Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

Malawi’s small scale traders selling their merchandise at Limbe market in Blantyre. Credit: Lameck Masina/IPS

By Lameck Masina
BLANTYRE, Malawi, Jun 11 2020 (IPS)

Malawi remains one of the few nations in the world that has not gone into a coronavirus lockdown as the government rushes to meet the conditions of a court order to implement a cash transfer scheme for the poor before doing so. But as some parts of the world are slowing coming out of their lockdowns, it could be likely this southern African nation won’t go into one as the rerun of the country’s presidential election nears. 

On Apr. 27, President Peter Mutharika announced the roll out of a multimillion dollar emergency cash transfer exercise aimed to cushion the peri urban poor from the impact of the coronavirus.

Mutharika said the $51 million bailout initiative targeted 172,000 households in the cities of Lilongwe, Blantyre, Mzuzu and Zomba.

The exercise, which was expected to roll out in May, was in response to demands from civil rights organisations, who obtained a court injunction against a planned 21-day lockdown scheduled to start Apr. 18, outlining the lack of measures to cushion the country’s vulnerable. The court ruled the cash transfer scheme be implemented and a lockdown would be suspended until then.

Under the World Bank-funded programme, beneficiaries will receive MK35, 000 (about $47) a month, for six months.

Country’s vulnerable still waiting

Widow Elizabeth Longwe has been earning her daily income by selling tomatoes at Limbe market in Blantyre. But since the country confirmed its first case of coronavirus on Apr. 2, her daily sales have reduced by almost half.

Her customers stopped purchasing from her for fear of contracting the virus, which has killed over 400,000 people across the globe.

“Instead, people started buying things in bulk and using them sparingly, making it difficult for small scale businesses like mine to enjoy the same kind of sales one would do on a normal day,” she tells IPS.

The mother of three says she “thanks God” that her lack of sales came after the government suspended schools in response to the pandemic.

“It would have been a disaster to me because I couldn’t have managed to provide transport money for my two older children to school daily. But still, my worry was how I would manage to feed my children,” she says.

But she had been hopeful for financial assistance when the cash transfer scheme was been announced.

So too was Lackson Tembo, who trades in second-hand clothes, also at Limbe Market.

“This was a relief to me because with this meant I would still be feeding my children. I would be able to buy soap for washing and bathing. I would be able to pay my monthly rent,” Tembo tells IPS.

Where is the money?

But Tembo and Longwe, who are among the first beneficiaries listed for the cash transfers, are yet to receive the money. And they have not been informed why. They fear that remarks by the country’s Vice President Saulos Chilima, who said at a political rally in May that donors have withheld the funds for fear of abuse, may in fact be true.

However, spokesperson for the Treasury Department in the Ministry of Finance Williams Banda tells IPS that the funds are there but disbursement is delayed because they have been working on “implementation modalities”.

“The World Bank was targeting the peri-urban hotspots of the major cities … [but] when the technical committee looked at the list, they noted that the targeted beneficiaries [vulnerable groups] were not on the lists,” says Banda.

Banda says this forced the technical committee to suspend the listing and start engaging with “the ones who do the normal social cash transfer, to get to those who are indeed vulnerable and very poor individuals in the peri-urban hot spots”.

Lockdown versus elections

However, many still doubt if the lockdown will ever take off as political leaders intensify their campaign rallies ahead of the country’s presidential re-run, expected to be held on Jul 2.

• Malawi is expected to go polls after the Constitutional Court nullified the country’s May 21, 2019 presidential elections citing massive and systematic irregularities, including the use of correctional fluid on the ballots. 
• In its verdict on February 3, the court ordered fresh polls within 150 days, which ends on July 3. Parliament, which is currently sitting in the capital Lilongwe, is expected to set a date for the fresh polls.

But at a political rally on Saturday, Jun. 6, in the Zomba City in southern Malawi, former President Joyce Banda accused the government of exaggerating figures of COVID-19 cases.

Malawi has so far confirmed 455 COVID-19 cases with 4 deaths and 55 recoveries. 

“Since April, we have only registered four deaths, and recently we saw the government faking people suffering from the coronavirus, to find an excuse to postpone the election through a lockdown, but still, more are recovering.

“Let’s just thank God that we have been spared from this pandemic rather than deliberately bloating cases to attract donor money,” she had said.

Her remarks were an echo of what other opposition leaders have been saying; that the government should forget imposing a lockdown as Malawians are eager to go to polls.

Cash transfer to start soon … but what of COVID-19 testing?

While it is uncertain if the country will ever go into a lockdown, Minister of Population Planning and Social Welfare Clara Makungwa tells IPS that with or without the lockdown, the emergency cash transfer will still roll out because of the increasing number of people impacted by COVID-19. This includes migrant workers who are returning home, as well as those who are unable to run their businesses as people implement their own social distancing measures here.

“Figures for those affected are getting bigger and bigger now. For example we have 17 busses coming soon with people [migrant workers who were stranded in South Africa because of the lockdown there] who are coming back home, they are helpless. Those that have businesses are suffering. They are not enjoying the usual business as they were doing before. These people still need assistance,” she tells IPS. 

Makungwa says some of the issues which delayed the roll out of the programme have been resolved and expectation is that the exercise would start by the end of this month.

“We needed to train the enumerators, brief the block leaders because they are the ones to benefit and also work with city councils.  So we have come that far and we are now ready for the enumerators to go round doing the enlisting and the programme will roll out,” says Makungwa.

However a lecturer in economics at Malawi Polytechnic, Betcheni Tchereni, tells IPS that although the cash transfer would help mitigate the impact of the virus on the poor, efforts to contain the spread of the virus should also be funded.

“The best thing that we should do is procure enough testing kits and make sure that pretty much everybody has been tested. That way then it will be alright and make sure that porous borders have been closed. Because you have seen that most of the people have been affected or infected because of someone who travelled from abroad,” Tchereni tells IPS.

Malawi with a population of about 18 million has just tested 13 COVID-19 testing sites according to the Public Health Institution of Malawi. About 6,000 people have far been tested.

Related Articles

• Safeguarding Africa’s Food Security in the Age of COVID-19
• Economic Ghosts Block Post-Lockdown Recovery
• The Curious Case of Covid-19 in Africa

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By Antonella Teodoro and Luisa Rodriguez
GENEVA, Jun 11 2020 (IPS)

In the first quarter of 2020, the coronavirus pandemic led to a 3% drop in global trade values. COVID-19 could trigger the biggest economic contraction since World War II, affecting all industries from finance to hospitality.

As there is significant uncertainty about how the epidemiological and economic situation will evolve, assessing the duration and the gravity of the pandemic seems like an impossible task.

However, recent forecasts suggest: trade volumes decreasing between 13% and 32% in 2020 (WTO, 2020), global growth falling to -3% (IMF, 2020) and different maritime seaborne scenarios ranging from a return to sector average (around 3% p.a.) after 2022 to growth rates falling by 17% by 2024 (Stopford,2020)[i].

Industries whose operations are more globalized (and particularly those that rely on Chinese inputs for production) were most exposed to initial supply chain disruption due to COVID-19. This was the case for precision instruments, machinery, automotive and communication equipment (UNCTAD, 2020).

Given its non-essential nature, the fashion industry faces significant risks. Indeed, in times of COVID-19, as consumers around the world remain in lockdown, they no longer need new products. This industry is characterised by a highly integrated global supply chain.

In it, many developing countries play the role of the supplier of low-cost inputs. This article highlights some of challenges and concerns that some of these countries face, many of which are dependent on textile and garment exports.

The textile industry supply chains, trade logistics and developing countries

The accession of China to the WTO (2001) and the expiry of the WTO Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (which ended a 10-year trade regime managed through quotas) on 1st January 2005 contributed to making China an important centre of textile and clothing global value chains (GVCs).

These two developments led to shift apparel production and sourcing (by globalized retailers and producers) to China and other Asian countries because of low labour costs (UNCTAD, 2005), following the cost-reducing logic of GVCs.

As wages gradually rose in China and Chinese plants moved to produce higher-value goods, countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan and Vietnam, with lower wages costs started attracting factories to relocate their production from China.

At the global level, China remains an important supplier of fashion goods (as shown in Figure 1) but has also become an important consumer of this industry.

Figure 1: Top 20 exporting countries of fashion goods*
(share in global exports), estimated TEU 2019

* SITC, 2-digit categories including: Textile fibres, Textiles & made-up articles, Clothing & accessories. (Source: MDS Transmodal, March 2020)

Major exporters of fashion goods for whom exports in the sector represent a significant share of export earnings are shown in Figure 2. Consequently, the Asian country most badly affected by the disease outbreak could be Bangladesh where circa 85% of its exports include fashion goods, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Top 20 exporting countries of fashion goods*
(share in total country exports), estimated TEU 2019

* SITC, 2-digit categories including: Textile fibres, Textiles & made-up articles, Clothing & accessories. (Source: MDS Transmodal, March 2020)

Given the globalized nature of the industry, companies and retailers must transport their goods and raw materials across many countries. Besides China, other countries play an important role as key hubs around which trade of fashion products takes place.

This is the case for the United States (as the most important retail market), and some European countries (such as Belgium, Germany, France and UK), with ports such as Rotterdam and Antwerp featuring prominently in this trade. (CO, 2018).

From a logistics point of view, the textile, apparel and garments industry is considered a time-sensitive industry. Irregularities in making goods reach a particular place at a specified location on time can lead to reduced (or no) profits for the textile owner.

In addition, clothing collections change quickly: their lifecycle is short (as perishable products) and their commercialization is characterized by strong seasonal peaks. In this sense, textile logistics are characterized by small stocks and short delivery times.

These goods and raw materials are usually transported using a combination of land, sea, and air. Within this trade logistics context, strong multimodal interlinkages are key to ensure Just in Time delivery.

E-commerce developments have further accentuated time-related logistics requirements, such as next day delivery, as well as the capacity of handling a large volume of returns and offering the possibility for manufacturers and dealers to check the location of their articles at any time.

Emerging concerns related to COVID19 from the perspective of developing countries

The COVID-19 outbreak led to production stops in China first, followed by closures of shops elsewhere around the world.

For the moment, European and American retailers, the two destination markets for this sector, are still cancelling their orders. Cancelled orders are a cause for concern in many sourcing countries.

As shippers are increasingly invoking ‘force majeure’ clauses within their contracts to halt their payments, on 8 April, the Sustainable Textile of Asian Region (STAR) Network, the body, which brings together representatives of the producing associations from Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Myanmar, Pakistan and Vietnam, released a joint statement on the issue.

It urged brands and retailers to consider the impact that their purchasing decisions during the coronavirus pandemic could have on workers and small businesses in the supply chain and, therefore, to honour their contracts with their suppliers.

In their statement, the STAR Network invited global businesses to “support business partners in the supply chain as much as possible, and aim at a long-term strategy of business continuity, supply chain unity and social sustainability.”

Supply chain disruption: the reduced production perspective

The evolution of local epidemiologic situation in key sourcing countries, has impacted workforce availability and production, as well as multimodal logistics underpinning global value chains.

One of the concerns in this respect is that production of fashion goods could be moved away to other sourcing countries that are resuming activities faster in the Asian region or that are closer to retailers to diversify their supply chain risk.

Governments in developed countries around the world are implementing unprecedented actions to ease the effect on their economies from measures put in place to limit the spread of the pandemic.

Most developing countries do not have similar financial means, health systems or social safety nets to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis and its economic impacts.

In this context, various assistance packages have been announced by IMF, the World Bank and others with a view to supporting economies, including emerging market economies.

Transport connectivity impact

Observable changes derived from the pandemic concerning maritime transport networks include, for example a reduction in service frequency (blank sailings and idle fleet) and changes in routing affecting particularly Asia-Northern Europe services, a key axis in the trade of fashion goods.

Shipping lines are reducing the number of port calls in the maritime services they offer to adapt to declining demand and cargo imbalances (JOC, 2020).

This is likely to affect the liner shipping connectivity of sourcing countries both in terms of intercontinental as well as intra-regional feeder calls and, if this situation persists, could make economic recovery even harder.

The fashion industry is undoubtedly under pressure in these uncertain times. Depending on the role that countries play in the supply chain, building resilience could entail different needs and approaches.

Prospects appear particularly bleak for low-cost sourcing countries that are highly dependent on textile and garments exports for revenues, concurrently faced with the challenge of limited financial means and less developed health systems and social safety nets to cope with the socio-economic effects of the pandemic.

In the short-term, lockdowns around the world have thrown a spotlight on risks associated with high supply chain interconnectedness and challenges associated with global sourcing.

This has also had an impact on trade logistics, as the glue that holds global value chains together. Observable changes introduced in maritime transport services to cope with reduced demand and cargo imbalances illustrate this.

The key question is what will this mean in the longer term, after surviving this unplanned humanitarian and financial crisis, particularly for the weakest links of the chain?

Driven by growing pressure towards more environmentally friendly lifestyles, the fashion industry was already confronted, before the pandemic, with increased concerns regarding its sustainability footprint, particularly consumption patterns associated with ‘fast fashion’ (increasing levels of expenditures and waste disposal) and associated production patterns (workplace conditions, environmental impact of textiles processing).

Will the current crisis accelerate a transformation in consumption patterns, inducing structural changes to the industry supply chain?

For example, could it lead to generalize new models such as ‘seasonless designs’ or lead to shorter value chains (i.e. increased local or regional sourcing)? Certainly, moving away from the “just in time” or “made- to- order” business models will have an impact on trading and transport patterns.

The post COVID-19 & its Impact on Textile & Garment Supply Chains in Developing Nations appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Antonella Teodoro is Senior Consultant at the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) & Luisa Rodriguez is Economic Affairs Officer, UNCTAD

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A Pakistani child domestic worker. Credit: Fahim Siddiqi /IPS

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jun 11 2020 (IPS)

Even before Covid-19, the world was facing a care crisis. The plight of often neglected, under-appreciated, under-protected and poorly equipped ‘frontline’ health personnel working to contain the pandemic has drawn attention to the tip of the care crisis iceberg.

Rising care work burden
Ageing populations as well as cuts to public services and social protection were making matters worse, increasing the burden on carers, or care givers/providers, regardless of their employment status.

Elderly people need long-term care as they age, while existing social arrangements, including government services, remain inadequate and ill prepared. Such demands on caregivers will continue to increase as populations grow and people live longer.

Oxfam’s annual early 2020 Davos report, Time to Care, estimates that 2.3 billion people will need care by 2030, 200 million more than in 2015, including 100 million more older people and an additional 100 million children aged 6 to 14 years.

Care work, unpaid or underpaid, is generally not visible, greatly undervalued and typically taken for granted. It is often not considered real or proper ‘work’, with spending for care work considered a cost, not an investment.

The nature of care work and gender discrimination undermines the health and well-being of its mainly female workers. Women and girls, especially the poor and marginalized, do 12.5 billion hours of care work daily for free, and much more for poor wages.

The women and girls are left ‘time-poor’, often unable to meet their own needs. Consequently, they have less time for education and paid work, let alone fully participate socially and politically.

Unpaid care work
The study argued that unpaid care work is essential for our economies, businesses and societies. However, unpaid care work is often underappreciated when measuring economic progress and social wellbeing, not least because this burden is mainly borne by women and girls, who do more than three-quarters of all unpaid care work.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Oxfam estimates that the monetary value of women’s unpaid care work globally, for women aged 15 and over, is at least US$10.8 trillion annually. Although high, this figure is still believed to be an underestimate, with the true figure far higher.

Women thus often earn less because their unpaid care work limits their time for paid work; in fact, 42 per cent of working age women, compared to six per cent of males, cannot get paid work due to their caregiving responsibilities.

Climate change is also increasing the need for unpaid care. In five years, up to 2.4 billion people will be living in areas without enough water, forcing women and girls to carry more water even further. Also, as global warming and other developments adversely affect health and food production, many women and girls will have to work more to cope.

Domestic workers
Besides doing care work for free at home, many poor women also provide care for others, especially as domestic workers, among the most poorly treated employees in the world. Hence, they are also more likely to be in undesirable, poorly paid, dirty and precarious jobs.

Only about a tenth of domestic workers are covered by labour laws as much as other workers, while only around half have minimum wage protection. For more than half of all domestic workers, national laws do not limit working hours.

Meanwhile, 3.4 million domestic workers in forced labour do not get US$8 billion yearly, or about three-fifths of the wages due to them. Forced labour and trafficking cause domestic workers to be “trapped in other people’s homes”, with “their lives controlled”, but also “rendered invisible and unprotected”.

Two-thirds of the paid ‘care workforce’ are women. Jobs — such as nursery workers, domestic workers, and ‘care assistants’ — are often physically and emotionally draining, besides being poorly paid, with few benefits, despite having to work irregular hours.

Redistributing care burden
The Oxfam report notes that governments greatly under-tax the wealthy, and hence do not collect enough revenue to better fund vital public services, including social services and infrastructure.

Progressive taxation and spending, including subsidized social services and social protection, would reduce the burden of care work and social inequality. Better investments in electricity, water, sanitation, childcare and healthcare would improve the quality of care workers’ lives by easing their care work responsibilities.

Such efforts should recognize unpaid and poorly paid care work as providing real value. Better, affordable and equitable access to time-saving care-supporting infrastructure and devices would also reduce the burden of unpaid care tasks.

With government and employers reducing the burden of care work, redistributing unpaid care work more fairly within households would become more feasible. Enabling meaningful participation by care givers, paid and unpaid, in policy-making would also help.

Oxfam proposals
Oxfam proposed various actions, including national care systems, to help care givers including: improving the lot of both the unpaid and the underpaid; addressing the greater burden on women and girls; improving and protecting care workers’ rights, with paid employees entitled to living wages and decent working conditions.

Governments were urged to ratify ILO Convention 189, protecting domestic workers and eliminating gender wage gaps. Societies should also challenge the harmful and discriminatory social and cultural norms that care work is the responsibility of women and girls, including by encouraging men and boys to share care work responsibilities.

Businesses must also recognize the value of care work for employees’ wellbeing and productivity. Employers should provide benefits and services, such as crèches and other childcare entitlements, while ensuring decent working conditions for care providers.

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Teddy Cotella stands in front of the solar panels he installed in 2018 on his farm in an area of scarce infrastructure and far from the power grid, in the Argentine province of Santiago del Estero. To get electricity, he used to use generators that consumed about 20,000 litres of diesel fuel annually. CREDIT: Courtesy of Teddy Cotella

By Daniel Gutman
BUENOS AIRES, Jun 10 2020 (IPS)

Rice farmers in the Argentine province of Entre Rios often look like mechanics. “They’re always full of grease, because they haul diesel fuel around all the time, for their water pumps,” says local farmer Arturo Deymonnaz. He, however, doesn’t have that problem, because he uses solar energy to grow his rice.

Deymonnaz’s farm is located outside the town of Villa Elisa, in east-central Argentina, near one of the bridges that crosses into Uruguay. He’s a lifelong livestock producer – like his father and grandfather – but in 2018 he ventured into rice production, tempted by an agronomist who assured him it could be grown using clean energy.

“This is traditionally a rice-producing area, but many have stopped growing it because so much money is spent on fuel that it is no longer profitable. Here, rice is planted in November and harvested in April. That’s 100 days with the pumps running 24 hours a day to draw water from the wells for the rice,” he tells IPS.

But Deymonnaz says it’s profitable for him to grow rice, thanks to the fact that he draws water from a 48-metre-deep well using two pumps fueled by 36 solar panels on his 300-hectare farm, 10 of which he now dedicates to planting rice.

“I call it my solar rice farm. I don’t spend money on fuel and I don’t have to put up with the noise or the steam produced by the motor,” says the farmer, who also installed a system of plastic sleeves with sluices to reduce the high water consumption of his rice crop. He estimates that with this system he uses at least 30 percent less water.

Deymonnaz is representative of a phenomenon that is growing in this Southern Cone country of 44 million people, which is the third largest economy in Latin America and where agriculture accounts for 13 percent of GDP.

According to the latest National Agricultural Census conducted here in 2018, of the 162,650 rural establishments that use some type of energy, 25,850 have solar panels.

The water pumps used in rice farming are very powerful, which means they cannot rely on conventional electrical connections. Even farms connected to the grid have to use generators that run on diesel fuel.

Arturo Deymonnaz is the third generation of his family dedicated to livestock farming. But two years ago he began growing rice, which he produces solely with solar energy, in northern Argentina. Rice growers in the area use high-powered pumps to extract from wells the enormous amount of water required to grow the crop, which previously were fueled by huge amounts of diesel fuel. CREDIT: Courtesy of Héctor Pirchi

“In Entre Rios, the cost of fuel is driving small-scale farmers out of business. We used to have about 100,000 hectares of rice, but last year only half of that was planted. That’s why solar energy is a solution,” Héctor Pirchi, an expert on rice at the National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA), told IPS.

But the use of solar energy is not limited to Entre Ríos: it is spreading through rural areas all around the country.

Due to the lockdown in place in Argentina since March because of the COVID-19 pandemic, IPS interviewed several farmers, solar energy entrepreneurs and experts in different provinces by phone from Buenos Aires.

Teddy Cotella, who grows soybeans, corn, wheat and chickpeas in northern Argentina, is fascinated by solar energy. His 3,000-hectare farm in the province of Santiago del Estero is 12 km from the power grid, so for almost 20 years he used generators.

“I used to use about 20,000 litres of diesel a year for electricity generation alone. To people who complain about their power company bill, I tell them ‘try not having electric service at all’,” he says.

In 2018 Cotella installed solar panels along with lithium batteries, which store electricity for the nighttime or rainy days. These provide electric power for all three houses and for production on the farm.

“People whose farms are located far from the grid shouldn’t hesitate. I would also put solar panels on a house in the city,” says Cotella, who adds that the investment in solar panels is recovered in just three years.

Agritur is a 9,000-hectare agricultural establishment in the central Argentine province of San Luis where 1,800 solar panels were installed in 2019, producing 600 kilowatts of energy and providing half of the farm’s electricity. All the crops are grown using an irrigation system, because rainfall amounts to just 500 mm a year. CREDIT: MWh Solar

Northern Argentina mainly falls within the Chaco ecosystem, a vast semi-arid plain covered in shrubs and hardwood forest that extends into Bolivia and Paraguay. This region is home to Argentina’s poorest provinces and infrastructure is scarce, so small solar parks change lives.

Ariel Ludueña owns Ener One, a renewable energy company that since 2017 has installed some 2,500 solar panels in northern Argentina.

“I am sure that solar energy will continue to grow, especially in that area, because it gives farmers independence. There are farms that are 80 km from the grid, along bad roads over which it is not easy to transport fuel,” says Ludueña from the western province of Córdoba.

One of Ludueña’s customers is Ignacio Pisani, an agricultural production engineer who moved from Buenos Aires to the northwestern province of Salta 30 years ago to devote himself to farming.

Pisani’s farm is 15 km from the grid, and when he asked the provincial authorities to extend it, they said he had to pay the cost, which was a disproportionate investment for a small farmer.

So Pisani used a generator not only to provide electricity for his house and his workers’ houses, but also to pump water for his cows and for the drip irrigation system he uses to grow onions, watermelon and alfalfa on his 1,500-hectare farm. In this part of the Chaco, rain is scarce and is concentrated in the southern hemisphere summer months.

The solar panels seen in the background power the pump that extracts water from this well to grow rice on the Colonia Mabragaña farm in the Argentine province of Entre Ríos. Rice consumes enormous quantities of water, but on this farm a system of plastic sleeves with sluices reduces the crop’s water consumption by at least 30 percent. CREDIT: Courtesy of Héctor Pirchi

“The generator was giving me a lot of problems: high fuel consumption, noise, the need to buy spare parts… And I could see that the power grid was never going to arrive. That’s why I decided in 2018 to install a solar park with 50 panels that would cover all my needs,” says Pisani.

The farmer financed the project with his own capital, after realising that in Argentina the politically correct rhetoric in favour of renewable energy rarely translates into concrete financial support.

“I turned to all the public and private entities in search of support, but nobody helped me,” says Pisani, who along with the panels has 16 batteries that allow him to guarantee electric supply for up to three days in case the weather is rainy or cloudy.

The outlook seems even more uncertain for large agricultural establishments, which are key players in Argentina’s foreign trade. According to official figures, agribusiness products accounted for 42.6 percent of Argentina’s total exports in 2019.

“Solar technology is constantly evolving and cost reduction makes it one of the most competitive, clean and efficient technologies for agribusiness establishments,” says renewable energy economist Matías Irigoyen from Buenos Aires.

“Although its implementation at the national level will depend on the energy policies that are adopted, it is already the most convenient solution in several provinces,” adds Irigoyen, who is also a partner the MWh Solar company.

In 2019, the company installed 1,800 solar panels on a 9,000-hectare farm in the province of San Luis, in central Argentina.

The farm is a large consumer of electricity that buys energy directly from the wholesale market, and since last year has been covering half of its demand with solar energy.

“In addition to the fact that agribusiness companies can benefit economically from renewable energies, the interesting thing is that they can also access new international markets, due to the growing demand for products with a smaller carbon footprint,” says Irigoyen.

The post Solar Power Fills Gaps in Underserviced Rural Argentina appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Protests Against Racism in New York City. Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider

By Isabel Ortiz, Sara Burke and Hernan Cortes Saenz
NEW YORK and BRUSSELS, Jun 10 2020 (IPS)

After a period of forced silence because of the Covid-19 quarantines, citizens around the world are defying coronavirus restrictions and claiming the streets to fight for real democracy, jobs, living wages, public services, human rights and against corruption, inequality and injustice. We predict an increasing wave of protests all over the world led by different types of people defying the status quo. Unless policies change, clashes in the street are likely to become the new normal.

Isabel Ortiz

In the last weeks, we have seen protests against racism and police brutality explode in the US and internationally after another black man died in police custody. We see Chileans protesting lockdown-food shortages, scarcity of work, and costly social services, and Ecuadorans demonstrating against IMF-supported austerity cuts. Lebanon has convulsed with riots over corruption, lack of jobs and public services. Protesters in Hong Kong continue to defy China’s tightening grip. In Israel they denounce West Bank annexation, while in the Philippines they condemn President Duterte’s Anti-Terrorism Act as a breach of civil rights and the Constitution. Young people are taking to the streets in Senegal over the lockdown and lack of jobs and opportunities. In Spain we see health workers demanding safer working conditions while workers from other industries face massive layoffs. In many countries, people protest in car-based caravans to maintain social distancing because of the pandemic.

There have been periods in history when large numbers of people rebelled against the status quo and demanded change, such as in 1848, 1917 and 1968. While protests have intensified in recent weeks because of the pandemic, the level of protests worldwide has remained high for more than a decade, with some of the largest protests in world history. They were set off by the 2008 financial crisis and commodity price spikes, such as those that sparked food riots in Africa and Asia, three years before the “Arab Spring”, the “Indignados” (Outraged) in Spain or “Occupy” in the US and Hong Kong. More recently, we have seen massive protests in Latin America and a global feminist wave set off by the “Me Too” movement. Now, as Covid-19 makes its way around the world, we are experiencing the continuation of this period of rising outrage and discontent.

Sara Burke

We have been studying recent world protests and found interesting lessons. To start, the number of protests has been increasing on a yearly basis. Protesters’ main general demand was for economic and social justice in the face of prescribed “austerity” reforms; however, the overwhelming grievance of protesters, regardless of the political system of their country, was the lack of “real democracy”. Other common demands relate to people’s rights such as racial, gender or labor rights. The main target of the protests was national governments, but global institutions and corporations were also targeted.

A profile of demonstrators reveals that not only traditional protesters (eg. activists, unions) are demonstrating; on the contrary, middle classes, youth, older persons and other social groups are actively protesting in most countries because of lack of trust and disillusionment with the current political and economic system.

People around the world are acutely aware that policy-making has not prioritized them. Across the political spectrum, there is rebellion against politics as usual. Governments both authoritarian and democratic are failing to respond to the needs of ordinary people. Many demonstrations and marches also explicitly denounce the international system and institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the European Central Bank, which have been widely perceived as the chief architects of inequitable reforms.

Not only is the number of protests increasing, but also the number of protestors. Crowd estimates suggest that dozens of rallies had more than one million protesters; some of those may well be the largest protests in history (eg. 100 million in India in 2013, 17 million in Egypt during the Arab Spring).

Hernan Cortes Saenz

Repression is well documented in over half of the protests in our study. According to media reports, the protests that generated the most arrests were in Iran, the UK, Russia, Chile, Malaysia, US and Cameroon (different years). Our research, that we continue updating, also documents a rising concern with some modes of repression that do not imply the use of physical violence: citizen surveillance.

If there is repression, what are the controversial demands that protesters are putting forward? The grievances demanded cross over virtually every area of public policy, from jobs, public services and social protection to the environment, finance, taxation, corruption and justice. The majority of the demands are in full accordance with United Nations proposals and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Governments need to listen to the demands from citizens legitimately protesting the denial of social, economic and civil rights. Leaders and policymakers will only invite further unrest if they fail to prioritize and act on the demand for real democracy.

Isabel Ortiz is Director of the Global Social Justice Program at the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, Columbia University, and former director of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and UNICEF.

Sara Burke is Senior Policy Analyst at Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES; for identification purposes only; views do not reflect the institutional views of FES).

Hernan Cortes Saenz is PhD in International Relations.

 

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The post World Protests Show Rising Outrage and Mounting Discontent appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Devyn Holliday, Research Officer, Economic, Youth & Sustainable Development Directorate
 
This blog is part of the seminar series on ‘The Economics of COVID-19’.

By Devyn Holliday
Jun 10 2020 (IPS-Partners)

When countries shuttered their shops, closed their markets, and cordoned off places of gathering to help ward off the coronavirus, they did so out of immediate concern for the health and wellbeing of their citizens.

However, as these measures endure the virus is no longer the sole threat to the health and wellbeing of citizens. People across the globe are facing mounting threats to their wellbeing compounded by growing unemployment, lockdown in vulnerable living conditions, and decreases in aid and remittances.

Ultimately, in fighting the flames of Covid-19 other issues are getting suffocated in the smoke— unhealthy tradeoffs arise as other struggles are now neglected and pushed to the side.

Loss of Aid

With resources, aid and attention focused on controlling the spread of Covid-19, the flames of other illnesses previously handled by medical aid are slowly starting to burn again.

Over 117 million children will miss measles vaccinations (as well as those for cholera and polio) in the coming weeks and months as Covid-19 forces countries to put immunization campaigns on hold.

Furthermore, resources have been diverted from women’s sexual and reproductive health with over 5,600 mobile clinics and community-based centres across the globe being closed, thus putting women’s health increasingly at risk.

With aid and attention funnelled towards getting Covid-19 outbreaks under control, we are facing a game of pick your poison: focus your efforts on Covid-19, while other preventable illnesses and conditions flare up due to lack of resources and attention, or see your country become the new epicentre. But, countries need not pick up the poison chalice in the first place.

Strengthening domestic institutions

To avoid regression of progress on other health fronts due to decreases in aid, personnel and funding, countries must bolster their domestic institutions to deliver aid and be flexible in their pursuits.

As it is difficult to start from scratch and scale up, countries should build off of whatever existing institutions or organisations already deliver aid domestically. For example, in the Pacific this means investing in the education, training, and equipment of kinship and wantok groups as aid is typically distributed by them on a community level, particularly in rural areas.

Alongside economic contraction around the world, the World Bank estimates there has been a $110 billion USD drop in remittances.

With the backbone of living standards across the developing world now being removed, countries need to act fast in order to keep households afloat.

Actions to not only reduce the monetary cost of transactions but also the time and opportunity cost of both sending and receiving remittances need to be taken.

Ultimately to keep the world’s vulnerable from losing what resources they do have as far as education, food, housing security etc., countries must take bold action to ensure that remittances can firstly be made, and secondly be sent and received with relative ease.

Impact on Women

Bold action must also be taken to address and remedy the way in which the virus, as those before it, has been unequally burdening women. In past epidemics, like the 2013-2015 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, we saw large upticks in sexual and gender-based violence due to women being confined to home but also the diversion of resources that would normally protect them towards fighting the outbreak (Onyango 2020) — today we see a similar happening across the globe.

To combat this, protective services for women and girls (Women’s centres, domestic violence hotlines, safe spaces, sexual and reproductive centres etc.,) need to be classified as essential services. By doing so, women will have many more courses of redress and avenues to receive the help they need.

Economically, women are disproportionately burdened by Covid-19 for many reasons, the primary ones being the largely unequal amount of unpaid care work, gender pay gaps, and the closure of marketplaces resulting in increased unemployment.

Gender roles

Due to entrenched gender roles, women are seen as the primary caregivers, and with lockdowns confining families to their own households, women are disproportionately engaging in care, whether it’s the education of children or the caring for sick or elderly family members.

While this work is necessary, the unequal burden of it inhibits women’s educational and economic pursuits, in turn setting them up for a skills and assets gap in the long-run.

Therefore, it is integral that Covid-19 interventions address this inequality and the compounded burden of domestic work on women and girls.

In order to support economic recovery for women, skills trainings could help bolster their earnings when markets and informal sectors of society do reopen and until then, social protection measures should help to compensate women for their unpaid labour.

Covid-19 is unlike any other challenge faced in the modern era, thus to fight it we must use unprecedented ways of thinking and planning.

It is not enough to fight the disease while other development efforts are left to wane without resources and attention.

Country responses must take into account how their vulnerable populations are being doubly affected by not only the virus but also by the responses intended to keep them safe.

Join the Conversation

The next webinar in the Commonwealth Secretariat’s Virtual Seminar Series: The Economics of COVID-19 will focus on the pandemic’s impact on gender dynamics, the future of tourism, development aid, and remittances.

Tune in Wednesday, June 10th to learn more about these issues and more during the last webinar of the series.

Seminar 5: The Future of Tourism, Development Aid and the Gendered Impact of the Virus
Register to attend the seminar
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The post What is lost in the smoke of COVID-19 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Devyn Holliday, Research Officer, Economic, Youth & Sustainable Development Directorate

 
This blog is part of the seminar series on ‘The Economics of COVID-19’.

The post What is lost in the smoke of COVID-19 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By External Source
Frankfurt / Nairobi, Jun 10 2020 (IPS-Partners)

As COVID-19 hits the fossil fuel industry, a new report shows that renewable energy is more cost-effective than ever – providing an opportunity to prioritize clean energy in economic recovery packages and bring the world closer to meeting the Paris Agreement goals.

Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2020 report — from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the Frankfurt School-UNEP Collaborating Centre and BloombergNEF (BNEF), available at www.fs-unep-centre.org — analyzes 2019 investment trends, and clean energy commitments made by countries and corporations for the next decade.

It finds commitments equivalent to 826 GW of new non-hydro renewable power capacity, at a likely cost of around USD 1 trillion, by 2030. (1GW is similar to the capacity of a nuclear reactor). Getting on track to limiting global temperature rise to under 2 degrees Celsius — the main goal of the Paris Agreement — would require the addition of around 3,000GW by 2030, the exact amount depending on the technology mix chosen. The planned investments also fall far below the USD 2.7 trillion committed to renewables during the last decade.

However, the report shows that the cost of installing renewable energy has hit new lows, meaning future investments will deliver far more capacity. Renewable energy capacity, excluding large hydro-electric dams of more than 50 MW, grew by 184 gigawatts (GW) in 2019. This highest-ever annual addition was 20 GW, or 12 percent, more than the new capacity commissioned in 2018. Yet the dollar investment in 2019 was just 1 per cent higher than the previous year, at USD 282.2 billion.

The all-in, or levelized, cost of electricity continues to fall for wind and solar, thanks to technology improvements, economies of scale and fierce competition in auctions. Costs for electricity from new solar photovoltaic plants in the second half of 2019 were 83 per cent lower than a decade earlier.

“The chorus of voices calling on governments to use their COVID-19 recovery packages to create sustainable economies is growing,” said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP. “This research shows that renewable energy is one of the smartest, most cost-effective investments they can make in these packages.”

“If governments take advantage of the ever-falling price tag of renewables to put clean energy at the heart of COVID-19 economic recovery, they can take a big step towards a healthy natural world, which is the best insurance policy against global pandemics,” Andersen said.

Renewable energy has been eating away at fossil fuels’ dominant share of electricity generation over the last decade. Nearly 78 per cent of the net new GW of generating capacity added globally in 2019 was in wind, solar, biomass and waste, geothermal and small hydro. Investment in renewables, excluding large hydro, was more than three times that in new fossil fuel plants.

“Renewables such as wind and solar power already account for almost 80 per cent of newly built capacity for electricity generation,” said Svenja Schulze, Minister of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, Germany. “Investors and markets are convinced of their reliability and competitiveness.”

“The promotion of renewables can be a powerful engine for the recovery of the economy after the Coronavirus crisis, creating new and secure jobs,” she added. “At the same time, renewables improve air quality thus protecting public health. By promoting renewable energies within the framework of Coronavirus economic stimulus packages, we have the opportunity to invest in future prosperity, health and climate protection.”

2019 marked many other records, the report finds:

• The highest solar power capacity additions in one year, at 118 GW.
• The highest investment in offshore wind in one year, at USD 29.9 billion, up 19 per cent year-on-year.
• The largest financing ever for a solar project, at USD 4.3 billion for Al Maktoum IV in the United Arab Emirates.
• The highest volume of renewable energy corporate power purchase agreements, at 19.5GW worldwide.
• The highest capacity awarded in renewable energy auctions, at 78.5GW worldwide.
• The highest renewables investment ever in developing economies other than China and India, at USD 59.5 billion.
• A broadening investment, with a record 21 countries and territories investing more than USD 2 billion in renewables.

Nils Stieglitz, President of Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, said: “We see the energy transition is in full swing, with the highest capacity of renewables financed ever. Meanwhile, the fossil fuel sector has been hit hard by the COVID-19 crisis – with demand for coal- and gas-fired electricity down in many countries, and oil prices slumping.

“The climate and COVID-19 crises – despite their different natures – are both disruptions that command attention from policy makers and managers alike. Both crises demonstrate the need to increase climate ambition and shift the world’s energy supply towards renewables.”

The 2019 investment brought the share of renewables, excluding large hydro, in global generation to 13.4 per cent, up from 12.4 per cent in 2018 and 5.9 per cent in 2009. This means that in 2019, renewable power plants prevented the emission of an estimated 2.1 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide, a substantial saving given global power sector emissions of approximately 13.5 gigatonnes in 2019.

“Clean energy finds itself at a crossroads in 2020,” said Jon Moore, Chief Executive of BloombergNEF. “The last decade produced huge progress, but official targets for 2030 are far short of what is required to address climate change. When the current crisis eases, governments will need to strengthen their ambitions not just on renewable power, but also on the decarbonization of transport, buildings and industry.”

UNEP: unenvironment.org
Frankfurt School of Finance and Management: frankfurt-school.de
BloombergNEF: about.bnef.com

The post Falling Clean Energy Costs Create Opportunity to Boost Climate Action in COVID-19 Recovery Packages appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The Western Sahel has been in the grip of a security crisis since 2012, when Tuareg rebels in Mali grouped together in an attempt to administer a new northern state called Azawad. Credit: Marc-André Boisvert/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 10 2020 (IPS)

The combination of rife insecurity, food insecurity and more than 7.5 million people in need of humanitarian assistance has left the Sahel a region in crisis, with the global coronavirus pandemic expected to exacerbate the situation.

In a briefing released today, Jun. 10, Amnesty International painted a picture of rife insecurity in the Sahel, with a civilian population “trapped between attacks by armed groups and ongoing military operations”.

The briefing, titled ‘They Executed Some and Brought the Rest with Them: Civilian Lives at risk in the Sahel’, details the grave reality in the region, especially across Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, including “at least 57 cases of extrajudicial executions or unlawful killings, and at least 142 cases of enforced disappearances” that have allegedly been committed by soldiers between February and April.

The organisation stated that in Mali and Burkina Faso the deliberate killing of unarmed citizens by security forces could be counted as war crimes.

• The Western Sahel has been in the grip of a security crisis since 2012, when Tuareg rebels in Mali grouped together in an attempt to administer a new northern state called Azawad. 
• The attempt failed, after intervention from French troops in 2013. However, local groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State continue to spread violence across the region.
• A multinational military force from the G5 Sahel countries of Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger has attempted to control the violence since 2017.
• France has retained a military presence in the region.

A range of concerns

The briefing comes on the back of a recent United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) high-level talk about the region where Ramesh Rajasingham, Acting Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs at the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said the current situation in the Sahel region was “in every sense of the word a crisis”.

Rajasingham noted that between 2019 and now, the region experienced an exponential rise in its need for humanitarian assistance: with 7.5 million people in Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali requiring assistance — up from 6.1 million just a year ago. 

He added that issues such as food insecurity and displacement of people were adding to this need, and that 5.5 million out of 12 million people in the larger Sahel are “just a step away” from “emergency levels of food insecurity”. 

“These are the highest levels of food insecurity we have witnessed in this region in a decade,” he said. “The socio-economic fallout from COVID-19 is likely to double these numbers.”

According to Ousmane Diallo, a Sahel researcher at Amnesty International, the COVID-19 pandemic “is not the defining feature in the region due to its emergence but it constitutes another challenge that different governments must contend with”.

“Some of the measures that were taken such as restrictions to freedom of assembly or to the continuation of the lockdown measures and curfew generated a lot of tensions – political, economical, but also on human rights issues,” Diallo told IPS. 

“Some of those actors who were critical of how the government handled the pandemic,  especially some of the emergency funds that were set up in order to meet the socio-economic effect of the pandemic, were sometimes arrested or even charged with causing public disorder,” he said. 

Achim Steiner, Administrator, U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) and Vice Chair of U.N. Sustainable Development Group said; “Before the onset of COVID-19, the central Sahel region was trapped by protracted conflict, violent extremism, competition over accessible lands and water and the [dangers of] climate change with temperatures rising at one and a half times faster than the global average.”

According to the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies, violent activity involving militant Islamist groups in the Sahel has doubled every year since 2015. 

The academic institution noted that since 2013, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have doubled their military budgets, amounting to a total of some $600 million.

“The governments of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger have mobilised their security structures in an effort to respond to the rise in militant Islamist group violence,” the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies said.

Not the first human rights violations

But Diallo told IPS that this is not the first time Amnesty International has documented human rights violations committed by security forces, and that international actors must be swift in taking action. 

“There’s been announcements about investigations that [have] never been conclusive or led to sanctions,” he said. 

One such incident was the Apr. 9 arrest and execution of civilians in Burkina Faso’s Soum province when soldiers arrived in the town of Djibo in a long convoy of pick-ups and motorbikes.

“They arrested several youths who were around a well, watering animals,” an eye witness is reported by Amnesty International as saying.

Though the soldiers later released a number of the youths, including those under-age, three individuals had been retained in custody.

“Hours later, we heard gunfire but dared not go and inquire until the military had left. I lost a paternal cousin and two maternal uncles that day,” the eye witness said.

The arrests had led to the execution of 31 residents by the GFAT (Groupement des forces anti-terroristes).

While on Apr. 20 the Burkinabè government acknowledge these extrajudicial killings, stating that the Direction de la Justice Militaire had been mandated to investigate it, there have been no further updates on the investigations.

Better solutions 

Meanwhile, Rajasingham from OCHR shared possible solutions for addressing the current crisis. 

“Sustained development investment is key to strengthening basic services: food security and nutrition displacement demand our full attention support,” he said, adding that women and children must be kept as the highest priority in any approach. 

Cessouma Minata Samate, Commissioner for Political Affairs at the African Union Commission highlighted the need for cooperation from all levels of society.  

“We need to [be] including local communities,” she said, adding that the approach should be inclusive.

** Additional reporting by Nalisha Adams in Bonn.

Related Articles

• Mali Heading Closer to Civil War
• Mali – Barely Surviving As One Country, Let Alone Two
• In Mali, Driving Out Rebels but Not Fear

The post The Sahel – ‘in Every Sense of the Word a Crisis’ appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Homeless in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan/IPS

By Ayesha Marfatia
MUMBAI, India, Jun 10 2020 (IPS)

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have reminded us that ‘universal challenges’ are experienced differently, based on context. The varying demographics, systems, and administrative structures in each nation have resulted in distinctive experiences and challenges while grappling with the fallout from the crisis.

Within countries too, the experience is not homogeneous—people and communities are interacting with the pandemic in different ways based on their privilege (socio-economic status, access to healthcare, and so on). Take India, for example, where the pandemic, lockdown, and subsequent migration have clearly exposed the layers of socio-economic inequalities in the country.

This reminder, that even universal challenges affect people differently, is something that we must keep in mind when talking about climate change. Because while it is a global phenomenon, we need to acknowledge that its effects vary from region to region, and examine the country- and community-specific impacts.

To encourage this change in thinking and identify how to support community-level responses to disasters and the climate crisis, Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies and the India Climate Collaborative released a report—Community Resilience: The heart of climate action–authored by Suranjana Gupta.

Here are some of their findings.

 

Disasters, development, poverty, and vulnerability are closely interlinked

Out of 181 countries, India is considered to be the fifth most vulnerable to climate change. In 2019, in addition to experiencing the hottest July ever recorded, we saw 74 percent more extreme rainfall events and seven cyclones. In fact, in just the first half of the year, about 2.17 million citizens were displaced due to disasters.

The destruction and displacement caused by Cyclone Fani in Odisha and the Kerala floods last year illustrate how disasters can reverse efforts made towards poverty reduction and development

If we further scrutinise this, noticeable differences in the way various communities within India experience climate change emerge. For example, it has been well-documented that smallholder farmers who rely on rainfall for irrigation are facing more extreme temperatures in summer followed by drought. A temperature rise of even one degree can affect crop yields and destroy agri-based livelihoods. Rising temperatures also have a direct influence on the spread of vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue—health shocks that a lot of families cannot afford.

Additionally, the destruction and displacement caused by Cyclone Fani in Odisha and the Kerala floods last year illustrate how disasters can reverse efforts made towards poverty reduction and development. In Puri and Khurda, two of the worst-affected districts in Odisha, more than half of the rural population lived in semi-permanent or temporary house structures. About 1.3 lakh houses were built under different rural housing programmes, and after the cyclone, a large proportion of these houses were damaged.

With Cyclone Amphan as well, certain communities are likely to be more heavily impacted than others. For example, while damage is being caused across West Bengal and Odisha, the urban poor in Kolkata, farmers in low lying areas such as the Sundarbans, and migrant workers who have returned to their villages with no source of income, will face harsher, longer-term consequences.

 

Building for the most marginalised

After disasters strike, government, philanthropy, humanitarian organisations, and other nonprofits often work on ‘building back better’ and developing community resilience towards disasters. When engaged in this work, the following aspects about local communities and vulnerable populations need to be kept in mind:

 

1. Vulnerable communities are not monolithic

Though disaster resilience needs to be built at a large scale, across the country, the poor and marginalised communities that bear the brunt of disasters and climate change belong to different contexts and locations. Solutions, as a result, cannot be broad or generic, and need to be localised and tailored to these varying contexts—livelihoods, topography, natural resources, housing patterns, culture, and socio-economic status.

 

2. Small-scale, local disasters are often ignored

Large-scale disasters usually receive a significant amount of attention, along with resources and aid from state and national governments. However, smaller, localised disasters—heat waves, cloudbursts, small-scale floods, for example—can have equally devastating impacts on local populations, but draw little attention and resources.

 

3. Local stakeholders need to be involved

There is evidence to suggest that in many cases, more effective, efficient, and sustainable results can be achieved by financing and involving local actors. Where communities want to advance resilience, their capacities and leadership needs to be enhanced—local leadership is more likely to sustain efforts in the long run.

Certain government-led relief efforts have actively worked to include local stakeholders to enable community resilience. For example, the Kudumbashree network in Kerala (comprising of 43 lakh women from 2.77 lakh groups federated across the state) was empowered to take on formal roles in the flood-recovery process. Organising several aspects of relief and recovery, Kudumbashree members distributed 35,000 food packets from community kitchens over five days, and community counselling by the women reached 40,000 people.

 

4. Relief may not reach certain communities

Even when relief programmes are made available, the poorest and most marginalised communities may not be able to access them, or may have to actually incur costs to access them. Some communities, living in remote or difficult to reach areas, or those with no official records of their presence, may be invisible and left out of relief efforts.

 

5. Informality can render individuals invisible

Approximately 81 percent of employed workers in the Indian economy work in the informal sector. Sixty-four million Indians live in informal settlements. Governments do not usually have reliable data around informality, and so people working in the informal sector or living in informal housing might be the worst affected by disasters, but there are poor records of who they are, what they earn, and what they lose. The ability to claim resources and benefits also largely extends only to people in the formal sector, or those with domicile proofs.

 

6. Policies focus on nationwide losses

The asset base of the most vulnerable is thin, and forms a miniscule proportion of aggregate national loss. Policy discussions on disaster losses tend to focus on aggregate losses in relation to GDP, but the losses faced by this miniscule proportion are actually very large. In India, crises may result in children being taken out of school, or reduced household access to medical services and food security.

 

7. The poor are perceived as beneficiaries

Disaster-prone or affected areas might in fact need external assistance, but communities themselves best know where the most marginalised households are located, can undertake rescue and relief operations themselves, and can protect their natural resources. Thinking of them as passive recipients of aid disregards the knowledge, skills, and leadership present within these communities, and excludes them from decision-making processes.

 

8. ‘Exposure’ does not equal ‘vulnerability’

Exposure to disasters is often conflated with vulnerability. But being exposed to a hazard alone does not determine vulnerability. Exposure, paired with socio-economic status and the capacity to prevent damage and losses, determines vulnerability. This means that vulnerable communities are not likely to experience losses as a result of their locations alone. Two houses in the same area could experience a disaster differently, according to income levels or asset protection.

 

The opportunity for philanthropy

Community resilience initiatives that help people adapt to climate change and disasters do exist, but there is still a need to deepen their impact, widen their scale, and attract more partners to take this approach. Philanthropy needs to tap into the experience, expertise, and networks of these initiatives and help them to grow.

It’s important to remember that funding resilience doesn’t necessarily mean developing an entirely new grant portfolio. Here are a few strategies that philanthropists can use to make their funding climate-compatible:

• Make weather and climate information accessible to communities in forms they are comfortable with, so that they can make informed decisions that protect their lives, livestock, livelihoods, homes, and other assets from the adverse impacts of disaster and climate change.
• Affirm community leadership by appointing community experts as trainers, researchers, and resource persons. Communities have demonstrated expertise in transferring knowledge and practice, and members can be remunerated for their roles as resource persons.
• Incentivise government engagement so that plans and programmes can be developed in collaboration with communities and are responsive to their needs.
• Organise multi-stakeholder dialogue between the private sector, government, and civil society. These stakeholders need to build trust in order to effectively collaborate and coordinate efforts towards climate change and disaster management.

Lastly, when funding community resilience, it is important to remember three things. First, the context-specific nature of climate and disaster risk means there are no universal metrics to measuring resilience. Second, good governance—transparency, accountability, inclusivity, decentralisation, and so on—are key to driving climate-informed decisions and building community resilience. Third, long-term investments in communities do make a difference.

 

Know more

• Explore the report in its entirety to learn more about community resilience and climate-proofing development.
• Read about how Cyclone Amphan has moved focus back on millions displaced by climate disasters.
• Watch this discussion with Jairam Ramesh, Rohini Nilekani, and Navroz Dubash, moderated by Barkha Dutt, on recovery in the face of COVID-19 and climate change.
• Learn more about how climate change adaptation, rather than mitigation, needs to be mainstreamed in India.

 

Ayesha Marfatia is an editorial associate at India Development Review.

 

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

The post ‘Universal Challenges’ Expose Layers of Inequalities appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Sealed playground just outside the Slovak capital, Bratislava. Credit: Ed Holt/IPS

By Charlotte Cooper
LONDON, Jun 10 2020 (IPS)

During the Covid-19 pandemic governments around the world have introduced curfews as an exceptional, yet necessary, means of containing the spread of the virus. Yet while most countries have applied their curfews uniformly to all citizens, authorities across several regions have introduced them only for certain groups exclusively because of their age, including for under-18s.

Most curfews have now been eased, but the ones specific to children and young people are based on lazy and harmful stereotypes about this age group which have required little justification.

Youth curfews not only discriminate against under-18s and reinforce harmful stereotypes about them, but they are also not an effective means of controlling the virus if other age groups are allowed to roam freely

These discriminatory measures are nothing new, but rather an extension of a problem that existed before the pandemic: the issue of criminalising actions only for certain groups of people. Also known as status offences, they are a form of age discrimination and should be abolished.

 

Where and why have youth curfews been used?

Restrictions on children leaving their homes during the pandemic have been enforced with varying levels of severity across most regions. In one of the most severe cases, Bosnia and Herzegovina barred under-18s and over-65s from going outdoors for any reason.

Anyone from the two age groups found violating the order risked being fined, and official data confirms that police in Sarajevo issued fines to children. The country’s Constitutional Court has since declared that the order violates human rights, and children are now allowed out for a few hours during three days of the week, but it has not been revoked entirely.

Meanwhile in Colombia, where the national government decreed that local authorities were allowed to impose youth curfews specifically, it appears that only two areas introduced a 24-hour curfew on under-18s and over-60s: the department of Norte de Santander and the city of Manizales, respectively home to almost 1.5 million and half a million people.

In other places, including Kazakhstan, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, and a number of French cities, regions in Russia and counties in the United States, the curfews for under-18s have been less extreme. For instance, rules have been implemented that ban children from going out unaccompanied, or between certain times of the day. Nonetheless, these still amount to age discrimination.

The justifications given for the restrictions – if any at all – do not hold up to scrutiny. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, officials claimed that they were introduced in order to protect children, as they were a vulnerable group.

Yet research shows children are much less vulnerable to severe and fatal symptoms of Covid-19 than adults, and may also be less able to catch and spread the virus. On the other hand in Colombia and in some parts of the United States, authorities resorted to lazy generalisations claiming that young people were more likely to break social distancing rules by gathering in crowds in parks.

In both instances, the justifications mirror those given for status offences before the pandemic; they are based on claims either of children’s need for protection or their propensity for criminal or anti-social behaviour.

 

Youth curfews as age discrimination

Youth curfews fall into so-called status offences because they prohibit behaviour that, while considered acceptable for adults – that is, being outdoors at certain times – is criminalised when carried out by under-18s. Other examples of status offences that apply to under-18s include truancy, running away from home, begging and even ‘disobedience’.

The problem with status offences is the differential treatment of under-18s – and the restriction of their rights – based purely on their age. This, by definition, amounts to age discrimination. If the reasons given for the youth curfews were genuine, then they should have logically applied to adults too, as adults, just like children and young people, also need protection from the virus – not to mention that many adults have also been flouting social distancing measures.

Youth curfews not only discriminate against under-18s and reinforce harmful stereotypes about them, but they are also not an effective means of controlling the virus if other age groups are allowed to roam freely.

What’s more, the discrimination will hit some children harder than others – children who face difficulties staying in their home, many of whom are already marginalised.

This includes children who live or work on the street to survive, children who face abuse in the home, those who need to leave the house for their physical or mental health, and children living in cramped or otherwise unhealthy conditions such as refugee camps or slums.

 

What is the solution?

In the context of the pandemic, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has emphasised that any restrictions on children’s rights must “be imposed only when necessary, be proportionate and kept to an absolute minimum”. Looking beyond the pandemic, it is worth remembering the Riyadh Guidelines call on governments to “ensure that any conduct not considered an offence or not penalised if committed by an adult is not considered an offence and not penalised if committed by a young person”.

Much like adults, children and young people are very conscious of the seriousness of the pandemic and its impact on their lives and others. And while a minority of people of any age may flout social distancing rules, the majority will respect them.

So rather than limiting under-18s’ freedoms and exacerbating the challenges they already face, governments should stop imposing discriminatory restrictions on children and young people. Instead, they should focus on engaging children as responsible citizens who want to learn about the pandemic and are ready to help stop its spread. Let us end the injustice of status offences, for now and forever.

 

The post Eliminating Age Discrimination from Lockdown Curfews appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Charlotte Cooper is Campaigns Coordinator at CRIN - Child Rights International Network.

The post Eliminating Age Discrimination from Lockdown Curfews appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Protests against police brutality have been taking place in cities across the United States including in New York city. Credit: UN News/Shirin Yaseen

By Antonio Guterres
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 10 2020 (IPS)

I want to once again express to all colleagues my enormous appreciation, my enormous gratitude, for your fantastic professionalism, your flexibility and the way you have been able to fully deliver for the people we care for during this period.

And to say that as we hopefully approach a moment in which we might return to normality, that we will do it very carefully and in a phased way, because the safety and the well-being of the staff will be the primary consideration.

But of course, today we are gathered for another reason. I felt compelled to give you my testimony in these dramatic moments. We are all shocked by the brutality of the murder of George Floyd.

And we are all impacted and concerned, with lots of events that followed that we have been very attentively looking at. And I think it’s important to recognize that the center of these is a serious question of racism. Now, racism is abhorrent, nasty, and must be rejected everywhere at any moment, condemned in a clear way.

Racism is the rejection of our common humanity, which is a central aspect against the Charter of the United Nations. So, something that justifies the Charter of the United Nations is the fight against racism.

But I think we need to go a little bit further, and to look into this from an ideological perspective, from an economic and social perspective, and also from a perspective of relations between police, governments and people.

First, the ideological perspective. We are unfortunately entering a phase that some have called the post-enlightenment. Enlightenment is a European concept largely but I think the values of the enlightenment — the primacy of reason, tolerance, mutual respect — are common to many civilizations and many cultures around the world.

And indeed, it is as if these values are now being put dramatically into question. It is nationalism, it’s irrationality, it’s populism, it’s xenophobia, it is racism, white supremacism, it is different forms of Neo-Nazism, that are apparent in our societies.

And it is clear that in the center of these drives to irrationality, there is racism, and many other things have racist components. We have been fighting a lot against antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred. And in antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred, there is a racist dimension.

Protesters in Brooklyn, New York, peacefully demonstrate about racial injustice. Credit: UN News/Shirin Yaseen

So, racism is in the center of many other things that we deal with and fight against. It’s important to recognize that this is an ideological battle, in which it is essential to assert our values, the values of common humanity, the values of the Charter, equality, non-discrimination, mutual respect, and the capacity to support all the movements that fight for these values that are also deeply linked to the affirmation of human rights.

Now, if racism is something that exists everywhere, racism also exists within the United Nations. This is another aspect that I would like to underline today. We have very robust policies in relation to discrimination, harassment, abuse of authority.

There was recently a review of those policies that are in the SG bulletin. But we have not paid enough attention within the Organization to the specific question of racist bias and racist discrimination. Of course, there is a general question of diversity and inclusivity.

When we try to fight sexual harassment, the most important instrument is gender parity. When you try to fight racism, the most important instrument is to have regional diversity and inclusivity in our work. But this is general and of course we are fighting for it.

But we need to go deeper. I think we need to have within the United Nations an honest conversation on racism. We have some instruments already that were decided. We have the “united in respect” dialogues. We have the inclusion dialogues.

But these are, again, generic. We need to have something specific. I asked the Ombudsman together with the human resources department to prepare, in articulation with the staff representatives, a plan of action for a one-year debate on racism within the Organization, aiming at conclusions that, obviously, I want to listen to and be able to act upon.

I would like to have a chapter on racism in the next staff engagement survey to see if we are able to make progress or not in this regard.

My idea is for there to be a free-flowing discussion. I want people to feel totally at ease through the Ombudsman offices, through the civility café, through inviting experts to come and do TED talks and through debates that are organized. I’ve seen the staff engagement survey, I know that some feel that there is not enough respect within the Organization, that they can’t freely express themselves because they are afraid.

I want this debate to be a clearly open, free-flowing debate without any restriction, and I’m very much interested in participating. There is also a social and economic dimension in all of this, the central question of inequality in society, the central question of discrimination in society.

And it is clear that diversity is a richness, not a threat. The societies that are diverse can only succeed if there is a massive investment in social cohesion, by governments, local authorities, civil society, churches, against discrimination and inequality.

This is central to our 2030 Agenda, and this is central to the Sustainable Development Goals, and central to the values of the United Nations. So, our values are not only related to the questions of racism as a human rights violation, they are central to the questions of inequality and discrimination.

And these are vital in the perspectives of the work we do in relation to the 2030 Agenda and to diversity. We also need to understand that when we have situations in which social cohesion does not exist, where social protection is not enough, and where we have different forms of discrimination, there are grievances: those grievances have a legitimate right to be expressed in societies.

And for that demonstrations are something that is perfectly normal. It is our role to ask for demonstrations to be peaceful and at the same time to ask authorities to listen to the grievances and for police forces and others to be restrained in the way they handle these situations.

And this is very much at the center of what we have been saying in relation to the recent events and other similar ones around the world. And this brings us to the question of police brutality. One of the central problems that we are witnessing, and it’s very general, it’s not only police brutality, it is the difficulty of many authorities to deal with diversity.

The most obvious aspect, which is less evident, but many colleagues have already felt it, is the so-called profiling. But more dramatic than that is, of course, the police brutality in itself. We have seen a murder, but there are many other forms of police brutality that we see around the world, expressing racism.

Police forces need to be fully trained on human rights. Many times, police brutality is the expression of the frustrations of the police officers themselves, as well as of the lack of adequate psychosocial support to them.

Now the UN positions have been clear. The Human Rights High Commissioner has spoken. I have also been very clear in all my messages. Of course, many colleagues would like to be much more vocal and active, and we have the limitations of being International Civil Servants.

But there is one thing that we all can do, which is to spread the UN messages. This can be done by everybody with the tools at their disposal. All of us can multiply and amplify our messages against racism, our message against police brutality, our messages against the inequalities and discriminations that lead to situations like the ones we live in, fully asserting our values.

And I’d like to say that I count on our colleagues and on the staff representatives to help us organize an effective internal discussion on racism. Because I think we need to look deeply into it. And we all need to look into ourselves, into our prejudices and do everything possible to eradicate these aberrations from us and from the societies around us.

The post The Need, Within the UN, for an Honest Conversation on Racism appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General in an address to staffers at a Town Hall meeting

The post The Need, Within the UN, for an Honest Conversation on Racism appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Dr. Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury
SINGAPORE, Jun 9 2020 (IPS-Partners)

Politics have exacerbated the already severe pains that the raging COVID Pandemic have been inflicting on the global population. The spread of Coronavirus coincided with three major developments in the global arena. First was the end of what Charles Krauthammer, the American neo-conservative guru had called, as the title of his book on that subject suggested, America’s “Unipolar Moment”. This was the period, since the implosion of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, when the United states was the only pre-dominant superpower that ruled the roost in the global arena. Though China was rising in the meantime, politically, economically and militarily, it was still coy about it, conforming to the Deng Xia0ping counsel to “hide its capabilities and bide its time”.

Dr. Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury

The second, major development was the assessment of China’s current leader Xi Jinping was that that demure posture was no longer necessary, China was strong and confident enough to assert itself, and seek the position of a peer to the US. So, the US’ “Unipolar Moment” was pretty much over, and a new era of bipolarity was ushered into the international arena.

The third was technically a domestic development, the up-coming US elections, which, however, always have wide enough implications of a global nature. Donald Trump needed an issue to mobilize his support-base, and a conflict with China could be a useful rallying point. A war was too dangerous, with uncertain consequences. At the same time the coronavirus was wreaking havoc in the US, and the Administration’s delayed response was subject to considerable criticism. So a distraction, rendered all the more convenient because many Americans believed it, was created by blaming China for initially concealing the origin and lethality of the disease, and also the world Health Organization (WHO)for kowtowing to China’s directions, endeavouring to exonerate Beijing from the responsibilities. The last point appeared to have a modicum of credibility as the Director General of that international body, an Ethiopian, Tedros Gereyesus, had some reasons to be beholden to Beijing as a source of support to him. But he himself was quick to deny it, claiming that no action of the WHO, in reaction to COVID, was taken at the behest of any member, meaning China.

That was the backdrop against which the key decision making organ of the WHO, the World Health Assembly, which has 194 State-members, met, virtually ,due to the global Corona-induced lock-down, centred in the WHO headquarters in Geneva ,for two days in the third week of May. Weeks prior to the session, the US and China, along with their supporters, locked horns, first through the preparatory process, and thereafter during the session itself. The differences surfaced mainly with regard to two issues: first was the participation of Taiwan, and the second was a resolution pertaining to the reforms of the WHO.

The question of the participation of Taiwan in United Nations and other international conferences where membership constitutes States, has been a perennial bone of contention. An overwhelming membership of the UN, including the US. Conform to the one-china policy, which, by definition, excluded Taiwan’s presence. However, in the WTO, after the SARS pandemic at the turn of the century, Taiwan was invited to sit in as observer at WHA sessions, though under the status deprecating banner of “Chinese Taipeh”. But that was with the approval of China as Taiwan had a pro-unification (with China) government. But currently the government in Taiwan is seen as pro-independence, which has raised Chinese ire, an, consequently China was disinclined to extend invitation to Taipeh. So, despite US insistence that the success of Taipeh’s COVID containment (0nly 440 infections and seven deaths), which would enable it to contribute positively to discussions, the door was closed to Taiwan. An angry Trump, who had already cancelled the current years assessed contribution to WTO budget, criticizing the WHO, calling it to “demonstrate independence from China’ and urging reforms, threatening that if these were not initiated , further US action would follow.

The other major western bloc, the European Union, disassociated itself from the US position, and put out a statement supporting the WHO. Its foreign policy spokesman said: ‘This is the time for solidarity, not the time for finger-pointing or for undermining multilateral cooperation”. Even within the US there were apprehensions that Trump’s posture could lessen the US clout in the global fight against the pandemic, and in fact, cede the leadership in combatting it to China. The head of the prestigious American think-tank the Council on Foreign Relations, said that the US needed to consult others on reforming the WHO if it wanted to do more than just posturing. He observed that “there is no unilateral US answer to global health challenges”.

As to the issue of reforms, it was akin to motherhood, in the sense that everyone was supportive of reform, and no one opposing it; the question was what were the necessary reforms and when were they to be implemented. Australia, a key US ally initially led the charge, beginning with a call for an inquiry into the origin of the virus. But the spirit was somewhat dampened as once again politics came to the fore with China swiftly proposing massive tariffs on Australian barley and blocking meat imports from it (China is Australia’s largest market , lifting nearly 38 percent of its total exports , greater than those of the US, Japan and South Korea combined.) China also wanted reforms, but only those , as Xi Jinping said, “based on science and professionalism, led by the WHO, and conducted in an objective and impartial manner”.

Finally, it was the resolution initiated by the European Union, which eventually attracted a large number of other cosponsors, that was adopted. It had three main components. It called for: First, an impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation of the international response to the pandemic; second, a probe on the actions of the WTO and their timelines pertaining to COVID-19; and three, requiring the WHO to examine the ‘zoonotic’ (spread from animal to human, thus dismissing some western accusation of a man-made virus) and the route of introduction to human population.

The resolution was adopted by consensus (‘Consensus’ agreement is distinct from ‘unanimous’ agreement -the which though subtle is also significant- in that in the former case no one disagrees, and in the latter case, everyone agrees), which was face-saving for all, since members did not have to publicly state or demonstrate their actual positions. So, the S did not disassociate itself from the consensus as some had feared, but remained content, for the time being, with Trump describing WHO as “puppet of China”. But the US President struck hard on 30 May by ending his country’s relationship with the WHO, accusing it of being “Under the total control of China”.

Despite the fact that by now such announcement was expected, there was world- wide expression of regret. Immediately Germany’s Health Minister, Jens Spah, called it “a disappointing backlash for international health”. A leading British oncologist said there was no “logic” to the decision. However, the WHO is likely to survive the American withdrawal. The contributions will be made up from other sources. China has already committed $ 2 billion over two years to help other countries respond to the virus,

This would help fill the gap. Even US and other western billionaires might step in with their support. But the point is, the development does not augur well for multilateralism broadly, and global cooperation in the health sector specifically. The point to note is that given the fact that we are poised to enter a new era where the world is no longer unipolar, that after three decades the US now has a rival peer, could once again dichotomize the world. In particular, the entire developing world, including Bangladesh, must need take heed and shape behaviour patterns appropriately.

Dr. Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury is Principal Research Fellow at ISAS, National University of Singapore, former Foreign Advisor and President of Cosmos Foundation Bangladesh.

This article was first published in DHAKA COURIER

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Coronavirus pandemic threatens crises-ravaged communities as UN appeals for global support. Credit: United Nations

By Charlotte Petri Gornitzka, Robert Piper and Ulrika Modéer
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 9 2020 (IPS)

The COVID-19 pandemic upended almost every aspects of life as we know it. Even those countries that are supposed to have the means to manage the spread and mitigate the effects are struggling.

Besides the $5 trillion stimulus package that the G20 economies agreed to deal with the pandemic, individual countries are also devising various measures to shore up their health care systems, stabilize their economies, and assist affected workers and businesses.

Even before the full brunt of the coronavirus outbreak reached some of the poorest countries, the economic impacts are already being felt. With declining global demand for raw materials, breakdown of global supply chain, and mounting debt burden, the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is estimated to exceed $220 billion.

The urgent shouldn’t crowd out the important

With greater uncertainty and fear of global recession looming large, governments are looking for resources needed to lessen the socio-economic pains of the crisis. In this process, official development assistance (ODA) won’t be spared and could come under increased scrutiny.

Decisions made now will have potentially devastating – or transformative – impact for years to come. Despite the economic and political pressure, we must protect ODA, which is needed more than ever.

The spread of COVID-19, especially in places with weak governance and health infrastructures, is expected to be overwhelming if the international community does not act now.

For example, in Sub-Saharan Africa, many countries have the lowest number of physicians per capita in the world while some experience ongoing conflicts, making it difficult to fight the virus.

Credit: UNFPA

The collateral impact of COVID-19 on health, education and nutrition systems will be extremely damaging, and in many cases irreversible, for children and society at large. And when the world opens up again, the resilience of the weakest health systems will dictate how well we do against future threats.

The UN Secretary General argued that “this human crisis demands coordinated, decisive, inclusive and innovative policy action—and maximum financial and technical support for the poorest and most vulnerable people and countries.”

It is critical for the international community to fulfil the humanitarian appeal for COVID-19 response while protecting existing commitments to long-term development and other ‘silent’ emergencies.

Doing so will help protect the most vulnerable people from being exposed to the effects of COVID-19 and preserve hard-earned development gains in fighting global poverty and expanding basic services.

Left to their own devises, fragile nations may risk the breakdown of socio-political order, civil unrest and state collapse, further exacerbating the dire situation.

Flexible funding key to tackling COVID-19

COVID-19 is not only a humanitarian crisis, but also a development crisis. Development agencies are supporting countries to prepare for, respond to, and recover from the crisis.

The effectiveness of their response to certain degree depends on the flexibility afforded to them in funding and operational procedures.

To tackle this uniquely complex health and development crisis, the adequacy and flexibility of funding to development agencies are pivotal. Flexible “core” funding is already making a difference in the COVID-19 response to reach people in need faster, empower local actors, deploy essential supplies to the frontline, and protect the most vulnerable – children, refugees, women.

This enabled the affected communities to practice due diligence and self-driven discretion to immediately respond to threats of the pandemic, while waiting for the pledged assistance to arrive. For instance, in Nigeria, funding flexibility allowed UNICEF to come up with an innovative solution to fight misinformation around COVID-19 while UNDP was able to support the government double the ventilator capacity in the country.

Collaboration, not competition

The COVID-19 pandemic is a devastating crisis in history. But it also posits an opportunity to remind the global community why multilateralism is vital to securing the world’s peace, security, and prosperity.

We witness how the health crisis of today’s globalized world interlinks global economy, geopolitics, and social values. Our effective response to the public health crisis should be seen as key to resolving the ensuing economic, humanitarian, and development challenges.

Understanding this interlinked and complex reality of COVID-19, governments need to work together closely to take coordinated actions and share scientific information, resources and expertise.

It is this strong motion for collaboration that underpins the UN agencies commitment to reinforce the humanitarian-development nexus to jointly respond to the COVID-19 crisis, working closely through the UN Crisis team, humanitarian response plan, UN Response and Recovery Fund for COVID-19.

For example, in Guinea-Bissau, WHO, UNICEF, UNDP, and IOM joined hands to help build isolation facilities and triage space, and procure necessary equipment for COVID-19, both for the national hospital as well as for the re-modelling of the UN clinic.

With strong solidarity and effective cooperation, the international community will not only arrest COVID-19, but also use the emergency to build back better health systems and a more inclusive and sustainable economy.

 

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Excerpt:

Charlotte Petri Gornitzka is Assistant Secretary-General and UNICEF Deputy Executive Director, Partnerships; Robert Piper is Assistant Secretary-General, Director of Development Coordination Office; and Ulrika Modéer is Assistant Administrator of UNDP & Director of Bureau of External Relations and Advocacy.

The post Global Solidarity & Effective Cooperation in the Face of COVID-19 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Protests in cities across the United States including in New York city. Credit: UN News/Shirin Yaseen

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 9 2020 (IPS)

The massive protests in more than 120 US cities over racial injustice and police brutality went global last week– amidst presidential threats of military force on demonstrators in Washington DC.

At the same time, there were continued political demonstrations against the imposition of authoritarianism in Hong Kong by the current dominating military power there: China.

According to Cable News Network (CNN), “sickened,” “shocked and appalled,” “horror and consternation” – “are words we’re used to hearing from US presidents and diplomats to condemn despotic regimes”.

“But these are from leaders in the UK, the European Union and Canada, respectively”, to describe the brutal killing of an unarmed African-American in the streets of Minneapolis which triggered protests worldwide.

But will any UN Secretary-General – past or present – have plucked up courage to condemn the political leadership either in the United States or China, two veto-wielding permanent members in the Security Council, in such harsh terms?

”Never,” says a former Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UN, “particularly, if a Secretary-General is planning to run for a second term —where the threat of a veto hangs over his head”?

Still, will a limit on his tenure be an answer to the problem, as laid out in a 1996 study, which recommended that the General Assembly adopt a comprehensive new policy, including a single, seven-year term, to free the Secretary-General from re-election stresses and pressures.?

Stephen Lewis, a former Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations and Deputy Executive Director of the UN children’s agency UNICEF, told IPS: “I don’t think it much matters whether it’s two five-year terms or one seven-year term”.

That’s not the problem with the Secretary-General’s tenure, he pointed out.

The problem is that both Ban Ki-moon and Antonio Guterres have paid no attention to the three most important words that open the Charter of the UN: “We the peoples”…

“They both pay homage only to governments; it’s as if ‘the peoples’ of the world don’t exist. As a result, there is neither transparency nor accountability”, said Lewis, who was a UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, and later co-founder and co-director of AIDS-Free World.

Guterres, he said, hides behind the Convention on Privileges and Immunities, or with willful arrogance refuses to answer questions put to him.

“Thus, when asked why he’s silent on the turbulence in the United States, and in particular the excessive use of force, he defers to his spokesperson who provides fatuous nonsense in response.”

It was exactly the way Ban never felt the obligation to tell the truth about cholera in Haiti, nor to feel it necessary to explain why the $400 million fund was effectively abandoned, he noted.

Perhaps one of the few exceptions in the 75-year history of the UN was former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt who paid the supreme penalty of being vetoed out of a second term —even though he garnered an overwhelming 14 of the 15 votes in the UN Security Council. But the US ingloriously vetoed his claims for a second term.

As he recounted his running battle with the US in his book titled “Unvanquished: a US UN Saga,” Boutros-Ghali had the singular distinction of being the only UN chief who never received a second term in office because he paid a heavy price for the courage of his convictions—even though he admits he was forced to occasionally cave in to the dictates of the US.

The 1996 study sponsored by two major think tanks implicitly accused some of the world’s big powers of manipulating the election of the Secretary-General so as to ensure that U.N. heads are political creatures with no minds of their own.

“It is impossible to escape the impression, that many governments, including some of the most powerful, do not want a strong, independent leader as Secretary-General,” said the study published under the auspices of the New York-based Ford Foundation and the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation of Stockholm.

The authors of the study – Brian Urquhart and Erskine Childers, both senior UN officials – said the selection of the Secretary-General is quite literally part of “an old-boy network.” “The United Nations is an intergovernmental organisation, and governments have no intentions of giving up control of it.”

Thomas G. Weiss, a Distinguished Fellow, Global Governance at The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, told IPS the same proposal was part of the “1-for-7-billion campaign” (of which Weiss was a sponsor). http://www.1for7billion.org/

“Boutros Boutros-Ghali would have been a perfect candidate, “enfant terrible” for 7 years instead of modestly behaved for 5 years. It made sense in 1990 and in 2016 for the reasons that you cite”.

“Guterres has been running for a second term since January 2017” (ever since he took office), he noted.

“He has disappointed many of us by being so invisible. We should recall former Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon who prided himself being the “invisible man.” He got two terms. Guterres is using the same strategy,” declared Weiss, Presidential Professor of Political Science, Director Emeritus, Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, The CUNY Graduate Center.

Lewis argued there is no freedom of information in the UN, and that’s what gets governments like Sweden frustrated and thinking of shortening the SG’s term.

“The Secretary-General should be required to hold an open press conference at least once, preferably twice a week, with a critical media corps to ask questions. If that were the case, the entire culture of his office would change.”

“It’s his behaviour rather than his longevity that needs reform,” declared Lewis, who also launched the Code Blue campaign to end impunity for sexual abuse by UN personnel.

In a hard-hitting article titled “As Protests Sweep the US, the UN Tweets Platitudes”, Dulcie Leimbach, a former editor at the New York Times and founder of PassBlue, a widely-read web publication covering the United Nations, wrote: “Amid curfews in New York City, constant marches and protests, sirens from the streets and helicopters whirring above, the United Nations top leader, António Guterres, has not appeared before the media to say anything directly about the convulsions exploding across the five boroughs and far beyond. Instead, he has relied on his spokespeople to provide responses.”
https://www.passblue.com/2020/06/03/as-protests-sweep-the-us-the-un-tweets-platitudes/

Leimbach also wrote that the lack of direct reference to the killing of George Floyd, and the turn of events here in the city and elsewhere, extends to the UN Security Council, the General Assembly, the US mission to the UN and other national delegations. Only the UN high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, a Chilean who is based in Geneva, has directly addressed Floyd’s murder.

“But when it comes to criticizing the US or other great powers who control the UN, Guterres has built a reputation of making vague statements or letting other UN experts, from human-rights chiefs to refugee bosses — not a new reaction — to comment on the latest problem or conflict violating international law or overriding universal rights”.

Asked to comment further on UN leadership, Leimbach told IPS: “For the UN to remain relevant in our ever-increasing polarized world, it needs to have a woman running the organization for a change”

That would show it is flexible and accountable to half the world’s population as women need to be running global organizations to ensure their equal rights.

The symbol of having the UN led by a woman — the right woman — would be profound, she declared.

Asked for the Secretary-General’s views– on whether the attacks on journalists and innocent civilians at US demonstrations last week were violations of human rights– UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters June 5: “Look, we have already spoken on that.”

“ The Secretary-General, I think, has mentioned that in his tweets, and … our position really is the same globally, is that people have a fundamental right to demonstrate peacefully, that the law enforcement should use restraint, and… but there is a fundamental right of peaceful demonstration that needs to be respected all over the world and that… it’s not … this is something we say whenever we get asked about demonstrations and violence.”

Asked about a proposal by a group of parliamentarians from Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand for a Special Envoy on Hong Kong, he said; “Look, we haven’t received anything, as far as I’m aware, officially. There are procedures and precedents on the appointment of… and I speak here in very general terms, on the appointment of special envoys, special representatives and I will… and, obviously, involves all the parties involved in that issue, but I will leave it at that.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jun 9 2020 (IPS)

As governments the world over struggle to revive their economies after the debilitating lockdowns they imposed following their failure to undertake adequate precautionary containment measures to curb Covid-19 contagion, neoliberal naysayers are already warning against needed deficit financing for relief and recovery.

Deficit financing options
The range of deficit financing options has changed little since first legitimized by Roosevelt and Keynes in the 1930s and used extensively to finance wartime government spending.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

First, debt financing has typically involved government borrowing. More recent understandings of sovereign debt stress the implications of the source of borrowing, domestic or external, e.g., Japan’s total government debt now greatly exceeds double its annual national income, but this is not considered problematic as most of it is domestically held by Japanese.

Second, price controls, general or selective, can cut both ways, and may require subsidies. Price controls on extracted natural resources can also enable governments to capture resource rents to augment revenue.

Third, the widespread use of unconventional monetary measures since the 2008 global financial crisis has forced economists to reconsider earlier monetarist articles of faith about deficit financing by ‘taxing’ everyone via inflation, also giving an unexpected boost to modern monetary theory.

Exchange rate policy
Finally, an overvalued exchange rate has been favoured by elites who travel and purchase abroad wanting strong currencies, which they often portray as cause for national pride. After all, governments collect taxes in domestic currency, but pay for international debt and imports with foreign exchange.

However, a strong exchange rate only provides a temporary solution, worsening balance of payments’ difficulties in the longer term, favouring consumers over producers, and importers over exporters, besides encouraging consumption at the expense of savings. Increasing imports for consumption either deplete foreign exchange reserves or require external borrowing.

Overvalued exchange rates’ potential for fighting inflation is risky as balance of payments deficits cannot be sustained indefinitely. Exchange rate-based currency board and stabilization arrangements in transition and developing economies are similarly problematic. Economies maintaining overvalued exchange rates have often later experienced severe currency crises.

Quasi-nationalist development ideologies and weak elite opposition enabled many East Asian economies to use undervalued exchange rates to discourage imports and promote exports, with effective protection for import-substituting industries conditional on successful exports.

Macroeconomic populism?
Deficit spending supposedly responded to ‘populist’ demands by ‘distributional coalitions’ of interest groups demanding higher wages, cheap housing, public healthcare and free schooling. Undoubtedly, their political support was sought by regimes, elected or otherwise, who were typically unwilling or unable to collect enough revenue to sustain such expenditure.

In recent decades, macroeconomic populism has become a catch-all explanation for deficit financing, ostensibly to finance redistributive government spending, regardless of actual expenditure patterns. But rather than populist redistribution, deficit spending was often for ‘security’ (i.e., the military and police) or physical infrastructure, rather than social expenditure, or corruption.

The narrative implies that regimes could not resist demands for redistribution, presumably the price of retaining political authority and influence. Undoubtedly, government capacities to directly tax incomes and assets have been constrained, with the influential generally better able to evade taxes.

Sovereign debt and fiscal crises, due to borrowing to spend beyond budgetary means, were rarely due to ‘excessive’ populist demands. The actual reasons for budgetary deficits were often multiple as well as historically and politically specific, rather than simply due to regimes succumbing to redistributive claims.

US presidential endorsement of Arthur Laffer’s ‘supply side’ economics’ claim of greater growth due to more investments with lower taxes on the rich fuelled the counter-revolution against progressive taxation. Nevertheless, ‘macroeconomic populism’ became the default explanation for all manner of deficit financing, including ‘soft budget constraints’ in ‘communist’ ‘command economies’.

Latin American populist fables
Although there have been few truly ‘populist’ regimes in Latin America, most famously Peronist Argentina, ‘macroeconomic populism’ has become a catch-all term, used to explain why governments increase spending and run budgetary deficits.

Undoubtedly, many Latin American regimes pursued import-substituting industrialization using high tariffs to protect ‘infant industries’ from the 1930s. But high import tariffs augmented, rather than diminished government revenues, in contrast to the tax breaks and subsidies for export growth.

Although precipitated by then US Federal Reserve Bank chairman Paul Volcker raising bank interest rates from 1980 to kill inflation, the Latin American debt crises from 1982 were again misleadingly primarily attributed to preceding populist macroeconomic policies.

Similarly, the significant improvements in popular wellbeing earlier this century in Brazil under the PT, Uruguay under the Frente Amplio, Ecuador under Correa and Bolivia under Morales primarily involved massive employment generation and secondarily, ‘productive’ social protection, rather than the unsustainable transfers depicted by macroeconomic populism.

Neoliberal ghosts return
Macroeconomic populism thus became the default formulaic Washington Consensus ‘explanation’ for deficit financing from the 1980s to explain away all manner of fiscal deficits, and to justify policies imposed by the Bretton Woods institutions, precipitating the region’s ‘lost decade’.

The International Monetary Fund required short-term macroeconomic (price) stabilization policies to counter often runaway inflation. The World Bank’s typically medium-term ‘neoliberal’ structural adjustment policies sought to liberalize not only goods and services markets, but also those for finance, labour and social services, previously provided by governments and state enterprises.

Reviving ideological ghosts from the past, neoliberal commentators are once again warning against deficit financing. Instead of recognizing the need for consistently counter-cyclical fiscal policies over the duration of business cycles, they dogmatically insist on minimal annual budget shortfalls in the short-term, and on balancing budgets by next year, regardless of the recession’s nature and duration.

The stagnation of the last decade was due to the failure to reform adequately after the global financial crisis. Covid-19 recessions are undoubtedly different from recent financial crises, and will need bolder monetary, supply-side and industrial policy measures to catalyse and sustain economic relief, recovery and restructuring measures to address previous maladies and the post-lockdown malaise.

The crisis presents us with an opportunity to do better, to move forward. There is much to learn and do to progress, including abandoning the very modes of thinking which have led to the mess we are in. Exorcising ghosts from the past will be imperative.

 

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By Stuart Minchin
Jun 8 2020 (IPS)

COVID19 has brought the world to a halt. The devastating impact of the global pandemic on people’s lives and the world’s economy is a jarring and historic turning point for all of us but it is also an opportunity to re-think many of our practices.

As we mark World Oceans Day, the current global slowdown may be the reset our Ocean needs and the Pacific region is asking the world to reflect on our past to inform innovation for our future.

COVID has disrupted the global transport sector massively, and the increasing reliance on global shipping as flights are grounded presents both challenges and opportunities for the safety and livelihoods of the Pacific region.

More than 16,000 Pacific people work in the Maritime sector, many of whom remain stranded in foreign countries or on vessels as a result of COVID19. Across the Pacific, local restrictions have severely curtailed access to supplies like fuel for local fishing boats, bringing to the fore the issue of food security and the need for longer term, sustainable solutions.

As we mark World Oceans Day this year, we should challenge ourselves to find the opportunities inherent in this crisis to improve our ocean management and stewardship. This can only be accomplished by shifting the status quo and the current global slowdown may be just the reset our Ocean needs.

Our Blue Pacific region is 98 per cent ocean and Pacific Islanders are custodians of 20 per cent of the world’s exclusive economic zones with the healthiest tuna stocks globally. This is not by coincidence, as thousands of years of wise and careful stewardship has contributed to the Pacific’s current status as one of the healthiest regions of our global ocean. The world has much to learn from the traditional knowledge developed over time in the Pacific.

Reef fish are a critical protein for many Pacific communities and populations. Fish such as parrotfish, snappers and emperors shown here for sale in Suva markets in Fiji.

As we grapple with the slow degradation of our oceans globally, and recognise the critical importance the ocean plays in driving global weather patterns, addressing climate change and supplying food and protein to the world’s population, we should reflect on how combining traditional knowledge and science can lead us to find effective solutions.

Now more than ever, we need to harness the opportunities within our ocean, not only for economic benefit, but for the sustainable future of our Blue Continent.

Innovation for Sustainable & Safe Maritime Transport

The majority of islands across the Pacific are remote, accessible only by ships or boats. As I write, 75 per cent of all the bulk fuel imported across the Pacific is used for either road or maritime transport. Finding effective ways to transition from the reliance on fossil fuels to cleaner and more effective technology is critical for the development of the region’s blue economy. There are innovative approaches, both in terms of technologies and using aspects of traditional practices, which are already being implemented by countries and partners working towards the protection of our ocean.

In Vanuatu for example, a cargo ferry was fitted with a solar marine system last year (2019). The instalment of this system is now projected to save the ship operator AU$62,000 per year in fuel costs, and results in a 32 per cent reduction in emissions at anchorage. The year before, the Solomon Islands transitioned lighting systems through a ‘Green Ports’ initiative saving the Solomon Islands Ports Authority AU$180,000 annually with a 160-tonne reduction in emissions and a 13% reduction on overall energy consumption. This example increased the safety of ships docking at night, led to the reduction of operational costs and resulted in increased productivity with a significant reduction in carbon emissions and reliance on fossil fuel.

Camakau or outrigger traditional canoe in Moturiki thanks to a partnership with the Uto Ni Yalo Trust.

In Fiji, traditional boatbuilding is making a resurgence as some communities are discovering the benefits of wind-powered canoes over outboard engines for inter-island transport over short distances. Due to COVID19 the communities of Moturiki relied on wind-powered transport to provide food and to access the local health centre as they were unable to access fuel supplies during the lockdown period.

The agreement by the governments of Fiji, the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and Tuvalu to be part of the Pacific Blue Shipping Partnership should be commended. They are setting themselves a target of a 40 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030, and full decarbonisation by 2050.

At SPC, our Pacific Community Centre for Ocean Science (PCCOS) is one arm of the broader effort driving evidence and science-based understanding of our ocean. A better understanding informs targeted and effective decision-making around our oceans and all that lies within it. It is an opportunity to ensure that the action we take contributes directly to the low carbon transition that is so vital for the health of our ocean, our climate and a new, sustainable relationship between humankind and the natural world.

This Oceans Day is a time for us to reflect on the mix of science, innovation and traditional practices we need for stewardship of the Ocean we want. The Pacific region is not just made up of small islands, rather we are large ocean states and we have much to contribute to the global efforts for sustainable management of our Oceans.

 

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The post We Need to Slow down and Reconnect with Our Ocean for the Future of the Planet appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Stuart Minchin, is Director-General Pacific Community (SPC)

The post We Need to Slow down and Reconnect with Our Ocean for the Future of the Planet appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Dr Renata Clarke
ROME, Jun 8 2020 (IPS)

Few things are as natural and as necessary as eating food. However, if food producers, food processors, food handlers and consumers do not follow good food safety practices, food can become contaminated and rather than nourishing us and bringing us pleasure it can make us sick or even kill us.

According to World Health Organization (WHO) Statistics, the public health burden of unsafe food is very high: in 2015 they estimated that over 600 million people fall ill and 420 000 die every year from foodborne diseases. It was at the launching of the WHO 2015 Report on the Burden of Foodborne disease that Awilo Ochieng Pernet, the then Chairperson of the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the global body responsible for developing food safety and food quality standards, made a call for the establishment of a World Food Safety Day (WFSD). She recognized the need for broader ownership of food safety responsibilities and a regular reminder throughout society that “food safety is everyone’s business”. That call was heeded and here we are…

This year, the second annual celebration of WFSD, in the midst of the COVID, the message of WFSD takes on a particular resonance in the Caribbean.

Firstly, the vulnerability of several Caribbean countries to disruptions in global supply chains has led to re-energized calls for attention to resilient food systems and a regional approach to food security. We will not have efficient regional trade of food if countries do not have confidence in the each other’s ability to reliably produce and market food safely. No government wants to be bring sub-standard food into its country. Facilitating intra-regional trade requires that CARICOM countries have transparent, robust and science-based systems of food control. There is considerable work that Caribbean countries still need to do to achieve this: it requires careful planning and appropriate investment. Many countries have weak legal frameworks for assuring food safety, weak and poorly coordinated institutions and under-equipped food safety laboratories. These are the basic elements of national food safety systems.

Several CARICOM countries have launched COVID-19 response and recovery plans to mitigate impacts on food security and agriculture. These plans involve the introduction of new techniques and technologies that enable more competitive and sustainable production systems. Innovations in food production necessarily requires vigilance and proactivity in terms of identifying new patterns of food safety risk and controlling them to ensure that the public’s health is protected. This celebration of WFSD should serve as an instigation for a reflection on the adequacy of current food safety monitoring and surveillance.

Finally, a word about markets. For this year’s WFSD, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and WHO, have put a focus on the theme “Safe food in markets”. I would like to state out front, that there have been no cases of COVID-19 being transmitted by food. It is not a foodborne disease. However, in the context of COVID-19, food businesses and food markets need to re-inforce hygiene practices and enable safe physical distances during all operations. Traditional markets and farmers markets play an important social function both in terms of providing food and in terms of providing income. With loss of jobs in the tourism and service sectors, in some Caribbean countries we have seen upsurge in street vending of food. Very often the management and the infrastructure of the markets do not allow adequate bio-safety and food safety. Repeated incidents of the emergence of zoonotic diseases (caused by germs spread between humans and animals) that are linked to poor sanitation and hygiene in markets demonstrate clearly that we cannot be complacent about hygiene management in markets. Another very visible change in food marketing in the Caribbean during the COVID-19 Pandemic has been the expansion of various forms of on-line food sales. E-commerce has long been considered a potential growth area, particularly in many developing countries. However, it is important for food safety regulators to consider whether legislative frameworks need to be updated to ensure that food chain actors involved in e-commerce have the same responsibilities for food safety as do food businesses operating ”traditionally”.

Dynamism of food systems is going to increase. Caribbean countries must invest in their capacities for effective food control as an essential contribution to building resilience in effort to reduce food insecurity.

 

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Excerpt:

Dr Renata Clarke is Sub-regional Coordinator Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

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A trawler in Johnstone Strait, BC, Canada. Human activities such as pollution, overfishing, mining, geo-engineering and climate change have made an international agreement to protect the high seas more critical than ever. Credit: Winky/cc by 2.0

By External Source
Jun 8 2020 (IPS)

Oceans cover 70 per cent of the Earth’s surface. But, because many of us spend most of our lives on land, the 362 million square kilometres of blue out there aren’t always top of mind.

While vast, oceans are not empty. They are teeming with life and connected to society through history and culture, shipping and economic activity, geopolitics and recreation.

But oceans — along with coastal people and marine species — are vulnerable, and good ocean governance is critical to protect these expanses from pollution, overfishing and climate change, to name just some of the threats.

The laws, institutions and regulations in place for the oceans are a multi-layered patchwork and always a work in progress.

 

Common heritage of humankind

Some characterize oceans as the “common heritage of humankind.” As such, the United Nations plays a critical role in ocean governance, and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is a key international agreement. The agreement grants coastal and island states authority over swaths of ocean extending 200 nautical miles (360 kilometres) from the shore. These are called exclusive economic zones (EEZ).

EEZs are domestic spaces. Countries enshrine law and delegate authority to state agencies that lead monitoring, management and enforcement in these zones.

Indigenous peoples also assert jurisdictional authority and coastal peoples hold critical insight about coastal and marine ecosystems. Governance is improved when state agencies share power and collaborate.

For example, during the Newfoundland cod collapse, inshore fishermen had local ecological knowledge about changing cod stock dynamics that might have helped avoid the disaster.

 

A turtle swims in a Marine Protected Area. Credit: Foreign and Commonwealth Office

 

Areas beyond national jurisdiction

A vast portion of the ocean lies beyond EEZs: 64 per cent by area and 95 per cent by volume. These regions are often referred to as the high seas. The high seas are important for international trade, fishing fleets, undersea telecommunications cables and are of commercial interest to mining companies. The high seas also host a wide array of ecosystems and species. Many of these are understudied or altogether unrecorded.

UN agreements identify high seas using a technical term “areas beyond national jurisdiction” that refers to the water column. The sea floor is identified separately and called “the area.” UNCLOS and other pieces of international law regulate activity in these spaces and are responsible for ensuring that no single country or company dominates or benefits unfairly.

Other multilateral, sector-based arrangements manage particularly complex resources. For example, regional fisheries management organizations bring nation states together to collaborate on monitoring and managing fish stocks, like tuna, that have large ranges and cross multiple borders and boundaries.

 

The biodiversity governance gap

Currently, international law does not meaningfully address biodiversity monitoring and conservation in the high seas. This “biodiversity governance gap” has been of concern for the past two decades.

Without a binding mechanism under international law, countries are not obligated to co-operate on developing and implementing conservation measures in the high seas. In addition, monitoring the impacts of various economic activities, such as fishing and mining, on biodiversity is piecemeal and inadequate. Marine species or even entire ecosystems could be lost before we have had a chance to identify and understand them.

On Dec. 24, 2017, the UN General Assembly voted to convene a multi-year process to develop a treaty on “the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction.”

Three of the scheduled negotiation sessions have taken place, while the fourth and final one, scheduled for March 2020, was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Some progress has been made. Notably, the draft treaty addresses four key areas: marine genetic resources; area-based management tools, including marine protected areas; environmental impact assessments and capacity building and the transfer of marine technology.

Yet, many disagreements remain.

For example, countries diverge on the extent to which governance should prioritize the principle of oceans as the “common heritage of humankind.” Very pragmatic questions underlie this tension: should marine genetic sequences be commercialized? If so, how would this work and will it be possible to agree on a way to share benefits fairly? These are critical and how they are addressed will determine if persistent inequities between the Global North and Global South are lessened or exacerbated.

Another challenge relates to marine protected areas (MPAs), especially how they are defined and implemented. What levels of protection are needed for an area to count as an MPA? How much should the treaty predetermine processes used to establish new MPAs and how will MPA rules be enforced?

 

Credit: Christopher Pala/IPS

COVID-19: Negotiations cut adrift?

Has postponing the final round of negotiations cut high seas biodiversity negotiations adrift? A European research team is surveying participants and experts to learn what impact the disruption may have. However, it is unlikely that the treaty will fall completely by the wayside. Delegates and negotiators may well continue to informally discuss options with one another and refine positions with an eye towards reaching consensus when rescheduling is possible.

A ratified treaty covering biodiversity in the high seas would be an exciting layer to add to the ocean governance patchwork.

But, delegates and negotiators always have to make concessions during talks, and disagreements often persist after the treaty has been signed. Implementation can be as challenging and contentious as negotiation itself. Various human dimensions and economic challenges will also continue to need attention, including human trafficking, perverse fishing subsidies and our collective responsibility to small island states that may be submerged as sea levels rise.

These challenges point to other international forums — the World Trade Organization, International Labour Organization and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change — and serve to remind us of the myriad ways that we are all connected to, and by, oceans.

 

Jennifer Silver, Associate Professor, Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics, University of Guelph; Leslie Acton, Assistant Professor, The University of Southern Mississippi; Lisa Campbell, Professor of Marine Affairs and Policy, Duke University, and Noella Gray, Associate Professor of Geography, University of Guelph

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

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By Daud Khan and Leila Yasmine Khan
AMSTERDAM/ROME, Jun 8 2020 (IPS)

As the COVID-19 virus spread rapidly around the globe, so did various theories about what caused the pandemic. According to the standard scientific theory, the virus originated in bats; crossed over to humans, probably via another intermediate host; and then spread rapidly across the globe.

While the mainstream scientific theory sufficed for some, a large number of people saw the pandemic as the work of cold-hearted military or industrial strategists. An equally large number of people saw it as some kind of divine or natural retribution for an increasingly recalcrinant human race. It’s interesting to look at these various alternative theories and to speculate why they have such a strong hold among the public.

In the first of this two part article we looked at the main conspiracy theories – the CIA, the Chinese, Big Pharma, Big Finance, Bill Gates. We suggested that a major factor underlying the popularity of conspiracy theories were primordial fears – fear of illness, of death but, above all, of the unknown.

Given the extent of this fear, which was fanned by the mainstream and social media, many people felt reassured having someone to blame. It meant that someone was in control; that there was a plan; and that once the pandemic had served its purpose, those in control would bring it to an end.

It may take a few cycles while the virus retreats, mutates and returns, but in few years or at most in a decade, we humans will be extinct and the planet will flourish again. The Gaia theory is well captured by some beautiful videos on social media showing how plants and animals are taking over urban areas

In this second part, we turn to look at a second set of theories that we call the apocalyptic theories.  Those who subscribe to these theories see the COVID-19 outbreak as the revenge of God or nature, or both, against the arrogance of humans.

The most radical of these theories is that Gaia – the primordial mother earth of Greek mythology and the self-equilibrating super organism, postulated by James Lovelock in his seminal book – is rebelling against humans.

Rebelling against the pollution and the poisoning of soils, waters and the air; against the plundering of forests and minerals; and against the tens of thousands of aircrafts buzzing around her day and night, and the hundreds of millions of cars constantly crawling all over her. According to this theory, the virus is Gaia’s revenge and marks the end of the age of humans.

It may take a few cycles while the virus retreats, mutates and returns, but in few years or at most in a decade, we humans will be extinct and the planet will flourish again. The Gaia theory is well captured by some beautiful videos on social media showing how plants and animals are taking over urban areas.

Other apocalyptic theorists feel that the pandemic is not a punishment from an ephemeral mother goddess. But rather it is a punishment from an angry and vengeful deity who is seeing his divine project going off track.  Mankind is progressively turning away from religion, from morals and traditions, and from family values.

The pandemic is God’s admonition to us to return to the righteous path.  And, for this reason, it has focused more on the godless and materialistic west, where among other misdeeds, old people are sent to nursing homes rather than being kept in the family.  In these theories, humankind may survive, but in order to do so, they must rediscover their moral compass and return to righteous way of life – whatever that means.

For those who subscribe to these theories, it is anathema to suggest social distancing and the closing of places of worship. In order for humans to survive, we must do exactly the opposite – gather together, preferably in temples, mosques and churches to seeking collective forgiveness from an angry god.  This is despite the fact that mainstream religious leaders, from the Pope to the Grand Mufti of Al-Azhar, have not said a word about Divine Will playing any role in the pandemic.

A more modest version of apocalyptic theories is that humans have overstepped a few boundaries and all we need to do is make some tweaks to our lifestyle to get back on track. One such theory relates to the waves emanating from the 5G telephone systems.

Proponents suggest that these waves facilitate the spread of the virus while also weakening human immune systems.  The fact that Wuhan, where the virus originated, is one of the places with the highest densities of 5G networks, apparently provides clear proof of the link between COVID and telephone waves.  So all we need to do is take a step back and decommission all the 5G towers.  And since the telecom companies will not do this, activists in some countries have taken it on themselves to set them alight.

So why are apocalyptic theories, even the most bizarre ones, so common?  If primordial fear drives conspiracy theorists, what drives the apocalyptic theorists? In our view it is collective guilt.  We have been warned, and warned again, and warned yet again about continued misuse of resources and lack of attention to planetary health.

We have been admonished time and time again about superfluous consumption, about waste of food and other essentials, and of the over use of fossil fuels and plastics.  We all know that our lifestyle is unsustainable and that that we are causing irreversible climate change. But despite this knowledge, and despite thousands of words written, documentaries screened, learned scientific conferences convened,  and hours of speeches by political leaders, we have failed to take the clear and drastic actions needed to make our lifestyles more sustainable. Knowing that we have been collectively misbehaving, it is almost a logical conclusion that a global disaster is a consequence of our bad actions.

Conspiracy and apocalyptic theories are widespread. And if they are related to fear and guilt, then such fear and guilt must also perforce be widespread.  Is this a cause for concern? Very much so. At an individual level, negative thoughts have clear negative effects on our mental and physical wellbeing.

Similarly, collective negative sentiments have quick and direct effect on our collective wellbeing and actions. Conspiracy theories or apocalyptic views of the world create anxiety, fear and depression among millions of people and cause immense harm and pain. More worryingly, this fear, anxiety and depression does not seem to go down as the pandemic abates. It seems it’s here to stay and poison our life for several years, if not decades.

Equally worrying is that there are plenty of local situations where such fears and worries can be easily manipulated as is happening in the USA, where President Trump continues to stroke these fears and uses this to apportion blame; or in India, where Prime Minister Modi is blaming Muslims for deliberately spreading the virus to damage the Hindu nation.

 

Daud Khan is a former United Nations official who lives between Italy and Pakistan. He holds degrees in Economics from the London School of Economics and Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar; and a degree in Environmental Management from the Imperial College of Science and Technology.

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

 

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The post COVID 19 – Conspiracy or Apocalypse? – Part II appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Zekiya Louis (R) and Manuela Ramirez (L) handing out free water to protesters in Times Square, New York during a protest over the death of George Floyd. Credit: James Reinl/IPS

By Ignatius Banda
BULAWAYO, ZImbabwe, Jun 8 2020 (IPS)

“As tall as he is, if he continues to do that I will kick him out of the country,” thundered Zimbabwe’s former President Robert Mugabe in 2008, his anger aimed at the then United States ambassador James McGee after the diplomat questioned the results of Zimbabwe’s 2008 general elections.

It was not the first time the late president had threatened a U.S. diplomat. In 2005, Mugabe had threatened to throw out then U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe, Christopher Dell, telling him “he could go to hell” after Washington’s top man in Harare had criticised the Mugabe administration.

But now, with a new president and administration at the helm, it appears as if the long-running frosty relations between the countries continues.

The recent diplomatic spat between Zimbabwe and the U.S. began after a senior U.S. official accused the southern African country of fomenting unrests across America in the wake of the killing of an unarmed African American man, George Floyd, on May 25.

• Floyd died after a white Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for almost nine minutes. His death resulted in nationwide protests across the U.S. and a nationwide movement against police violence and racism. People across the world have joined in solidarity to the #BlackLivesMatter protests.

Last week, the Zimbabwean government summoned the U.S. ambassador Brian Nichols to “discuss” comments made by the Trump administration’s national security advisor Robert O’Brien that described Zimbabwe as a “foreign adversary.” 

While the current administration under President Emmerson Mnangagwa has shied away from Mugabe’s bellicose tone, the country’s foreign affairs minister Sibusiso Moyo said in a statement released after his meeting with Nichols that comments made by O’Brien were “false and deeply damaging to deeply damaging to a relationship already complicated due to years of prescriptive megaphone diplomacy and punitive economic sanctions”.

• In 2003 the U.S. first imposed travel and financial restrictions on Mugabe, his inner circle and various state companies linked to human rights abuses. They were extended for another year in March.

Moyo added that Zimbabwe had taken note of “the measures deployed by the U.S. authorities to deal with the challenges currently confronting them. At the same time, we recall the harsh U.S. criticism and condemnation of our own response to multiple instances of illegal, violent civil unrest”.

These comments also came days after the U.S. and the European Union had released a joint statement criticising a spate of human rights violations in Zimbabwe where members of the police and the military were accused of assaulting and kidnapping citizens.

However, analysts note that the frosty diplomatic relations between the two countries have come a long way, and it will take time to restore mutual trust and respect.

“Even in the Obama Administration, Zimbabwe was an ‘easy hit’. There were far more authoritarian regimes than Robert Mugabe’s but, with the ending of Apartheid, Zimbabwe in its land nationalisations presented itself as a ‘black/white’ issue, an Apartheid in reverse. So it became an easy country to criticise because what were complex issues could be presented so starkly and simply,” Stephen Chan, Professor of World Politics at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, told IPS.

“Two of America’s recent ambassadors, Johnnie Carson and, currently, Brian Nichols, are black – so there are presentational issues in being too critical. In Zambia, the ‘offending’ U.S. Ambassador who was white was recalled at the demand of the Zambian Government,” Chan told IPS by email.

Despite these concerns and ongoing rift with the U.S. and EU, the Zimbabwean government  has turned to public relations lobbyists to reboot its battered imagine.

“The Zimbabwe regime is propped up by human rights abuses, by repression, by silencing the masses, this is why they continue with abuses while hoping that propaganda and public relations will clean their soiled image internationally,” Dewa Mavhinga, Human Rights Watch’s southern Africa director, told IPS.

“As a result, the Zimbabwe government spends huge amounts paying PR companies in Washington DC in the hope that those companies will help with image issues, but the truth is simply that the Zimbabwe government must stop abuses and start respecting human rights. No-one in the international community will respect a country that allows abductions, torture and rampant rape of women,” Dewa told IPS.

Government spokesperson Nick Mangwana would later tell local media that Zimbabwe was not seeking to be enemies with the U.S., something Chan, the international politics professor, said Zimbabwe cannot afford.

“Zimbabwe desperately needs to retain as good a set of relations as possible with the U.S. as part of the West. The country is basically bankrupt. It almost begs for help. Even in moments of argument, it cannot afford to alienate a country like the U.S.,” Chan said.

While Zimbabwe has in the past threatened to expel “meddlesome” U.S. ambassadors, the current government has resisted the temptation.

“Removing an ambassador would be a major diplomatic step. If the Zimbabwean government were to remove him (ambassador Nichols), the U.S. would likely react by suspending, temporarily at least, Zimbabwean diplomats in the U.S. or reduce its diplomatic presence in Zimbabwean until the government made some meaningful progress on political and economic reforms,” Nathan Hayes, an analyst with the United Kingdom-based Economist Intelligence Unit, told IPS.

“Ultimately, it would not be a game Zimbabwe would win,” he said.

After he was summoned by Zimbabwe’s foreign affairs minister, U.S. ambassador Nichols issued his own statement, looking beyond the ongoing row which served as a reminder of the U.S. continuing humanitarian support of Zimbabwe.

“The American people’s unwavering commitment to the welfare of Zimbabwe’s people has kept us the largest assistance donor,” Nichols said.

In January this year, the U.S. reported that it had provided $318 million to Zimbabwe in 2019, adding “notwithstanding ongoing anti-democratic and repressive practices by the Government of Zimbabwe which continue to affect the bilateral relationship, the United States remains the ‎largest provider of health and humanitarian assistance”.

According to the U.S. Agency for International Aid (USAID), the U.S. has provided “more than $3.2 billion in development assistance to Zimbabwe since its independence in 1980”.

“Zimbabwe must be careful about biting the hand that feeds it,” Piers Pigou, Crisis Group’s Senior Consultant for Southern Africa, told IPS.

“The colourful posturing and allegations from the government that are levelled at successive U.S. Ambassadors, invariably reflect a clumsy ideological posturing that seeks to avoid an empirically rooted engagement on the substantive issues of contestation,” Pigou told IPS.  

“Zimbabwe’s credibility as a commentator and protector of human rights will only develop once it puts in place, develops and invests in the institutional capacity, competencies and independence of its democracy supporting institutions and builds an identifiable culture of accountability,” he said.

As anger against the U.S. swelled across the globe in condemnation of Floyd’s death, in Zimbabwe ruling Zanu PF supporters had planned to hold a demonstration on Jun. 4 outside the U.S. embassy in Harare in what could have done nothing to promote entente between the two countries.

Police denied the ruling party supporters permission to stage the protest, citing COVID-19 restrictions. 

“The U.S. and Zimbabwe have open antagonism. There is a clash of pretentious political ideologies,” William Mpofu, a political analyst and researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, told IPS.

“Under Mugabe the ideology was pretentious pan-Africanist radicalism. The U.S. has pretended to democracy and liberalism. These two rhetorics have a natural antagonism but they are both fake and fundamentalist. The U.S. can do without Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe cannot survive without U.S.,” Mpofu said.

With coronavirus lockdown restrictions that have seen countrywide state sanctioned human rights abuses in Zimbabwe in place indefinitely, and with general elections coming in 2023, elections historically marred by state sponsored repression, analysts are watching whether this will further sour relations between the two countries.

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The post Zimbabwe and US Diplomacy – this Time the Fight is About George Floyd appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

A recent diplomatic spat between Zimbabwe and the U.S. began after a senior U.S. official accused Zimbabwe of fomenting unrests across America in the wake of the killing of the unarmed African American, George Floyd.

The post Zimbabwe and US Diplomacy – this Time the Fight is About George Floyd appeared first on Inter Press Service.