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By External Source
Mar 17 2020 (IPS)

Analysing how coronavirus impacts genders differently could be key in fighting the disease, say public health experts.

Women are on the coronavirus frontlines as healthcare workers, primary caregivers and migrant workers, but policy responses often fail to consider how gender and epidemics interact.

The Ebola and Zika outbreaks underline the urgent need for gendered analyses, says Clare Wenham, assistant professor in global health policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Globally, women make up about 70 per cent of the health workforce and are primarily responsible for childcare, particularly in countries where schools have closed. Not recognising that this creates different needs means you’re then not creating policy to mitigate against it

Recognising the differing effects on men and women is a “fundamental step” in public health emergency responses, wrote a global group of researchers in a recent comment in The Lancet. “We are not aware of any gender analysis of the outbreak by global health institutions or governments in affected countries or in preparedness phases,” they say.

Globally, women make up about 70 per cent of the health workforce and are primarily responsible for childcare, particularly in countries where schools have closed, the researchers say.

“Not recognising that this creates different needs means you’re then not creating policy to mitigate against it,” says Wenham.

During West Africa’s 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak, women were at higher risk of infection due to their caregiver roles, while being “less likely than men to have power in decision-making”, the Lancet comment authors note. There were also reports of increased domestic violence, sexual violence and teen pregnancies.

Governments and organisations need to consider the indirect gender impacts of epidemics, beyond simple binary data on numbers of cases, says Wenham.

Global travel restrictions mean many female migrant workers have been cut off from their jobs and incomes. Wenham says many of the mainly female domestic workers in Hong Kong, for example, are from the Philippines and send their wages home to their families.

And it is estimated that at least 3600 additional maternal, neonatal and stillbirth deaths resulted from the diversion of healthcare resources towards Ebola in Sierra Leone between 2014 and 2015.

Sarah Hawkes, co-founder and co-director of organisation Global Health 50/50 (GH5050), agrees that epidemic approaches are often “gender blind”.

“I think that right now, what we lack in terms of taking a gender lens to global health is a consistent and unified demand for change,” she says. “You’ve got a global health system that frequently doesn’t take gender into account across the full range of human health problems.”

Hawkes says GH5050’s new 2020 report ‘Power, privilege and priorities’, shows that women from low- and middle-income countries make up just five per cent of leaders at global health organisations, while more than 70 per cent of CEOs and health board chairs worldwide are men.

Fewer than four in 10 health organisations report data split out by sex from campaigns. “This is a lost opportunity for understanding the distribution of ill health, who is benefitting from interventions and who is being left behind,” the report says.

Gender approaches should not be treated as a separate issue that only involves women, says Hawkes. “Gender means everybody; it doesn’t just apply to 50 per cent of the population.”

Diah Saminarsih, senior adviser on gender and youth to the World Health Organization (WHO) director-general, says the WHO is looking at the connections between gender and COVID-19. “Colleagues in health emergency are addressing this head-on,” she says.

She points to the WHO’s gendered analysis for polio and an analysis last year of gender in the global health workforce, while the WHO included sex-disaggregated data in its annual Global Health Statistics report for the first time last year.

But she recognises that there is a need to better communicate this, and says the WHO plans to publish an analysis of gender and COVID-19 later this year.

Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist at the WHO, highlighted the opportunity in the COVID-19 outbreak to spotlight the often unrecognised role of women at the front line.

“The gender elements of how women are impacted by this health emergency are not well-captured enough,” says Saminarsih, adding that “policies for women are often not being decided by women”.

She says gender analysis must become a “reflex” embedded in global health emergency responses.

 

By Gareth Willmer

This piece was produced by SciDev.Net’s Global Edition desk and originally published here

 

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Credit: Finance & Development, International Monetary Fund (IMF)

By David E. Bloom
WASHINGTON DC, Mar 17 2020 (IPS)

“Demography is destiny” is an oft-cited phrase that suggests the size, growth, and structure of a nation’s population determines its long-term social, economic, and political fabric.

The phrase highlights the role of demographics in shaping many complex challenges and opportunities societies face, including several pertinent to economic growth and development.

Nevertheless, it is an overstatement to say that demography determines all, as it downplays the fact that both demographic trajectories and their development implications are responsive to economic incentives; to policy and institutional reforms; and to changes in technology, cultural norms, and behavior.

The world is undergoing a major demographic upheaval with three key components: population growth, changes in fertility and mortality, and associated changes in population age structure.

It took more than 50,000 years for world population to reach 1 billion people. Since 1960, we have added successive billions every one to two decades. The world population was 3 billion in 1960; it reached 6 billion around 2000, and the United Nations projects it will surpass 9 billion by 2037.

The population growth rate has been slowing, however, from peak annual rates in excess of 2 percent in the late 1960s, to about 1 percent currently, to half that by 2050.

Although global income per capita more than doubled, life expectancy increased by 16 years, and primary school enrollment became nearly universal among children during 1960–2000, rapid population growth poses myriad challenges that are both privately and publicly daunting.

These challenges include the need for more food, clothing, housing, education, and infrastructure; the absorption of sizable numbers into productive employment; and more strenuous environmental protection.

Although the explosive nature of global population growth is abating in relative terms, decade-on-decade increases remain sizable and are taking place from ever more populated starting points.

Earlier concerns about a global population explosion have, to some extent, yielded to concerns about rapid population growth in particular countries and regions (see “Coming of Age” in the current issue of F&D).

Indeed, the overall slowdown in the rate of world population growth masks significant shifts in the distribution of world population by development status and geographic region.

Countries the United Nations classifies as less developed encompassed 68 percent of world population in 1950; today they represent 84 percent. That share will continue to rise, because virtually all of the nearly 2 billion net additions to world population projected over the next three decades will occur in less developed regions.

This is a major concern, because less developed regions tend to be more fragile—politically, socially, economically, and ecologically—than their more developed counterparts.

With 1.44 billion people, China currently has the largest national population in the world, followed by India, with 1.38 billion. But by the end of this decade, India will be the most populous country, with a projected 1.50 billion people, compared with China’s peak population of 1.46 billion.

Between 2020 and 2050, Nigeria (projected to overtake the United States to become the world’s third-most-populous nation) and Pakistan—already among the 10 most populous—will surge forward. Asia will continue to be home to a dominant but declining share of the world’s population (60 percent today and 54 percent in 2050).

Finally, notwithstanding continued global population growth, in 61 countries and territories that are currently home to 29 percent of the world’s people, population growth in 2020–50 is projected to be negative, with the sharpest decline (−23 percent) projected for Bulgaria (see “Eastern Europe’s Exodus” in this issue of F&D).

Population size and growth reflect the underlying forces of mortality, fertility, and international migration. These forces vary considerably across countries and can help account for key differences in economic activity and performance, such as physical capital, labor, and human capital accumulation; economic well-being and growth; and poverty and inequality.

These forces generally respond to economic shocks; they may also respond to political developments such as the beginning and ending of wars and governance crises. In many developing economies, population growth has been associated with a phenomenon known as the “demographic transition”—the movement from high to low death rates followed by a corresponding movement in birth rates.

For most of human history, the average person lived about 30 years. But between 1950 and 2020, life expectancy increased from 46 to 73 years, and it is projected to increase by another four years by 2050.

Moreover, by 2050, life expectancy is projected to exceed 80 years in at least 91 countries and territories that will then be home to 39 percent of the world’s population. Increased longevity is a colossal human achievement that reflects improvements in survival prospects throughout the life cycle, but especially among infants and children.

Cross-country convergence in life expectancy continues to be strong. For example, the life expectancy gap between Africa and North America was 32 years in 1950 and 24 years in 2000; it is 16 years today.

Historic and anticipated reductions in cross-country health disparities reflect gains in income and nutrition among low- and middle-income countries, the diffusion of innovations in health technologies and institutions, and the distribution of international aid.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the average woman had roughly five children over the course of her childbearing years. Today, the average woman has somewhat fewer than 2.5 children.

This presumably reflects the growing cost of child-rearing (including opportunity cost, as reflected mainly in women’s wages), increased access to effective contraception, and perhaps also growing income insecurity.

The social and economic implications of this fertility decline are hard to overstate. Among other things, lower fertility has helped relieve many women of the burden of childbearing and child-rearing.

It has also contributed to the empowerment of women in their households, communities, and societies and has allowed them to participate more actively in paid labor markets. All these factors reinforce the preference for low fertility.

Between 1970 and 2020, the fertility rate declined in every country in the world. Fertility tended to decrease more in countries with high initial fertility, another facet of demographic convergence. Among geographic regions, Africa and Europe are currently homes to the highest (4.3) and lowest (1.6) fertility rates, respectively.

If the population’s age structure is sufficiently weighted toward those in prime childbearing years, even a fertility rate of 2.1 can translate into positive population growth in the short and medium term, because low fertility per woman is more than offset by the number of women having children.

This feature of population dynamics is known as population momentum and helps explain (along with migration) why the populations of 69 countries and territories are currently growing even though their fertility rates are below 2.1.

Cross-country migration is also relevant to population growth. The effects are quite important in some countries, such as Guyana, Samoa, and Tonga, where net emigration in the past 30 years has been appreciable.

Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates have had the highest rates of net immigration. Among the world’s 10 population super powers, migrants have the largest relative presence in the United States (15 percent in 2019).

For most countries, though, international migration has not been a dominant demographic force, because more than 96 percent of the world’s population currently live in their countries of birth (see “Immigrant Swan Song” in the current issue of F&D).

The age structure of a population reflects mainly its fertility and mortality history. In high-mortality populations, improved survival tends to occur disproportionately among children. This effectively creates a baby boom.

Eventually, the boom ends when fertility abates in response to perceptions of improved child survival and as desired fertility declines with economic development. But as the relatively large baby-boom cohorts proceed through adolescence and into their adult years, the population share at the peak ages for work and saving swells.

This enhances the productive capacity of the economy on a per capita basis and opens a window of opportunity for rapid income growth and poverty reduction. Events of the past decade, ranging from the Arab uprisings to more recent mass protests in Chile and Sudan, also show that countries that fail to generate sufficient jobs for large cohorts of young adults are prone to social, political, and economic instability.

The “demographic dividend” refers to the process through which a changing age structure can spur economic growth. It depends, of course, on several complex factors, including the nature and pace of demographic change, the operation of labor and capital markets, macroeconomic management and trade policies, governance, and human capital accumulation.

Nonetheless, the demographic dividend model can account for much variation in past economic performance among different countries and regions (e.g., East Asia vs. Latin America vs. sub-Saharan Africa) and helps identify more- and less-promising country settings for future economic growth.

For example, from 2020 to 2030, Nepal, Jordan, Bhutan, and Eswatini are projected to experience the largest gains among countries in the ratios of their working-age to non-working-age populations.

The dependency ratio—the inverse of the working age to non-working-age ratio—measures the economic pressure working-age individuals face to support, in addition to themselves, those who are not of working age. In 1990, the ratio in more developed regions was appreciably lower than in less developed regions (0.68 versus 1.04).

But by 2020, as a result of different patterns of fertility decline and population aging, the ratio had increased to 0.70 in more developed regions and decreased to 0.75 in less developed regions.

And by 2050, the dependency ratio is projected to be greater in more developed regions (0.89) than in those that are less developed (0.77). This switch suggests that in the coming decades, demographics will be more favorable to economic well-being in less developed regions than in more developed regions.

This will be especially true in Africa, the only region in which this ratio is projected to decline by 2050.

For countries that have yet to experience appreciable demographic transitions (like Chad, the Central African Republic, Somalia, and Sierra Leone), policies are appropriately oriented toward catalyzing those transitions.

Such policies include investment that promotes infant and child survival, such as expanded vaccine coverage as well as wider access to well-provisioned and appropriately staffed primary health care systems.

For populations that have experienced health and survival gains, countries could benefit from policies to enable a decline in fertility, such as promoting girls’ education and access to reproductive health and family planning services.

And countries with relatively sizable portions of the population concentrated in the high-work and high-savings part of the life cycle need policies to realize the potential benefits of favorable demographics.

Such policies include support for the operation of competitive labor and capital markets, equipping workers with human capital, building infrastructure, sound macroeconomic management, carefully designed trade policies, and good governance. Such policies are always desirable, but a large working-age population share raises the stakes.

In some countries, making investments in these various sets of policies could be challenging, as per capita income is currently lower in real terms than it was in some of today’s advanced economies when they were at a comparable demographic stage.

Population aging is the dominant demographic trend of the twenty-first century—a reflection of increasing longevity, declining fertility, and the progression of large cohorts to older ages.

Never before have such large numbers of people reached ages 65+ (the conventional old-age threshold). We expect to add 1 billion older individuals in the next three to four decades, atop the more than 700 million older people we have today.

Among the older population, the group aged 85+ is growing especially fast and is projected to surpass half a billion in the next 80 years. This trend is significant because the needs and capacities of the 85+ crowd tend to differ significantly from those of 65-to-84-year-olds.

Although every country in the world will experience population aging, differences in the progression of this phenomenon will be considerable. Japan is currently the world leader, with 28 percent of its population 65 and over, triple the world average.

By 2050, 29 countries and territories will have larger elder shares than Japan has today. In fact, the Republic of Korea’s elder share will eventually overtake Japan’s, reaching the historically unprecedented level of 38.1 percent.

Japan’s median age (48.4) is also currently the highest of any country and more than twice that of Africa (19.7). But by 2050, Korea (median age 56.5 in 2050) is also expected to overtake Japan on that metric (54.7).

Three decades ago, the world was populated by more than three times as many adolescents and young adults (15- to 24-year-olds) as older people. Three decades from now, those age groups will be roughly on par.

By income group, the sharpest growth in the numbers of older people will occur in countries currently classified as middle income. This is unsurprising, as these countries make up 74 percent of the world population.

What may be surprising is that the older-population share in middle-income countries is increasing at a much faster rate than in their low- and high-income counterparts.

Moreover, in comparison with high-income countries, today’s middle-income countries are projected to have appreciably greater real incomes when their older-population shares reach comparably elevated levels. This contradicts the common claim that developing economies are getting old before they get rich.

The challenge middle-income countries face is not predominantly insufficient income to take care of their older people. Rather, it is how well institutions and policies can promote economic and social security among older people in a financially sustainable way.

Population aging is sounding alarms worldwide. Whether increased longevity is associated with more or less of a person’s life lived in frailty is among the most salient unresolved questions public and private policymakers throughout the world face (see “The Long, Good Life” in the current issue of F&D).

Economists continue to express concerns. These relate to downward pressure on economic growth due to labor and capital shortages and falling asset prices in the future as a growing and more aged cohort of older people seeks to support itself by liquidating investments.

Another major issue has to do with fiscal stress. Government coffers will be strained by rising pension liabilities and the cost of health and long-term care associated with the expected growth in the incidence and prevalence of chronic diseases such as cancer, among others.

These challenges will, however, be partially offset by the increasing, but typically neglected, value older people create through productive nonmarket activities like volunteer work and caregiving.

Without historical lessons from a world with such large numbers of older people, there is even more uncertainty about our collective future. However, adopting a business-as-usual approach to the challenges of population aging would be irresponsible.

Various responses could cushion the economic burden of population aging. These include policy reforms to promote the financial sustainability and intergenerational equity of health and pension financing.

Raising the legal age of retirement, which has been relatively stable in nearly all countries for the past several decades (see “Getting Older but Not Poorer” in current issue of F&D) would also ease the burden. Pronatalist tax incentives are also a policy option for the long term, but their effect on fertility is thus far unproven.

Additional approaches include efforts to increase health systems’ emphasis on early detection and on prevention of disease through, for example, better awareness of the benefits of physical activity and subsidization of such activity.

Relaxing the institutional and economic barriers to international immigration from regions with relatively large working-age populations could alleviate labor shortages.

Finally, technological innovations are likely to ameliorate the effects of population aging. New drugs to slow the process of aging and add healthy years to people’s lives and the invention and deployment of assistive devices such as robots are two among many such improvements.

Institutional innovations like new models of home health care, public transportation systems, the design of urban layouts, and financial instruments are also on the horizon.

Global, regional, and country demographic indicators have changed dramatically since the early 1950s and are poised for equally dramatic changes in the coming decades. Population aging continues to displace population growth as the focal point of interest among global demographic phenomena.

Nonetheless, both phenomena and their underlying drivers have had, and will continue to have, profound repercussions for myriad indicators and determinants of economic well-being and progress. Demographics are not, however, set in stone. Nor are their implications for individual and collective well-being.

*Opinions expressed in articles and other materials in Finance & Development are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect IMF policy.

Finance & Development, a quarterly magazine published by the IMF, presents articles and book reviews on a wide variety of topics in international economics and finance, as well as economic development

The post Population 2020: Demographics can be Potent Driver of Pace & Process of Economic Development appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

David E. Bloom is a professor of economics and demography at Harvard University’s T. H. Chan School of Public Health*

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Mar 17 2020 (IPS)

‘Getting government out of the way’, the neoliberal ‘free market’ mantra, was supposed to boost private investment. Instead, business investment has declined as a consequence. Many economies now seem incapable of making much needed investments to sustain growth, apparently due to ‘capital allocation’ problems.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Neoliberal policies—including tax cuts, trade liberalization, deregulation, worker casualization—have greatly boosted returns, which have not been re-invested productively, as promised. Unsurprisingly, neoliberal economists’ claims have been discredited by their policies’ failure to significantly increase investments in the real economy in recent decades.

As William Lazonick’s Profits without Prosperity has argued, the outcome has been ‘predatory value extraction’, rather than ‘value creation’. Although mainly discussing the US, his seminal Harvard Business Review article offers invaluable insights into financial investment trends and their implications.

Not growth promoting
Trump’s 2017 corporate tax cut was supposed to increase private investments, raising output and jobs growth. Although investment increased in early 2018, capital spending soon stalled, lowering growth projections.

By mid-2019, S&P 500 companies were spending more to buy back their own shares than on fresh capital investment. Prospects of a major investment boom, due to the generous tax cut, are no longer taken seriously.

Apple’s stock buybacks, which had started in 2013, totaled US$326 billion by the end of 2019, accelerating after Trump’s 2017 tax cuts. There is no indication that Apple significantly increased investing in capital-intensive, fundamental innovations as a consequence.

Among major US corporations, Apple is among the few well-placed with sufficient resources to finance new manufacturing capacity and major technological advances. Without sufficient investment in productivity-enhancing technologies, facilities, equipment, training, etc., US productivity has stagnated, dimming its future economic prospects.

The US Fed’s unconventional monetary policies following the 2008-2009 financial crisis and more recent Trump administration deregulatory policy initiatives have not delivered strong investment and output growth, but asset price inflation instead.

Companies have responded to quantitative easing with more debt-financed buybacks, while US corporate investment has continued to decline, as shares of output, corporate profits or market capitalization, since the 1980s.

There is little evidence that more handsome corporate profits — e.g., due to cost savings, from weaker anti-trust and other regulations, cheaper labour and lower taxes, both at home and abroad — have significantly increased real investments in the US economy.

Enabling value extraction
Lazonick and Shin’s new book, Predatory Value Extraction: How the Looting of the Business Corporation Became the US Norm and How Sustainable Prosperity Can Be Restored argues that while stock prices are driven by innovation, speculation and manipulation, share buybacks have become a major means of lucrative financial market manipulation.

The free enterprise system is supposed to efficiently allocate capital for private corporations to make the most productive investments. A company’s retained profits are the basis of corporate finance, which can then be leveraged with debt, although Lazonick’s analysis of corporate finance challenges the misleading Modigliani-Miller presumption that equity and debt are perfect substitutes.

But market finance ideology sees the stock market as a superior allocator of resources for investment in companies, which it rarely is. While share buybacks have raised stock market indices, such indicators may be quite disconnected from real corporate performance.

Share buybacks imply that US corporations have no better investment options than to further raise already high, over-valued financial asset prices, thus reducing investment resources for future growth. It also enables private equity investors, such as venture capital, to liquidate their investments in productive assets.

This raises doubts about both the corporation and the financial system. Either the corporation is dysfunctional, as investments in the real economy are still needed, or finance is being misallocated, due to poor, or worse, perverse incentives. As corporations cannot productively invest finance, the system is clearly dysfunctional.

Problematic consequences
As the financial system is increasingly enabling and promoting value extraction, at the expense of badly needed value creation, neoliberal economics has been increasingly exposed as sophistry by contemporary developments and trends.

More portfolio investments in financial markets have worsened economic inequality as half of Americans own no shares. US wealth concentration is higher than in most other developed countries, with the top 10 per cent owning over 80 percent, while the top one per cent has almost 40 per cent.

As corporations are acknowledging they have no use of much capital, the state can use such investible resources to fund sorely needed public investment. Taxing ‘capital returns’ to shareholders is considered efficient in such circumstances as the taxpayer has acknowledged no use for the cash.

Meanwhile, government spending on public services and infrastructure investment has declined significantly over recent decades. Cutting government spending has been a neoliberal policy objective for many decades, but financial market trends may well have unwittingly created the conditions for mitigating some of its worse consequences.

Those opposing such government efforts claim to be defending markets and capitalism, although share buybacks effectively undermine their claims. Growing predatory value extraction, instead of value creation, raises the question of whether capitalism can be saved from itself.

The post Share Buybacks Enable Predatory Value Extraction appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The author is journalist and communications specialist; veteran of Al Jazeera English, BBC and CNN International.

By Veronica Pedrosa
Mar 16 2020 (IPS-Partners)

First of all, I wish everyone reading this good health.

Second of all, I wish for everyone to get informed – I mean properly informed from the many reliable sources out there. These areextraordinary times and every one of us needs to find a way to getthrough them the best way we can for ourselves, our families andour communities.

COVID-19 has governments around the world asking us tofundamentally change the way we live: working from home ifpossible, restricting travel, sports and entertainment venues areshutting their doors, as are schools and universities. Someaccounts say it’s all happening “amid fears of coronavirus” but Ithink that’s lazy writing, a useful cliché. Better to remember thatthese steps are being taken for very good reason. They are wellstudied measures to slow the spread of infection. Of course many people are indeed afraid, if not for themselves then for their lovedones and their livelihoods, but the point of these actions is to find away to stay healthy and alive.

In China, in Italy and as of tomorrow (Sunday) in the Philippines governments are putting millions of people in lockdown andenforcing it with varying degrees of severity, but not here in the UK, not yet anyway.

The government’s view is that it wouldn’t make much difference atthis point, and is primarily concerned with delaying the spike or “flattening the curve” for as long as possible so that the health caresystem isn’t overloaded. That’s what’s happened in China, Iran andItaly with health care workers having to make terrible choices over which patients will receive life-saving therapies because there isn’tenough equipment, beds or carers. Doctors and nurses arecatching the virus and dying. All this is happening in rich nations with adequate healthcare systems.

If the spread of the virus is going to be slowed, ultimately it will beup to us ordinary people to take the guidance at face value andfollow it. The single most powerful thing any one of us can do is tofrequently wash our hands for at least 20 seconds with soap andwater, if that’s not available then use alcohol-based hand sanitiser. “Frequently” for me means every time I leave or arrive anywhere, especially after touching a surface that others may have touched. Certainly more often than you would normally.

Next: don’t touch your face. The most common way of catching any virus is getting the germs on your hands (the virus survives longer on a hard surface), then touching your mouth or nose.

There are mixed views on wearing a face mask. If you’ve got any flusymptoms then you’d protect other people if you wear one,otherwise the very least is that it would stop you touching your face.

If you can minimise going to public places, do so; when you have tobe near others – distansiya lang. The lockdowns around the worldare to deny people movement and places to go so we don’t infecteach other in the process; but we can voluntarily decide to changeour behaviour to “social distancing”. Hunker down, work from home,and know you’re helping make the world a safer place. It’s a serious challenge to our social nature, but it is also potentially life-saving. InItaly, people are lining up to get into the grocery with two metres between them and they’re only being let into the shop a few at atime.

One expert here has said it just isn’t possible to reduce the number of deaths from COVID-19 without it having an impact on theeconomy. Millions of people are likely to go unpaid, overseas workers stranded and lose their jobs. Already millions of dollars have been wiped off the value of shares in stock markets aroundthe world and the worst of the virus is yet to come in the USA, UK, the Philippines and many other places.

—— —— —— ——

In London, pubs and restaurants are bracing for the worst, even in Shoreditch, one of the hippest neighbourhoods in the capital. This part of east London is where the cool bars, eateries and shops buzz with creative energy that is modern and multicultural.

Pinoy cuisine as interpreted by chef Francis Puyat at Rapsa@100Hoxton is a unique addition that’s been a big hit with the hipsters. Puyat told me when he was just 10 years old in Mindoro he’d go tothe river with his friends, catch guppy fish and cook them on thespot, but his dad would scold him when he got back for not makingpaalam.

30 years later, having worked in one of London’s best knownrestaurants, NOPI, with celebrity chef Yotam Ottolenghi, Puyat’s created a menu that takes Asian fusion to a new level. It’s innovative but accessible, as the restaurant’s website puts it: “designed with a modern twist that makes it perfect for newcomers to try and grow to love the beauty and taste of the best Filipinorestaurant in London- mouth-watering in its simplicity and heartwarming in its prices.”

I met film-maker Leah Borromeo and Rohingya activist Ma Htikethere for Sunday brunch. Htike had salmon kinilaw, and adoboeggplant salad with cashew, and pickled pepino. I couldn’t resisttocilog breakfast: the tocino bacon was stupendously sweet, salty and sticky. Leah had the cured salmon with bibingka loaf, scrambled egg, salted duck creme fraiche, herb salad, and candiednuts. Dessert was a grand finale of warm, sticky, cold and gooey sweetness: biko with chocolate brownie ice-cream and latik caramelised coconut.

Andrew Zilouf, owner of Rapsa and third generation east Londonrestaurateur, says Philippine food is the original Asian fusioncuisine, he loves it and came up with the restaurant’s trademark
“boodle fight” served on banana leaves. He told me a lot ofLondoners come without even realising the food is Filipino, and he’s planned new promotions despite the challenge of this newcoronavirus. “Chef has reinvented the dishes, but it still has authenticity and traditional elements, like the oxtail kare-kare thathe’s made with croquettes. Come and try it!”

I promise it’s worth risking a special journey out, armed with handsanitiser of course.

The post Life is Sweet appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The author is journalist and communications specialist; veteran of Al Jazeera English, BBC and CNN International.

The post Life is Sweet appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Two HerStory Fellows conducting a reading session at Terre Des Hommes Kalshi Adolescent Club. Credit: HerStory Foundation

By Zareen Mahmud Hosein
NEW YORK, Mar 16 2020 (IPS)

When you flip through grade one Bangla school textbooks there is very little written about the progress women have made in Bangladesh since the Beijing Conference for Women in 1995.

Although women’s participation in the labor force and in leadership positions increased over the past decades, gender stereotyping is a norm and gender equality is still an elusive idea. Often women are shown through illustrations in school text books as homemakers and teachers. Girls are shown to be eating or serving food juxtaposed with boys who are happily illustrated playing the drum or the ‘tabla’.

How about changing these illustrations to show more women in the many other professional fields where they are increasingly taking on important roles? The narratives accompanying the illustrations must change, bringing a lifelong mindset change in our children, making gender equality a normal feature in the future.

At HerStory Foundation storytelling is used in its varied forms because stories have the power to change beliefs and actions to move towards gender equality. We are creating books for children, so they believe in their potential to be responsible and independent citizens of this world.

When it comes to women’s rights, Bangladeshi women face disadvantages on many fronts, from access to health services, violence and rape, economic opportunities to access or control of finances.

What causes this disparity? According to a study by BRAC Institute of Governance and Development, more than half (54%) of the country’s youth say they do not have a role model. Young women, in particular, are less interested in having a role model in their lives compared to young men. In addition, rural youth are “significantly less interested in having role models compared to urban youth.” The most shocking of all is that more than 70% of youth with limited or no education could not state a role model in their lives.

Our work focusing on gender equality and quality education has taken me to different classrooms across Bangladesh. On many occasions we asked rural school children what they aspire to be when they grow up. The responses almost always range from being an engineer or a doctor for boys and a teacher for girls. Sometimes the boys will say they aspire to be a cricketer or a pilot. Very rarely do girls say that they want to be engineers or pilots.

Gender roles are so deeply ingrained in these children’s psyches, they cannot be blamed for not being able to imagine a world where they too can be or do more than the prescribed or imposed career thoughts set by society.

These children are unable to dream beyond the set ‘career paths’ because they have not been exposed to other role models. The stories they are told, the textbooks they read only talk of ‘history’ or ‘his’ story ; women are sadly not in the picture.

Local textbooks, apart from serving curricular goals, have the responsibility to portray, in equal measure, the social and historical roles played by both men and women in the country. However, there is a staggering lack in female representation. One look at textbooks in Bangladesh shows that women are underrepresented or missing from the overall picture.

Chandrabati illustrated by Inshra Sakhawat Russell, part of HerStories:Adventures of Supergirls book on trailblazing women from Ancient Bengal and present day Bangladesh. Credit: HerStory Foundation

The marginalization of women in both public and private spheres remains a pressing concern. Women are still underrepresented across sectors, oppressed by discriminatory laws and processes and still held back by social barriers perpetuated by patriarchal mindsets. This means that the challenge must be addressed through creative and diverse means in order to influence individual and community level change.

On the contrary, history of Bangladesh is full of stories of powerful, trailblazing women in unconventional roles: from the astrologer Khana who continued her work despite having her tongue slit to PritilataWaddedar, the Bengali revolutionary and rebel leader who led a group of fighters to end British rule in 1932. Even in contemporary times, we are seeing women triumph and excel in what was reserved for men only – mountain climbing to weightlifting. Mabia Akhter is Bangladesh’s award-winning weightlifter while Nishat Mazumdar its first female Everest summiteer.

Two years ago we formed a small team to produce the HerStory Trailblazers exhibition for International Women’s Day bringing together 20 female artists to create 20 portraits of Bangladeshi female trailblazers. The intention was to build an archive of women’s stories through interviews and ongoing research to examine how far women in Bangladesh have come, and what more needs to be done.

The response and feedback to the educational exhibition was overwhelming and brought to light the lack of content on female history. Through this exhibition, we identified a cultural blind spot and the demand for gender equality in history and storytelling. This was the beginning of our journey as development content creators.

Following this exhibition we moved to create an illustrated children’s book based on the biographies of 20 Bangladeshi Supergirls: HerStories: The Adventures of Supergirls. Today, HerStories is available in both Bangla and English. Written for children of different ages, the books feature 42 Illustrated stories about trailblazing women from ancient Bengal to present day Bangladesh. The books showcase positive female role models so that young girls can aspire to dream big and boys can develop respect and understanding.

Although there are scores of women who have made significant contributions to the growth and development of Bangladesh, their stories, struggles, and influence are often missing or underrepresented in the media and in education curricula. Stories about the trailblazer women have the power to change mindsets.

As part of the Foundation’s work, we collect, preserve and tell stories about women who changed the rules of the game, thereby challenging gender stereotypes and rebuilding narratives through different mediums. By commissioning and featuring the work of female writers and artists we are also supporting and promoting female creative professionals and building meaningful support systems.

A story comes alive when read, and HerStories are brought to life in the classroom by readers and teachers through interactive story sessions and unique teaching materials. A Fellowship program for university students run by the Foundation helps to prepare them to be future leaders who will promote gender equality in every sphere they operate in. These students are trained to share the adventures of Supergirls with grade three young readers. During the session they learn about passion, determination, challenges, justice and also cricket !

The positive reinforcement of storytelling helps to nurture empathy, respect and self-reliance. Readings are engaging, entertaining, and inspiring, encouraging the children of tomorrow to aspire for greater heights and be aware of the whole range of career paths available to them.

While the read-alouds help dispel gender bias among children, more work is required in terms of having more female voices heard. In 2019, we launched ‘Taramon’, a media platform for and by women which aims to inspire, inform, and engage women of different ages and backgrounds by providing interesting and informative written and visual content that can help women navigate their various social and personal challenges.

‘Taramon’ is a space for women to express themselves, showcase their successes, and build a supportive network. The blog content generates discussion and challenge sexist social narratives by presenting a female perspective – something that hasn’t been done before or on this scale.

The HerStory Foundation’s work has the central element of sharing and telling stories and encouraging discourse on women, two vital catalysts of change, especially when it comes to propelling women’s rights and bringing these to the forefront.

Holding fast to the belief that storytellers and artists are catalysts of change, we have learned that the way forward is to work on the challenges of social norms and prejudices, introducing narratives about unity, inclusion and diversity through more stories, or by documenting those women’s voices that have been silenced for generations.

The writer is founder of HerStory Foundation (www.herstorybd.org).

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By Ehtesham Shahid
ABU DHABI, Mar 16 2020 (IPS-Partners)

The IMF-supported economic reforms program launched in 2016 succeeded in improving almost macroeconomic indicators for the Egyptian economy yet a new phase of reforms is needed to tackle the remaining problems on the supply side, a
new study has claimed.

A Policy Paper – Egypt beyond economic stabilization: the road to sustainable growth – published by TRENDS Research & Advisory says that such a step would enhance the economy’s efficiency and achieve sustainable and inclusive growth.

“As the reform program reached its conclusion in November 2019, with significant improvement in containing domestic absorption and in some structural issues, challenges remain for sustainable and inclusive economic growth,” says the study.

According to the research study, areas of improvements includes simulating domestic private investment and foreign direct investment apart from the energy sector. Other areas that require policy attention are privatization, human capital development and resolving red tape, inefficiency, and redefining the roles of public and private sectors.

Reform achievements

The study explained that the IMF program succeeded in improving almost all the macroeconomic indicators for the Egyptian economy as the real GDP growth increased from 4.3 percent in 2015/16 (fiscal year starts July 1st) to 5.5 percent in 2018/19 and was estimated to be 6 percent in the medium term.

“The unemployment rate declined from 12.7 percent in 2015/16 to 8.8 percent in 2018/19. As for the inflation rate, the initial evaluation and adjustment of fuel prices led to a spike in it to reach 29.8 percent in 2016/17, but the prudent monetary policy that tackled the second-round effects led to a continuous decline of the inflation rate to reach 12.4 percent by the end of 2018/19,” the study said .

According to the study, the consolidation efforts succeeded in switching the primary deficit of -3.5 percent of the GDP in 2015/16 to a primary surplus of 2.0 percent in 2018/19, which led the overall budget deficit to decline from -12.5 percent of the GDP to -8.2 percent.

Egypt’s ranking in the Global Competitiveness index improved with the implementation of the 2016 reform program as its overall ranking reached 93 out of 141 countries in 2019 compared to 100 out of 137 countries in 2017/18, said the study.

The CHEP framework

One of the important highlights of the study was the introduction of CHEP as an integrated structural policy framework for enhancing the supply side of the Egyptian economy. The suggested framework covers four major pillars – Competitiveness Improvement, Human Capital Development, Efficiency Enhancement, and Private Sector Participation.

To achieve sustainable and inclusive growth, the study recommends a policy framework for enhancing the supply side of the economy, driven by improving Egypt’s global ranking in the Doing Business Index, and the Global Competitiveness Index.

“These reforms should target the policies related to improving human capital, increasing the role of the private sector through enhancing privatization and encouraging PPPs, removing the remaining distortions, cutting red tape, and working mainly on achieving significant improvements on Egypt’s global ranking in almost all components of the Human Development Index, the Doing Business Index, and the Global Competitiveness Index,” the study says.

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Excerpt:

The IMF program implemented policy adjustments and structural reforms yet challenges remain for sustainable and inclusive economic growth

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This playground just outside the Slovak capital, Bratislava, has been sealed off to stop people spreading the virus. Similar measures are in place in cities and towns across Europe, which is now the epicentre of the virus's spread. Credit: Ed Holt/IPS

By Ed Holt
BRASTISLAVA , Mar 16 2020 (IPS)

Governments in wealthy, first world countries must not ignore the plight of poorer nations battling the coronavirus or the disease will not be brought under control, global development experts have said.

As African nations slowly report growing numbers of cases, and more and more infections are registered in countries with endemic poverty on other continents, there are growing fears that some states could soon see major outbreaks they will not be able to cope with.

A potential paralysation of already vulnerable healthcare systems would not only have a drastic impact on population health, but could also push people further into poverty and deprivation, World Health Organisation (WHO) officials have told IPS.

But if developing countries are overwhelmed by the virus, there is a threat that the disease would rage on in developing countries, even if it is brought under control in developed states, and inevitably spread back into places like North America and Europe.

To avoid such a scenario, rich states must keep a focus on helping other countries with weak healthcare systems, despite the fact they are fighting their own battle with the disease, say experts.

“High income countries are completely consumed with what is happening in their own states, but it would be good if they could give at least some focus to poorer countries,” Amanda Glassman, executive vice president of the Washington-based Global Centre for Development think-tank, told IPS.

“If things are not brought under control in less developed countries, it could come back to hurt developed countries later on,” she added.

There have so far been more than 169,387 COVID-19 infections and 6,513 deaths, according to today’s figures. 

The past week saw an unprecedented shutdown of Europe and the United States, with widespread school, restaurant, cinema and museum closures. Several countries across Europe have closed their borders, with Germany being the latest to shutdown all non-essential travel.

While the vast majority of cases have been in China, where the virus was first detected, with Italy being the country with the second-highest most cases, followed by Iran, South Korea and Spain. Europe is now the epicentre of the pandemic.

Significant infections have been recorded in the United States and some other Asian countries, and the Philippines capital of Manila has been sealed off.

But while there have been far fewer registered cases of the disease in places like Africa and South America, many health experts believe that those numbers could very quickly rise dramatically.

Healthcare systems in many poor countries, especially in Africa, are already severely stretched with limited financing and resources. Access to hospitals, and especially intensive care units, are generally much lower than in developed nations – studies have estimated that less than half of Africa’s population has access to modern health facilities.

Some countries also face extra burdens such as battling other endemic diseases, recent natural catastrophes, or coping with large-scale refugee influxes.

“Sub-Saharan Africa is already struggling with the Ebola virus and the locust invasion and associated famines. It now faces a third war against the coronavirus. In many countries, resources are stretched thin,” international policy expert and found of the Difference Group advisory organisation, Dr. Dan Steinbock, told IPS.

Any major COVID-19 outbreak could affect incidence, and treatment of, other diseases in some African states, Dr Ambrose Talisuna, Programme Manager for Emergency Preparedness, at the WHO Regional Office for Africa, told IPS.

“We fear that the healthcare systems in some African countries could be completely paralysed.

“We saw this with Ebola [outbreaks in some African countries]. There was a diversion of resources to the disease and the healthcare system couldn’t deal with the shock of the outbreak. People died of malaria, people couldn’t get treatment for tuberculosis,” he said.

Even countries with relatively developed healthcare systems could face similar problems. South Africa has the world’s worst HIV/AIDS epidemic and it is not known how a major coronavirus outbreak may affect treatment for those with HIV/AIDS or outcomes if they are infected with COVID-19.

“We don’t know what might happen with issues relating to COVID-19 infections and other conditions, such as HIV/AIDS,” said Glassman.

In Latin America, where more than two thirds of people live in extreme poverty, doctors have already warned of the strain widespread coronavirus infections could put on hospitals and health workers.

Writing in the the Folha de São Paulo newspaper last week, Drauzio Varella said: “…. depending on the speed with which the epidemic spreads, the stress on our health system could be brutal.”

There would also be serious economic problems. Not only would massive financial resources have to go into healthcare rapidly, but measures implemented to contain the virus’s spread, such as travel restrictions, business closures, quarantines, would very soon affect people’s incomes.

“As we saw with Ebola, there can be a massive effect on the local economy and people’s income. If people cannot travel because of restrictions and cannot do ‘petty trade’, which is what some rely on to survive, then they will have nothing,” said Talisuna.

One potential advantage some less developed countries may have in dealing with an initial outbreak is their experience with other deadly infectious diseases.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, a devastating Ebola outbreak has just been brought under control. Talisuna pointed out that checks for COVID-19 could simply be added to existing screening on entry into the country which was set up because of the Ebola outbreak.

“Prevention measures and training of healthcare staff could just be refreshed, so people that were used in Ebola prevention could be trained up quickly to deal with the coronavirus. The response can be scaled up quickly,” he said.

Many countries, including some of the poorest in the world in Asia, Latin America and Africa, have begun introducing strict measures to try and halt the spread of the disease. These have included closing borders and mandatory quarantine.

While the WHO has supported the use of such measures, they have been shown to have had an enormous economic toll with sectors such as travel, transportation, tourism and retail, among others, all seriously affected.

They are, however, necessary, some argue.

“The draconian measures that China opted for have been very costly. But all alternatives would have been much worse. Chinese leadership had to choose between extensive economic damage in one to two quarters with probable virus containment, or far greater economic devastation coupled with drastic increases in cases and deaths,” said Steinbock.

But the costs cannot, and should not, be borne by developing nations alone, development experts say.

While local governments can help businesses and individuals with measures such as tax relief, providing financial support through loans, and exemptions from health and social security payments, other countries have a role to play, they argue.

Earlier this month, the World Bank made $12 billion available in immediate support to help countries coping with the health and economic impacts of the global outbreak. The International Monetary Fund has said $10 billion could be mobilised in loans to low-income countries tackling the virus. On Mar. 13 WHO and its partners launched the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund which aims to raise funds from private and corporate individuals to contribute to global response efforts.

Meanwhile, other money is being redirected from existing funding: for example the Global Fund for HIV, TB and malaria is to allow some funds to be used for the virus response while the United Nations’ Central Emergency Response Fund global emergency response fund has made $15 million available.

More could be done though, Glassman said. “Multilateral investment banks need to boost their current lending,” she said.

Steinbock added: “Over a month ago, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus launched a $675 million preparedness plan hoping to contain the crisis and pave the way to deter future crises. That’s less than 1percent of the U.S. 2020 military budget. In late February, the European Commission earmarked $124 million for the WHO response plan, [but] other actors have not proved as generous.”

Individual countries have pledged contributions to global efforts to fight the disease, either directly to other states and health groups, through multilateral organisations, or to the WHO.

No matter how it is funded, experts agree that developing countries must be given whatever help is needed to contain the disease.

“If cases escape detection [in poor countries], then it is more likely than not that weak healthcare systems, coupled with endemic poverty and social instability could result in a secondary epidemic with potential global impact.

“If advanced economies hope to contain the global crisis, they can’t afford to ignore developing economies,” said Steinbock.

Related Articles

• Global Economic Consequences of COVID-19
• Fight, Not Flight, Must Be the Strategy for Flattening the COVID-19 Curve
• How will COVID-19 Affect Economies of Latin America & the Caribbean?

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Credit: IMF

By Saber Azam
GENEVA, Mar 16 2020 (IPS)

The fourth and last presidential election in Afghanistan on 28 September 2019 was yet another setback to the democratic process. Not only did it take months for the Independent Election Commission to announce the results but they were again marred by allegations of massive fraud that culminated with two candidates declaring themselves as winners.

The world witnessed two inaugurations taking place on the same day (9 March 2020) at the same hour albeit at two different locations but on the premises of the same Presidential Palace. The incumbent proclaimed a win with less than one million total votes, representing only 2.6% of the total estimated population; his rival contested.

This was yet another huge disappointment for the many Afghans who still entertained the hope that democracy could hold root despite the systematic misdeeds of the past 19 years.

The US alone has spent nearly a trillion US $ to “fix” this “broken state”! The cost of military and covert operations is certainly not included in this figure.

Additional related expenditures within the US such as caring for veterans as well as multilateral and bilateral contributions would most probably bring the amount of money spent, since Hamid Karzai was installed in 2001, to some three trillion US $, slightly less compared to 4.1 trillion spent during World War II.

Europe became a political and economic giant, following the implementation of the Marshall Plan that cost 13.3 billion US $ at the time, about 103.4 billion in today’s value. Why then, one may ask, does Afghanistan continue along a path to abyss.?

To understand the facts and hurdles, one must consider the origin of the current tragedy. During the Afghan war against the Soviet Union (1980-88), the West’s focus was on bringing the communist giant to its knees by “establishing a callous Islamic belt” around Stalin’s empire. “Jihadists” from around the world were recruited to go and fight “the force of evil” in Afghanistan.

Western support benefitted mostly extremist mujahidin movements. There was less concern about the corollaries of such an uncalculated policy. While the likes of Osama bin Laden were encouraged to join the “freedom fighters” in Afghanistan with advanced weaponry and money, no action was taken against extremist indoctrination and training of thousands of young Afghans in madrassas, known as the Taliban, by the mighty military intelligence services of Pakistan, the ISI.

Credit: NATO

Perhaps the pro-Soviet stance of the Indian government at the time as well as the tense US-Iran relationship pushed. Washington to rely on Pakistan alone as Central Asia was still under the Soviet yoke. The then US administration made it clear that beating the Soviet Union was the mother of priorities and that the rest will fall in place naturally.

The Geneva Agreement on Afghanistan in 1988 was then “crafted” to pave an “honorable” way for the Red Army to withdraw from Afghanistan. With the complete departure of Soviet troops, the US lost interest in this country, leaving the management of the post-Soviet situation into the hands of Pakistan which played a major role in the ensuing civil war among mujahidin factions that resulted in nearly 30’000 civilian deaths and the rise of the Taliban to power. Afghanistan then became a sanctuary for terrorists.

Despite misapplication of the sharia law (most Taliban fighters are oblivious to the true tenets of Islam), systematic violation of human rights, the practice of torture and summary killings, the International Community remained silent.

Did such a lassitude embolden Al-Qaeda to conceive, prepare and perpetrate the 9/11 attacks? The question will remain unanswered.

While the post 9/11 objective of the US was to “smoke [the terrorists] out”, none of the principal figures, the likes of Osama bin Laden, Ayman Al-Zawahiri and Mullah Omar were apprehended. The southern and eastern main border crossing points of Afghanistan were left open, allowing them to flee to safe-havens in Pakistan.

Only a few second and mainly third category terrorists were apprehended and incarcerated in Guantanamo. The killing of Osama bin Laden by the Obama administration in May 2011 was too little, too late.

In Afghanistan, the US relied essentially on corrupt, inept and inefficient governments that functioned on the basis of nepotism, tribalism and personal gains. Rule of law was systematically violated by Mafiosi groups that benefitted from personal protection of the leaders of the regime.

State institutions became “personal properties” of the incumbents and high dignitaries rather than serving the population. The International Community and donors could not trace the use of their assistance due to serious “security constraints” that many believe were created by the rulers and their associates.

No tangible measures were taken against election rigging and violation of the principles of democracy that became state practice. While the 2005 presidential election was in accordance with the determination of the people’s wish, the subsequent 2009, 2014 and 2019 polls were marred with massive fraud.

Now Afghanistan has two declared Presidents. Would this lead to an unprecedented “clash of titans” and the effective division of the country along ethnic lines resulting in further tragedies?

Since long, the people in Afghanistan have lost trust in slogans that promoted democracy and rule of law as divergence between the script and actions of both the government and the West proved evident.

Desperate to disengage from its longest war, the US deal with the Taliban presents many similarities to the agreement that the Soviet Union had struck in 1988. This time it is the US army that will leave Afghanistan with some degree of honor.

The Taliban can claim victory over the International Community and US-led NATO forces. The major concern is the eventual immunity and probable political and financial support that would be provided to a group that has committed mass murder, war crimes and genocide.

The idea of another “government of national unity” with the inclusion of the Taliban is extremely risky. They may even claim total power like the mujahidin did some 28 years ago. If so, let us pray that this time around, the consequences would be different and beneficial to the people of Afghanistan. However, the population is afraid of the consequences of the deal.

With a polycephaly in Afghanistan, a fearless terrorist organization awaiting withdrawal of NATO troops, rampant corruption, division along ethnic and tribal affiliations, lack of accountability for crimes committed, and absence of an honest inter-Afghan understanding, the US plan has little chance of succeeding.

Democracy cannot be built on shaky foundations. Since the arrival of the coalition troops in 2001, democratic principles, institutions and behavior did not take root in Afghanistan. It is high time to opt for a new strategy and support wholly new leaders.

There is need to craft the future of the country around a comprehensive nation building program. Moreover, young, incorruptible and open-minded local figures, disposed to build institutions that would serve the population must be supported. Further delay to change the fundamental approach and to back a new team will enduringly harm our sacred principles of compassion!

*Polycephaly is a condition of having more than one head. The term is derived from the Greek stems poly- (Greek: “πολύ”) meaning ‘much’ and kephali- (Greek: “κεφάλι”) meaning “head”, and encompasses bicephaly and dicephaly (both referring to two-headedness).

For more information about the author, please refer to http://www.saberazam.com

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Excerpt:

Saber Azam presided over the “Comité Afghan d’Aide Humanitaire” in Switzerland. He is a former United Nations official and author of ‘SORAYA: The Other Princess’

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By Haider A. Khan*
DENVER, Colorado, Mar 16 2020 (IPS)

The panic resulting from the events starting with the deaths in Wuhan keeps spreading globally faster than the spreading of the virus itself. Quite apart from the immediate health dangers, now a new economic danger looms large globally. We are facing the prospects of a deep and lasting global recession regardless of the health policy and economic policy measures taken by China, the US and other countries unless there is timely global cooperation and coordination. What will be the global economic impact of COVID-19 if swift and effective action is not taken globally? Is there a way to find out through some kind of rigorous model-based economic analysis?

Haider A. Khan

Indeed there may be a sober reality-based way of looking at the possible economic consequences. In work that is still ongoing, I have used the best available data from the World Bank, the IMF and other national and international sources about the Global Economy to do precisely this exercise. My preliminary results pertain to the overall effects for the World economy, China, the US, the Middle East as well as for specific sectors. More importantly, they also give us some rough insights into what the panic might mean for the major regions unless we take effective global action quickly.

In order to assess the impact, I have derived several sets of model-based counterfactual results. My work which is ongoing can be seen as a first step in analyzing the impact of COVID-19 rigorously. Aggregate consequences for the Global, Middle-Eastern(ME), EU and US economies in terms of output and employment losses are estimated from several models for several scenarios. These are both the containment costs and costs stemming from global panic with higher and lower bounds and an in-between scenario. Finally, a more complex economic systems model with explicit banking and financial sectors is used to analyze the financial systems scenarios.

It is clear that China will suffer the most. But so will Japan, the Middle East, the US and EU economies along with many other smaller economies. Hence there is no reason for the rivals of China to rejoice.With maximal containment costs and panic, Chinese GDP will decline by several percentage points. EU will lose about two percentage points and US about between one and one and a half per cent.But some of the model results already at hand should give thoughtful ME, US and EU citizens pause. With declining oil prices, the oil producing economies are already experiencing economic downturns. The direct and indirect effects of COVID-19 will worsen this trend.

As a first approximation, my current modeling results show that the easing of monetary policy and implementing expansionary fiscal policies—even if they are imposed immediately and coordinated globally— will take about six months to kick in and will lead towards the very low loss scenario, especially for China. But for EU and the US financial firms, the loss will be considerably more than what we have seen so far. The corresponding loss in global employment in these and other sectors should also give all countries pause.

While medical and public health professionals struggle to understand the nature of the virus and devise antidotes, strong economic measures need to taken globally and within countries to protect vulnerable groups. A coordinated interest rate cut will most probably happen; but monetary policy can not by itself help increase global investment and output. Tax cuts will help but will take time even if they are wisely designed to help not just the global rich but the middle class and the low income groups. Fiscal policies through direct government expenditures targeted to specific sectors and groups will be necessary.

Furthermore, trade policies are important too. If trade barriers go up because of this panic reinforcing earlier hostilities then all countries will be losers. The hostilities against China may well be heading in that direction. Likewise, some countries might try to counteract the loss in exports by devaluing their currencies. Such moves can rapidly expand through the international system creating a competitive devaluations scenario where no one will ultimately win.

Consider also the role that trading networks have always played. Clearly, with globalization these networks of firms across the globe are even more important than before. With a large scale disruption the dynamics of network trade may easily break down. Since networks require time to build up again, such large scale disruptions will result in longer term malfunction of the global trading system.

The world leaders must act quickly and resolutely before it is too late. We are facing the possibility of a vicious downward cycle in the global economy. Single countries can act and indeed have acted unilaterally, for example the US by cutting interest rates citing an emergency situation. But global coordination of monetary, fiscal, trade and exchange rates policies is sorely needed. If there was ever a time to devise globally coordinated policies through cooperation among US and China(G-2), the G-7 and more broadly, the G-20, it is now.

*John Evans Distinguished University Professor and Professor of Economics, Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver

Distinguished Senior Fellow, Policy Research Institute

Distinguished International Advisor, BRAC University and North-South University

Contributor: Conversations, Huffington Post, Christian Science Monitor, European Economic and Social Committee, Current History, Cosmopolis, Al-Jazeera Online

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Credit: (Lee Woodgate/Science Source)

By Siddharth Chatterjee
NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 16 2020 (IPS)

The number of coronavirus cases in Kenya has jumped to three after the government confirmed two more cases. President Uhuru Kenyatta has announced a raft of proactive measures to prevent the spread of the virus.

Barely three months into the COVID-19 outbreak, stock markets have plummeted, and global supply and production systems have wobbled. Across the world panicked shoppers have cleared shelves of hand sanitizer, soap and tinned food, as if preparing for a siege.

The message by UN Secretary-General António Guterres that ‘as we fight the virus, we cannot let fear go viral’ is absolutely pertinent. And the people of Kenya can count on the United Nations Country team as an ally in this fight.

Global pandemics are the new threat to humanity. The number of new diseases per decade has increased nearly fourfold over the past 60 years, and since 1980, the number of outbreaks per year has more than tripled.

Factors such as climate change, rising populations and increased travel have made humans more vulnerable today than they were 100 years ago. An infection in one corner of the world can make its way to the most distant corner within a day.

In sub-Saharan Africa, there are genuine fears over how health systems will cope. Most are ill-prepared and ill-equipped to implement public health measures such as surveillance, exhaustive contact tracing, social distancing, travel restrictions and educating the public on hand hygiene and respiratory etiquette.

These are the basic steps that will delay the spread of infection and relieve pressure on hospitals, even as support is sought for costlier solutions such as personal protective equipment, ventilators, oxygen and testing kits.

For countries in Africa and other areas where health resources are limited, a little-understood pandemic such as COVID-19 is a challenge that requires a whole-of-society response. While science creates the tests and will eventually develop a vaccine, the most effective immediate responses to pandemics depend more on simple actions we can all carry out than on pharmaceutical-based solutions.

Flattening the COVID-19 curve will also be aided by accurate information. Rising public panic and hysteria is stoked by the difficulty in sifting fact from rumour, speculation and inaccurate information. One of the problems of the age of social media and citizen journalism is that it provides a forum for everyone, and enables the dangerous fiction that anyone with an opinion is an expert. In such circumstances a rational, science-driven narrative is difficult to sustain.

Getting ahead of COVID-19 by ensuring that only accurate information and scientific guidance takes control of the narrative is crucial. It is for this reason, the United Nations Country Team in Kenya is offering communications support – amongst other initiatives – to the Ministry of Health in its current commendable response to the problem. Everyone will benefit if they heed the wise counsel of CS Mutahi Kagwe. For example he emphasizes the importance of frequent and thorough hand washing. Hand washing saves lives and is the best defence against communicable diseases.

Though microbes are evolving millions of times as fast as humans, and humans have little or no immune protection against new flu strains, the scientific understanding of the risk of pandemics, and our ability to predict the next pandemic before it even happens, is better than ever.

It is now known, for instance, that most new infectious diseases originate in animals, including SARS from bats and some strains of influenza from birds. Factors that include close proximity to live animals, poor hygiene in relation to meat and live animals at markets, overcrowding, and bushmeat consumption can allow pathogens to jump the species barrier to humans.

These scientific advances are being deployed to find more comprehensive solutions such as vaccines. Widespread access to such vaccines confer immunity to individuals and even ‘herd immunity’ for populations. Vaccines work and have saved countless lives.

Countries in Africa must also take the fight to the pandemic through simple but effective measures for detecting, testing, isolating and mobilizing their people to mitigate transmission.

With simple, fact-informed hygiene measures as the main weapon, the continent can slow the virus’s spread and flatten the curve. And the UN family in Kenya is in lockstep with the Government of Kenya to fight COVID 19 on all fronts.

Siddharth Chatterjee is the United Nations resident coordinator to Kenya.

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Brazilian women have been making headway in traditionally male-dominated areas. Construction workers in Rio de Janeiro. Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS

By Jemimah Njuki
NAIROBI, Mar 13 2020 (IPS)

Two profound incidents happened the week of International Women’s Day. 

One, Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic Party candidate for President of the U.S., bowed out of the election race despite what commentators said was a strong campaign with a  “plan for everything” and strong message of economic populism. Now there are no female frontrunners left.

Two, the United Nations Development Programme released a report headlined “Almost 90% of men/women globally are biased against women”. The report argues that in different spheres – employment, education, politics –  when empowerment is basic and precarious, women are overrepresented, but as power increases the gender gap widens.

Discriminatory social norms and stereotypes reinforce gendered identities and determine power relations which in turn constrain what men and women can do in ways that lead to inequality and exclusion

Three critical statistics stand out from the report – 50 percent of people say they think men make better political leaders, more than 40 percent feel that men make better business executives than women, and 30 percent believe it is okay for men to beat their spouses.

At the centre of this are harmful social norms, beliefs and stereotypes. For example, while legal barriers on women’s ability to vote and be elected have been removed in most countries, and women can participate in the economy without formal restrictions perceptions, beliefs about women’s capabilities and prejudices create an often-invisible barrier to women.

These discriminatory social norms and stereotypes reinforce gendered identities and determine power relations which in turn constrain what men and women can do in ways that lead to inequality and exclusion

And while policies such as affirmative action or equal parental leave can provide guidelines and basic principles to address inequalities, they are not sufficient to address those inequalities that are rooted in social exclusion and longstanding social norms.

We must challenge harmful gender norms, belief systems and stereotypes.

First, we can provide individuals with the information and knowledge that can cultivate different values, behaviours and belief systems. Gender norms are transferred and reinforced through communication, much of which happens informally within families and among peer groups in the wider community or through schools, religious organisations, government policies, and the media.

It follows that, communication and knowledge that provides alternative narratives can change belief systems and stereotypes.

In a recent review by the Overseas Development Institute, 71 percent of the wide range of communications programmes were effective in changing norms, attitudes and practices.

In one of the programs in Taru, India, – a radio soap opera that featured a young woman health worker – led to more supportive attitudes among listeners towards girls’ rights to education and to reduced support for sex-selective abortion.

In Zambia, a community theatre in fishing communities that showed women making decisions and owning assets led to 30 percent more women increasing their contributions to decision-making regarding fish processing and 49 percent more taking part in deciding what to do with the associated income.

Second is addressing the household power dynamics and changing unequal power relationships within households by engaging men and boys.

Even in areas such as food and nutrition, assumptions, norms and practices about women needing fewer calories, or not being allowed to eat certain food—can push women and girls into perpetual malnutrition and protein deficiency.

For example in Ghana, father-to-father support groups,  comprised of men who to discuss family-oriented issues that include infant and young child feeding, household interaction and support, and male involvement in child welfare have lead to men adopting new behaviors that contribute to the health and wellbeing of their households, especially pregnant and lactating women and children. Working with groups of men, as gender champions eliminates stigma foe men who are seen to be doing ‘women’s tasks’.

Third is removing sanctions for non-compliance to harmful norms and providing incentives for alternative more equitable norms through engaging traditional or religious leaders, duty bearers and norm ‘enforcers’.

Research shows that a social norm will be stickiest when individuals have the most to gain from complying with it and the most to lose from challenging it. Leaders have a lot of influence on the culture of a group or as they have the most control of sanctioning and can also set a strong expectation from others.

When female senior chief Theresa Kachindamoto in Malawi annulled 850 child marriages in 2016, she set expectations for all village heads firing from their jobs those that refused to ban the practice of child marriage.

And finally, for long term change, socialising boys and girls to more equitable sharing of roles and responsibilities, equal opportunities and respect for all irrespective of gender.

Society expects different attitudes and behaviors from boys and girls leading to boys and girls being socialized differently and to have different opportunities.

For example a report by UNICEF shows that girls between 5 and 14 years old spend 40 per cent more time, or 160 million more hours a day, on unpaid household chores and collecting water and firewood compared to boys their age.

But socialization also goes beyond roles to expectations and personality traits for example messaging of “boys are aggressive”, “girls are good at reading” “men are scientists”.

Parents’ gender-role modeling is critical in changing children’s perceptions and belief systems. Research for example has shown that a fathers’ childcare involvement is negatively related to children’s gender stereotyping.

And as Senator Elizabeth Warren said as she bowed out, we can not make these “pinky promises” that girls can be anything they want including president, without addressing the norms and prejudices that hold them back.

 

Dr Jemimah Njuki is an Aspen News Voices Fellow and writes on gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. Follow her @jemimah_njuki

The post Norms and Prejudices are Still Holding Women Back appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Mavic Cabrera-Balleza
NEW YORK, Mar 13 2020 (IPS)

Where are the women and youth peacebuilders in the Beijing+25 and the Generation Equality Forum processes?

Their absence raises serious questions about the effectivity and coherence of the work of the UN on gender equality since armed conflict is both a cause and a consequence of gender inequality.

Over the last five months, I have spent most of my waking and sleeping hours strategizing with our team at the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders (GNWP) about how to keep peace and security on the agenda of the Generation Equality Forum (GEF), the incarnation of the 25th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women.

Many of our friends and allies within the Women and Peace and Security community ask me: Is it worth putting our limited time and resources into trying to participate in these bureaucratic and non-binding processes? Is it worth engaging with government and UN bureaucracies to advance our feminist agendas?

My answer to these questions is a resounding yes! But only if women and youth peacebuilders are part of the process. Here is why.

An inspiration for the Women and Peace and Security and Youth, Peace and Security agendas

Nearly 25 years ago, in August and September 1995, more than 30,000 women from around the world convened in Beijing, China to participate in the Fourth World Conference and NGO Forum on Women.

It was a watershed moment for the global women’s movement not only because of its magnitude, but mainly because it brought forth the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action (BPFA), by far the most comprehensive global agenda for women’s empowerment and gender equality.

The BPFA set strategic objectives and actions for the advancement of women and the achievement of gender equality in 12 critical areas of concerns, ranging from women and poverty to women and armed conflict, and women’s human rights.

The BPFA resulted in the establishment of more than 100 national institutions for women’s advancement, including Ministries of Gender in many countries. It led to advocacy for—and the adoption of—the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women and Peace and Security (UNSCR 1325) in October 2000.

The adoption of the UNSCR 1325 was a major achievement and a result of the unyielding work of women peacebuilders around the world. It established a normative framework for women’s meaningful participation in decision-making, conflict resolution, conflict prevention and peacebuilding; as well as protection of women and girls’ rights, and prevention of sexual and gender-based violence in conflict-affected situations.

For those of us who are working towards the effective implementation of the Women and Peace and Security (WPS) and the Youth and Peace and Security (YPS) agendas, the BPFA is a foundation document and a model for robust civil society ownership and participation.

It stands alongside the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS and YPS as one of the most important international instruments on women’s rights, youth rights, and gender equality.

More than two decades later, the Generation Equality Forum (GEF) is underway. Much like the Beijing Conference and Platform for Action, the GEF and its outcomes will not be legally binding.

This raises concerns among some civil society groups as to the resources and energy spent on these processes. Indeed, forums and conferences use up considerable resources; and the laws and policies that come out of them are, after all, just words on paper.

Nonetheless, with strong civil society ownership and participation, the GEF can lead to outcomes that shape not only laws and policies, but concrete actions on women’s rights and gender equality. In the same way that the Beijing Conference and the Platform for Action did.

A test of legitimacy and accountability of the Generation Equality Forum

The success of the GEF and its outcomes are dependent on the extent and quality of the participation of civil society groups representing diverse issues and initiatives.

In line with the accountability framework for the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the GEF process aims to map progress and reactivate commitments to implementation. It proposes to do so by launching Action Coalitions, which will catalyze collective action, spark global, inter-generational conversations, and deliver results to further advance equality for women and girls.

This is where a major problem arises. Women peacebuilders and youth peacebuilders are not represented in the decision-making structure of the GEF. As a result, WPS and YPS have been left out from the Action Coalitions identified by the Forum organizers.

This is particularly astounding, since the WPS and YPS agendas are integral to all three pillars of the United Nations—peace and security, human rights and development. Equally important, the exclusion of WPS and YPS raises serious questions about the scope of civil society consultations, and how decisions are made in the GEF.

Many years of experience in the women’s movement tells us that the legitimacy of—and accountability to—decisions on women’s rights and gender equality largely depend on the participation and ownership of civil society organizations representing women’s interests that may be impacted by such decisions.

Call for an Action Coalition on Women and Peace and Security and Youth, Peace and Security

WPS and YPS agendas are critical to realizing the promise of the BPFA. They cannot be effectively mainstreamed in any of the six Action Coalitions. Recognizing this, more than 150 feminist, grassroots women’s rights organizations and networks from around the world sent an Open Letter to the Governments of France and Mexico and UN Women, expressing concern about the serious risk of leaving out key priorities and needs of women and youth peacebuilders in the GEF.

Their call was backed by the Civil Society Advisory Group to the GEF, the UN High-Level Advisory Group for the 2015 Global Study on UNSCR 1325, and the Government of South Africa who supported the establishment of a stand-alone Action Coalition on WPS and YPS.

As the GEF process unfolds, its organizers must acknowledge the diversity of women’s issues. They also need to recognize civil society as a partner on equal footing with the Governments of France and Mexico, and UN Women. This means responding to the reverberating calls of the more than 150 feminist and women’s rights organizations, and the Civil Society Advisory Group to form a stand-alone Action Coalition on WPS and YPS.

Marking the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the Generation Equality Forum presents a global momentum to advance gender equality. Yet, to date, it fails to address the biggest and most persistent challenge that the international community confronts: armed conflicts that are becoming more and more vicious and fragmented.

As UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said in his January 22, 2020 speech to the General Assembly, the lack of peace and security remains as one of greatest threats to 21st century progress.

Is Beijing +25 worth civil society’s limited time and resources? Yes, but only if it fully integrates peace and security at its core and meaningfully includes women and youth peacebuilders to achieve it.

The post A Woman Peacebuilder’s Reflections on Beijing+25 & the Generation Equality Forum appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Mavic Cabrera-Balleza is Founder and CEO of the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders (GNWP) which is actively involved in the implementation of the resolutions Women and Peace and Security (WPS) and Youth and Peace and Security (YPS), including localization and synergies with CEDAW.

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Off the main streets in Gonder, Ethiopia, poverty becomes starker. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By Vani S. Kulkarni and Raghav Gaiha
PHILADELPHIA and NEW DELHI, Mar 13 2020 (IPS)

With about 109 million people, Ethiopia is the second most populous nation in Africa after Nigeria, and the fastest growing economy in the region. However, it is also one of the poorest, with a per capita income of $790.

About 80% of the Ethiopian population lives in rural areas, but these are increasingly migrating to urban areas due to a lack of job opportunities. However, with unemployment levels at 16.5%, the situation in urban areas offers even fewer possibilities of finding employment.

Poverty is predominantly a rural phenomenon in Ethiopia. While urban headcount poverty declined from 36.9 percent in 2000 to 14.8 percent in 2016, rural poverty only declined from 45.4 percent to 25.6 percent in the same period.

Unfortunately, the evidence on the role of health in reducing poverty is sparse. We, therefore, focus on rural disability as an impediment to promoting rural employment and reduction of rural poverty. Our analysis is based on the Ethiopia Socio-Economic Survey (ESS) covering 2011/12, 2013/14 and 2015/16. It is a nationally representative panel survey.

We sketch below (i) factors associated with rural disability in Ethiopia; (ii) factors associated with rural employment-especially the association between employment and disability; and (iii) association between rural poverty and disability and the underlying links.

Vani S. Kulkarni

In order to circumvent reverse causality, say, between disability and poverty, the former is for 2015-16 and the latter for 2011-12.

About 13.77 % of the rural Ethiopian population suffered from disabilities in 2015-16. About 63% suffered from a single disability while the rest from multiple disabilities (>1). The largest share was of the age-group, 31-50 years, followed by the older age-group,51-70 years. These two age-groups together accounted for over 70 % of those suffering from a single disability. The largest share of multiple disabilities was of 51-70 years, followed by the oldest (>70 years) and 31-50 years. The combined share of 31-50 years and 51-70 years was about 67 %. If we go by prevalence of disability by age-group, it was highest among the oldest, followed by 51-70 years. A similar pattern was observed for multiple disabilities except that the prevalence among the oldest was just under 50 %.

Disability by gender shows a frequently observed contrast. The shares of females in both single and multiple disabilities-over 52 %- was higher in 2015-16. However, differences between prevalences by gender were low, with slighly higher prevalences among females.

The highest share of those suffering from one disability was of those belonging to largest households(>6 members), followed by those in lower-sized households (between 3-5 members). The latter, however, accounted for the largest share of multiple disabilities, followed by largest households. Prevalences within single and multiple disabilities offered yet another contrast. The highest prevalence of single disability was observed among those living alone, followed by those living in households with just two members. This is replicated for multiple disabilities, with the higher prevalence than of single disability.

Rural employment by duration in 7 days was classified into ranges of hours worked: 0 hour, 1-25 hours, > 25 hours in 7 days, and disabilities into none, 1 and > 1. The former refer to 2015/16 while the latter refer to 2011/12.

The largest share of those working 1-25 hours was associated with those without any disability, followed by those suffering from a single disability and then a sharp drop in the share of those with multiple disabilities.A similar distribution was observed among those working longer hours, >25 hours, with the largest share of those without any disability and lowest of those with multiple disabilities. There was a low reduction in proportions of each disability group working 1-25 hours, with the highest among those without disability, followed by those with a single disability and then among those with multiple disabilities. A similar pattern was observed among disability groups in longer duration of employment, >25 hours. Thus it follows that single and multiple disabilities-especially the latter-were associated with restricted hours of employment, compared with those without any disability.

Raghav Gaiha

Considering part-time, casual and temporary employment, comparison between non-disabled and disabled shows that the proportion of disabled persons not-working was higher than that of the non-disabled, while those of working 1-25 hours and >25 hours were lower.

There are two issues in rural poverty analysis: one is its persistence, and second is movement into and out of it over time. Just under one-half of extremely poor in 2011/12 remained so during this period, a lower proportion of middle class remained in it, and more than half remained affluent. About 30 % of extremely poor in 2011/12 moved up into middle-class and a little under a quarter into affluent in 2015/16. From middle-class under 30 % descended into extreme poverty and about 33 % became affluent. From affluent, about 29 % decended into middle-class and a much smaller proportion became extremely poor. Hence high persistence of poverty coexisted with considerable upward economic mobility.

As a vast majority of the Ethiopian rural population did not suffer from any disability, it is not surprising that they constituted largest shares of extremely poor, middle class and affluent in 2015/16. Their proportion of extremely poor was lowest and of affluent highest. The proportion of disabled who were extremely poor was lowest but higher than among disabled, and higher in middle class and affluent but again lower than among non-disabled. Thus disability wass associated with greater vulnerability to extreme poverty and restricted prospects of being in middle class.

In conclusion, the challenge of reduction in poverty remains enormous while not paying due attention to preventing and eliminating disability is likely to make it much harder.

(Vani S. Kulkarni is Lecturer in Sociology, University of Pennsylvania, USA; and Raghav Gaiha is (Hon.) Professorial Research Fellow, Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, England, and Research Affiliate, Population Studies Centre, University of Pennsylvania, USA). The views are personal.

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By Tariq Rauf
VIENNA, Mar 12 2020 (IPS)

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and coincidentally the tenth quinquennial (five yearly) review conference is scheduled to be held at the United Nations in New York from 27 April to 22 May.

With 191 States parties, the NPT is the cornerstone of the global regime for nuclear non-proliferation, nuclear disarmament and peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

An unexpected complication is that of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) and its impact on the NPT review conference – thus far, there is an inexplicable thundering silence from the UN regarding the postponement of the conference.

COVID-19

Yesterday, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 to be a global pandemic affecting more than 114 countries with 118,000 people infected, 4,291 fatalities and many thousands more fighting for their lives in hospitals.

The WHO stated that this is the first pandemic caused by a coronavirus and that never before has there been a pandemic that can be controlled.

In the United States, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the total number of cases as of 11 March is 938, total deaths 29, in 38 states and the District of Columbia). The New York State Department of Health is reporting 52 cases in New York City and 164 in the State.

Thus, it is clear that New York City is affected by COVID-19 and there is a high risk of the further spread of the virus. Add to this, the expected arrival of more than 400 delegates from all parts of the world, to attend the NPT conference, including obviously from countries and regions already afflicted with the corononavirus.

Should this transpire, it would not take a virologist or a rocket scientist to predict a rapid transmission of the virus to many of the delegates all concentrated in the UN General Assembly chamber for several days and in other large meeting rooms for another three weeks.

Furthermore, the US may restrict entry to delegates coming from countries afflicted with coronavirus and either deny visas or place them under quarantine for two weeks or more? In fact, President Donald Trump already has suspended all travel from mainland Europe for 30 days starting on Friday.

So, why has not the UN ordered the postponement of all large conferences till the virus infections subside and the environment is safe again for large and small congregations of people drawn from all corners of the world?

And, why have not the diplomats accredited to the UN in New York, from States parties to the NPT, already decided to postpone the NPT review conference? What is it about COVID-19 that they do not understand and why are they delaying taking the common sense decision to postpone the event?

The UN Secretary-General’s “Message on COVID 19” is limited to bulleted points such as, “All of us face a common threat – the coronavirus – COVID 19. Today’s declaration of a pandemic is a call to action – for everyone, everywhere”, which is not reassuring!

UN General Assembly President Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, on the other hand, has stated that the coronavirus will only be tackled “through a multilateral response” in which the UN “must lead by example” and that the UN should take a “coordinated and coherent approach” regarding decisions on whether major meetings can go ahead.

He added that at the UN Secretariat “we have started the process looking at scaling down, postponing and/or cancelling meetings, as appropriate”. Well, it’s high time to do so – the sooner the better!

Options for the NPT Review Conference

Reportedly, “options” are being considered but no decision has been taken as yet. One option seemingly gathering support, and reportedly pushed by some States, is to convene the NPT Review Conference as scheduled on 27th April but then to immediately prorogue (or adjourn) it to August or later this year after possibly adopting a statement or declaration commemorating 50 years of the NPT.

The stated rationale being that the NPT conference is a scheduled quinquennial event according to the Treaty and therefore must be convened – if only for a day under present circumstances – going from the sublime to the ridiculous!

The logic of such a bizarre “option” can only emanate from New York and capitals, as oftentimes they tend to be oblivious to the calendars of events and meetings in other UN capitals that deal with nuclear matters, namely Vienna (Austria) and Geneva (Switzerland).

Not surprisingly, the reaction in Vienna and Geneva has tended to be one of shock and disbelief. What were these diplomats/officials thinking? Are they not aware that the third session of the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva is scheduled for 3 August to 18 September?

And, do they not realize that in Western Europe the civilized practice of annual vacation in August is nearly sacrosanct! Just because in the United States the concept of taking an annual vacation is generally frowned upon is no reason to subject others to this stress of giving up their vacation time.

Postpone to 2021 and Convene in Vienna

As I have recommended earlier this month, there is only one sound course of action: that to postpone the NPT review conference to 2021 (possibly 26 April to 21 May) and to convene it from then on in Vienna. The following are the reasons for my recommendation, which is beginning to get some traction:

1. The year following an NPT review conference always is a gap year; hence there should not be any impediment to moving it to next year. No important decisions need to be taken this year and the 50th anniversary of the NPT can be marked by speeches and statements by ministers in capitals, New York, Geneva and Vienna.
2. At present, there are no prospects for any progress on nuclear disarmament – a key element of the NPT. Both the Russian Federation and the United States are engaged in modernization of their nuclear weapons; and the United States is pursuing a policy of steadily abandoning treaties, multilateralism and striking out in favour of unilateral nationalistic policies. Last year, the United States abandoned the 1987 Intermediate- and Shorter-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty as well as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) limiting Iran’s peaceful nuclear programme; earlier in 2002 it pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty that formed the basis of strategic stability between Russia and the United States. In addition, thus far, the United States has not indicated any interest in extending the 2010 New START Treaty limiting strategic nuclear weapons that will expire in February 2021, and in preserving the Open Skies Treaty that permits confidence-building aerial overflights. In addition, some officials now are openly verbally attacking those in countries who promote fulfilling the nuclear disarmament obligations under the NPT. Thus, postponing the NPT conference to 2021 provides a respite of a year with the possibility of an improved climate in 2021?
3. The technical and policy expertise for nuclear verification, safety and security, and peaceful uses always has resided in Vienna (Austria) at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The IAEA provides secretariat support and expertise to the NPT review conference on two of the three pillars of the NPT – nuclear non-proliferation and peaceful uses.
4. The expertise and experience for negotiating multilateral nuclear arms control resides at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva (Switzerland) – the third pillar of the NPT.
5. UN New York has no diplomatic or technical expertise related to the NPT; it is basically a political talk shop. Negotiations on resolutions on nuclear arms control matters in the First Committee of the UN General Assembly, as well as in the UN Disarmament Commission, normally are conducted by diplomats coming over to New York from Geneva and from capitals.
6. Staff from the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (ODA) in New York, together with IAEA staff form the “secretariat” for NPT review conferences and their preparatory committees. UN ODA New York staff travel to Vienna and Geneva, respectively, to service the preparatory committee sessions held there along with UN ODA staff based in these two European cities. Thus, UN ODA New York staff can easily support the review conference held in Vienna.
7. The claim that participation in NPT review conferences held in New York is higher as all Member States of the United Nations are represented there is not credible. Of the 191 States Parties to the NPT, generally not more than 150 attend review conferences and then too small delegations only make a showing on the first and last days in order to be listed in the official list of participants. It need not be a burden for small States to attend review conferences in Vienna.
8. Given concerns about the effect on the climate from air travel and current tendency to minimize long distance travel by air to reduce the carbon footprint; convening the review conference from 2021 onwards in Vienna also can have a positive impact in reducing the carbon burden of attendance. The geographic location of Vienna in Central Europe will greatly reduce distances to be travelled by delegates from Asia, Africa and Oceania, as well as of course by European countries – these regions put together comprise the largest number of countries in the world. Only the North and South American delegates will have increased travel distances, but these obviously are a minority compared to those from the regions noted above.
9. It is obvious that costs of hotel accommodation in New York are inordinately high with tax upon taxes, as are the high costs of food and meals. Hotel and food costs in Vienna are much cheaper than in New York or Geneva, as are hotel costs. Thus, significant savings can be incurred by foreign ministries in connection with participation in the review conference held in Vienna. Such savings would be even more beneficial for civil society representatives, who obviously cannot draw upon tax payer funding as can official delegates.
10. Finally, there is now no rationale to hold NPT review conferences at any location in any nuclear-weapon State (NWS), especially since 25 years after the indefinite extension of the NPT the deficit in nuclear disarmament remains significant, nuclear weapons are being modernized in some NWS, the threshold of possible use of nuclear weapons has been lowered, and existing treaties are under threat. Better to hold review conferences in a “neutral” country such as Austria that is a strong champion on nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament.

Decide Now

The longer this decision is delayed to move the NPT review conference to 2021 in Vienna, the higher the costs incurred this year in cancelling New York flights and hotel rooms. While government delegates may well be able to afford such penalties as tax dollars pay for their expenses, for civil society participants cancellation costs would be onerous and unaffordable as they either self-finance or rely on charitable donations.

Thus, as I have described in some detail above, there are no compelling reasons at all to convene the presently scheduled NPT review conference in New York this year. It makes eminent common and fiscal sense to convene it next year in April-May and to hold it in Vienna – the historic capital location of important conferences for more than two centuries and imbued with the intangible “spirit of Vienna” that encourages harmony and compromise.

* Tariq Rauf has attended all nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) meetings since 1987 as a delegate, including as senior adviser to the chair of Main Committee I (nuclear disarmament) in 2015 and to the chair of the 2014 preparatory committee; as alternate head of the International Atomic Energy Agency delegation to the NPT; and as a non-proliferation expert with the Canadian delegation from 1987. Personal views are expressed here.

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Yasmine Sherif is Director Education Cannot Wait

By Yasmine Sherif
Mar 12 2020 (IPS-Partners)

Conflicts and disasters are about destruction. Discrimination and marginalization are about disempowerment. Combine the two and we get a glimpse of the brutal reality affecting millions of girls today. Standing amidst the ruins of their towns, displaced communities and torn-apart families, they are further shackled by exclusion, exploitation and lost opportunities because of their gender.

An estimated 39 million girls and adolescent girls in countries affected by armed conflicts, forced displacement or natural disasters lack access to quality education. They represent a new generation prevented from acquiring the skills they need to withstand the shocks of crisis, to rebuild their lives and to contribute to the reconstruction of their society. They also represent a significant segment of humanity deprived of their inherent human right to learn, grow and achieve their potential.

Girls are the ones furthest left behind. We find them in South Sudan, where 72 per cent of primary school-aged girls (vs. 64 per cent of boys) do not attend primary school; in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, where only 38 per cent of primary school students are girls; in Niger, where only 15 per cent of 15- to 24-year-old girls and young women are literate (vs. 35 per cent of young men); and, in Afghanistan where 70 per cent of the 3.5 million out of school children are girls, to mention just a few staggering, illustrative examples in the 21st century.

Yet, it has been demonstrated that better educated women have better incomes, and their children are better educated and in better health. The World Bank estimates that if every girl worldwide were to receive 12 years of quality-schooling, their lifetime earning could increase by $15 trillion to $30 trillion. Moreover, greater education equality between male and female students could decrease the likelihood of violent conflict by as much as 37 per cent. Thus, while the statistics clearly make the case for bold financial investments in girls’ education now, the lack of such investments is even costlier and its impact will haunt generations to come.

As a global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, ECW leverages funding to advance girls’ education in the humanitarian-development nexus. ECW’s recently published Gender Policy and Accountability Framework sets out our approach in translating our commitment to girls’ education in conflict- and crisis-affected countries into action. ECW has also taken affirmative action to ensure that 60 per cent of all students benefiting from ECW investments are girls and adolescent girls, while gender-sensitivity is integrated across all ECW-funded joint programmes.

Together with ECW stakeholders and partners on the ground, such as host-governments, strategic donor partners, UN agencies, civil society and private sector, we pursue gender equality and the empowerment of girls in emergencies and protracted crises through Sustainable Development Goal 4, since it is the foundation for all other SDGs.

Without a strong foundation values and aspirations tend to crumble. Can there be a more urgent mission than to invest in girls’ education to ensure a solid foundation for the Decade of Action?

The post Her Education Is Our Foundation appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Yasmine Sherif is Director Education Cannot Wait

The post Her Education Is Our Foundation appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Dawa Yangzum Sherpa

By Shusma Barali
KATHMANDU, Mar 12 2020 (IPS)

Nepal’s trekking industry has been dominated by male guides, but a growing number of women are entering the profession as their reputation for reliability spreads.

Female trekking guides are paid well, but guiding is seasonal work and women find they are not encouraged in it by their families and society at large. Many are forced to abandon their jobs after getting married.

One of Nepal’s seniormost women guides is Neena Singh Skambraks, who has 30 years of experience. She remembers taking her first group of Japanese trekkers to Dhulikhel when she was just 19.

“I had no work experience and family and friends made fun of me,” recalls Skambraks, whose career took off after she learnt to speak Japanese and gained experience taking clients to Annapurna and Everest Base Camps.

 

Neena Singh Skambraks

 

Maya Gurung owns her own company, Everest Women Treks Expedition, and is a climber herself, but it is a challenge for her trainees to stay on the job. “There is a general lack of support from families and disapproval of society,” she explains.

Gurung climbed Mt Everest in 2008 as part of the 10-member First Inclusive Women’s Sagarmatha Expedition, and realised then that there were very few women in the climbing industry. She set up her company not just as a business, but with the aim of training young trafficked women in mountain survival, self-defence and hospitality.

Love of mountains is in Dawa Yangzum Sherpa’s blood. She started training and working as a high-altitude guide ten years ago and climbed Mt Everest in 2012. Since she got an international mountain-guide certificate, she has been busier than ever with expeditions and with training aspiring women climbers.

Sherpa believes that women have the added responsibility of overcoming pressure from colleagues and customers to prove that they are capable of doing their jobs professionally.

Dolma Pakhrin

Dolma Pakhrin is executive director of Sherpa Encounter Treks and Tours, and says that female guides are in high demand from clients because they have built a reputation for reliability. “Women trekkers and older tourists who visit Nepal ask for female guides,” she adds.

“Disapproval from family, societal pressure, uncertainty about the future as well as the restriction on work after marriage means many female guides have not been able to stay on,” explains Maya Gurung.

Take Goma Thapa, who became a trekking guide against her parents’ wishes because they did not think it was a respectable job. “Even though I earn my own living, my family still tells me to go find a real job,” says Thapa, who was criticised for “wandering from place to place without getting married.”

Financially independent, Thapa has decided not to get married at all because it would mean quitting her job. She says: “It is our responsibility to set an example to the next generation to resist those who restrict women from working for career goals.”

 

This story was originally published by The Nepali Times

The post Nepal’s Female Guides Juggle Work and Home appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Due to the recent precautionary measures to combat the spread of the COVID19 taken by the Italian government, which will affect the movement of people in the whole country in the coming weeks, Seeds&Chips cannot take place as scheduled on May 18-20, 2020.

By PRESS RELEASE
MILAN, Italy, Mar 12 2020 (IPS-Partners)

In light of the ongoing public health emergency and in observance of the decree signed by the Italian Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, on Monday, March 9th – enacting forced quarantine for the whole Italian country, while banning all public events until April, 3 – we have taken the tough decision to postpone the Sixth Edition of Seeds&Chips – The Global Food Innovation Summit which would have been taking place on May 18-20, 2020 at MiCo, Milano Congressi.

“This is an announcement that we would never have wished to write but, sadly, as a consequence of the ongoing public health risks caused by COVID19 and according to what is laid down in decree of The Presidency of the Council of Ministers, on March 9th, 2020 – imposing restrictions on people’s movements and banning all public events and initiatives to prevent the outbreak of the COVID2019 – we have decided to postpone our Summit” said Marco Gualtieri, Founder of Seeds&Chips.

As an organization working tirelessly to advance sustainable, healthy and prosperous societies around the world, the safety of all attendees, speakers, startups, companies and everyone else involved, is and must remain our top priority at the basis of our decision.

We are a global community of ChangeMakers, growing up in a fast-changing, complex and unpredictable world. This has allowed us to overcome all difficult challenges we meet on our way.

“The scenario has changed significantly over the past two weeks. Until the end of last week, we were cautiously optimistic that the Summit would go ahead, as planned. The rapid deteriorating public health situation in Italy, in particular in Milan and in our Region, has obliged us to concretely think about an alternative plan” Marco Gualtieri added.

“We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the people who are working at Seeds&Chips to make our Summit possible every year, all moderators and speakers who put together their sessions with us, all attendees, journalists, sponsors and partners who have been with us to craft our event and helped us grow in the last years”.

Today is a sad day for Seeds&Chips – The Global Food Innovation Summit – Milan Edition, but we hope to be back soon with good news. In fact, we are evaluating the opportunity of the upcoming pre-COP26 in Milan at the end of September, to build a new exciting event, filled, as usual, with creativity, innovation and great passion.

***

Seeds&Chips – The Global Food Innovation Summit, founded by entrepreneur Marco Gualtieri, is the world’s flagship food innovation event. An exceptional platform to promote technologically advanced solutions and talents from all over the world. An exhibition area and conference schedule to present, tell and discuss themes, models and innovations that are changing the way food is produced, transformed, distributed, consumed and talked about.

——

For more information
Press Office Seeds&Chips, The Global Food Innovation Summit
Attilio Ruffo, Chief Marketing Communications Officer, e-mail: href=”mailto:attilio@sustainandability.com” rel=”noopener” target=”_blank”>attilio@sustainandability.com
Valentina Gasbarri, Communication and Social Media Manager, e-mail: valentina@seedsandchips.com ; phone: +39 345 970 0906

The post Seeds&Chips – The Global Food Innovation Summit 2020 postponed appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Due to the recent precautionary measures to combat the spread of the COVID19 taken by the Italian government, which will affect the movement of people in the whole country in the coming weeks, Seeds&Chips cannot take place as scheduled on May 18-20, 2020.

The post Seeds&Chips – The Global Food Innovation Summit 2020 postponed appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: UNDP

By Luis Felipe López-Calva
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 12 2020 (IPS)

History shows that in Latin America and the Caribbean, volatility is the norm and not the exception and that the development trajectories of their countries are not linear.

The region has significant links to China, economic relations have skyrocketed in recent decades, particularly through trade, foreign direct investment, and loans.

The COVID-19 outbreak is a new potential source of volatility and a threat to the macroeconomic stability of Latin America and the Caribbean.

While it is still too early to fully understand its impact on China’s growth, and how it will result in a slowdown in our region, what we know so far is that COVID-19 is spreading at an accelerated rate and has caused a disruption to China’s economy.

The virus has spread to more than 117 countries, with more than 117,335 confirmed cases. It is very likely that the impact on China’s growth and commodity prices, besides, represents a shock to our region.

Latin America and the Caribbean have significant links to China, economic relations have skyrocketed in recent decades, particularly through trade, foreign direct investment, and loans.

Trade with China increased from US$12 billion in 2000 to US$306 billion in 2018 and is already the second trading partner. Three years ago, it represented nine percent of total Latin American exports and 18.4 percent of total imports.

It is not the same in all countries, but, for example, China represents 28.1 percent of total Brazilian exports, as well as 10.5 percent of Argentina’s and 32.4 percent of Chile’s.

Although China mainly imports primary products such as minerals and metals, agricultural products and fuels, its exports consist of machines and electrical equipment, textiles, chemicals, and metals.

Its six main trading partners in the region are Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela, whose exports are concentrated in four products, which represent 75 percent of Latin American exports: copper, soy, crude oil, and iron ore.

Foreign direct investment and loans from China have increased over the past decade. Between 2005 and 2017, China represented five percent of total foreign direct investment–more than US$ 90 billion dollars.

According to the Inter-American Dialogue Public Policy Center, China has placed more than US$141 billion in loans since 2005, which represents more than the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the Development Bank of Latin America combined.

Venezuela is, by far, the largest recipient of these loans, with an amount of US$67.2 billion dollars since 2005, followed by Brazil at US$28.9 billion), Ecuador at US$18.4 billion and Argentina at US$16.9 billion.

Although the full extent of the impact of the coronavirus will ultimately depend on how well the outbreak is contained, China’s growth in the first quarter of the year is expected to fall sharply and recover later in the year.

While China has estimated its 2020 growth at six percent several analysts have revised their projections downward to between five and even 4.5 percent.

These shocks will likely be translated into Latin America and the Caribbean through trade, commodity prices and foreign direct investment. In terms of trade, a slowdown in Chinese demand for goods driven by an economic slowdown will have a strong impact in countries such as Brazil, Chile, and Peru.

Net exporters Argentina, Colombia, and Ecuador will also feel the impact to a lesser extent. History shows that in Latin America and the Caribbean, volatility is the norm and not the exception, and that the development trajectories of their countries are not linear.

The volatility arose with this new coronavirus testing resilience here and in China, that ability to return to a predetermined path of development in the shortest possible time.

Beyond the panic that has been unleashed, COVID-19 is a call to resilience in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The post How will COVID-19 Affect Economies of Latin America & the Caribbean? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Luis Felipe López-Calva is UN Assistant Secretary-General and UNDP Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean

The post How will COVID-19 Affect Economies of Latin America & the Caribbean? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Vani S. Kulkarni and Raghav Gaiha
PHILADELPHIA and NEW DELHI, Mar 11 2020 (IPS)

About 15% of the world’s population lives with some form of disability, of whom 2-4% experience significant difficulties in functioning. Disability is part of the human condition, and almost everyone will be temporarily or permanently impaired at some point in life, and those who survive into old age will experience increasing difficulties in functioning. Here the focus is on empirical validation of whether disabilities are associated with economic hardships through loss of employment and consequently impoverishment in rural India. The motivation stems from continuing neglect of health in the budgetary allocations –including the allocations for 2020-21.

Vani S. Kulkarni

For lack of more recent data-the NSS does not cover disabilities- we use the two rounds of the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) panel data for 2005 and 2012. An intuitive methodology is used to overcome reverse causality between poverty and disability by comparing poverty outcomes in 2012 and prevalence of disability in 2005. Priority in time of the latter allows us to make unambiguous comparisons between poverty and disability in rural India. The sequence of empirical analyses summarised below is: (i) factors associated with disability; (ii) relationship between rural employment and disability; and (iii) between poverty/or a welfare metric and disability in rural India. The central argument resting on these building blocks is that disabilities are likely to rise; they are associated with loss of long duration employment; and thus with rise in poverty.

The prevaence of dsability is 9.70 % in the rural population in 2012. Of the disabled, more than half (51.3 %) suffer from 2-4 disabilities. Persistence is also largest in this range of disabilities (about 31 % remain in it between 2005-2012).

Shares of those suffering from 1 disability are largest in the age-group 31-50 years, followed by 51-60 years. In the case of 2-4 disabilities, the largest share is found among those 31-50 years old, 51-60 years old and then among the older group,61-70 years. Shares of those suffering from >4 disabilities rise from those 31-50 years old to 61-70 years and then decline. Within the youngest (15-30 years), about 98 % do not suffer from any disability which declines among older age-groups (just under 50 % among the oldest >70 years). In the older age-group (31-50 years), a vast majority do not suffer from any disability, and small proportions suffer from a single and multiple disabilities. A similar pattern is observed among those in the age-group, 51-60 years, with substantially lower proportions without any disability and larger proportions suffering from single and multiple disabilities. Among the older, 61-70 years, the proportion without disability is considerably lower, but those with single and multiple disabilities rise,with about 30 % suffering from >4 disabilities. As aging grows rapidly, the burden of disabilities is likely to surge. But at the same time, high prevalence of disability among a large segment of the working age group is likely to have deleterious employment effects.

Employment in rural areas is disaggregated into four categories: no employment, <240 hours in the previous year (ie, previous to 2012), part time employment >240 hours, and full time employment (at least 250 days and at least 2000 hours).

Raghav Gaiha

As those suffering from disabilities are a small fraction of the rural population, it is not surprising that in each duration of employment the share of those not suffering from any disability is markedly higher than that of the disabled. Specifically, their shares are higher in short and longer duration of employment while those of the disabled mere fractions. What is indeed striking is that among the disabled, the proportion of not employed is just under half, and markedly lower in part-time and full –time employment.

Instead of using a poverty cut-off (the World Bank uses several), we have used terciles of per capita expenditure (at constant prices). The bottom tercile denotes extremely poor, the next middle class and the third affluent.

As non-disabled households are a huge fraction, it is not surprising that their shares are highest in each tercile. In the non-disabled households, the proportions are almost equally distributed among the terciles. In the lowest disability group (<0.31) at the household level, the proportion in the first tercile is lowest, and highest in the second and third terciles. The highest disability group (>0. 60), however, offers a contrast. Their proportion in the lowest tercile is highest compared with other disability groups but slightly lower than the proportion in the second tercile. Their proportion in the third tercile not just within this disability group but also across all other disability groups is lowest. Thus highly disabled are largely confined to extreme poverty with most restricted prospects of becoming affluent through barriers to long duration employment (including but not limited to discriminatory practices in hiring the disabled).

Ironically, while the SDGs assign high priority to preventing and overcoming disability, officially adopted by 193 countries including India, the FM’s budget for 2020-21 is not just a missed opportunity for growth stimulus but almost cruel to those experiencing persistent health deprivation by cutting the health outlay.

(Vani S. Kulkarni is Lecturer in Sociology, University of Pennsylvania, USA; and Raghav Gaiha is (Hon.) Professorial Research Fellow, Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, England, and Research Affiliate, Population Studies Centre, University of Pennsylvania, USA).

Adapted from: Disabled and Extremely Poor, The Hindu, 6 March, 2020.

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