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UN Secretary-General António Guterres briefs the media on the socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Credit: UN/Mark Garten

By Alexander Trepelkov
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 27 2020 (IPS)

The SDGs, with their universal scope, interlinked nature and focus on leaving no one behind will be more essential than ever during and after this crisis.

The SDGs encourage investments in critical public goods like minimum levels of social protection and the provision of services like health care, clean water and education which help to build resilience and enhance the mechanisms people have to cope with the immediate and longer-term impact of shocks.

The most recent estimates indicate that some 3 billion people are without basic handwashing facilities at home and 4 billion people lack any kind of social protection.

The SDGs are a commitment to leave no one behind, and this includes ensuring everyone is able to take measures to reduce their exposure to the disease and have the means to cope and recover.

If anything, the SDGs will become more important in the days and months ahead. The goals and targets set in 2015 are precisely the areas where progress needs to be made to build resilience and guard against future crises and where we will need to work to build back after the immediate tragedy subsides.

Preliminary projections from the UN system indicate that COVID-19 could lead to the first increase in global extreme poverty in over 20 years, since the Asian financial crisis of 1981. It could push 40 to 60 million people into extreme poverty and could double the incidence of food insecurity in the world.

The challenge for improving people’s lives after this crisis will be greater than ever, but the SDGs will help guide the path forward to ease suffering.

Do any goals stand out at the moment as most pressing?

Because the SDGs are all interconnected, interventions can be taken in ways that achieve one goal while also leveraging positive synergies among other goals to have a wider reach. UN DESA launched the Global Sustainable Development Report last September and a key message there was that taking advantage of synergies and addressing trade-offs among goals is the only way to achieve the 2030 Agenda.

Strengthening human well-being was identified in the report as an entry point for maximizing progress across the Agenda and there are examples that investing in education in science and technology can help build capacities for responding to pressing challenges like climate change and also like the current pandemic.

The report also emphasizes the need for increasing access to social protection as economies change and people need to cope with disasters, including health related; and the need for increasing support for workers to transition to new types of work when livelihoods are dependent on unsustainable sectors.

All of these are policy arenas that will be at the forefront of decision-makers’ attention as countries grapple with responses to Covid-19 and try to build stronger social and economic systems to reduce future vulnerabilities.

Are they unrealistic? What about the 2030 deadline in light of the pandemic?

The science and knowledge needed to achieve the 2030 Agenda is well advanced and from a science perspective, the COVID-19 pandemic may even encourage greater collaboration and knowledge sharing for the public good.

There are also some surprising trends in areas of the 2030 Agenda where progress has been slow. There is evidence that lockdown polices and the resulting reductions in economic activity have seen CO2 emissions decline substantially.

The conditions of these declines have been tragic and with loss of human lives and livelihoods. But there are questions now as to whether some of the shifts in human activity in response to Covid-19 government implemented guidelines could open space for dialogue about behaviour changes that can support longer term climate action.

So, we have the evidence needed to take action and possibly the space to make significant policy changes. But to be successful, all stakeholders should be involved in dialogue and inform the decision-making processes.

Two annual events that DESA organizes can provide a model for multi-stakeholder engagement and decision-making: the Science, Technology and Innovation Forum (STI Forum) and the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF).

The post SDGs: the Challenge to Improve Lives After the COVID-19 Crisis appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Alexander Trepelkov is Officer-in-Charge of the Division for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA)

The post SDGs: the Challenge to Improve Lives After the COVID-19 Crisis appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By External Source
Apr 26 2020 (IPS)

Following the outbreak and declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic, there has been a flurry of scientific research and publications to address challenges posed by the virus. Publications have risen exponentially over the past few months as scientists work tirelessly to find out more about the pandemic, and the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing it.

Knowledge is a product of a social collaboration and should thus be owned by and placed in service of the community. But is it? Are researchers doing enough to translate and simplify the important messages so that this knowledge could be clearly communicated to citizens and policy makers?

We would argue not.

There are salutary lessons from the recent past. In 2007, for example, an extensive review citing 434 original research articles and other relevant scientific publications warned that:

The presence of a large reservoir of SARS-CoV-like viruses in horseshoe bats, together with the culture of eating exotic mammals in southern China, is a time bomb. The possibility of the reemergence of SARS and other novel viruses from animals or laboratories and therefore the need for preparedness should not be ignored.

Why were the scientists’ warning not heeded? What more should have been done to communicate the insights?

The example underscores why the rapid sharing of research is so vital. In cases like the COVID-19 pandemic, it can save lives. As commentators have noted, a robust and scientific system – and an informed citizenry – require immediate and public access to research. As the scientific response to COVID-19 demonstrates, there are benefits to opening the scientific system.

 

A rethink is necessary

The COVID-19 pandemic has created an opportunity for countries to understand how members of the public are accessing and engaging with scientific information.

A Swedish non-profit organisation, Vetenskap & Allmänhet, recently conducted a study on how people in Sweden are interpreting information about COVID-19.

It showed that nine out of ten Swedes indicated that they had fairly to very high confidence in the information supplied by doctors and other health care professionals. A similar number of people (87%) showed confidence in researchers. They also reported a significantly lower confidence in the information from politicians and journalists.

This picture is likely to look very different depending on the level of trust in scientific information and institutions in a particular country.

There are interventions that can shift the dial on distrust. But it requires a national effort and a rethink of the roles of various actors within the national research landscape when it comes to communication and engagement with research.

In South Africa the Department of Science and Innovation has established a strategy for engaging the South African public. This includes inviting greater citizen participation in the institutions of science. It also involves greater interactions between the state, universities and other research performing entities, business and industry, and civil society.

A recently approved law amendment has contributed to the rethink around the relationship between science and society. The act gives the National Research Foundation (NRF) – a science grant funding foundation – the mandate to support national development by, among other responsibilities, “supporting and promoting public awareness of, and engagement with, science”.

COVID-19 has shown some of these crucial elements coming together.

 

Encouraging signs

The current pandemic has seen the South African government and scientists, researchers and clinicians working jointly to engage the public with robust scientific evidence guiding key decisions around national health and safety.

The most visible sign of this has been the role played by one of the country’s internationally renowned epidemiologists, Professor Salim Abdool Karim. Appointed to chair the Ministerial Advisory Committee on COVID-19, he has engaged the public in a nationally televised presentation. He also held a webinar.

In both of these ‘science and health conversations with the nation’ Karim shared deep thinking on complex science issues, and excellent scholarship in an accessible way.

These interactions have shown that South Africa has come some way to using the products of science in its daily life (for example, asking questions, collecting and analysing evidence, and evaluating possible results); and engaging in debate on science-related matters of public interest.

 

Access

But the first hurdle is to ensure that scientific papers are more readily available. This cause has been championed by the Open Science movement which has gained considerable traction over the past 15 years. Open Science aims to make the primary outputs of publicly funded research results – at a minimum publications and the research data – publicly accessible in digital format, with no or minimal restriction.

The campaign advocates the participation of citizens in the scientific process, the sharing of knowledge through social networks and the development of educational resources that serve to enrich the discourse between science and society.

One key initiative has been Open Access 2020. This is a global alliance committed to accelerating the transformation of the subscription publishing system to new open access publishing models. The aim is that these ensure transparent costing of the article processing charges as well as the immediate and free availability of the information and knowledge.

South Africa’s NRF has embraced the philosophy of Open Science with specific emphasis on Open Access. NRF analysis done on articles published by South African universities between 2009 and 2018 shows that 36% were published in open access formats. This is slightly above the global average of 28%.

Open Science has the potential to reduce the amount of time that research findings take to make their way into the public domain where they can be read, drafted and translated into strategies, policies and laws. The COVID-19 pandemic shows how vital this is.

 

Building trust

Ultimately, trust needs to be built between the general public and scientists. This needs to be done by strengthening the interface between science and society and increasing public understanding of the process and impact of science.

And high quality and innovative public engagement needs to be built as an integral part of research. Like many of our colleagues worldwide it is our hope that science engagement will be enhanced as part of the broader debate about public value. This, in turn, will stimulate continued conversations about science, publics, democracy and governance.

 

Michael Ellis, Science Communication Manager at NRF South African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement, co-authored this article.

The authors also acknowledge the inputs of NRF colleagues Dr Molapo Qhobela, Dr Makobetsa Khati and Ms Faranah Osman.

Dorsamy (Gansen) Pillay, Deputy Chief Executive Officer (DCEO) responsible for leading the Research and Innovation Support and Advancement, National Research Foundation and Beverley Damonse, Group Executive: Science Engagement and Corporate Relations, National Research Foundation

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

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Credit: Gopen Rai/NEPALI TIMES ARCHIVE

By Sonia Awale
Apr 26 2020 (IPS)

The number of Nepalis suffering from mental health issues is increasing with the prolonged COVID-19 lockdown, and the lack of treatment and counselling means the country may be facing an epidemic of psychosocial disorders.

Mental health is a hidden pre-existing crisis in Nepal because of social stigma, with a survey three years ago showing that a shocking 37% of the population suffered from some form of mental health problem.

“During a time of a disaster or an epidemic, anxiety disorder, phobia, obsessive compulsive tendencies and depressive thoughts are more likely to be triggered in mentally-ill people and aggravate their condition”

But a new survey this month shows that the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown to contain the contagion has exacerbated the problem, with a quarter of those surveyed saying they felt restless, fearful, anxious, worried all the time.

42% suffered from at least one kind of psychosocial problem, and 26% from two or more. At least 15% of respondents admitted they had taken to alcohol and substance abuse.

Over 1,500 Nepalis participated in the survey by Transcultural Psychosocial Organisation (TPO) Nepal and Sharecast Initiative during the lockdown, which has now lasted a month.

“The fact that 25% of those surveyed admitted to experiencing constant psychosocial problems due to the COVID-19 pandemic is a significant finding,” said Kamal Gautam, psychologist at TPO Nepal. He explained that problems were more frequent among women, students stressed about postponed exams, people whose businesses are impacted by the lockdown, and daily-wage earners.

The findings could be a warning about an impending epidemic of psychiatric problems as the lockdown and its impact is felt across society. In fact, mental healthcare providers say they are already seeing more patients with depression and anxiety disorder, as well as more severe psychoses.

A 21-year-old boy was recently admitted to Patan Hospital for psychotic breakdown after he started throwing things around his house, and screaming that everyone was going to die from the coronavirus. Also last week, a girl who had taken to excessive cannabis use during the lockdown was brought in due to serious side effects.

 

“A lot of people are suffering silently, unable to come to us due to the lockdown and it is very likely many do not recognise the symptoms of mental disorder,” said Raju Shakya, professor of psychiatry at the Patan Academy of Health Sciences. “It is normal to be worried during the time of a pandemic, and most people can cope with it. But some experience persistent symptoms of mental health disorder, and prolonged stress can also lead to self-harm.”

Alcohol consumption as a coping mechanism adds to existing mental and physiological problems, as well as lead to an increase in domestic abuse. Alcohol relapse is among the most common cases during the lockdown at Patan Hospital.

For mental health counsellors this is a vivid reminder of the mental health crisis following the earthquake five years ago this week. A survey of earthquake-affected districts of Rasuwa, Nuwakot and Makwanpur by TPO Nepal in 2017 showed that nearly 40% of respondents suffered from depression and anxiety for a year-and-half after the earthquake. Another 22% said they had suicidal thoughts, and a quarter had taken to drinking heavily.

“We are going to see a huge surge in mental health cases once the lockdown and the COVID-19 pandemic is over. We have to get our limited facilities prepared to handle the situation,” Shakya predicted.

Mita Rana, a clinical psychologist at Teaching Hospital agreed that service providers will be overwhelmed with old and new patients if the lockdown is expended. She said many of her patients with pre-existing mental health disorders have not been able to come for follow-up consultations or get medications.

“During a time of a disaster or an epidemic, anxiety disorder, phobia, obsessive compulsive tendencies and depressive thoughts are more likely to be triggered in mentally-ill people and aggravate their condition,” Rana explained.

Although children tend to be generally spared by the virus, they quite easily pick up anxiety from their parents and relatives. Health care workers, migrant workers and their families are among the most vulnerable to mental health breakdowns because they often face stigma and discrimination from neighbours and relatives.

Mental health care providers including hospitals, clinics and non-profits have started a tele-mental health program during the lockdown. TPO Nepal alone has responded to 126 calls in the last three weeks through a toll-free number. Others have set up social media platforms, and 24/7-consultation services.

Nepal’s second confirmed coronavirus patient Prasiddhi Shrestha, wrote in her blog this week following a successful recovery: ‘One thing I have grown to realise in this process is that often times we disregard the mental health part of the virus. Symptoms like shortness of breath are largely capable of exacerbating one’s anxiety as well as the ignorance the public may show towards them.’

TPO Nepal:

Toll-free number: 16600102005

Centre for Mental Health and Counselling Nepal

Toll-free: 16600185080, Hotline: 1145

 

This story was originally published by The Nepali Times

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Children eating lunch in the João Baptista Cáffaro School cafetería. Itaboraí, Brazil, 45 km from Rio de Janeiro. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

By Jo Becker
NEW YORK, Apr 24 2020 (IPS)

Children may escape the worst symptoms of Covid-19 and suffer lower mortality rates, but for millions, the pandemic will have devastating effects.

The choices that governments make now are crucial for children. Governments can both lessen the worst effects of the crisis on children in the months to come, and also put policies in place that will improve children’s lives long after the pandemic is over.

School shutdowns in 192 countries have left more than 90 percent of the world’s student population – more than 1.5 billion students – out of school. Many schools have moved online, but nearly half the world has no access to the internet, leaving many students even further behind
The pandemic has highlighted huge fault lines in many countries’ protections for children, including the lack of emergency action plans for large-scale school shutdowns, the overuse of detention, and insufficient safety nets for low-income families.

School shutdowns in 192 countries have left more than 90 percent of the world’s student population – more than 1.5 billion students – out of school. Many schools have moved online, but nearly half the world has no access to the internet, leaving many students even further behind.

The problem isn’t limited to low-income countries: last week in Phoenix, a high school principal found three students huddled under a blanket in the rain, trying to access their school’s wifi to complete their assignments.

As the global death toll — currently more than 190,000 – continues to rise, so will the number of children left without one or both parents. Orphaned children are particularly vulnerable to trafficking and other forms of exploitation. During the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, for example, girls who lost family members resorted to transactional sex to meet their basic needs, leading to a sharp increase in teenage pregnancy.

Even when countries are not in crisis, children are at greatest risk of violence in their own home. The United Nations secretary-general recently reported a “horrifying” surge in domestic violence linked to Covid-19. Family stresses related to the crisis – including job loss, isolation, excessive confinement, and anxieties over health and finances—have escalated violence between partners and against children.

Despite the increased risks, child abuse is less likely to be detected during the pandemic. Teachers – often the first to identify signs of abuse – have far less access to children, and many child protection agencies have cut back or eliminated home visits to avoid spreading the virus.

Massive global job and income losses are likely to increase rates of child labor and child marriage. The International Labor Organization projects that by mid-2020, nearly 200 million jobs could be lost globally from the crisis.

Before the pandemic, an estimated 152 million children were already engaged in child labor and 12 million girls married each year before their 18th birthday. Without government support to families struggling to meet their basic needs, these numbers will rise.

Children are also more vulnerable to online sexual exploitation, as they spend more time online and may be anxious or lonely due to school shutdowns and stay-at-home orders. Europol has documented an increase in online offenders seeking child sexual abuse material online and attempting to initiate contact with children through social media.

Millions of children are institutionalized or detained, often in crowded conditions where Covid-19 prevention measures such as frequent handwashing and “social distancing” are nearly impossible. UNICEF has warned of outbreaks in these facilities and called for a moratorium on new admissions and the urgent release of children who can be returned to their families or other appropriate care.

Governments that make smart policy choices now will not only protect children during the immediate crisis, but also benefit children significantly over the long term. Expanding internet access will transform education for many children, enhance their access to information, and strengthen their ability to organize and express themselves.

Transferring children out of institutions and detention centers will limit transmission of the virus, and also help countries transition to family-based alternatives for children, which are proven to be healthier, often cheaper, and for children in the justice system, linked to lower recidivism rates. Expanding networks of kinship and foster care can provide homes and critical support for children left without parents.

The economic crisis should prompt governments to strengthen social protection measures, such as cash transfers, to help low-income families hit hardest by the pandemic and enable them to meet their basic needs without resorting to child labor or child marriage. Hotlines and public education campaigns can help protect children at risk of violence in the home or online sexual exploitation.

The pandemic demands government leadership to protect children from the worst impacts of Covid-19. It also offers the chance for policymakers to put measures in place that will benefit children long after the pandemic ends.

 

The post Why Covid-19 Choices Are Critical for Children appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Jo Becker is the children’s rights advocacy director at Human Rights Watch

The post Why Covid-19 Choices Are Critical for Children appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Agricultural markets or mandis have few buyers due to the coronavirus lockdown across India. Credit: Neeta Lal/IPS

By Neeta Lal
NEW DELHI, Apr 24 2020 (IPS)

Heartbreaking images of Indian farmers standing amidst swathes of rotting vegetables, fruits and grain have been flooding newspapers and TV screens lately. Crashing prices and transport bottlenecks due to the 40-day coronavirus lockdown in India, on till May 3, have driven some to set their unsold produce ablaze.   

As a nationwide lockdown has confined a record 1.3 billion Indians to their homes since Mar. 24, one of the hardest hit communities has been that of Indian farmers.

Crops set ablaze and farmer suicides

“We take our produce to the mandi (market) but there are hardly any buyers these days. I was forced to sell four quintals of chilli at Rs 10 per kg as against a normal price of Rs 40. But I was desperate to clinch the deal, else the transportation cost of bringing all that produce back would have broken my back,” Lekhi Ram, a smallholder farmer from Khairpur village of west Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, told IPS over the phone.

Unable to harvest his crop in time, Ram’s neighbour, also a smallholder, set his fields on fire. Unexpected rain and hailstones last week decimated whatever little was left. “The leftover vegetables were fed to the sheep and goats,” said Ram. 

March and April mark the peak harvesting season in India when crops like wheat, chickpea, barley, flax seed, pea, potato, mustard plant, cotton and millet are reaped and sold. But the current pandemic means this cannot happen.

“We were hoping to reap a rich harvest of rabi (spring) crops due to a good spell of rains. But God clearly had other plans,” Balbir Singh Rajewal, President of the Bharatiya Kisan Union in Punjab, a representative organisation for small farmers that protects their interests, told IPS. “Urban demand has been minimal during the lockdown. Even online grocery stores, whose orders we normally can’t cope with, have stopped calling.”

Farmer suicides have been reported from some villages.

• A farmer in the southern Indian state of Karnataka committed suicide last week after being unable to sell his harvest because of the lockdown.
• Rambhavan Shukla, another farmer from Jari village in Uttar Pradesh killed himself by hanging himself from a tree over non-availability of labourers for harvesting his wheat crop.  

Nearly 700 million people of the country’s 1.3 billion rely directly or indirectly on an agriculture-derived livelihood.

• Agriculture and allied sectors sector contribute 16.5 percent to the country’s $2.6 trillion GDP, according to the Indian government’s Economic Survey 2019-20.
• As per International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) statistics, the share of agriculture in India’s total workforce was 43.9 percent in 2018. 
• The ILO warned last week that about 400 million workers engaged by the informal economy, which accounts for a staggering 90 percent of the country’s total workforce, risk falling deeper into poverty during the ongoing crisis.

Farmers unions ask government to do more

A report released by the World Bank stated that the pandemic will reinforce inequality in South Asia, urging governments to ramp up action to protect their people, especially the poorest and most vulnerable, including through temporary work programmes.

According to Jagdish Singh, President, Bhartiya Kisan Union, Madhya Pradesh, a representative body of 0.3 million farmers, bureaucratic apathy has hurt farmers most.

“We didn’t get any combined harvesters from Punjab due to transport restrictions due to which we weren’t able to harvest our grain on time. Lack of farm labour and bad weather last week only made things worse.”

Singh rues the state government made no efforts to operate local mandis to enable farmers to sell whatever grain they were able to harvest.

“Through our own efforts, we’ve been running a mandi in the town of Satna [Madhya Pradesh] to sell pulses, mustard and wheat while observing social distancing norms. This helped many families to get some money for sustenance. There are many districts across Madhya Pradesh where there are no corona cases. Why isn’t the government operating markets there?”

Grain farmers with larger land holdings are experiencing greater struggles under the combined effects of low demand and acute paucity of migrant farm labour. This has severely interrupted agricultural patterns especially harvesting activities in the northwest northern breadbasket states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana where wheat and pulses are grown, said Rajewal.

Food stocks may help weather the storm…

In southern Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, for farmers who cultivate cash crops like cotton, onion and bananas, transportation has proved to be an issue.

According to Pravin Paithankar, president of the Maharashtra Heavy Vehicle and Inter-State Container Operators’ Association, as urban areas are reporting more coronavirus cases than rural ones, truck drivers and container operators are preferring to stay in their villages.

“They won’t be back until May-June,” Paithankar told IPS.

Immediately after the nationwide lockdown was announced, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman declared a 1.7 trillion Rupee (about $22 billion) package, mostly to protect vulnerable sections (including farmers) from any adverse impacts of the pandemic.

However, with most Indian farm households being small and marginal farmers, and a significant part of the population being landless farm labourers, this amount is woefully inadequate, according to Rajewal.   

• Of the total agricultural workforce in India, 45.1 percent are cultivators (farmers with land or self-employed in agriculture) and the rest, 54.9 percent, are agricultural labour (or landless), as per the Pocket Book of Agricultural Statistics of 2017.

The current crisis will also have a domino effect on agricultural output during the kharif (winter) season as good quality seeds, fertilisers and other inputs are not available, a senior official of Uttar Pradesh’s food, civil supplies and consumer affairs department who did not wish to be named told IPS. 

Given how the unfolding crisis has hit the farming community, the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee, an umbrella organisation of over 250 farmer unions across the country, urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to procure the entire wheat produced in the country to protect farmers.

Despite the turbulence within the rural economy, however, there’s optimism that India’s food security won’t suffer. The country maintains substantive buffer stocks of wheat and rice and its granaries are overflowing with nearly 60 million tons of food grain, according to the Food Corporation of India.

However, keeping supply chains functioning seamlessly will be vital for future food security, warn experts, for which farmers must have continued access to markets. Indian Institute of Technology (Gandhinagar) scientists who analysed 150 years of drought data have highlighted in a report that 2 to 3 million deaths in the Bengal famine of 1943 were due to food supply disruptions—not lack of food availability.

According to the Food Sustainability Index, created by the Barilla Centre for Food and Nutrition and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), among other middle income countries India has an above-average score of 65.5 out of 100 when it comes to sustainable agriculture.

…and what about post-COVID-19?

Meanwhile, experts say in the post-COVID-19 scenario existing food and agriculture policies must be repurposed to factor in pandemics. In an essay, Containing COVID-19 impacts on Indian agriculture, Dr. Arabinda Kumar Padhee and Dr. Peter Carberry argue that development of export-supportive infrastructure and logistics would need investments and support of the private sector to boost farmers’ income in the long run.

The duo also suggest that India, being trade-surplus on commodities like rice, meat, milk products, tea, honey, horticultural products, should seize the opportunities by exporting such products with a stable agri-exports policy. India’s agricultural exports were valued at $38 billion in 2018-19 and can rise up further with conducive policies.

“The Government of India has now increased its focus on nutrition (besides food)- security and raising farmers’ income rather than enhancing farm productivity. Changing consumer behaviour with suitable programs and incentives is already in the agenda.

“For all these to happen, the existing landscape of policy incentives that favour the two big staples of wheat and rice has to change. Designing agricultural policies, post-COVID-19 scenario, must include these imperatives for a food systems transformation in India,” wrote the experts.

 

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The post COVID-19: India’s Harvests also Locked Down appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

As a nationwide lockdown has confined a record 1.3 billion Indians to their homes since Mar. 24, one of the hardest hit communities has been that of Indian farmers.

The post COVID-19: India’s Harvests also Locked Down appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Greenpeace activists in front of the Prime Minister’s office in Warsaw, Poland. "We need to build a Green Welfare State". Credit: Maks Zieliński

By Savio Carvalho
LONDON, Apr 24 2020 (IPS)

In our current COVID 19 context of suffering and fear, that may sound like a strange and spooky quote. But let’s be clear: what we have achieved so far in the present is not – and shouldn’t be – indicative of what we can achieve in the future.

And, as Arundhati Roy reminds us, crisis moments can be portals to a different world.

There is enough scientific evidence to show that we have been living on borrowed time. We have not only inflicted unrestrained damages to the planet but also crossed planetary boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed.

Over the past century, as a civilisation, we have focused on un-sustained growth, power and profits, and in the bargain, we have meandered from our values, our humanity and our inner longing for peace and harmony.

We have heard it said multiple times, that we are living in an “unprecedented” situation. The same was said for the world wars and the 9/11 attack. What is unprecedented can either become the new normal or an opportunity to change and create something new.

And in the situation of COVID 19 which has infiltrated and impacted the entire planet, the world must now put aside their differences and come together to work towards the one unified goal of finding medicines and a vaccine – and giving access to them to all.

And we must do more than that. We must build a new world order. We are not at war with the virus. But we are in a situation as global and as groundbreaking as the two world wars. And there are lessons we can learn.

World War I led to fundamental changes in politics, economics and society. Aside from the gravely high human costs, the war resulted in new territories, where boundaries and political maps were redrawn, especially in Europe.

The war destroyed empires, created new nation-states and encouraged independence movements. The power of autocracy and the upper class was diminished, if not destroyed. It wasn’t all positive change, for sure. But fundamental change it was.

World War II also resulted in significant changes, and some called 1945 “the year zero”. The war led to the creation of the United Nations, thereby resulting in increased collaboration and peaceful cooperation amongst nations.

Another collaborative achievement that came out of WWII was the Bretton Woods Conference, a gathering of over 700 delegates from 44 allied nations who agreed to create institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development to enhance international economic cooperation.

Again, those institutions were not perfect (and in recent decades these institutions became avenues in which the developed world imposed cruel economic conditionalities on poorer countries). But they were new institutions born out of the zeitgeist and values of their time.

The COVID 19 crisis is not a world war, but just like the wars, it has led to a collective, global shock, a shock that is now urging humankind to live a life based on values and principles which work for people and the planet.

During this time when we have closely experienced the unimaginable, we have gained renewed respect and admiration for our front line essential workers, a greater appreciation for human kindness towards self and the community, as well as a deeper appreciation for nature – birds and fish are returning to areas they have abandoned; cities are seeing a drastic drop in air pollution and nitrogen levels; there is less dependence on fossil fuel; the destructive capitalistic economic model of extract and grow at any price is literally on its knees.

Yet, despite growing global social movements fueled by the people and citizens – such as Fridays for Future, the Fight Inequality Alliance or urban movements for change worldwide – our world leaders have sadly and continuously let us down.

But these are all the more reasons why this is the time to push the reset button – also for multilateralism and global institutions! This is the time to create something different, based on our human values of peace, dignity, and harmony with nature while respecting planetary boundaries.

Taking a leaf from the pages of history, now is the right time for the people and citizens to call for a world order that reflects these intrinsic human values. Now is the time to give birth to a new world order based on the principles of solidarity that COVID 19 have surfaced as key values for all of us all over the world.

As the United Nations marked 24th April as the International Day of Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace, this is the perfect moment to get the ball rolling, and work in close collaboration and coordination for a global call to action. Such global call will lay the foundations for the creation of the new world order.

Citizens must push their leaders to show real statesmanship by working together, and be bold and forge a new path, no matter how difficult it may be. This new governance for people and our planet must be based on human values and not profits.

We need global governance that puts equality, peace, dignity, democracy, and sustainable economics all at its very core. Public good should triumph over private profits.

This pathway would involve tackling climate change, developing a green and just economy via a just transition, ensuring food sovereignty, as well as investing to promote small localised agriculture, localised green energy production, and sustainable transport and cities.

Financial assistance, incentives, technical support and grants should be provided to emerging economies whilst at the same time incentivising developed economies to make the necessary shifts towards this new path for people and the planet. Corporations need to be fully accountable to people and planet, and trade needs to serve the public good.

The new world order can start with new institutions – like after the last two wars. Or it can be a re-founding of the United Nations. What is key is that we need global institutions with teeth. We need for health care, social protection and the environment global governance at least as powerful as the World Trade Organization is on trade.

We need global institution(s) that have the ability to hold governments and corporations to account if they fail to deliver on global agreements such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or the Paris Agreement, able to provide financial support and incentives to not breach 1.5 degrees of warming threshold and ensure protection and restoration of biodiversity on land, forest and oceans.

A clean, sustainable and green economic system should be a centrifugal force of the new world order – not captured by corporate greed or entangled by complex bureaucratic procedures – and move at a lightening speed for the planet and its people.

Let the last day of this pandemic be the first day of the beginning of a new world many have been dreaming of. Because as illustrated in The Alchemist, when we really, really want something, the universe will conspire to help us achieve it.

The time to hit the reset button is NOW.

 

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Savio Carvalho is a Global Campaign Leader at Greenpeace International. Twitter: @savioconnects

 
And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it
                                                                                                               ― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

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The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) estimates that more than 1.5 billion children from more than 190 countries are at home because of the global coronavirus lockdown. Credit: Naimul Haq/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 24 2020 (IPS)

Soon schools in Timor-Leste, Ukraine, and Kosovo, where some 6.5 million children are currently at home, will hopefully start teaching their children once again — albeit online. 

A learning platform, originally designed to assist refugee and displaced children, was launched this week to address the current global crisis affecting children who are out of school as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

Timor-Leste, Ukraine, and Kosovo are the first three countries to adopt the programme for their schools, which includes programmes such as online books, videos, and additional material and resources for children with special needs and their parents.

“Timor-Leste, Kosovo and Ukraine, where approximately 6.5 million learners have been affected by school closures, were the first to identify a need; gain necessary approvals; and access relevant content to support the roll out of the Learning Passport in their markets,” United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Chief of Education Robert Jenkins told IPS.

The platform that was designed to assist refugee and displaced children was launched this week to address the current global crisis affecting children who are out of school as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

The programme, called “Learning Passport” was launched to “help children continue their education from home during the pandemic,” Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the Secretary-General António Guterres, said at a press briefing on Monday. 

“It was scheduled to start as a pilot programme this year, but it has now been scaled up to become available in all countries with a curriculum that can be taught online,” he added. 

It was designed in partnership between UNICEF, Microsoft and the University of Cambridge. 

According to the latest estimate by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), 1.57 billion children from more than 190 countries are impacted because of the global coronavirus lockdown. 

Reality for refugee children

Meanwhile, Jenkins said that under the current lockdown the refugee children are likely to face increased risk.

“The needs of refugee children are even more acute,” Jenkins told IPS this week, adding that children who are displaced have limited access to a host of services such as testing and treatment.

On top of all these factors, measures taken to address the pandemic such as lockdowns and school shutdowns are affecting their safety and education.

“We are seeing that some displaced children – many of whom rely on school for their one nutritious meal a day and access to clean water – are going without the basics,” says Jenkins.  “Moreover, displaced children are likely to face an increased risk of neglect, abuse, gender-based violence and child marriage as families are left with even more socioeconomic hardship.”

For a community already living under hardship, this is only further exacerbating the problem, says Jenskins. He voiced concerns that many who have been restricted to go to school might never return to school once the lockdowns are lifted. 

18 months in the making

The ‘Learning Passport’ has been in the making for 18 months, and was scheduled to be launched this year for the education of refugee children. Once the pandemic broke and schools started being shut down, the programme went through an expansion process in order to address this new and urgent need. 

Jenkins added that UNICEF is working with teams on the ground in different countries to “identify specific gaps and needs; validate the above criteria; and identify and map”.

Brad Smith, President of Microsoft, has said that the solution should be exactly how the problem is: one with no borders. He also highlighted that the programme will be effective with collaboration of public and private sectors. 

A continuing gap

One gap that remains, however, is that the programme is accessible only to those who have access to the internet. Only 30 percent of low-income countries have been able to ensure digital training for students, as IPS reported last week. 

Neither Microsoft nor UNICEF, however, were able to give details on how this would address the digital divide that excludes many children who don’t have access to to the internet or digital technology, in mainly low socio-economic countries. 

“For children and youth who do not have access to an internet connection there should be solid plans in place to ensure the continuity of learning – through radio programmes, television and textbooks,” Jenkins said. “Teachers, parents and trusted community members must be able to guide children through their learning and check on their progress.”

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By Rochelle Jones
BRISBANE, Australia, Apr 23 2020 (IPS)

Feminist responses to COVID-19 have been swift, insightful, and numerous.

There have been webinars (so.many.webinars), twitter threads, illustrations, press releases and policy recommendations, and online house parties. Analysis pieces cover everything from the gendered impacts of COVID-19 to how to work remotely to the role of neoliberal capitalism.

Most strikingly, feminists have mobilized on a massive scale to generate our own autonomous resources for daily acts of solidarity and survival and to respond politically, collectively, and powerfully to this moment.

Many of these actions are coming from within communities and movements in some of the hardest hit and less privileged places, and especially amongst Black, LBTQI+, disability, migrant, land & labour movements. Some of the responses are localised, while others are global.

Feminist solidarity right now is the 'engine room,' driving some of the most innovative and needed action taking place today. Our movements are literally resourcing each other during this pandemic -- with emergency funds, information provision, art, love, time, sharing of experience, documentation of impact, and more -- sharing, connecting, analysing, strategising and imagining new feminist realities more than ever before

Feminist solidarity right now is the ‘engine room,’ driving some of the most innovative and needed action taking place today. Our movements are literally resourcing each other during this pandemic — with emergency funds, information provision, art, love, time, sharing of experience, documentation of impact, and more — sharing, connecting, analysing, strategising and imagining new feminist realities more than ever before.

Sex worker communities have been particularly impacted by COVID-19. As Red Umbrella Fund (RUF) describes, “as ever, [sex workers] are situated at the crosshairs, experiencing this new catastrophe in all its multiplicities… human rights violations in all its forms including insecure housing, income disparity, food scarcity, unequal access to healthcare and other public services, and violence” but have responded with “resiliency and agency.”

This resiliency and agency has translated into self-led initiatives to support sex workers in every region of the world. For instance, Aprosmig (Association of Sex Workers in Minas Gerais) in Brazil are leading a campaign to provide shelter, food, cleaning products, and money for sex workers and the homeless.

In Berlin, Karada House, a Queer collaborative art space, has pivoted to providing emergency relief through “LGBTQIA+ & WOMXN RELIEF FOR COVID-19,” with direct financial assistance, pre-cooking and delivering meals, and even matching people together to talk in order to relieve mental stress.

In the United States, SUSU: a black feminist giving circle is dispersing rapid response funds to Black feminists who are “living/caring/healing/responding and beyond to COVID-19.” Black empowerment and democracy collective Cooperation Jackson is repurposing its “fab lab” for community production to turn out 3-D printed and hand-sewn masks, with plans to “post videos to teach others how to make them, modeling the DIY [do-it-yourself] culture—which is a core part of the black radical tradition.”

Feminist activists in Kenya are taking to Twitter to raise funds for queer and trans people affected by COVID-19. They are also driving resources to groups like #MutualAidKe, which distributes food, sanitation supplies, educational supplies, and money. #MutualAidKe underscores its mission, quoting Toni Morrison, “The function of freedom is to free someone else.”

Global Women’s Strike (GWS) and Women of Colour GWS, which have campaigned for financial recognition for unwaged caring work for decades, have joined with the Green New Deal for Europe to urge governments everywhere to provide a Care Income, starting now.

In many cases, feminist movements are doing this whilst still resisting attacks on their rights. In Poland, for example, the government decided that the middle of a global pandemic is a good time to debate a ban on abortions of fetuses with serious abnormalities, and another bill that could ban sex education.

The debate was thankfully postponed for now, but protestors creatively responded to the COVID-19 lockdown rules by standing two metres apart holding placards or displaying them on their cars and bicycles.

All this amazing, risky work, whilst at the same time setting up a solidarity crowdfunding campaign to support activists and people affected by intersectional discrimination in Poland, and who are in a difficult economic situation due to COVID-19.

This is ALL autonomous resourcing in action.

But how is this even possible? Amongst all of the personal, political and economic hurdles people are facing with COVID-19 (layered upon the multiple challenges feminist organising already faces), how is it that feminist movements have been inspired and able to achieve this incredible response over such a short term?

Firstly, the constituencies that feminist movements belong to and serve are worst hit by the pandemic, so there is an urgent need for feminist analysis, solidarity actions and responses. As Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) has noted: “The ability to isolate, work from home, homeschool your children, stockpile your shelves, access healthcare, and financially (and psychologically) put your life back together after the pandemic is class, gender, race, age, and geography dependent”.

Nearly everyone is hit financially by the crisis, but state support, which varies vastly from one country to another, is always reserved to particular categories of workers, freelancers, citizens, with millions – often women and gender diverse people – falling short of fitting these categories.

Second, feminist movements have been able to respond so quickly because it is what they do. Feminist and other social movements are used to relying on each other, pulling a rabbit out of a hat and co-creating collective momentum and power to resist and disrupt oppressions, advocate for change and importantly – care for each other.

That’s certainly not to say that this is our lot in life. Feminist movements and agendas deserve MUCH more than the meagre resources made available to us. The COVID-19 pandemic is yet another example of the work that feminist and other social movements do.

Third, feminist and other social movements have been connecting, documenting, supporting, analysing, and theorising within and across borders to plan for and design a new world for decades. The COVID-19 pandemic may have added to the complexity of the moment, but we’re not starting at square one.

With the feminist ‘engine room’ kicking into high gear and driving these innovative and needed actions in a context that is both unique and extremely challenging, it demonstrates the power of autonomous resources to yield real ownership, influence and impact.

But – the sheer existence and breadth of feminist responses to COVID-19 also demonstrates the urgent need to transform our ailing and unfair systems that leave so many in peril. When civil society is again left scrambling to plug all the holes in a sinking boat, we should be turning to the architecture of the boat itself.

This is a moment that highlights system failures around wealth distribution and should draw our collective gaze toward structural transformation of the way resources are generated and distributed in society – the kind that feminist movements have been calling for and are best positioned to lead.

 

Rochelle Jones has been researching and writing about women’s rights and international development for over fifteen years. She is currently Organisational Learning and Strengthening Coordinator at AWID

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As famines of “biblical proportions” loom, Security Council urged to “act fast”. Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 23 2020 (IPS)

The UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), described as an integral part of its highly-ambitious development agenda, may be in deep trouble.

Aimed at addressing some of the global challenges the world faces– including extreme poverty and hunger, inequalities in incomes and gender, climate change and environmental degradation– the SDGs now seem threatened by a world economy facing a brutal recession.

With a 2030 deadline,the SDGs are in near disarray, as the coronavirus pandemic has decimated the economies of both rich and poor countries—even as warning signs reflect a possibly massive rise in poverty and hunger worldwide.

The slump in the global economy has triggered a recession in several donor nations, including Japan, the US, UK, France, Germany and China, among others.

In its most recent report released April 14, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that the world is facing its worst downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the global economy would contract by 3.0 percent in 2020.

This was a significant reversal from early this year when the IMF predicted the world economy would outpace 2019 and grow by 3.3 percent in 2020.

Ambassador Mona Juul of Norway, President of the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), told delegates April 23 that COVID-19 shows “it is more important than ever to focus on the implementation of the SDGs.” Therefore, issues such as resource mobilization, illicit finance, debt and women’s empowerment must be priorities,” she said.

Still, at the United Nations, several lingering questions remain: What are the new obstacles facing the implementation of SDGs? Will they survive an uncertain future?

Will donor nations help rescue the development agenda? Andwill the General Assembly be forced to push back the 2030 deadline?

Tariq Ahmad, Oxfam America’s Senior Policy & Research Advisor told IPS: “We are seeing COVID-19 wreak havoc on the global economy, which is felt acutely in the homes and communities of the most vulnerable among us”.

The economy downturn, he said, paints a dismal picture of what resources will be available to finance the SDGs. This crisis could push half a billion more people into poverty unless urgent and drastic action is taken.

A recent Oxfam brief has called for an Economic Rescue Plan For All, suggesting how the world could help finance UN’s estimated needs while the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has called on governments to mobilize at least $2.5 trillion dollars to support developing economics in order to tackle the pandemic and prevent a global economic collapse.

And a new study by the UN University’s World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) predicts that the COVID-19 pandemic could increase global poverty by as much as half a billion people, or 8% of the total human population. This would be the first time that poverty has increased globally in thirty years, since 1990.

In its annual Global Report on Food Crises, an international alliance of UN, governmental and non-governmental agencies, said, at the end of 2019, 135 million people across 55 countries and territories experienced acute food insecurity.

But the coronavirus pandemic is expected to make the situation worse and negatively impact on hunger and food insecurity, specifically in the developing world.

Jens Martens, executive director of Global Policy Forum, (a civil society think tank based in New York and Bonn), told IPS the COVID-19 pandemic not only has serious consequences for the health situation in many countries of the world but it will also have a massive impact on the implementation of almost all SDGs.

“The looming global recession will dramatically increase unemployment, poverty and hunger worldwide,” he said.

The situation, he pointed out, is even more serious because the macroeconomic situation in many countries of the global South had already deteriorated before the outbreak of the virus.

A vicious circle of debt and austerity policies have threatened socio-economic development from Argentina to Lebanon, he warned.

“The food situation had also deteriorated in many countries, even before COVID-19, for example, due to the locust plague in East Africa”.

Without effective multilateral counter-measures, Martens argued, inequality between rich and poor countries will increase considerably.

“COVID-19 is thus also a global wake-up call for international cooperation and solidarity”, he declared.

Keep critical food supply chains operating to save lives during COVID-19, urges a new UN-backed report. Credit: United Nations

In a report released April 20, the World Food Programme (WFP) said the COVID-19 pandemic could almost double the number of people suffering acute hunger, pushing it to more than a quarter of a billion by the end of 2020.

The number of people facing acute food insecurity stands to rise to 265 million in 2020, up by 130 million from the 135 million in 2019, as a result of the economic impact of COVID-19, according to a WFP projection.

Ahmad said one of the ways to free up vital resources to tackle the issues of hunger and poverty would be to cancel the debt of developing nations.

For example, Oxfam also jointly warned of the risk in West Africa, of 50 million people threatened by hunger and malnutrition in the coming months.

Meanwhile, Ghana is spending 11 times more on servicing its debts than it is on health. The costs of the debt burden are paid by the poorest people, in cuts to government services, while women are the hardest hit.

Aid is a critical ingredient to help finance the response. Of the estimated 2.5 trillion USD need, the UN estimates a need of 500 billion in new official development assistance (ODA).

In a soon to be released report, Oxfam estimated almost 300 billion of this should be provided by traditional northern donors. And there are still some fundamental flaws in the current system that prevent aid from supporting local responders on the front line of care.

“This crisis is the time for bold and visionary choices for our collective future. It’s time for donors to profoundly transform their aid to build a world that is free from poverty, that is more equal, feminist and sustainable. COVID-19 could set back the fight against poverty by decades – we must now act and build a better future,” he declared.

Asked if the 193-member UN General Assembly should postpone the 2030 deadline to achieved SDG targets, Martens said postponing the deadline for achieving the SDGs because of COVID-19 would send out completely the wrong signal.

On the contrary, he said, the coronavirus crisis shows how important these multilateral goals are, and how fatal it was that governments have not taken their implementation seriously enough since 2015.

Key SDG targets like the development of social protection systems, universal health care and a functioning public infrastructure must be given top priority. Only in this way can the current crisis be overcome and future crises prevented. This also requires effective policies of global solidarity, said Martens.

“What we need now is a Solidarity Summit under the auspices of the United Nations to deal with the social and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in an integrated manner”, he declared.

Asked about the postponement, Ahmad said “pushing back the SDG deadline won’t help pull anyone who is facing poverty or hunger – instead we need to see sweeping action across the globe to help offset some of this crisis’ worst impacts on the world’s most vulnerable”.

The challenge here is not time, it’s political will, he noted.

“This is an unprecedented daunting global challenge, but we must meet it both with urgent action that saves lives now and interventions that create a more fair system going forward, like the cancellation of debt for developing nations, and other support to help families stay healthy and safe until they are able to earn a living again.”

Even before COVID-19, he said, “we were dangerously behind on meeting many of the SDGs, but if this moment has taught us anything, it’s that we are able to make massive shifts in how we all live and cooperate to tackle a joint challenge – we must see the same approach taken to meet the Sustainable Development Goals.”

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

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PRESS RELEASE

By Amnesty International
Apr 23 2020 (IPS-Partners)

The Bangladesh authorities should rescue and welcome Rohingya refugees currently stranded at sea, Amnesty International said today. Other governments must fulfil their shared responsibility to carry out search and rescue efforts, in line with their international obligations to protect life, and allow safe disembarkation of refugees and asylum seekers at sea.

Two fishing trawlers carrying an estimated 500 Rohingya women, men and children are currently in the Bay of Bengal after being pushed away by Malaysia, which has imposed restrictions on all boats in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The two trawlers are headed towards Bangladesh a week after an earlier vessel carrying nearly 400 Rohingya refugees arrived there on 15 April. Monitors also believe there could be another vessel still at sea with hundreds more Rohingya stranded, further highlighting the need for governments in the region to get involved in search and rescue operations if needed.

“In contrast to the cruel indifference demonstrated by other governments, who have actively pushed away boats, Bangladesh has maintained its positive record of giving sanctuary to people who have lost their homes and suffered horrific crimes,” said Biraj Patnaik, South Asia Director at Amnesty International.

“We hope that Bangladesh will continue to welcome Rohingya refugees in these difficult times. The international community has an obligation to help the Bangladeshi authorities in this task, including in supporting efforts to set up quarantine centres and provide refugees the immediate medical assistance they require to recover from the journey and to protect them against the spread of the COVID-19 virus.”

Amnesty International last week called on Southeast Asian governments to launch immediate search and rescue operations for potentially hundreds more Rohingya refugees languishing at sea.

Malaysia has actively brought one vessel to shore but launched aggressive military patrols to scare others with Rohingya refugees away while Thailand has remained silent about the growing crisis, not saying whether it has pushed back boats or if it will assist any boats carrying refugees found near its coast.

The situation revives troubling memories of the 2015 Andaman Sea crisis when an untold number of Rohingya people were not rescued and hundreds lost their lives.

In February 2020, the Taskforce on the Bali Process – which included the participation of Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia and Myanmar – “emphasized the primacy of saving lives at sea and not endangering the life and safety of persons in responding to irregular maritime migration.”

The COVID-19 pandemic, Amnesty International said, cannot be a pretext for governments to abandon their responsibilities towards refugees.

“All countries in the region have a responsibility to ensure the seas do not become graveyards for people seeking safety. Bangladesh cannot be left to address this situation alone. The fact that it is upholding its own obligations is not an excuse for others to abandon theirs,” said Biraj Patnaik.

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Excerpt:

PRESS RELEASE

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

By The Rev. Liberato C. Bautista
NEW YORK, Apr 23 2020 (IPS)

Since the founding of the United Nations in 1945, space for multilateral policy development and commitment has grown. Its growth in the global health field augurs well as we find ways to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Multilateralism is a difficult word, often misconstrued to be about the global and not the local and daily life. Perception plays a major role in how the public perceives multilateralism. This is in part due to the complexity of modern global challenges, which are well beyond the capacity of any one state or even a small group of states to resolve by themselves.

The novel coronavirus pandemic may yet change this perception.

As the saying goes, all politics is local. My rejoinder to this is that one’s local is another’s global. The local and the global are simultaneous realities. United Methodist connectionalism is akin to multilateralism.

As a church, we address social issues central to the multilateral agenda, including health, migration, peace, climate, and concerns about global poverty, trading and commerce, sustainable development, social justice, women, children and gender justice, human rights, indigenous peoples, and more.

Holistic health, healing and wholeness are intrinsic to Methodism and its Wesleyan roots. John Wesley attended to both the care for the soul and for the biological body with his abundant tips and remedies for ailments during his time.

Throughout the United Methodist connection, we are doing advocacy on public health policies at national legislatures and multilateral settings. We are in global mission together for sustainable development and humanitarian assistance, building capacity for peoples and communities to manage their healthcare needs.

Our numerous United Methodist-affiliated clinics, hospitals, colleges and universities around the world are training medical, health, social work and pastoral care professionals.

The Rev. Liberato Bautista. Credit: Marcelo Schneider, World Council of Churches

Human rights intrinsic to health, healing and wholeness

Global pandemics such as the novel coronavirus respect no sovereign boundaries or national allegiances. The coronavirus ravages all peoples across races and social classes, but its effects are more devastating on vulnerable populations everywhere and on struggling low- and middle-income economies around the world.

To mitigate the virulent spread of COVID-19, we are called by national authorities to stay at home, wash our hands, stay in place and practice physical distancing. These public health directives imply that we have houses to stay in, water to wash our hands, and some space where we can move around and still maintain six feet distance from each other.

When Philippine government officials issued the directive for Filipinos to stay at home, Norma Dollaga, a United Methodist deaconess and justice advocate from the Philippines, reacted through her Facebook page: “Stay at home. That’s for those who have homes. How about the homeless?”

The reality is that the human rights to health, housing and water, along with human mobility, have long been imperiled in many places around the world prior to COVID-19’s onslaught. Moreover, the health crisis has been used as an excuse in other parts of the world to grab power or tighten national security laws that are assaulting civil liberties and violating democratic rights.

Neither pandemic nor political or economic exigency can derogate from the enjoyment of fundamental human rights.

That the outbreak of COVID-19 started in Wuhan City in China has resulted in undue rise in racist and xenophobic acts especially against people of Chinese origin, or Asians in general. This is on top of an ongoing surge of populism and xenophobic nationalism around the world.

Health is wealth, fund it robustly

If health is wealth, it behooves peoples and their governments to protect it. Health care workers who are on the front line against this pandemic should have all the resources they need without begging for them.

A war may have been declared in the eradication of the novel coronavirus pandemic. But it is looking more like the deployment of war rhetoric and not the funding that real wars have received.

National budgets are moral documents. Health is the true common wealth that we must invest human and budgetary resources to. Yet we know that defense spending today far outweighs the puny investments from national coffers that health care urgently needs and strategically deserves.

Global collaboration is indispensable

The role of the U.N. in forging global cooperation is crucial, in times of crisis or calm. Global cooperation in the surveillance of emerging viruses and bacteria is necessary if pandemics are to be mitigated and diseases eradicated.

Coordinating this global collaboration and leading the development of a vaccine to treat the COVID-19 disease gives the public good reason to trust global institutions like World Health Organization. Think of the eradication of smallpox — and the ongoing programs to eventually eradicate polio and malaria — as examples of how global cooperation benefits us in our local daily lives.

To triumph over COVID-19, comprehensive cooperation is needed on many fronts — medical, pharmaceutical, healthcare workers, mental health providers, healthcare facilities. Public and private coordination is necessary in ensuring that the supply chain for much needed testing kits, ventilators, as well as personal protective equipment like N95 face masks, gloves, gowns, aprons, face shields and respirators remain unbroken.

A successful multilateral response requires a “whole-of-government,” “whole-of-society” and evidence-based public health approach. Mitigation works best when countries share expertise and scientific knowledge about threats to health, to climate, to populations and to peace and security.

Social inequalities imperil public health

The Commission on the Social Determinants of Health established by WHO in 2005 elaborated on the disastrous effects of social inequalities on people’s health. The intersections of physical, mental and social health, healing and wholeness are abundantly clear.

The commission’s 2008 final report stated: “The social determinants of health are the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age. These circumstances are shaped by the distribution of money, power and resources at global, national and local levels.

The social determinants of health are mostly responsible for health inequities — the unfair and avoidable differences in health status seen within and between countries.”

The U.N. commemorates its 75th anniversary this year. It is an auspicious time to reaffirm support for its mandates, especially the securing of health for all peoples and the planet. A healthy population makes for a healthy planet.

Nongovernmental organizations, including faith-based organizations like our United Methodist representations at the U.N., are in a kairos moment to help achieve the U.N.’s mandates.

COVID-19 may have been virulent and will forever change the rules of social etiquette and socialization. But the novel coronavirus has done what multilateral negotiations have not done — pause globalization and its unbridled pursuit of profit and capital.

When the world reopens from the ravages of the virus, we have a momentous task not to return to, but to transform, global and local arrangements to protect humanity and the planet, at least from the ravages of pandemics and social inequalities.

It comforts me that not all contagions are deadly. Some are beneficial. Love and kindness are. So are hospitality, mercy and justice.

*This article 0riginally appeared in UM News”. The link follows: https://www.umnews.org/en/news/collaboration-can-help-eradicate-covid-19

 

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Excerpt:

Rev Liberato C. Bautista is assistant general secretary for United Nations and International Affairs of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society. He also serves as president of the Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations.

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By Isabel Ortiz and Walden Bello
NEW YORK and MANILA, Apr 22 2020 (IPS)

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has created an unprecedented human and economic crisis. Governments are taking strong actions, enforcing quarantines to reduce contagion, testing populations, building emergency intensive care units. Governments have also launched large fiscal stimulus plans to protect jobs and the economy, as well as temporary social protection programs such as income/food support, subsidies to utilities and care services.

Isabel Ortiz

But in many countries, even stronger actions are needed if we are to protect lives and jobs. States must respond adequately to this public emergency. Citizens must question if the measures implemented by their governments are sufficient and adequate.

The following are important issues for citizens and civil society organizations (CSOs) to watch out at the country level:

1. It is time to invest in universal public health, not only emergency support. Given COVID-19, governments are advised to ramp up public health expenditures. Indeed, respirators, tests and masks are necessary, but countries need more than just emergency support. There is a risk that, as governments will become indebted, they continue with austerity cuts and privatizations that have been eroding public health systems in recent years, returning to a situation where millions are excluded from healthcare.
2. Stimulating the economy and employment. This is much necessary to support job-generating enterprises during the COVID-19 lockdown. However, citizens need to be vigilant that fiscal stimulus do not go to the wrong hands, to large corporations avoiding taxes, to cronies, to the untaxed financial sector. If public funds are given to companies, it should be with strict conditions to stop tax evasion and share buybacks, undergo adequate regulation, cut obnoxious management bonusses, pay living wages and preserve employment.
3. Providing social protection, income and food support to people. These measures are extremely urgent if people are to be quarantined and are unable to telework. In developing countries, most work precariously in the informal economy and isolation is not possible, households will suffer hunger with no income. Given the low living conditions in most developing countries, policymakers should consider the need for universal social protection floors.
4. Governments need more executive powers to implement these measures. States and public policies have been weakened over the last decades by deregulations, privatizations and budget cuts. Better planning, better resources and better public policies for all citizens are needed, but it is important to ensure that far right and authoritarian leaders do not use the need for decisive executive action to grab more power for their own ends (eg. Brazil, Hungary, India, Philippines, US).

Additionally, it is important for citizens and CSOs to push for the following measures at the global level:

Walden Bello

5. Support for global public health, at stake is the survival of the planet. The coronavirus pandemic has revealed the weak state of global public health systems – generally overburdened, underfunded and understaffed because of earlier austerity policies and privatizations. There is urgent need to improve the global governance of health, including the strengthening the WHO and UN agencies that support the extension of public health systems, as well as CSOs monitoring progress.
6. Put pressure on the international financial institutions such as the IMF and the development banks, so their policies support universal public health systems, jobs and social protection floors at present as well as after the COVID-19 emergency, including resources and fiscal space to finance them.
7. Given high sovereign debt levels, continue lobbying for debt forgiveness or radical debt relief to ensure that countries get the needed financing; or at least a debt moratoria, and later debt restructuring/relief.
8. Watch out that new debt and fiscal deficits created to respond to COVID-19 do not result in a new round of austerity cuts with negative social impacts that will undermine public health systems, jobs and social protection.
9. Ensure capital controls. Capital is flying North to safety, to the US, to Europe. Developing countries are going to be hard hit, not only because of the capital drain but also from the fall of commodity prices and others. Capital controls are easy to implement, with immediate results.
10. A Global Marshall Plan, or a Global Green New Deal. Global problems require global solutions; after the WW2, the US implemented a Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe. This time, no country alone can or should finance a global plan, it can be built as part of a progressive multilateralism. There are many ways to finance it, solidarity taxes to wealth may well be a best way to reduce inequalities and even up world’s development. It can be complemented by other measures such as issuing more Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) at the international organizations.

The coronavirus pandemic has provided stark evidence of the weaknesses and extreme injustices of our world. We must not return to “normality”, a world where half of its population is living below the poverty line of $5.50 a day. We must move away from an inequitable model based on unregulated finance and corporate power, blind to harmful social and environmental impacts. We must back away from a system that disregards the work of health staff, cleaners, garbage collectors, farmers, and instead reward with huge salaries corporate managers, football players, and others who do not perform any essential activity. Now citizens have the opportunity to move forward.

As countries and enterprises recuperate from the crisis, they will have to rethink their economic model, including fewer links with global supply chains, and more links closer to home. It will be an important time for citizens and CSOs to press for “deglobalization”, making the domestic market again the center of gravity of the economy by preserving local production with decent jobs and green investments, and question global supply chains based on taking advantage of cheaper wages, lesser taxes and environmental regulations elsewhere.

Now is the time for citizens to ensure that world leaders forcefully respond to the COVID-19 crisis, in accordance with human rights. This time it cannot be like many earlier crisis experiences, where insufficient support was provided, or ended in the wrong hands, bailing out banks not the population. Citizens and CSOs have a very important role to play to ensure that governments respond to people.

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.

Walden Bello is senior analyst at the Bangkok-based Focus on the Global South and the International Adjunct Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at Binghamton.

The post Citizen Action is Central to the Global Response to COVID-19 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

David Lewis is professor of social policy and development at the London School of Economics & Political Science

By David Lewis
LONDON, Apr 22 2020 (IPS)

The implications and consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic are playing out before us. Much of the news coverage of the to date in both the Global North and the Global South has understandably focused on the horrifying impact of the disease on urban communities, where it is clearly hitting people, and economies, hardest.

David Lewis

But what are the implications for people in rural areas, where just under a half of the world’s population live, and where the largest concentrations of the poorest and most food insecure people are still to be found?What conclusions should we be drawing, and how will we be thinking about research and policy in the future?

We should not be in any doubt that rural livelihoods are being and will continue to be severely affected. The chief executive of US NGO Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is today reported as saying ‘Lockdowns are hampering people from planting and selling crops, working as day labourer and selling products, among other problems. That means less income for desperately hungry people to buy food and less food available, at higher prices.’

The immediate response challenge is to provide humanitarian support to those people most at risk, drawing on and adapting existing social protection systems as much as possible. This needs to be a cooperative effort in which governments, non-governmental organisations, inter-governmental agencies and business work together with local communities to ensure an effective, rapid response. Educating people about how the disease spreads is also key. These effortswill need to be locally owned as far as possible. BRAC’s approach in Bangladesh is one impressive model that can be adapted elsewhere.

Following from this, we also need to start thinking as soon as possible about creating more resilient forms of social protection in rural areas by ‘building back better’. These improvements will need to be based on localism and build upon – and strengthen – the decentralised structures that exist in many countries but which remain underdeveloped.

The coronavirus may have been indiscriminate in the way it has infected people from prime ministers to farm labourers, but in reality it has highlighted problems of social inequality, with the poorest people disproportionately affected as a result of weaker health, higher risk exposure and exclusion from services.

The Covid-19 crisis also raises a whole series of higher order challenges around environment, food systems and climate change that must now be addressed. The issue of ‘food sovereignty’ highlighted by movements such as Via Campesina will need to be placed front and centre in the reassessment of how we can create more sustainable and equitablefarming systems.

The production and consumption pressures created by human beings on the natural environment – in the form of deforestation, habitat loss, declining biodiversity, the carbon emissions contributing to climate change – are now there for all to see.

The new priority is to address these environmental pressures more urgentlysince they contribute opportunities for ‘spillover events’ – the spread of zoonotic diseases like coronavirus which cross natural barriers from animals to humans.

Epidemiological studies point to the role of human encroachment into wildlife habitats, hunting and wild animal trades as factors that increase the risk of this, while others also draw attention to the risks contributed by increased levels of factory farming.

One thing that’s certain is the need for multidisciplinary approaches to understanding and managing these risks, such as anthropologists, epidemiologistsan veterinary scientists. One example is Høg et al.’s (2019) researchon understanding perceptions of risk in Bangladesh’s poultry value chains, which points to contradictions in how people think about and manage risk that has important implications for all of us.

The crisis offers an important opportunity to rethink and restructure policy, practice and research if we can take it.

 

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Excerpt:

David Lewis is professor of social policy and development at the London School of Economics & Political Science

The post What Does Covid-19 Crisis Mean for Rural Development? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Child refugees from Central African Republic in Cameroon’s eastern border town of Garoua-Boula share a plate of rice in an early morning in this dated photo. Experts say that as a result of the economic impact of COVID-19 the number of people facing food insecurity could at the least double. Credit: Monde Kingsley Nfor/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 22 2020 (IPS)

With much of the global economy stalled amid an unprecedented lockdown of nations grappling to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, the author of a new United Nations report on the disease’s impact on poverty told IPS that hundreds of millions more could be pushed into poverty and we can expect to see social unrest.

“A lockdown without access to food is going to be very tough on people, and one can expect social unrest arising out of it,” Andy Sumner, a professor of International Development at King’s College London, told IPS.

Sumner, along with Eduardo Ortiz-Juarez of King’s College London and Chris Hoy of Australian National University, is co-author of a report published in the U.N. University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) earlier this month, which estimates COVID-19’s impact on poverty could push anywhere between 85 million people (at the very least) to 580 million globally into poverty.

Sumner told IPS that the resultant global lockdowns were impacting the economies of developing nations in a big way.

“For developing countries, this is the primary economic shock channel. Given the age structure of developing countries it could be the economic channel is more significant than the health channel. It’s difficult to say at the moment,” Sumner told IPS.

These views were echoed by the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) yesterday, Apr. 21, as it called for swift action to alleviate the impacts of the lockdown. WFP’s Senior Economist, Arif Husain said in a statement, “COVID-19 is potentially catastrophic for millions who are already hanging by a thread. It is a hammer blow for millions more who can only eat if they earn a wage. Lockdowns and global economic recession have already decimated their nest eggs. It only takes one more shock – like COVID-19 – to push them over the edge. We must collectively act now to mitigate the impact of this global catastrophe.”

Meanwhile, the  report further claims “the greatest impact will be in sub-Saharan Africa  where up to half of the new poor will live”. Sumner said that’s because any country that has a lot of people living just above the poverty line remains vulnerable to a poverty spike from an economic slowdown.

Excerpts of the interview follow. Some of the answers have been paraphrased for clarity purposes. 

Inter Press Service (IPS): Your report states that the number of people living in poverty in the world could increase by between 85–135 million in the event of a 5 percent contraction, between 420–580 million people under a per capita income or consumption contraction of 20 percent. Does this mean that COVID-19’s impact on poverty is a range?

Andy Sumner (AS): Yes, potentially. However, it depends on a set of factors.

First, we have a set of consumption contractions applied to all countries. We do not know which of our three scenarios is closest to the final version, and consumption changes may differ across countries. Furthermore, we are assuming that such contractions are distribution-neutral.

Secondly, we should not forget that there are other transmission channels from the pandemic to poverty beyond changes in consumption.

Thirdly, there are other types of poverty that we are not measuring, such as deprivations in health itself that cannot be captured in consumption losses.

Finally, many governments in developing countries have already introduced or adapted social protection and jobs programmes. Thus, to some extent the full impacts might be mitigated, we hope.

IPS: You mentioned in the report that this could have a negative effect on the U.N. Sustainable Development Goal of ending poverty by 2030 – can you elaborate why/how this will be?

AS: The SDGs aim to end global poverty in all its forms and leave no one behind. If COVID-19 adds 500 million more people in poverty, that’ll mean the SDGs are under threat even more than before COVID.

IPS: What steps can countries and local leaders take to avoid this consequence of further poverty?

AS: In the immediate term, there is an overwhelming need for the full range of safety nets and social protection to be initiated, expanded, and multiplied in all developing countries as soon as possible.

This looks like it is happening already to some extent and many countries already have programmes that just need expanding and better funding.

In the longer term, questions might emerge about how to provide basic healthcare for all as part of the SDG package and how that is to be financed. That debate seems to have dropped off the radar before COVID. Maybe COVID-19 will bring it back in from the cold.

IPS: What do you believe still remains unanswered about the situation?

AS: One important question is: will there ever be a vaccine especially so if there is no guarantee of immunity from COVID-19 even with infection. Then we need to ask, will everyone have access to the vaccine and will it be 100 percent effective. Or will we end up living in a new apartheid of COVID-19 between the vaccinated and non-vaccinated living in separate areas and working in different labour markets?

This also looks like a long crisis — with multiple waves. A best case scenario and vaccine in two years time would take five to 10 years to vaccinate everyone in the world possibly. So it looks like living with COVID-19 restrictions might be our new normal.

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The post Q&A: Continued Social Distancing and Hundreds of Millions More in Poverty – A New Normal for the World? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Kristalina Georgieva is the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)

By Kristalina Georgieva
WASHINGTON DC, Apr 22 2020 (IPS)

I have been saying for a while that this is a ‘crisis like no other.’ It is:

• More complex, with interlinked shocks to our health and our economies that have brought our way of life to an-almost complete stop;
• More uncertain, as we are learning only gradually how to treat the novel virus, make containment most effective, and restart our economies; and
• Truly global. Pandemics don’t respect borders, neither do the economic shocks they cause.

Credit: IMF

The outlook is dire. We expect global economic activity to decline on a scale we have not seen since the Great Depression.

This year 170 countries will see income per capita go down – only months ago we were projecting 160 economies to register positive per capita income growth.

Actions taken

Exceptional times call for exceptional action. In many ways, there has been a ‘response like no other’ from the IMF’s membership.

Governments all over the world have taken unprecedented action to fight the pandemic—to save lives, to protect their societies and economies. Fiscal measures so far have amounted to about $8 trillion and central banks have undertaken massive (in some cases, unlimited) liquidity injections.

For our part, the IMF has $1 trillion lending capacity – 4 times more than at the outset of the Global Financial Crisis—at the service of its 189 member countries. Recognizing the characteristics of this crisis—global and fast-moving such that early action is far more valuable and impactful—we have sought to maximize our capacity to provide financial resources quickly, especially for low-income members.

In this regard, we have strengthened our arsenal and taken exceptional measures in just these two months.

These actions include:
• Doubling the IMF’s emergency, rapid-disbursing capacity to meet expected demand of about $100 billion. 103 countries have approached us for emergency financing, and our Executive Board will have considered about half of these requests by the end of the month.
• Reforming our Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust, to help 29 of our poorest and most vulnerable members—of which 23 are in Africa—through rapid debt service relief, and we are working with donors to increase our debt relief resources by $1.4 billion. Thanks to the generosity of the UK, Japan, Germany, the Netherlands, Singapore, and China, we are able to provide immediate relief to our poorest members.
• Aiming to triple our concessional funding via our Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust for the most vulnerable countries. We are seeking $17 billion in new loan resources and, in this respect, I am heartened by pledges from Japan, France, UK, Canada, and Australia promising commitments totaling $11.7 billion, taking us to about 70 percent of the resources needed towards this goal.
• Supporting a suspension of official bilateral debt repayments for the poorest countries through end 2020—a ground-breaking accord among G20 countries. This is worth about $12 billion to nations most in need. And calling for private sector creditors to participate on comparable terms—which could add a further $8 billion of relief.
• Establishing a new short-term liquidity line that can help countries strengthen economic stability and confidence.

Kristalina Georgieva

This is the package of actions that the International Monetary and Financial Committee endorsed last week at our virtual Spring Meetings.

It represents a powerful policy response. Above all, it enables the IMF to get immediate, ‘here and now’ support to countries and people in desperate need. Today.

Preventing a protracted recession

But there is much more to be done and now is the time to look ahead. To quote a great Canadian, Wayne Gretzky: “Skate to where the puck is going, not where it has been.”

We need to think hard about where this crisis is headed and how we can be ready to help our member countries, being mindful of both risks and opportunities. Just as we responded strongly in the initial phase of the crisis to avoid lasting scars for the global economy, we will be relentless in our efforts to avoid a painful, protracted recession.

I am particularly concerned about emerging markets and developing countries.

They have experienced the sharpest portfolio flow reversal on record, of about $100 billion. Those dependent on commodities have been further shocked by plummeting export prices. Tourism-dependent countries are experiencing a collapse of revenues, as are those relying on remittances for income support.

For emerging economies, the IMF can engage through our regular lending instruments, including those of a precautionary nature. This may require considerable resources if further market pressures arise.

To prevent them from spreading, we stand ready to deploy our full lending capacity and to mobilize all layers of the global financial safety net, including whether the use of SDRs could be more helpful.

For our poorest members, we need much more concessional financing. With the peak of the outbreak still ahead, many economies will require significant fiscal outlays to tackle the health crisis and minimize bankruptcies and job losses, while facing mounting external financing needs.

But more lending may not always be the best solution for every country. The crisis is adding to high debt burdens and many could find themselves on an unsustainable path.

We therefore need to contemplate new approaches, working closely with other international institutions, as well as the private sector, to help countries steer through this crisis and emerge more resilient.

And the IMF, like our member countries, may need to venture even further outside our comfort zone to consider whether exceptional measures might be needed in this exceptional crisis.

Preparing for recovery

To help lay the foundations for a strong recovery, our policy advice will need to adapt to evolving realities. We need to have a better understanding of the specific challenges, risks and tradeoffs facing every country as they gradually restart their economies.

Key questions include how long to maintain the extraordinary stimulus and unconventional policy measures, and how to unwind them; dealing with high unemployment and ‘lower-for-longer’ interest rates; preserving financial stability; and, where needed, facilitating sectoral adjustment and private sector debt workouts.

We also must not forget about long-standing challenges that require a collective response, such as reigniting trade as an engine for growth; sharing the benefits of fintech and digital transformation which have demonstrated their usefulness during this crisis; and combating climate change—where stimulus to reinforce the recovery could also be guided to advance a green and climate resilient economy.

Finally, in the new post-COVID-19 world, we simply cannot take social cohesion for granted. So, we must support countries’ efforts in calibrating their social policies to reduce inequality, protect vulnerable people, and promote access to opportunities for all.

This is a moment that tests our humanity. It must be met with solidarity.

There is much uncertainty about the shape of our future. But we can also embrace this crisis as an opportunity—to craft a different and better future together.

 

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The post A Global Crisis Like No Other Needs a Global Response Like No Other appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Kristalina Georgieva is the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)

The post A Global Crisis Like No Other Needs a Global Response Like No Other appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Considered essential to the U.S. economy, as Donald Trump himself now acknowledges, Mexico's seasonal farmworkers are exposed to the coronavirus pandemic as they work in U.S. fields, which exacerbates violations of their rights, such as wage theft, fraud, and other abuses. CREDIT: Courtesy of MHP Salud

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Apr 21 2020 (IPS)

As the high season for agricultural labour in the United States approaches, tens of thousands of migrant workers from Mexico are getting ready to head to the fields in their northern neighbour to carry out the work that ensures that food makes it to people’s tables.

But the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic, of which the U.S. has become the world’s largest source of infection, threatens to worsen the already precarious conditions in which these workers plant, harvest, process and move fruits and vegetables in the U.S.

Exposed to illegal charges for visa, transport and accommodation costs, labour exploitation, lack of access to basic services and unhealthy housing, Mexican seasonal workers driven from their homes by poverty must also now brave the risk of contagion.

Evy Peña, director of communications and development at the non-governmental Centro de los Derechos del Migrante (Migrant Rights Centre – CDM), told IPS from the city of Monterrey that the COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating violations of the rights of migrant workers.

“Temporary visa programmes are rife with abuse, from the moment workers are recruited in their communities. They suffer fraud, they are offered jobs that don’t even exist in the United States. It’s a perverse system in which recruiters and employers have all the control. There are systemic flaws that will become more evident now,” the activist said.

In 1943, the United States created H2 visas for unskilled foreign workers, and in the 1980s it established H-2A categories for farm workers and H-2B categories for other work, such as landscaping, construction and hotel staff.

In 2019, Washington, which had already declared them “essential” to the economy, granted 191,171 H-2A and 73,557 H-2B visas to Mexican workers, and by January and February of this year had issued 27, 058 and 6,238, respectively.

Two emergencies converge

Now, the two countries are negotiating to send thousands of farmworkers within or outside of the H2 programme, starting this month, to ensure this year’s harvest in the U.S. The Mexican government has polled experts to determine the viability of the plan, IPS learned.

The migrant workers would come from Michoacan, Oaxaca, Zacatecas and the border states. The plan would put leftist President Andres Manuel López Obrador in good standing with his right-wing counterpart, Donald Trump; generate employment for rural workers in the midst of an economic crisis; and boost remittances to rural areas.

For his part, Trump, forced by a greater need for rural workers in the face of the pandemic and under pressure from agriculture, abandoned his anti-immigrant policy and on Apr. 1 even issued a call for the arrival of Mexican migrant workers.

“We want them to come in,” he said. “They’ve been there for years and years, and I’ve given the commitment to the farmers: They’re going to continue to come.”

U.S. authorities can extend H-2A visas for up to one year and the maximum period of stay is three years. After that, the holder must remain outside U.S. territory for at least three months to qualify for re-entry with the same permit.

On Apr. 15, Washington announced temporary changes allowing workers to switch employers and to stay longer than three years.

A Mexican migrant worker works at a vineyard in California, one of the U.S. states most dependent on seasonal labour from Mexico in agriculture, and which has now urged President Donald Trump to facilitate the arrival of guest workers from that country so crops are not lost. CREDIT: Kau Sirenio/En el Camino

The most numerous jobs are in fruit harvesting, general agricultural work such as planting and harvesting, and on tobacco plantations, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Migrant workers traditionally come from Mexican agricultural and border states and their main destinations are agricultural areas where there is a temporary or permanent shortage of labourers.

Jeremy McLean, policy and advocacy manager for the New York-based non-governmental organisation Justice in Motion, expressed concern about the conditions in which migrants work.

The way the system works, “it’s not going to be easy to follow recommendations for social distancing. Hundreds of thousands of people are going to come and won’t be able to follow these recommendations, and they will put themselves at risk. It could spell another wave of infection and transmission,” he warned IPS.

“This population group has no health services and no medical insurance. If they fall ill in a remote area, what help can they get?” he said from New York.

On Mar. 26, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico reported that it would process without a personal interview the applications of those whose visas had expired in the previous two years or who had not received them in that time, under pressure from U.S. agribusiness.

Trapped with no way out

The migrant workers’ odyssey begins in Mexico, where they are recruited by individual contractors – workers or former workers of a U.S. employer, fellow workers, relatives or friends, in their hometowns – or by private U.S. agencies.

Although article 28 of Mexico’s Federal Labour Law, in force since 1970 and overhauled in 2019, regulates the provision of services by workers hired within Mexico for work abroad, it is not enforced.

It requires that contracts be registered with the labour authorities and that a bond be deposited to guarantee compliance. It also holds the foreign contractor responsible for the costs of transport, repatriation, food for the worker and immigration, as well as the payment of full wages, compensation for occupational hazards and access to adequate housing.

In addition, it states that Mexican workers are entitled to social security benefits for foreigners in the country where they are offering their services.

Although the Mexican government could enforce article 28 of the law in order to safeguard the rights of migrant workers who enter and leave the United States under the visa programme, it has failed to do so.

In its recent report “Ripe for Reform: Abuse of Agricultural Workers in the H-2A Visa Program”, the bi-national CDM organisation reveals that migrant workers experience wage theft, health and safety violations, discrimination, and harassment as part of a human trafficking system.

Recruitment without oversight

For Mayela Blanco, a researcher at the non-governmental Centre for Studies in International Cooperation and Public Management, the problem is the lack of monitoring or inspections of recruiters and agencies.

“In Mexico there are still many gaps in the mechanisms for monitoring and inspecting recruitment. There is still fraud,” she told IPS. “How often do they inspect? How do they guarantee that things are working the way they’re supposed to?”

There are 433 registered placement agencies in the country, distributed in different states, according to data from the National Employment Service. For the transfer of labour abroad, there are nine – a small number considering the tens of thousands of visas issued in 2019.

For its part, the U.S. Department of Labor reports 239 licenced recruiters in that nation working for a handful of U.S. companies.

Data obtained by IPS indicates that Mexico’s Ministry of Labour only conducted 91 inspections in nine states from 2009 to 2019 and imposed 12 fines for a total of around 153,000 dollars. Some states with high levels of migrant workers were never visited by inspectors.

Furthermore, the records of the federal labour board do not contain any reports of violations of article 28.

Mexico is a party to the Fee-Charging Employment Agencies Convention 96 of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), which it violates due to non-compliance with the rights of temporary workers.

Peña stressed that there is still a gap between the U.S. and Mexico in labour protection and said workers are being left behind because of that gap.

“Countries like Mexico see temporary visas as a solution to labour migration and allow the exploitation of their citizens. The H2 programme is about labour migration and governments forget that bilateral solutions are needed,” she said.

In response to the pandemic and its risks, 37 organisations called on the U.S. government on Mar. 25 for adequate housing with quarantine facilities, safe transportation, testing for workers before they arrive in the United States, physical distancing on farms and paid treatment for those infected with COVID-19.

Blanco emphasised the lack of justice and reparation mechanisms. “The more visas issued, the greater the need for oversight. Mexico is perceived as a country of return or transit of migrants, but it should be recognised as a place of origin of temporary workers. And that is why it must comply with international labour laws,” she said.

McLean raised the need for a new U.S. law to guarantee the rights of migrant workers, who are essential to the economy, as underscored by the demand reinforced by the impact of COVID-19.

“We pushed for a law to cover all temporary visa programmes so that there would be more information, to avoid fraud and wage theft. But it is very difficult to get a commitment to immigration dialogue in the United States today,” he said.

But the ordeal that migrant workers face will not end with their work in the U.S. fields, because in October they will have to return to their hometowns, which will be even more impoverished due to the consequences of the health crisis, and with COVID-19 in all likelihood still posing a threat.

Related Articles

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

By Mandeep Tiwana
NEW YORK, Apr 21 2020 (IPS-Partners)

In her book, ‘A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,’ Mary Ann Glendon tells the beautiful story of how out of the ashes of the Second World War emerged the world’s pre-eminent rights framework. The Declaration recognises the inherent dignity of every human being and was born out of the shared horror felt by the international community with war crimes and genocide on an unprecedented scale. It acknowledged that fundamental change was needed to make the world fit for future generations.

Mandeep Tiwana

Today, the COVID-19 pandemic is disrupting our lives and livelihoods in wholly unanticipated ways, testing the resilience of our social, economic and political structures. Fundamental problems in our economies and societies stand exposed and accelerated. A global recovery effort will be needed. But it must do more than just paper over cracks. Business as usual approaches won’t work. In the current scenario, we at CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance, believe that resolute action on five key areas is crucial.

First, we need to rethink how our economies are structured. The response to the pandemic has created huge economic shocks. It is estimated that cutbacks have amounted to the loss of about 195 million jobs over the first three months alone. People are experiencing lay-offs and pay cuts on a monumental scale. Small businesses built through a lifetime of striving and saving are facing ruin. Street vendors and others who work in the informal sector are facing deprivation and even starvation. Many will face ruinous healthcare bills. All of this adds to the immeasurable human cost of losing precious lives. The pandemic has already exposed the fragilities and inequities in our economies. Those who are presently performing the most essential jobs to keep our societies running are often the least rewarded. It’s estimated that half a billion people could be pushed into poverty by the impacts of COVID-19. With over 90 countries seeking assistance from the International Monetary Fund, the present economic lockdown is being characterised as the worst economic crisis in nearly a century.

To navigate a new normal, our economies will need to change in fundamental ways as too many people are adrift. Solidarity and mutual accommodation between workers and employers, property owners and tenants, and creditors and debtors, will be key. An egalitarian economic model that protects the weakest and creates stability through redistribution of resources would be a wise choice for decision makers. Now is the time to reinforce public control over essential services such as health, test new models such as a universal basic income and try out progressive modes of taxation to create fairer societies.

Second, the needs of the most excluded should be placed front and centre. Daily wage labourers, informal workers and migrants, who are often the most impoverished, are bearing the brunt of the present crisis. Their living conditions make physical distancing and access to proper sanitation particularly difficult. Xenophobia, denial of access to basic services and repression by law enforcement agencies against excluded groups has been compounded in the current scenario. Risks of abuse have multiplied as violence against women has spiked during lockdowns. In several places, the pandemic has reinforced racism and discrimination against disadvantaged religious and ethnic minorities. Some LGBTQI+ people have been targeted by misinformation accusing them of spreading the virus. The elderly and those with compromised immune systems who don’t have access to adequate nutrition and health care are extremely vulnerable to the ravages of the virus.

A key aspect of reconstruction efforts post COVID-19 should focus on adopting a human rights approach that seeks to reach the most disadvantaged first. Decision makers should make wise and humane choices that enhance well-being through spending on social security nets rather than military infrastructures and repressive state apparatuses. A key aspect of reconstruction efforts post-COVID should be to dismantle systems that perpetuate cycles of poverty and exclusion, and adequately compensate the most affected.

Third, the spotlight needs to be on climate justice and safeguarding biodiversity. Lockdowns have drastically lowered pollution levels and made air breathable in several major cities. Social media is replete with pictures of mountain vistas previously hidden due to pollution, and of endangered animals emboldened to walk the empty streets of shuttered towns. In every corner of the world, the reality of environmental degradation is visible – along with the possibility of reversal. The pandemic has provided the impetus to question our patterns of conspicuous consumption while also exposing the jarring environmental impacts of contemporary ways of life. Just last year wildfires and flooding devasted large swathes of the planet from the Amazon to Australia, causing immeasurable suffering and loss of biodiversity.

The healing of nature that we’ve started to see from people staying home should be encouraged and become the post-pandemic new normal.Indigenous communities around the world have long lived in greater harmony with nature. Decision makers can learn from their ways of life by prescribing practices that allow for regeneration of natural resources and focus on sustainable means of production and consumption. Earnest implementation of the Paris Agreement on climate action to limit our emissions of greenhouse gases and control rises in temperatures can set us on a better path.

Fourth, international cooperation is crucial. The pandemic has laid bare the artificial nature of our borders and accentuated the need for cooperation – rather than competition – between countries. Nonetheless, a few political leaders have taken recourse in self-serving insular modes of nationalism. The spread of COVID-19 has shown that sharing information, technology and resources can make a huge difference in saving lives and lessening negative impacts. The importance of multilateral institutions, especially the United Nations, which turns 75 this year, in understanding the extent of the crisis and devising responses appropriate to the scale of the pandemic cannot be overstated. Governments around the world have turned to multilateral institutions for leadership and support in the fight against the virus. COVID-19 has shown us that we need stronger international cooperation and unified actions across borders. The UN Secretary General’s call for a global ceasefire is significantin this respect.

Responses to the pandemic must therefore safeguard the independence of international institutions, including the World Health Organisation, from the narrow geo-political interests of powerful states and the profit driven impulses of mega businesses. This will surely not be the last global crisis. Investments by states in well-resourced international institutions able to respond rapidly to future emergencies is crucial. Payment of dues on time to the UN would be a good first step.

Fifth, civic freedoms and unfettered civil societies are needed now more than ever. Political leaders are making life-or-death decisions and choices that could define the fate of generations. The need to access credible information, shape decisions and hold decision makers to account has never been more acute. This is a hard task, even in normal circumstances, when only three per cent of the world’s population live in countries where the civic freedoms of association, peaceful assembly and expression are adequately protected. Constraints on civil society freedoms have been further exacerbated through declarations of emergency in over 70 countries.

In many parts of the world, delays in election processes, censorship and restrictions on press freedom in relation to COVID-19 have made it harder for people and civil society organisations to articulate their needs and question the official response to the pandemic. Limits on freedom of movement and assembly have proliferated, disrupting public protests claiming rights and demanding justice. Law enforcement agencies have been given enhanced coercive powers, which although temporary in nature might linger.

One thing is clear: as often happens in crises, civil society organisations around the world have come forward, providing food, health care and other essential services to those in need. They have demonstrated leadership in stepping up protections for their workers and are actively contributing innovative ideas and policy solutions to pandemic responses. In the present scenario, public safety concerns should be balanced by a rights-based approach. All emergency measures should stand the test of proportionality and necessity in a democratic society, in line with international law and the principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Emergency measures should be withdrawn as soon as normalcy returns.

The post-Second World War experience has shown that crisis moments can be important turning points. COVID-19 has exposed deep fault-lines in our current way of living. Course correction through a revamped societal contract is urgently needed. The road less travelled might lead us to something beautiful.

The post Reimagining a Post COVID World: Key Principles for the Future appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

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

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Credit: Samuel Otieno/UNHCR

By External Source
IBADAN, NIGERIA, Apr 21 2020 (IPS)

Since the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic late last year in Wuhan, China, the global community has witnessed unprecedented policy responses to curtail, contain and control the disease. Many have proven to be successful. But others required critical context consideration.

For instance, the lockdown in Nigeria risks threatening the livelihoods of millions of people who are dependent on the informal market for their survival. Another example is the fact that the security measures being imposed are extracting a heavy price from ordinary citizens.

The situation is a learning curve for all countries.

The responses at national level have included policy measures consistent with recommended social and hygienic practices.

These have ranged from staying at home and regular washing of hands or use of sanitiser to social and physical distancing, wearing of protective masks and kits, limiting the number of people in public gatherings, restriction of human and vehicular movement or curfews or travel bans, and total or partial lockdown.

I think it is imperative that poor countries do not simply cut-and-paste interventions being imposed in rich countries. The specific differences between rich and poor countries should be taken on board

There have also been broad policy responses to help economies manage their way through the crisis.

Some policy responses have proven to be effective in some cases. But what’s become clear is that policy responses cannot be a one-size-fits-all. That is, the local realities of each country in terms of financial, social, cultural and environmental contexts should be considered.

Based on my academic work on public policy and sustainable development, I think it is imperative that poor countries do not simply cut-and-paste interventions being imposed in rich countries. The specific differences between rich and poor countries should be taken on board.

I have therefore identified six areas that countries in Africa would do well to focus on. The list comes from my experience of working with administrations seeking to meet development goals ranging from social inclusion to economic sustainability.

 

Six key areas to focus on

The first need is for proper data and information management. These play a critical role, right from the identification of the first case to tracing contacts, provision of medical care infrastructure and caring for infected and affected populations. Countries that have data about their residents, like the United Kingdom, are able to target the measures they put in place. Countries that don’t have data about their populations, like many in Africa, are unable to focus their responses.

Secondly, developing countries must avoid simply copying the policy responses of rich countries. Countries have different resources. It would be unrealistic to contain and control the COVID-19 pandemic in a uniform way. There is a need to reconsider and rejig the current policy responses by countries to suit their local contexts.

Home-grown initiatives – like support for households and livelihoods – would offer sufficient conditions for effective disease control and management. For example, Ghana and Rwanda have home-grown school feeding and health insurance programmes that have worked. These could be used to ensure national coverage of social inclusion and social protection during this period.

Thirdly, local resources should be used while soliciting greater partnership. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the strength and weaknesses of both rich and poor countries. It has also shown opportunity for partnership for sustainable development. This includes monetary and material support from rich countries to help manage the disease.

The socio-economic foundations of most countries have been shaken, while resilience-building capacity – the ability to rebound and recover – has become the defining character for the survival of countries. For instance, the fall in the price of crude oil has affected the annual budget of many oil-producing countries, including Nigeria. Such countries will need to re-strategise on economic diversification of the revenue base.

The fourth need is to strengthen institutions and build human capacity for disaster and risk management. Having the right institutions in place – such as a national disaster and risk management commission, inter-ministerial capability and the right skill-sets – have also been effective in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Poor countries have a lot to learn on this front.

Fifthly, citizens are at the mercy of government when there is an emergency like this pandemic. Trust can only be assured when the right leadership is in place. The important factors are respect for human life, and responsive and responsible institutions.

Lastly, all countries need a recovery and sustainability plan. COVID-19 is not the first pandemic to happen in the world. Each century has witnessed different pandemics, often resulting in global economic recessions. What is important, therefore, is to plan for recovery. Countries will emerge from the current pandemic in different economic conditions. Those that have robust economic recovery plans will recover faster and rebuild better.

 

Olawale Emmanuel Olayide, Research Fellow and Coordinator, Centre for Sustainable Development, University of Ibadan, University of Ibadan

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

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Credit: Human Rights Center, University of Dayton, Ohio

By Sam Ben-Meir
NEW YORK, Apr 21 2020 (IPS)

Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 film The Seventh Seal is set in medieval Sweden, as the bubonic plague ravages the countryside. In one famous scene, a procession of zombie-like flagellants enters a village and interrupts a comic stage-show.

The townspeople are present to hear the procession’s leader, a bombastic preacher who proclaims that death is coming for them all: they are full of sin – lustful and gluttonous – and the plague is God’s punishment for their wicked ways.

That scene is not without historical merit: the flagellants were indeed a very real phenomenon, and with the plague, the movement grew and spread throughout Europe.

For most of us, public self-mutilation and penance is a particularly extreme and repulsive form of religious fanaticism. But in the West, we still have ways of lashing ourselves, and each other, in the face of plague, pestilence and the terror they sow; and pandemics still invariably prompt a religious explanation.

During the AIDS epidemic, we were told that God was punishing homosexuals and illicit drug users. In 1992, 36 percent of Americans admitted that AIDS might be God’s punishment for sexual immorality.

The interesting question is: What is the temptation to view a catastrophe like the plague as divine punishment as opposed to a brute fact of nature?

Surely at least one reason we are tempted to do so is because, if it is heavenly retribution, then the hardship still has some meaning; we still live in a world with an underlying moral structure.

Indeed, to many, the idea that such a great calamity is nothing more than a brute act of nature is far more painful to contemplate than an account by which God cares enough about us to punish us.

In case you think the coronavirus is any different, it is not. On March 8, 2020, the Times of Israel reported that Rabbi Meir Mazuz “claimed the spread of the deadly coronavirus in Israel and around the world is divine retribution for gay pride parades.”

By some ironic twist, the rabbi is basically in agreement with Rick Wiles, a Florida pastor who said the spread of coronavirus in synagogues is a punishment of the Jewish people.

The Jerusalem Post quotes Wiles as saying, “It’s spreading in Israel through the synagogues. God is spreading it in your synagogues! You are under judgment because you oppose his son, Jesus Christ. That is why you have a plague in your synagogues. Repent and believe on the name of Jesus Christ, and the plague will stop.”

The temptation to view catastrophes as divine punishment is nothing to scoff or smirk at: it is entirely legitimate to want to construct a narrative out of what has occurred – to find a pattern, to derive some meaning that redeems the suffering, hardship and death.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres appeals for a global ceasefire in a virtual press conference broadcast on UN Web TV last month. Credit: UN News/Daniel Dickinson

What is unfortunate is the tendency to point to some perceived wickedness of which others are purportedly guilty as the justification for God’s wrath.

Both the rabbi and the pastor are the same: both talk like Job’s notorious companions, those so-called friends of the unfortunate and innocent Job, who insist that he must be guilty, that he must have sinned for God to assail him with such fury.

Of course, at the end of the poem, God tells the companions that they were wrong: Job was right – his suffering was not punishment for any sin he had committed. Indeed, the Bible teaches that God often sees fit to test precisely those that are good and righteous. Sadly, the pastor and rabbi entirely disregard that biblical lesson.

If a pandemic is divine punishment, then in a sense we can be at peace – inasmuch as we have provided the scourge with a theodicy, that is, a justification of God’s ways to man.

Whenever we are faced with human tragedy, we cannot but question how an omnibenevolent and omnipotent deity would permit so much suffering to occur. A plague sharpens the concerns that lie at the heart of the theological problem of evil – the problem of reconciling a loving God with the reality and ubiquity of human and animal suffering.

Thankfully, most religious leaders are unwilling to cast the burden of guilt on any particular group of which they may disapprove. Instead, they take a page from Job and underscore the impenetrable mystery of suffering – taking their inspiration perhaps from God’s speech to Job from out of the whirlwind, where He begins with one of the famous queries of the Bible: “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations?”

And He continues with withering sarcasm, “Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!” In short, do not attempt to sound the depths of God’s inscrutable purpose.

For every pandemic there is a theology; by their nature, they call forth notions of guilt, sin and responsibility. It is almost as if we cannot but view them through theological categories.

Each pandemic begins with a kind of “fall,” or original sin, which we attempt to retrace with our search for “patient zero,” the individual representing the source of the calamity, the one who kicked us out of paradise as it were.

The writers of the 2011 film “Contagion” clearly had as much in mind when they decided that their story’s patient zero (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) should also be an adulteress.

A pandemic also highlights an inescapable function of all significant human action – namely, that our actions always outrun our intentions. Everything we do has consequences that we never anticipated, wanted or even imagined.

We like to think that we are not responsible for everything our actions may cause – but the reality is that we cannot dodge or entirely relinquish our responsibility even for those things we never intended.

Perhaps like nothing else, a pandemic reveals the burden of human action, our infinite liability; indeed, our indeclinable responsibility.

There is a theology accompanying every plague because there is a very human need to make sense of such colossal suffering. That theology may take the form of a conspiracy theory, but it is a theology all the same.

One example is the persistent speculation that the coronavirus originated in some kind of bio-weapons laboratory in Wuhan, China. This explanation, regardless of its lack of evidentiary merit, is a temptation because it offers us a story, which is but a secularized version of the fall.

The essential features are there: to say that human beings deliberately created the virus is to say that this pandemic is the result of human transgression; that human hubris introduced this uncontrollable element that upset the order of things.

The current pandemic has left fear and death, loneliness and stagnation in its wake. We must start asking ourselves what it has all been for.

Eventually, this great tide of suffering will ebb, life will resume, the economy will reopen and pick up steam, and the coronavirus will slowly fade from our immediate view – at that point, when we think of all those many tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands who died, alone, what will we be able to point to as their legacy? What did they die for?
Undoubtedly many will say only that their deaths were unfortunate – all we can do to honor their sacrifice is return to life as it was, prosper and grow the economy at two percent annually. If we allow that to happen, then we will have failed, completely and utterly.

If we do not seize this crisis as a moment for transformation, then we will have lost the war. If doing so requires reviving notions of collective guilt and responsibility – including the admittedly uncomfortable view that every one of us is infinitely responsible, then so be it; as long we do not morally cop out by blaming some group as the true bearers of sin, guilt, and God’s heavy judgment.

A pandemic clarifies the nature of action: that with our every act we answer to each other. In that light, we have a duty to seize this public crisis as an opportunity to reframe our mutual responsibility to one another and the world.

The post The Theology of Pandemics appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Sam Ben-Meir is a professor of philosophy and world religions at Mercy College in New York City.

The post The Theology of Pandemics appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Apr 21 2020 (IPS)

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro appointed medical entrepreneur Nelson Teich his new health minister on 17 April. The businessman quickly echoed his boss’ desire to resume business as usual regardless of its potentially lethal consequences.

Bolsonaro had fired his previous health minister, displeased by Luiz Henrique Mandetta’s public remarks on the need for lockdowns and physical distancing. Mandetta’s firing was met with outrage across Brazil. Locked-down citizens banged pots and pans, shouting “Bolsonaro Murder”.

Anis Chowdhury

In his final briefing as minister, Mandetta urged staff to challenge “denialism” and mount an “unyielding defence of life and science”. “Don’t be afraid”, he said, “Science is light … and it is through science that we will find a way out of this.”

Covid-19 apocalypse
Meanwhile, Brazil has begun digging large graveyards ahead of an anticipated peak of the national Covid-19 epidemic. In Sao Paulo’s Vila Formosa cemetery, the largest in Latin America, about 20 excavators are digging graves around the clock.

In an impassioned interview, popular former President Lula da Silva accused Bolsonaro of leading Brazilians “to the slaughterhouse” with his irresponsible handling of the crisis. Officially confirmed cases have soared to over 38,000, with close to 2,500 deaths as of April 19.

But these figures likely understate the gravity of the situation as Brazil’s states have no standardized testing method, and mainly test those hospitalized. A Brazilian research group estimates actual infections at 15 times the official number. Lula’s successor, Dilma Rousseff has asked: “Why is there no testing? What are they trying to conceal?”

Another study projects that without any action to stem the pandemic, Brazil could face more than 1.15 million deaths, and 529779 with only ‘enhanced social distancing’ for the elderly over 70. Even with extreme lockdown measures and widespread testing, the death toll would still be 44,200 due to late action.

Bolsonaro vs state governors
Despite the life-threatening risks, Bolsonaro has compared the C-19 threat to a “little flu” or “cold”, dismissing it as a media-hyped “fantasy”. He has dismissed preventive measures as “hysterical” and has repeatedly demanded that state governors withdraw their social distancing orders.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

On March 24, Bolsonaro emulated US President Donald Trump, claiming “those under 40 rarely die of coronavirus and that even he, at 65, shouldn’t be worried because he was ‘an athlete’ in the past”. On April 8, Bolsonaro passed the buck, “Each family has to protect its elderly people, not to throw that responsibility to the state.”

Bolsonaro has disregarded social distancing recommendations, urging others to also defy them. At a pro-government rally he called on March 15, he shook hands with the crowd while supposed to be in quarantine after 24 people who had travelled with him to the United States had tested positive for the virus!

The Brazilian president has also lashed out at Brazil’s state governors, who have ordered shops and schools closed to slow the spread of the pandemic that threatens to overwhelm the health system in Latin America’s largest nation. Nevertheless, Brazil’s 27 state governors have defiantly maintained restrictions.

Sao Paulo has been the epicentre of the outbreak in Brazil. Without offering a shred of evidence, Bolsonaro accused the state of exaggerating its Covid-19 deaths. Its governor Joao Doria has accused Bolsonaro of unleashing an “uncontrolled attack” against him for his strict measures in the economically crucial industrial state.

Bolsonaro vs courts, congress
The President’s March 20 executive order, stripping states of authority to restrict people’s movements, was revoked by Brazil’s Supreme Court four days later.

On March 23, Bolsonaro issued a presidential order suspending deadlines for government agencies to respond to public information requests, including his policies to address the health emergency. Brazil’s Congress rejected the decree.

On March 27, a federal court suspended Bolsonaro’s presidential decree the previous day exempting churches and lottery houses from state and municipal health regulations by classifying them as essential services, also barring the federal government from over-ruling social distancing measures enacted by states.

On March 28, a federal judge ordered the federal government to stop a publicity campaign urging Brazilians to flout social distancing recommendations, initiated by the president’s own communications office and his son, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro.

On April 1, Bolsonaro posted a video claiming shortages of food and other essential products because of Minas Gerais state government measures, which his own agriculture minister later admitted was false.

Military is back
Meanwhile, the Brazilian elite is losing faith in Bolsonaro as his handling of the crisis threatens to call into question the entire status quo. In response, Bolsonaro has appointed his Chief of Staff Gen. Walter Braga Netto to head a new crisis committee.

Braga Netto was praised by Vice President Gen. Hamilton Mourão for “doing what we (the military) know, putting the house in order”, less than a week after Mourão celebrated the 1964 US-backed military coup that led to a 21-year military dictatorship, tweeting “56 years ago, the Armed Forces intervened to face the disorder, subversion and corruption that ravaged institutions and scared the population”.

Meanwhile, Army Commander Gen. Edson Leal Pujol issued a March 24 statement, warning: “The Strong Arm will act if necessary, and the Friendly Hand will be more extended than ever to our Brazilian brothers”, concluding “WE WILL FIGHT WITHOUT FEAR!”

It has been suggested that Braga Netto is now “operational president”, with Army support, at least for the duration of the Covid-19 crisis. On April 19, Bolsonaro joined demonstrations in Brasilia protesting coronavirus-related lockdowns, calling for a military coup outside Army headquarters!

The main objective of enhancing federal executive powers is expected to be preventing, and, if necessary, repressing an increasingly likely social explosion.

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