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The 193-member General Assembly, the highest policy making body at the UN, is described as a political non-entity playing only a subservient role to the Security Council in the election of Secretaries-Generals over the last 76 years. “If I am a Member of the General Assembly, the biggest UN organ that prides itself on one-country, one-vote policy, I will be insulted,” says the head of a coalition of NGOs. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elias

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, May 10 2021 (IPS)

As negotiations for the upcoming election—or re-election– of a UN Secretary-General gather momentum, one undeniable fact looms heavily over the final decision: the choice of a UN chief is the intellectual birthright of the five big permanent members (P5) of the Security Council, namely, the US, UK, France, China and Russia.

All others, including the General Assembly (GA) and civil society organizations (CSOs), remain bit players in the political drama currently unfolding in a world body which has remained locked down, since March 2020, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The 193-member GA, the UN’s highest policy making body, remains and will continue to remain a political non-entity playing only a subservient role to the Security Council.

The rules are cast in stone: the secretary-general shall be appointed by the GA upon the recommendation of the Security Council

Perhaps the GA’s only task is to rubber-stamp the decision made by the big powers—as it has sheepishly done over the last 76 years—even though it has the right, and the overwhelming votes, to reject any of the candidates nominated by the Security Council.

But so far it has not.

Meanwhile, how effective or ineffective is the campaign, mostly by CSOs and women’s rights activists, for the UN’s first woman Secretary-General?

With no public support from any of the P5 countries, the gender-empowered demand for a female UN chief may eventually be a good try in a lost cause.

Despite the UN’s campaign for gender empowerment, both globally, and also inside the world body, the UN has so far elected only four women -– in contrast to 71 men–- as Presidents of the General Assembly in the last 76 years, while it has never had a female secretary-general in the history of the Organization.

Mavic Cabrera-Balleza, Founder & Chief Executive Officer of the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders (GNWP), a coalition of over 100 women’s rights organizations from more than 40 countries worldwide, told IPS a true UN reform should address the continued dominance of the P5 in selecting the Secretary-General.

“This is the 21st century. I thought colonialism is over. If I am a member of the General Assembly, the biggest UN organ that prides itself on one-country, one-vote policy, I will be insulted,” she said.

Meanwhile, the authors of a 1996 landmark study on UN Reforms – Brian Urquhart and Erskine Childers, both senior UN officials – said the selection of the Secretary-General is quite literally part of a male-oriented “old-boy network.”

Titled “A World in Need of Leadership: Tomorrow’s United Nations”, the report, co-sponsored by the Ford Foundation and the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation, called for “a standard policy of non-renewable terms of office, and a single seven-year term” both for the Secretary-General and for all executive heads throughout the UN system.

But that never got off the ground.

As things stand, the current incumbent Antonio Guterres is heading for a second term—unless he antagonizes either one of the P5, even if it is at the 59th minute of the eleventh hour.

In a distant past, the UN chief who had a running battle with the US – Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt – was the only secretary-general who was denied a second term even though he garnered 14 of the 15 votes in the Security Council, with the US exercising its veto against him.

Arora Akanksha, a UNDP staffer and a self-nominated candidate challenging Guterres, says: “The UN preaches democracy to the world but can’t organise a competitive election in its own backyard. It’s a hypocritical sham”.

“The absence of any women, people of colour, or young people from the race should set alarm bells ringing for anyone who cares about democracy, justice, or equality.”

But hers may be a voice in the wilderness because not a single P5 country has indicated its willingness to support her candidature—at least as of now.

She also does not have the sponsorship of either India or Canada, her motherland and her country of adoption respectively.

Asked about her current status in relation to the upcoming elections, Akanksha said, “I have reached out to all 193 member states. I have met with five countries so far. Countries are fearful of nominating me because of retaliation from members of the Security Council and the European Union.”

The other candidate apparently is Rosalia Arteaga, a former President of Ecuador, who is being officially supported by her home country, but prefers to be a candidate of CSOs, according to a report in PassBlue, a nonprofit, independent, women-led media site popular within the UN community.

Anwarul K. Chowdhury, former UN Under-Secretary-General and one-time Ambassador of Bangladesh to the UN, told IPS it is interesting to find that this year’s election for the Secretary-General is getting all the attention for the candidacy of individuals who are showing interest in the post.

Among them, the media – both social and traditional – outreach of Ms. Arora Akanksha seems quite wide ranging. “I am in full support of her campaign focus on a woman to be the next Secretary-General, as I have been advocating for years”.

But the point about the absence of “people of colour” is not factual as we know that out of nine SGs, five were non-white, said Ambassador Chowdhury, who was President of the UN Security Council in June 2001, and who led the process for a second term for Secretary-General Kofi Annan of Ghana (1997-2006)

“Also, I am sure Ms. Akanksha understands that when she says “The UN preaches democracy to the world …”, the functioning of the Organization is not democratic as the UN’s founders included in the Charter of the UN creation of the five permanent members of the Security Council whose positions finally decides the election of the Secretary-General.”

The basic point that she makes in her recent press release is that her “…candidacy is legally valid under the rules established by the UN in 2015” according to UN General Assembly resolution 61/321.

“The main focus and assertion of that resolution is that only Member States of the UN are invited to nominate candidates. I believe amongst Ms. Akanksha’s 200 policy experts, there would be people to know that and would have advised her correctly”.

To attain some credibility for her candidature, Ms. Akanksha should make efforts to obtain the agreement of a Member State to submit her name as a candidate. She had reportedly said earlier that “It was a positive discussion … I’m still waiting to hear what Canada’s position would be,” he noted.

“That would give her candidacy a much-needed credibility and elevate it to a formal one in accordance with the existing decision of the General Assembly. Without that, her pronouncements in her vision statement would remain hollow and merely a listing of areas and issues of concern which have been raised by many over the years”, declared Ambassador Chowdhury.

Saber Azam, former UN official and author of two books on Afghanistan and Liberia https://www.saberazam.com.told IPS the UN is at a very critical moment in its history. There is a need for profound reform.

“The President of the General Assembly cannot and should not ignore the candidacy of Ms. Arora Akanksha or anyone else who comes forward.”

Times have changed since the inception of the United Nations 76 years ago, he said, and the world has new realities. Decision-making powers must ensure that the process is transparent, inclusive, gender-balanced, and geographically fair. “The UN welcomes female candidates for all positions; why not the SG’s?”, he asked.

Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini, founder and CEO of the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN) told IPS this is one of the most difficult and important jobs in the world.

“It requires wisdom, political savvy, experience and a depth of humanity – a quality that is often undervalued.”

Given the UN is 76 years old as an institution, having difficulty to pull itself into the 21st century, there has been an urgent need for an SG that has vision, imagination, empathy for the marginalized and the energy needed to shift course and renovate the culture and practices of the system, she argued.

“At the very least, it would be good to see a job description setting out the criteria for eligibility. It would also be good to see the institution’s power brokers -– notably the member states – uphold the existing rules”.

For example, she pointed out, if the retirement age for UN staff is 65, shouldn’t the same rule apply to its senior leadership and special envoys? Instead, it seems that a different set of rules come into play above the 37th floor.

If the UN advocates principles of good governance, including transparency, should it not practice these principles in its own home? she asked.

“If the system is serious about gender equality and equal opportunity, should it not give female candidates a genuinely fair shot, and finally, if the UN is our chance of shaping a better future for future generations, why not consider having a younger person at the helm – one who has a genuine stake in the future, and who is at least among the world’s 87% of the population that is below the age of 65?” she added.

But none of these factors are being considered. Instead, there will be a little flurry from NGOs and women’s organizations, and a handful of brave alternative candidates, but in reality, the die is cast. Business as usual will prevail to the detriment of the original values and vision that led to the creation of the UN 76 years ago, she declared.

Explaining the process, Ambassador Chowdhury said: the position of Secretary-General is one of great importance that requires the highest standards of efficiency, competence and integrity, and a firm commitment to the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

“The President of the General Assembly and of the Security Council invite candidates to be presented with proven leadership and managerial abilities, extensive experience in international relations, and strong diplomatic, communication and multilingual skills. Member States are invited to present candidates in a letter to the President of the General Assembly and the President of the Security Council,” he added.

Cabrera-Balleza said “I also find it problematic that civil society continues to remain on the sidelines in this selection process. How many General Assembly and Security Council resolutions have sung praises to the critical role of civil society in implementing the mandates of the UN?”, she asked.

“That’s why I commend and strongly support various efforts of fellow civil society actors to demand transparency and inclusion in the selection of the Secretary-General, such as the “Campaign to Elect a Woman Secretary-General” (WomanSG campaign) 1 for 7 Billion, and #Forward”.

Thalif Deen, Senior Editor at the UN Bureau of Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency, is the author of a newly-released book on the United Nations titled “No Comment and Don’t Quote Me on That” available on Amazon. The link to Amazon via the author’s website follows: https://www.rodericgrigson.com/no-comment-by-thalif-deen/

 

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The XXX La Jolla Energy Conference, organized by the Institute of the Americas, began Friday, May 7 and will conclude on May 28 is being held virtually, due to the limitations imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic..

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, May 8 2021 (IPS)

Several Latin American countries are stepping up the pace to generate hydrogen for various uses in transportation and industry, but they must first resolve several questions.

The analysis of this environment marked the beginning of discussions at the XXX La Jolla Energy Conference, which began Friday, May 7 and will conclude on May 28 and is being held virtually, due to the limitations imposed by the covid-19 pandemic.

The XXX La Jolla Energy Conference will be held on Wednesdays and Fridays of every week in May and is organized by the Institute of the Americas (IA), which has its headquarters in the coastal city of La Jolla, in the state of California, in the United States.

Jorge Rivera, Panama’s national secretary (minister) of energy, said his country is building a market and the technology, with the support of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to make hydrogen available.

“Panama is ready for that. We are working to develop the preliminary rules to participate in that market. In the short term, we see ourselves as a hydrogen hub for Latin America. We think we can play a role in building that hub,” he explained during his telematics participation.

In the short term, Rivera pointed out, the Central American country’s plan “more than producing, is to be a hub for storing and distributing hydrogen,” based on the existing logistics for storing hydrocarbons and the operation of the Panama Canal.

The “gray” hydrogen comes from gas and depends on the adaptation of gas pipelines for its transportation. In comparison, “blue” has the same origin, but plants capture the carbon dioxide (CO2) generated.

Production is based on steam methane reforming, which involves mixing the first gas with the second and heating it to obtain synthesis gas, but it yields CO2.

The production of “green” hydrogen uses electrolysis, whereby hydrogen is separated from oxygen using electrical energy as a separator. The gas reacts with air, generates electricity and releases steam. Electrolysis also makes it possible to recombine the two elements to form water and thus conceive fluid.

Green hydrogen has been added to the pool of clean sources to drive the energy transition away from fossil fuels and thus develop a low-carbon economy. Some countries also see it as a tool to generate foreign exchange and support recovery from the covid-19 pandemic.

In addition to hydrogen, the conference will also address topics such as the future of transportation, including its electrification; the outlook for gas in South America; energy cooperation between the United States and Mexico; as well as the future of hydrocarbons and the financing of the post-covid economic recovery.

For his part, Gabriel Prudencio, director of the Sustainable Energy Division of Chile’s Ministry of Mines and Energy, said that his country is in the early stages of seeking growth in a few years.

“Hydrogen is going to be important in the future, because it is already in use in several industries. We see that hydrogen will be used in transportation, as a gas to produce heat in industrial processes or domestic use,” he described.

Prudencio explained that “considering all this, Chile has a great potential to be an important player because of the renewable potential. We could produce the cheapest hydrogen in the world and use it in local development and export it to international markets”.

Chile already has a national hydrogen strategy, which aims to produce the cheapest green hydrogen on the planet by 2030, be among the top three exporters by 2040 and have five gigawatts of electrolysis capacity under development by 2025.

In addition, it has already drawn up an agenda of legal changes to promote this alternative.

In addition, the country has a US$15 million fund to support three pilot projects and a cooperation agreement with Singapore.

Uruguay is also interested in developing this resource to decarbonize its activities.

The Uruguayan Minister of Industry, Energy and Mining, Omar Paganini, said at the La Jolla Conference that “we are working to create conditions for the development of the market. We prepared the roadmap for hydrogen and developed a national strategy”.

The South American nation is executing a pilot project to replace diesel with hydrogen in heavy transport. In addition, the IDB is financing the analysis of gas use in other activities such as the production of green fertilizers.

Argentina also wants its slice of the hydrogen pie in the energy transition.

Santiago Sacerdote, general manager of YPF Tecnología, a subsidiary of state-owned oil company YPF, said the country has “extraordinary resources to develop those resources, such as ammonium, hydrogen and in other forms.”

“We can export low-carbon energy. We are going to see significant progress in the coming months,” said the executive director of Argentina’s H2Ar Consortium.

In that nation there is already a consortium of 40 companies and a public-private roundtable. It is also designing a new regulatory framework.

Argentina is focused on building an export platform, the collaborative partnership, a plan to execute pilot projects in several applications, create a domestic market and build the local supply chain.

Historically, Brazil was one of the pioneers in hydrogen analysis, but focused on biofuels and renewables. Now the country wants to catch up.

“We discussed energy transition strategies, including hydrogen. Brazil can be an exporter of green hydrogen. We thought about how to design that approach. We see export potential, but it is not the most competitive technology yet,” explained Agnes da Costa, director of the Special Advisory Committee on Regulatory Affairs at Brazil’s Ministry of Mines and Energy.

Hydrogen appears in Brazil’s National Energy Plan 2050. Last April, the National Energy Policy Council proposed the development of guidelines for the National Hydrogen Program, which should be ready in 60 days.

The Hydrogen Council, a global alliance of 13 major energy, industrial and transportation companies, sponsored the study “The Road to Hydrogen Competitiveness. A Cost Perspective,” launched in January 2020, which reviews 40 technologies used in 35 applications, such as commercial vehicles, trains, heaters and industrial conditioning.

In 22 of these, the costs incurred by a user over the lifetime of the application of one of these technologies will be comparable with other low-carbon alternatives by 2030.

One of the looming challenges is the infrastructure needed for gas storage and transportation.

Panama’s Rivera acknowledged that the big issue is the cost of electrolysis infrastructure and electricity generation, but predicted that “we can take advantage of falling prices in the future”.

In turn, the Chilean Prudencio indicated that infrastructure is needed locally and for export. “Many projects will be built at the consumption site, such as mining companies”, he exemplified.

The Uruguayan Paganini minimized the distances to be covered. “Long-term contracts are necessary and for that we need production and export schemes,” he suggested.

For the Argentine Sacerdote, the existing gas network can be a support for the market to take off. “We have to consolidate this market and create incentives, and establish strategic relationships with important buyers, such as Japan,” he said.

Finally, the Brazilian da Costa foreshadowed that when there are rules and market, investment will flow. ”

“But we are not there yet. It’s time to see if the new rules for the electric and gas sectors can include hydrogen. One of the pillars is technology neutrality, so that the market is all-inclusive,” he said.

Related Articles

• Capture of CO2 and hydrogen as part of Latin America’s energy future
• Crisis Hits Oil Industry and Energy Transition Alike

Credit: SHE Investments Cambodia

By Kaveh Zahedi
BANGKOK, Thailand, May 7 2021 (IPS)

We are living through a decisive moment. The COVID-19 pandemic’s devasting impact is reaching every corner of the world. As we look back at this period, we will see history divided into a pre-COVID and a post-COVID world.

And a defining feature of the post-COVID world will be the digital transformation that has permeated every aspect of our lives. Chief Technology Officers can say that the pandemic has done their job for them, accelerating the digitalization of economies and societies at an unimaginable pace.

The digital transformation has gone hand in hand with the rise of digital technologies. These technologies have supported governments to implement social protection schemes at pace and scale. They have enabled e-health and online education, and they are helping businesses continue to operate and trade through digital finance and e-commerce.

However, ensuring that the digital transformation happening all around us does not become another facet of the deep inequalities of the countries in Asia and the Pacific is probably one of the greatest challenges we face as countries start to rebuild.

That is why inclusion must be at the heart of digital transformation if the promise to “leave no one behind” is to be met. In particular, we need to embed inclusive objectives in the four core foundations of the digital economy: Internet access, digital skills, digital financing and e-commerce.

Chances are you are reading this on your laptop or mobile phone, giving you access to the digital world. It is hard for most of us to imagine what life would be like during the pandemic if we didn’t. Sadly, this is a reality for over 2 billion people in the Asia-Pacific region. And among those two billion are some of the most vulnerable groups. For example, some 20 per cent of students in East Asia and the Pacific and almost 40 per cent of students in South and West Asia could not access remote learning this past year. This will have lasting effects that perpetuate inter-generational inequality and poverty.

To address the digital divide, our Asia-Pacific Information Superhighway initiative focuses on four interrelated pillars: infrastructure connectivity, efficient Internet traffic and network management, e-resilience, and affordable broadband access for all.

However, Internet access alone is not enough. There is a persistent and still expanding digital skills gap in the Asia-Pacific region. Among the top ten most digitally advanced economies in Asia and the Pacific, around 90 per cent of their populations use the Internet. At the beginning of the century, this share stood at around 25 per cent. By contrast, for the bottom ten economies, Internet users have grown from around 1 per cent in 2000 to only 20 per cent today.

In response, our Asian and Pacific Training Centre for Information and Communication Technology for Development is equipping policymakers and women and youth with digital skills by conducting demand-driven training programmes.

On digital finance, while the percentage of digital payment users has increased over recent years, the gap between men and women users persists. Additionally, in East Asia and the Pacific, there is a US$1.3 trillion formal financing gap for women-led enterprises.

And while the Asia-Pacific region is emerging as a leading force in the global e-commerce market – with more than 40 per cent of the global e-commerce transactions – these gains have been led by just a few markets.

As a response, our Catalyzing Women’s Entrepreneurship project addresses the challenges women-owned enterprises face by developing innovative digital financing and e-commerce solutions to support women entrepreneurs, who have been hit harder than most during the pandemic. We have supported a range of digital finance and e-commerce solutions through this initiative – such as a digital bookkeeping app and an agritech solution – providing more inclusive options for women entrepreneurs to thrive. To date, the project has supported over 7,000 women to access financing and leveraged over US$50 million in private capital for women entrepreneurs.

Inclusion is undoubtedly central to the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Pacific’s (ESCAP) technology and innovation work that focuses on addressing the core foundations of an inclusive digital economy.

The recent ESCAP, ADB and UNDP report on “Responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Leaving No country Behind” underlined the key role digital technologies played during the pandemic and how they can also play a critical role in building back better. However, the report shows that digitalization can also widen gaps in economic and social development within and between countries, unless countries can provide affordable and reliable Internet for all and make access to the core foundations of the digital economy central to building back better.

While digital transformation is certain, its direction is not. Governments, civil society and the private sector must work together to ensure that digital technologies benefit not only the economy but society and the environment, and have inclusion at their heart. Only then do we stand a chance of realizing the transformative potential of digital technologies to accelerate progress on the Sustainable Development Goals.

Kaveh Zahedi is the Deputy Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

 

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Viral Facts Africa, a first of its kind African initiative to combat health misinformation online, was launched recently by the World Health Organization (WHO) and a network of fact-checking organizations and leading public health bodies.

By Cristina Duarte
UNITED NATIONS, May 7 2021 (IPS)

In rebuilding after COVID-19, policymakers must invest in innovative technology to leapfrog obstacles to inclusive development. Africa has enjoyed strong economic growth for most of the 21st century, mainly because of robust global demand for primary commodities.

But the “Africa Rising” narrative that accompanied this growth is mostly a story of rising GDP, which is overly one-dimensional. In fact, Africa’s economic growth has failed to generate many good jobs—postponing, once again, the benefits of the demographic dividend of a large working-age population.

Because there are fewer old and young people that require support than people of working age, the dividend is supposed to free up resources that can be devoted to inclusive development.

Instead, African policymaking continued its now nearly half-century belief that achieving “development” is limited to managing poverty—in other words, equating the business of development to poverty reduction.

The shift from the industrialization agenda of the early post-independence period to one of poverty reduction is a major reason for the continent’s economic malaise. As the African Innovation Summit (2018) put it, the development agenda shifted from socioeconomic transformation to the lowest common denominator, managing poverty.

To generate economic growth that leads to sustainable development, Africa must shift its focus to retaining and creating wealth, better managing its resources, fostering inclusiveness, moving up on global value chains, diversifying its economies, optimizing the energy mix, and placing human capital at the center of policymaking.

Cristina Duarte

For this to happen, African policy must foster investment in research, development, and innovation (R&D&I) to reboot the continent’s economic structures and catch up technologically with the rest of the world. Innovation, and the digital information technology that accompanies it, has become a necessary component of any effort to address such challenges as food security, education, health, energy, and competitiveness.

The world is driven by innovation: unless African policymakers reap the potential benefits of R&D&I, the global divide will keep growing. The problem is that innovation is talked about and debated, but not strategized.

It is here, paradoxically, that the COVID-19 pandemic, despite all the economic and social devastation it has caused, provides an opportunity for African countries to innovate and go digital. African countries will have to rebuild their economies. They should not merely repair them; they should remake them, with digitalization leading the way.

So far, civil societies seem to be more ready than policymakers to embrace digital technology. With no help from government, the digital technology industry has grown in Africa—through incubators and start-ups, tech hubs and data centers.

Information and communication technology (ICT) activities are spreading across the continent, and young Africans are responding with digital technology to the challenges posed by COVID-19.

For example, at an ICT hub in Kenya, FabLab created Msafari, a people-tracking application that can trace the spread of infections. A similar application, Wiqaytna6, was developed in Morocco. In Rwanda, the government is demonstrating what enlightened policies can achieve.

The country has invested heavily in digital infrastructure—90 percent of the country has access to broadband internet, and 75 percent of the population has cell phones. Early in the pandemic Rwanda parlayed that technological prowess into developing real-time digital mapping to track the spread of COVID-19, expanded telemedicine to reduce visits to clinics, and created chatbots to update people on the disease.

These are promising endeavors, but digitalization is not widespread in Africa. Rwanda is the exception. Only 28 percent of Africans use the internet, a digital divide that prevents the continent from taking full advantage of digital technology’s ability to mitigate some of the worst effects of the pandemic.

That slow spread of internet technology also makes it difficult for the continent to leapfrog obstacles to sustainable development. To generate transformative growth, digitalization cannot be left mainly to civil society and the private sector.

The socioeconomic divide in Africa feeds the digital divide, and vice versa. Digitalization needs to be scaled up forcefully by policymakers to unlock structural transformation.

Digital divide

When assessing the digital divide, it is important to remember that the issue is about more than access to the internet. How internet usage benefits the user is also a factor. The goal of digitalization should not just be greater consumption; it should enhance civil societies’ resilience, which demands a clear regulatory framework and an educated population.

In Africa, it’s not just internet connectivity that’s missing. So are other basics—including electricity, literacy, financial inclusion, and regulations. The result is that people are unable to use the digital solutions that are available.

Furthermore, a good share of African populations still struggles with such life-threatening problems as conflict and food insecurity, which make daily survival their only goal.

Millions of Africans are not only on the wrong side of the digital divide, they are on the wrong side of many divides—lacking basic health and public necessities such as electricity, clean water, education, and health care. COVID-19 has exacerbated their plight because lockdowns and social distancing have made many public services accessible only online.

The terrible truth is that these hundreds of millions of people have been left behind, and unless African policymakers realize that access to digital technologies is a critical tool for socioeconomic inclusion, progress will be confined to those with electricity and telecom services—further isolating the vast majority without such access. The divide will widen.

The deep disruptions generated by the pandemic have opened up opportunities to remake society that are subtle. These are times that test policymakers’ vision and leadership.

As McKinsey & Company (2020) noted, the “COVID-19 crisis contains the seeds of a large-scale reimagination of Africa’s economic structure, service delivery systems and social contract.

The crisis is accelerating trends such as digitalization, market consolidation and regional cooperation, and is creating important new opportunities—for example, the promotion of local industry, the formalization of small businesses and the upgrading of urban infrastructure.”

As Africa rebuilds from COVID-19 disruptions it must not return to a pre-pandemic reality. The moment is now.

As Africa rebuilds from COVID-19 disruptions it must not return to a pre-pandemic reality; it must build a better reality that recognizes the need for innovation, particularly digital technologies.

This is the prerequisite for victory over its myriad development challenges—such as poverty, health, productivity, competitiveness, economic diversification, food security, climate change, and governance.

Receptive to change

Over the past five years, change has occurred in Africa, suggesting that the continent may be receptive to building better rather than merely rebuilding. Liu (2019) identified three major African initiatives that signal such receptivity to change:

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which aims to create a single market with a combined GDP that exceeds $3.4 trillion and includes more than 1 billion people;

The South African government’s new Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution of the World Economic Forum (WEF), for dialog and cooperation on the challenges and opportunities presented by advanced technologies;

The WEF’s Africa Growth Platform, which aims to help companies grow and compete internationally, leveraging Africa’s entrepreneurial activity—13 percent higher in its initial stage than the global average.

These ongoing initiatives could become game changers, breathing life into the top-down dimension of going digital. So far, the change has been almost only from the bottom up. More than 600 technology hubs—places designed to help start-up companies—have emerged across the continent.

Three have achieved international recognition: Lagos in Nigeria, Nairobi in Kenya, and Cape Town in South Africa. These tech hubs host thousands of start-ups, incubators, technology parks, and innovation centers driven by the private sector and young people who, despite adversity, are aware of how self-employment is linked to innovation.

Public policy lacking

Things are less promising from the top down. According to a 2018 WEF report, 22 of 25 countries analyzed had no public policies focused on an ecosystem for innovation.

Investing in broad-based digitalization, from a geographic and sectoral point of view, is crucial not only to address socioeconomic problems but also to deal with peace and security challenges.

And it boosts economic growth. A study by the International Telecommunication Union found that 10 percent greater mobile broadband penetration would generate a 2.5 percent rise in Africa’s GDP per capita.

But digital solutions cannot be achieved in a vacuum. Policymakers must make implementation of digital technologies an element of an ecosystem of innovation, and there’s no time to lose. Well-calibrated regulatory frameworks, investment in infrastructure, digital skills, and financial inclusion must take priority.

Most research shows that digital technologies are essential to addressing socioeconomic challenges. They are often described as the single ingredient Africa needs to leapfrog to sustainable and inclusive economic development.

From an economic standpoint, better information and communication technology democratizes information crucial to production and market agents, which makes for more efficient value chains and more affordable products and services. And the most vulnerable people will benefit.

However, the massive adoption of digital technologies also means that policymakers must be aware of and address the complex legal and ethical impact of technology in society, including privacy, data, and tax evasion.

This is especially true in Africa, where weak institutions might not be strong enough to uphold the rights and interests of their people against those of the market.

Source: Finance and Development, International Monetary fund (IMF), Washington DC

 

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The post Africa Goes Digital appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The writer is special adviser on Africa to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and former finance minister of Cabo Verde.

The post Africa Goes Digital appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: Twitter @Dr_Aqsa_Shaikh

By Mariya Salim
NEW DELHI, India, May 7 2021 (IPS)

When Dr Aqsa Sheikh Tweeted and asked if she was the only transgender person to head a vaccination centre, it seemed extraordinary that in a country with 1.3 billion people, that this could be true.

“Can I lay claim to be the only #Transgender person to head a #Covid #Vaccination Centre in India? Will be very happy to have company of other Trans Folks in this spot,” she wrote on March 3, 2021.

India had turned countless hospitals into COVID-19 vaccination centres – and Sheikh was, and still is, the only transwoman heading one.

Born and raised in Mumbai, Dr Aqsa Sheikh is a proud Muslim transwoman. She is presently living in Delhi and working as the Associate Professor of Community Medicine at Hamdard Institute of Medical Sciences and Research. She is the nodal officer of a COVID-19 Vaccination Center, involved in COVID-19 surveillance, and engaged in vaccine and transmission research. Despite her qualifications even in a pandemic, the idea of a trans-Muslim woman as a doctor defies stereotypes.

“I haven’t faced any active face-to-face discrimination. However, a lot of name-calling on social media is common. In my videos, I get comments of people asking whether I am a man or a woman or why is my voice so masculine,” Sheikh told Inter Press Service (IPS) in an exclusive interview.

“People call us ‘Madarsa chhaap’ (derogatorily referring to being from an Islamic School), ‘Hijras’ (a term sometimes used to refer to trans people in a derogatory manner) and so on.”

When asked how her gender identity affects her daily professional interactions, especially during the pandemic, Sheikh says that often “our stories and our identity travel to people before us”, so people look at her through many lenses.

The intersections of her identity are many, Muslim, transgender, woman, leader, health activist.

She credits two aspects of her life for saving her from stigmatisation often experienced in the trans community. Firstly, a lot of time has passed since she transitioned, and secondly, she is in a position of privilege where she is a provider rather than someone who is seeking the service. Both these make her less of a target for discrimination.

Coming out as a trans woman, however, has not been an easy task for Dr Sheikh.

When she broke the news to her family that she was a transwoman, there was anger, denial, and rebuttal.

She says she understands that for a family which has never had exposure to a transgender person, to accept that someone they have raised as a boy for 20 years now says and affirms that they are a woman was difficult to accept. The transition, which involved surgical and legal transitions, met with increased resistance because she came from a conservative Muslim background.

“While my mother stays with me, the rest of the family is not very comfortable affirming these familial bonds, but then you can’t get everything in life,” Sheikh says. “I am happy that I have been able to do what I wanted to do despite all the opposition from society, and that’s what matters at the end of the day.”

Sheikh also emphasises there is a lot of homophobia within the Muslim community, like most communities. Still, she believes that acceptance of trans and intersex people is a little better, especially for those who transition.

The most important thing, according to Sheikh, is to be comfortable with oneself and be secure in the knowledge that she is not doing anything wrong.

“When I was confident that I was right, what I am doing is not wrong or anti-religion, then I was able to talk more about it, I was able to convince more people about it, I was able to break down more walls,” she says.

According to Sheikh, the intersectionality of identities at play and understanding them is also imperative.

“You are not just a Muslim person, or just a queer person, just a doctor. You are not just a woman or just an Indian. You are all of them together,” she says. “So, I, for example, do not only speak on the transgender issues, but I also speak on the different issues of the Muslim community. I speak on the issues faced by the Kashmiri Muslims, those faced by the patients while receiving healthcare irrespective of whether they are cis (assigned and identify with a gender given at birth) or trans.”

She feels once people see you as someone who understands intersectionality (the interconnectedness of aspects of race, class, gender, and religion), acceptance increases.

The transgender community is highly vulnerable, says Sheikh and accessing general, COVID-19, or transition-specific healthcare is challenging.

“With COVID-19 and then the subsequent national lockdowns, the number of service providers available for providing services to the trans persons saw a decrease,” Sheikh says. “During such times, the stigmatisation also always increases because one is looking for scapegoats.”

She says the blame for transmission is often placed on minority groups, like the Tablighi Jamaat or trans persons.

Mental health services, which are a privilege for any person in India to afford, became difficult to access during the pandemic.

“Especially (difficult) when it came to queer-affirmative mental healthcare and counselling. The pandemic has been a tough and challenging time for the trans community with so many losing their traditional livelihood measures,” Sheikh says.

With all the challenges that the present pandemic brings with it, she continues with her activism.

Apart from her professional medical engagements, she runs an NGO called Human Solidarity Foundation.

“We started a charitable clinic in Zakir Nagar this year. With the second wave of COVID-19, apart from distributing food kits and other work, we are doing a teleconsultation and also helping out people with COVID-19 resources,” she says.

Sheikh’s education was funded by Zakaat Funds (money to be compulsorily given by Muslims for charitable causes), and it’s her dream that the potential of children is not lost because of lack of resources. Eradication of hunger, health and education for all, sensitisation and awareness are her goals.

“I am not sure whether we can achieve these in my lifetime, but that’s what I really look forward to.”

Mariya Salim is a fellow at IPS UN Bureau

 

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A new report categorized people in Burkina Faso, South Sudan and Yemen as being in ‘Catastrophe,’ meaning that they need immediate action to prevent widespread death and collapse of livelihoods. This year’s report on Food Crises presents the grimmest snapshot to date of global food insecurity. Thousands of displaced people camping under trees in Minkaman, northeastern South Sudan.(file photo). Credit: Andrew Green/IPS

By Alison Kentish
UNITED NATIONS, May 6 2021 (IPS)

The COVID-19 pandemic, protracted conflicts and climate change have created an untenable situation for the most vulnerable, with 155 million people across 55 territories suffering from severe food insecurity, sending acute hunger figures to a 5-year high.

That’s according to the Global Network Against Food Crises, an alliance of humanitarian partners working to prevent hunger and respond to food crises. The Network, which was founded by the European Union, Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP), released the findings of its 2021 Global Report on Food Crises on Wednesday, May 6.

The partners have issued an annual report on food crises since 2017, but this year’s publication presents the grimmest snapshot to date of global food insecurity. It reported that 20 million more people faced acute hunger in 2020 than the previous year.

Stating that by the end of 2020, the zero hunger by 2030 goal seemed “increasingly out of reach”, the report categorised 133,000 people in Burkina Faso, South Sudan and Yemen as being in “catastrophe”, meaning that they need immediate action to prevent widespread death and collapse of livelihoods.

Additionally, it stated that children living in food-crisis countries are especially vulnerable to malnutrition. In the 55 food-crisis countries under review, almost 16 million children under 5 years were acutely malnourished, while 75.2 million children under five years experienced stunted growth.

The Network Partners say it is possible to reverse the rising trend of food insecurity, but this requires urgent commitment, finance and action.

“Humankind can now pilot a helicopter drone and even split molecules to generate oxygen on the far-off planet of Mars, yet here on Earth, 155 million of our human family are suffering acute hunger and their lives and livelihoods are at risk because they lack the most basic of foods. The contrast is shocking and not acceptable,” said FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu.

The FAO Chief says as the international and humanitarian community prepares for the United Nations Food Systems Summit in September, the information in reports like this one should serve as a guide for solutions to the world’s hunger crises.

“This requires a bold transformation of agri-food systems to be more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable. This includes the development of early warning systems linked to anticipatory actions to protect livelihoods and food security before a shock or the threat emerges,” he said.

UN Children’s Fund Executive Director Henrietta Fore told the launch that the situation was worrying. She said COVID-19, with its lockdowns, economic and social shocks, has worsened a fragile nutrition situation.

“In virtually every single one of the crises described in this year’s report, the most vulnerable are young children and marginalised, hard-to-reach populations,” she said. “These children and their communities must be our priority. We need to invest in data and information systems that help us identify hot spots of vulnerability and risk at the sub-national levels in key countries. This information is critical in targeting resources efficiently to reach children, their families and their communities who are most in need.”

While the partners lament the staggering acute food insecurity statistics, the outlook is just as dire. They say threat of famine persists in some of the world’s worst food crises.

“Tragically, this report is just the tip of the iceberg that we’re facing all around the world,” said WFP Executive Director David Beasley. 

“The global picture is even more bleak when we consider all countries significantly impacted by hunger. For example, chronic hunger, which was 690 million, is now up an additional 130 million people.”

According to the report’s forecast, while conflict will remain the main driver of food crises in 2021, the economic fallout of COVID-19 will worsen acute food insecurity in fragile economies. 142 million people are projected to be in a food crisis, emergency or famine, in 40 territories for which forecasts are available.

“High levels of acute food insecurity will persist in countries with protracted conflicts by limiting access to livelihoods and agricultural fields, uprooting people from their homes, and increasing displaced populations’ reliance on humanitarian aid for their basic needs,” the report stated.

The Global Network Against Food Crises says while humanitarian assistance is urgently needed, on its own, it is insufficient to deal with the scale of the present crises. The Network says the answer also lies in peace and a transformation of global food systems.

“A system that has the most vulnerable people continuing to bear the greatest burden of global crises is broken. We must take this opportunity to transform food systems, reduce the number of people in need of humanitarian food assistance and contribute meaningfully to sustainable development and peaceful and prosperous societies,” it said.

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Women informal cross-border traders. Credit: Trevor Davies/IPS

By Ifeanyi Nsofor, Adaeze Oreh, and John Lazame Tindabil
May 6 2021 (IPS)

Recently, both Republics of Benin and Chad held their 2021 national elections. These countries are among thirteen countries on the continent billed to elect new political leaders in 2021 alone. This is a good opportunity to improve conditions on the continent. Indeed, the COVID-19 pandemic has magnified other issues on the continent like youth unemployment that better leadership could help improve.

These are three ways West African leaders can better help their nations at this time of COVID-19 and beyond.

First, the rate of youth unemployment must be effectively tackled.

Younger nationals must be encouraged and supported to enter politics at all levels, vying for not only executive office, but also parliamentary seats in local, state and national elections

According to the United Nations, about 64% of the population in West and Central Africa are aged below 24. Although these young people are a huge resource for the region, unemployment, and a failure to invest and develop such as agriculture, education, health, and industry have led to an under-utilisation of this vital resource.

Sadly, the World Bank reports youths account for 60% of all of Africa’s jobless. For a continent with more than 200 million people aged between 15 and 24, the continent is home to the world’s youngest population whose level of unemployment is twice that of older adults.

Most electioneering and campaign messaging encourage violence, and with an astonishing number of unemployed and “working poor” amongst youth in the sub-region, these young people are ready tools to be used for violence, election fraud and social unrest, not to mention communal conflict and gang violence.

With informal employment being the default at up to 89% of jobs in sub-Saharan Africa, social safety nets and workers’ rights are inaccessible to most youths.  Last year, Ghanaian President Nana Addo Akufo-Addo announced that his country would cease to export cocoa to Switzerland, its largest trade partner, to increase cocoa processing and chocolate manufacturing for export.

This bold move which speaks to a focus on innovation could however change the status quo for Ghana and the West African sub-region. Harnessing the country’s youthful population into innovation-led agricultural and value-adding industrial processes medical equipment and vaccines will attract new and improved business ventures, which would lead to the creation of more jobs and economic growth.

Secondly, we must involve youths in elective offices.

United Nations projections reveal that over the next twenty-five years, the population of sub-Saharan Africa is projected to double (in what constitutes a 99% increase). For the youngest continent in the world, there is a vast disconnect between its people and its leaders – age, as the region plays host to some of the “oldest and longest-serving political leaders”.

Changing the political narrative will require Africa’s youth to throw their hats in the ring and defy entrenched systems of elder deference to bring about political change. Younger nationals must be encouraged and supported to enter politics at all levels, vying for not only executive office, but also parliamentary seats in local, state and national elections.

Lastly, there must be gender balance in elective offices.

There is no current female West African leader. Liberia’s Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was the first elected female leader in Africa, while Nigeria’s Patricia Etteh and Joyce Adeline Bamford-Addo of Ghana were two female Speakers of Parliament in a list of elected female West African leaders that is still too short.

Experience from the COVID-19 pandemic illustrated that nations that were successful in containing the virus were mostly women-led. There have been suggestions that women leaders are more diverse and inclusive in the perspectives brought to bear in their exercise of leadership, and prioritise the protection of their citizens over risk.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s leadership in the eye of the storm of the West African Ebola outbreak of 2014 is a case in point. Madam Sirleaf herself has stated that the success of women leaders in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic has been borne out of their readiness to “draw on informal networks, ingenious partnerships, community support and alternative resources to solve problems.”

COVID-19 has affected all aspects of governance – economy, businesses, healthcare, education etc. Consequently, it will take a long time for economies to recover to pre-pandemic levels.

To quote Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: “Now is the time to recognize that developmental transformation and true peace cannot come without fundamental change in who is leading and the ways of leading.”

Dr. Ifeanyi McWilliams Nsofor is a graduate of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. He is a Senior New Voices Fellow at the Aspen Institute and a Senior Atlantic Fellow for Health Equity at George Washington University. Ifeanyi is the Director Policy and Advocacy at Nigeria Health Watch. You can follow him on Twitter @ekemma.

Dr Adaeze Oreh is a Consultant Family Physician and Country Head of Planning, Research and Statistics for Nigeria’s National Blood Transfusion Service. She is also an Amujae Leader and Senior Fellow for Global Health with the Aspen Institute in Washington D.C. You can follow her on Twitter at @Adaeze_Oreh

John Lazame Tindanbil  is a public health practitioner working to provide quality reproductive healthcare, including safe abortion services. He leads MABIA-Ghana and is a Senior New Voices Fellow at the Aspen Institute. You can follow him on Twitter @JLazame_5090

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UN Secretary-General António Guterres (right) speaks with Yeashea Braddock, Operations Manager at the Morris High School vaccination site, after getting his second vaccine shot against COVID-19 at that High School in the Bronx, New York. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

By Sunil J. Wimalawansa
NEW JERSEY, USA, May 6 2021 (IPS)

There is considerable evidence that vitamin D reduces the risk and severity of COVID-19 (Mercola 2020 ; Wimalawansa, 2020). More than 50 clinical studies have published confirming that high doses of vitamin D administered early in persons with COVID-19 significantly reduce complications and the need for ICU admissions.

Additionally, five randomised controlled clinical trials (RCTs) were published using high-dose vitamin D in COVID-19 patients, and over 20 other large RCTs are ongoing. To obtain benefits, however, doses high enough must be administered early in the disease.

Among others, few examples of countries where these RCTs conducted were Brazil (Murai et al, 2021), India (Rastogi, et al, 2020 ; Lakkireddy, 2021), and Spain (Castillo, et al, 2020 ; Nogués et al, 2021). The vitamin D3 doses used were between 130,000 IU to 300,000 IU or the equivalent of 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D, also known as calcifediol] as used by Castillo et al. in Spain.

As shown in the meta-analysis, figures 1 and 2, at https://vdmeta.com, even with slightly less optimal doses of calcifediol resulted in over 50% (95% confidence interval, 14 to 71%) reduction in severe adverse outcomes by preventing the development of cytokine storm and death.

The effect of early treatment with high-dose vitamin D in persons with COVID-19 illustrated in Figure 1 (adapted from https://vdmeta.com).

There are no adverse effects of high-dose vitamin D3 supplementation of up to 600,000 IU administered as single or divided doses. Also, long-term supplementation of 50,000 IU/day vitamin D3 have not reported adverse effects (McCullough, et al, 2019).

An example of cost-effectiveness of treating persons with “Symptomatic” COVID-19, using high dose vitamin D.

Credit: World Health Organization (WHO)

In examples below, the expected death rates is adjustable with 75% reduction following vitamin D; so as the cost of vitamin D per patient:

• – Admissions or transfers of symptomatic COVID patients to a hospital: n=2,000

 

• – Administer 200,000 IU dose to 1,000 and a placebo to 1,000 (i.e., every other person)

 

• – Expected death rate without vitamin D: 8%; i.e., 80 people die out of 1,000

 

• – Expected death rate with vitamin D, “4-times” less, 2%; 20 people die out of 1,000

 

• – 60 fewer deaths for 1,000 symptomatic COVID persons treated with vitamin D

 

• – Assume, one dose cost, $1.00: So, 1,000 persons cost, $1,000

 

• – So, 60 fewer deaths in 1,000 patients: to save 60 lives, cost $1,000

 

– Approximate cost per life saved = $16.60

Conclusion

Vitamin D, 200,000 IU dose in single or divided doses is safe and highly cost-effective in reducing complications and deaths in persons with SARS-CoV-2 infection. Early use of vitamin D (100,000 to 600,000 IU) can reduce ICU admissions by ~80%. Therefore, vitamin D can greatly reduce the need for expanding ICU beds AND cost less than 0.001% of using an ICU bed/day.

Additional information regarding bolus D3 and oral calcifediol:

There is little vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) in food and multivitamins, including fortified food. Without passing through glass or sunscreen, skin exposure to ultraviolet-B from high-elevation sunlight can produce sufficient D3 for bone and immune system health.

However, low elevation sunlight in winter, clouds, pollution, clothing cover, melanin-rich skin and concerns about skin cancer mean that most people are vitamin D deficient unless they take vitamin D supplements.

Conversion of D3 in the liver to the circulating form, 25(OH)D, and for the immune cells to function takes two to five days. 25(OH)D is measured in the blood test and has a half-life of ~three weeks. Recent research shows that the immune system requires at least 40 ng/ml (100 nmol/L) circulating 25(OH)D to support autocrine (inside each cell) and paracrine (to nearby cells) signalling. Please refer to the research articles at: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/02-autocrine/.

In the long term, such levels can be attained, on average for 70 kg adults, with 0.125 mg (5,000 IU) D3 per day. This is 72 IU per kg body weight per day and 100 IU/kg for people suffering from obesity due to fat absorption of 25(OH)D.

The link to research articles cited follows: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/01-supp/.

Since most people-and almost all who are at risk of severe COVID-19 symptoms-have circulating 25(OH)D levels much lower than 40 ng/mL, such as between 5 and 25 ng/mL, their D3 supplementation should begin at 5 to 10 times the long-term quantity of 4,000 IU/day needed, in order to attain and maintain the required blood 25(OH)D levels rapidly.

While vaccines markedly reduce the severity of and deaths from COVID-19, vitamin D cost less than 1% of a COVID vaccine.

As reported in several studies, most hospitalised patients with COVID-19 can be assumed to be vitamin D deficient. Their health and survival depend mainly on raising their 25(OH)D levels to at least 40 ng/ml, ideally within hours, rather than days or weeks.

Some of the trials mentioned above attempted to do this with bolus D3 doses, except that in the Murai et al. trial, given too little treatment, too late (i.e., faulty study design).

The urgency of 25(OH) D repletion is acute for all those suffering from, or at risk of, hyper-inflammatory immune dysregulation (i.e., cytokine storm), which causes severe COVID-19 and death.

The primary mechanism of this recently elucidated by McGregor, et al, 2020-Th1 regulatory lymphocytes remain stuck in their initial pro-inflammatory program and fail to switch to their anti-inflammatory shutdown program due solely to lack of 25(OH)D.

This explains the extraordinary success of trial by Castillo et al., in which patients were given 0.532 mg oral calcifediol, which raises circulating 25(OH)D levels to about 50 ng/ml in four hours (Sune Negre, 2016).

This resulted in the reduction of ICU admissions by 90% (from 50% to 2%) and deaths from 8% to zero. The earlier the treatment is given, the better the clinical outcomes are.

Calcifediol has been hard to obtain but is now available in the USA and Canada without prescription: https://dvelopimmunity.com. Sixty 20 microgram tablets for $30 contain 1.2 mg calcifediol-more than twice the single initial dose used by Castillo et al.

In that trial, 0.266 mg calcifediol was also given on days 3, 7, 14, etc. However, maintenance of the initial boost to 25(OH)D can most easily be achieved with 5,000 to 10,000 IU D3 per day.

We have urged governments of Sri Lanka and India, in particular, to seriously consider obtaining calcifediol tablets to prevent severe complications, ICU admissions, and deaths from COVID-19, which is highly cost-effective.

Contact information: *Sunil J. Wimalawansa, MD, PhD, MBA, DSc
suniljw@hotmail.com; +1 908 705 0944

 

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Excerpt:

The writer* is Professor of Medicine, Endocrinology & Nutrition, Director CardioMetabolic Institute, USA

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Credit: Bigstock

By Daud Khan and Leila Yasmine Khan
AMSTERDAM/ROME, May 5 2021 (IPS)

For several years, a fast growing and assertive China has been challenging the USA’s global dominance.  China’s GDP, taking into account differences in purchasing power, is now greater than that of the USA; its military spending has been expanding rapidly and exceeds by wide margins that of other countries except the USA with which it is catching up; it is the manufacturing power house of the world; it is quickly moving up the technological ladder; and it is the key trading partner for an increasing number of countries.  All this is creating tensions with the USA and its key allies.

The western press is full of talk of how awful the Chinese are. Among the top issues are Chinese violations of human rights, their hounding of Muslim Uyghurs and their trampling of civil rights and other liberties in Hong Kong.

While the western countries continue to do business with China, developing countries are being increasingly asked to make a choice.  The position is similar to that of the USA during the Cold War or the War on Terror – either you are with us or you are against us

This hysteria will grow as China will take more aggressive postures on various issues such as the reunification of Taiwan (which it will surely do sooner or later); claims to various islands off its coastline; and commercial and political agreements around the globe, especially in resource rich countries such as those in the Middle-East and in Africa. 

Despite all the diatribes, and the talk of sanctions and boycotts, for the moment no one is walking away from doing business with China. In 2020 China was the largest recipient of foreign direct investment (FDI). In fact, while global FDI fell sharply, investment into China grew to a record level of over US$160 billion – and it is the big western multinationals are leading the charge into China.   

It is a similar story with Hong Kong. Despite all the criticism about Chinese repression and how it will destroy confidence, Hong Kong’s financial sector is booming. Forbes, a premier business news and analysis periodical – states that Hong Kong remains “a top choice for raising funds, and the city has ranked as the world’s number one IPO venue in seven of the past 12 years. In 2020 alone, HKEX recorded a 24% year-on-year fundraising increase, raising a total of HK$398 billion (US$51.3 billion) from 154 listings. This was the highest amount in a single year since 2010 ……”. Western financial institutions are heavily involved.  

So, while the western countries continue to do business with China, developing countries are being increasingly asked to make a choice.  The position is similar to that of the USA during the Cold War or the War on Terror – either you are with us or you are against us. 

But developing countries should remain well aware of the history of the last decades.  The USA had no compunctions about starting wars and invasions when it suited them; racism, discrimination and Islamophobia remains a part of the culture in many sections of society in western countries; and the anti-immigrant rhetoric that is fanned by their populist parties has been gaining ground. 

At the same time, developing countries should not have any illusions of what it means to end up in the clutches of the Chinese dragon. The Chinese may not have had a recent colonial history but there has been plenty of mayhem and bloodshed in their past. Moreover, as many countries are beginning to find out, Chinese friendship, aid and investments sometimes comes at a high economic and political cost.

The best strategy for developing countries in the coming years would be to avoid, at all costs, to take sides; to buy time; to hem and haw. But what I call “strategic procrastination” does not simply mean indecision or postponing. It also means looking around to get the best deal possible, trying to play one side off against the other, of negotiating and negotiating and negotiating.  

China’s foreign policy rhetoric is that it does not seek spheres of geopolitical influence. Rather, it seeks shared prosperity and its companies have been told to go out and make deals.  This is good news for developing countries and they should make sure that they use Chinese offers to also try and squeeze better deals from the USA or Europe.

If they have to upgrade their ICT hardware, they need to compare Qualcomm (American), Eriksson (European) and Huawei (Chinese).  If they have to buy or sell agricultural commodities they need to be talking to China’s COFCO, the new kid on the block, as well as the traditional big four grain traders (ADM, Bunge, Cargill and Louis Drefus) who have so far dominated world trade. If they have to build infrastructure they need to talk to the Chinese giants such as China Communications Construction Company as well as Bechtel (USA), or to some of the big Europeans such as Vinci and Skanska.  

However, trying to play off two super powers against each other is not a simple task.  It is certainly risky. And not all Governments may be smart and savvy enough to get this right.  

What would certainly help is greater transparency and public scrutiny of the big Government to Government deals being signed by developing countries – be it with China, the USA or any other country. 

And there is little doubt that given their rich history of NGOs, pressure, advocacy groups, and whistleblowers, western countries are better at this. It is essential that these groups continue their work in developing countries, and that national counterparts continue to be as welcoming and cooperative as they can.    

Another important source of technical assistance and oversight are the various UN agencies and international NGOs such Transparency International.  The press, academia and intellectuals in developing countries need to strengthen their links with these organizations – not only because of their skills and neutrality, but also because they are in a politically stronger position to speak out and be listened to.

 

Daud Khan works as consultant and advisor for various Governments and international agencies. He has degrees in Economics from the LSE and Oxford – where he was a Rhodes Scholar; and a degree in Environmental Management from the Imperial College of Science and Technology. He lives partly in Italy and partly in Pakistan

Leila Yasmine Khan is an independent writer and editor based in the Netherlands. She has Master’s degrees in Philosophy of Cognition and one in Argumentation Theory and Rhetoric – both from the University of Amsterdam – as well as a Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy from the University of Rome (Roma Tre). She provided research and editorial support. 

 

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By External Source
NEW YORK, May 5 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Approximately 100 million children are out of school in the Middle East and North Africa as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, armed conflicts and protracted crises. To provide these girls and boys with the mental health and psychosocial support they need to deal with the trauma and stress of these multiplying crises, Education Cannot Wait (ECW) announced today US$250,000 in new funding to support the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Better Learning Programme in the Middle East.

The nine-month ECW Acceleration Facility grant will provide school-based mental health and psychosocial support, strengthen regional capacity to integrate the Better Learning Programme into education programming, advocate for enhanced mental health services for children, and ensure the Better Learning Programme is available as a public good that can be taken to scale and replicated across education in emergency projects.

“Many girls and boys in the Middle East have lived through unspeakable traumas. They have hidden in basements during bombings, been forced to flee their homes, or lost loved ones. For these children and youth, education represents a safe place to learn, grow and thrive,” said Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait, the United Nations’ global fund for education in emergencies. “With this new grant, we are accelerating our work to provide whole-of-child solutions that include access to education, access to remote learning tools during the COVID-19 lockdowns, and access to the mental health and psychosocial support these children need to recover from these terrifying traumas and grow up to be productive members of society.”

The Norwegian Refugee Council’s Better Learning Programme focuses on improving learning capacity by integrating techniques for coping with stress and adversity into daily teaching and learning. This encourages a natural recovery for children and youth who are struggling to recover from the impacts of violence, displacement and the disruptions to regular school routines caused by the COVID-19 school shutdowns. Evidence-based multi-layered approaches provide targeted psychosocial support in the classroom and through small-group interventions for academic under-achievers. The programme also provides specialized services for children experiencing nightmares, a chronic symptom of severe stress.

In the region, ECW supports education in emergency responses in Iraq, Lebanon, the State of Palestine and Syria, providing children with protective learning environments along with the psychosocial and mental health support they need to cope with stress and adversity.

A recent Norwegian Refugee Council investigation indicates that the fear of COVID-19 is leading to an alarming rise in stress levels amongst refugee and displaced children in the Middle East. Without reliable access to the internet or other remote learning tools, many of these children have spent months now without access to the safety and consistency that quality learning environments provide.

“Children who were once forced to flee hunger, bombs and bullets, now face an epidemic of fear caused by the global coronavirus. With no end to the outbreak in sight, toxic stress poses a major health threat to the Middle East’s most vulnerable children. This poses a significant threat to the future prospects for this generation of learners, who will enter adulthood without the necessary cognitive and social-emotional skills to meaningfully participate in society, perpetuating cycles of violence, displacement, poverty and hunger,” said Camilla Lodi, Regional Psychosocial Support Advisor at the Norwegian Refugee Council.

 

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Produce stall in Brooklyn, New York. As the world faces rising poverty, conflict, climate change and COVID-19, the United Nations says ensuring access to safe, nutritious food for all is more urgent than ever as prepares to host the inaugural Global Food Systems Summit in September. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

By Alison Kentish
UNITED NATIONS, May 5 2021 (IPS)

Global youth advocates have been told that they play a crucial role in ensuring that the world produces and consumes food with greater attention to nutrition, food security, equality and sustainability.

As the United Nations prepares to host the inaugural Global Food Systems Summit in September, the organisation is hosting a series of dialogues to correct flaws in the way food is grown, processed, packaged and marketed, hoping to tackle growing world hunger, water scarcity and climate change.

On Tuesday, the UN Food Systems Summit brought over 100 youth delegates to the discussion, under the theme “Good Food for All.”

The dialogue was convened by the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Food Systems Summit Agnes Kalibata and UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Executive Director Henrietta H. Fore.

The UNICEF Chief said the dialogue and summit are taking place at a time when the world needs to double up its efforts to alleviate childhood hunger.

“We are seeing stubbornly high rates of wasting and stunting – and a worrying increase in overweight and obesity. At the same time, the world faces a toxic combination of inequalities, poverty, conflict, climate change, COVID-19, and even looming famines that threaten further progress on nutrition,” Fore said.

She added that without urgent action, an additional nine million children under the age of five may suffer from acute malnutrition by 2022.

The dialogue was a chance for youth delegates to hear from other youth leaders, including U.S Agricultural Extension Specialist Janya Green. Green has been working on and promoting community food gardens since she was 12. She is a youth co-chair of one of five initiatives or ‘action tracks’ by the Food Systems Summit. Her role is to promote access to safe and nutritious food.

“Hunger worldwide is a huge problem,” she told the gathering. “Even before taking COVID-19 into account, hunger was projected to rise. If we do not reverse this current trend, the Sustainable Development Goal Zero Hunger target will not be met.”

Green announced that she has partnered with 25 fellow youth leaders and to launch a Youth #actforfood #actforchange campaign to bring the signatures of one million young people to the Global Food Systems Summit in September. They will be calling on leaders to transform global food systems.

Sustainable energy and climate crisis activist Emmanuel Sindikubwabo told IPS that the climate and nature crises are linked to poverty and hunger.

“We need avenues for environmental education and support for youth initiatives to use that knowledge to create decent work in agriculture for more youth. This can stimulate conservation and promote sustainable food production,” he said.

The youth leader, who heads Rwanda’s We Do Green Organisation and trains other young people in environmental conservation and climate change mitigation, says young people will need support to embrace their roles as agents of food systems change.

“We need more spaces and opportunities for youth-led initiatives for research and learning on climate-smart agriculture. We can then use this knowledge in local and context-based solutions for sustainable food systems,” he told IPS.

The UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth Jayathma Wickramanayake told the dialogue that as world leaders step up action on commitments as part of the Decade of Action on the Sustainable Development Goals, transforming global food systems is one of the biggest hopes for reducing global warming.

“This is especially true when we consider that currently 33 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions are generated by food systems. Increasing industrial farming is resulting in loss of biodiversity at an enormous scale that could become irreversible,” she said. “The climate emergency and our unsustainable food systems are driving social injustice and inequalities, especially among our young people.”

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ Global Humanitarian Overview for 2021, the global recession wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic led to an increase in extreme poverty for the first time in over two decades.

It warned that globally, hunger is rising and stated that the devastating pandemic-climate change duo was affecting food systems worldwide.

The dialogue organisers say current models show too many food systems prioritising profit over purpose, putting nutritious food out of the reach of millions of households. This is where nutritional worries emerge. Add the use of fertilisers and pesticides to the equation, along with the exploitation of water resources and they say it is clear that the world cannot continue to produce and consume food as it is doing presently.

The Global Food Systems Summit hopes to transform these systems and offer solutions for feeding the world’s population in an efficient, equitable and environmentally sustainable way.

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The post Youth Voice and Action Critical to Reforming the World’s Food Systems appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Four months before the United Nations holds the Global Food Systems Summit, youth advocates met virtually this week and under the ‘Good Food for All’ banner, presented their ideas for transforming food production and consumption

The post Youth Voice and Action Critical to Reforming the World’s Food Systems appeared first on Inter Press Service.

In Beijing, China, 11th grader Xiaoyu studies at home while her mother also works remotely. Credit: UNICEF/UNI304636/Ma

By Simone Galimberti
KATHMANDU, Nepal, May 5 2021 (IPS)

Children all over the world are having tough times while coping with the consequences of the pandemic but the circumstances affecting them in the Philippines are even more daunting.

The learning crisis that has been affecting millions of vulnerable children deprived of their education throughout the lockdown as schools remain shut, is probably its most visible example whose resolution will require strategic vision, long term commitment and a holistic dimension all together.

The situation remains even more worrisome due to the draconian regulations surrounding the imposition of strict lockdown measures for minors within Metro Manila Council, where children have been prohibited from going out since March.

The controversial decision did not come out of the blue but instead builds on rules being enforced by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases, whose decisions have been defined as opaque by the Economist.

Throughout the lockdown the Task Force took a hardline position forcing millions of children to strictly abide to home stay regulations, basically indicting them to something resembling reclusion and segregation.

The measure has been widely condemned across the spectrum as disproportionate and too much restricting of the rights of the children.

“These measures should consider the highest level of acceptability and feasibility, proven effectiveness and should minimize the negative consequences on health and well-being of all members of society” according to an official statement by UNICEF Philippines released on March 19.

Certainly, there is not an easy way out to ensure that children from most vulnerable communities can have their rights fully re-enforced as the pandemic has exposed long simmering fractures in the system that have systematically penalized poor kids.

Ideally, a common solution to the problem should be found within ASEAN but till then, the onus goes on better policy making that should be open to collaborations and partnerships.

Closing the digital divide would allow better conditions for disadvantaged kids not to be left behind in any future scenario where another pandemic might strike.

It means huge investment from the Government but also from the telecom sector together with resources being allocated by external development partners like the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, the European Union and others.

Reaching out to the most vulnerable segments of the citizenry with appropriate technology would create the market incentives for a massive rollout of fast connectivity that, if properly subsidized, would create incentives to telecoms to invest in the most deprived areas of the country, including urban pockets with high levels of vulnerability.

At the same time, an inclusive digital blueprint, a goal also being pursued collectively at ASEAN level, will not make up for other types of investments the education sector is desperately in need for.

The Philippines like many low-income nations must prioritize investments in public education from better teaching to better equipped infrastructures to a wider social protection system with financial measures directly targeting the most vulnerable children and their families.

The challenge is to strike a balance between short terms needs and longer terms benefits, using the current crisis instrumentally, laying the foundations for more equitable child focused public services, assuring a national framework but also a locally effective governance systems that prioritize children’s needs.

Obviously, education and health are the key cornerstones of such a new child centered approach to government.

UNICEF has been trying to provide a global template on how to effectively ensure that minors are not paying the highest price while enduring the perverse effects of this pandemic.

The A Six Point Plan to Protect Our Children is a blueprint on how to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic on children, covering areas from inclusive education to equitable health service to better child protection measures and stronger actions to access clean water, sanitation and hygiene without losing the focus on climate change.

“For education, we are working with DepEd and DOH to establish a system for up-to-date, real-time risk assessment of critical populations to map out risk levels and service gaps across DepEd regions/schools divisions and districts/schools to be used for scenario-building, planning and budgeting for safe school reopening” according to UNICEF Philippines Representative Oyunsaikhan Dendevnorov.

Re-opening schools remain a priority for the Philippines and more could be done to come up with joint responses to the learning crisis from the region, considering that the issues faced by children in the Philippines are shared with other low-income nations within the ASEAN.

Unfortunately, the latest meeting of the ASEAN Education Ministers, coordinated by the Philippines, happened on the 20th of November last year and the next one is only supposed to be scheduled for 2022.

During that meeting the Philippines championed the idea of “Transforming Education the ASEAN Way: Forging Partnerships in the Age of Global Disruptions” but this looks more like a catchy slogan than a well thought plan.

The recently held meeting of the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (SOC-COM), under which children related issues fall, also did not provide any transformational solution and was the usual long declaration short in practical actions.

With regional cooperation unable to provide the required impetus to improve the immediate needs of children in the Philippines, then it is essential to come up with concrete measures that can help localize and adapt the UNICEF’s six-point action.

First of all, the strictest aspects of this lockdown now enforced in the Capital region must urgently be addressed as its consequences will have an impact too severe on children especially on their emotional wellbeing.

As the mayors of Metro Manila have started deliberating the so called “flexible” modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ), such new arrangements must ensure that right to education of the most disadvantaged children.

With the current school year approaching its end BY mid-July, perhaps it is time for some experimentation focused on ensuring a smooth start of the new academic year slated for the 23rd of August.

Working on the digital divide and fixing the problems faced by the Department of Education while imparting distance learning should be a priority.

On this front there are certainly many lessons learned, as admitted by Education Undersecretary Alain Pascua.

Improving distance learning from the quality perspective and working on the equity side with investment in accessible technologies and digital infrastructures should not come at the expenses of immediate action for a partial return to face-to-face education.

In this regard, pilot experiments should be held to allow kids to be back in the classroom with different modalities being tested, including blended learning modalities with shifts and half classmates attending physically while others digitally wherever possible.

For example, as soon as the situation will allow, those children staying at home could gather in smaller groups within their neighborhoods, an effort that could be supported by a national call for action in which graduate students will step in as support teachers.

There is also a lot of potential in the Department of Education’s Alternative Learning System (ALS) that is centered around the concept of flexibility that is so paramount for vulnerable children who have dropped out from school.

Further scaling the research work carried out in this area by De La Salle University with the support of the World Bank could be a smart investment to be undertaken. Ensuring better targeted approaches to fight the increasing levels of child poverty is also essential.

“Support to data collection to provide timely information on the situation of children and families, and advocating increased spending for the most vulnerable children and coverage of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) to include all children living in poverty”, are essential and tasks Unicef Philipines is committed to contribute as Dendevnorov further explains.

Getting this right is a complex process but the Government of the Philippines has to step up its commitments to ensure the rights of children are fully upheld, balancing short term needs with longer terms planning.

On the latter, there is also an opportunity to re-think the entire education system, not only making it pandemic proof but also transformative and quality based as well, ensuring a learning experience that will positively shape children’ up brining.

This is the proposal from the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry that is putting together a task force to come up with a list of recommendations that would address the fault lines of the educational system being exposed by the pandemic.

This task force will start operating amid calls for a new official education commission to be designed on broader reforms, possibly charting what has been defined as a “realistic road map” for change, leveraging new collaborations between the government and the private sector and civil society that could bring positive outcomes for the future of the learning in the country. ‘

Will any discussions on educational policy reform putting at the center of the deliberations the interests of the most vulnerable children, not only from a quality learning perspective but also from a child protection dimension?

While better exchange of information and the pursuit of a common approach within ASEAN would be desirable in winning the challenge of inclusive learning in a post pandemic world, for now it is up to the Government of the Philippines to work in partnership with the civil society, the private sector and international organizations for holistic and child centered solutions.

It is a gigantic challenge ahead, charting out doable and practical actions in the immediate while drastically reform the way education is imparted in the country.

Only a long-term vision followed by steadfast political commitment and a genuine desire to be open to collaboratives, will offer the right blueprint for a renewed focus on children’s wellbeing in the country.

*The Author writes on social inclusion, volunteerism, youth development, regional integration and the SDGs in the context of Asia Pacific.

 

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Excerpt:

The writer* is Co-Founder, ENGAGE, Inclusive Change Through Volunteering

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Education Cannot Wait’s funding has helped provide education to 140,000 pre-primary, primary and secondary refugee school children — 38 percent of whom are girls — in the Gambella and Benishangul Gumuz regions. South Sudanese girls in grade two learning at Tierkidi School No. 3, Refugee Camp, Itang Woreda, Gambella Region. Credit: UNICEF Ethiopia/2018/Mersha

By Ed Holt
May 4 2021 (IPS)

Eighteen-year-old Chuol Nyakoach lives in the Nguenyyiel Refugee Camp in Gambella, Ethiopia. Chuol is grateful that despite the trauma she has already experienced in her young life, she is able to continue her education in the refugee camp. Learning has given her a reason to wake up every day.

“My life has changed and ECW’s [Education Cannot Wait] education has given me something to look forward to every day in my life. In the future, I hope that I will be able to help my community and my country using the knowledge that I am gaining now in my education while a refugee,” Chuol told IPS.

The Nguenyyiel Refugee Camp is the largest in the area, comprising some 82,000 South Sudanese refugees, many of whom fled their homes in South Sudan after the escalating conflict in 2016 forced thousands to cross into Ethiopia through the Pagak, Akobo and Burbiey border points.

According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, 68 percent of those who live there are children and adolescents under the age of 18, who need to continue their education.

“I really appreciate all that has been done in support of refugee children like us. Because of ECW’s work we have been able to receive education for almost two years now in a safe environment,” Chuol told IPS.

Education for children in a crisis

A three-year Education Cannot Wait (ECW) initiative was announced in February 2020, which aims to help provide education to 746,000 children, addressing the specific challenges holding back access to the quality education of children and adolescents in communities left furthest behind due to violence, drought, displacement, and other crises. ECW is the world’s first global fund dedicated to education in emergencies and protracted crises.

A year after launching the $165 million initiative, ECW’s funding has helped provide education to 140,000 pre-primary, primary and secondary refugee school children — 38 percent of whom are girls — in the Gambella and Benishangul Gumuz regions through the construction and rehabilitation of school infrastructure, provision of grants, supply of teaching, learning and play material, and training and recruitment of teachers.

This April, ECW also announced an additional $1 million in emergency education grant financing to benefit 20,000 children and youth impacted by the deteriorating humanitarian crisis in the country’s Tigray region, where an estimated 1.4 million girls and boys are deprived of their right to an education.

Thousands of schools have been closed due to violence in Tigray with many being occupied by displaced families. This comes after nine months during which 26 million students were forced out of school because of COVID-19 restrictions.
 
The 12-month ECW grant will be implemented by UNICEF, in collaboration with Ethiopia’s Ministry of Education, Save the Children and local civil societies, targeting 2,000 pre-primary, 12,000 primary and 6,000 secondary school learners, as well as 250 teaching personnel. Overall, 52 percent of beneficiaries are girls and 10 percent are children with disabilities.

“Without the safety and protection of continued education during the crisis, girls face increased risk of sexual and gender-based violence, early pregnancies, child marriage and other atrocities. Boys are exposed to being recruited into armed groups and some are forced into child labor. Without immediate support, they risk never returning to school, and their future will be lost,” said Yasmine Sherif, ECW Director.

Refugee children from South Sudan in Ethiopia’s Gambella region. UNICEF Ethiopia says that continuing education has been crucial in the lives of crisis-affected children. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Education eases the trauma of refugee children

Chuol believes the continuous learning that girls and boys like her are getting has helped many refugee children like her cope with the trauma they have experienced.

“ECW’s work had changed not just me and other refugee children, but the entire refugee community.

“It has enabled child refugees to forget about what happened to them in their home countries, to put the trauma of their experiences behind them and gain some skills,” says Chuol.

Shumye Molla, acting head of the education programme at UNICEF Ethiopia, told IPS why continuing education has been crucial in the lives of crisis-affected children.

“Many children are happy to be in school and learning. Moreover, school provides an environment for them to play, socialise and develop life skills to improve livelihoods. For uprooted children, education provides them with the knowledge and skills to unlock their potential for a better future,” Molla told IPS.

She added that where uprooted children share education services like schools, sports and play activities, “education provides a unique opportunity for them to forge social relationships with children from host communities, which enhances coexistence and integration.”

“Schools and other learning institutions serve as entry points for other services including nutrition and health, which support holistic growth and development for uprooted children. In a nutshell, education offers a safe haven for crisis-affected children,” Molla said.

Providing targeted support for girls

ECW’s funding provides targeted support for the most vulnerable children, including girls and children with disabilities. 

Based on their social norms, some refugee communities do not value girls’ education. Despite interventions by other protection practitioners, refugee and displaced girls are still subject to female genital mutilation, child marriage and early pregnancy. In addition, households still prioritise boys’ education over girls’, and hold back girls at home to attend to domestic chores.

ECW’s support is making a difference in helping to protect girls and increase their school attendance.

“Adolescent girls’ have particularly been appreciative of the additional latrines and menstrual hygiene management rooms constructed in their schools through ECW funding. The privacy these facilities provide has boosted their dignity and confidence and encouraged them to attend school more regularly,” said Molla.

ECW’s support to refugee girls extends well beyond the classroom, with partners implementing social mobilisation drives, educating communities and education practitioners on the importance of sending and supporting girls to remain in school and perform better.

The fund says that because of these interventions, girls’ enrolment increased by an incredible 21,422 girls – from 82,040 in 2016-17 to 103,462 in 2019-20 – in the Gambella and Benishangul Gumuz regions.

Pioneering integration of refugee education into national systems

ECW works with local partners, including the Ministry of Education and the government agency for refugee protection and intervention, the Administration for Refugee & Returnee Affairs (ARRA), to further develop the delivery of education to refugee children in Ethiopia within the framework of an inclusive national education system.

This includes extending national systems into refugee education including inspection and supervision, refugee teacher training and provision of grants, as well as helping the Ministry of Education collect, analyse, and publish refugee education data alongside host community schools to help in planning refugee children’s schooling.

ECW’s partners say that the group’s investments in the country have been vital in helping improve refugee children’s education opportunities.

“What ECW is doing is absolutely unique. Usually, when families are displaced in an emergency situation, it is health and food that is provided as aid priorities, and education is always last. But ECW, in all situations, no matter what, tries to provide education to give kids hope,” Alemsalam Fekadu, senior education programme manager at Save the Children in Ethiopia, told IPS.

He added that projects his organisation was working on with ECW, such as distributing sanitary products to internally displaced girls at schools, were “simple, but have incredible impact.”

“These kinds of things make a massive difference. They not only help keep girls’ school attendance up, as many of them would have missed school otherwise, but they also raise the girls’ self-esteem enormously,” said Fekadu.

It’s a success because children are eager to learn

But perhaps the clearest example of the success the ECW programme has had is in the positive experiences of the refugee children and youth who have been helped.

Twenty-year-old Wie Chut also fled his home in South Sudan and, like Chuol, lives in the Nguenyyiel Refugee Camp.

Chut believes he has received a better education here in the camp than he did at home in South Sudan.

“There, we did not get any real materials, we just went to school. Here, we get educational materials and learn more and develop skills and a positive attitude.

“We want to keep learning because education is powerful for the human mind and pushes children forward,” he told IPS.

Chuol agrees: “I see that most of the students are eager to learn as well as improve their academic performance and are committed to creating a better future for themselves.”

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Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari receives a dose of COVID-19 vaccine in Abuja, Nigeria, on March 6, 2021. First batch of COVAX vaccines arrived in March, country aims to inoculate 70% of 200 million people by 2022. Credit: Africa Renewal

By Leon Usigbe*
UNITED NATIONS, May 4 2021 (IPS)

Since the COVID-19 vaccination began in the US in mid-December 2020, Africa had been looking forward to its turn. For Nigeria, that time came on 2nd March 2021 when the first batch of 3.9 million doses of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine arrived in the country from the Serum Institute of India.

The delivery is part of a first phase of arrivals in Nigeria that will continue in the coming days and weeks. It is part of the COVAX facility arrangement, which is spearheaded by GAVI and the World Health Organization (WHO), to ensure fair and equitable distribution to all countries. It marks a major step towards ensuring equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines globally.

In total, Nigeria is expecting 84 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines from AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson. That should cover about 20 per cent of the country’s 200 million population. The AstraZeneca vaccine requires two doses per person.

Nigeria’s Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, says that, from its arrangements with African Export-Import Bank (Afrexim Bank), about 80 to 85 million doses of vaccines are guaranteed for the country.

The government is also mobilizing the private sector to support vaccine procurement. Recently, telecom giant MTN delivered 300,000 doses and other big companies are expected to follow MTN’s example. To ensure quality of the vaccines, these companies are encouraged to route vaccine donations through Afrexim Bank.

Local pharmaceutical manufacturers may be able to produce a COVID-19 vaccine within a year, says Boss Mustapha, chairman of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, the country’s pandemic response coordinating agency. As a result, the government is mobilizing financial and logistical support for them.

70% coverage of 200 million people by 2022

The goal is to have enough vaccines for 70 per cent of Nigeria’s 200 million people by 2022, adds Mustapha who is also the Secretary to the Government of the Federation.

Mustapha has sought to dismiss fears about Nigeria’s capacity to handle a vaccination campaign, pointing out the country’s long experience in handling mass vaccination programmes, especially with polio.

Women in Nigeria collect food vouchers as part of a programme to support families struggling under the COVID-19 lockdown. Credit: WFP/Damilola Onafuwa

Vaccine hesitancy, however, is strong among Nigerians according to a poll by the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency, which showed that only 50% of the population would like to be vaccinated.

Despite government’s repeated assurances, many citizens still believe that the vaccines have long-term side effects.

Fighting hesitancy

To dispel such feelings and to prove its safety, President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo had their vaccinations televised live.

“I have received my first jab and I wish to commend it to all eligible Nigerians to do the same so that we can be protected from the virus,’’ Buhari said, moments after getting his first dose.

Because of the country’s unreliable power supply and the major vaccines’ need for ultra-cold freezers, the AstraZeneca vaccine with its warmer temperature requirement appears to have a leg up on the competition.

“Everything we are expecting from the COVAX facility is going to be of the AstraZeneca variety Dr. Ehanire explained to Africa Renewal. It has a good range in terms of storage for us because it uses just plus 2° degrees centigrade to plus 8° degrees centigrade of refrigeration. It doesn’t come with a new complication.”

Even more critical is the capacity of the local administration to handle vaccination. Distribution to the various States in the country began 24 hours after the vaccines arrived in the country. Prior to the arrival, the central government predicated access to the vaccines, with States satisfactorily meeting the conditions to keep them safe and potent.

“We will not be sending vaccines to States that have not fulfilled all of the criteria that will ensure that they are going to be safe,” Dr. Faisal Shuaib, the Executive Director of the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency, says.

The central government appointed vaccine accountability officers in the States and local government areas to closely monitor their management and utilization. These officers are also to ensure retrieval of vaccine vials for proper disposal.

The various States are not expected to release the vaccines to their local government area authorities unless they meet the minimum criteria for the successful conduct of the campaigns such as training, cold storage capabilities, availability of data-gathering tools and of transport and logistics for healthcare workers, adequate security for vaccines, among others.

Digital registration

Nigeria is currently registering people electronically for vaccination to ensure efficient and orderly scheduling of the date and time to receive the vaccine, Shuaib tells Africa Renewal. This is the first time Nigeria will pre-register people for vaccination.

All persons 18 years and above can register for the vaccination through an e-registration portal. The country relies on the media to promote this e-registration under an electronic immunization data management scheme.

The vaccination is then carried out in phases, according to predetermined classifications, Shuaib says. Frontline health workers are prioritized for the jab so they can safely care for others.

The primary health care agency uses its electronic database to track those who have received the first dose in order to know when they are due for their second dose.

“We input the date of the first dose and when they take the second. We have their names and addresses in the database,” Shuaib confirms to Africa Renewal.

Meanwhile, the rate of COVID-19 infections is alarming authorities. By the third week of March, the Nigerian CDC reported over 162,000 confirmed cases and about 2,000 deaths.

Source: Africa Renewal, United Nations

 

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Hiring women in supervisory roles can change the exploitative work culture of garment factories and promote gender equality in the workplace. Credit: Obaidul Arif/IPS

By External Source
May 3 2021 (IPS)

If you enter a garment factory in India, or any part of the world for that matter, you will see that the workforce is starkly female. The Indian textile and garment industry employs 45 million people, out of which more than 60 percent are women. This makes it the biggest formal employer of women in a country where 80 percent of them are not engaged in paid work. While that might paint a rosy picture of women’s empowerment at the first glance, a closer look reveals something different.

 

How did women come to dominate the garment factory floor?

Since the 1960s, women in developing countries have come to dominate the highly labour-intensive assembly lines of global supply chains. This is not without reason. Women’s unequal status in most societies makes them a cheaper source of labour as their work is often an additional or secondary source of income in most families.

While men are chosen because of the belief that they are best suited to be supervisors, there is little evidence to support this claim

Further, their labour is also considered to be easy to control. Research shows that women are preferred in these types of jobs because they are more willing to accept strict work discipline, less likely to join trade unions, and conditioned to take up tedious, repetitive, and monotonous work—all of which make them more productive.

In spite of this, very few working women in India climb the ladder in their careers because of reasons ranging from family responsibilities and restrictive social norms to lack of professional networks. This is true in garment factories too—while women dominate the frontline workforce, it’s majorly men who hold supervisory roles in factories.

 

Why are there so few female supervisors?

The garment industry has a long-standing reputation for a culture of abuse and stress. The cut-throat competition and highly time-sensitive nature of the work is one possible explanation for this.

Any bottlenecks caused by workers can generate acute losses to the firm. Hence, the factory floor runs on high stress, and supervisors are expected to maintain it.

Senior managers at garment factories tend to maintain antiquated beliefs that men are better at roles that involve leading and are trusted to be ‘strict’ and get things done. Since supervisor hiring largely depends on recommendations by the management, men are inevitably chosen for these roles.

A recent study among 24 garment factories in Bangladesh found that line chiefs—who are generally responsible for selecting supervisors—reported an average confidence level of 84 percent for male trainees. For female trainees, this number was almost 10 percentage points lower on average.

These gender biases reflect long-standing norms and power relations that make up the global garment industry in traditionally patriarchal societies like India. Rather than challenging long-standing gender norms and inequalities, the division of labour in workspaces often reinforces the association between women’s work and the definition of women as caring, gentle, self-sacrificing, and industrious. Men’s work, on the other hand, is expected to embody normative masculine behaviour: physical power, authority, and mechanical skills.

 

But are male supervisors really better?

While men are chosen because of the belief that they are best suited to be supervisors, there is little evidence to support this claim. In 2019, students of Centre for Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania undertook an internal study at Shahi Exports Pvt Ltd (India’s largest garment manufacturing firm that Good Business Lab works with) on female supervisors in the company’s factories.

Their analysis of administrative data of more than 160 sewing, finishing, and embroidery assistant supervisors found that female supervisors take 33 percent less unauthorised leave, have half the attrition rate (8.89 percent as opposed to 16.8 percent for men), and take 60 percent less overtime.

Similarly, an evaluation of a six-week operator-to-supervisor training programme to measure the effectiveness of female supervisors in relation to male supervisors showed that immediately upon returning from the training, male trainees outperformed female trainees.

However, this gap completely closed after a few months. Moreover, in simulated management exercises, female trainees outperformed male trainees on average.

What was interesting was that the female trainees underperformed while managing small teams that included a male operator. It was found that the male subordinate’s perception of the female supervisor’s competence also affected her performance due to the attitudes displayed by the subordinate based on their negative perceptions.

Hence, while there might be no evidence backing the perception that men make better supervisors, a strong belief in it by their peers, subordinates, as well as the management can affect women’s ability to be effective supervisors.

 

Making the case for women supervisors in female-dominated workplaces

If men don’t necessarily make better supervisors and if the gender of the team members plays a role in the effectiveness of the supervisor, then logically, we should have more women supervisors in female-dominated workplaces such as garment factories.

While we talk about diverse representation in Parliament and higher managerial roles in corporations, there are hardly any measures being taken to ensure representation at lower managerial levels in the sector which is the largest employer of women in this country.

Besides, there is evidence to show that female supervisors are better able to motivate female workers when compared to male supervisors. Male supervisors often use demonstrations of authority to get workers to keep their pieces moving, while female supervisors often sit down and demonstrate how to get things done and make sure things run smoothly.

Female managers are also more likely to engage in scut work, ie. the practice of voluntarily getting one’s hands dirty to perform subordinates’ routine tasks, which increases their engagement with the work. Not only does this increase productivity and contribute to improved organisational performance, but it also has the potential to help change the exploitative work culture of garment factories.

 

What are the hurdles to making women supervisors?

So while the benefits of having female supervisors in garment factories are clear, there are many barriers that prevent it from happening. A survey of more than 150 workers [operators, assistant supervisors, supervisors, and floor in-charges (FICs)] across 17 factories of Shahi Exports identified three major hurdles to women becoming supervisors:

1. Unsupportive beliefs: There was a perception that female supervisors are inferior. Seventy-four percent of male supervisors and/or FICs believed that males achieved higher batch productivity and 50 percent of all workers (including 60 percent of FICs) believed that male supervisors were better than their female counterparts.
2. Lack of support: In spite of the factory having only 20 percent female supervisors, more than half the male supervisors and FICs did not want there to be more female supervisors, indicating that even special efforts taken to bring in more female supervisors may not be supported or eagerly received.
3. Workload: Both male and female workers and supervisors of factories believed that supervisors must be able to work long hours. And long hours will make it nearly impossible for women—who typically juggle cooking, housework, and child and elderly care along with their day job—to take up supervisory roles.

 

How can firms overcome these barriers and hire more female supervisors?

The first and necessary step that firms can take to ensure better representation of women in supervisory positions is to use objective methods to hire them (rather than through recommendations made by the floor-in-charge or higher management, where biases are unavoidable). Skills and behavioural tests that are common in recruitment at the executive level may be used in supervisor hiring.

However, the barriers to having women supervisors extend beyond just hiring. They include addressing gender norms that dictate women’s roles in the workplace, the beliefs held by women (and men) about women’s abilities, lack of training, and a lack of support from the management among other things. We need stronger actions to overcome these complex factors.

Affirmative action might be one solution to this. In today’s world, it is not beyond the mandate of individual firms to implement equitable social welfare policies such as affirmative action. While we see a lot of projects being undertaken by corporates for gender equity and empowerment, most of these projects are limited to skilling their female workforce.

Though such projects are a means of empowerment at an individual level, they do not change the status quo in terms of power relations.

Researchers have highlighted how seeing more women in leadership roles positively affects women’s beliefs in their own ability and skills. Moreover, such initiatives also lead to positive spillovers into individual households and the broader society. Women who were promoted to managerial positions gained more say in intra-household decision-making (especially about their mobility).

The extra push provided by affirmative action promises to bring about these larger changes while breaking several barriers that lie in the way. Hence, we see a lot of scope for building evidence to support affirmative action in the garment industry to deal with India’s problem of the ‘sticky floor’—which is the opposite of a ‘glass ceiling’ and refers to gender inequality at the bottom rung of the workforce.

 

Eshan Fotedar is a research associate at Good Business Lab.

Nirupama V is a development communications professional working as a marketing associate at Good Business Lab, a labour research organisation

This story was originally published by India Development Review (IDR)

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Credit: UN Women/Olivia Owen

By Eugenia Shevchenko, Lotte-Marie Brouwer and Minji Kwag*
BANGKOK, Thailand, May 3 2021 (IPS)

The lockdowns and illnesses brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic have dramatically increased the need to care for children, the elderly and the sick. And in societies where gender inequality and biased norms persist, most of this burden has fallen on women, many of whom have had to leave their regular jobs with no idea of when they can return.

Actually, the pandemic has merely exacerbated the existing stereotypes about the role of women, who are reflexively expected to take care of their family members, house chores, and myriad other daily domestic tasks that are unpaid but vital to households, communities and economies.

Funded by the European Union, UN Women’s WeEmpowerAsia programme is responding to this chronic issue with the launch of the ‘UN Women Care Accelerator,’ an online group training and incubating programme for female entrepreneurs and businesses led by or supporting women in the care industry. The programme aims to create jobs and income for women by supporting new, creative solutions in the care sector – thus turning the unjust burden into economic opportunities for them.

Over a period of six months starting June 1, selected candidates from Asia and the Pacific will be provided with tailor-made training; paired with mentors; and connected with potential investors, partners and experts to develop and scale up their business models. Seedstars, an investment holding company, and Bopinc, a social enterprise, will co-lead the training, exchange and mentorship.

“Innovation will be crucial to address this ‘care emergency’ and turn the unjust burden into economic opportunities, boosting the number of women who lead and participate in business,” underscored Katja Freiwald, Regional Programme Manager of WeEmpowerAsia.

Even before the pandemic, women in the Asia-Pacific did on average 4 times as much unpaid care work as men did each day — in some countries up to 11 times more, according to a 2018 report by Asian Development Bank and UN Women. This has widened the gender gap in earnings and prevented women from fully participating in the economy.

In 2019, the labour force participation rate among men aged 15 and above was 76 per cent in East Asia and the Pacific, compared to 58.8 percent among women of the same age group. It was the only region in the world where women’s labour force participation had been decreasing even before the pandemic.

Credit: UN Women

As UN Women’s leading partner and donor, the EU has highlighted the importance of women’s economic empowerment and a more equal sharing of care responsibilities in its Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025: “women and men in all their diversity should have equal opportunities to thrive and be economically independent; women and men should equally share caring and financial responsibilities.”

“It’s about time we recognize the important role care work plays in our society. We must pay attention to the industry as a whole and empower entrepreneurs in the care sector by providing more growth opportunities. As a public-private sector partnership, we should prioritize investment in care work for a more equal and gender-inclusive economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic,” said Anurag Maloo, Head of Partnerships (Asia-Pacific) at Seedstars.

“Our initial research has shown an emergence of innovative business models that can (partly) address unpaid care work and acceleration of these innovative models is required to ensure they can grow and be replicated,” said Emile Schmitz, Managing Director at Bopinc.

“UN Women’s Care Accelerator is a great opportunity to bring entrepreneurs together and jointly scale entrepreneurial solutions to unpaid care work.”

Applications for the programme are being accepted from:

• Care businesses* led by women or benefitting women in the Asia-Pacific;
• Startups that aim to boost women’s participation in the care economy, or provide products or services, including child and elderly care, that make care more accessible and affordable to all or improve the quality of care;
• Enterprises that offer innovative ways to create a more gender-inclusive culture in the care industry and promote an equal share of responsibilities between men and women.

A total of 15 applicants will be selected for the programme. Applications close on May 10, 2021.

*Health-tech solutions will be taken into consideration only if they have a clear focus on care.

Find out more about the accelerator here: careaccelerator.seedstars.com.

Interested organizations who would like to take part and contribute may also reach out to Eugenia

*Eugenia Shevchenko is Acceleration Program Manager at Seedstars; Lotte-Marie Brouwer is Women’s Entrepreneurship Lead at Bopinc and Minji Kwag is International Communications Consultant at WeEmpowerAsia, UN Women

Bopinc [https://bopinc.org] is a social enterprise that aims to connect today’s low-income consumers with dignified choices of tomorrow by supporting organizations to design and deliver commercially and socially viable business models and solutions. It has offices in Bangladesh, Myanmar, Kenya, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Netherlands (HQ).

Seedstars [www.seedstars.com] is an investment holding company based in Switzerland. Founded in 2012, its mission is through the use of technology promote thriving entrepreneurial systems to help improve livelihoods in emerging markets, focusing on the vital “6%” (according to research by UK-based social impact charity NESTA).

 

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Women journalists in Kabul June 2019. Credit: UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA)/Fardin Waezi

By Thalif Deen*
UNITED NATIONS, May 2 2021 (IPS)

In the contemporary world of journalism, female reporters face a double jeopardy: they are increasingly targeted both as journalists and as women– particularly in repressive regimes and misogynistic societies.

As the United Nations intensifies its campaign for women’s rights worldwide—even as it annually commemorates World Press Freedom Day on May 3 — one of the questions lingering in the minds of women activists is: Is press freedom incompatible with gender empowerment?

Marianna Belalba Barreto, Civic Space Cluster Lead at CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance based in Johannesburg, told IPS the CIVICUS Monitor has documented many cases of women journalists facing online harassment and the gendered nature of it.

In its annual report: People Power Under Attack (PPUA) 2020, CIVICUS documented the use of intimidation as a tactic to deter journalists and human rights defenders (HRDs).

In particular, several cases of intimidation of women journalists were documented in the Balkan region, with threats often gendered in nature.

In North Macedonia, a woman journalist received messages via Facebook and Twitter containing verbal abuses and hate speech. She received dozens of messages threatening her with rape as well as death in response to her work.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina a woman journalist was threatened for reporting on an environmental rights story.

In Bulgaria, a woman journalist, whose story portrayed a far-right group in a negative light, had to flee the country with her family after allegedly receiving threats from unknown people against her and the family, with her personal information leaked online.

The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris and the Washington-based International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) conducted a global survey last year to assess the scale and impacts of online violence targeting women journalists, “and to help identify solutions to this pernicious problem.”

ICFJ says it is the most comprehensive and geographically diverse survey ever undertaken on the theme, having been offered in five languages and receiving responses from 714 women journalists* across 113 countries.

The top findings include: Nearly three in four women respondents (73%) said they had experienced online violence; threats of physical (25%) and sexual violence (18%) plagued the women journalists surveyed; and one in five women respondents (20%) said they had been attacked or abused offline in incidents seeded online.

Credit: UNESCO & the International Center for Journalists

Lucy Westcott, James W. Foley Emergencies Research Associate at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), told IPS women journalists around the world face a number of safety hazards while reporting, and risk having their voices silenced for being both journalists and women in public life.

CPJ has spoken to women journalists across the world—including in many of the countries highlighted from the UNESCO-ICFJ report, such as Brazil, South Africa, the U.K. and the U.S.—who described dealing with threats to their safety while reporting, online harassment, misogynistic attacks, and threats of sexual violence and death.

She said women journalists are also at risk of physical attack while reporting in the field, especially if they are reporting alone. Freelance women journalists face a particular risk, as they lack the backing of a traditional newsroom and its support.

“Online harassment continues to be one of the biggest risks to the safety of women journalists globally, and online threats can and do spill over into a real-life setting. The impact of online harassment is far-reaching, and can also result in trauma and mental health difficulties, said Westcott, a former staff writer for Newsweek, and UN correspondent for Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency.

She added: “Journalist safety is a press freedom issue, and women journalists should be able to do their job and report the news without fearing for their safety and livelihoods. Editors need to be aware of the risks their female journalists face, and help them take steps to mitigate those risks.”

Credit: ICFJ

Tara Carey, Head of Media at Equality Now told IPS women journalists around the world are speaking out about their experiences of online violence and harassment, and studies are reporting a disturbing increase in misogynistic digital abuse targeting female journalists.

“Online trolling and psychological abuse manifests in various ways and is carried out to intimidate, stigmatize and silence women. It can range from sexual harassment, and threats of sexual and physical violence, including murder, through to privacy violations such as hacking, non-consensual dissemination of intimate images, and “doxing”, which involves personal information and contact details being leaked to the public.

“Trolling is sometimes part of an orchestrated campaign involving multiple attackers, and abuse is often worse when it intersects with other forms of discrimination, such as associated with race, nationality, religion, caste, ethnicity, and sexual orientation,” she said.

Online violence and harassment can take a heavy toll, leaving those who are targeted feeling stressed, scared, depressed, and in some instances, at greater risk.

Worryingly, digital abuse is closely associated with offline violence, with many women journalists confirming they have experienced threats, abuse or assault in face-to-face encounters whilst working, said Carey.

“This onslaught is curtailing women’s participation in the media and undermining our ability to engage freely in public debate, report on contentious issues or challenge discrimination. Some women are being pushed to censor what they say, withdraw from public online conversations and frontline reporting, or even abandoning journalism entirely.

“Online abuse against women journalists is an attack on freedom of speech and expression. A reduction in female representation in news reporting erodes gender diversity in public discourse and risks marginalizing gender-sensitive reporting on issues impacting women and girls,” declared Carey.

Meanwhile, on the occasion of International Women’s Day last March, UNESCO launched a campaign to highlight the specific risks faced by women journalists online.

Guy Berger, Director for Policies and Strategies, Communication and Information, at UNESCO, says, “this violence harms women’s right to speak and society’s right to know”.

“To tackle this increasing trend”, he adds, “we need to find collective solutions to protect women journalists from online violence”. This includes strong responses from social media platforms, national authorities and media organizations.

Belalba Baretto said CIVICUS also continues to document cases in different regions of the world, as indicated by the following examples:

1. Three women journalists in Lebanon, Dima Sadek, Luna Safwan and Mahassen Moursel, have been subjected to an intense hate campaign: https://monitor.civicus.org/updates/2020/11/03/year-october-revolution-human-rights-violations-continue-amid-lack-accountability/

2. Geri Scott, the Yorkshire Post’s Westminster correspondent, faced online harassment following her appearance on the Andrew Marr Show TV programme on BBC One. Following her appearance on the show, Scott was targeted by an “online trolling campaign”, when she received 52 Instagram follow requests and “abusive messages and even rape threats: https://monitor.civicus.org/updates/2020/12/15/peaceful-assembly-under-threat-crackdown-environmental-and-blm-protesters

3. In Brazil, CIVICUS documented several cases (https://monitor.civicus.org/updates/2020/03/28/journalists-under-assault-brazil-judicial-harassment-smear-campaigns-and-vilification/). In addition, a report published by the Associação Brasileira de Jornalismo Investigativo (ABRAJI) on violence against women journalists in Brazil, identified 20 attacks on Brazilian women journalists between January 2019 and February 2020, including misogynistic and sexist offences, smear campaigns and disclosure of personal information. Of the 17 cases recorded in 2019, 13 were carried out by members of the federal and state congress, ministers and President Bolsonaro himself. 84% of the journalists interviewed in the study also said they had faced gender-based violence at work.

4. News outlet Prensa Comunitaria and their women journalists were subjected to a smear campaign in conservative media and on social media for their coverage of the International Women’s Day march held on 8th March 2020 in Guatemala City: https://monitor.civicus.org/updates/2020/05/12/journalists-denounce-guatemala-government-hostility-towards-press/

Carey of Equality Now said: “Dealing with online abuse mustn’t fall on the shoulders of those being targeted. Media houses need to develop and implement gender-specific guidelines and training that incorporate anti-harassment policies. Women journalists should feel comfortable raising concerns about abuse and newsrooms should take responsibility for ensuring they feel safe and supported.

“Laws need to be updated and implemented to address this problem. Criminal justice systems should be providing support and redress to victims and punishing perpetrators. Justice being done, and being seen to be done, is important both for the individual and because consequences can act as a deterrent for others.

“There also needs to be better awareness and understanding amongst law enforcement agencies and social media companies, along with the adoption of zero-tolerance policies that involve duty bearers taking swift and appropriate action against perpetrators.”

*Thalif Deen, Senior Editor at the UN Bureau of Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency, is the author of a newly-released book on the United Nations titled “No Comment and Don’t Quote Me on That” available on Amazon. The link to Amazon via the author’s website follows: https://www.rodericgrigson.com/no-comment-by-thalif-deen/

 

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The post Is Press Freedom Incompatible with Gender Empowerment? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

3 May is World Press Freedom Day. This is part of a series of IPS features and opinion editorials focused on media freedom globally.

The post Is Press Freedom Incompatible with Gender Empowerment? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

3 May is World Press Freedom Day. This is part of a series of IPS features and opinion editorials focused on media freedom globally.

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, May 2 2021 (IPS)

Have you ever heard of a workers’ strike or similar labour action for press freedom? And how long do you think it lasted? A day? A week? A month? And where and when do you think this happened?

Workers strike for press freedom
Six decades ago, in 1961, Said Zahari, the editor of the Malay language daily, Utusan Melayu, led a strike of journalists and other employees. The protracted strike, in both Malaysia and Singapore today, was for press freedom rather than employee welfare.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Against all odds, the strike lasted over a hundred days! It also marked the end of the ‘honeymoon’ for the post-colonial government after independence. The historic strike was remarkable for many reasons, with two deserving special mention.

First, it involved ethnic Malay workers where such industrial actions had mainly been associated with ethnic Chinese and Indian workers, first brought to Malaya as indentured labour in colonial times.

Second, and perhaps uniquely, the strike tried to resist the imminent takeover of the previously independent anti-colonial newspaper to serve the propaganda needs of the ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO). UMNO was the dominant partner of the governing coalition after the first Malayan elections in 1955 under colonial rule.

In 1957, the Federation of Malaya became independent, but without Singapore with which it was closely integrated, economically, politically and even socially and culturally before the Japanese invasion in 1941-1942.

With the Borneo states of Sabah and Sarawak, Singapore joined the expanded Malaysian confederation of British possessions in the region in 1963 before seceding less than two years later.

UMNO-led ruling coalitions ruled Malaysia until 2018 when it lost the general election despite great gerrymandering in its favour. But after a ‘palace coup’ in March 2020, UMNO joined the current ruling coalition.

Out of the frying pan into the fire
To break the strike, Singapore-born Said was banished by Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman from re-entering peninsular Malaya after visiting striking colleagues on the island.

In early February 1963, Said was arrested by Lee Kuan Yew’s government of Singapore, then still under British tutelage. This happened hours after he agreed to lead the left populist Parti Rakyat Singapura (Singapore People’s Party) when PRS allies were still very influential in the region.

Arrested with over a hundred other political dissidents in Operation Coldstore, he was incarcerated without trial for 17 years. In the early 1970s, Said’s poems were smuggled out of prison and published in Malaysia. Said’s resolute determination despite his ordeal inspired countless others.

Inspiration
Said’s memoirs, published at the start of the new millennium, reveal how he came to make heroic sacrifices for a better, more just and democratic post-colonial Malaya with no thought of personal gain or advantage.

His memoirs are not just political, but also personal, candidly sharing reminiscences, but without the cosmetic editing that ‘great men’ typically demand for their biographical narratives.

Born on 17th May 1928 in a rustic Singapore which no longer exists, the young Muslim Malay youth came of age under British colonialism, interrupted by the 1942-1945 Japanese Occupation. His working life began at the Utusan headquarters in Singapore.

The newspaper was published by Yusof Ishak, later Singapore’s first president, and edited by A. Samad Ismail, the doyen of Malaysian journalism. As independence for Malaya without Singapore became imminent, Said was sent north in 1955 to head the Kuala Lumpur office.

He arrived in time to cover the historic Baling peace talks between the electorally victorious Alliance and the communist-led guerrilla movement driven underground in mid-1948. Then Chief Minister Tunku confided to Said that he never wanted the talks to succeed, but had agreed to have them to gain political advantage.

Generosity of spirit
After his release in late 1979, Said remained humble and modest, always affable, even avuncular and generous in his dealings with all. Other Utusan comrades too came out of the strike with so much of their dignity and humanity intact despite losing their livelihoods and much else.

Despite his prolonged incarceration, his magnanimity and generosity of spirit contrast with so much contemporary political hypocrisy and petty vindictiveness. Some who had caused him much grief later sought to redeem themselves with him, often to the chagrin of comrades.

Yet, he always remained principled, defiant and uncompromising when it counted. Although he said little about it until his passing five years ago, despite his modest means, he sought to compensate his family for its ordeal. This must surely be one of the heaviest burdens he had to bear.

Many partook of his love for humanity, truth, freedom and other cherished universal values. His was truly a life of much sacrifice for values and principles which still move many, so many decades later.

One cannot but be inspired by the Utusan strike, for over a hundred days, for press freedom. Those of us who cherish freedom of the press owe the strikers a debt which can never be repaid.

The name Said Zahari deserves to be immortalised worldwide as symbolising the now universal struggle for press freedom. Today, on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, let us all salute Said Zahari and his Utusan comrades of 1961.

 

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The post Said Zahari: Unsung Mandela of Press Freedom appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

3 May is World Press Freedom Day. This is part of a series of IPS features and opinion editorials focused on media freedom globally.

The post Said Zahari: Unsung Mandela of Press Freedom appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Almost thirty countries are facing an imminent food crisis caused by COVID-19. Photo: Stefanie Glinski /FAO

By Mario Lubetkin
ROME, May 1 2021 (IPS)

More than a year after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, food and nutrition security continues to show its fragility.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) reported in 2020 that more than 690 million people suffer from hunger, and that the outbreak of the pandemic projected an increase of 130 million in the number of people affected by chronic hunger in the world, a fact that is gradually being verified.

This means that more than 10 percent of the world’s population is in a borderline situation, a fact that moves away from the objectives proposed by the international community in the platform of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, consisting in eliminating poverty and hunger by 2030.

This situation is compounded by the existence of more than 650 million people who suffer from obesity problems, which determines that, along with hunger, malnutrition is another scourge in constant evolution.

In Latin America alone, 200 million adults and 50 million children and adolescents are overweight.

Although this difficult reality existed before the beginning of the pandemic, some of the reasons that determined this situation, such as conflicts, saw a significant increase during the last year.

The fragility of the health situation is compounded by the effects of the worsening economic conditions resulting from the same circumstance

Such is the situation in countries like the Congo, where according to a report prepared jointly by FAO and the World Food Program (WFP) in 2021, more than 27 million inhabitants (one in three Congolese) are in a situation of acute food insecurity. In another FAO and WFP report from the second half of 2020, both organizations predicted that more than 27 countries in all regions were exposed to an imminent food crisis caused by COVID-19.

The fragility of the health situation is compounded by the effects of the worsening economic conditions resulting from the same circumstance.

It is estimated that today, 35 percent of jobs related to the food system are at risk.

Some economists already define the situation that began in 2020 as the “lost decade”.

If we wanted to return to pre-pandemic levels, i.e., before 2019, and if we maintained the average growth of the last decade, which was 1.8 percent, only by 2024 would we reach the economic levels of more than a year before by 2024. However, if the growth average was that of the last six years, i.e., 0.3 percent, we would return to the situation of 2019 only in 10 years.

In 2020 imports were strongly affected, there were great difficulties in trade, border closures and transportation problems that have only been partially overcome in recent months.

In Latin America alone, the decrease in gross domestic product was 7.7 percent, with the closure of 2.7 million companies of all kinds.

Although the levels of contagion continue to grow, according to the global numbers, the beginning of the gradual but massive vaccination process has generated hope of overcoming the worst moments of the present situation.

If this difficult scenario begins a process of improvement in the second half of this year or towards the beginning of 2022, a situation still to be verified, the countries should prepare to heal wounds and face the existing crises in the health, economy and environment triangle, in the perspective of development.

According to the thoughts of many countries, specialists and international organizations, such as FAO, recovery accelerating instruments should be focused on innovation, technology, data management and other key aspects such as human capital, institutions, and governance.

It will be essential to prioritize investments, especially in infrastructure throughout the entire food value chain. It is necessary to improve the technology and infrastructure for the handling, storage and processing of food products, as well as increasing investment in the structure of agricultural production to reduce losses and waste.

Food security in the nutritional sector should also be improved, optimizing productivity and reducing greenhouse emissions, as well as increasing the protection of natural resources, reducing dispersions and losses, and optimizing the use of natural resources.

In parallel, trade must be improved, through diversification, increasing electronic commerce and increasing resilience in times of crisis.

For this to happen, new synergies must be generated between different players.

At the FAO level, a global coalition on food has recently been launched to try to overcome the solutions limited to the countries themselves, establish a fluid dialogue between them on the positive experiences developed in this first year of the COVID-19 pandemic and, in turn, prepare countries for the next phase of socio-economic and environmental recovery.

This coalition is based on four main axes: a global plan of humanitarian responses, economic inclusion and social protection to reduce poverty, the reduction of food waste and the transformation of the food system.

This is a great challenge, for which the individual action of governments is not enough. The private sector, civil society and the academic sector, among others, must also participate in this protection and effort to relaunch.

The coming months will indicate if we are on the right track in reducing the impact of this massive pandemic, and if countries will get back on track to absorb the effects of this dramatic crisis and project a reality that gives new perspectives to the next generations.

The post A Year Later, COVID-19 Continues to Show the Fragility of Food Security appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Mario Lubetkin is Assistant Director General at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

The post A Year Later, COVID-19 Continues to Show the Fragility of Food Security appeared first on Inter Press Service.