Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

By PRESS RELEASE
Apr 3 2020 (IPS-Partners)

The Education Cannot Wait Global Fund (ECW) allocates a total of US$15 million in an initial series of emergency grants for the rapid delivery of holistic education services to protect and support vulnerable children and youth hit by the COVID-19 pandemic in 16 countries/emergency contexts. These girls and boys are already impacted by armed conflicts, forced displacement, natural disasters and protracted crises. An additional series of grants to support the response in other crisis-affected countries will be released shortly and reach partners in-country in the coming days.

“1.5 billion children are out of school. The majority of the 31 million children uprooted from their homes today – including over 17 million internally displaced, 12.7 million refugees and 1.1 million asylum seekers – are at great risk,” said Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown, Chair of Education Cannot Wait’s High-level Steering Group and UN Special Envoy for Global Education. “Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of ‘the fierce urgency of now,’ and the crisis for these vulnerable children is right now and that is why ECW is making its full emergency reserves available immediately.”

This emergency allocation supports the United Nations coordinated $2 billion global humanitarian appeal launched on 25 March to fight COVID-19 in many of the world’s most vulnerable countries – already wracked by crises and now doubly-impacted by COVID-19.

As the pandemic continues to spread, upending entire countries and education systems worldwide, some 75 million children and youth – whose education was already disrupted due armed conflict, forced displacement, climate change-induced disasters and other crises – now find themselves in double jeopardy. Without the protection of a safe, equitable, inclusive quality education, they face increased risk of suffering the brunt of the pandemic, at higher risk of neglect, abuse, exploitation and violence, and of being even further left behind. Education is indeed be lifesaving for these vulnerable children and youth.

“The COVID-19 pandemic is a global health crisis upon an already existing global education crisis affecting 75 million children and youth, of whom 39 million are girls, in war-torn countries and forced displacement. They are at extreme risk in the face of this unprecedented pandemic. We need to double our efforts and act with decisive speed. In the face of such immense exposure, immediate action is not only essential – it is existential. They are the ones furthest left behind and the ones we need to reach first,” said Education Cannot Wait Director Yasmine Sherif. “We are releasing our entire emergency reserve in two batches to support governments, UN agencies and civil society to reach them. ECW’s emergency funding will be with them in just a few days.”

The series of ECW’s First Emergency Response grants is allocated to 30 UN agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations who are coordinating their efforts together with host-governments in-country through inter-agency humanitarian structures, such as the Education Cluster or the Education in Emergencies Working Group.

The duration of grants varies from 6 to 12 months. Activities ensure quality learning for the most vulnerable, in a safe, equitable, inclusive environment and through innovative and cost-effective responses in affected countries. Interventions are focusing on the following areas:

Emergency Education Measures: With the total disruption of the usual education systems in emergency-affected areas, grants are to support alternative delivery models, including informal education materials at the household level, as well as scaling up distance education programmes, particularly via interactive radio. Social emotional learning and psychosocial support are prominent components of the academic curriculum to be provided in these alternative delivery models.

Messaging and Support Around Risks: ECW grants are to support information campaigns and the scaling up of risk communications and community engagement with target populations. Messaging, tailored to local languages and contexts, are to give practical advice about how to stay safe, including through handwashing and social distancing. Refugees, displaced and marginalized people may also experience xenophobia and stigma, requiring mental health and psychosocial support. Parents and teachers are to receive COVID19-specific guidance to promote the resilience and the psychosocial wellbeing of children and youth at home.

Upgrading Water and Sanitation Facilities in Schools: This is to benefit both students and the wider community as handwashing is a first line of defense against COVID-19. Even when schools and learning facilities are officially closed, in many cases there is still access to these facilities, and they can serve as crucial hubs to increase access to handwashing and distribute hygiene materials and kits.

ECW’s First Emergency Funding (FER) window is specifically designed to support rapid, agile coordinated education responses in times of new sudden onset or escalating crises. It is uniquely designed to ensure education can play its crucial lifesaving and life-sustaining role for affected children and youth in emergency settings.

Due to the exceptional nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, ECW issued a simplified application process to fast-track applications from partners for this emergency, ensuring funds can urgently be disbursed to roll out activities on the ground.

ECW’s allocation of much needed emergency funding to address critical education needs as a result of COVID-19 leaves a $50 million funding shortfall that will affect the Fund’s ability to respond to other needs or emergencies in the immediate future. ECW calls on the private sector, foundations, governments and other donors to urgently make new donations to ECW to support these efforts.

With these new emergency funding grants, ECW has now allocated over $100 million through its First Emergency Response window since the Fund started its operations in 2017 – supporting rapid education responses in more than 30 crisis-affected countries.

To contribute to ECW’s emergency reserve, please contact Nasser Faqih (nfaqih@unicef.org) or Madge Thomas (mathomas@unicef.org).

Additional information on emergency grants per country/crisis:
• Afghanistan: Total of $1.25 million allocated. Grantees: UNICEF ($1.25 million)
• Bagnladesh: Total of $1.5 million allocated. Grantees: BRAC ($900,000), Save the Children ($600,000)
• Brazil: Total of $250,000 million allocated. Grantee: UNICEF ($250,000)
• Burkina Faso: Total of $1.5 million allocated. Grantees: EDUCO ($300,000), Plan International ($500,000), Save the Children ($250,000), UNICEF ($300,000), UNHCR ($150,000)
• Colombia: Total of $1 million allocated. Grantees: Save the Children ($1 million)
• Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC): Total of $1.5 million allocated. Grantees: AVSI ($340,000), Save the Children ($140,000), UNESCO ($520,000), War Child Canada ($500,000)
• Ethiopia: Total of $1million allocated. Grantees: Save the Children ($500,000), UNICEF ($500,000)
• Palestine: Total of $850,000 allocated. Grantees: Save the Children ($400,000), UNICEF ($450,000)
• Somalia – Federal Government of Somalia and Member States: Total of $800,000 allocated. Grantee: ADRA ($800,000)
• Somalia – Puntland: Total of $650,000 allocated. Grantee: Save the Children ($650,000)
• Somalia – Somaliland: Total of $700,000 allocated. Grantee: UNICEF ($700,000)
• Syria: Total of $500,000 allocated. Grantee: UNICEF ($500,000)
• Uganda: Total of $1 million allocated. Grantees: Save the Children ($525,000), UNHCR ($475,000)
• Venezuela: Total of $1 million allocated. Grantee: UNICEF ($1 million)
• Zimbabwe: Total of $500,000 allocated. Grantees: Plan International ($75,000), Save the Children ($175,000), UNICEF ($175,000), World Vision ($75,000)
• Regional Response for Palestine Refugees:Total of $1 million allocated. Grantee: UNRWA ($1 million)

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Notes to Editors:
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Information on the ECW Fund and its investment modalities are available at: www.educationcannotwait.org

About Education Cannot Wait (ECW)
ECW is the first global fund dedicated to education in emergencies. It was launched by international humanitarian and development aid actors, along with public and private donors, to address the urgent education needs of 75 million children & youth in conflict and crisis settings. ECW’s investment modalities are designed to usher in a more collaborative approach among actors on the ground, ensuring relief and development organizations join forces to achieve education outcomes. Education Cannot Wait is hosted by UNICEF. The Fund is administered under UNICEF’s financial, human resources and administrative rules and regulations, while operations are run by the Fund’s own independent governance structure.

Please follow on Twitter: @EduCannotWait @YasmineSherif1 @KentPage
Additional information available at: www.educationcannotwait.org

For press inquiries:
Anouk Desgroseilliers, adesgroseilliers@un-ecw.org, +1-917-640-6820
Kent Page, kpage@unicef.org, +1-917-302-1735

For other inquiries: info@un-ecw.org

The post The Fierce Urgency of Now – ECW Allocates $15M in Emergency Funds appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Yilmaz Akyüz and Richard Kozul-Wright
GENEVA, Apr 3 2020 (IPS)

We are greatly saddened by the passing of Martin Khor, a long-time friend and colleague, an undaunted fighter for the poor and underprivileged, a passionate believer in a more balanced and inclusive multilateralism, a rare intellectual and eloquent orator, an icon of the Global South worthy of veneration, greatly respected for his struggle for justice and fairness against the dominance and double-standards of big economic powers.   

Martin was born in 1951 in colonial Malaysia, still under British rule, to a family of journalists. After his primary and secondary education in Malaysia, he left for the UK in 1971 to study at the University of Cambridge, where he obtained his B.A Hons and M.A. in economics, before completing his second Masters in Social Sciences at the University of Science, Malaysia in 1978. 

Martin Khor

In his Master’s thesis, he grappled with the changing nature of external dependence and surplus extraction in Malaysia as it moved from colonial to post-colonial status, with a view to its implications for the scope and limits of industrialization and development; a study which left an indelible mark on his subsequent engagement and activities in a world characterised by increasingly asymmetric power relations.  

He started his professional career as an Administrative Officer at the Ministry of Finance, Singapore before joining the University of Science, Malaysia as lecturer in Economics in 1975.   

He became the Research Director of The Consumers’ Association of Penang in 1978, an independent non-profit international research and advocacy organization on issues related to development.

The Third World Network (TWN) was created in 1984 at an international Conference on “The Third World: Development and Crisis” organized by the Consumers’ Association of Penang.   In 1990, Martin became the Director of the TWN, perhaps the most important NGO from the developing world with operations globally, both in the North and the South, through offices, secretariats and researchers, including in Penang, Kuala Lumpur, Geneva, Beijing, Delhi, Jakarta, Manila, New York, Montevideo and Accra.  

Martin’s approach to advancing progressive solutions on all these fronts was always one of quiet determination driven by a passionate commitment to strengthening the voice of developing countries.

He had an envious ability to synthesise and explain complex negotiating issues to a broad audience and in a way that could bring on board activists and policy makers alike

Martin held both positions at the Consumers’ Association of Penang and the TWN until 2009 when he became the Executive Director of the South Centre in Geneva, an intergovernmental organization of developing countries established in 1995 to undertake research in various national and international development policy areas and provide advice and support to developing countries in a variety of international negotiating fora. 

Under his leadership, the South Centre became an important voice in discussions on international trade and investment, intellectual property, health, global macroeconomics, finance, sustainable development, and climate change.

During his tenure, the Centre extended significantly the scope and quality of its policy research and advice, building an enhanced reputation and level of trust among developing countries in the struggles to protect and promote their interests.   After leaving the South Centre in 2018, Martin returned to Penang, already suffering from cancer, and acted as Chairman of the Board of TWN until his death on April 1, 2020.

Martin was a staunch multilateralist but not an advocate of globalization, at least in the neo-liberal guise it acquired from the early 1980s.   On the one hand, he was well aware that individually developing countries could not obtain fair deals with major (and minor) developed countries in the international economic system. 

On the other hand, he knew that multilateral rules and practices were unbalanced, designed to subject developing countries to the discipline of unfettered international markets shaped by transnational corporations and self-seeking policies of dominant powers in the North, denying them the kind of policy space they themselves had enjoyed in the course of their industrialization.  His efforts focussed on reshaping multilateral rules and practices as a way to bring about systemic changes in the service of development.     

Martin did this on three fronts.  From the mid-1980s he focussed mainly on international trade issues, particularly those raised by negotiations during the Uruguay Round, and subsequently in the WTO and the proliferating free trade agreements and bilateral investment treaties that accompanied the shift to a neo-liberal international economic order.

Martin was instrumental in bringing the attention of policy makers and activists to the implications of new trade rules for the industrialization and development of the Global South arising from more demanding obligations on tariff and non-tariff measures, industrial subsidies, investment and intellectual property rights. 

He made several proposals for reform in these areas to remove imbalances and constraints over industrialization, and economic diversification more generally, in the Global South. He opposed free trade agreements with developed countries on the grounds that, by simultaneously curtailing the policy space available to governments while expanding the space for abusive practices by the large international firms that dominate international trade, they posed an even greater threat to development than the earlier generation of trade rules under the GATT.

In the aftermath of the Marrakech agreement, Martin was a prominent figure blocking efforts by OECD countries to push for a multilateral investment agreement, to extend the neo-liberal agenda at the first WTO ministerial in Singapore and subsequently at the third meeting in Seattle and to water down the Doha Development Agenda at the Cancun Ministerial in 2003.

The second front concerned the issues around the operations of the Bretton Woods Institutions, notably debt and development finance.  Martin had been a long-time critic of the Washington Consensus, and in particular, the use of policy conditionalities attached to lending by the IFIs which sought to push a series of damaging measures on developing countries in the name of efficiency, competitiveness and attracting foreign investors.

But he started to pay greater attention to these after the 1997 Asian financial crisis, arguing against austerity, advocating capital controls, orderly debt work-out mechanisms, multilateral discipline over exchange rates and financial policies of major advanced economies and global regulation and supervision of systemically important international financial firms.

He was a particularly strong advocate of these positions in his role as a member of the Helsinki Group on Globalisation and Democracy.  Martin took the helm of the South Centre just before the 2009 Global Financial Crisis hit and was quick to provide substantive assistance to developing countries during the 2009 UN Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development, identifying the key issues for them and working to ensure their insertion in the Outcome Document.

He continued to push hard on these issues through the research output from the Centre while adding the related areas of illicit financial flows and international tax issues to its workload as developing countries sought support on these matters.

The third, and increasingly prominent, front was climate change and sustainable development which gained added importance in international discussions in the new millennium. Environmental issues had always been part of Martin’s work as head of TWN and as a member of the Commission on Developing Countries and Global Change. 

But this widened significantly after the UN Conference on the Environment and Development in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro. Subsequently, Martin became a member of the Consultative Group on Sustainable Development and a regular attendee at the UN Climate Change Conferences that began in 1995 playing a particularly important role in the Copenhagen COP in 2009 where the neglect of the development dimension by advanced economies, their reluctance to acknowledge common but differentiated responsibilities and their naïve belief in market-friendly solutions to the climate challenge led to acrimonious discussions and the eventual collapse of the conference.

While he clearly recognized the need to reduce the pace of emissions and protect the environment, Martin was wary that the measures promoted by industrial countries could become instruments to stem development in the Global South.  Under his leadership an important part of the work in the South Centre focussed on this issue.

During this time Martin was a strong critic of tighter intellectual property rights, particularly through trade agreements, that restricted the transfer of the technologies developing countries needed to help in the fight against rising global temperatures and to mitigate the climate damage they were already experiencing.

This work had a parallel in Martin’s fight to ease the burden of TRIPs on developing countries in dealing with public health emergencies which, thanks to a successful civil society coalition where Martin was a pivotal figure, eventually succeeded in a permanent amendment to the TRIPs agreement in 2017.

Martin’s support to developing countries in the climate change negotiations, carried out through the South Centre and TWN, fostered greater coordination among developing countries in protecting and promoting their development policy space in the climate negotiations, highlighting equity, and stressing the international obligation of advanced economies to provide support to developing countries.

Martin’s approach to advancing progressive solutions on all these fronts was always one of quiet determination driven by a passionate commitment to strengthening the voice of developing countries.

He had an envious ability to synthesise and explain complex negotiating issues to a broad audience and in a way that could bring on board activists and policy makers alike. He became a trusted advisor to policy makers and diplomats across the developing world.

But Martin was equally comfortable engaging in a productive debate with policy makers from advanced countries and in mainstream institutions.   His was a uniquely calming but authoritative voice for increasingly anxious times, one that has been silenced too soon and at a moment when his commitment to building a fairer and more resilient world was needed more than ever.

 

Yilmaz Akyüz, Former Director, Globalization and Development Strategies Division, UNCTAD; and Former Chief Economist, South Centre, Geneva.

Richard Kozul-Wright, Director, Globalization and Development Strategies Division, UNCTAD, Geneva. 

Related Articles

• Articles by Martin Khor

The post In memoriam ‒ Martin Khor appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Mir Suhail, Tough Goal, 2020

By Vijay Prashad
Apr 3 2020 (IPS-Partners)

Madness engulfs the planet. Hundreds of millions of people are in lockdown in their homes, millions of people who work in essential jobs – or who cannot afford to stay home without state assistance – continue to go to work, thousands of people lie in intensive-care beds taken care of by tens of thousands of medical professionals and caregivers who face shortages of equipment and time. Narrow sections of the human population – the billionaires – believe that they can isolate themselves in their enclaves, but the virus knows no borders. The global pandemic driven by the variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus holds us in its grip; even as China seems to have bent the curve of infections, the charts for the rest of the world are forbidding: the light at the end of the tunnel is as dim as it has ever been.

Incompetent and heartless governments put the hammer down on society without any planning or concern for those with few resources. It is one thing for the elite or the middle class to stay at home, work using the Internet, and muddle through teaching their children from home; it is another for the billions of migrant labourers and day labourers, people who live hand to mouth, and people who have no homes. Lockdowns, quarantines, social distancing – these words mean nothing for the billions of people who work hard each day to socially reproduce the world and to produce the millions of commodities; they have not benefited from their work, but they have certainly enriched the few who are now hiding with their wealth behind their curtains, afraid of the reality that made them rich.

Vito Bongiorno, Terzo Millennio (Third Millennium), 2011

Italian author Francesca Melandri’s ‘Letter to the French from the Future’ (Libération, 18 March) says, ‘Class will make all the difference. Being locked up in a house with a pretty garden is not the same as living in an overcrowded housing project. Nor is being able to work from home or seeing your job disappear. The boat in which you’ll be sailing in order to defeat the epidemic will not look the same to everyone nor is it actually the same for everyone: it never was’. Her judgment is mirrored by OluTimehin Adegbeye, who looks at the six million daily wage workers in her city of Lagos (Nigeria); if they survive the coronavirus, they will perish from hunger (and, amongst them, the most at risk are women and girls who will be tending to the sick in their families and – like medical personnel – will likely catch the coronavirus in large numbers). In South Africa, the state is threatening to evict workers from shacks, saying that they need to break up these congested areas; Axolile Notywala from Ndifuna Ukwazi of Cape Town says, ‘De-densification is just a fancier word for forced eviction’. This is what is happening to the global working class in this CoronaShock.

Ram Rahman, Workers near Kashmere Gate Inter-State Bus Terminal, Delhi, 28 March 2020

The display of disparities condenses at the Anand Vihar bus terminal in Delhi (India), where thousands of factory workers and service sector workers stood cheek-by-jowl as the country closed down. P. Sainath, our Senior Fellow, writes that ‘the only transportation now available’ to the working class is ‘their own feet. Some are cycling home. Several find themselves stranded midway when trains, buses, and vans stop functioning. It’s scary, the kind of hell that might break loose if this intensifies. Imagine large groups walking home, from cities in Gujarat to villages in Rajasthan; from Hyderabad to far-flung villages of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh; from Delhi to places in Uttar Pradesh, even Bihar; from Mumbai to no-one-knows-how-many destinations. If they receive no succour, their rapidly diminishing access to food and water could trigger a catastrophe. They might fall to age-old diseases like diarrhoea, cholera, and others’.

Neeraj Kumar, age 30, works at a cloth factory, where workers are paid on a piece-rate basis. ‘We have no money left’, he told The Wire. ‘I have two children. What will I do? We live in rented accommodation and did not have any money or food left’. He will have to go to Budaun, two hundred kilometres away. Mukesh Kumar is from Madhubani (Bihar) and has a 1,150-kilometre journey ahead of him. He worked at a food outlet, where he used to get food as part of his wages. But the outlet is closed. ‘I have no money left’, he said. ‘I have no one here who would look after me if I get infected. So, I am leaving’.

The Delhi office of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research did a survey of garment workers, most of whom do not have permanent jobs. ‘We are here for work’, one worker told us. ‘We left our families in our villages. We try to work as much as possible to earn that little extra income to feed and support our families’. Three-quarters of the workers we interviewed said that they are the only wage-earning member in their family; the agrarian crisis has beaten down the earning capacity of their families, who rely on remittances from these migrant workers, even though they themselves provide unpaid labour for the social reproduction of family life in the village. Now it is these workers – with no state support – who are marching back home, some carrying the coronavirus, back into the heart of the agrarian crisis.

Ram Rahman, Kashmere Gate, Delhi, 28 March 2020

Umesh Yadav, a researcher at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, wrote as these masses of workers left Delhi: ‘These migrant workers did not suddenly fall from the sky. They have existed on the peripheries of the cities, in the ghettos and the slums; they are deliberately kept invisible and unnoticed by the elite’. A hasty show of compassion for them as they form long lines on the roads that leave the cities is not enough; the system that uses them, keeps them barely alive, and then throws them out must be struggled against, another system put in its place. The hideousness of social inequality produces a heap of sorrow and anger amongst the damned of the earth.

What happens when the government tells three hundred million casual workers to sit at home for three weeks after they have made their long exodus? These are workers who have never been paid enough to save, and who have few resources to sustain themselves during this period. It is essential for the government to organise the provision of food through public distribution systems and through free canteens (as pointed out by Subin Dennis of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research). If there are no such schemes, the global pandemic will lead to widespread hunger and famine. It might also lead to a deepening crisis in the countryside, as the winter (rabi) crops such as mustard, pulses, rice, and wheat might not be properly harvested due to a labour shortage occasioned by the lockdown. A failure of the winter crops in India would be cataclysmic.

Satish Gujral (1925-2020), The Despair, 1954

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that at least 25 million people across the world will lose their jobs due to the coronavirus, and that they will lose income worth about $3.4 trillion. But, as the ILO’s Director-General Guy Ryder correctly said, ‘it is already becoming clear that these numbers may underestimate the magnitude of the impact’. There were already 71 million displaced people before the CoronaShock – one person displaced every two seconds. Numbers are bewilderingly difficult to estimate – how many people will lose everything, with nothing from any of these ‘stimulus packages’ trickling down to them? These enormous infusions of trillions of dollars trickle down from central banks into the coffers of financial institutions and large corporations and into the vaults of the billionaires. By some miracle, the money that falls from heaven gets stuck in the penthouses. None of the hundreds of millions who will find their lives disjointed will be able to catch any of that money because none of it will reach them.

Kaifi Azmi (1919-2002) whose verses dug deep into the soil of the Indian peasantry and workers, wrote a sublime poem called Makaan (House), which is a song of the construction workers:

Once the palace was built, they hired a guard to keep us out.
We slept in the dirt, with the sound of our craft;
Our heartbeat pounding with exhaustion,
Bearing the picture of the palace we built in our tightly shut eyes.
The day still melts on our heads like before,
The night pierces our eyes with black arrows,
A hot air blows tonight.
It will be impossible to sleep on the pavement.
Arise everyone! I will rise too. And you. And you too.
So that a window may open in these very walls.

Kerala – the state governed by the Left Democratic Front – is a window in the ghastly wall. The government is opening thousands of camps for migrant workers in Kerala who would need accommodation. As of 28 March, 144,145 migrant workers had been housed in 4,603 camps, and more camps are being opened. The government is also building camps for homeless and destitute people – 44 camps have been opened so far in which 2,569 people are staying. The state has opened community kitchens across the state to provide free hot meals; for those who cannot come to the kitchens, the food is delivered to their homes.

Please break the walls and build windows.

The post These Migrant Workers Did Not Suddenly Fall From the Sky appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Inge Kaul
BERLIN, Germany, Apr 3 2020 (IPS)

My recent study on “The G20@10: Time to shift gears” 1 shows that, during the past decade, the main joint, collective action of the G20 has been to issue communiqués and other types of statements.

As a group, G20 Leaders have expressed concern about all kinds of challenges, recommitted themselves to goals already agreed in other multilateral meetings or –even repeatedly – stated in earlier G20 communiqués.

They have also lauded other entities for actions they have taken or asked others, such as the IMF, OECD, the World Bank or other international agencies to consider taking one or the other policy measure.

They have even promised they will take action individually or seek to bolster their coordination – not necessarily among themselves but, for example, with the private sector.

Inge Kaul

During the virtual G20 Leaders’ Summit on 26 March 2020 they continued this behavioral pattern. Their joint statement opens with the words: “The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic is a powerful reminder of our interconnectedness and vulnerabilities. The virus respects no borders…We are strongly committed to presenting a united front against this common threat.” However, what follows then? Words – promises on paper, no concrete, tangible action.

Again, leaders state: they “are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of life” and that they are “committed to do whatever it takes to overcome the pandemic”, including, among other things, to “support and commit to further strengthen WHO’s mandate”, undertake “immediate and vigorous measures to support our economies”, “mobilize development and humanitarian funding”.

But no mention of specific initiatives that some or all of them will jointly undertake, no figures and target dates specifying the amount of additional money they will put on the table.

Of course, I am not expecting the G20 suddenly, due to COVID-19 to take on an operational role. However, I would have expected that, this time, they would have acted differently: lived up to the exceptional scale and urgency of the crisis the world confronts.

For example, they could have decided to act as lead investors in a global mission-oriented project, perhaps executed, by the World Bank, in close collaboration with WHO and other multilateral development banks or other appropriate agencies, and aimed at establishing a sizeable special fund that could be used to bulk-purchase face masks (if and when available), security equipment and gowns for hospital staff, beds, medicines and, in due course, vaccines –in order to make these supplies available at affordable prices to poorer developing countries.

An action like this would, in my view, have added some credibility to the last sentence of the G20 Leaders’ communique of 26 March 2020, which says: “We will protect human life, restore global economic stability and lay out solid foundations for strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth.”

Unfortunately, an important opportunity of building trust and offering hope to the world during these difficult times was missed.

1 See, (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10220461.2019.1694577?journalCode=rsaj20).

The post What More than COVID-19 to Jolt G20 into Collective Action? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Inge Kaul is Senior Fellow, Hertie School, Berlin and Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Center for Global Governance, Washington DC. She can be contacted at contact@ingekaul.net.

The post What More than COVID-19 to Jolt G20 into Collective Action? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Gender equality concept as woman hands holding a white paper sheet with male and female symbol over a crowded city street background. Sex sign as a metaphor of social issue.

By External Source
GENEVA, Apr 2 2020 (IPS-Partners)

Globally, women are more vulnerable to economic shocks wrought by crises such as the coronavirus pandemic.

Why are women so at risk?

Firstly, women are more likely to lose their jobs than men. In many countries, women’s participation in the labour market is often in the form of temporary employment.

Across the world, women represent less than 40% of total employment but make up 57% of those working on a part-time basis, according to the International Labor Organization.

As the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic roll through economies, reducing employment opportunities and triggering layoffs, temporary workers, the majority of whom are women, are expected to bear the heaviest brunt of job losses.

Part time employment (as % of total employment)

Source: ILOStat – Percentage of respondents who report borrowing any money in the previous 12 months (by themselves or together with someone else) to start, operate, or expand a farm or business (% age 15+).

Safety nets not wide enough

Many women will not be rescued by social safety nets. as access to safety nets frequently depends upon a formal participation in the labour force.

But since women tend to work without clear terms of employment, they often are not entitled to reliable social protection such as health insurance, paid sick and maternity leave, pensions and unemployment benefits.

In many developing countries, women are either self-employed or work as contributing family workers, for example in family farms.

In South Asia, over 80% of women in non-agricultural jobs are in informal employment; in sub-Saharan Africa this figure is 74%; and in Latin America and the Caribbean, 54%of women in non-agricultural jobs participate in informal employment.

Service sector reeling under restrictions

The service sector is being hit hard by the restrictions imposed to manage the spread of the coronavirus.

Given that some 55% of women are employed in the service sector (in comparison with 44% of men), women are more likely to be adversely affected.

Moreover, female-dominated service sectors such as food, hospitality and tourism are among those expected to feel the harshest economic effects of the measures to contain the spread of the pandemic.

Limited access to credit

Women entrepreneurs are often discriminated against when attempting to access credit. This will be a challenge as credit will be of paramount importance in the survival of firms.

Without open and favourable lines of credit, many female entrepreneurs will be forced to close their businesses.

Access to credit (as % of entrepreneurs by sex)

Source: ILOStat. Part time employment refers to regular employment in which working time is substantially less than normal.

More work, no pay

Women’s unpaid work is set to increase. Women remain responsible for the lion’s share of domestic chores and care work.

Measures to contain the pandemic such as quarantines and closures of schools imply additional household work and responsibility.

Some women may be forced to make difficult decisions to leave the labour market or opt for part-time jobs, as juggling between caring for family members and paid work becomes untenable.

Safeguard gender progress

As governments take steps to address the economic and social effects of COVID-19, they should not let it reverse the gender equality progress achieved in recent decades.

To avoid this, we must retain women’s productive participation in the labour force. Something we did not do in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis. Here support measures were provided to large infrastructure projects that mainly employed men, while jobs were cut in teaching, nursing and in public services, all female-intensive sectors.

Support measures in response to COVID-19 should go beyond workers who hold formal employment and include informal, part-time and seasonal workers, most of whom are women.

This is particularly necessary in female-dominated spheres such as the hospitality, food and tourism sectors, now at a standstill due to confinement measures by governments.

Some countries are already moving in this direction. For example, Italy is considering putting into place support measures to cover informal and temporary workers once their contracts are over.

Government bailouts and support measures should not only prop up large and medium-sized enterprises, but also micro- and small businesses, where women entrepreneurs are relatively more represented.

In addition, private sector financial support and access to credit should be equally available to women and men.

More transparency and a simplification of public procurement processes would also help women’s businesses to benefit from increased government support.

The reallocation of public funds should avoid any possible increase in the burden of women as principal suppliers of unpaid work.

Create a gender-equal future

The coronavirus pandemic presents us with an opportunity to effect systemic changes that could protect women from bearing the heaviest brunt of shocks like these in the future.

Improved education and training opportunities for women would facilitate the shift from precarious jobs to more stable and better-protected employment.

Gender-responsive trade policies would open new opportunities to women as employees and entrepreneurs.

Broader provision of social services would lift women’s care burden and give them more time for paid jobs and leisure.

Flexible work arrangements, currently in place in response to the pandemic, should continue beyond it and provide a new model of shared responsibilities within households.

Our ability to bounce back from this crisis is dependent on how we include everyone equally. If more women take part in shaping a new social and economic order, chances are that it will be more responsive to everyone’s needs and make us all more resilient to future shocks.

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Excerpt:

Written by Isabelle Durant, Deputy Secretary-General, and Pamela Coke-Hamilton, Director, Division on International Trade and Commodities, UNCTAD

The post COVID-19 requires gender-equal responses to save economies appeared first on Inter Press Service.

New communications technologies essential to empower poor rural women – UN. Credit: FAO/Hoang Dinh Nam

By Alan Gelb and Anit Mukherjee
WASHINGTON DC, Apr 2 2020 (IPS)

As the world grapples with COVID-19, governments face a daunting challenge: limiting the adverse impact of a pandemic that has ground economic activity to a halt, affecting people at a scale rarely seen before.

More than 50 countries, including the United States, have announced some form of cash transfer or social assistance to help tide over the immediate challenges faced by their citizens.

While many of these efforts are one-off measures to mitigate the immediate impact, some may turn out to be more long-term depending on how widespread the economic and human cost of the pandemic turns out to be.

Delivering on these promises will require an enormous increase in the capacity of states to make payments to their citizens, or government-to-people (G2P) transfers, as they are widely known.

Every government transfers money to people in some form—public sector salaries, pensions, scholarships, grants and vouchers to the poor, and so on—so there is existing capacity, including delivery mechanisms, to draw upon.

But in most countries existing systems will not be adequate, either in volume or coverage, to help those affected make it through the economic disruption.

The immediate challenge is how to make G2P transfers efficiently, equitably, and at scale—and how best to use technology to do so. And once the crisis is passed, the development challenge remains: How can digital technologies help accelerate global efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and eliminate poverty?

Even before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have attempted to answer some of these questions in a three-year project at CGD, culminating in our newly launched Citizens and States report. It has taken us on a journey through three continents—Asia, Africa, and Latin America—to understand how digital technologies are shaping the future of governance.

We travelled through villages in India to see how people receive food subsidies and pensions using the country’s biometric ID, Aadhaar, and how they perceive the new system compared to the old one.

We have accompanied community health workers in Bangladesh as they deliver maternal health services using their mobile phones. We talked to agents in rural Kenya who are at the frontlines of the mobile money revolution that is now a global phenomenon.

Through our collaborators, we have tried to understand the challenges of delivering cash transfers to rural women in Pakistan, providing fertilizer e-vouchers to farmers in Nigeria, and opening bank accounts in remote areas in Mexico.

We also documented how governments can replace wasteful fuel subsidies by converting them into individualized cash transfers delivered through bank or mobile money accounts and use the savings to expand access to clean energy, for example, providing LPG cooking gas for poor women in rural India.

Finally, we saw how governments are creating the infrastructure to harness the power of data to monitor the delivery of services and subsidies in real time, improving accountability of providers and voice of the citizens.

Our experience makes us hopeful for the future, especially when we see how developing countries are transforming their ability to deliver public services, subsidies, and transfers.

Leveraging the almost-universal coverage of Aadhaar, bank accounts, and mobile phones, India now electronically transfers nearly $350 billion to over 800 million people every year.

The just-passed US plan to give $1,200 to every citizen—including in some cases by check—will be far more logistically challenging for the US government than transferring the payment digitally, as India has been doing for government payments for the last seven years, and far more subject to errors and fraud.

Many developing countries will similarly struggle to distribute payments, but others have built up robust systems that they can now leverage in a crisis.

In Bangladesh, a mother can now receive her child’s education scholarship through her mobile phone account instead of having to stand in long lines at the school on a pre-arranged day for a cash handout.

Not only does this save her time and effort and provide accurate and documented payment, it also relieves school officials of a burdensome administrative process and of the risk that—rightly or wrongly—they can be accused of corrupt handling of funds.

In Kenya, a farmer can invest his or her savings directly in a small slice of a government bond through a mobile phone. He can become eligible for a small loan on the basis of a stable record of receipts and payments on his mobile account without posting collateral.

In Andhra Pradesh, a state in India with 50 million people, the authorities can drill down through state-wide reporting data on government programs in real time and across thousands of delivery points, to monitor the state’s provision of rations to poor beneficiaries. They can detect transaction failures almost immediately and instruct local officials to rapidly follow up and remediate the error.

These are just a few examples of how digital technologies are changing the lives of people in the developing world. With the spread of digital identification, access to financial accounts, and mobile phones, citizens increasingly demand the same convenience and responsiveness in dealing with their governments that they experience in their personal lives.

In turn, governments around the world are moving rapidly to harness the power of technology to improve their ability to serve people—in other words, increasing state capacity in an increasingly interconnected, digital world.

In the current dynamic and evolving context, how can digital technologies play a positive role to achieve the ambitious objectives and targets embodied in the Sustainable Development Goals?

What can we learn from the experiences of digital reform in developing countries? What can we say about the future trajectory of digital governance—the guiding principles, the harmonization of policy design and technology, and the challenges going forward?

Finally, how can technology both empower citizens and improve state capacity? We offer some answers to these questions but recognize that there is still much more research ahead.

We also see that technology is only a tool. It opens up new opportunities to make the state more capable and efficient. But technology amplifies the power of data, and its impact on development depends on how this power is used. States can use data to improve service delivery, but they may not be benign users of data.

The rapidly evolving tools available to governments also have the potential to further isolate marginalized groups and to track citizens. New checks and balances will be needed to ensure that digital technology serves the needs of all citizens—to make the capable state a good state.

It has been both exciting and challenging to bring the lessons together in a single report. Our experience leads us to believe that we are only just beginning to understand how digital tools can be used to achieve the SDGs, which we use as our guiding framework in the report.

The SDGs recognize that development policies and programs are increasingly embedded in the digital world, and that digital applications cannot be leveraged to reform the citizen-state relationship unless all are able to use them.

We agree: some of the leading cases that we examine offer a picture of the potential to implement digital governance at scale, but these are still isolated examples on the global stage.

There is still much to learn about the application of digital technologies to development—and much to reflect on the possibilities as the world recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read the report here.

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Excerpt:

Alan Gelb is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development (CGD), a Washington, DC-based research organization, and a former director of development policy at the World Bank; Anit Mukherjee is a policy fellow at the Center for Global Development

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A Palestinian family on the street in Beit Lahia in north Gaza. Credit: Mohammed Omer/IPS.

By External Source
GAZA CITY/JERUSALEM/BRUSSELS, Apr 2 2020 (IPS)

The coronavirus is now present in Gaza, the populous Palestinian enclave blockaded by air, land and sea since 2007. An epidemic would be calamitous. Hamas should tighten public health measures; Israel should loosen restrictions so that medical supplies can enter and afflicted Palestinians can leave.

What’s new? COVID-19 cases have appeared in the Gaza Strip, where close to two million Palestinians live in 365 sq km, many of them in crowded refugee camps where social distancing is hardly feasible.

 

Why does it matter? A major outbreak of the illness would swiftly overwhelm Gaza’s health care system, which has been devastated by years of war and Israeli blockade. The death toll could be horrific.

 

What should be done? The Hamas government should maintain its quarantine measures and step up other efforts to contain the virus’s spread. Israel should lift the blockade for medical supplies and allow Palestinians out of the strip should they require hospitalisation.

COVID-19 has entered the Gaza Strip, one of the world’s most densely populated territories. If efforts by the Hamas government fail to contain it, the virus could rampage through the Palestinian population of nearly two million, the majority of whom live in tightly packed refugee camps.

Gaza’s health infrastructure – crippled by an Israeli blockade and further damaged in war – will be unable to cope with the worst-case scenario wherein tens of thousands of people require hospitalisation when there are only 2,500 beds available.

As long as containment remains possible, the Hamas government should strengthen its lockdown measures and build more quarantine facilities with the means available. Israel, for its part, should lift its blockade on Gaza to allow desperately needed medical equipment and supplies to get in. It should also prepare to help Palestinians in Gaza who contract the virus and require types of care unavailable in the impoverished strip.

As the occupying power in Gaza, Israel has a duty to care for the population under its control. In the case of COVID-19, it also has an interest, as the virus knows no borders. If only for these reasons, Israel should relax the blockade to let in hygiene kits, ventilators and other supplies, and suspend the requirement for transit permits for those who require hospitalisation outside of Gaza.

It should also support international efforts to erect field hospitals in and around the Gaza Strip, facilitate the entry of medical personnel willing to volunteer their services, and develop a plan for treating Palestinians from Gaza who need urgent medical attention in Israel.

A catastrophe of massive proportions could await Palestinians in Gaza who already have suffered far too much. Hamas, Israel and others need to take urgent steps to minimise the fallout.

 

This story was originally published by International Crisis Group, You can find the full report here.

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By Nayema Nusrat and Mohammad Rakibul Hasan
NEW YORK/DHAKA, Apr 2 2020 (IPS)

The Coronavirus pandemic is changing how we live our daily lives. The scale of the COVID-19 and its impact on our lives is unprecedented. When humanity gets past this, the world will be a very different place than the one we have known.

The changes will likely impact how we interact with each other and with family, how we work, study, eat, pray, love or play. The COVID-19 crisis has upended our lives. This novel virus is already reorienting our relationships with the outside world, our loved ones, dependence on each other, on technology, government and healthcare. What changes we might see in the future is uncertain. Global cooperation may be at stake although what we are hearing today is that we must all be together in this fight for survival against the virus. In the near future, we cannot rule out a scenario of fierce competition over resources, medicines and food.

Italy’s Ezio Mauro recently wrote in La Repubblica:
“… As we know, democracy is also a system of mutual guarantees which we take for granted because they are part of our civilisation – which is now threatened by the virus. Now we must relinquish parts of our freedom in the name of responsibility. … And even if politicians are not yet saying it openly, this is the real confirmation of the emergency.”

Mohammad Rakibul Hasan, an award winning photojournalist from Bangladesh shares with us a set of images on the lockdown across the country. Workers in the garment industry, rickshaw pullers and hourly contract labourers in Bangladesh are hit with loss of income like no other in the face of COVID-19 crisis. In the garments sector alone, Bangladesh has lost around $1.5 billion in canceled orders by foreign brands, which has impacted some 1.2 million workers. Ever since the increase of COVID-19 cases in Europe and the United States, Bangladeshi factories are losing around $100 million per day.

Gatherings, including the saying of prayers in the mosque, during the COVID-19 outbreak have been prohibited to ensure public safety. However, some religious people continue to attend mosque and say prayers.

Shops are closed, and people rarely venture onto the street.

The homeless have nowhere to go. There is no government initiative to aid the homeless in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

The COVID-19 outbreak red alert has been taken seriously by the public in Bangladesh. Few venture out for anything. Roads and highways are empty, and there is no sign of life on the street.

Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, never sleeps. Approximately 30 million people live in this mega city. As a results of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government has locked down the city, no one should be out or on the street unless it is for an emergency.

A transwoman calls her ex-boyfriend during isolation amid the COVID-19 lockdown in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

A transgender couple kisses during the COVID-19 outbreak in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The trans community is socially excluded, locally they are called “Hijra”, and they generally encounter socio-cultural deprivation from mainstream society. The coronavirus pandemic has meant they are unable to leave their homes, placing many in a difficult financial position as they face shortages of food and daily necessities.

Mehrunnessa lives in an ‘old age home’ in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She has been living in a “type of isolation” away from her family, but the COVID-19 outbreak has meant that her relatives, who used to visit her frequently, no longer come to see her. She says that the whole world is suffering, and hopes “God is kind enough to eliminate the evil disease soon”.

COVID-19 outbreak has locked down one third of the population across the globe. Bangladesh is a densely-populated country and there is a high risk that the deadly virus can spread rapidly as many of the city’s homeless sleep on the streets.

Kamalapur Railway Station, the central station in Bangladesh, has been shut down to prevent the virus spreading in the rest of the country.

The Dhaka City Corporation has begun spraying disinfectant in public places to reduce the risk of the spread of COVID-19.

During the COVID-19 lockdown in Bangladesh, many street people have no choice to live in the open. The virus is airborne, according to World Health Organization, and can survive for between three to 24 hours on various surfaces.

People traveling to their homes after Bangladesh’s government instituted an emergency lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

As government and private organisations, shops, factories and all most everything was closed, people who work in Dhaka were rushing to leave the city for their home towns by public transport. Many did not use adequate safety measures, which could lead the COVID-19 spreading nationwide.

The day before the shutting down all inter-city buses, many people were returning to their home towns as Dhaka city was locked down. There was uncertainty of how long the lockdown would last.

City railways stations are always crowded with thousands of people every minute. But COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant lockdown declared by the government has been taken seriously by the citizens of Bangladesh. Everything is closed and there is no presence of people at the stations any longer — only a few stray dogs.

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Source: www.bloncampus.com

By Arpeeta Shams Mizan
Apr 2 2020 (IPS-Partners)

The Covid-19 pandemic has opened our eyes to many vulnerabilities. With home quarantine proving to be a successful strategy, we are finally catching up and practicing it. Bangladeshi narratives about home quarantine now discuss how home is the safest place to ensure sanitisation, hygiene and disinfection.

But what if home is where you are most unsafe? While we feel safer with home quarantine, there is one group of people who may suffer very differently and much severely from this social distancing—the victims/survivors of domestic violence and child sexual abuse.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), one out of three women in the world experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, making domestic violence “the most widespread but least reported human rights abuse”. With covid-19, the risk of abuse has increased. Newsweek reported that America is seeing a rise in child-abuse related injuries, often resulting from children spending more time at home with abusive parents. According to the Deputy Executive Director of United Nations Women, “the very technique we are using to protect people from the virus can perversely impact victims of domestic violence.”

The situation is no different in Bangladesh. According to Bangladesh National Women Lawyers’ Association (BNWLA), February 2020 saw a sharp rise in rape. It is not hard to guess that unreported cases of domestic violence will be no exception. Because domestic violence happens at the hands of people living under the same roof or sharing the same bed as the victim, it is hard to identify and hardest to prove, and these victims are the least visible in society. In the case of domestic abuse, much of it happens at the hand of family members who can abuse, assault, humiliate and torture women and children. Domestic violence can also be verbal, financial, psychological and sexual.

We now need to think carefully about how covid-19 home quarantine can accelerate these risks. Due to the countrywide lockdown and zero mobility, vulnerable women and children are trapped within the confines of their homes with their abusers 24/7. Earlier, they might have been safe for a limited time while the abusers were away for work. But now they are constantly present, with abusers having a stronger ability to control and terrify their victims.

Added to this is the fact that few Bangladeshi men share the domestic workload. With home quarantine, women are facing increased work pressure. If an exhausted wife dares to refuse husband’s advances at night, she might risk receiving forced intercourse. And thanks to our colonial laws, such forced sex can’t legally be considered marital rape.

Another dangerous effect of long isolation is a mental health crisis. Office going people may face reactive depression from sitting at home, which can lead to stress, frustration and anger. Stressed people often release their frustration on the weaker members of their family—children, wives and elderly parents. Instead of seeking mental health assistance, you create a suffocating environment at home by blaming everyone around you. Victim blaming is a strong weapon of domestic abuse. The abusers may threaten family members by denying necessary amenities or making them feel guilty for falling sick. In the US, cases have been reported where perpetrators have threatened to throw “disobedient wives” out on the streets so they can catch coronavirus and suffer.

And one can’t emphasise enough the risks of child abuse. Home quarantine means children are more available and closer to family members and in Bangladesh, this can include distant relatives living with them. Stressed parents may physically punish their child unduly. Children may be forced to play with these relatives or live-in domestic helpers who might be potential abusers. These children have nowhere to hide or escape, and their abuse won’t be immediately identified. The psychological trauma these children would face in that situation is irreversible.

But what makes the risk greatest for children and (many) women is that they have little or zero access to information. Firstly, they may not understand that what’s happening to them is domestic violence. Secondly, they may have no money. They may never have taken a rickshaw on their own before. How can they move to safety? An abused victim needing medical support won’t know how to find a hospital.

Our social mindset doesn’t help either. Many Bangladeshis believe domestic violence is a private affair. Even during normal times, police rarely entertain complaints of domestic violence unless it involves fatal physical injury, dowry claims etc. With the covid-19 crisis, people may even think that talking about domestic violence is a luxury. This severely affects the victims. For male victims, there is the additional stigma of kapurushotto (cowardice), preventing adolescent boys and adult men from speaking up. And as hospitals, medical professionals and law enforcement agencies are busy with corona detection and isolation, they may be unable/unwilling to help victims of domestic and sexual abuse.

This can make home quarantine a double-edged sword—home quarantine increases the violence, but it is also the only way to contain the spread of virus. In that case, what can we do to protect the potential victims? USA and Canada have actively acknowledged the increased risks of domestic violence during isolation, and are making continuous announcements about helplines and shelter homes. Bangladesh needs to follow suit.

Print and electronic media can play a big role here. BTV and Bangladesh Betar can give announcements to raise awareness and sensitise people about the harmful effects of family abuse, as well as share information on how to contact the police and one-stop crisis centres via hotlines. The police force should be more responsive at the district and sub-district levels, as well as in the metropolitan areas. Government agencies must be careful not to dismiss complaints of abuse. Television channels can put information on scrolls. Rights based organisations and mosques can raise awareness using loudspeakers. These announcements should be in a language understandable to the general people. Telecommunication companies can send informative bulk SMS to its users. Religious leaders and even social media influencers can use digital platforms to talk about domestic violence. Social media posts mocking women or patronising angry men in isolation should be reported immediately.

During these hard times, we are slowly reviving a part of our psyche that has been asleep for quite some time—thinking about the greater good. Let us not leave anyone behind; whether they are the victims of coronavirus or survivors of domestic or child abuse, or anyone else who may become more vulnerable during this self-quarantine period.

Arpeeta Shams Mizan is Assistant Professor of Law at University of Dhaka, and legal analyst (Bangladesh) at iProbono.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

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Kansiime and her daughters arrive at the Mbarara Hospital. The three family members all live with HIV and go to the clinic regularly to collect their medication. "When I go to hospital, I am surrounded by other women who have come for treatment. We are there for the same reason,” Kansiime says. “This has helped me overcome stigma and given me strength." Credit: UNICEF/UNI211907/Schermbrucker

By Winnie Byanyima
GENEVA, Apr 2 2020 (IPS)

The multi-layered crisis of the Coronavirus epidemic has been a dramatic shock to everyone. But, to communities affected by HIV and AIDS, the crisis has not only brought a further shock to already vulnerable people, it has brought other reactions too – a troubling sense of déjà vu, and a passionate, empathetic, fierce solidarity with all those affected by Coronavirus.

No two pandemics are the same. All require a specific, tailored, response. But we also have a duty, when dangerous, unjust and unsustainable structural weaknesses are exposed by one pandemic, left unresolved, and then jeopardize the fight against a second pandemic, to ensure that we don’t wait for the third.

Everyone involved in the fight against AIDS is determined to do everything we can to support all those affected by the Coronavirus epidemic. We are by your side. We waited years for many of the breakthroughs we fought for, and we are still waiting for many others; we refuse to let leaders make you wait in this new crisis as they have made us wait. The time to fix the rips in our social fabric is now.

The HIV community has joined the emergency response in solidarity with those affected, and has joined too in insisting that leaders recognize that healthcare is a public good – that the health of each of us depends on the health of all of us.

Winnie Byanyima

Healthcare must be provided to all, free of charge, funded by public revenue. Quality health care is a human right, not a privilege, and should never depend on how much money you have in your pocket.

Governments must provide publicly funded health care for all people, through progressive tax systems in which everyone, including the super-rich and large corporations, pay their fair share. Public health systems must deliver services that reach people most in need.

As part of this, governments must support services which are community-led AND publicly-funded. Cutting-edge medicines and health care must be delivered affordably and to scale, to everyone no matter where they live.

User fees are false economy and a grave injustice – they are a tax on the sick that increases mortality and morbidity, and exacerbates poverty and inequities.

Decades of experience have shown that these charges deter people, especially low-income households, from using the health services they need, deepen poverty, and are highly inefficient and regressive ways to finance health care.

Their most obscene incarnation sees, in several countries, hospital wards turned into debtors’ prisons of patients chained to their beds until their families sell assets or borrow from money-lenders to release their loved-ones.

Even in other, more “moderate”, incarnations user fees see families bankrupted or left landless and powerless by the costs of care, and people left to die because they can’t afford the fees. Three people every second are pushed into extreme poverty from paying for healthcare.

Charging for healthcare does not only hurt those directly affected – it puts all of us at risk. Covid-19 won’t be stopped if some people can’t afford testing or treatment.

As (former UN Secretary-General) Ban Ki-Moon noted in January, before this epidemic exploded: “Out-of-pocket health spending has been rising, meaning that more people are being impoverished because of health costs.

This not only undermines achieving universal health care, it is also a threat to global health security. High private health spending also inhibits progress towards other Sustainable Development Goals including eliminating poverty, reducing inequality and achieving gender equality.”

Dr. Denis Nansera, a paediatrician, examines Kansiime Ruth, 25, and her daughters aged 1 and 4 years, at the Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital in Mbarara District, Western Region, Uganda on 20 August 2019. “A good number of mothers used to fall out of antenatal care. But with (medical advancements), we see a huge reduction in the time taken to diagnose a child, and time taken to get child on medication,” Dr. Nansera says. Credit: UNICEF/UNI211885/Schermbrucker

After the horrors of World War II, several European countries and Japan introduced universal health care. After the financial and AIDS crises hit, Thailand did. All these universal health coverage (UHC) reforms delivered massive health and economic benefits to the people.

Now, in this crisis, leaders across the world have an opportunity to build the health systems that were always needed, and which now cannot be delayed any longer.

Countries don’t have to be rich to provide free health care for all – as Sri Lanka has long shown. And the impact from removing fees is proven and profound. Jamaica saw improved access to health services among children and teenagers after it changed its policy on user fees in 2007, with the poorest people benefiting the most.

Sierra Leone showed that even in fragile settings, fee removals, properly planned and implemented, improve health systems and protect the vulnerable.

But globally the pace of progress is much too slow, and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic is testimony that financial leaders have underestimated the economic risks of low investments in equitable health.

In addressing the current crisis, one major practical action that leaders can implement immediately is to launch truly universal, publicly-financed health care reforms to cover their entire population – not only for Covid-19 services but for all services.

This would cost around 1-2% GDP in the short-term, not enormous compared with some of the massive fiscal stimuluses already being planned.

The international community too has a profound moral obligation, and collective self-interest, in backing the expansion of universal healthcare by supporting moratoriums on debt repayments to free up resources of developing countries to invest in their healthcare systems.

As the UN Secretary-General has urged leaders to remember, “we are only as strong as the weakest health system in our interconnected world.”

Bilateral donors and international financial institutions including the World Bank and IMF should also offer grants – not loans – to address the social and economic impacts of the pandemic on the poor and most vulnerable groups, including informal sector workers and marginalized populations.

Most low-income countries are already highly-indebted; it is immoral to push them to take more loans to fight an existential threat that the whole world is facing. A broad and equitable debt relief process is urgently needed not only to respond to the Covid-19 crisis but to shorten the recovery period and create conditions for growth.

Before Coronavirus hit, defenders of the unfair and unsustainable status quo in health claimed that the current patchwork, fragmented and wealth-based system worked just fine. But the damage of that system has now been exposed to everybody. Health for all is central to resolving this pandemic.

The best time to provide health for all has already passed. And the second-best time is now.

*Winnie Byanyima was appointed as the Executive Director of UNAIDS by the United Nations Secretary-General on 14 August 2019 assumed her functions as UNAIDS Executive Director on 1 November 2019. She was Executive Director of Oxfam International since 2013. Prior to that, she served for seven years as the Director of Gender and Development at the United Nations Development Programme.

The post Coronavirus Proves Need for Free Healthcare for All– Now appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Winnie Byanyima* is the Executive Director of UNAIDS

The post Coronavirus Proves Need for Free Healthcare for All– Now appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The girls at greatest risk of early marriage are often those hardest to reach. They come from poor families, marginalized groups or rural areas. Credit: UNFPA-UNICEF Nepal/KPanday

By Fairuz Ahmed
NEW YORK, Apr 2 2020 (IPS)

“I come from Baglung District, a part of Dhawalagiri Zone in Nepal. My house overlooks the river. Do you know, our district is known for the suspension bridges?”, her eyes glimmer for a fraction of a second and then she breathes a heavy sigh! Her right hand is still wrapped in a scarf, while with the other she pats her 17-month-old. “If I ever get a chance I will take you to my village, we have a lot of medicinal plants.” She pauses while tears roll down as she continues our Facetime session. “I was 16 when I had my first child and I was 17 when my arm was broken by my mother-in-law.”

These are the words of Balaphuspika M. Gopal to IPS. She is an Intimate Partner Abuse Survivor from Nepal, currently living in a women’s shelter in New York City. She migrated to the United States 2 years ago with her husband and 5 children and is waiting for naturalization. She came to the shelter 26 days ago after being released from a hospital in Queens, New York recovering from a fractured rib, three broken fingers and is now under complete social isolation due to the emergency declared for COVID19.

Nepal is one of the South Asian countries with high levels of violence against women where about 32.4% of women have experienced Intimate Partner Violence (IPV). An alarming number of women reported emotional, physical and sexual abuse and violence by their male partners respectively. Nepali women are generally not recognized as productive economic citizens and women’s access to education and employment opportunities is limited. Consequently, women in Nepal tend to be socio-economically marginalized and ultimately disempowered in part due to the patriarchal norms which place less value in the education of daughters compared to sons and limit daughters’ destinies only to marriage.

The United Nations Development Program has reported a 23.8% poverty rate and agriculture provided 33% of the GDP and women earned 57% less income than men. Women had limited access to productive assets such as land and property, credit and modern avenues of knowledge and information.

Balaphuspika, explains to me that marriage represents a monumental shift for the women living in the Baglung district of Nepal. It is customary for women to move out of the familial home to live with their husbands and extended family as a multi-unit, where they become responsible for the house, children and farm work. She and her daughters were subjected to constant threats, insults, and violence from the spouse and her in-laws.

One in three women is impacted by this violence; 15 million adolescent girls worldwide have experienced forced sex and Balaphushpika’s oldest daughter was forced to marry at the age of 15 and is now divorced. She faced abuse and was raped by a drunk family member. In Nepal, most of the complaints involved dowry-related violence, polygamy, physical domestic violence against women, trafficking, rape, and attempted rape. There were 125 murders of women in the past three years, mostly by drunk husbands or in-laws. It is estimated that of the 87,000 women who were intentionally killed in 2017 globally, more than half (50,000- 58 percent) were killed by intimate partners or family members, meaning that 137 women across the world are killed by a member of their own family every day. More than a third (30,000) of the women intentionally killed in 2017 were killed by their current or former intimate partner.

Balaphushpika stated that it is common in many Nepali families to overlook daughters and discriminate on the basis of sex. Girls are given much less opportunity to study or have a profession than boys and even face rationing when it comes to food. Balaphuspika added that isolating the menstruating women and regarding them as impure or “dirty” is widely practiced in the country. They were often made to eat dinner in isolation after the entire family has eaten and were forced to sleep on the floor and given very little scope for proper hygiene, especially during menstruation.

As I ask her about her experience and issues facing COVID19 lockdown and explain how she and her family should be aware of the risks and measures to take, she replies with a soft smile, “Didi (sister), I have food here and we can sleep. I was beaten like a lifeless object and he always used to start when I was asleep. I have spent countless nights hoping to die because the pain was too much. The day I was put in an ambulance which my daughter called from my neighbor’s phone I was saved.”

“ I only have $55 at hand and am not a green cardholder. To be honest, I feel like a burden living here and getting food without working, but this is the very first time I feel safe in many years. I do not speak any English but my 7-year-old son does and he translated to the police when they came to see me in the hospital. My husband took away our passports but the police assured us that those can be retrieved. I want to work and restart my life.”

“I am thankful to the heavens, that he has beaten me before this emergency declaration in the city and I was able to come here. If we stayed with him during social isolation he would have killed me and my children one by one.” Balaphuspika stops after saying that.

We ended the call on a high note, where she was desperate and yet thankful for having safety, food, access to legal help and a roof over her head during the trying times of COVID19. Balaphuspika received support along with many other abuse survivors from the Family Justice Centres in New York City who are operating remotely and are in the pipeline to receive financial literacy and seek employment with support from Shine-Foundation.org NYC.

IPV is a significant public health issue that affects one in three women globally and a similarly large number of women in Nepal. In June 2017, the Government announced its Strategy to Address and Prevent Gender-Based Violence. Nepal opened its first one-stop crisis center in 2011 in its central and far-western regions and continues to place them in hospitals around the country. In 2015, the government developed a protocol to help health providers identify and refer more patients to the crisis centers, which received technical support from Jhpiego and the United Nations Population Fund and is now funded by the government. Although important policy and programmatic steps have been taken to address violence against women in Nepal over the past decade, there is still a gap in IPV research in Nepal, particularly with regard to social norms.

The post Surviving Domestic Violence in times of Covid19 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Dr Mah Hui Lim has been a university professor and banker, in the private sector and with the Asian Development Bank.
Dr. Michael Heng, Former professor in Management Science.

By Mah Hui Lim and Michael Heng
PENANG and SINGAPORE, Apr 1 2020 (IPS)

The Covid-19 pandemic, erupting in the background of lethargic global economy, could turn out to be the singular biggest crisis in a century. First reported in Wuhan, China, the corona virus has reached almost all countries. It has infected close to 1 million persons and caused over 40,000 deaths at time of writing; and the figures keep climbing. It is a health catastrophe which if not checked in its track would be the most serious since the Spanish Flu of 1918 that killed over 50 million people.

Mah Hui Lim

The pandemic has triggered a market crash. Stock markets across the world have trended downwards despite various measures by governments to support the economy. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development has warned that the economic recovery would take years. According to its secretary general Angel Gurría, the economic shock was already bigger than the financial crisis.

It is a crisis much more serious than the 2007-8 crisis, for three reasons. What started as a health crisis has morphed into an economic and possibly financial crisis.

First, it erupted in economic and financial environments more vulnerable than those of 2008. After the GFC of 2008, major central banks pumped trillions of liquidity to resuscitate the world economy. Unfortunately, much of this was misspent on financial shenanigans such as stock buybacks and mergers and acquisitions while global investments languished. Global debt was pushed to all time high of over 300% of world GDP compared to under 200% in 2008. In the last few years, economists and business analysts have been warning of an impending financial typhoon on the horizon. The gigantic typhoon has made its landfall triggered by an invisible and humble bug.

Second, this is a double-whammy crisis with both supply shock and demand destruction. Shops and factories close down, planes and trains stop operating, global supply chains are broken. Except for essential goods, demand has evaporated. Usual consumer spending nosedives as incomes dry up and many people are confined to homes. Such conditions hit at the core of real economy.

Michael Heng

Third, central banks have almost run out of ammunition. Interest rates have been cut to near zero and in some countries have turned negative. More quantitative easing is like pushing on a shoe string and will only inflate asset prices resulting in greater inequality. Governments have unleashed their bazookas with the US injecting $2 trillion (over 10% of its GDP) stimulus.

The once-in-a-century crisis has jolted policy makers out of their comfort zone. What has been considered a taboo is now followed without much disagreement across the board.

Helicopter money has now come into vogue. It means literally throwing money at the entire population for them to spend. The problem is if the population is locked down and most businesses remain shut, putting money in the hands of people will not restart business. In the last global financial crisis, there was nowhere to hide for the investor. Today, we are faced with a crisis of nowhere to spend.

There are three lessons to draw from this crisis.

First, the pandemic exposes the flaws of neoliberalism which deifies the free market and vilifies the state. This crisis shows that small government and big market are unable to cope with a crisis of this order. In fact, neoliberalism and market fundamentalism have damaged society considerably, resulting what the Karl Polanyi and later Michael Sandel call market society. Under this scenario, risks are socialized while profits are privatized. It weakens the capacity and readiness of society to respond to unanticipated nation-wide crisis.

Second, had the rich western countries cast off their ideological blinkers and used the opportunities after the GFC to invest in infrastructure, research and development, public goods, reduction of huge inequalities and other form of capital development, the whole world would have been in better conditions to deal with the unfolding situation.

Third, the crisis underscores the interdependence resulting from systematic integration over the past several decades. It is a cliché now to say that pathogen respects no border. It took only a few weeks for the virus to travel worldwide. A global solidarity is needed to tackle problem of this nature which unfortunately is not being displayed. Each country is frantically fighting its own fire with the rich countries pouring trillions while poor countries are left to fend on their own. But as Ably Ahmad, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, rightly said, health is a global public good and requires global design and solidarity. He warned that if Covid-19 is not beaten in Africa it will come to haunt the rest of the world.

The world has to act in a concerted action. We are all in the same boat; a leak in one part will sink the boat no matter where the source.

The post Dangers and Lessons of Present Multiple Crises appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Dr Mah Hui Lim has been a university professor and banker, in the private sector and with the Asian Development Bank.

Dr. Michael Heng, Former professor in Management Science.

The post Dangers and Lessons of Present Multiple Crises appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Ehtesham Shahid
DUBAI, Apr 1 2020 (IPS-Partners)

Global crises need global solutions yet some adjustments will have to be made if the world has to adopt a multilateral approach toward tackling the Corona pandemic, a senior academic said on Tuesday, March 31.

Participating in an e-symposium organized by the think-tank, TRENDS Research & Advisory, Prof. Yong Wang of the School of International Studies and Director, Center for International Political Economy at Peking University, said the G-20 has already taken an initiative and more such efforts are needed.

“We have our national interests but for facing challenges such as this we should work together,” he said. Prof. Wang was a panelist at the e-symposium – – Confronting the Challenges of COVID-19: A New Global Outlook – which was attended by several experts and researchers from around the world.

“Instead of scapegoating countries like China and India, countries like the US should look at their policies. We need to have a broader perspective on this,” said Prof. Wang.

Sharing China’s experience, he said that the country did the right thing by taking very tough measures such as the lockdown of Wuhan. “Indeed we are in the era of globalization and it has been rightly pointed out that this won’t be the last such outbreak,” he said.

“Chinese scientists shared genetic sequencing, which helped in data compilation and intelligence gathering to tackle the virus. The pandemic is under control in China and factories and companies are opening now. However, the government is still applying a very cautious approach,” he said.

Experts participating in this first-ever e-symposium of its kind highlighted the ongoing struggle between forces of globalization and protectionism but emphasized the need for a collective response to the Covid-19 challenge.

Prof. Maurizio Barbeschi, Adviser to the Executive Director, World Health Emergencies (WHE) Program at The World Health Organization (WHO), said the world has been preparing for pandemic since SARS and it is impressive how not prepared the planet was.

According to him, it is not just the peak of the pandemic but also the bumps and re-entry to normalcy will have to be managed. “Even vaccines may have to be handled with extreme care for not creating groups of haves and have-nots,” he said.

Prof. Barbeschi also said that it is obvious that travel bans did not work well. “The first reaction of governments so far wasn’t smart, quick or big or large enough to stop the exponential move of the virus,” he said.

Gulfaraz Khan, Professor of Viral Pathology and Chair, Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology at the College of Medicine and Health Sciences, UAE University, said that the scientific community is united against Covid-19.

Prof. Khan said that it must be acknowledged that China identified and made the virus sequence available to the international community within two weeks of the outbreak. “We have also seen an unprecedented number of publications on Covid-19,” Prof. Khan said pointing out that the world failed to identify the threat early.

“We had approximately a month to look at the outbreak even though the disease was spreading. The majority of the world’s cases happened after February so we need to learn lessons as a global community,” he said.

Prof. Khan also ruled out the possibility of a vaccine coming out anytime soon. “It could take 12-18 months if you add the time needed in mass production and in making it available around the world,” he said.

Delivering an international security perspective, Dr. Hussein Ibish, Senior Resident Scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, said it is not yet clear whether parochialism will triumph over populism in the aftermath of this crisis.

“There is discourse emerging from Europe that may not reflect the ground reality. There seems to be an adrenaline rush for insularity and parochialism promoted by populism which is not helping,” he said.

According to Dr. Ibish, the crisis also poses a real threat to democracy in many countries. “Authoritarian states like China, in particular, say they are better at the discipline and population control needed to contain the virus,” he said. Dr. Ibish also argued that demagogues may use this crisis to consolidate power.

Dr. David Meyer, Associate Professor of Security and Global Studies and Program Director, Master of Arts in Diplomacy at the College of Security and Global Studies, the American University in the Emirates, said the US will continue to demand favorable trade deals as national interest cannot be wished away.

“After this crisis ends, protectionism will come back with a vengeance as more and more countries slip into recession. If the quarantine lasts more than six months then we are looking at economic depression,” he said.

The post Chinese Academic Defends Country’s Role amid Covid-19 Crisis appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: UN Population Fund (UNFPA)

By Daud Khan and Leila Yasmine Khan
AMSTERDAM/ROME, Apr 1 2020 (IPS)

What is likely to be the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on developing economies? It is difficult to make predictions, because much will depend on the spread of the disease, especially in Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East, and the measures various Governments will take in the coming weeks and months. 

This two part article looks at possible economic impacts and what actions may be required to minimize disruptions on the poor and vulnerable. The first part looks at short term actions, whereas the second will look at possible medium to longer term developments. 

In the short term there is likely to be a sharp drop in domestic consumer demand in most developing countries. 

Demand for food, medical assistance and other essential items may rise, but this would be more than offset by lower demand for non-essential goods such as apparel and various services.

Demand would also fall due to other factors such as foreign buyers delaying or withdrawing orders; tourists, both local and foreign, canceling trips; and the declines in the stock market which erodes peoples’ wealth and their willingness to spend.

For countries with large numbers of overseas workers such as Philippines, India and Pakistan, or with large diasporas such as Somalia, remittances would slow down due to layoffs and delayed salary payments in Europe, the Middle-East and USA where most of these people live and work

For countries with large numbers of overseas workers such as Philippines, India and Pakistan, or with large diasporas such as Somalia, remittances would slow down due to layoffs and delayed salary payments in Europe, the Middle-East and USA where most of these people live and work.

Lower overall domestic consumer demand will have a negative impact on production and employment. The drop in consumer demand may have a lower effect in manufacturing, where companies could, if they have access to credit, build up stocks of finished goods rather than reduce production and lay off staff.  However, the effects on the small-scale services sector are likely to be dramatic.   

On the supply side, there are also likely to be disruptions in developing countries, as there may be shortages of imported raw materials and spare parts. However, this is likely to be less of a factor than in developed countries, where long supply chains are now the norm rather than the exception.   Moreover, lower fuel prices would help the developing countries, most of who are net importers of energy.      

The severity and duration of the short term demand and supply impacts depends on the measures various governments take to contain the spread of the virus.  If the pandemic shows signs of spreading rapidly as it doing in Europe and the USA, Governments will start to close factories and shops selling nonessential items. 

In India and parts of Pakistan a lockdown has already been imposed. In such a scenario the cut in GDP and incomes would be severe. It may even reach the 3-5% projected for Italy.  Such a fall would cause severe hardship on the poorest section of the population, such as day-laborers in cities and in rural areas.     

Many developing countries do not have Government run social safety nets. In times of need most people turn to friends, neighbors and relatives for help. 

Private charity tends to rise sharply in situations such as the current one. Private help includes direct assistance in cash and food items to affected people, continued salaries despite the inability to come to work, and assistance with medical expenses.

However, the largest part is in the form of donations to civil society organizations, NGOs, mosque or church committees, and to religious groups.  In many countries these organizations have very well developed capacities to reach the poorest, and are already well on the way to set up food distributions and other relief systems in big cities such as Karachi.

Although there are still many uncertainties about how the pandemic will develop, it is clear that private support mechanisms may not be able to fully cope. Moreover, such mechanisms tend to be relatively weak in rural areas as the scattered nature of the population makes it difficult to reach effected people.  

To complement private initiatives, the Government will need to mobilize its own institutional machinery, particularly those with presence in rural areas. These include police stations, health clinics and agriculture/livestock offices which could provide logistic bases to reach the rural poor with medical assistance, as well as income and food support. 

These facilities should be brought into play with funds being diverted from other ongoing activities. However, with Government struggling to meet rising medical care expenses, their financial capacity is likely to be severely limited. International organizations should be mobilized to help.

It is worth mentioning that the World Bank has set aside US$12 billion, the Asian Development Bank US$6.5 billion and the IMF US$50 billion for the helping countries with COVID-19. Others, including International NGOs, need to also be brought in.  A special role has to be played by the World Food Programme which has much needed expertise in dealing with the logistics of crisis as well as in raising resources.  

In addition to stepping up immediate relief actions, Governments should also bring into play the two major policy instruments at its disposal – the rate of interest and the exchange rate.  The central banks need to cut interest rates and require commercial banks to make corresponding decreases in interest rates on outstanding loans to consumers and businesses.

They should also encourage commercial banks to allow customers and enterprises to delay payments, and at the same time increase liquidity in the system by reducing the deposits commercial banks are required to hold with the central banks. Central banks and ministries of finance also need to recognize that devaluation of the currency may be necessary to keep them competitive in the face of falling global demand. 

The Government should try and take advantage of the lower international price of oil. As mentioned above, these cuts should be passed on to consumers, particularly industrial and commercial users, through lower prices for fuel and electricity.  Prices cuts should also prioritize diesel which is mostly used in agriculture, industry, and truck and bus transporters.  

Will these measures be enough?  Probably not. The developed countries should, where possible, help.  China is certainty playing its part by providing equipment and technical assistance to many countries in Asia and Africa. 

The USA and countries in Europe should also step up their level of assistance outside their borders. One way to quickly and effectively do this has been suggested by Imran Khan, the Prime Minister of Pakistan: – cancel, or at least reschedule, some of the debt of developing countries affected by the pandemic.  Debt repayment takes a large proportion of public expenditures. At this time, this money would be far better spent at helping people survive the crisis.    

 

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

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

The post The Economic Impact of COVID-19 on Developing Countries appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Part 1 – Addressing the Short Term Aspects

The post The Economic Impact of COVID-19 on Developing Countries appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By IPS UN Bureau
NEW YORK, Apr 1 2020 (IPS)

Martin Khor, a former Director of Third World Network who was a regular contributor of opinion editorials to IPS over several years passed away In Penang on 1 April.

Born in 1951, Khor was active in civil society movements. A journalist, economist and former director of the advocacy group for Third World societies, Third World Network based in Penang, he taught at Universiti Sains Malaysia. Earlier, he headed the South Centre in Geneva.

In honor of Martin Khor’s memory, IPS is republishing one of his opinion editorials: Action Needed to Avoid the End of Modern Medicine

 
————————————————————————————

Action Needed to Avoid the End of Modern Medicine

By Martin Khor

Martin Khor is Executive Director of the South Centre, a think tank for developing countries, based in Geneva.

Unregulated sales of antibiotics are contributing to growing resistance. Credit: Adil Siddiqi/IPS

PENANG, Malaysia, Dec 5 2017 (IPS) – The next time you have a bad cold and reach for the antibiotics left over from your last visit to the doctor, think again.

Firstly, the antibiotics won’t work as they only act against bacteria while the cold is caused by a virus.

Secondly, you will be contributing to the arguably the world’s gravest health threat – antibiotic resistance.

The wrong use and over-use of antibiotics is one of the main causes why they are becoming increasingly ineffective against many diseases, including pneumonia, tuberculosis, blood disorders, gonorrhoea and foodborne diseases.

While an effective antibiotic kills most of the targeted germs, a few may survive and develop resistance which can spread to other bacteria that cause the same infection or different infections. The rate of resistance and its spread can increase if antibiotics are wrongly or over used, and they then become increasingly ineffective to treat bacterial infections.

Martin Khor, Executive Director of the South Centre

Global health leaders are now ringing the alarm bell. “Antimicrobial resistance is a global health emergency,” warned the World Health Organisation’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “The world is facing an antibiotic apocalypse,” said the United Kingdom’s Chief Medical Officer Dame Sally Davies. “It may spell the end of modern medicine.”

Warns the WHO: “Antibiotic resistance is rising to dangerously high levels in all parts of the world. New resistance mechanisms are emerging and spreading globally, threatening our ability to treat common infectious diseases…Without urgent action, we are heading for a post-antibiotic era, in which common infections and minor injuries can once again kill.” (WHO Fact Sheet on antibiotic resistance, Nov. 2017).

These warnings were highlighted on World Antibiotics Awareness Week on 13-19 November when activities were held in many countries.

Antibiotic resistance is part of the wider phenomenon of anti-microbial resistance (AMR), which includes resistance of bacteria, fungi, viruses and parasites to medicines.

About 700,000 people die annually due to antimicrobial resistant infections, and this is estimated to rise to 10 million deaths a year by 2050 if action is not taken, with a cumulative economic cost of US $100 trillion, according to a 2016 review on AMR sponsored by the UK government.

A key tipping point was reached recently when it was found that some bacteria had evolved to be resistant to colistin, the antibiotic of last resort which is used on a patient when all other antibiotics are found ineffective.

Antibiotic resistance is rising to dangerously high levels in all parts of the world. New resistance mechanisms are emerging and spreading globally, threatening our ability to treat common infectious diseases…Without urgent action, we are heading for a post-antibiotic era, in which common infections and minor injuries can once again kill.

WHO Fact Sheet on antibiotic resistance, Nov. 2017
In 2016, researchers in China found colistin-resistant E. coli bacteria in 20 per cent of animals, 15 per cent of raw meat and 1 per cent of hospital patients that were sampled. The colistin resitance gene (mcr-1) could easily be transferred among different bacteria.

Malaysia was also one of the first countries where scientists found colistin-resistant bacteria. “Since the publication of our findings, mcr-1 gene has been found in many other countries,” said Associate Professor Dr Chan Kok Gan of University Malaya. “This is a frightening scenario and the whole world should sit up and take action to prevent further abuse of antibiotics.”

If this resistance continues to spread, colistin will become less and less effective and we will eventually lose the “antibiotic of last resort.”

The colistin story also carries another lesson. It is widely thought that resistance is due to over-use of antibiotics by consumers or the spread of infections caused by resistant bacteria to patients in hospitals.

However resistance is also spread through the agriculture sector and the food chain, as shown in the study on colistin in China.

In many countries, much of the antibiotics used (80 per cent in the case of the United States) are fed in farms to animals as growth promoters, to make them grow fatter and faster, as well as to prevent or treat diseases.

Resistant bacteria build up in the animals and are present in raw meat. Some of these bacteria are passed on to humans when they eat the meat.

In Malaysia, the Department of Veterinary Services in 2012 found that half of the domestic chickens tested had bacteria that were resistant to three types of antibiotics (ampicillin, sulphonamide, tetracycline), as cited in a memorandum by the Consumers’ Association of Penang.

The environment is another source of the spread of resistance. Residues and wastes containing resistant bacteria flow from farms and hospitals and contaminate soils, drainage systems, rivers and seas. Some of these bacteria find their way to humans.

The European Union banned the use of antibiotics as growth promoters in animal feed in January 2006 while the US started action to phase them out in December 2013.

In most developing countries, little action has so far been taken. Hopefully that will start to change. In November 2017, the World Health Organisation issued its first ever guidelines on the use of antibiotics in food-producing animals.

“Scientific evidence demonstrates that overuse of antibiotics in animals can contribute to the emergence of antibiotic resistance,” said WHO’s Food Safety Director, Dr Kazuaki Miyagishima.

 

Misuse of antibiotics and risks. Credit: WHO

 

A WHO-sponsored study published in The Lancet Planetary Health in November 2017 found that interventions that restrict antibiotic use in food-producing animals reduced antibiotic-resistant bacteria in these animals by up to 39%, according to a WHO press release.

The research paper (authored by William Ghali and 10 other scientists), reviewed thousands of studies, and selected 179 relevant ones, to find if there is an association between interventions that restrict antibiotic use and reduction in the prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in animals and in humans.

The key findings are that:

• “Overall, reducing antibiotic use decreased prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in animals by about 15% and multidrug-resistant bacteria by 24-32%.”
• The evidence of effect on human beings was more limited but showed similar results, “with a 24% absolute reduction in the prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in humans with interventions that reduce antibiotic use in animals.”

This study influenced the development of the WHO’s new guidelines, which are aimed at influencing policy makers in the agriculture and health sectors. According to a WHO press release, the guidelines include:

• An overall reduction in the use of all classes of medically important antibiotics in food-producing animals.
• Complete restriction of these antibiotics for growth promotion and for disease prevention without diagnosis.
• Healthy animals should only receive antibiotics to prevent disease if it has been diagnosed in other animals in the same flock or herd or fish population.
• Antibiotics used in animals should be from the WHO list as “least important” to human health and not from “highest priority critically important.”

In 2015, Health Ministers attending the World Health Assembly adopted a Global Plan of Action on anti-microbial resistance, and they agreed that each country should prepare national action plans by 2017.

Since there are many sources of antibiotic resistance, the national effort must include not only the health authorities but also those responsible for agriculture and the environment.

The health authorities should take action to control the spread of infections (including in hospitals), carry out surveillance of antibiotic resistance, introduce and implement regulations and guidelines on proper prescriptions, ethical marketing of drugs and rational drug use.

The agriculture authorities should phase out inappropriate use of antibiotics for animals, especially for growth promotion, while the environment authorities should prevent resistant bacteria and genes from contaminating soils, drainage systems, rivers and seas.

There should be campaigns to make the public aware of the dangers of wrongly using antibiotics and that they should not demand that doctors give them antibiotics unnecessarily.

The medical profession should adhere to guidelines on the proper use of antibiotics, while drug companies should not push for maximum sales but instead advocate prudent use of their antibiotics in both the health or animal sectors.

These are the more obvious actions that need to be taken and urgently if we are to succeed in slowing down the alarming rate of antibiotic resistance. If we fail, it may well be “the end of modern medicine”, as the health leaders and the scientists have warned us.

The post In memory of Martin Khor appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Henrietta H. Fore, Executive Director, UNICEF

By External Source
Apr 1 2020 (IPS-Partners)

Henrietta H. Fore became UNICEF’s seventh Executive Director on 1 January 2018. She has worked to champion economic development, education, health, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief in a public service, private sector and non-profit leadership career that spans more than four decades.

From 2007 to 2009, Ms. Fore served as the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and Director of United States Foreign Assistance. The first woman to serve in these roles, she was responsible for managing $39.5 billion of U.S. foreign assistance annually, including support to peoples and countries recovering from disaster and building their futures economically, politically and socially.

Earlier in her career at USAID, Ms. Fore was appointed Assistant Administrator for Asia and Assistant Administrator for Private Enterprise (1989-1993). She served on the Boards of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the Millennium Challenge Corporation. In 2009, she received the Distinguished Service Award, the highest award the Secretary of State can bestow. Read full bio >>

Henrietta H. Fore, UNICEF Executive Director, speaks with children at the Umm Battah Girls School in Kadugli, the capital city of South Kordofan State, Sudan.

ECW. Before we talk about education, can you tell us how UNICEF is responding to the current COVID-19 pandemic?

Henrietta H. Fore. In just a few months, COVID-19 has upended the lives of children around the world. It represents not only a threat to their health — but to their education, as schools close their doors worldwide, and to their safety, as the combined socio-economic impacts of job losses, isolation and containment measures put children at increased risk of abuse, exploitation and violence. In communities worldwide, you can find UNICEF staff members working around the clock to provide emergency education kits, distance learning opportunities, lifesaving information about handwashing and sanitation, and psychosocial counselling to affected children. We are also working with governments to strengthen health systems, and better manage the disease as the outbreak spreads. We are sparing no effort to give this global health emergency the attention and resources it deserves.

ECW. You have served all your life leading and championing humanitarian and development issues, not the least education. What drives you?

Henrietta H. Fore. I’m driven by the futures of children. Everywhere I travel, even in the most difficult circumstances — in conflicts and natural disasters, in communities plagued by extreme poverty or discrimination — I meet children and young people whose eyes and faces are lit with hope for the future. They tell me about their dreams and aspirations. They want to contribute to their families and economies. Even those living in the most difficult circumstances are not passive victims. They are determined to build their own futures. But they need the right tools and support. Providing quality education to every child in every context is not only a basic human right — it is essential to bringing their dreams to life and to sustaining progress and even peace for all of humanity in the future.

ECW. What is the scale of the current crisis, and how does it relate to our collective efforts to reach SDG 4?

Henrietta H. Fore. The Sustainable Development Goals’ call for “education for all” must mean exactly that — education for all. Even those children whose education is interrupted by, or non-existent because of, conflicts and natural disasters. As Education Cannot Wait reminds us, there are currently about 75 million children in urgent need of educational support across 35 crisis-affected countries. In fact, the countries furthest away from achieving SDG 4 are all crisis-affected. In other words — we will not reach this goal if we fail to reach precisely these children. In these humanitarian emergencies, children’s education suffers first, when schools are closed or destroyed, and education is interrupted. Also, they are especially vulnerable to abuse, trafficking and exploitation. We must never forget that a generation of young people is at stake — tomorrow’s leaders, tomorrow’s citizens, tomorrow’s caretakers of our world. We cannot afford to let them down — at any stage of their education, no matter what barriers we must overcome to reach them.

ECW. UNICEF oversees multiple sectors and is the lead agency on education in emergencies. Why is delivering education in emergencies so important – as important as water, nutrition, medicine and other services? Why is it important to recognize education as a lifesaving intervention at times of humanitarian crisis?

Henrietta H. Fore. A child’s right to an education does not change because of a crisis. In fact, it is just important as every other need, and can even improve outcomes in other sectors. For example, schools provide a place for children to learn more than reading and math. They also learn healthy behaviours, such as the importance of proper nutrition and hand-washing to prevent disease. Schools also create a safe and secure learning environment during times of insecurity and crisis, providing a needed sense of normalcy, continuity and safety for children that have seen and experienced often traumatic events. So education not only provides a pathway for children to build and fulfil their potential — it can have multiplier effects that can help young people stay safe and healthy.

On 3 March 2020 in the Syrian Arab Republic, UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta H. Fore speaks with students at Tal-Amara school in southern rural Idlib.

ECW. We have recently witnessed important steps to present a consolidated UN response to the wellbeing and education of children caught in emergencies and crises. How do you see the role of UNICEF in strengthening co-ordination between relevant UN partners, civil society and private sector to ensure continuity, inclusion and real learning in complex emergencies?

Henrietta H. Fore. UNICEF is uniquely placed to bring partners together to serve children living through emergencies. We have over 790 education staff members spread across 144 countries — the single-largest global education presence of any international agency. This deep presence allows UNICEF to help countries expand access to quality education, even for the most marginalized children, such as those young refugees fleeing conflicts across borders. UNICEF is also the largest provider of education in emergencies in humanitarian response and, together with Save the Children, we are leading an IASC cluster co-ordination group on education. Together, we are working to ensure that all of our national and global partners are working as one to deliver quality education to children in emergencies.

ECW. UNICEF hosts a number of global funds and initiatives, including the Education Cannot Wait Fund. As a member of Education Cannot Wait’s High-Level Steering Group, how do you see Education Cannot Wait’s contribution to advancing SDG4 in crisis situations?

Henrietta H. Fore. Initiatives like Education Cannot Wait are gathering partners around the urgent and complex needs of children facing some of the world’s worst realities. ECW’s financing efforts are particularly important, enabling partners on the ground to act quickly to fill the gap between humanitarian and development funding, while building stronger school systems for the future. This is critical, especially when we consider that only about two per cent of overall humanitarian funding is currently dedicated to education. We must work to ensure that we use ever dollar for education wisely and strategically, while at the same time turning up the volume on this education emergency to draw even more funding and resources.

ECW. A major priority is that of girls’ education, especially for girls left furthest behind in conflicts, natural disasters and forced displacement. How can we reach these girls by 2030? How can we accelerate our joint efforts during the Decade of Action?

Henrietta H. Fore. On this issue, we cannot be complacent. Despite progress, 130 million girls are still out of school around the world. Even those who gain a primary education are still vulnerable to dropping out and being unable to continue their education beyond that level. And many girls who finish primary school are contending with poor quality education, and will not meet minimum proficiency in reading by the time they finish. This is not only an injustice — it’s a huge missed opportunity for development. Educating girls not only combats poverty, it also ensures better maternal and child health. That’s why UNICEF is bringing together partners around solutions like flexible learning for girls trapped by crises, and investments in school facilities — like separate toilets and safe learning spaces — to keep them learning. The Decade of Action depends on accelerating our progress through efforts like these, and we will not stop until every girl gets the education she needs and deserves.

ECW. As an inspirational global leader, what is your message to children and youth, many of whom you have met, who dream of an education, as they suffer the brunt of conflicts and disasters?

Henrietta H. Fore. My message to them is simple: education can never be taken from you. It is yours. It is portable. It will give purpose to your hands, hearts and dreams, wherever you may travel. Even as you face these crises and disasters, remember that millions of people are standing with you in your hour of need — donors, governments, activists, organizations like UNICEF, partnerships like Education Cannot Wait, NGOs, businesses and community leaders. Together, we are working around the clock to design, fund and deliver programmes to ensure you have the tools you need to shape your minds and your futures. We will not leave you behind.

###

About Education Cannot Wait: ECW is the first global fund dedicated to education in emergencies. It was launched by international humanitarian and development aid actors, along with public and private donors, to address the urgent education needs of 75 million children and youth in conflict and crisis settings. ECW’s investment modalities are designed to usher in a more collaborative approach among actors on the ground, ensuring relief and development organizations join forces to achieve education outcomes. Education Cannot Wait is hosted by UNICEF. The Fund is administered under UNICEF’s financial, human resources and administrative rules and regulations, while operations are run by the Fund’s own independent governance structure.

Please follow on Twitter: @EduCannotWait @YasmineSherif1 @KentPage
Additional information at: www.educationcannotwait.org

For press inquiries: Kent Page, kpage@unicef.org, +1-917-302-1735
For press inquiries: Anouk Desgroseilliers, adesgroseilliers@un-ecw.org, +1-917-640-6820
For any other inquiries: info@un-ecw.org

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By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM / ROME, Apr 1 2020 (IPS)

The experience and interpretation of the Coronavirus pandemic oscillates between the personal and the general spheres. The official discourse and measures taken by authorities have a direct impact on our lives, change our daily existence and foster worries for the future. A dark cloud of uncertainty hovers above us. What do decision makers know? What can they do? What can we do? Many of us are secluded in our own homes, others in wards or hospitals, or even alone and far away from the ones they love:

All you who sleep tonight
Far from the ones you love,
No hands to left or right,
And emptiness above –
Know that you aren’t alone.
The whole world shares your tears,
Some for two nights or one,
And some for all their years. 1

When we find ourselves in the midst of a crisis some comfort might be found in literature, particularly now when so many of us are quarantined. Literature may help us to assess our existence from another point of view.

Many authors have been outsiders, i.e. they have felt being “a step away from others”. This can create a crippling feeling of loneliness, though also provide an ability to observe and comment on the behaviour of others. A European example of such an author is Albert Camus, who actually wrote a novel he called L’Étranger, The Outsider, about a man separated from “the society in which he lives, wandering on the fringe, on the outskirts of life, solitary and sensual.” Since Mersault, the novel’s main character did “not cry on his mothers funeral” Camus asserts that he deserved Society’s condemnation. 2

In the novel La Peste, the Plague,3 which Camus wrote five years after L’Étranger his perspective has shifted. His main characters are still encountering an absurd existence, though they are now generally experiencing it together. His own life (he suffered from chronic tuberculosis), and in particular his experiences with the French resistance during World War II, made Camus believe there is goodness and compassion in the depth of most human hearts. This in spite of the narcissism, cruelty and, above all, indifference to human suffering that might characterize the actions of many decision makers.

In La Peste most of the characters confront the pestilence in an undramatic and stubborn manner. They do not glorify heroism or power, instead they ”are obscurely engaged in saving, not destroying, and this in the name of no ideology.” Camus wrote about what he called the small heroism of common people, in contrast to the ”large cowardice” of powerful decision makers.

The novel tells a fictitious story about a plague sweeping an Algerian city, asking questions related to an unfathomable destiny and the human condition. The characters in his novel range from medical doctors, to trapped tourists, fugitives, criminals, soldiers and politicians, all demonstrating the effects a pandemic have on a multifaceted community.

A medical doctor who lives comfortably in an apartment building experiences the upsetting death of the concierge and thus suspects that an epidemic is approaching. He contacts the town authorities, though his fears are dismissed by an assurance that they cannot be founded on the basis of a single death. No measures are taken to mitigate a possible plague. The doctor becomes more or less appeased by the experts´ conclusive opinions and like everyone else he begins to envisage the danger the town faces as ”unreal”. Nevertheless, he continues to feel uneasy, in particular since his wife is away on a sanatorium. A few days after the worried doctor´s visit to the Town Hall the city’s eighty hospital beds are taken and their occupants soon begin to die. Within a short while the epidemic has killed off half the town’s population of two hundred thousands. Doctor Rieux works day and night to combat the plague simply because he is a doctor and it is his job to relieve human suffering. He does not do it for any grand religious or political purposes. However, others oppose the scourge due to their religious convictions, or a high-minded moral code. Most of the people who abide to extraordinary measures and sacrifice their well-being for others are just like Doctor Rieux doing so without any fuss. They know they cannot win their struggle against death, their loved ones are dying all around them, but nevertheless, out of a sense of duty and compassion they continue to help one another.

On the contrary, most politicians and community leaders behave in an erratic and often brutal manner, devoid of considerations for others. Such persons are trapped within their own power games, suspecting that ”the masses” are dangerous and volatile. Their Draconian measures are often supported by violence, instilling fear, or even indifference, instead of cooperation and compassion.

When the plague subsides everyone is scarred and changed. They have survived, but many of their loved ones have died and they view existence from a new perspective. Most of those who endured the affliction have become stronger and more sensitive persons, though others cannot cope with afterlife, some commit suicide, others become crazy. However, all in all, the authorities´ predictions about violence and mayhem were not fulfilled. People proved to be more resilient and compassionate than they even could imagine themselves to be.

Camus´s powerful vision in La Peste coincides with observations made by the U.S. author Rebecca Solnit. While studying human behaviour during several recent natural disasters she came to the conclusion that astonishingly many people not only rose to the occasion, but did so with force and joy, revealing an ordinarily unmet yearning for community, purposefulness, and meaningful work. Her A Paradise Built in Hell4 becomes a tale about moments of altruism, resourcefulness, and generosity arising amidst disasters´ grief and disruption. Books like the ones of Solnit and Camus indicate a vision of what social systems could become if they were less authoritarian and fearful, and more collaborative and local.

They indicate that most of the panicking and selfish behaviour originates from governing elites fearful of the threat that ”common” people will not get along without them and accordingly oust them from office. Many politicians become victims of an abstract thinking that makes them prone to intervene without listening to the needs and fears of the victims of a disaster and thus run the risk that their actions might even be to the detriment of a devastated community.

Is such thinking behind the muddled messages of a world leader like Donald Trump? For more than two months he was in a state of denial about an upcoming pandemic, thus putting millions at risk. Against all expertise Trump predicted a worst case scenario where ”cases in a few days time” would go down from a ”handful to zero”. It was only after the stock market sell-off increased in speed that he finally recognized that some action was needed.

Trump´s lack of empathy is flagrant. He and his minions continue to treat the coronavirus as a PR problem, a political problem, and a business problem, downplaying the severity of the pandemic by urging people to continue life like everything is normal. A week ago, Trump tweeted: ”We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself.” Accordingly, the world´s most powerful man casts doubt on his resolve in the fight against a mass killer.

Trump acts like the power greedy politicians in Camus´ and Solnit´s books, who abided in an absurd and secluded bubble made up of their own greed and narcissism. Persons unaware of Kant´s categorical imperative to act in such a way that their behaviour might become a universal law, or as former homeland security advisor Thomas Bossert expressed it: ”It’s reasonable to plan for the U.S. to top the list of countries with the most cases in approximately one week. This does NOT make social intervention futile. It makes it imperative!”5 This was stated more than a week ago and the U.S. is now topping the list of Coronavirus afflicted individuals, while Trump is still dragging his feet.

1 Seth, Vikram (1990) All You Who Sleep Tonight. New York: Knopf/Doubleday.
2 Camus, Albert (2000) The Outsider. London: Penguin Modern Classics.
3 Camus, Albert (2002) The Plague. London: Penguin Modern Classics.
4 Solnit, Rebecca (2010) A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Rise in Disaster. London: Penguin Books.
5 Haberman, Maggie and David E. Sanger (2020) ”Trump Says Coronavirus Cure Cannot ´Be Worse Than the Problem Itself´,” The New York Times, March 23.

Jan Lundius holds a PhD. on History of Religion from Lund University and has served as a development expert, researcher and advisor at SIDA, UNESCO, FAO and other international organisations.

The post The Need for Empathy in the Time of Coronavirus appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 1 2020 (IPS)

The deadly, fast-spreading coronavirus which upended three key UN conferences—on the empowerment of women, on nuclear disarmament and on indigenous rights—claimed another casualty last week when a commemorative meeting on the transatlantic slave trade was postponed.

A visibly disappointed president of the 193-member General Assembly, Tijjani Muhammad-Bande of Nigeria, said the postponement of the commemorative event was “regrettable” and was “the result of the continuing evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The widespread pandemic, he pointed out, reinforces the fact that “we have a duty to open our minds to the lived experiences of others”: the 15 million Africans who were forcibly removed from their homelands and subjected to “heinous cruelty and robbed of their dignity, freedom, and identities”.

“The onus is upon every Member State to eradicate trafficking, forced labour, servitude and slavery. None of us will be truly free whilst these people suffer”, he noted.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who is desperately trying to keep the world body functioning despite a forced shutdown, warned that the transatlantic slave trade was “one of the biggest crimes in the history of mankind.”

“And we continue to live in its shadow,” he said, even as modern-day slavery has raised its ugly head in a far corner of the world, involving a Samoan-born chief who was found guilty of more than 20 charges of dealing in slaves and human trafficking in New Zealand.

According to a March 17 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) report, Joseph Auga Matamata, 65, was convicted of offences over a 25-year period.

His victims, all of them Samoan, were “too scared to alert the authorities because of his status as a matai or chief.”

Each of the 13 slavery charges on which he was convicted carries a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison. “It is the first time someone has been charged with both slavery and human trafficking in New Zealand”, BBC said.

Matamata faces up to 20 years in jail or a fine of nearly $300,000 for the human-trafficking convictions. Sentencing will take place on 6 May, BBC reported.

Formerly known as Western Samoa, the South Pacific island nation was governed by New Zealand until its independence in 1962.

Credit: UNICEF/UN052608/Romenzi

Karolin Seitz, Director of Global Policy Forum’s Business and Human Rights Programme, based in Bonn, told IPS it should be welcomed that with this decision, New Zealand is showing its engagement in the fight against modern-day slavery.

In many other countries, however, and especially in transnational cases of human rights violations by companies, high barriers to access to justice remain. Improvements in effective legal measure for people affected are overdue globally, she said.

“The current negotiations in the UN Human Rights Council on a legally binding treaty on business and human rights are an important step towards achieving this aim”.

While several elements still need clarification and improvement, she pointed out, the revised draft of such a treaty puts an important focus on the rights of the victims and access to remedy and justice in cases of human rights violations by companies.

“If New Zealand wants to show its real commitment to ending slavery and human trafficking globally, it should constructively support the formulation of an international treaty and finally participate in the upcoming negotiations in October 2020,” said Seitz.

After an exhaustive study of modern-day slavery, the Geneva-based International Labour Organization (ILO) concluded there are over 40 million people who are victims of slavery, including 25 million in forced labour and 15 million in forced marriages – with at least 71 percent of them comprising women and girls.

Tsitsi Matekaire, a Global Lead for Equality Now’s End Sex Trafficking programme, told IPS it is commendable that the New Zealand government has secured a conviction in this case.

Governments must also ensure that victims are properly supported to rebuild their lives after their traumatic experiences. “We hope that a strong support system has been put in place in this instance for the 13 Samoan victims,” she added.

“Human trafficking is a serious crime and a grave violation of human rights”.

Every year, she pointed out, many thousands of vulnerable people fall prey to traffickers and are trafficked and exploited in both their own countries and abroad. Nations across the world are affected by human trafficking, whether as a country of origin, transit or destination for victims.

“Intersecting inequality, discrimination, and abuse of power are root causes of human trafficking and exploitation,” said Matekaire, a former Program Manager at Womankind Worldwide providing program and advocacy support to women’s rights organizations in Ethiopia, Uganda and Zimbabwe on ending violence against women, and promoting women’s civil and political participation

She said these factors lead to marginalization and poverty for certain groups of people and increase their vulnerability to human trafficking.

“Women and girls are disproportionately disadvantaged by inequality, poverty, and discrimination, and account for the majority of victims of human trafficking globally”

Marginalised racial, ethnic, and socially excluded communities, migrants and LGBTQ+ people are also more vulnerable to human trafficking and exploitation, she added.

A key driver for human trafficking, she argued, is the huge profits that traffickers and others in the exploitation chain make. Considered the world’s fastest growing criminal enterprise, the ILO estimates that human trafficking generates annual profits of 150 billion dollars a year.

Prosecution of exploiters should be a key priority for all governments. It is vital that perpetrators are punished appropriately for their actions and prevented from committing further harm, she noted.

This also sends a strong message to society that human trafficking and exploitation are intolerable and perpetrators will be held fully to account. In parallel to this, authorities need to ensure victims receive both the justice and support they deserve, and this is provided in a timely fashion, she added.

“It is commendable that the New Zealand government has secured a conviction in this case. Governments must also ensure that victims are properly supported to rebuild their lives after their traumatic experiences. We hope that a strong support system has been put in place– in this instance for the 13 Samoan victims,” Matekaire declared.

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

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

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

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

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Water falls through these enormous pipes to activate the 20 turbines of the Itaipu hydroelectric plant on the Brazilian-Paraguayan border. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

By Leonardo Beltran
MEXICO, Mar 31 2020 (IPS)

This year started with the news of the appearance of a new virus, COVID-19. The impact and severity of its effects in public health, mortality and the world economy are overwhelming. No public health system was prepared for this crisis, and yet governments are reacting deploying different policies to mitigate the crisis, and recover as fast as possible.

However, public opinion is divided, some support a more stringent approach on human liberties, others more emphasis on the economy, but the reality is that this is a false dilemma. You cannot privilege one over the other, because without health you cannot produce, and without production or sustenance there is no health.

If governments reorient SOEs mandate towards sustainability, they will have at their disposal the tools arising from their 2030 ASD and Paris Agreement commitments

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its 2014 report warned about the risks of global warming, in particular for health and the economy.

In terms of health, the risks of vector-borne diseases will generally increase with warming, due to the expansion of the season and area of infection, despite reductions in some areas that will become too warm for disease vectors.

In economic terms, systemic risks due to extreme weather events that would lead to the collapse of infrastructure networks and essential services, and the risk of food and water insecurity and loss of livelihoods and incomes in rural areas, particularly for poor populations.

Today we are observing with COVID-19 the vulnerability or our public health systems and the combined effect of the fragility of the economy globally. To the extent that we continue without adjusting our way of production and consumption, global warming will continue to accelerate, precipitating the materialization of negative impacts for biodiversity, ecosystem services, economic development, and aggravating risks to livelihoods and for food and human security.

Moreover, if we are to prepare for this future, governments in designing their recovery plans can assess their alternatives and support a sustainable growth path. In 2015, the world agreed upon a new vision that would guide their actions in the future adopting the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2030 ASD) and signing the Paris Agreement.

These agreements included a set of tools to assist countries select their most efficient pathway towards low carbon development. In fact, recovery after the pandemic would be easier if governments “walk the talk on climate change” reorienting their State-Owned Enterprises towards sustainability.

 

Credit: United Nations

 

2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development [1]

In September 2015, the heads of state and government at the UN headquarters in New York City adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The international community committed to promote the sustainable development agenda in its three dimensions – economic, social and environmental – in a balanced and integrated manner, for which it is essential to guarantee lasting protection of the planet and its natural resources and where there is universal access to a supply of affordable, reliable and sustainable energy.

One of the key elements in the 2030 ASD includes a commitment to enhance international cooperation to facilitate access to advanced and cleaner fossil-fuel technology.

 

Paris Agreement [2]

On December 12, 2015, in Paris during the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Convention Framework on Climate Change the international community signed the Paris Agreement, an international treaty in which for the first time all nations came together into a common cause to undertake joint efforts to combat climate change and adapt to its effects.

The Paris Agreement has two fundamental pieces to fight climate change. First, foster low Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHGs) development by incorporating carbon planning in government policy, and the second, finance flows consistent with a pathway towards a low carbon economy.

 

Walking the Talk on Climate Change

Today more than ever, if governments are to respond according to the crisis, one of the best instruments they have are their State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs).

SOEs have a competitive advantage in their readiness to emerge from a crisis and embrace the international new low-carbon development framework, for three reasons: corporate governance, mandate and scale.

1. Corporate governance. SOEs have an institutional structure in which there are representatives of the government. Therefore, board members representing the State would be careful enough to voice and reflect the views of the government administration into the assessments and performance of the SOE.
2. Mandate. SOEs typically are seen as a mean to pursue development strategies of the sector, or as tools to buy into foreign technologies and know-how. Thus, embedding sustainability into the mission of the SOE on one hand, would be easier given that usually the majority of the board members are government officials; and on the other, an SOE normally operates in sectors that are deemed strategic for the state, energy being one of those, and sustainability would certainly would have an effect in the way SOE corporate policy is conducted.
3. Scale. SOEs in the energy sector represent 70% of all the assets of oil and gas production, and around 60% of the coal power plants globally [3].  Therefore, to accelerate the recovery and the pace towards low-carbon development, size matters, and in this case, given that SOEs dominate the energy sector, a policy focused on low carbon growth naturally has to be led by SOEs.

 

If governments reorient SOEs mandate towards sustainability, they will have at their disposal the tools arising from their 2030 ASD and Paris Agreement commitments. These jurisdictions would be able to move faster in their low-carbon recovery pathways, promoting an innovation ecosystem with technology, finance and carbon planning tools to spur new markets and business models needed to adapt to this new future.

Therefore, an opportunity for governments to speed up recovery and walk the talk on climate change is by reorienting their SOEs towards sustainability, driving their mission and their Raison D´être.

There are a number of benefits for the different stakeholders.

For the government, the new mandate would open access to the resources (technology, finance and carbon planning tools) available in the 2030 ASD and the Paris Agreement; it would be consistent both with the national and international obligations on climate action, and it will send a strong signal of the commitment of the national government to tackle the challenges posed by climate change.

For the SOEs, it would improve their competitiveness by aligning their mission to the new low carbon development architecture, and especially by granting them access to climate finance, clean energy technology and carbon planning tools.

For the general public, it would be easier to hold accountable their governments, assess the value of taking climate action, and eventually to enjoy the social revenue of a low carbon future.

 

[1] UN General Assembly, Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, 21 October 2015, A/RES/70/1, available here

[2] Paris Agreement to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Dec. 12, 2015, T.I.A.S. No. 16-1104.

[3]  Prag, A., D. Röttgers and I. Scherrer (2018), “State-Owned Enterprises and the Low-Carbon Transition”, OECD Environment Working Papers, No. 129, OECD Publishing, Paris.

 

The post Walking the Talk on Climate Change after the Pandemic: Reorienting State-Owned Enterprises towards Sustainability appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Leonardo Beltran is Non-Resident Fellow of the Institute of the Americas, Member of the Board of SEforALL, and former Deputy Secretary at the Mexican Department of Energy

The post Walking the Talk on Climate Change after the Pandemic: Reorienting State-Owned Enterprises towards Sustainability appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: Education Cannot Wait

By External Source
Mar 31 2020 (IPS-Partners)

Armed conflicts, forced displacement, climate change induced disasters and protracted crises have disrupted the education of 75 million children and youth globally. And that number is growing in an unprecedented way with the spread of COVID-19. Education has been hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic with 1.53 billion learners out of school and 184 country-wide school closures, impacting 87.6% of the world’s total enrolled learners. Drop-out rates across the globe are likely to rise as a result of this massive disruption to education access.

While other critical needs such as health, water and sanitation are being responded to, educational needs cannot be forgotten and these have an equally detrimental impact if left unaddressed. The ‘pile-on effect’ of the coronavirus is that, during the global COVID-19 pandemic, interruptions to education can have long term implications — especially for the most vulnerable. There is a real risk of regression for children whose basic, foundational learning (reading, math, languages, etc.) was not strong to begin with. And millions of children who have already been deprived of their right to education, particularly girls, are being more exposed to health and well-being risks (both psychosocial and physical) during COVID-19. These are the children and youth we at Education Cannot Wait (ECW) prioritize, including:

• Girls: Young and adolescent girls are twice as likely to be out of school in crisis situations and face greater barriers to education and vulnerabilities such as domestic/gender-based violence when not in school.
• Refugees, displaced and migrant children: These populations often fall between the cracks as national policies might not necessarily include these vulnerable groups and they must be included and catered for in any global responses to this crisis if this has not already occurred.
• Children and youth with disabilities: Along with other marginalized populations, including children from minority groups, are neglected in the best of times and have lower educational outcomes than their peers.
• Young people affected by trauma or mental health issues: Schools and learning centers are places for communities to address health related issues, including mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS), which the most vulnerable students rely on for their wellbeing and development in order to learn.

Without access to education, as shocks are experienced – including loss of life, health impacts and loss of livelihoods – children are more vulnerable and unprotected. As household finances are being strained and needs increase, out-of-school children are more likely to be exposed to risks like family violence, child labor, forced marriage, trafficking and exploitation, including by responders. For the most vulnerable children, education is lifesaving. Not only does it provide safety and protection, importantly, it also instils hope for a brighter future.

So continuing education through alternative learning pathways, as soon as possible, must also be a top priority right now, to ensure the interruption to education is as limited as possible. We urgently need to support teachers, parents/caregivers, innovators, communications experts and all those who are positioned to provide education, whether through radio programmes, home-schooling, online learning and other innovative approaches.

What does this mean for responders like ECW? In the short term, this means we must maintain access to learning and ensure kids retain knowledge and skills (i.e. through temporary remote, alternative or distance learning programmes). In the medium term, this means catching up and transitioning students who have fallen behind or had a break in their education to re-join their level of schooling and competency (i.e. automatic promotion with a mandatory catchup/remedial period at the beginning). In the longer term, this means there is a need for education systems to be set up with contingency capacities to mitigate and manage risk in the future.

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