 1975. But they are geographically located far from the PNG mainland and the islanders trace their ethnic and cultural kinship instead to the Solomon Islands, an archipelago to the immediate southeast of Bougainville.

However, the decisive result of last year’s referendum is non-binding. Long and complex negotiations between the PNG and Bougainville governments to agree the region’s new political status will occur over the coming months and years. Talks at the national level will be informed by input from local forums in Bougainville, comprising representatives of communities, ex-combatants, business leaders, women and youths. The final decision will then be ratified by the PNG Parliament. There is no deadline for this process, but Toroama has indicated he would like a decision reached within two to three years.

PNG’s Prime Minister, James Marape, has voiced his support and respect for the process ahead and the wishes of the Bougainville people. “I look forward to working with President-Elect Toroama in progressing consultations on the outcome of the recent referendum and securing long term economic development and a lasting peace for the people of Bougainville,” Marape said in a statement issued soon after the election results were announced.

Yet, the PNG Government is known to not favour full secession, preferring the region to remain within a ‘united’ PNG under a form of greater autonomy.

Looking ahead, economic experts claim that, with a weak economy and heavy dependence on international aid and funding from the national government, Bougainville would face a long period of transition to being an economically viable state, potentially up to 20 years.

Related Articles

• Post-War Truth and Justice Still Elusive in Bougainville
• Bougainville Women Turn Around Lives of ‘Lost Generation’
• A Peaceful Decade but Pacific Islanders Warn Against Complacency

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Arranging sliced tomatoes to dry in the sun in Bangar el Sokor, Nubaria, Egypt. Rahma is a. Credit: Heba Khammis/FAO

By Juan Carlos García y Cebolla
MADRID, Sep 29 2020 (IPS)

Most cultures have created taboos and norms that prevent food waste. At the same time, social mores have reserved for occasions of celebrations or hospitality a code associating the abundance of food, in quantities much higher than normal, with concepts such as generosity and honour. 

In the last century, along with technical and productive advances and social transformations, taboos have gradually disappeared or lost their effectiveness, and the notion of celebration has led to increasingly common and unconscious manifestations of opulence and neglect.

On the other hand, the food chain has been transformed, multiplying the number of operations and actors, and becoming much more complex. In many cases, the resulting search for ever lower costs has led to a reduced workforce and the assuming of a higher percentage of loss and waste, as occurs with fruit that is damaged by careless handling in self-service retail.

One third of the food grown is lost or wasted every year. This amounts to a staggering 1.3 billion tons of food, which would be enough to feed 2 billion people in the world, and negatively affects climate change, poverty and trade

In the last decade, there has been growing concern about the scale this unsustainable behaviour has reached.

One third of the food grown is lost or wasted every year. This amounts to a staggering 1.3 billion tons of food, which would be enough to feed 2 billion people in the world, and negatively affects climate change, poverty and trade. In turn, this has an important impact on the right to adequate food of broad sectors of the population.

The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly disrupted our dynamics. In addition to the damage it has caused to daily life, it has exposed these systemic problems and the need for urgent changes in the way we manage the planet and its fruits, including food loss and waste.

Although disruptions to the food supply chain are – for now – relatively minor overall, measures imposed by States to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus have generated obstacles typical of distant times: from cultivation and harvesting, through transport and storage, up to consumption.

Mobility restrictions (closure of roads and borders, and delays due to mandatory controls) prevent or delay the transport and distribution of goods, resulting in agricultural products that spoil or are not sold due to their low quality. Changes in demand reduce the income of producers, especially small farmers or those living in remote rural areas.

On the consumer side, families with lower purchasing power find it even more costly to access fresh and more perishable foods, such as fruits or fish (leading to unhealthier diets and long-term health costs).

During the pandemic, access to food is not only a problem for the poorest, but also in many cases for people with greater resources who have traditionally been able to afford fresh products of high nutritional value and healthy diets. Among them, the at-risk population, or elderly or chronically ill people, who have to stay at home.

The pandemic has taught us that in times of crisis, it is not only essential to ensure the flow of non-perishable food, but also the linkages between consumers and producers. This facilitates access to fresh foods and healthy diets for all, as well as maintaining demand and sustaining local production, and in turn combating food loss and waste.

To date, we have witnessed the rapid implementation of initiatives to address these challenges.

In Spain, the municipality of Valladolid helped to set up safe home delivery of ‘zero kilometre’ or local foods that have not travelled far after production. The Government of Oman has transformed the fish auction markets from a physical marketplace to a digital platform, where market workers upload photos of the catch and wholesalers, retailers and restaurants can view the daily offer and place their orders online.

Even before the pandemic, the South African “Second Harvest” program, led by a non-profit organization, allowed commercial farmers to donate to vulnerable people the post-harvest surplus produced directly from the farms and distributed with refrigerated vehicles, preserving their quality and nutritional value.

The 2021 Food Systems Summit, convened by the United Nations Secretary General, will be a great opportunity to rethink how to improve access to healthy diets and income for small producers, as well as reducing loss and waste.

In the face of future crises, responses cannot be improvised. We have to be prepared and incorporate a vision of prevention and risk reduction. Political measures should quickly restore market access, so that the knots in the food chain are not broken.

They must also prioritize the well-being and livelihoods of all people, especially those who live in fragile contexts. Only in this way can we mitigate the impact of the crisis, reduce food loss and waste and contribute to the realization of the adequate right to food.

 

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Excerpt:

Juan Carlos García y Cebolla is Leader of the Right to Food Team of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

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Credit: SPC technical and geodetic surveying team at the Majuro tide gauge station in the Marshall Islands (RMI)

By External Source
Sep 29 2020 (IPS-Partners)

As the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC-UNESCO) reported earlier this year, COVID-19 has caused massive disruptions to ocean observing systems around the globe, as research cruises, maintenance visits, and sensor deployments have been postponed or cancelled.

According to IOC-UNESCO, “COVID-19 created an ocean data blindspot that could disrupt weather forecasts and hamper our understanding of climate change.”

When borders closed around the Pacific in March as part of COVID-19 restrictions, it provided an opportunity to test the agility of the infrastructure maintenance program supporting 13 permanent sea level observation stations across the Pacific.

These stations form the backbone of one of the world’s most important ocean-monitoring networks. They provide an indispensable record and near-real time data for meteorological agencies, emergency services, shipping operators, and all coastal communities concerned with the rate of sea-level rise and climate change.

Pacific sea level monitoring

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) manages the tide gauges in partnership with the Pacific Community (SPC) and Geoscience Australia (GA) through the Pacific Sea Level and Geodetic Monitoring (PSLGM) project. As one of the region’s oldest continuing aid investments, this project has provided continuous, high-quality climate, sea-level, and land movement data since 1991, and currently operates under the Climate and Oceans Support Program in the Pacific (COSPPac).

Pre-COVID-19, technicians from BOM, SPC, or GA would travel monthly throughout the region to undertake maintenance, calibration, or levelling of each sea-level monitoring site and attend to any emergency issues that might arise.

But COVID-19 has accelerated a process already underway to build in-country capacity to maintain and troubleshoot these sites. Following are a few success stories that have emerged from the project over the last six months.

6-monthly infrastructure maintenance

SPC team members have trained in-country technicians to conduct routine maintenance of the sea level monitoring stations over the last two years.

“The maintenance of this essential measurement equipment is a crucial component for the continuity of quality data collection,” said Adrien Laurenceau-Moineau, the Technical Team Leader at SPC’s Geoscience, Energy and Maritime Division.

Once trained, technical staff of the Meteorological Office and Lands and Survey Department conduct this basic maintenance every six months, following a purpose-designed checklist. Sea-level observing stations and sensors are cleaned and any damage or deterioration are noted and reported to SPC and BoM.

Fiji Met Service technician, Amori Nabanivalu, at the Lautoka tide gauge station, Fiji.

Since March, maintenance has been completed at ten sites in the Cook Islands, Fiji, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Samoa, Tonga, Kiribati, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

In August 2020, the Fiji Meteorological Service (FMS) technical team worked alongside SPC to perform the 6-monthly maintenance check at the sea-level observing station at the Queen’s wharf in Lautoka.

FMS technician, Amori Nabanivalu said, “the tide gauge station provides valuable data for the work we do at FMS and it was a great opportunity to work with the SPC team to better understand the maintenance of the equipment and the processes involved.”

Return to Service

When Tropical Cyclone Harold struck Tonga in April 2020, the old tide gauge on the Queen Salote wharf in Nuku’alofa was damaged by waves. At the new station on Vuna Wharf, waves washed away the gravel protecting the station conduits and the station was off-line due to a power and communication failures.

The technical team in Tonga repaired the tide gauge station conduits at Vuna Wharf, Nuku’alofa, damaged during TC Harold in April

The in-country teams took the lead to implement established Return to Service procedures set up under the project.

Viliami Folau of Tonga’s Land and Survey Department conducted a site visit and provided BoM with pictures, updating the status of both tide stations in Nuku’alofa.

“Post-disaster assessment of the tide gauges is critical. It documents damages, if any, to the infrastructure and ensures the quick return to service of this important source of real-time data collection,” he noted.

Tonga Meteorological Service technician, Enisi Maea, was assisted remotely by BoM to investigate and identify the fault causing the system to go offline. In partnership with Tonga Power and the Ports Authority, Enisi was able to resolve the issue and bring the station back online.

Similarly, Solomon Islands Met Service technical officer, Barnabas Tahoo, took the lead in getting the Honiara tide gauge station back online. Contractors had removed the main power to the station for a wharf extension project back in March when the contractors were suddenly required to return to Australia due to the COVID-19 lockdown.

Barnabas worked with BoM to troubleshoot a solution and was able to install a temporary power extension from a nearby shed until the permanent main can be restored.

Station upgrades

Inspecting the upgrade work conducted at the Port Vila tide station, Vanuatu

Inspite of COVID-19 challenges, planned upgrades to a number of stations have been able to go ahead as planned with remote support and supervision.

In Port Vila and Rarotonga a dual radar sensor platform was installed by local contractors with assistance from the Vanuatu Meteorological Service and the Cook Islands Meteorological service with remote oversight from BoM. The new platform will provide the stations with an additional sensor to monitor the sea level as well as a GNSS receiver antenna.

Likewise, the Suva and Lautoka stations in Fiji were refurbished and a dual sea level radar sensor mount was installed by local contractors and SPC supervision.

Remote capacity building

While the situation presents many challenges, Jeff Aquilina, the PSLGM Team Leader at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has embraced the shift to remote support for the project where feasible. He notes, “This infrastructure maintenance work is building a stronger relationship between us and the technical staff of the Pacific Island countries, building equipment knowledge, technical capacity and a sense of ownership of the tide station in each country.”

“This is a positive outcome of the investment in training, mentoring, in-country visits and the establishment of strong networks in the Pacific,” adds Jeff. “At the end of the day, the aim is to ensure the stations are fully operational, recording crucial datasets.”

“This really drives home the importance of investing in local capacity building,” says Molly Powers-Tora, COSPPac Coordinator and Team Leader for Ocean Intelligence at SPC. “And the fact that overworked national staff are committed to the upkeep of these stations is a reflection of just how valuable this data is to the Pacific.”

Source: The Pacific Community (SPC)

 

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UN Staff Day with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (left). Credit: United Nations

By Prisca Chaoui and Ian Richards
GENEVA, Sep 29 2020 (IPS)

As the United Nations prepares to celebrate its 75th anniversary we have been made aware of an extremely worrying development concerning the future of UN staff contracts.

It seems that UN management is bringing forward plans that, if implemented, will rip up long-established, secure standards of employment and replace them with a model that follows much of the ethos and practices of the ‘gig’ economy, famously characterized by Uber and its contractor drivers.

On Tuesday 29th September, managers from across the UN system will hold a meeting to look at a report on the ‘Future of the United Nations System Workforce’. The report, prepared under the guidance of International Labour Organization (ILO) Director-General Guy Ryder and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, contains much to alarm us.

Instead of understanding the importance of stable, secure contracts of employment to staff during these difficult times, the report recommends a drive to ‘a more agile model contractual modality’, a move that we believe is designed to move staff to short, limited duration contracts.

One crucial section of the report speaks of a new model contract supporting ‘a more agile organization that can rapidly adapt to changing needs and opportunities and scale up and down as needed’. The report notes that these so-called agile contracts could progressively apply to all staff, replacing fixed term and continuing contracts.

The way agile contracts work is that staff would be hired for fixed periods for specific tasks, after which they would be forced to leave and return to their country. They would then have to reapply for a new job and start again from scratch.

There would be no pension scheme and the UN would wash its hands of any long-term obligations towards its loyal staff, many of whom have sacrificed their personal lives in isolated and dangerous locations.

These types of employment arrangements are already controversial when it comes to delivering pizzas in the neighbourhood. So, it’s surprising that the ILO and UN would think they are the future when it comes to delivering humanitarian aid in war zones, providing peacekeeping and defending human rights.

We saw something similar before with contracts called appointments of limited duration, under which staff received a fixed amount with no additions for post adjustment, dependency or education allowance, and no salary scale to ensure equal pay by gender. (Interestingly, Ban Ki-moon abolished them because they were seen as contrary to fair labour standards).

This is revealing as it points to a deliberate ending of career appointments, in particular continuing appointments, an area of concern that we have already brought to your attention.

The rationale for the plans is that the UN needs to have greater agility and responsiveness in dealing with challenges and world events and deliver this in the context of funding constraints and a downturn in the global economy.

We recognize this situation, but are hugely disappointed to see the solutions proposed by the organization, which singularly fail to appreciate the critical importance of the established contracts that sit at the heart of the relationship between staff and employer.

We also believe that if managers want agility, then this is better achieved by investing in training, empowering staff to try different roles, and re-establishing the link between performance and promotion.

Lastly, we are concerned that management’s plans ignore the main reason that UN staff have contract security. It is to be able to act independently from pressures that may be exerted by member states and ensure they are not put in the position of doing the bidding of whichever country or corporation donates the most money to ensure their next job.

We have seen during the pandemic how even the perception of such influence can create huge problems for a UN organization.

For this reason, we call on management to drop their plans for Uber-style contracts at the UN.

 

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Excerpt:

Prisca Chaoui is Executive Secretary of the 3,500-strong Staff Coordinating Council of the UN Office in Geneva (UNOG) and Ian Richards is former President of the Coordinating Committee of International Staff Unions and Associations, and an economist at the Geneva-based UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Sep 29 2020 (IPS)

Milton Friedman’s libertarian economics advocating shareholder capitalism has influenced generations trying to understand the economy, not only in the US, but all over the world.

He was not just an academic economist, but an enormously influential celebrity conservative ideologue who legitimized ideas for the like-minded, including the belief that ‘greed is good’. Now, shareholder capitalism’s consequences haunt the world and threaten humanity with stagnation and self-destruction.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Friedman’s lasting influence
In 1962, Friedman published his most influential book, Capitalism and Freedom. In September 1970, the New York Times Magazine published his essay, The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Its Profits.

The article — reiterating the Friedman Doctrine, presuming perfectly functioning markets that only exist in the minds and writings of some economists — is a manifesto for American shareholder capitalism. It inspired the counter-revolution against Keynesianism, development economics and other state interventions.

The word ‘competition’ appears only once, in the last sentence. Yet, some supporters insist that Friedman was not ‘pro-business’, but rather ‘pro-market’. But, unlike capitalism, the market has been with us for several millennia and has happily co-existed with unfreedoms of various types.

Perfect competition rarely exists due to inherent tendencies undermining it. Hence, various challenges to Friedmanite wisdom. For half a century, information and behavioural economics have challenged his many assumptions, certainly much more than the Austrian School advocacy and defence of capitalism.

Thus, Friedman conveniently ignored ‘market imperfections’ in the real world, although or perhaps because they undermined the empirical bases for his reasoning. So, even if Friedman’s logic was true, reality prevents profit-maximizing firm behaviour from maximizing societal welfare, if not cause the converse.

Meanwhile, Friedman’s monetarist economics has been discredited, and has little practical influence anymore, especially with the turn to ‘unconventional monetary policies’, particularly after the 2008-2009 global financial crisis. Yet, his ideological sway remains strong, as it serves powerful interests.

Greed is good
Hence, Friedman’s 1970 essay remains influential in the world, and has long served as the mainstream manifesto on corporate governance. Even then, Friedman denounced dissenting CEOs as “unwitting puppets of the intellectual forces that have been undermining the basis of a free society”.

Generations of Friedmanites have insisted that ‘the only business of business is business’, and their sole responsibility to society is to make money. He emphasized, ‘‘there is one and only one social responsibility of business — to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.’’

When Friedman insisted “make as much money as possible while conforming to the basic rules of the society”, he may have presumed that market imperfections do not exist, or were fully addressed by the ‘minimal’ state, although it is well-known that the rule of law has never been adequate to the challenge.

His singular focus on maximizing profits for shareholders justified ignoring all problems due to corporate practices. The doctrine thus absolved the firm of social responsibility. It justified and encouraged generations of corporate leaders committed to the primacy of ‘shareholder value’. Almost like religion, this thinking became the hegemonic ideology, legitimizing ‘greed-is-good’ behaviour.

Government the problem?
Friedman’s ideology spread throughout the world with the ‘neoliberal’ counter-revolution from the 1980s.

Unsurprisingly, neoliberal economists’ claims have been discredited by their policies’ failure to significantly increase investments in the real economy in recent decades.

And without sufficient investments to enhance productivity, growth has declined, if not stagnated, while dimming future economic prospects. With labour incomes declining relatively, if not absolutely, consumer spending has declined, reducing aggregate demand while feeding a vicious circle of stagnation.

Meanwhile, deregulatory initiatives have not increased real investments and output growth. Market finance ideology claims that the stock market can best allocate investment resources among companies. But share buybacks imply that US corporations have no better investment options than to further raise already high, over-valued financial asset prices, thus reducing resources for real investments and future growth.

The Friedman doctrine also celebrated and justified short-termism, and undermining protection for employees and the environment to maximize shareholder value by increasing corporate profits. This type of capitalism has spread throughout the world with the ‘neoliberal’ counter-revolution since the 1980s.

‘Getting government out of the way’, the neoliberal ‘free market’ mantra, was supposed to boost private investments. But more handsome corporate profits due to cost savings – from weaker anti-trust and other regulations, lower wages and taxes – have not significantly increased real investments in the US.

The 2007-2009 US financial crisis exposed some problems of short-termism, particularly related to financialization and ‘shareholder value extraction’. The crisis cast doubt on Friedman’s legacy and its implications, encouraging new challenges to corporate governance norms and regulations.

Business and politics
Friedman would have us believe that power and politics are not exercised in free markets. But this ostensible insulation of politics from supposedly power-free markets is a fiction which thoughtful Friedmanites knew only too well, not least from their own advocacy, behaviour and conduct.

All markets are shaped by various historical and contemporary influences, economic, cultural, social and political. These are often driven by business and other lobbies. Thus, politics, collective action and advocacy shape policies, in terms of design, implementation and enforcement.

To be fair, Friedman’s view of politics and business seems contradictory. His writings argue that business should stay out of politics, and not use shareholder money to influence politics. But he is remarkably understanding when it happens:

“I can’t blame a businessman who goes to Washington and tries to get special privileges for his company”. “If the rules of the game are that you go to Washington to get a special privilege, I can’t blame him for doing that. Blame the rest of us for being so foolish as to let him get away with it.”

Neoliberal inequality
Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich has argued that larger US corporations have acquired so much influence over government, undermining US democracy. Instead, he argues for public financing of electoral campaigns while curbing corporate influence, e.g., via lobbying and campaign spending.

He cites an old study of 1,779 policy issues during 1981-2002 which found lawmakers acceding to the demands of big businesses with the most lobbying capabilities while the average American had “only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically nonsignificant impact upon public policy”.

With the Citizens United ruling in the new century, the US Supreme Court has legally enabled powerful corporate interests to lobby politically. Unsurprisingly, corporate taxation has been dramatically reduced, while social protection and public investments, e.g., in health and education, have declined further.

Instead of gains being shared by top executives and shareholders with workers, as during the post-Second World War Golden Age, benefits have become increasingly skewed to the very wealthy in the past four decades, thanks to Friedman’s increased influence.

From 1948 to 1979, US worker productivity more than doubled while wages fell slightly behind as the stock market grew over six-fold. But from 1979 to 2018, worker productivity rose 70 per cent, as worker pay rose by only 11.6 per cent, while CEO compensation rose almost ten-fold and the stock market 22-fold!

 

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Today when children are under serious threat from Covid-19, the 30th anniversary of the Children's Summit is a highly appropriate time for countries to renew and update the vows they made then. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

By Richard Jolly
BRIGHTON, United Kingdom, Sep 28 2020 (IPS)

On the eve of the UN’s 75th anniversary, Antonio Guterres, the UN’s Secretary-General has declared that the coronavirus pandemic is the world’s top security threat. He has called for action – for greater international co-operation in controlling outbreaks and developing an affordable vaccine, available to all. Such action is needed and possible -even in the absence of a large gathering of world leaders in New York to celebrate the anniversary.  But children today in every country need more.

Richard Jolly

Thirty years ago, on 29/30 September 1990, the largest gathering of world leaders that had ever taken place, met at UN Headquarters under the auspices of the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF. This was The World Summit for Children. It was an enormous success, gathering headlines around the world-and leading to worldwide action for children.

The Summit set goals for improving the situation of children everywhere, in health, education and their needs in especially difficult circumstances. Every country in the world adopted and agreed to these goals and, since then, all but the United States has– ratified the International Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The World Summit for Children was the brainchild of the American James P. Grant, the charismatic head of UNICEF. After initial doubts about whether more than a handful of presidents or prime ministers would come for a high -level meeting on children – as opposed to one on trade or the economy – The World Summit for Children took place with 71 heads of State, including President Bush and Prime Minister Thatcher.

Though children are much less likely to suffer direct effects from the virus, the indirect effects are already serious -in disrupted education, in neglect of essential medical care, in disturbed relations with family, relatives and friends

Such was the success of the event that the idea of holding Summit meetings soon caught on – the Earth Summit in 1992, the World Summit for Social Development in 1995, the Millennium Summit in 2000, and the Summit for Sustain able Development in 2015.  agreed at the Summit for children.

More importantly, following the goals, child survival has improved dramatically: the number of children dying under five has been reduced by 60%, from 12 million in 1990 to well under 6 million today. Immunization, growth monitoring and other actions have improved the health and life expectancy of millions of children in the developing world, and all countries have accepted that “the best interests of a child shall be a primary consideration.”

Today when children are under serious threat from Covid-19, the 30th anniversary of the Children’s Summit is a highly appropriate time for countries to renew and update the vows they made then.

Though children are much less likely to suffer direct effects from the virus, the indirect effects are already serious -in disrupted education, in neglect of essential medical care, in disturbed relations with family, relatives and friends.

Many are also suffering the consequences of domestic violence and child abuse. Countries are turning away from collective national and international action just when it is needed most.

Today’s COVID crisis could be an opportunity -for a new impetus to invest in our children and in the next generation of doctors, nurses, scientists, statisticians and carers, who will need to be well prepared to deal with future crises and emergencies.

Though a collective meeting is not possible, every country needs to consider and plan for its children, both to recover from the immediate effects of the virus and to set new paths for the next five and ten years.

Prime ministers and heads of state should take the lead, citizen’s assemblies should add to the specifics and communities and governments should make the commitments. A World Summit is not possible nor necessary, -but every country needs to consider the new priorities for its children and make serious plans and policies to respond to them.

 

Richard Jolly is Honorary Professor at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex. From 1982-95 he was Deputy-Executive Director of UNICEF when Jim Grant was Executive Director. Among the books he has written are “UNICEF- Global Governance that works” and “UN Ideas that Changed the World”, which he co-wrote with Tom Weiss and Louis Emmerij.

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The show "Kings of Kin" - brings together the work of Chéri Samba (pictured above), Bodys Isek Kingelez and Moké, known affectionately as the kings of Kinshasa, as their art is closely linked with the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, their home and work base. Credit: AD McKenzie

By SWAN
PARIS, Sep 28 2020 (IPS)

Chéri Samba has a sly sense of humour, both in person and in his work. Standing in front of his 2018 painting “J’aime le jeu de relais” (I Love the Relays) – which criticizes politicians who cling to power instead of passing the baton – Samba is asked about the resemblance of one of his subjects to a famous statesman.

“Oh, I was just portraying a politician in general. I didn’t really have a particular person in mind because they all have certain characteristics,” he responds. Then he adds mischievously, “Isn’t it me though? Doesn’t it look like me?”

In this case it doesn’t, but the Congolese artist sometimes depicts himself in various guises in his paintings. Visitors to the current exhibition in Paris featuring his work and those of two of his equally acclaimed countrymen will have fun trying to spot him on canvas.

The show – Kings of Kin – brings together the work of Samba, Bodys Isek Kingelez and Moké, known affectionately as the kings of Kinshasa, as their art is closely linked with the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, their home and work base. All three have participated in numerous exhibitions around the world, in group and solo shows, but this is the first time they’re being shown together in galleries.

Kings of Kin is being held jointly at the MAGNIN-A and the Natalie Seroussi galleries (running until Oct. 30) and features some 30 works, including Samba’s latest paintings. He is undoubtedly the star attraction with his bold, massive canvases commenting on social and political issues in Africa and elsewhere, but the others command attention as well.

Samba also is the only surviving “king” as Moké died in 2001 and Kingelez in 2015.

On a recent unseasonably hot afternoon, the artist is present at the MAGNIN-A gallery, speaking with a visitor who’s wearing a mask, although he himself is without one. He says he came to Paris in January, then got caught in the lockdown as the Covid-19 pandemic spread in France. He has used the time to complete several paintings for the current show.

Asked if he doesn’t miss the “inspiration” that Kinshasa provides, Samba replies that all artists should be able to produce work wherever they find themselves.

“I live in the world, and I breathe as if I’m in Kinshasa,” he says. “In my head, I want to live where I can speak with people and where they understand me. I travel with the same brain. I would like to be in Kinshasa, but this doesn’t prevent me from creating. The world belongs to all of us.”

His new paintings fill the entry and the main hall of the MAGNIN-A gallery, with bright greens, reds, blues – inviting viewers into his mind or current state of world awareness. 

The first work that strikes the eye is “Merci, merci je suis dans la zone verte” (Thank you, thank you I’m in the green zone), which depicts a man – the artist – seemingly caught in a vortex of some sort. Painted this year, the painting reflects the current global upheavals with the Covid-19 and other ills. It could also be referencing the DRC’s past under brutal colonialism and the difficulties of the present.

Another equally compelling work features the faces of six girls of different ethnicities, produced in acrylic with particles of glitter, and titled: “On Est Tout Pareils” (We’re All the Same). Samba says that his daughter served as the model and that the painting is a call for peace, equality and the ability to live together without discord.

The oldest of his paintings on display dates from 1989 and reveals a very different style, with softer colours and intricate workmanship, as he portrays a Congolese singer – the late feminist performer M’Pongo Love – wearing an attractive dress. Here the broad strokes are absent, and the designs on the dress are meticulously captured.

He says that although viewers may notice variations between his earlier output and the new works, he tends not to take note of such differences.

“All the paintings are like my children,” he says. “I can’t make distinctions between them.”

In contrast to Samba, the paintings by Moké comprise softer hues and have a more earthy feel, but they also compel the viewer to see into the lives of those depicted. Moké’s subjects nearly always elicit a certain empathy, a certain melancholy, and sometimes hope – whether these subjects are performers or an older couple simply having dinner together.

Moké lived for only 51 years, but his output was impressive – dating from the time he arrived in Kinshasa as a child and began painting urban landscapes on cardboard. He considered himself a “painter-journalist” and portrayed the everyday life of the capital, including political happenings. One of his paintings from 1965 depicts then-general Mobutu Sese Seko waving to the crowds as he came to power in Zaire (the previous name of the DRC).

In the Paris show, Moké’s paintings depict boxers, performers, frenetic city scenes, and portraits of women staring out with expressions that are both bold and solemn.

Meanwhile, the work of Kingelez takes viewers into a sphere of colourful towers and other “weird and wonderful” structures with a utopian bent, as he imagines a world that might possibly rise from the ravages of colonialism, inequity and bad urban planning.

The first Congolese artist to have a retrospective exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (“City Dreams” in 2018), Kingelez used everyday objects such as paper, cardboard and plastic to produce his first individual sculptures before creating whole fantastical cities.

His futuristic urban settings, which also address social issues, thus form a perfect companion to the “surreal earthliness” of Samba and Moké in Kings of Kin.

“These are artists who worked because of deep necessity, because they had something to say. It wasn’t about the art market or commerce,” said French gallery owner and independent curator André Magnin, who first encountered their work in the 1980s in Kinshasa.

The author of several books on Congolese art, Magnin said he hoped visitors to the exhibition would discover the unique “artistic richness” of the Congo region as exemplified by the “kings”. As for “queens”, he said that there weren’t many women artists working at the time, but that more are now becoming known and should be the focus of coming shows.

Dorine, a French art student of African descent who visited the exhibition, said she admired the artists and particularly Samba because he “speaks of African reality”.

“Their work is very interesting, and the message is extremely strong,” she told SWAN.

 

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The UN estimates that 74% of Africans cannot afford healthy diets. That is nearly 1 billion Africans. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Dr Lawrence Haddad and Josefa Leonel Correia Sacko
ADDIS ABABA, Sep 28 2020 (IPS)

One of the biggest revelations of the COVID-19 pandemic has been that people with pre-existing, diet-related conditions such as obesity, heart disease, and diabetes, are more at risk of suffering severe forms of the disease leading to a need for intensive hospitalization.

In Kenya, for instance, the Ministry of Health in July reported that 16 percent of seriously ill COVID-19 patients had diabetes, while diabetes and hypertension alone accounted for 47 percent of the COVID-19 deaths linked to pre-existing conditions.

According to WHO data, these chronic diet-related conditions were among the main risk factors for illness and mortality in Africa prior to COVID-19. The current crisis is simply throwing fuel on the fire. It has highlighted the criticality of diet as the key determinant of health of individuals and populations, particularly in urban areas, where an increased uptake of highly-processed and unhealthy foods is increasingly undermining regional nutrition goals.

In fact, data from countries in East and Southern Africa published in the Journal of International Development show that highly-processed foods now account for more than one third of the purchased food market. Not all of these foods are unhealthy, but many are, and combined with the availability of cheap, convenient and tasty street foods, the result is cheap food that is high in saturated and trans fats, salt and sugar.

Long-term solutions must be sought, a process that demands the involvement of all the world’s leaders from communities, governments, civil society and the private sector. The challenge is clear: how to incentivize food producers, processors, distributors and marketers to make nutritious food more available and affordable? 

To change these devastating trends fresh foods such as vegetables, fruits, high-protein legumes, nuts, eggs and fish must become more widely available and much more affordable in Africa’s food markets. Healthy diets are often inaccessible to most of Africa’s population.

The UN estimates that 74% of Africans cannot afford healthy diets. That is nearly 1 billion Africans. This is shocking and unacceptable. These numbers are only likely to rise during this time of a pandemic, where job cuts have greatly reduced people’s spending power and lockdowns have broken food supply chains, further increasing food prices, especially the prices of perishable fresh foods.

Temporary and very partial workarounds include the expansion of social protection programmes such as in Nigeria providing targeted transfers to poor and vulnerable households. These financial packages help the vulnerable to meet their minimum dietary and nutritional needs, but they are not a complete or sustainable solution.

Long-term solutions must be sought, a process that demands the involvement of all the world’s leaders from communities, governments, civil society and the private sector. The challenge is clear: how to incentivize food producers, processors, distributors and marketers to make nutritious food more available and affordable?

First public policy needs to be aligned with this goal. Too many policies are working against this aim. For example too few food production and consumption subsidies are going to nutritious foods; too little public agricultural research development and farmer extension focuses on these foods; too often public food procurement disfavours these items and infrastructure development ignores cold chain development.

Agriculture in Africa is a key economic driver and supporter of livelihoods. Productivity needs to be increased, biodiversity promoted and climate resilience attained. Is this possible? Yes. Already, farmers in countries like Zambia are recording up to a 60 percent increase in yields through the application of ecosystem-based adaptation techniques.

Elsewhere, in Burkina Faso, farmers have reclaimed 200,000 to 300,000 hectares of degraded lands by digging shallow pots in barren land and filling them with organic matter. The reclaimed land now produces an estimated 80,000 to 120,000 additional tonnes of cereal for the Burkinabe. The challenge is to replicate these successes throughout the continent.

Second, private investment into these more nutritious foods needs to be incentivised. Of the $200 billion impact investment fund industry, GAIN estimates less than 0.3% goes to nutritious foods in Africa. Fund facilities that stimulate private investment in small and medium sized companies that produce nutritious foods for low income populations need to be established that offer loan rates that are lower than market while targeting nutrition outcomes.

Institutional investors such as pension funds need to signal to the bigger companies with extensive value chains in Africa that they will favour companies producing more nutritiously beneficial foods.

Third, consumer demand needs to be shifted towards healthy foods. Too often healthy food campaigns pale in comparison to private sector campaigns for highly processed foods: they lack imagination, humour and flair.

Healthy eating campaigns must be engaging, aspirational and memorable. Food environments—where consumers come face to face with food—are stacked against the consumption of healthy foods which are often consigned to unattractive spaces in markets and stores. This needs to change too.

Fourth, civil society campaigns can hold businesses and governments accountable for promoting healthy foods. Civil society activism is particularly essential to focus attention on silent crises such as unhealthy diets.

Together these four levers can incentivize businesses and other stakeholders to innovate and develop business models, products and services that make nutritious and safe foods more available, affordable, desirable, and sustainable. Africa cannot move ahead smoothly if 1 billion of its people cannot afford a healthy diet.

The approaches defined above are not exhaustive, but if well implemented will bring the continent closer to better nourishment, further improving the prospects of properly fighting emerging health challenges such as COVID-19, both from a health and economic perspective.

The post How to Make Nutritious Food Affordable for the 1 Billion Africans appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Dr. Lawrence Haddad is the Executive Director, GAIN and H.E. Ambassador Josefa Leonel Correia Sacko is Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture of the African Union Commission

The post How to Make Nutritious Food Affordable for the 1 Billion Africans appeared first on Inter Press Service.