Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

Pakistani migrant workers on a construction site in Dubai. Credit: S. Irfan Ahmed/IPS

By Saad Noor Quayyum and Roland K. Kpodar
WASHINGTON, Sep 17 2020 (IPS)

Just as COVID-19 has disproportionately impacted some communities more than others, globally, the virus has had an oversized negative impact on migrant workers.

Perhaps surprisingly, despite the bleak experience for foreign overseas workers during the pandemic, the effect on remittances—the flow of money they send back home—has, in many cases, proven resilient. But that trend may yet be upended.

The predicament of migrant workers over the last few months has highlighted the pressing need—now greater than ever—to support them and their families back home. We offer some suggestions below.

 

The plight of the migrant worker

In the wake of the pandemic, many overseas foreign workers lost their jobs, and reports were widespread of newly laid-off foreign employees stranded in host countries without the means to return home.

Migrants, many of whom are undocumented, often face a heavier burden than a local worker once they lose their job. They often lack access to social safety nets or stimulus checks, which provide a cushion to their local counterparts. This is especially the case for the undocumented or those on temporary work visas

At the same time, many migrant workers have limited or no access to healthcare. Crowded living quarters, together with poor working conditions, put them at higher risk of contracting the virus.

They may also live in fear of deportation as several countries have tightened immigration rules in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.

 

Outlook for remittances

Unsurprising then that remittances were expected to take a hit from the pandemic as countries that employ large numbers of foreign workers moved into recession. In addition, the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers employed in major oil-producing countries also suffered repercussions from the drop in oil prices, which weighed down the outlook of Gulf Cooperation Council countries and Russia.

The remittances sent back by migrants are a crucial source of external financing. In 57 countries, it exceeded 5 percent of GDP last year. The money went mostly to low-income households. Against the background of the current health crisis, the need for that income is acute.

Back in April, the World Bank estimated that remittances would fall by 20 percent in low and middle-income countries. This is broadly consistent with projections derived from applying the elasticity of remittances to growth—observed during the 2008 global financial crisis—to the June 2020 forecasts of the International Monetary Fund’s World Economic Outlook.

However, growth remained reasonably strong in low-income developing countries during the financial crisis, so the need for remittances in recipient countries was not as urgent as it is now.

 

 

Despite the coronavirus and its likely impact on remittances, the picture is not unconditionally bleak. Remittances often hold up in response to adverse shocks in recipient countries. This possibly explains why they were surprisingly resilient in many countries in the first half of the year (see below).

While there is a great deal of diversity, remittances largely fell from March, then started to stabilize in May before picking up. This pattern was broadly in line with the stringency of virus containment policies in advanced countries where strict measures were put in place in March and slowly relaxed starting in May.

The bounce back in remittances could be driven by a greater need to send money back to families as the remittance-receiving countries now struggle with the pandemic (see below) and collapse in external demand. This illustrates the counter-cyclical role of remittances.

But, if migrants are dipping into their meager savings to support families back home, this may not be sustainable over time, especially if the recession in host economies becomes protracted. A second outbreak of the coronavirus in the later part of the year in host economies, for example, could jeopardize remittance flows further.

 

 

 

Now more than ever, adequate and timely policy responses from both remittance-sending and remittance-receiving countries are critical to help migrant workers. Overseas workers often fill essential roles—in healthcare, agriculture, food production and processing—and often risk their lives to perform these jobs.

• Host countries could ensure all migrants have access to health care, and basic goods and services. There have been some positive steps in this area: all migrants and asylum-seekers were temporarily granted citizenship rights in Portugal. Italy announced plans for temporary work permits for more than half a million undocumented migrants deemed essential for harvesting crops and caring for the elderly. The State of California has contributed $75 million to a $125 million fund to provide $500 to support each undocumented worker.
• Back home, authorities in countries that send workers overseas could step up support to vulnerable households, especially in those countries where the drop in remittances has been more severe. As remittances dry-up, well-targeted cash transfers and food aid can be especially helpful to protect poor households, and those at risk of falling back into poverty.Returning migrants may need training to be reabsorbed in the labor market. Access to credit can help them start a business where opportunities in the formal labor market is limited.
• Technology could also be leveraged to the benefit of migrant workers and their families. For example, digital technology and mobile payment systems could be used to facilitate and lower the cost of sending and receiving remittances. The average cost of sending remittances was about 7 percent in the first quarter of 2020. Reducing this cost now would return a significant amount of money to the poor.

Governments could modify regulations to facilitate flows while minimizing risks of inappropriate use. Relaxing caps on how much can be transferred digitally (through mobile phones for example) can be helpful. Providing tax incentives to money transfer service providers to offset reduction in fees, as Pakistan did during the Global Financial Crisis can be smart move. Schemes like the 2 percent cash back for remitters instituted by Bangladesh can further support remittance flow. Increasing market competition among the remittance service providers can also drive down the cost.

 

This story was originally posted by IMF NEWS

The post Supporting Migrants and Remittances as COVID-19 Rages On appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By External Source
Sep 17 2020 (IPS-Partners)

Education Cannot Wait: As the UN agency mandated by the UN General Assembly to provide international protection and seek solutions for refugees, could you please elaborate on the overall importance of education for refugee children as a component of protection and solutions?

Filippo Grandi: School is often one of the very first things that refugee families ask about after being displaced. Keen to recover a sense of normalcy and dignity after the trauma of being uprooted, they are also heavily invested in their children’s futures. Many children and young people are displaced several times before crossing a border and becoming a refugee. For these children school is the first place they start to regain a sense of routine, safety, friendship and even peace. Education plays a key role, both in ensuring the protection of children and young people and helps families and children focus on rebuilding their lives and returning to many of the activities that they would normally have engaged in prior to displacement.

As UNHCR’s recent Education Report 2020 has shown, whilst there have been some successes in access to primary education, these have slowed down. Gross Enrollment Ratios show that 77 per cent of refugee children are enrolled in primary education, but this drops dramatically to 31 per cent at the secondary level. Girls are disproportionately impacted. Since global evidence shows the significant protective nature of secondary education for girls, this is a key aspect of work for UNHCR and partners like Education Cannot Wait.

Together, we are petitioning for refugee enrollment in education at all levels to be brought up to global levels to enable the millions of children and young people around the world who have been forced to flee their homes to build a better future for themselves, their families and their communities. Allowed to learn, develop and thrive, children will grow up to contribute to the societies that host them but also to their homelands when peace allows for their return. Education is one of the most important ways to solve the world’s crises.

Education Cannot Wait: You are a long-standing member of Education Cannot Wait’s High-Level Steering Group. As you know, Education Cannot Wait is designed to ensure that children can continue their education in times of emergencies and protracted crises. Please elaborate on the special needs of refugee children during emergencies and protracted crises, and how do you see Education Cannot Wait contributing to meeting those rights and needs?

Filippo Grandi: The Global Compact for Refugees calls for measures to enable children and youth return to learning within three months of displacement. This goal highlights the important role that education – both formal and non-formal – plays in supporting children to resume normal activities. Children can feel a sense of belonging with their peers in classrooms, have the opportunity to play and engage in recreational activities, and receive potentially lifesaving information on issues related to health, hygiene and safety. Schools also provide access to support services, such as counselling and school-feeding programmes.

Preparing refugee children to enter into the national education systems of host communities is critical and requires working closely with Ministries of Education to remove administrative and policy barriers to school enrollment. It also entails ensuring children have the skills and abilities needed in order to thrive once they are enrolled in schools. Language learning classes – especially where the language of instruction is different – catch up programmes, and accelerated education all support children’s enrollment into school and ability to learn effectively. It is also important to provide information and material assistance to assist families overcome some of the practical barriers to school enrollment. Psycho-social support is also instrumental for children who have undergone the trauma of displacement and need help in adapting to new situations and environments.

The support provided by Education Cannot Wait enables agencies and organizations to ensure that services are provided after the onset of an emergency to address the immediate needs that have been highlighted above, focusing both on protection and education needs and working to ensure that children are prepared for inclusion in formal education programmes. Education Cannot Wait has also played a pivotal role in calling for donors to invest in education during and after emergencies to ensure children’s educational needs can be met during humanitarian crises, as evidenced by the increase in investment in education in emergencies over the last four years.

Education Cannot Wait: A significant number of pledges made by countries and other stakeholders at the 2019 Global Refugee Forum centered around education, including individual and joint pledges made by Education Cannot Wait highlighting multi-year investments to increase opportunities in secondary education for refugee children, and in working with other global funds to support quality education for refugees. What gaps in funding are there for refugee education globally and where best can donors help, including countries, civil society and private enterprises?

Filippo Grandi: While funding to education in emergencies grew five-fold between 2015 and 2019, education usually only receives between 2 and 5 percent of the total budget of humanitarian appeals. As we move from emergency situations to protracted crises, there is a risk that education spending is further deprioritized, making it harder to support host governments to continue the delivery of education services over a sustained period.

Funding gaps in education mean that it is often difficult to ensure that children and youth complete a full cycle of education, moving from primary, through secondary and to tertiary education. Global figures show that there is a dramatic drop in enrollment between primary and secondary education and that only 3 percent of refugee youth are enrolled in tertiary education programmes.

Funding gaps also mean that those who are most in need, including children in women- or child-headed households and those with disabilities do not receive the specialized support that is required in order to fully enjoy their right to education. The joint pledge at the Global Refugee Forum by Education Cannot Wait, the World Bank and the Global Partnership for Education has the potential to be a game changer in terms of ensuring that systems are strengthened and supported so that refugees and other vulnerable populations enjoy continued access to education.

Education Cannot Wait: Education Cannot Wait has dedicated its second round of COVID-19 First Emergency Response investments for refugee situations throughout the world. Could you please elaborate on some of the key emergencies in terms of refugee education for UNHCR and the difference that Education Cannot Wait’s emergency response for COVID-19 will make?

Filippo Grandi: The closure of schools around the world effectively meant that 90 percent of refugee children who were enrolled in schools and education programmes were unable to continue receiving an education.

As they are located in some of the most remote areas in countries or have limited resources at home, they were unable to benefit fully from distance and home-based learning programmes and are at serious risk of falling further behind academically. This risk is even more serious for adolescent girls where an estimated 50 percent of girls who were in school are at risk of not returning once classes resume. The closure of schools also means that many of the wrap-around support services mentioned earlier (food distribution, psycho-social support and recreational activities and learning support programmes) were disrupted.

Families who have lost their livelihoods as a result of the pandemic experience greater economic pressure and may deprioritize spending what little resources they have on schooling in order to ensure that their most basic needs are met. All these factors contribute to heighten protection risks during periods of school closure, leaving the educational futures of many refugee children hanging in the balance.

Keeping education going during a pandemic requires resourcefulness, innovation, invention and collaboration. Education Cannot Wait’s funding for the COVID-19 response will play a key role in mitigating these risks, by finding ways of ensuring that students are able to continue learning during school closures, disseminating information to refugee families about re-opening procedures and the safety protocols that will be put in place, training teachers on adjusting to the pandemic, providing additional materials to students, implementing back to school campaigns and making much-needed improvements to water and sanitation facilities in schools. Many of these activities have already been initiated with the generous support of Education Cannot Wait.

Education Cannot Wait: UNHCR and ECW have also jointly coordinated closely with host-governments, humanitarian and development actors in developing multi-year resilience investments, such as the Education Response Plan for Refugees and Host Communities in Uganda. How do you see this strengthening education for refugees and host-communities in the humanitarian-development nexus?

Filippo Grandi: The theme of UNHCR’s 2020 report is ‘Coming Together for Refugee Education’. This focus really echoes the Global Compact on Refugees which advocates for a “whole of society” approach to ensuring that the needs of refugees and hosting communities are addressed. This means that a range of stakeholders have a role to play in realizing the goals of the Compact. The presence of a clear plan and set of objectives for supporting access to education helps define roles and areas of contribution for a broad range of stakeholders. It is crucial that there are linkages between refugee and humanitarian response plans, multi-year resilience plans and longer-term sector development plans.

Education Cannot Wait’s support for education programming immediately after the onset of an emergency and the longer-term assistance provided through Multi-Year Resilience Programmes plays a crucial role in bridging the gap between humanitarian and development financing. The inclusion of refugees in host-country education systems means that donors and other actors need to work closely with governments to increase the capacity of these systems to accommodate additional students, develop teachers’ abilities to respond to students’ needs and to ensure that children can progress through different educational levels.

Education Cannot Wait: Would there be any final comments you would wish to make to ECW’s audience globally regarding the importance of refugee children’s education in emergencies?

Filippo Grandi: Investment in education for refugees is essential to ensure that creativity and potential of young people in conflict and crisis-affected regions is not lost. During the COVID-19 pandemic refugee students have played pivotal roles in their communities working on the frontlines as healthcare workers, making masks and soap to be distributed to those who need it, offering advice and disseminating health and hygiene information and establishing programmes for tutoring younger students. Their drive, initiative and passion would have been lost without early investment in their education.

Education for refugees is an investment that pays off for the whole community – and the world. It is also a fundamental right for all children that is affirmed in the 1951 Refugee Convention, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This right must also be upheld in emergencies where we call on global actors to focus not only on access but on the quality of education and children’s ability to learn, leading them to a brighter and more dignified future.

 

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The post ECW Interviews the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Filippo Grandi is the 11th United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. He was elected by the UN General Assembly on 1 January 2016 to serve a five-year term, until 31 December 2020. Grandi has been engaged in refugee and humanitarian work for more than 30 years.

The post ECW Interviews the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Sudip Ranjan Basu, Monica Das, Alexandra Boakes Tracy and Achim Wennmann
BANGKOK, Thailand, Sep 16 2020 (IPS)

The United Nations has tasked the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Institute of Population and Public Health (CIHR-IPPH) to lead the research roadmap to identify priorities that will support an equitable global socio-economic recovery from COVID-19 within the broader framework of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As the world grapples with the impacts of COVID-19, identifying the research agenda and partnering with academic institutions and think tanks have become more essential than ever before.

Sudip Ranjan Basu

Citizens, healthcare professionals and governments—from Bandung to Baltimore, Calcutta to Cancun, Palawan to Pretoria, and Tokyo to Toulouse—are using the COVID-19 data of the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center (CRC) to get real-time information on new cases of infection and deaths from the disease. The world is benefitting greatly from the expertise of this academic institution and its ability to pool information globally. This is a testament of an extraordinary power of research to step up international cooperation.

So what would happen if we were to explore key aspects of this research agenda based on the Asia-Pacific experience as highlighted in ESCAP COVID-19 framework? Let us focus on three research topics.

Identifying social inclusion solutions through political economy perspectives

Monica Das

Political economy research within COVID-19 recovery plans could highlight how social inclusion interacts with the dynamics associated with national institutional frameworks. It can further emphasize the role of governance and stakeholder engagement within the broad parameters of underlying national economic interests. These research topics can underline the influence of entrenched cultural, institutional and political systems that shape realities of social inclusion in challenging circumstances.

Political economy perspectives also help institutions to mature in addressing the practical realities in which they operate. By managing social inclusion and enhancing social opportunities pragmatically, decision makers could overcome complex political economic contexts and improve citizens’ trust in governance as highlighted through research projects at the Graduate Institute. As such, research on social inclusion with a focus on home-grown approaches to poverty eradication actions and social well-being must look beyond ‘easy solutions’ or ‘quick fixes’ based on narrowly defined policy assumptions.

Engaging an economic research agenda through rigorous evidence

Alexandra Boakes Tracy

Globally, most countries and their research institutions are in the process of developing their own COVID-19 tracking systems to recognize the unprecedented economic contraction from this pandemic and the disproportionate burden of its impact on society’s most vulnerable groups. During the past six months, economic research agendas have clearly shared the view that we are not in this together: our societies are drifting apart, calling for a greater attention on overcoming a deep economic divide created by the crisis. As wealth and income inequalities exacerbate around the world, COVID-19 widens the gap and pulls apart an increasing number of economies.

Recent research from the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) highlights that the COVID-19 pandemic has uncovered deep-rooted disparities in access to healthcare, education, jobs and income, threatening countries’ ability – economically and socially—to safeguard progress on the SDGs. The crisis has also underscored the importance of protecting households who are likely to be beneficiaries of fiscal stimulus packages. These financing measures are aimed at providing loans to small and medium-sized enterprises, which face considerable barriers in securing funds equitably from existing financial sectors. The pandemic has, indeed, exposed serious fault lines in our economies, creating a space for imagining new economic growth models and development strategies.

Building research capability for sustainability

Achim Wennmann

New University of Oxford research suggests that investment in climate-friendly policy initiatives could offer the best economic returns coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on surveys of more than 200 senior economists and economic officials, the research finds that interventions with the greatest impact on both economic return and positive environmental outcomes include investing in clean physical infrastructure, education and training, natural capital projects and clean R&D.

The research roadmap on environment, through public and private sector partnership, needs to focus on the development and deployment of new technologies which improve countries’ sustainability. It involves providing market incentives, promoting commercial demonstration projects and encouraging the scaling-up of innovation-led manufacturing capacity and green job opportunities. Bolstering human capital and labour skills in areas such as value chain R&D, information technology and big data will also be important to ensure rapid roll out of successful green and clean technologies in post-COVID-19 recovery plans.

Scaling up partnership for research

As governments are navigating policy options, it is time to enable complementarities between public-funded research activities and privately-funded innovation projects, while making strategic investment planning for the post-COVID-19 era.

Ensuring social inclusion, building robust economic recovery and preparing for climate resilience over the next decade will provide critical insights for leading the research agenda for building back better.

Sudip Ranjan Basu, Programme Officer – Partnerships, Office of the Executive Secretary, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)
Monica Das, Associate Professor, Skidmore College
Alexandra Boakes Tracy, President, Hoi Ping Ventures
Achim Wennmann, Senior Researcher, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies

 

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Mary Robinson

By Mary Robinson
DUBLIN, Sep 16 2020 (IPS)

The impacts of crises are never gender-neutral and COVID-19 is no exception. The pandemic has resulted in increased rates of violence against women and has exacerbated challenges in accessing justice. Women are losing their livelihoods faster than men.

Millions of women are assuming disproportionate responsibility for caregiving. Many women have found themselves unable to access contraception and other sexual and reproductive health services. UN experts predict that as many as 13 million more child marriages could take place over the next 10 years because of COVID-19 shutdowns of schools and family planning services combined with increasing economic challenges.

Women and girls from marginalised and minority communities are especially at risk – in the United Kingdom for example, black women are over four times more likely than white women to die from COVID-19.

COVID-19 risks damaging much of the progress towards gender equality that myself and other women activists have spent our lives working towards. As the Chair of The Elders, a group of independent global leaders brought together by Nelson Mandela, I have the privilege to work alongside two other women who were, like me, the first women leaders in their countries – Gro Harlem Brundtland of Norway, and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia. I also seek to serve Mandela’s vision of a world of peace, justice and human rights alongside pioneering human rights lawyer, Hina Jilani, who set up the first law firm for women in Pakistan and Graça Machel, a tireless fighter for women’s education and emancipation. We are all deeply concerned that women already seem to be bearing the brunt of the socio-economic fallout from COVID-19, and that this pandemic may deepen the gender inequality rift.

This year we commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, where representatives from all 189 nations committed to “the full and equal participation of women in political, civil, economic, social, and cultural life.” We have made positive strides in the last 25 years: more girls than ever are completing primary school; the proportion of young women married as children has declined globally from 1 in 4 to approximately 1 in 5.

However, as a major report to mark the anniversary notes, we now need a new roadmap for progressing gender equality that draws on the wisdom and experience of leading women from across every sector, as well as new younger voices.

COVID-19 has starkly exposed underlying inequalities and reminded us all that rights on paper are not necessarily rights in practice. I am disappointed at the slow progress on women’s political representation and leadership. Fifteen countries now have women in the highest position of political power – up from 5 in 1980, but down from the peak of 18 in 2018. The number of women in parliaments remains less than 25 percent on average. This under-representation of women in positions of political power and influence appears to be replicated within COVID-19 task forces. However, we have seen that countries led by women seem to have been very effective in managing the pandemic.

Seeing how women and girls are rising to respond to the challenges posed by the pandemic is what gives me hope and spurs me on. The examples are many. Dejana Stosic leads a civil society organisation in Serbia, Human Rights Committee Vranje, that provides a free 24-hour online service to support survivors of gender based violence. Jamie Margolin is a young climate activist using her platform to raise awareness about the intersection of COVID-19, the climate crisis and racial injustice. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is working with several women leaders across Africa who are successfully advancing the fight against COVID-19.

Women’s leadership at all levels must be at the core of the response to the pandemic if we are to prevent a roll back on women’s rights. We need to support the collective action of women, particularly grassroots groups, and stand in solidarity with, and encourage, the next generation of leaders.

History has shown us that crises can also produce some of the most seismic changes. One of my great feminist heroines is Rosa Luxemburg, who fought for freedom in Poland and Germany before, during and after the First World War. Just over a century, she declared that “freedom is always freedom for the one who thinks differently”.

Now, more than ever, we need to think differently about justice and gender equality. As the world charts a course for a post-pandemic future, we need to draw on our collective strength – rethink, reset and build a better world for future generations.

 

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Excerpt:

Exclusive to IPS

Mary Robinson, Chair of The Elders, former President of Ireland

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Credit: United Nations

By Mandeep Tiwana
NEW YORK, Sep 16 2020 (IPS)

This September, New Yorkers will be a lot less annoyed. They’ve been spared the annual disruptions from road closures, sirens and movement of security forces accompanying world leaders who attend the UN General Assembly. By largely moving online due to COVID-19, the world’s most significant gathering will be missing some of its excitement even as the UN celebrates an important 75th anniversary in 2020.

In a departure from tradition, flowery addresses and passionate perspectives on global affairs, are being shared through pre-recorded speeches and teleconferences delivered from home rather than the UN’s headquarters. Face-to-face interactions between politicians, civil servants and civil society workers that animate annual UN gatherings are absent when solidarity and understanding are most needed to overcome the ravages of a global pandemic.

The UN is already facing a crisis of sorts from chronic underfunding and from the inability of governments who shape the UN’s agenda to see eye to eye on the big challenges facing humanity. This is casting a shadow on the UN’s work and mission, prompting Secretary General Antonio Guterres to make a plea for ‘renewed and inclusive’ multilateralism.

The UN was conceived as a ground-breaking experiment in global cooperation and people-centred multilateralism. Born out of the ashes of the Second World War, its Charter outlines four lofty aspirations in the name of ‘We the Peoples’.

These are to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war; reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, dignity and equality; establish conditions for justice under international law; and promote social progress and better standards of living.

Is the UN still fit for purpose? To answer this question, my colleagues at CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance, asked thought-leaders and activists to reflect on the UN’s achievements, challenges and prospects for change.

Experts drawn from a diverse array of organisations that work closely with the UN opined that while millions of people around the world have benefitted from the UN’s activities there needs to be a major shake-up in how the UN operates.

Significantly, the UN has helped prevent and resolve conflicts. It has provided humanitarian assistance to people in desperate need following natural and human-induced disasters. The UN has arranged food and shelter for vulnerable populations during crises while enabling joint action to overcome the fallouts of pandemics and climate change. The conditions of many of the world’s excluded people could have been far worse were it not for the UN’s interventions.

The UN has also produced strong and continually evolving human rights and gender justice norms. Following the Second World War it helped usher in the great wave of decolonisation and self-determination that swept much of the global south.

More recently, the UN has stewarded an ambitious and universal sustainable development agenda. In each of these endeavours the UN and its member states have relied on activists and non-profit organisations for innovative ideas, complex problem solving and service delivery.

This 75th anniversary offers a unique opportunity to examine the UN’s failings and reflect on ideas to improve its functioning. Experts and practitioners agree that urgent change is needed to enhance the relevance of the UN to people and their organisations around the world.

A major criticism of the UN is that its panoply of systems and structures seem both bewildering and self- serving to outsiders making it difficult to work through them. The UN’s bureaucracy is sprawling and often slow-moving. Its structure is rigidly hierarchical and powerful institutional inertia makes reform hard.

Civil society activists and organisations seeking new forms of people-centred engagement to meet contemporary challenges find themselves stymied by outdated UN procedures with their attachment to precedent and lack of imagination.

Accreditation with the UN can be politically loaded and many human rights organsations struggle with it. This means that the UN loses out on opportunities to hear vital voices. Further, many of the UN’s key agencies and departments are based in global north countries with discriminatory visa regimes that exclude the vast majority of people of the global south.

These failings are not merely procedural. They point to a deeper dysfunction of obstructionism and failure by UN member states to live up to and support the UN’s founding values. The consequences are profound for some of the world’s most persecuted peoples, including Palestinians, Uyghurs, Rohingyas, Sahrawis and Tibetans.

They have resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives in just this past decade in conflicts in Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

The UN Security Council, whose primary responsibility is to maintain international peace and security, is hobbled by the irresponsibility of its five permanent member states. China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States owe their special status at the Security Council to having emerged victorious in the Second World War.

They are among the biggest global producers and proliferators of weapons of war. Their politicking and posturing have allowed commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity on an industrial scale.

Today, there are nearly 80 million forcibly displaced people around the world. Global military expenditure has soared to a mind-boggling US$1,917 billion. One in nine people on the planet face chronic undernourishment despite an exponential growth in wealth.

On each of the above issues, there is plenty of civil society expertise, as well as numerous policy proposals and momentum to demand change, yet when activists and organisations have engaged with international decision-makers they have often found themselves left out from key deliberations.

The UN’s state-centred procedures and exclusive decision-making spaces controlled by government representatives sit at odds with the people-centred aspirations of the UN charter. Some progress has been made to enhance people’s and civil society participation at the UN but much more needs to be done to address asymmetries within various UN forums, departments and agencies.

Notably, the Declaration to commemorate the 75th anniversary includes a solemn promise to “upgrade the United Nations”. In this spirit three proposals to advance the people-centred aspirations of the UN Charter are worth considering.

First, an office of a people’s or civil society champion could be created to identify barriers in participation, spur inclusive convenings and drive the UN’s outreach to the public and civil society organisations.

Second, a procedural mechanism in the form of a citizen’s initiative could be established to mandate key UN bodies including the General Assembly and Security Council to act on matters of global importance following submission of a joint petition by a certain number of global citizens.

Third, people across the world should be given direct representation and voice at the UN through a parliamentary assembly.

In 1945, the UN recognised that we live in a world of diverse but interrelated cultures and geographies. The ongoing pandemic has demonstrated how easily problems in one part of the world can spill over into others.

Today, as we face down an epic global health crisis and an impending massive economic recession, international cooperation that promotes people-centred multilateralism will be needed more than ever. Global challenges are too big for states and their agents to solve alone. Organised civil society and active citizens have a key role to play but first we have to transform the spaces within which decisions are made.

 

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The post At 75, is the UN Still Fit for Purpose? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Mandeep Tiwana is chief programmes officer at CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance. He heads CIVICUS’s UN liaison office in New York.

The post At 75, is the UN Still Fit for Purpose? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

When it comes to climate, state-owned enterprises are and will remain major actors in energy and other sectors that are central to the low-carbon effort. Credit: IPS.

By Philippe Benoit
WASHINGTON, Sep 16 2020 (IPS)

Later this month, government officials and climate stakeholders will once again converge on New York City (this time virtually) for Climate Week and the United Nations meetings.  And while there will be much discussion about the important role that actors such as private businesses, civil society and cities will need to play in the climate change effort, there will once again be relatively little discussion about one key cohort: government-owned companies. 

Although these companies are not prominent in many of the OECD countries that to date have dominated the climate change dialogue, they are major drivers of greenhouse gas emissions, particularly in emerging economies and other developing countries. To meet the global warming goals of the Paris Agreement, these government-owned companies must receive greater attention in climate discussions.

Globally, government-owned companies (also referred to as state-owned enterprises or “SOEs”) annually emit over 6.2 gigatons of carbon dioxide-equivalent in energy sector greenhouse gases.  This is more than all the emissions of the United States, or of the combined total of the  European Union and Japan.  In China, the world’s highest emitting country, its state companies are responsible for over half of national energy emissions.

The importance of state-owned enterprises to the climate effort is not only about emissions, it is also about the low-carbon alternatives they provide.  Governments own over half of the world’s zero-carbon utility-scale electricity generation

SOEs are often controversial, generally viewed as inefficient by the development community that has sought to reform or even eliminate them — but when it comes to climate, these companies are and will remain major actors in energy and other sectors that are central to the low-carbon effort.

SOEs are important players in the power sector that is responsible for 40% of global energy emissions.  These companies are particularly weighty in many of the developing world’s power systems, notably in coal generation  that is key to reducing emissions.

Whether it is the larger emerging economies of Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico or South Africa or many smaller poorer developing companies (or even some advanced economies, such as France), government-owned companies are the lead players in electricity.

Oil and gas companies generate 15% of total energy GHG emissions through their own production and other operations, and provide the petroleum products burnt by others.   While many of the best-known companies are private sector ones, such as ExxonMobil, Shell and BP, most of the world’s oil reserves are owned by national oil companies and their governments,  and the world’s most profitable company in 2018 was state-owned Saudi Aramco.

Governments also own some of the largest coal mining companies in the world.  These oil, gas and coal producers present a particular challenge for the low-carbon transition because their corporate purpose is intertwined with fossil fuel production.

SOEs are also very present in heavy industry (such as steel, cement and chemicals) which uses large amounts of fossil fuels and produces correspondingly high amounts of emissions.  Many of the world’s urban transit systems are also major consumers of energy: from Latin America to Asia, and even in New York City and other major U.S. cities, the buses and other transport that people ride and which produce emissions are owned by government entities (often cities and regional organizations).

The importance of SOEs to the climate effort is not only about emissions, it is also about the low-carbon alternatives they provide.  Governments own over half of the world’s zero-carbon utility-scale electricity generation.

Similarly, state-owned cement and steel companies in India and elsewhere are developing energy efficiency and other low-carbon technologies to reduce their emissions, and many urban transit systems are reducing their carbon footprints by acquiring electric buses and making energy efficiency investments.

Moreover, the state plays a major role in funding both high- and low-carbon projects.  While much media attention is given to announcements by leading private international banks, state-owned banks are amongst the world’s largest financial institutions.

In many emerging economies and developing countries throughout Asia, Latin America and Africa, state-owned development and commercial banks are major sources of funding for energy projects, including smaller-scale low-carbon investments by the private sector.

One specific and often overlooked class of state-owned banks that plays an important role in the energy transition is multilateral financial institutions, such as the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank.  These organizations are not generally viewed as SOEs, but they are — it is merely that they are owned by several national governments simultaneously.

And, finally, SOEs play a critical role in adaptation and resilience.  Many of the world’s electricity transmission and distribution systems are owned and operated by government entities.  State Grid Corporation of China is the largest with over 1 billion customers.

Even as countries have moved to liberalize their power markets to promote private sector participation in generation, the electricity grid often remains under state control (e.g., in the form of an independent system operator).

The government also plays a central ownership role in many natural gas and other energy networks.  When hurricanes hit or rivers flood roads and towns or high winds knock down transmission lines, it is often up to government entities to get the energy system running again.  As the prospect for extreme weather events increases, SOEs will face a growing challenge to deliver resilient energy systems.

From emissions to low-carbon alternatives, from power to oil and gas and coal, from heavy industry to transport, from financing to resilience, state-owned enterprises are critical actors in the climate change effort.  They are also in many ways a class unto themselves, albeit a diverse one.

Their government ownership distinguishes them from the private sector actors that have generally been targeted in the conceptualization of climate policy tools (such as carbon taxes and other liberalized market-oriented instruments).  Given the importance of state-owned enterprises in driving emissions, more thought and attention need to be paid to developing SOE-tailored tools to effectively engage them in climate action.

 

Philippe Benoit is Managing Director for Global Infrastructure Advisory Services 2050 and has written extensively on the issue of state-owned enterprises and climate.  He was previously the Head of the Energy Environment Division at the International Energy Agency and Energy Sector Manager for Latin America at the World Bank.

 

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Security Council Members Hold Open Videoconference in Connection with Syria. Courtesy: United Nations/Loey Felipe

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 16 2020 (IPS)

Children in Syria are facing the brutal brunt of the ongoing civil war in the country, now rendered further paralysed owing to the COVID-19 pandemic and United States sanctions.

At the Sept. 15 launch of the report investigating human rights violations in Syria by the Commission of Inquiry on Syria, experts warned that in addition to the already ongoing conflict, “newer forms of violence” was on the rise.

“While well documented violence such as arbitrary detention, disappearances, torture, and deaths in custody continue to be utilised by these actors, newer forms of violence including targeted killings, looting, appropriation of property are increasing in numbers and carry sectarian undertones,” Paulo Pinheiro, chair of the Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, said yesterday.

The report monitored human rights conditions in the war-torn country between Jan. 11 and Jul. 1, 2020. It paints a grave picture especially about the condition of children, in addition to other human rights crises in the country.

Children are both victims to being recruited by the Syrian National Army (SNA), as well as sexual abuse, which is used as a means to inflict torture on other men, the report found.

It documented at least two occasions when members of the SNA forced male detainees to witness the rape of a minor in an attempt to “humiliate, extract confessions and instil fear” within them.

“On the first day, the minor was threatened with being raped in front of the men, but the rape did not proceed,” read the report. “The following day, the same minor was gang-raped, as the male detainees were beaten and forced to watch in an act that amounts to torture.”

“Women and young girls are being targeted more and more, [with] reports of rape and detention have risen quite a bit,” Hanny Megally, a member of the commission.

The SNA is also recruiting children to deploy them in conflict outside of the country, the report found.

Meanwhile, children recruited by the Syrian Democratic Forces/Kurdish People’s Protection Units would end up in detention centres on accusations of espionage and/or for being affiliated with Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. According to testimony from adult detainees, the children were held in the same cells as adults, and it’s not clear if they had been charged with anything.

Children are also suffering alongside the rest of the country from grave food insecurity, according to the report.

About 9.3 million are currently facing food insecurity in the country, exacerbated further by the pandemic as well as U.S. sanctions.

The United Nations Children’s Fund estimates about six million children have been born since the war began, whose only idea of life has been the conflict. 

Beyond these grave effects on children, other civilians remain at continuous threat of arbitrary detention, with risks of dying while in detention.

Megally said that the overall nature of attacks on civilians has also experienced change: there are now more assassinations, more people being kidnapped for extortions and ransom, and more people being attacked to silence their criticism. 

In a response to an inquiry by the media, Megally added that measures such as checkpoints, which are set up to restrict movements in order to contain the pandemic, were “often being used to detain and harass people who are trying to move for legitimate reasons.”

The report calls for leaders to immediately address issues of gender-based sexual violence, to have a “large-scale prisoner release”, and for all stakeholders — local and international — to “ensure and facilitate unfettered access for independent humanitarian, protection and human rights organisations in every part of the country, including to places of confinement or detention” in order to address the food insecurity concerns in the country.

Pinheiro further reiterated that in order to address this worsening crisis, it’s imperative that sectoral sanctions are waived to ensure that there’s movement of food and medical supplies, and that children and prisoners be released.

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Credit: The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the intergovernmental body which assesses the state of biodiversity and of the ecosystem services it provides to society, in response to requests from decision makers.

By Inger Andersen
NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 15 2020 (IPS)

We have known for a long time that biodiversity, and the services it provides, have been in decline. It is on this background that ten years ago, the international community adopted the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020.

The goal of the plan, and its Aichi Biodiversity Targets, was to halt biodiversity loss and ensure that ecosystems continued to provide essential services.

Governments and the wider society have acted to address the biodiversity crisis. Some nations have made some progress. However, as this Report Card on global progress demonstrates, we have not met the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. And we are not on track for the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity.

Many of you might have heard me speak to the devastating consequences of humanity’s imprint on nature, in particular, the COVID-19 pandemic, a zoonotic disease transmitted between animals and humans, which is by no means the first and will not be the last.

From COVID-19 to massive wildfires, floods, melting glaciers and unprecedented heat, our failure to meet the Aichi Targets – to protect our home – has very real consequences. We can no longer afford to cast nature to the side. Now is the time for a massive step up, conserving, restoring and using biodiversity fairly and sustainably.

If we do not, biodiversity will continue to buckle under the weight of land- and sea-use change, overexploitation, climate change, pollution and invasive alien species. This will further damage human health, economies and societies, with particularly dire impacts on indigenous communities.

This Global Biodiversity Outlook spells out transitions that can create a society living in harmony with nature: transitions in how we use land and forests; organize our agriculture and food supply systems; manage fisheries; use water; manage urban environments and tackle climate change. There are many examples that show how the right policies can bring positive outcomes.

For example, where fisheries have been regulated and reported, abundance of stocks has improved. Where coordinated action has been taken to slow deforestation, habitat loss has been controlled. Ecosystem restoration, when implemented effectively and with the support of local populations, has reversed decades of degradation.

To knit the global response together, UN Member States will soon adopt the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. In the Framework, we need ambitious, clear and common targets for a nature-positive world.

Targets that can be broken down and implemented at the national level. We need targets that can be added up, so we know whether we are on track to meet the new goals that we will set. We need financing, capacity development, transparency and accountability.

We need buy-in from the sectors and groups – infrastructure, agriculture, government, business and finance – that drive biodiversity loss. This may seem like a tall order, but I believe protecting nature is entirely within humanity’s reach. There is today a far deeper understanding of what nature loss means for health and well-being.

Businesses can no longer afford to ignore the risk of biodiversity loss to profitability. And we are seeing countries, companies and financiers begin to lean in on the nature agenda. As we seek to stretch on the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), we have a real shot at embedding ecosystem-based adaptation and nature-based solutions into climate action.

We don’t need to wait for the Biodiversity Framework to be finalized before we begin this work. As the UN Secretary-General has noted, this is a “make or break moment for the planet”.

As we seek to reboot the global economy following COVID-19, how we prioritize and direct our resources will either secure human, economic and environmental health for generations to come, or take us down the grey path that has brought with it the suffering we are seeing today.

We have little choice in the path we must take.

 

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The post Protecting Nature is Entirely Within Humanity’s Reach: The Work Must Start Now appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Inger Andersen is UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director, UN Environment Programme (UNEP)

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Small-scale slash-and-burn agriculture is one of the deforestation problems in Brazil’s Amazon jungle. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

By External Source
Sep 15 2020 (IPS)

The EU is thinking about agreeing to a €4 billion trade deal with Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay (known as the Mercosur bloc). In our new academic research, myself and 21 international co-authors looked at the details of this deal so you don’t have to. What we found wasn’t pretty.

Even though negotiations took two decades, the deal failed to include Indigenous groups or local communities in negotiations. This is crucial given that murders of Indigenous leaders in the Brazilian Amazon has hit the highest level in two decades. Many of these violent attacks are linked to land grabs for agricultural expansion, and very few of them are officially investigated.

Imports from the Mercosur bloc to the EU already result in deforestation equivalent to one football pitch every three minutes
Worryingly, this trade deal would guarantee cheaper beef and ongoing tariff-free soy – the two top drivers of deforestation in the region. Despite this, the deal fails to provide mechanisms to ensure that deforestation and human rights violations are not linked to the commodities imported into the EU, clearly in contradiction to the goals of the EU Green Deal.

To add insult to injury, Brazil’s government is doing the opposite of what the country agreed to in the Paris Agreement – to reduce deforestation. Right now, fires are raging through the Amazon at the same startling rate as 2019, while unprecedented burning is sweeping through Argentina’s and Brazil’s wetlands. Out of control fires in wetlands really shouldn’t be a thing.

The tide looks like it might be turning on this agreement, with German chancellor Angela Merkel recently voicing “considerable doubts” following a meeting with youth climate activists.

Here’s the deeper issue that’s often ignored: even without this contentious deal, the ongoing problems of international trade will be left untouched.

The EU is already responsible for hefty imports from the Mercosur bloc. It imports more than 10 million tonnes of soy (for livestock feed) and over 200,000 tonnes of beef every year. Imports from the Mercosur bloc to the EU already result in deforestation equivalent to one football pitch every three minutes. All while the Amazon nears a tipping point that if reached could trigger a rapid shift from lush tropical rainforest to a dry savanna. This would be catastrophic for Indigenous people, the region’s agriculture, and the world’s climate.

If we are serious about combating climate change and supporting human rights, we must take urgent action.

 

Infographic from the academic article published in the journal One Earth. Laura Kehoe, Author provided

 

Things could be so much better

First things first: it’s clear that we need to cut down on foods that have high environmental impacts such as meat. Europeans eat so much meat that they are not only driving deforestation abroad, but also causing health problems at home. Excessive meat consumption is associated with increased rates of coronary heart disease, strokes, and type 2 diabetes, with convincing evidence that red and processed meat can cause cancer. If we ate more delicious plants, we’d feel better and the planet would too.

However, fixing our diets alone won’t be enough to completely solve this issue. To avoid unintentionally fuelling conflict and ecocide abroad, Europeans also need to fundamentally fix trade.

Luckily, solving this crisis doesn’t require fancy new inventions or a technological leap. Our research outlines the mechanisms needed to transform trade for the better, all of which are available to us now. For example, we could actually listen to Indigenous peoples and local communities and work to ensure they don’t lose their land to illegal invasions. We could trace the origin of products to make sure they don’t come from areas of deforestation or conflict. We could introduce legal mechanisms like collective redress – where vulnerable communities have a means to seek legal action.

Crucially though, even if we hold every company to account and trace every soybean, we could still indirectly drive pressure on South America’s last remaining forests, savannas, and wetlands if our demand increases. To avoid this, it’s important that we make trade deals contingent on countries making wider progress towards international commitments – the Paris agreement being a prime example.

Imagine if the economic muscle of trade was used to create a new playing field, where entering the game required genuine progress on reducing deforestation and supporting human rights. In the case of Brazil, Indigenous leader Sonia Guajajara suggests two clear benchmarks of progress that should be met before considering ratifying any new trade deals:

1. Substantial progress in ending impunity for violence against forest defenders, as measured by the number of these cases investigated, prosecuted, and brought to trial.
2. A reduction in deforestation rates that is sufficient to put the country back on track to meet its own targets under the Paris Agreement.

Ultimately, we need to have the courage to stand up and act in line with the values we already hold. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to live in a world that isn’t hellbent on destruction? Where we can have dinner without worrying about whether our meal has a shady past?

Our research outlines what’s needed to fundamentally fix trade – it’s now up to the EU to step up and become a leader in sustainability that we can all be proud of.

Laura Kehoe, Researcher in Conservation Decision Science and Land Use, University of Oxford

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post Fight Fire with Trade: How Europe Can Help Save the Amazon appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By PRESS RELEASE
PARIS, Sep 15 2020 (IPS-Partners)

The Director-General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay, on Thursday 27 August launched an international fund raising appeal, Li Beirut (For Beirut in Arabic), to support the rehabilitation of schools, historic heritage buildings, museums, galleries and the creative economy, all of which suffered extensive damage in the deadly explosions that shook the Lebanese capital on 4 August.

As she launched Li Beirut, the Director-General expressed the unflagging solidarity of UNESCO with the people of Lebanon.

“UNESCO, of which Lebanon is a founding member, stands at their side to mobilize the international community and support the city’s recovery for and through culture, heritage and education” Ms Azoulay declared.

The Director-General emphasized UNESCO’s commitment to applying the highest internationally recognized professional and management standards in coordinating support for education and culture in the framework of UN assistance to Lebanon. “I solemnly call for the historic centre to be protected – through administrative measures and appropriate regulations – to prevent property speculation and transactions taking advantage of residents’ distress and vulnerability,” she added.

In addition to coordinating UN efforts to support education in Beirut, which will require $23 million, UNESCO has committed to the immediate rehabilitation of 40 of the 159 affected schools with funds it has already raised. In the coming months, UNESCO will prioritize funding for schooling and distance learning, an urgent issue for the 85,000 affected students. “We must focus on education, because it is a major concern for families and it is where Lebanon’s future will be played out,” said the Director-General. To this end, the Global Education Coalition, put in place by UNESCO during the early weeks of the COVID-19 crisis. will hold a Special Session on the situation in Lebanon on 1 September.

UNESCO will also lead international coordination efforts for the recovery and reconstruction of Beirut’s culture and heritage and raise funds to respond to the crisis affecting the cultural sector. “We must protect the spirit of the city, even as we work to rebuild it. We must build back – but, more importantly, we must build back well. This means protecting the unique heritage of these neighbourhoods, respecting the city’s history, and supporting its creative energy,” said Ms Azoulay. According to preliminary estimates, $500,000,000 are needed to support heritage and the creative economy over the coming year, with museums, galleries and cultural institutions expected to experience substantial losses in revenues. UNESCO will conduct priority interventions to stabilize, secure and safeguard several historic buildings located in the most affected neighbourhoods.

As part of these actions, Ms Azoulay said, “We are determined to mobilize the international community both for built heritage and museums, and for the hard-hit creative sector, by supporting artists and cultural professionals, whom UNESCO will also bring together in three ResiliArt debates in September.” To finance these operations on the ground, a UNESCO donors’ conference for Beirut will be organized before the end of September.

During her two-day visit, the Director-General took stock of the situation through meetings with artists, members of the cultural sector and creative industries, including NGOs and local partners.

Source: UNESCO

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Credit: Charles Mangwiro/IPS

By Charles Mangwiro
CHOKWE, Mozambique, Sep 15 2020 (IPS)

Like many Mozambicans in the agricultural sector, 39-year-old Fatima Matavele, a commercial farmer in the district of Chokwe, some 213 kilometres north of the capital, Maputo, has had a tough year. Although the last few years have been hard, 2020 has proven to be the most difficult of all.

Trading within Mozambique, with its rutted roads and bribe-hungry police, has never been easy, but restrictions imposed by President Filipe Nyusi’s government in response to the COVID-19 pandemic have worsened an already bad situation. Last week on Sept. 6, the country emerged from a second set of COVID-19 restrictions, which lasted 30 days.

In ordinary times, Matavele can transport her produce to the Zimpeto vegetable market — the country’s fresh farm produce bazaar on the outskirts of Maputo — in less than four hours. But since the coronavirus restrictions came in, some shipments were taking much longer to reach the market, that is if they are lucky to reach it at all.

On those unlucky days when the produce cannot be transported, Matavele and her workers ended up dumping sacks and boxes of fresh vegetables on the roadside.

“I employ a total of 45 people at my farm and if the trucks are delayed or turned away altogether, the produce spoils,” said Matavele, whose traders’ collective slashed the number of trucks it runs to Maputo from up to eight a day to only one or two a day.

“This is an outright loss but I must pay my workers at the end of the month,” the farmer of 15 years told IPS.

In sub-Saharan Africa 40 precent of staple foods fail to reach markets because of poor roads and market access limitations, according to the Food Sustainability Index (FSI) developed by the Economist Intelligence Unit and the Barilla Centre for Food and Nutrition (BCFN).

The breakdowns in the food supply chain here are contributing to fears of a spiralling food crisis. The coronavirus-induced lockdowns, the first of which occurred in March, have pushed commodities and food prices up in Mozambique while people are racing to stock food. According to the USAID-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network, “maize grain prices in monitored markets increased by 7-13 percent in July compared to June 2020, 11-50 percent above last year’s prices, and 18-55 percent above the five-year average”.

The United Nations says the pandemic could cause the number of Africans living in food insecurity to double to 43 million in the next six months.

While some countries have been able to rely on healthy pre-crisis stocks to keep the price of staples such as maize and rice relatively stable, more time-sensitive supply chains are fraying and legions of independent traders are taking the hit.

Mozambique is one of the world’s poorest countries – ranking 178 out of 187 nations on the U.N.’s Human Development Index – which also means it cannot afford the luxury of importing food for its population.

At the same time nearly half a million people need food aid in Mozambique and food prices are soaring in the aftermath of poor rains that hit most crops in the just-ended farming season, the government said recently. (The Mozambican agriculture season runs from October to April, with harvesting from May to July.) The Ministry of Agriculture said 450,000 people need food assistance and 150,000 face a critical situation in the southern and central areas of the country.

The central and southern provinces are still recovering from devastating floods and cyclones that smashed the regions early last year, leaving a trail of extensive damage and hundreds of people dead.

Agriculture is the backbone of the economy in Mozambique, providing employment for over 75 percent of the workforce. The Open Society Foundation in a 2019 report estimated that 70 percent of people under 35 years of age, who form the majority of Mozambique’s population of 30 million, cannot find stable employment.

“We (farmers) are the solution to this [food crisis] but we are struggling alone without any assistance and we are forced to spend our own money to keep the farming sector afloat and we have started using all sorts of media such as Facebook and What’s app to engage with our clients just to keep them informed of what is going on,” said Matavele.

“With support from an agricultural bank we will be able to feed the whole nation and cut all food imports in Mozambique,” she added.

In the 2020 financial year, the agriculture sector was allocated 10 percent of the country’s total budget of $5.1 billion to help purchase and improve the quality of seeds, as well as to introduce irrigated and mechanised farming.

According to Matavele, high fuel prices and transportation costs isolated farmers from one of their biggest markets while the country’s growing debt and economic crisis strained the budgets of many.

Added to this are extreme weather conditions, that often seems to alternate between flooding and drought, which has dashed hopes of decent harvests.

Producers in the Chokwe district also complain about the lack of resellers to purchase their product. Chokwe district is located in southern Gaza province’s agriculture heartland and shares a border with the South African province of Mpumalanga.

Matavele, a single mother of five, is totally dependent on her farming where she produces potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers and cabbages. Tomatoes, however, remain the most popular produce among urban consumers.

“Agriculture is my childhood dream come true, but I never imagined that things could quickly come to standstill… the future is looking very bleak hence we are forced to find new ways to remain afloat as an industry,” she said adding, “now we are producing more and we sell our products cheaply to recover our investments as the solution, it’s better than doing nothing.”

The subsistence farmers of Chokwe, hardened by years of poverty, are already replanting what they can, using cuttings from the uprooted cassava plants that now litter the village.
Matavele watched as her tractor tilled the land in preparation for the next season.

But the land has its rhythm and will not be rushed, however great the need. The cassava be ready to eat only in eight months time. Until then, hunger is a real threat.

To increase food production, “firstly, all cities had to cope with the need to ensure access to food and sustainable diets for the most vulnerable and deprived groups of the population (e.g. poor, unemployed, elderly, children, migrants, etc.) and the government should invest in local farmers, many of whom still use the most basic hoes to till their fields and lack access to the best seeds,” said Marta Antonelli, head of research at the Italy-based BCFN in an emailed response to IPS.

• Tomorrow read how Mozambique, a country wracked by hunger, has signed away land concessions three times larger than Greater London to outside investors in the past decade, displacing thousands of farmers in the process.

 

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The post COVID-19 Worsens Mozambique’s Hunger – Part 1 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

High fuel prices and transportation costs isolated Mozambique's farmers from one of their biggest markets while the country’s growing debt and economic crisis strained the budgets of many. But restrictions imposed by President Filipe Nyusi’s government in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has worsened food security as farmers have been unable to get their produce to market. This is the first in a two-part series.

The post COVID-19 Worsens Mozambique’s Hunger – Part 1 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By PRESS RELEASE
PARIS, Sep 15 2020 (IPS-Partners)

A new UNESCO report highlights a sharp increase in the global number of protests during which the police and security forces violated media freedom in the first half of 2020. Between January and June this year, 21 protests around the world were marred by violations of press freedom, including protests in which journalists were attacked, arrested and even killed.

UNESCO’s new report, Safety of Journalists Covering Protests – Preserving Freedom of the Press During Times of Civil Unrest, points to a wider upward trend in the use of unlawful force by police and security forces over the last five years. In 2015, journalists covering 15 protests worldwide were impeded by the police and security forces. By 2019, that number more than doubled to 32. The report suggests that a troubling new threshold has been crossed, revealing a significant and growing threat to media freedom and freedom of access to information in all regions of the world.

The report also found that ten journalists were killed while covering protests over the last five years. Each of these killings was condemned at the time by UNESCO’s Director-General.

In some protests up to 500 separate violations took place, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. In some cases, including during protests linked to the Black Lives Matter movement, violence resulted in permanent injuries, such as those sustained by several journalists blinded by rubber bullets or pepper balls.

Launching the report, UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay underscored that the freedom to inform citizens on the causes of unrest and the response from state authorities are of vital importance for democracies to thrive.Journalists have a critical role in reporting and informing audiences on protest movements. For many years, UNESCO has been raising global awareness to ensure that they can do this safely and without fear of persecution, and training security forces and the judiciary on international norms in freedom of expression. The figures in this report show that much greater efforts are needed. We call on the international community and all relevant authorities to ensure that these fundamental rights are upheld.

Audrey Azoulay, UNESCO Director-General

The report finds that during this five-year period, protests around the world have been rooted in concerns about economic injustice, government corruption, the decline of political freedoms, and growing authoritarianism. It details the different abuses journalists face when covering protests including surveillance, harassment, intimidation, beating, being shot at with lethal or non-lethal ammunition, detention, abduction and the deliberate destruction of equipment.

It also contains concrete recommendations for all actors involved, from media outlets and national authorities to international organizations, to ensure better protections for journalists. These include: strengthening training for police and law enforcement actors on freedom of expression and appropriate behaviour in dealing with the media; providing appropriate training and equipment to journalists, including freelancers, sent to cover demonstrations; appointing national ombudsmen to hold police accountable for the use of force against journalists during demonstrations; and strengthening national mechanisms for the safety of journalists.

UNESCO provides technical assistance to Member States, including training for police and security forces on upholding press freedom and freedom of expression.

The report is an issue brief in the UNESCO Series on World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development.

The report is available in the six official UN languages: English, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, and Chinese.

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By Vladimir Popov and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
BERLIN and KUALA LUMPUR, Sep 15 2020 (IPS)

In recent decades, many contemporary macroeconomic and financial problems have been blamed on ‘soft budget constraints’ (SBCs), with the term becoming quite popular in the economics lexicon, financial media and political discourse.

Soft budget constraints
Originally coined four decades ago to purportedly describe the economic roots of problems in centrally planned ‘socialist’ economies, it was soon also invoked for ostensibly dirigiste developing countries accused of ‘macroeconomic populism’ and ‘industrial policy’.

Vladimir Popov

It has since assumed a double life, invoked on one (microeconomic) hand to discipline large enterprises not maximising shareholder value by investing too much for the medium and long-term, and on the other (macroeconomic) hand to control ‘irresponsible’ governments running budget deficits.

First formulated by Harvard economist Janos Kornai from Hungary to explain economic behaviour in ‘socialist’ economies said to be characterised by shortage, the term was soon widely used in the literature on economic transitions from centrally planned ‘socialism’ to market capitalism.

The original claim was that state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in socialist countries were not allowed to fail even when unprofitable. According to him, such SOEs were almost always bailed out with financial subsidies or by other means. True, SOEs in socialist economies never went out of business as there were no bankruptcies.

But although such legal bankruptcy provisions were undoubtedly lacking, SOEs were often disciplined by other means in such ‘centrally planned’ economies: national budget provisioning under central planning was almost always strictly limited, managements could be changed, or enterprises required to reform.

Nevertheless, poor enterprise management and losses were blamed on SBCs. With enterprise losses assumed to result in national level budgetary indiscipline, SBCs at both levels were presumed to be related.

Hence, permanent government budget deficits, debt accumulation, high inflation and other macroeconomic imbalances were presumed to be associated with pervasive enterprise level SBCs and losses.

Global neoliberal economic ascendance from the 1980s increasingly invoked SBCs to explain economic problems at both micro and macro levels in non-socialist economies, such as the financial difficulties of US auto giant Chrysler in the 1980s and various macro-financial crises since.

Shortages and SBCs
The SBC notion was directly linked by Kornai to the ‘shortage economy’, another notion associated with him from the 1980s, with both portrayed as characteristic of centrally planned socialist economies.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

When a government covers the losses of all unprofitable SOEs with a national fiscal SBC — a practice presumed to be widespread — both wages and profits exceed the value of output, causing both consumer and investment demand to exceed supply in such ‘shortage’ economies.

As enterprises are not constrained from increasing demand for resources, shortages emerge. Shortages are inevitable if prices are controlled and cannot rise to clear markets. But SBCs do not inevitably lead to shortages as market price increases can eliminate them.

Due to SBCs, enterprises are presumed to increase investment and production until they encounter non-financial resource constraints in the form of shortages. But no explanations have been offered as to why these should necessarily occur, either in theory or in practice.

Rather, this claim is based on the presumption that SOE managers are primarily, if not solely interested in maximizing output or growth rates. This presumption is widely believed by economists to be realistic, although there is no systematic evidence that this was indeed the case.

Selective industrial policy
Enterprise level losses over several years were also presumed to be due to SBCs, rather than the result of a deliberate policy of selective encouragement of and support for particular sectors, technological initiatives and enterprises.

In fact, such support for strategic industries and enterprises was not widespread, let alone pervasive, and did not cause major government budget deficits. Such selective industrial policy is thus easily, but misleadingly depicted as a classic cause of enterprise-level SBCs.

Such selective subsidization may or may not succeed in accelerating progressive structural transformation, but was certainly neither an intrinsic or pervasive feature of centrally planned socialist economies, and even more misleadingly, a major cause of pervasive SBCs.

In East Asia, promotion of export-oriented manufacturing and new high-tech industries contributed to successful catch-up growth and structural transformation. But such targeted subsidization conditional on meeting performance criteria did not involve national level or macroeconomic SBCs.

The problem in the USSR and East European countries was not subsidization per se, but rather, indefinite, even increasing protection through higher domestic prices for manufactures — as part of import substituting industrialization policy — perpetually protecting manufacturing SOEs not effectively compelled to become more competitive.

Budget constraints in ‘socialist’ economies
In the Soviet Union after the Second World War, from the 1947 monetary reform until the 1987 Gorbachev perestroika reforms, budget deficits and debt were kept low and transparent. Open and hidden annual inflation rates remained in the single digits, often lower than in Western countries.

In fact, budget constraints in ‘socialist’ economies were ‘stricter’ than in most developing countries, and no less ‘hard’ than in many developed countries. SBCs in ‘socialist’ economies were not all-pervasive, as often claimed, but selective, e.g., involving subsidization of some enterprises or industries at the expense of others.

Budget constraints under central planning were mostly much stricter than in market economies at similar levels of development. SOE losses could contribute to government budget deficits, but were mostly modest under ‘socialism’, with both open and hidden inflation relatively low.

Various political factors shaped macroeconomic policy choices during the 1990s’ transitions. Previously ‘hard’ budget constraints ‘softened’ dramatically in many East European countries and former Soviet republics, resulting in fast growing budget deficits and high inflation.

The new combination of weak states facing rivalrous powerful interest groups caused governments to ‘kick the can down the road’, with deficits, debt, inflationary financing, overvalued exchange rates as well as domestic fuel and energy prices below world levels.

Hence, SBCs were just one type of economic policy, rare in ‘socialist’ countries, but found in many developing countries, especially in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, and ironically, in transition economies, especially in the former USSR, from the 1990s.

 

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Credit: Image from istockphoto.com/jaynothing/ International Politics and Society, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Brussels office.

By Asyura Salleh
YOKOSUKA CITY, Japan, Sep 15 2020 (IPS)

Maritime security in Asia Pacific is often viewed through a traditional security lens, where the main responsibility falls on maritime law enforcement agencies to protect maritime borders and territorial sovereignty.

However, such a narrow perspective can fail to effectively counter maritime security threats and overburden enforcement agencies. A more holistic understanding of maritime drivers and actors is necessary to expand the scope beyond traditional security concerns and engage all maritime stakeholders in protecting the region’s maritime commons.

The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically altered the maritime landscape by accentuating social and political fissures that exist along Asia Pacific’s coastlines such as domestic political instability and economic grievances.

These fissures have spilled over into the maritime arena as reports of crimes such as illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, piracy, and armed robbery increase since the onset of the pandemic.

As enforcement agencies become preoccupied with battling the pandemic and defence budgets are readjusted, incidents of piracy and armed robbery in the period from January to June 2020 doubled from the previous year.

In most cases, the main responders to these crimes have been maritime law enforcement agencies such as Indonesia’s Maritime Affairs and Fishery Ministry, the Malaysia Maritime Enforcement Agency, and Singapore’s Maritime Security Task Force.

Under restricted social distancing measures that limit the freedom of movement, necessitate working in shifts, and demand frequent health monitoring, regional enforcement authorities have demonstrated a high level of responsiveness and flexibility towards these changes in the maritime environment and modes of operation.

However, should the pandemic period further extend, other maritime stakeholders need to be better utilized to distribute this task of monitoring and protecting the maritime domain.

In addition to maritime law enforcement agencies, a whole-of-society approach must be encouraged by co-opting the coastal communities, shipping industry, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and local government units into a nationwide effort to preserve maritime security.

Unlike maritime enforcement agencies, which mainly operate at sea, other sectors in society are better engaged with the land-based problems that drive most of these maritime crimes.

Relative economic deprivation, weak implementation of regulations, and the unequal distribution of welfare resources are some factors that can be directly linked to economic development projects, community policing initiatives, and welfare programmes.

For these reasons, maritime drivers are best tackled through close partnerships with the coastal community and local government units. Despite being continually overlooked, the coastal community holds intimate knowledge on the complex waterways and patterns of users at sea.

Such information can be extremely helpful in maintaining maritime security. Some countries such as Malaysia have recognized the need for such a whole-of-society approach in the 2020 Defence White Paper by calling for a greater role of the rakyat, or citizens, in defending national security. The real test will be in the implementation, but the government’s encouragement of the concept at a strategic level is already an important step.

For an effective whole-of-society approach, several elements need to be prioritized. These include community empowerment, fostering stronger levels of trust, and building maritime domain awareness (MDA).

Initiatives such as the Keselamatan dan Pembangunan (“KESBAN”) approach utilized a people-centric approach to deter security threats. First established to defeat the insurgency movement in Malaya from 1948 to 1960, this approach focuses on building security and development through a controlled hierarchical structure and chain of command that stretches to the district and village levels.

Such close engagements also serve to empower the community by encouraging them to monitor the areas themselves under a direct chain of information that can eventually reach the country’s national security council.

Stronger levels of trust between security agencies, fishing industries, and non-governmental organizations are also necessary to facilitate efficient and rapid responses to maritime incidents. This can be achieved by developing a region-wide network of agencies or companies that share a similar objective.

Malaysia has implemented inter-agency operations such as Ops Benteng to protect maritime borders, while private sector initiatives such as the Seafood Business for Ocean Stewardship coalition engages various seafood companies across the world to pursue sustainable fisheries.

Meanwhile, many maritime law-enforcement agencies are working towards the concept of MDA. Indonesia’s recently-established Maritime Information Center is a reflection of this movement as the Center seeks to collate information on incidents taking place in Indonesia’s exclusive economic zones.

In addition to centralizing information, this Center enhances coordination with other information-sharing centres across the region such as Singapore’s Information Fusion Centre and the International Maritime Bureau in Malaysia.

While such an effort is necessary to enhance a country’s MDA level, other maritime security stakeholders could also contribute information to a virtual platform that is publicly accessible by all users across the region. Such an initiative would enhance transparency and also build a shared understanding of Asia Pacific’s waterways.

These initiatives demonstrate a gradual movement towards a whole-of-society approach in the Asia Pacific. For as long as maritime law enforcement agencies remain at the forefront of defending maritime security, it will be important to recognise that more support needs to be provided to other stakeholders such as the coastal community, private sector industries, and non-governmental organizations in better coordinating their efforts with these agencies.

As the pandemic continues to accelerate the rate of maritime incidents such as piracy and armed robbery, it is more pertinent than ever to start building closer connections between the region’s maritime security stakeholders to achieve peace together.

Source: International Politics and Society (IPS) based in the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung’s Brussels office.

 

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Excerpt:

Asyura Salleh is a non-Resident Vasey Fellow at the Pacific Forum and Special Advisor for Maritime Security at the Yokosuka Council on Asia-Pacific Studies.

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By External Source
Sep 14 2020 (IPS-Partners)

Come to the table, with a willingness to share and be vulnerable: This video is the second in a 3 part series hearing directly from Monitoring Evaluation and Learning practitioners within the Pacific region and their experience of using Pacific approaches in their work. In this video we hear from Associate Professor Cresantia Frances Koya – Vaka’uta who works with the University of the South Pacific, the regionally owned provider of tertiary education in the Pacific region and an international centre of excellence for teaching, research consulting and training on all aspects of Pacific culture, environment and human resource development needs.

We asked Professor Koya-Vaka’uta to share her experiences using Pacific approaches and what advice she would give to new or existing development partner working within the Pacific region. Frances was one of the stakeholders involved in a 12 month journey of talanoa to explore, assess and report on MEL capacity in the Pacific . The Pacific approaches used and he findings are found in the final report: The Pacific MEL Capacity Strengthening Rebbilib http://purl.org/spc/digilib/doc/vpukq

Source: The Pacific Community (SPC)

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H.E. Mr. Volkan Bozkir, President-elect of the 75th Session of the United Nations General Assembly. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten

By External Source
NEW YORK, Sep 14 2020 (IPS)

The Turkish diplomat elected to be the president of the 75th session of the UN General Assembly, Volkan Bozkir, is taking on the role as the Organization grapples with an unprecedented pandemic, and questions surrounding the future direction it should take.

Mr. Bozkir, a highly experienced public servant, and recently Minister for European Affairs, with almost 50 years of professional experience, was elected from the Western European and Others (WEOG) group of nations, and follows Nigeria’s Tijjani Muhammad-Bande.

Mr. Bozkir joined Turkey’s foreign service in 1972, and has held several senior diplomatic positions, including Consul General in New York, Ambassador in Bucharest, and Permanent Representative of Turkey to the EU.

Ahead of the 75th session, Mr. Bozkir sat down with UN News, to discuss how to ensure that the UN stays relevant in the decades to come, why it is he will be making the protection of vulnerable people and communities a key issue during his year in the presidency, and how he intends to cope with the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

GA President: Of course, COVID-19 has become an overwhelming priority and focus right now. That is why I chose to adapt the theme for the 75th session of the UN. Member States chose the theme: “The future we want, the United Nations we need: reaffirming our collective commitment to multilateralism”. I added to that, “confronting COVID-19 through effective multilateral action”, because the pandemic is testing our institutions like never before: we have a duty to take effective action at the global level to overcome this virus, and the havoc it is wreaking on our economies and societies.

UN News: The UN is 75 years old this year. What does this anniversary mean to you as President of the GA during this session?

GA President: COVID-19 is a global crisis the world hasn’t known since the UN was created out of the ashes of World War Two. It is not only a health crisis, but a social and economic crisis, which has exacerbated existing challenges the UN is seeking to overcome through the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals.

The whole of humanity is in this fight together. It is time for unity. Member States have never had a more compelling reason to work closely together for the common good. And I am certain that, together, we will come out of it stronger.

In all these endeavours the UN, in particular, the General Assembly has a central role to play. Through this body, Member States set norms and direct our collective resources to addressing common challenges. Vaccines is a case in point. Will the COVID vaccine be a global common good shared equitably? This is a disease that does not respect national boundaries. We are not safe until we are all safe.

GA President: This landmark anniversary is a unique opportunity to look back on what has already been achieved and build on these achievements to overcome the challenges currently facing multilateralism and the UN.

Institutions need to adapt and reform themselves to stay relevant and fit for purpose. I support the UN reform agenda, and the sweeping changes we have seen in the areas of peace and security, development and management. These steps are crucial to make the entire UN family more united and coherent.

The United Nations, to this day, is the only international organization with universal membership that establishes the norms for dealing with global problems through multilateralism. And the General Assembly is the only UN organ where all Member States have an equal voice.

UN News: Why have you made vulnerable people and groups a focus of your presidency?

GA President: Global challenges and crises take the worst toll on the most vulnerable persons and countries. People in need or under oppression should feel that their concerns are being heard in the UN’s most democratic body. I will work to bring the voices of the world’s people into our discussions.

Ambassador Volkan Bozkir (left) of Turkey, incoming President of the 75th Session of the UN General Assembly, meets with Secretary-General António Guterres back in January 2020. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elias

UN News: 2020 is a significant year for women’s rights. We are celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for action and the 20th anniversary of the landmark UN Security Council resolution on Women, Peace and Security. What actions will you take to ensure the empowerment of women and girls?

GA President: Evidence shows that gender equality supports greater levels of peace and prosperity. Women often lack access to decent work, equal pay, quality education and adequate health care. They suffer from violence and discrimination and are often under-represented in political and economic decision-making processes. And unfortunately, with the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, even the gains made in the past decades are at risk of being rolled back. That must change.

Improving women’s lives makes our societies more inclusive and productive, which helps everyone. As the principal international standard-setting institution, the United Nations bears a special responsibility to lead by example.

For my part, I have paid special attention to gender parity while forming my own team, which now includes more women than men, and is at gender parity in senior management. And I will ensure a gender lens is applied to the work we do across peace and security, human rights, humanitarian issues, and sustainable development.

UN News: On a personal level, how did you become interested in public service? What motivates you?

GA President: As a career diplomat and politician for nearly 50 years, I have spent my entire professional life in public service. It was a source of pride for me to serve my country and my nation.

Now I am at the beginning of a new and equally proud chapter, where I will be serving all UN members. My motivation for taking on this challenging new role is my strong conviction in the effectiveness of multilateral diplomacy, and also my desire to serve and make contributions, even small ones in history’s flow, to the overall well-being of humanity. I cannot think of a much better place than the UN to work for that.

 

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Nigerian migrants arrive in Lagos from Libya. Nigeria has, in the last two years, evacuated thousands of its citizens from Libya and Lebanon after they suffered several forms of abuses, including enslavement. Trafficking has resulted in at least 80,000 Nigerian women being held as sex slaves and forced labour in the Middle East. Credit: Sam Olukoya/IPS

By Sam Olukoya
LAGOS, Nigeria, Sep 14 2020 (IPS)

“I need help, right now I cannot walk properly,” trafficking victim Nkiru Obasi pleaded from her hospital bed in a video she posted online.

The young Nigerian woman had been injured in the Aug. 4 Beirut blast, which ripped through the Lebanese capital, killing 190 people injuring a further 6,500 and damaging 40 percent of the city. However, it’s not her injuries keeping her in Lebanon but a restrictive and abusive system of migrant laws.

Obasi is just one of thousands of young Nigerian women trafficked to Lebanon with false promises of a better life. The Lagos-based New Telegraph newspaper quoted a source in the Nigerian embassy in Lebanon as saying that some 4,541 Nigerian women were trafficked to the country last year. The chair of Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, described the rate at which Nigerian women are trafficked to Lebanon as “an epidemic”.

After sustaining injuries in the blast, Obasi tried to return to Nigeria but she and four others were stopped at the airport under the exploitative Kafala system.

The system, which is widely practiced in Lebanon and other parts of the Middle East, prohibits migrant workers from returning to their countries without the permission of their employer.

“Lebanon’s restrictive and exploitative kafala system traps tens of thousands of migrant domestic workers in potentially harmful situations by tying their legal status to their employer, enabling highly abusive conditions amounting at worst to modern-day slavery,” according to Aya Majzoub, Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch. The rights organisation called for a revised contract that recognises and protects workers’ internationally guaranteed rights.

In late May, Nigeria attempted to repatriate 60 trafficked women from Lebanon but only 50 could return home. Anti-trafficking activists in the Middle East said the remaining 10 women were held back in Lebanon under the Kafala system.

The Kafala system operates alongside a system that enslaves trafficked women. In April, a Lebanese man posted an advert under the “Buy and Sell in Lebanon” Facebook group. “Domestic worker from Nigeria for sale with new legal document, she is 30 years old, she is very active and very clean,” the advert said in Arabic. The price tag was $1,000.

An outcry from Nigeria forced Lebanese authorities to rescue the woman while a man thought to be responsible for the Facebook post was arrested. The Lebanese Ministry of Labour said the man would be tried in court for human trafficking.

But this is not an isolated case. Many Nigerian women trafficked to the Middle East have spoken out about being sold as slaves.

In January, 23-year-old Ajayi Omolola appeared in an online video saying she and a few other Nigerian women were being held under harsh conditions and that their lives were at risk.

“When we are ill, they don’t take us to the hospital, some of those I arrived in Lebanon with have died,” she said.

Omolola said on arrival in Lebanon, her passport was taken away and she was “sold”.

“I did not realise that they had sold me into slavery,” she said, adding that she only realised the gravity of her situation when her boss told her she could not return to Nigeria because he had “bought her”.

Kikelomo Olayide had a similar account. On arrival in Lebanon from Nigeria she was taken to a market. “In that market, they call us slaves,” she said.

Roland Nwoha, head of programmes/coordinator of migration and human trafficking at Idia Renaissance, a Nigerian organisation working to discourage irregular migration and human trafficking, told IPS that even though Europe is a major attraction for Nigerians in search of a better future abroad, the Middle East is proving an alternative for many.

Nwoha explained that unlike the journey to Europe, which involves a dangerous land journey through the desert and an equally dangerous crossing of the Mediterranean Sea, traffickers fly their victims to the Middle East after procuring visas for them with the promise of good jobs.

The chair of Nigeria’s House of Representatives Committee on Diaspora Affairs Tolulope Akande-Sadipe said 80,000 Nigerian women are being held as sex slaves,and forced labour in the Middle East, especially in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.

Nigerian women trafficked to the Middle East “almost always end in labour and sexual exploitation,” Daniel Atokolo Lagos commander of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons said.

Gloria Bright, a Nigerian teacher who was promised a teaching job with a monthly salary of $1,000 in Lebanon, was held captive and made to work as a domestic worker upon her arrival. She posted an online video in which she pleaded for help and to be rescued. She said besides being made to work under very harsh conditions, her boss sexually harassed her. “At times he will ask me to massage him, he will hug me, he will kiss me,” she said.

Bright was fortunate to be rescued by Nigerian authorities before the Aug. 4 Beirut blast.

Dabiri-Erewa said the trafficking of Nigerians to Lebanon “is becoming a big embarrassment and it has to be stopped”. In an effort to stop the crime, Nigerian authorities have arrested several people, including Lebanese residents in Nigeria. A Lebanese is being investigated in connection with the trafficking of 27 women to Lebanon, two of whom have been rescued.

The Lebanese ambassador to Nigeria, Houssam Diab, says his embassy is assisting the Nigerian government to stop the trafficking of women to his country. He said the issuance of work visas to Nigerians has been suspended following cases of the abuse of Nigerian women at the hands of their Lebanese employers.

The ambassador said the Lebanese Ministry of Labour will work out a “legal and systemic way to make domestic staff to come into Lebanon legally without the fear of inhuman treatment”.   

Nigerian activists, like Nwoha, who are working against human trafficking say the Nigerian government has to do more to curtailing the activities of the traffickers. They said the government should make conditions at home better to stop Nigerians desperately seeking a better life abroad.

 

This is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Airways Aviation Group.

The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ) is pursuing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 8 with a special emphasis on Goal 8.7 which ‘takes immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms’.

The origins of the GSN come from the endeavours of the Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders signed on 2 December 2014. Religious leaders of various faiths, gathered to work together “to defend the dignity and freedom of the human being against the extreme forms of the globalisation of indifference, such us exploitation, forced labour, prostitution, human trafficking” and so forth.

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Tso Rolpa glacial lake at 4,580m has grown seven times in size in the past 60 years due to global heating. Credit: RASTRARAJ BHANDARI

By Mukesh Pokhrel
KATHMANDU, Sep 14 2020 (IPS)

A new report out this week warns that hundreds of glacial lakes in the Himalaya are in danger of bursting because global heating is melting the ice on the world’s highest mountains. However, on only two of them have there been mitigation measures to reduce water levels.

Those projects have been prohibitively expensive, and questions have been raised about their sustainability and whether they offer a long-term solution.

The water level of the Tso Rolpa glacial lake in the Rolwaling Valley was lowered 20 years ago after scientists warned that it was in imminent danger of bursting. The project cost $9 million at the time, most of it coming from The Netherlands.

Its sluice gate lowered the water level by only 3m, and scientists now say it needs to go down by a further 20m to reduce risk of it bursting. A network of early warning stations downstream also has not functioned as planned.

 

A sluice gate built 20 years ago reduced the level of the water by 3m, but it needs to go down by 20m to reduce the danger of a Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF). Credit: RASTRARAJ BHANDARI

 

The other project was a drainage channel and gate built on Imja Lake in the Mt Everest region in 2016 by the Nepal Army with support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) at a cost of $7.2 million.

The project located at 5,000m altitude was criticised at the time for being an expensive show-case on a popular tourist site near Mt Everest, and for wasting money on a lake that is relatively stable because it is buttressed by two side moraines of the Lhotse Nup and Nuptse Glaciers. Glacial lakes like Thulagi in Lamjung on the Hongu basin were said to be in much greater danger of bursting, and needed more urgent mitigation.

And it has emerged that four years after the project was completed and the water in Imja Lake lowered by 3.4m, the Nepal Army and its main contractor have yet to remove their excavators and other equipment from the site as per the contract — flouting guidelines of Sagarmatha National Park, which is a World Heritage Site.

Despite recent interventions by UNESCO and the national park, the Nepal Army has said it is technically not possible to take the equipment out because of altitude restrictions on its helicopters. The firm hired by the army, Krishna Construction, says its contract does not say anything about removal of equipment.

The Glacial Lake Inventory report launched at a webinar on Monday says that of the expanding glacial lakes in the Himalaya, 47 on the watersheds of Nepal’s three main rivers are at high risk of bursting, and causing catastrophic floods downstream. Of these, 42 lakes are on the Kosi River basin in eastern Nepal, three are on the Gandaki and two on the Karnali watersheds.

However, not all the lakes are located in Nepal. Of the 47 dangerous lakes, 25 are in Tibet and empty into rivers that flow down directly into Nepal. One of the high risk lakes is in Indian territory near Karnali.

This week’s report by the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and UNDP mapped 3,624 glacial lakes in the three river basins in Nepal, China and India, of which 2,070 are within Nepal’s boundaries. The other 1,509 are on the Tibetan Plateau in China and 45 are in India, but drain into Nepal.

 

 

The researchers evaluated the risk factors for the glacial lakes depending on the integrity of their moraine dams, topography of the surroundings and the risk of avalanche into the lakes, as well as downstream settlements and infrastructure and divided them into three categories.

Of the 47 dangerous lakes on the Kosi, Gandaki and Karnali basins, 31 were found to be at very high risk of bursting and causing damage. Twelve other lakes are at moderate risk and there are four lakes in the lower risk category.

The lakes are expanding because the ice fields feeding them are melting faster due to global heating, as well as increased deposition of soot particles on the snow. An ICIMOD assessment last year reported that even in the best case scenario, the Himalaya will lose one-third of its ice and snow during this century. But recent studies have shown that the melting is actually happening faster than previously thought, and is accelerating.

This has increased the number of glacial lakes in the Nepal Himalaya as well as their sizes. For example, remote sensing data in the report showed that there were 3,609 glacial lakes in Nepal’s three river basins with a combined area of 180sq km. By 2015, the number had grown to 3,696 and they covered a combined area of 195.4sq km.

Scientists have long noted that the rate of melting is higher in the eastern Himalaya than in the west, and the report confirms this. Interestingly, while the number of glacial lakes in the Kosi basin has gone down, their total area has increased by 14sq km – largely because supraglacial ponds have merged, or the lakes have drained without bursting.

The report has also recorded 26 glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) events in the Nepal Himalaya since 1977, but only 14 of them were on lakes located in Nepal. This emphasises the importance of trans-boundary early warning system – especially on lakes in Tibet upstream on the two Bhote Kosi rivers, Tama Kosi, the Arun and others.

This story was originally published by The Nepali Times

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These ELSA maps of Costa Rica show regions that are suitable for protection, management, and restoration in coordination with three different conventions: The Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDGs), United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Maps: Open Street Map and Carto

By Francis Francis Ogwal, Tom Okurut and Carlos Manuel Rodriguez
KAMPALA, Uganda, Sep 14 2020 (IPS)

The year 2020 was considered a “Super Year” for biodiversity. A string of interconnected events offered a unique opportunity to build a global coalition and international policy framework that recognized the central role of nature to all life on Earth.

At the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP 15), 196 governments were due to agree on targets that will shape action on nature for the next 30 years, while at the UN Climate Conference (COP 25) governments were to have the final opportunity to increase the ambition of their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to combat climate change.

As nature conservation could contribute over a third of climate solutions, these negotiations offered a golden opportunity to narrow down the gaps between these multilateral agreements that are critical for the future of the planet.

Instead 2020 has become a year in which nature has shown humanity that we have pushed the planet to its boundaries. UN Environment Programme’s Executive Director Inger Anderson warns that “nature is sending us a message.”

COVID-19, wildfires, locust invasions, and record heat waves show the catastrophic impacts of climate change and biodiversity collapse. And these are only harbingers of what is to come if humanity does not change course.

With both the UN Biodiversity Conference and UN Climate Conference moved to 2021, we have an opportunity to reflect, in a way unthinkable even six months ago, on individual, societal, and political norms of “business as usual”.

We must explore innovations that recognize the fundamental role of nature in everything from corporate bottom lines, to human well-being, to the survival of life on Earth.

What is known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution has brought with it incredible changes in technology that have the potential to transform societies. Approximately 2,200 satellites now circle the earth. Spatial data can produce maps of forest cover and loss, human settlements, city watersheds, and agricultural production.

Geospatial technology on the ground can complement this view, offering a means to map local and Indigenous knowledge of unique ecosystems. This is essential for addressing extinction, ecosystem destruction, and zoonotic diseases such as COVID-19.

Both Costa Rica and Uganda recognize the vast potential of spatial data to support the creation of a transformative post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework for the UN Biodiversity Convention, which also capitalizes on synergies with the UN Climate Convention.

Costa Rica is one of the world’s only country that has managed to reverse deforestation, and is pioneering a bold Decarbonization Plan. Uganda, a leading force for conservation in Africa, is playing a critical role in advancing the UN Biodiversity Convention. It is co-chair for the development of the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, playing a critical role in guiding the global community to the international commitments that are widely seen as an essential opportunity for governments to put biodiversity on path to recovery when the Framework is adopted at COP 15.

In partnership with UNDP, the National Geographic Society, University of Northern British Columbia, Global Environment Facility, and The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Costa Rica and Uganda are leading the way, along with additional pilots in Colombia, Kazakhstan, and Peru, to use spatial data to map ‘essential life support areas’ (ELSAs).

These are areas that conserve critical biodiversity and provide humans with food, water, and carbon storage. ELSAs can determine which regions should be prioritized for protection, management, and restoration.

In Costa Rica, UNDP and the Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE,), and the Center for High Technology (CENAT) have created an interactive web tool that generates ELSA maps based on the country’s targets for nature, climate change, and sustainable development.

MINAE plans to use ELSA maps to identify areas for inclusion in Costa Rica’s new Payments for Environment Services Programme (PES). This will help identify natural areas critical for carbon sequestration, natural beauty, water and food, and cultural heritage as well as compensating landowners who engage in protection, reforestation, or agroforestry.

MINAE’s National System of Conservation Areas (SINAC) will also use ELSA mapping to construct Costa Rica’s restoration, rehabilitation, recovery, reforestation, and regeneration strategy.

In Uganda, led by UNDP and Uganda’s National Environment Management Authority (NEMA), ELSA maps will show where actions to protect, manage, restore, and rehabilitate nature can support rangelands, forest regeneration, riverbank and lakeshore protection, and wetlands restoration.

Uganda’s policymakers are particularly interested in nature-based solutions for livelihoods, climate resilience and disaster risk reduction which is a key priority given the county’s recent disasters of landslides and flooding.

The ELSA approach can guide the development, implementation, and monitoring of progress for the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework in Costa Rica, Uganda, and other countries around the world.

While Target 1 relates to land and seas under spatial planning, ELSA can help to identify actions that capitalize on synergies across proposed Target 2, on protecting and conserving at least 30 percent of the planet; Target 7 on increasing contributions to climate change mitigation, adaptation, and disaster risk reduction from nature-based solutions; and Target 5 on controlling and managing invasive species.

Additional post-2020 Global Biodiversity targets that ELSA can contribute to include Target 9 on supporting the productivity, sustainability and resilience of biodiversity in agricultural and other managed ecosystems and Target 10 on ensuring that nature-based solutions contribute to regulation of air quality and water provision for human well-being.

Mapping essential life support areas will be key to identifying where nature-based solutions should shape commitments to the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. By using ELSA to run scenarios before entering negotiations or setting policy targets, countries can see what is achievable.

COVID-19 may have pushed the establishment of the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework and the final agreement on NDCs until 2021, but action on biodiversity loss must occur now. To halt the sixth mass extinction, at least 30 percent of the planet needs to be protected by 2030. A daunting task, but Costa Rica, Uganda, and their counterparts are leading the way.

Source: United Nations Development Programme

 

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Excerpt:

Francis Ogwal, Natural Resources Manager (Biodiversity and Rangelands), National Environment Management Authority, Uganda; Tom Okurut is Executive Director, National Environment Management Authority, Uganda; and Carlos Manuel Rodriguez is Minister of Environment and Energy, Costa Rica

The post Mapping Nature to Create a Global Biodiversity Framework appeared first on Inter Press Service.

World leaders have been urged to stay home in the first “virtual” UN General Assembly sessions in the 75-year history of the United Nations. The annual high-level sessions, with mostly pre-recorded video speeches, begin September 22. The UN says there will be “no marvelling at seemingly endless presidential motorcades on First Avenue and no “standing-room only” moments in the gilded General Assembly Hall, as the Organization’s busiest time of the year is reimagined in the time of COVID-19. Credit: Anton Uspensky, UN News

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 11 2020 (IPS)

Back in 1998, Senator Jesse Helms, a rightwing Republican from the US state of North Carolina, carried out a virulent one-man hate-campaign against the UN– and its very presence in New York.

A fulltime chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee– and a part-time UN basher—the late Helms publicly complained that providing funds to the UN is like “pouring money into a rathole”. Helms wanted the “Glass House by the East River” shipped out of New York — for good.

Fast forward to 2020.

There is widespread speculation that when US president Donald Trump addresses the General Assembly on September 22 –one of the few, or perhaps the only head of state, to do so “in person” in a virtually virus-locked down world body– he may either threaten to pull out of the UN (very unlikely), warn of possible cuts in financial contributions (likely), or downsize the US role in the world body (most likely).

But with a highly unpredictable US president, everything is up in the air.

Meanwhile, the cry to “de-fund the police”, triggered by anti-black violence by law enforcement officials in the US, has prompted a new hashtag “de-fund the UN”.

Asked for his comments, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters September 8: ”I have seen the hashtag.”

“I think we prove every day the worth in investing in the United Nations for the betterment of peoples everywhere and the value that it brings, whether it is helping during the pandemic… or what we’re doing all over the world, what we’re doing in our peacekeeping missions… So, we do our utmost to prove our worth every day by the work that we do,” said Dujarric.

Any proposed cuts – or attempts to “‘de-fund” the UN –will also likely be a retaliation against the failed US resolution last month in the UN Security Council against the resumption of sanctions on Iran.

Suffering a devastating defeat, the Trump administration was both isolated and humiliated when only one UN member state, the Dominican Republic, voted with the US in the 15-member Security Council, the most powerful body in the UN.

The vote was short of the minimum nine “yes” votes required for adoption—and 11 members, including Western allies such as France, Germany and the United Kingdom abstained, while China and Russia voted against the resolution.
Asked what the Security Council rejection would mean to the US on the world stage, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters: “Well, it’s disappointing, because privately, every world leader, every one of my counterparts tells me that America is doing the right thing.”

No one, he said, “has come to me and advocated for allowing Iran to have these weapon systems. And so, for them not to stand up and tell the world publicly at the United Nations, yep, this is the right thing, it’s incomprehensible to me. To side with the Russians and the Chinese on this important issue at this important moment in time at the UN, I think, is really dangerous for the world.”

Asked why there was no support from the European countries on the Security Council, he was blunt: “You’ll have to ask the Europeans that”

If the de-funding does happen, and since the US pays 22 percent of the UN’s budget, it will be devastating blow to a world body commemorating its 75th anniversary later this month.

As a hard-core unilateralist, Trump has been openly antagonistic towards multilateral institutions.

Since he took office back in January 2017, the Trump administration has either de-funded, withdrawn from, or denigrated several UN agencies and affiliated institutions, including the World Health Organization, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the UN Human Rights Council and the International Criminal Court (ICC), among others.

http://www.ipsnews.net/2020/08/trump-delivers-last-hurrah-empty-united-nations-will-still-make-sound/

And according to a report in the New York Times September 4, Trump is very likely to withdraw from the iconic 71-year-old military alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) — if he wins a second term as president.

The Times quotes former US officials as saying that such a move would be one of the biggest global strategic shifts in generations and a major victory for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

So, will the UN be far behind?

Norman Solomon, executive director of the Washington-based Institute for Public Accuracy, told IPS the Trump administration is a wrecking crew that seeks to undermine if not demolish any international institutions that do not serve Trump’s idiosyncratic whims or, more substantially, don’t serve narrow interests of U.S.-based corporations and the military-industrial complex.

While top leaders of the U.S. government have routinely seen the United Nations as primarily an instrument to be used to advance America’s geopolitical interests, during the last three-quarters of a century some have recognized the overlap between humanitarian and nationalistic goals.

“No longer”, he declared.

“The Trump regime has operated almost entirely from the basis of narrowly defined self-interest, to the point that it should be understood as the gravest threat not only to the UN but to the world as a whole”, said Solomon, author of “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death”

“When we evaluate international institutions, they should not be conflated. The United Nations and its potential are very far from comparable to NATO.”

The UN — while significantly and by some measures deeply flawed, and badly in need of power restructuring — has laudable aspirations, he argued.

“NATO, on the other hand, is far more of a threat to peace than a defender. Trump’s hostility to the concept of the United Nations is in many ways categorical, whereas his intermittent criticisms of NATO are inconsistent and largely a function of unhinged nationalism”, said Solomon.

During what are hopefully his last several months as president, he pointed out, Trump should be ostracized as much as possible by world leaders and civil society.

His so-called leadership is a toxic brew of greed, calculated stupidity and narcissistic prerogatives of supposed “American exceptionalism.”

Many U.S. presidents during the last 75 years have aspired to see the United States government work its will on the entire world, but Trump has taken such conceits to an extreme that requires complete rejection, said Solomon.

Ian Williams, President of the Foreign Press Association in New York and author of “UNtold: The Real Story of the United Nations in Peace and War”, told IPS the UN system is in the sad position where the US acts as if it hates the organization, but the other members do not love it enough to step into the gap.

Historically, the US prizes the organization’s dependence on Washington as was shown when the US rebuffed Swedish Prime Minister Olaf Palme’s 1985 proposal to restrict its contributions to 15%.

http://www.ipsnews.net/2018/12/time-end-cheque-book-diplomacy-un/

Since then the other powers could at any time have called the US bluff and met the shortfall- after all Ted Turner did, said Williams, a former President of the UN Correspondents’ Association (UNCA).

“But it goes beyond finance. The US’s lawless attitude has proved infectious. If the US and its ally Israel can defy resolutions, then why can’t Russia break the rules over Ukraine, or Beijing in the China Sea or India over Kashmir?”

He pointed out that previous US administrations have been constrained in their public disdain of international law and order because they needed the UN rubber stamp their positions, as indeed Trump tried over the snapback on Iran but the prestige behind that legitimizing power is a rapidly devaluing asset.

“It is perhaps make-or-break time. The UN’s figurehead, the Secretary General (SG), should invite President Trump to take his braggadocio and depart if he goes too far.”

If Trump loses in November, said Williams, then the SG will get some recognition and gratitude from the incoming administration.

“If he wins, the UN should have contingency plans for continuing without the US, while thanking the archaisms of the UN Charter that leave some counterweight to the unscrupulously expedient Russian and Chinese on the Security Council.”

At the worst, perhaps, realistically the General Assembly should set up and International Residual Mechanism to look after the collective obligations of the UN until such time as the members show signs of resuming their responsibilities effectively, declared Williams.

Barbara Adams, chair of the board of Global Policy Forum, told IPS: “Perhaps the rumoured threat from Trump will backfire and mobilize voices within the USA to generate something similar to the USPS effect (postal services)”.

Certainly, it will bring much international and domestic media attention and hopefully the UN will be able to stand up well to the scrutiny, she added.

“The S-G’s Nelson Mandela lecture was unusually forthright in addressing the systemic issues exposed by COVID. More recently he has been more outspoken, such as, that power is not given away, it has to be taken”.

Could it trigger a “be careful what you wish for” reaction domestically and among Member States whose multilateralism rhetoric is not matched by their actions?, she asked.

“Is this the shock needed to demand genuinely democratic global governance and begin the long overdue transition away from what it has become: a deal-making forum with people and countries represented by the executive branch that does not reflect their diversity and values – and push the UN back to its purpose – to lead the way towards sustainable peace, justice, and human rights”?.

Most concern reflects those fearful of the immediate consequences for the UN budget. Are they missing or ignoring the accompanying constraints from power dynamics in decision-making process?, noted Adams.

In 1985, she said, the Prime Minister of Sweden Olaf Palme proposed a ceiling of 10 per cent on the assessed contribution of any Member State.

In addressing the UNGA to commemorate its 40th anniversary he said: “a more even distribution of assessed contributions would better reflect the fact that this Organization is the instrument of all nations”. While this garnered some support, it exposed resistance in many US circles aware that it would reduce US political power and leverage at the UN.

Expressed differently but clearly by Ambassador Stephanie Power said: “Our ability to exercise leadership in the UN—to protect our core national security interests—is directly tied to meeting our financial obligations.”

The UN decision-making is often compared to the weighted voting setup of the IMF and the World Bank having a one country, one vote –as opposed to something closer to one dollar, one vote. This misses the point: there is weighted voting exercised through budgets, threats and self-censorship, declared Adams.

The post Will Trump Threaten to Pullout or De-fund the United Nations? appeared first on Inter Press Service.