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Tanzanian investigative journalist, Erick Kabendera has finally been released from jail after seven months in prison. Courtesy: Amnesty International

By Isaiah Esipisu
KAMPALA, Feb 25 2020 (IPS)

After six months in prison, Tanzanian investigative journalist Erick Kabendera has finally been released at a cost of $118,000.

Kabendera was arrested in July 2019 after police claimed that his citizenship was in question.

“We are holding him (Erick Kabendera) for questioning because authorities are doubting his citizenship. We are communicating with the immigration department for further measures,” Regional police commissioner Lazaro Mambosasa told journalists soon after the arrest.

However, when he appeared in court a week later he was charged with leading an organised criminal gang, money laundering and failure to pay taxes.

According to the charge sheet, the journalist “knowingly furnished assistance in the conduct of affairs of a criminal racket, with intent either to reap profit or other benefit”.

In a twist of events, the charge against his citizenship was dropped, and he was later cleared of charges for leading a criminal gang. This left him with the charges of economic crimes which included money laundering and tax evasion.

After postponing his case a number of times, the Director of Public Prosecution on Monday Feb. 24 accepted Kabendera’s plea bargain application, which paved the way for the Kisutu Magistrate’s Court to begin hearing his case.

He pleaded guilty to the charge of money laundering and was fined TZS100 million ($43,000), which he paid, thereby securing his freedom.

However, according to reports, the court slapped him with another fine of 250,000 shillings ($108) for evading tax, and a further 173 million shillings ($75,000) in compensation for the tax evasion, bringing the total fine to about $118,000.

“We welcome his release, but we are deeply concerned about the hefty fines levied against him,” Muthoki Mumo, the sub-Saharan Africa representative to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) told IPS in an interview.

Amid speculations that Kabendera pleaded guilty to the crimes due to frustrations of being held indefinitely, Mumo said that she would leave that for the accused to say. “I am hesitant to speak on his behalf because I do not know the circumstances under which he pleaded guilty,” she told IPS.

Amnesty International also welcomed the news of Kabendera’s release, also criticising the fines levied against him.

“It is outrageous that he had to pay such a hefty fine to gain his freedom after having been unjustly jailed for exercising his right to freedom of expression.

“Kabendera’s mother died while he was in custody shortly after she was filmed pleading with President John Magufuli to let her son free. He has already suffered so much simply for doing his job and should have been released unconditionally. There is absolutely no justice in what transpired in the Dar es Salaam court today,” Amnesty International Director for East and Southern Africa Deprose Muchena said in a statement.

Kabendera also reportedly suffered illness while in jail.

His detention became a concern for many individuals and organisations, including the United States Embassy and the British High Commission in Tanzania.

In a joint statement, they said, “The U.S. Embassy and the British High Commission are deeply concerned about the steady erosion of due process in Tanzania, as evidenced by the ever more frequent resort to lengthy pre-trial detentions and shifting charges by its justice system.”

“We are particularly concerned about a recent case — the irregular handling of the arrest, detention, and indictment of investigative journalist Erick Kabendera, including the fact that he was denied access to a lawyer in the early stages of his detention, contrary to the Criminal Procedures Act.”

Attempts to reach Kabendera’s family by IPS went unanswered today. But Kabendera reportedly said after the release, “Finally I’ve got my freedom, it’s quite unexpected that I would be out this soon. I’m really grateful to everybody who played their role.”

According to Reporters Without Borders, since Magufuli became president of Tanzania in 2015 the country has suffered an unprecedented decline in press freedom, as the president refuses to tolerate criticism of himself or his policies.

Kabendera has been one of his critics. Prior to his arrest, Kabendera, who also wrote for international news agencies such as the Guardian, the Independent and the local East African, had published an article in The Economist Intelligence Unit about the nation’s president entitled: ‘John Magufuli is bulldozing Tanzania’s freedom’. 

It will be remembered that during Magufuli’s second year in office, the Media Services Act was passed. The law allows for harsh penalties for content deemed defamatory, seditious or illegal.

According to a recent report by Amnesty International, the Media Services Act, 2016, enhances censorship, violates the right to information and limits scrutiny of government policies and programmes.

“From 2016, the Tanzania government has used the Media Service Act to close, fine and suspend at least six media outlets for publishing reports on allegations of corruption and human rights violations and the state of Tanzania’s economy,” reads part of the report.

In 2018, the government approved another law to regulate content posted online. According to the new rule, Tanzanians operating online radio stations and video (TV) websites, including bloggers are required to apply for a licence, pay a licence fee upon registration as well as annual fees, totalling about $900 a year.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International is urging Tanzania’s regional and international partners and human rights mechanisms to put pressure on the authorities to ensure that the human rights situation in the country does not deteriorate further, including by strongly and publicly condemning the growing human rights violations and abuses and raising individual cases with government officials.

Last year Amnesty International reported that Tanzania had “withdrawn the right of individuals and NGOs to directly file cases against it at the Arusha-based African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights” in a move said to block the ability for individuals and NGOs to seek redress for human rights violations.  

The arrest of Kabendera, according to analysts, could be a strategy by the government to instil fear in journalists who are critiques of the government and its policies.

Related Articles

• Tanzania Switches Track, Charges Kabendera with Economic Crimes
• Tanzania Detains Freelancer Kabendera over ‘Citizenship’
• Investigative Journalist Erick Kabendera Arrested
• When Being ‘Offensive’ or ‘Morally Improper’ Online Carries an Indeterminate Jail Sentence in East Africa

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By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 25 2020 (IPS)

Meeting the President of the Republic of Korea in September 2019, President Donald J Trump bragged that the “US economy is the envy of the world”. Trump reiterated such claims in his State of the Union address in early February, hailing his own policies with typical humility.

Anis Chowdhury

Trump touted US economic success at the Davos World Economic Forum in January as “nothing short of spectacular”, asserting “I’m proud to declare the United States is in the midst of an economic boom, the likes of which the world has never seen before.”

Facts hardly matter
To the contrary, US economic growth slowed after Trump started the ‘trade war’ with China, dropping from 3.5% in the second quarter of 2018 to 2.1% in the last quarter of 2019, much less than the 5.5% per annum peak in the second quarter of 2014 during the Obama presidency.

Meanwhile, annual growth declined from 2.9% in 2018 to 2.3% in 2019. Growth in Trump’s first three years was well below the Clinton era (1993-2000) average around 4%, the highest for any presidency in the last half century, although growth was even higher at times in earlier years.

Obama inherited a recession following the global financial crisis from September 2008, with the deepest post-war contraction when real GDP fell by about -4% p.a. in the second quarter of 2009. The US economy then turned around by the end of that year.

While US growth peaked under Obama at almost 4% p.a. in the first quarter of 2015, Trump’s peak in the last three years was around 3% p.a. in mid-2018.

Making America great again?
The United Nations, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank all expect the US economy to continue slowing to 1.7-1.8% annually in 2020-2021. US manufacturing growth slowed to its lowest level in almost a decade in August 2019 as the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) signalled contraction for the first time since September 2009.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Meanwhile, with its agricultural sector experiencing higher levels of farm debt, the number of US farm bankruptcies grew by a fifth in 2019, from 498 in 2018 to 595, despite the government’s US$28 billion bailout for farmers, double the 2009 bailout of its Big Three automobile producers.

The US Congressional Research Service doubts that the supply-side incentive effects of Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, mainly benefiting the wealthiest 10% of Americans, will be as significant as he claims.

Much of the funds released by the tax cut have been used for a record-breaking spree of stock buybacks, worth more than US$1 trillion in the first quarter of 2019, augmented by easy money policies.

In December 2019, the IMF noted that “Global growth recorded its weakest pace since the global financial crisis a decade ago” despite monetary policy easing all round.

Meanwhile, slower global growth has been increasingly blamed everywhere on the US-China trade war. Hence, while Trump’s attempts to ‘make America great again’ have largely failed to lift US growth, they have been harming the rest of the world.

Election economics
President Trump kicked off his 2020 re-election campaign at an Orlando, Florida rally in June 2019 with his characteristic modesty, claiming that the US economy under his watch was “perhaps the greatest economy we’ve had in the history of our country”.

To enhance his appeal, Trump has successfully pressured the US Federal Reserve to keep monetary policy and credit conditions ‘easy’. However, the funds have not gone into productive investments, but instead to portfolio investments, mergers, acquisitions and share buybacks, transferring more wealth and income to the rich.

Trump has also been repeatedly promising more tax cuts, ostensibly for the “middle-class”. His economic advisor, Larry Kudlow told Fox News that Trump wants to give the middle class a 10% tax cut in September, weeks before the polls.

Meanwhile, Trump has claimed victory and struck a less aggressive tone on international trade conflicts, declaring the end of hostilities with China in January after concluding the US Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA), with some minor, largely cosmetic changes to the preceding North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

But he has also turned on Europe, threatening at Davos to levy huge tariffs on European car imports. This was followed by another threat from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to punish European countries that have the audacity to tax American digital firms.

The art of the ordeal
Trump Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s blatant schadenfreude over the coronavirus outbreak that it could boost US jobs is telling. The coronavirus pandemic has shut down Chinese businesses and ports as efforts to contain the pandemic wreck China’s manufacturing supply chains.

Under the US-China Phase-One trade deal, China will increase imports of US farm goods by US$32 billion over two years, enhancing his appeal to the US rural farm vote.

So, if anything goes wrong, Trump can always blame China or the pandemic for any shortfalls, while heroically claiming to be protecting the US from a new Chinese threat. Meanwhile, Trump seems likely to ratchet up his rhetoric against Europe’s farmers.

To mitigate the economic impacts of the trade conflicts and the coronavirus outbreak, other countries, including China, are further easing monetary policy. The US Fed can thus more easily remain dovish, at least until November, ensuring more buoyant equity markets, and helping Trump’s re-election prospects.

The Donald has much reason to grin again.

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Credit: United Nations

By Louis Charbonneau
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 25 2020 (IPS)

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has long needed to overhaul his approach to human rights. Hopefully his call to action announced in Geneva yesterday is the start of something new.

Guterres’ low-key approach to human rights may have been calculated to avoid conflicts with big powers like the United States, Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia. But human rights groups and former senior UN officials have criticized it for being ineffectual.

The secretary-general’s new initiative contains some excellent ideas. The link he makes between human rights and the impacts of climate change is crucial, and those who fight to protect the environment are increasingly at risk.

Forest defenders in Brazil and elsewhere are threatened, attacked, and killed by those who seek to benefit from the forests’ destruction. And Guterres is right to highlight the risks posed by new technologies, whether it involves government surveillance, artificial intelligence, or fully autonomous weapons, so-called “killer robots.”

The test for any initiative is the implementation. No one is suggesting the secretary-general do everything alone. But he needs to lead by example.

Louis Charbonneau

That means publicly calling out rights abusers and advocating for victims. Human rights violations aren’t like natural disasters.

They are frequently planned and executed by government officials or their agents – whether it’s the mass arbitrary detention of Uyghurs in China, Myanmar’s ethnic cleansing campaign against Rohingya Muslims, indiscriminate Russian-Syrian bombing of civilians in Idlib, or the forced separation of children from their parents at the US border.

It also means using the authority of the secretary-general’s office to launch investigations and fact-finding missions when appropriate. That includes launching an inquiry into China’s massive rights violations in Xinjiang, and pressing for an international accountability mechanism on Sri Lanka.

The secretary-general should order a follow-up inquiry into the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi to help determine whether Saudi Arabia’s top leadership ordered his slaying. He should also publicly release the findings of his inquiry into attacks on hospitals and other protected facilities in Syria, likely carried out by the Russian-Syrian alliance.

None of this is to say Guterres should abandon “private diplomacy” with governments. But he should re-emphasize public diplomacy on human rights at the UN. Human rights advocacy shouldn’t be the sole responsibility of High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet and her office.

The secretary-general should be the UN’s leading voice on human rights, not only working in the background.

Secretary-General Guterres has issued a call to action on human rights. Now it’s up to him to act.

The post UN Chief Should Lead by Example on Human Rights appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Louis Charbonneau is United Nations Director, Human Rights Watch

The post UN Chief Should Lead by Example on Human Rights appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: Bigstock.

By External Source
Feb 25 2020 (IPS)

A silent revolution is happening in investing. It is a paradigm shift that will have a profound impact on corporations, countries and pressing issues like climate change. Yet most people are not even aware of it.

In a traditional investment fund, the decisions about where to invest the capital of the investors are taken by fund managers. They decide whether to buy shares in firms like Saudi Aramco or Exxon. They decide whether to invest in environmentally harmful businesses like coal.

Yet there has been a steady shift away from these actively managed funds towards passive or index funds. Instead of depending on a fund manager, passive funds simply track indices – for example, an S&P 500 tracker fund would buy shares in every company in the S&P 500 in order to mirror its overall performance. One of the great attractions of such funds is that their fees are dramatically lower than the alternative.

In 2019 there was a watershed in the history of finance. In the United States, the total value of actively managed funds was surpassed by passive funds. Globally, passive funds crossed US$10 trillion (£7.7 trillion), a five-fold increase from US$2 trillion in 2007.

 

 

This seemingly unstoppable ascent has two main consequences. First, corporate ownership has become concentrated in the hands of the “big three” passive asset managers: BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street. They are already the largest owners of corporate America.

The second consequence relates to the companies that provide the indices that these passive funds follow. When investors buy index funds, they effectively delegate their investment decisions to these providers. Three dominant providers have become increasingly powerful: MSCI, FTSE Russell and S&P Dow Jones Indices.

 

Steering global capital flows

With trillions of dollars migrating to passive funds, the role of index providers has been transformed. We traced this change in a recent paper: in the past, index providers only supplied information to financial markets. In our new age of passive investing, they are becoming market authorities.

Deciding who appears in the indices is not just something technical or objective. It involves some discretion by the providers and benefits some actors over others. By determining which players are included on the list, setting the criteria becomes an inherently political activity.

Especially relevant are the dominant emerging markets stock indices, particularly the widely tracked MSCI Emerging Markets Index. This is a list of large and medium-sized companies in 26 countries, including China, India and Mexico.

MSCI sets the standards for countries to qualify for inclusion. Above all, they have to guarantee free access to domestic stock markets for foreign investors. If a country is included, massive amounts of capital will flow into their national stock market almost automatically. As a result, MSCI and the other big three providers’ rival indices are now effectively steering global investment flows.

For example, when Saudi Arabia was recently added to the list of qualifying countries for these indices, it was predicted to trigger inflows into the Saudi stock market of up to US$40 billion.

And when Saudi Aramco, the largest global oil producer, went public last year, it was fast-tracked by the same three index providers into their emerging markets indices. Millions of investors around the world now unknowingly hold shares in this controversial corporation – either through owning emerging markets index funds or having pensions that hold such funds on their behalf.

When China was added to the key emerging market indices in 2018, reportedly after heavy lobbying from Beijing, the capital steering effect was expected to be larger by an order of magnitude. It was estimated that the long-term inflows into Chinese stocks would be up to US$400 billion.

 

The future role of index providers

The three dominant index providers’ income mainly derives from the funds replicating their indices, since they have to pay royalties for the privilege. The providers are therefore currently enjoying a fee bonanza. For 2019, MSCI reported record revenues and said the assets tracking its indices were at all-time highs.

Our research suggests that these providers’ brands are so well established that competitors will struggle to take away that business. This suggests that MSCI, FTSE Russell and S&P Dow Jones will increase their role as a new kind of de facto global regulators.

Arguably the most important aspect of their private authority for the future of our planet pertains to how corporations tackle climate change. BlackRock recently made headlines with plans to divest from firms that make more than 25% of their revenues from coal. Yet this only applies to BlackRock’s actively managed funds: most of its funds track indices from the major index providers, so they will keep investing in coal until the providers remove such companies from their indices.

Similarly, BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street all recently announced they will increase their range of so-called ESG funds, which profess to exclude the worst performing firms according to environmental, social and governance criteria. Again, these criteria are increasingly defined by the index providers, using proprietary methodologies. As The Economist has noted, the providers often decide which companies to include based on whether they go about their business sustainably rather than what business they are actually in.

For instance, Saudi Aramco produces few emissions extracting oil from the ground. It’s a comparatively “sustainable” oil company, but it’s still an oil company. Most ESG indices include industry leaders in each sector and exclude worst performers – irrespective of the industry. Consequently, many ESG funds still heavily invest in the likes of airlines, oil and mining companies.

They are also sometimes quite arbitrary about who qualifies as a good performer. For instance, the American bank Wells Fargo is ranked in the top third by one index provider, while another ranks it in the bottom 5%.

In short, this tightly interlinked group of three giant passive fund managers and three major index providers will largely determine how corporations tackle climate change. The world is paying little attention to the judgements they make, and yet these judgements look highly questionable. If the world is truly to get to grips with the global climate crisis, this constellation needs to be far more closely scrutinised by regulators, researchers and the general public.

Jan Fichtner, Postdoctoral Researcher in Political Science, University of Amsterdam; Eelke Heemskerk, Associate Professor Political Science, University of Amsterdam, and Johannes Petry, ESRC Doctoral Research Fellow in International Political Economy, University of Warwick

 

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

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Delegates gather at FAO headquarters to advance negotiations of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework. Credit: Maged Srour/IPS

By Maged Srour
ROME, Feb 24 2020 (IPS)

“The world out there is watching and waiting for results,” Elizabeth Maruma Mrema warns while talking to IPS regarding the preservation of biodiversity of our planet.

The acting Executive Secretary of the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, is referring to a worrying report[1] released by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) which paints a grim picture of the planet.

“Many key components of biodiversity for food and agriculture at genetic, species and ecosystem levels are in decline and evidence suggests that the proportion of livestock breeds at risk of extinction is increasing,” the report says.

The FAO also warns that “nearly a third of fish stocks are overfished, and a third of freshwater fish species assessed are considered threatened”.

These are just some of the critical issues being debated during the open-ended working group on the post-2020 biodiversity framework. This round of negotiations is taking place at FAO headquarters from 24 to 29 February. In the run-up to October’s historic UN Biodiversity Conference, government officials, experts and activists from around the world gathered today at FAO headquarters, Rome, to forge ahead with negotiations. This round of talks was supposed to take place in Kunming, China, on the same dates. Due to the ongoing situation following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19), it was moved to Rome, Italy.

Background

The fourteenth meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) had its meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in 2018. It was here that the working group on the post-2020 global biodiversity framework was appointed. The working group’s mandate was to prepare the text of a framework that would guide the work of the Convention after the year 2020. At the working group’s first meeting held in Nairobi in August 2019, the Open-ended Working Group (WG2020) requested the Co-Chairs and the Executive Secretary to prepare a zero-draft text of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework. This framework is under consideration at its second meeting, which is currently taking place in Rome. The aim of the second meeting of the Working Group is to significantly advance the negotiation of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, discussing the different aspects of the whole ambitious project.

‘Healthy Diets’ was among the proposed initiatives during the first day of the six-day event at FAO headquarters. The initiative emphasised the importance of ‘geographical indications’ for biodiversity, with examples and experiences from Africa and Eastern Europe. Credit: Maged Srour/IPS

Negotiations in Rome: Promoting a bi-directional approach

In the coming days, the working groups will be divided on a regional basis. They will discuss a wide variety of concerns including biodiversity, food, agriculture and fishing systems, to the importance of promoting an approach that leaves no one outside of this circuit. Civil society, the private sector, indigenous people, local communities, women and youth are all represented to create a functional framework for the whole society and at all levels. Many organisations, like Bioversity International, supported by a host of international agencies, have submitted research reports on biodiversity and food systems. It has also made representations on alternative models for access and benefit-sharing rules, practices and impacts in the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.

The voice of indigenous people

Key to the discussions is the role of indigenous people in biodiversity and Aslak Holmberg, the representative of the indigenous people, is convinced that policymakers can learn from these groups.

“There is a key message we want to share with other groups here during these negotiations,” he told IPS. “Indigenous peoples and local communities’ management of natural resources is (in fact) conserving biodiversity. (This is) because these management practices are built on a balanced relationship with the respective environment.

“Biological and cultural diversity are linked, and by this, I mean that (for indigenous communities) culture plays a fundamental role in the process of preserving biodiversity: it is in our culture to use our areas in a sustainable way. That is the message we want to share with others”.

The voice of the business sector

Representatives of the private sector too, in particular of the business world, wish to be part of the framework that will result from the negotiations and officially approved in October, in China.
Eva Zabey, Executive Director of the Business for Nature Coalition, told IPS she was grateful to the CBD secretariat for giving business and opportunity to engage and contribute to the zero draft of the post-2020 framework.

This coalition is a unique global group of influential business and conservation organisations participating in the negotiations.

“Forward-thinking businesses are starting to change the way they operate, based on their understanding of the value of nature – but this is still the exception, not the norm,” she told IPS.
“Therefore,” said Zabey, “Political leadership is needed now to transform our economic and financial systems in a way that places nature at the heart of global decision-making. It needs to create a level playing field and a stable operating environment for business.”

Zabey is looking forward to an ambitious post-2020 framework which will facilitate businesses’ involvement and create and positive “policy-business feedback loop,” she said.

Perspectives

Audrey Azoulay, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Director-General, perfectly summarised urgency at the negotiation.

Commenting on the global assessment report, she said: “The present generations have the responsibility to bequeath to future generations a planet that is not irreversibly damaged by human activity.”

“Our local, indigenous and scientific knowledge are proving that we have solutions and so no more excuses: we must live on earth differently”.

Zabey echoes Azouley. She said entrepreneurs are increasingly aware that the profit-sustainability ‘conflict’ is no longer feasible or conceivable.

“Companies planning on being successful in the future are starting to realise that financial performance is irrelevant on a dead planet.’

[1] http://www.fao.org/3/CA3129EN/ca3129en.pdf

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The post India’s Orange Farmers Search for Sustainable Agriculture appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

India’s Jampui Hills – a picturesque hill station in the north eastern province — has been know for decades as the Orange Bowl. But a changing climate has led farmers on a search for sustainable agriculture.

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"Ugandan farmer Carol Agoa stands in her Forest Garden where she has grown 2,000+ trees and dozens of different species of fruits, vegetables, and other crops."

By Charity Nalwoga
KAMPALA, Uganda, Feb 24 2020 (IPS)

In Aboke, Uganda, a modest restaurant serves locals breakfast, lunch and dinner. Carol Agoa isn’t just the owner and cook, she also supplies all of the food for her restaurant.

Down the road from town, Carol’s farm is bursting with life. She brings fresh mangoes, okra, tomatoes, bananas, avocados and more, preparing authentic and fresh meals for her friends and neighbors.

The 47-year-old hasn’t always had her restaurant or even the flourishing garden to supply produce. Her life just five years ago was quite different.

Carol has farmed her one acre of land in Achero B village (in north-central Uganda) for more than 10 years. But, for her and many farmers in the region, prolonged drought and expensive seed and fertilizer costs made farming an unreliable profession.

Carol planted and harvested cassava and millet each year with low yields and little return. As one of the primary caregivers for her 12 children and grandchildren, failed crops meant empty stomachs and no payday.

But in 2016 she joined “Trees for the Future’s” (TREES) Forest Garden program and quickly learned how to change her circumstances for the better.

The Forest Garden Program is a simple, replicable and scalable approach with proven success. By planting specific types of fast-growing trees, fruit trees, hardwoods and food crops in a systematic manner over a four year period, TREES is teaching families and communities how to increase production and land productivity.

Carol says that listening and following instructions from TREES technicians has made management and maintenance of her garden very easy, allowing her to harvest constantly from it to maintain her earnings and run her restaurant.

Where Carol once grew only millet and cassava, she now grows pawpaws, millet, pumpkin, mangoes, green peas, okra, yams, green pepper, tomatoes, African eggplants, bananas, soya beans and avocado. She also has timber trees like graveli, melia and albizia.

She soon became a Lead Farmer in the program, helping other farmers learn how to implement the Forest Garden Approach.

“Carol has been one of our most successful and disciplined farmers right from the start of this project. She is a source of hope and perseverance in her community,” says Trees for the Future Uganda Country Coordinator Ivan Tumuhimbise.

“This community is still feeling the effects and trauma of the Aboke girls’ abduction in 1996. A woman like Carol shows that there is opportunity for women to do great things here.”

Ugandan farmer Carol Agoa in her Forest Garden.

Carol says she is forever grateful to TREES for choosing to work in the area to help them build their community and restore what they lost during the insurgency.

Since seeing her Forest Garden come to life, Carol has seen a vast improvement in her family’s health and nutrition. “My husband and I have a healthier home with healthier children because we have successfully added a lot of fruits and vegetables in our diet.”

Carol has also been able to invest her earnings and expand her farm by adding livestock like goats, hens and cows for general rearing at home that she sells at a later stage to a local butcher. Carol has also built a second larger home from her savings from the garden and restaurant which has also given her children work.

Achero B, like most villages in Aboke, faces water challenges. The water sources are far from homes, which means Carol needed a way to bring water home for consumption. WIth her improved income, she was able to buy a water tank and access groundwater to be used around the home during scarcity.

With all her successes and business ventures, Carol says her favorite place to be is still in the Forest Garden. “The training and instruction I received from TREES technicians has made managing and maintaining my garden very easy,” she says. “I am forever grateful.

###
Learn more about Trees for the Future’s work with smallholder farmers, and visit their Forest Garden Training Center to learn how to implement regenerative agriculture practices.

The post Ugandan Farmer Ends Food Insecurity for Family & Community appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Charity Nalwoga is Liaison for Communications and Development at Trees for the Future

The post Ugandan Farmer Ends Food Insecurity for Family & Community appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Climate change, ecological degradation, migrating populations, conflict, pervasive inequalities, and predatory commercial practices threaten the health and future of children in every country, a new report states. Credit:Tess Bacalla/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 21 2020 (IPS)

There is no country that is on the right path to ensure the safety, health and proper environment for their children, an explosive report has claimed. 

The report “A future for the world’s children?” was released in a joint venture by the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and The Lancet on Wednesday. 

“Climate change, ecological degradation, migrating populations, conflict, pervasive inequalities, and predatory commercial practices threaten the health and future of children in every country,” the report stated.

It reiterated the need to take into account the “ecological sustainability and equity” in order to make sure that all children, including the most vulnerable, are safe and their futures on the right track.

The report examined and made recommendations in four key areas: early investment in children’s health and education; omission of greenhouse gases as a means to protect children’s future; to address the issue of “commercial harm” done to children; and the key role governments ought to play in ensuring care and protection for all children. 

One of the key observations was made in the section of climate change, where authors claimed an onus of the responsibility falls on a certain section of society.

“The poorest countries have a long way to go towards supporting their children’s ability to live healthy lives,” the report read, “but wealthier countries threaten the future of all children through carbon pollution, on course to cause runaway climate change and environmental disaster.” 

Anthony Costello, Professor of Global Health and Sustainable Development at University College London, pointed out a host of ways in which wealthier countries can do so. He shared with IPS a list of measures wealthier countries can take:

• Stop subsidies to oil, gas and diesel fossil fuels on which governments spend more than $5 trillion per year. Renewables are now cheaper and more economic than fossil fuels.
• Ask big finance to divest from fossil fuel companies. This is gaining momentum.
• Make the transition rapidly to electrified cars and public transport.
• Change our food system: promote a healthier diet based on less red meat and dairy. Tackle the one third wastage of all food with more local production and less transport.
• Plant 500 billion trees. This is doable over ten years. Grazing animals don’t need to be in open fields. Silvopasture is where you graze them in fields with trees. 
• Move to conservation agriculture.
• Cut taxes on income and replace taxes on carbon. This way people can exercise their preference to a low carbon life.

Another key observation made in the report was about the widely negative impact of “commercialisation” on the well-being of children. The authors of the report recommended that the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) adopt a new protocol that would protect children from commercial harm.

“The commercial sector’s profit motive poses many threats to child health and wellbeing, not least the environmental damage unleashed by unregulated industry,” read the report. “More immediately, children around the world are enormously exposed to advertising from business, whose marketing techniques exploit their developmental vulnerability and whose products can harm their health and wellbeing.”

The report acknowledged the role commercial entities play in job creation and generating economic growth, but reiterated that children need to be protected from these companies’ promotion of “addictive or unhealthy commodities,” including fast-food,  alcohol, and tobacco, gambling, and social media as they have a significant effect on the well-being of children. 

 

Related Articles

• Zimbabwe’s Thin Line between Child Smuggling and Child Trafficking
• Inclusive Education Still Evades People with Disabilities

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Credit: UN Global Compact

By Peter Paul van de Wijs
AMSTERDAM, the Netherlands, Feb 21 2020 (IPS)

This year marks just ten years ahead of the deadline for completing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.

These universally supported targets were always ambitious in their scope – yet what is clearer now than ever before is that quicker progress is crucial in the decade to come.

If the world stays on the same pace as the past five years, the goals will not be met with worrying and serious consequences.

When launched in 2015, the SDGs ushered in a new era of global development objectives to address the world’s most pressing problems.

At GRI, we have been closely involved in the SDGs from the very early stages – because we know that increasing the participation of business is a principle driver in achieving the progress needed to reach these goals.

Over the past five years, GRI has collaborated extensively with the UN Global Compact (UNGC) and others to recognize and assess the crucial role of transparency and corporate reporting as a driver for measuring and encouraging progress towards the SDGs.

Peter Paul van de Wijs

This year will see a number of new projects to further support this work. That includes the new addition of Examples of Corporate SDG Reporting Practices to the resources from GRI, which is focused around 14 sets of examples on how businesses have measured and disclosed SDGs impacts.

These examples are now freely available to assist companies and other stakeholders, including aligning the SDGs with business strategy.

The highlighted examples recognize that, in different markets and global locations, there are lessons to be learned and shared.

Companies included represent a broad array of countries: Brazil, Denmark, France, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Philippines. Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, UK and USA.

Likewise, they are drawn from many different sectors, including chemicals, construction, consumer goods, cosmetics, food & drink, energy, real estate, and telecommunications.

The examples cover key themes that are globally relevant for businesses, such as:

• How to disclose SDGs impacts in the value chain;
• Engaging stakeholders in prioritizing SDGs; and
• Understanding interconnections between the SDGS and corporate objectives and KPIs.

These practical examples complement the existing guidance developed by the GRI-UNGC Business Reporting on the SDGs Action Platform. This resource covers three areas:

1. Analysis of the SDGs goals and targets
2. A guide for integrating the SDGs into corporate reporting
3. How to address investor needs in SDGs business reporting

Meanwhile, we are at the midway point in an engagement project in partnership with Enel, which has involved gathering perspectives from business and policy representatives to set a vision for how reporting and partnerships can advance corporate input for the SDGs.

A series of interactive, online forums in the second half of 2019 provided input on the changes needed. The next stage will see this work inform regional dialogue events later this year, to translate the lessons learned into action.

Looking ahead, we’re excited to be launching the SDGs Corporate Tracker project in Colombia, developed with the Technical Secretariat of the ODS Commission in Colombia, the UN Development Programme and Business Call to Action.

This bold and collaborative approach see equal involvement from the private sector, civil society, academia and governments around the principle that collective action is the only way to achieve sustainability and advance the SDGs.

The corporate tracker platform helps measure business contributions to the SDGs and was built based on the experience of the first pilot project in Colombia in 2018.

This project mined and aggregated private sector data on selected SDGs, which informed the Voluntary National Review presented by Colombia to the UN to show their progress. We are exploring opportunities for similar projects in the African and South Asia regions.

Stay tuned for more on this work and other initiatives in the coming months, as part of GRI’s continued wide-ranging action and commitments as a global catalyst for increasing corporate input and ambition to support the SDGs.

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Excerpt:

Peter Paul van de Wijs is Chief External Affairs Officer, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)

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Women log 3,300 hours of work on farm labour during a crop season, compared to the 1,860 hours logged by men. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS.

By Arpit Jain and Reshma Anand
Feb 21 2020 (IPS)

Across cities and villages in India, an impending water crisis is at our doorsteps. India will face a water shortfall of almost 50 percent by 2030, if our water use continues its current pattern. Last year, Chennai and Bangalore showed us what water scarcity looks like; the statistics are no longer just numbers on paper, they have become our reality.

Even as we’ve started to acknowledge the water crisis in urban India, we’re still disconnected from how our rural communities are affected by it. Water is their life and their livelihood. Agriculture accounts for over 80 percent of India’s freshwater use, and more than half of India’s rural population depends on farming as a vocation.

Sixty percent of India’s districts face a problem of either over-exploited groundwater or poor water quality. This is because 63 percent of water for irrigation depends on groundwater (and not on dams or canals).

 

Women bear the burden of the water crisis

As we, at Hindustan Unilever Foundation, started our work to promote water security and wellbeing for rural communities across the country, it became evident very quickly that women bear the brunt of this escalating crisis.

Women fetch water for their families: Women in villages can end up spending up to four hours a day fetching water for their drinking needs. These are hours that could be spent going to Evidence from India indicates that women are not just integral to addressing the country's water challenges, they are probably the only ones who can do it—at scale


school, or at work. This opportunity cost prevents them from embracing opportunities that could lead to their socio-economic progress.

Women form a significant portion of agricultural labour: Women represent 37 percent of the agricultural workforce in India. According to the Census of India, nearly 100 million women work in the agricultural sector out of the total workforce of 263 million cultivators and agricultural labourers. High levels of male out-migration in recent years have left women to take on the role of cultivators and farm labourers. Forty-five million women joined farming as cultivators or labourers between 1981-2011.

Women work longer in agricultural fields: An Oxfam study assessed that women log 3,300 hours of work on farm labour during a crop season, compared to the 1,860 hours logged by men. A growing water crisis will impact their ability to irrigate their fields or find work on fields that require irrigation. This could have far reaching consequences on an already stressed rural agrarian economy.

 

India’s women farmers are the key to the country’s long-term water security

Women produce 60-80 percent of the food and 90 percent of the dairy products in our country. They have a high stake in solving the water crisis, and they’ve proven to be effective champions of solutions for their families and communities. Evidence from India indicates that women are not just integral to address water challenges, they are probably the only ones who can do it—at scale.

Women are effective evangelisers: A UNICEF study carried out in India in 2013 reported that when trained and taught about the importance of water management, women teach their children and families the importance of the same. This makes them a critical lever to inculcate water awareness among future generations.

Women mobilise government funds: Outcomes of development programmes in West Bengal indicate that women can constructively influence public officials to provide government funds for employment. They have used this money to build water supply structures such as ponds and reservoirs that provide the water required by their communities. Nationally, women generate 47 percent of MGNREGA person days, and have mobilised over 53,000 crore from 2006 to 2012 to build structures that address their community’s water needs.

Women effectively manage and maintain water infrastructure:  UNICEF’s work with local government institutions run by women demonstrated their effectiveness as mechanics. Pump maintenance and repair, which earlier took over a month to fix, was done by women mechanics in under 24 hours. In Jharkhand’s Lava panchayat, the absence of operable hand pumps made village members resort to drinking water from unhygienic sources. The women formed a group with representation from every panchayat to maintain 450 pumps. They ran their village spare stores and met the collective domestic water needs of 130 villages.

Women are constructive collaborators: Research conducted in the year 2000 on water supply projects in Gujarat across 900 villages found that including women in technical and decision-making capacities improved the impact of projects. Women spent more time than men in cleaning and maintaining the canals, supervising irrigation, collecting water taxes, and building water percolating structures.

Women are enthusiastic adopters of new technologies and sustainable farming methods: A 2017 report on the role of women farmers in attaining the Sustainable Development Goals studied 39 sources and concluded that the presence of women is crucial to changing agricultural practices in rural India. With the right knowledge and technical training, women-led collectives have driven changes in cropping practices. Women also showed greater willingness to switch to organic inputs and grow climate-resistant crops, like traditional varieties of millets, that can reduce their water consumption.

At Hindustan Unilever Foundation, our experience from project partnerships with nonprofits across the country has shown that women-led community institutions and women farmers have achieved significant results in water savings, while promoting sustainable agriculture within their communities.

We need women to lead India’s jan aandolan (people’s movement) on water—not because they are women, but because they can lead our generation’s movement for a more secure and water conflict-free society. As the Government of India seeks inputs for its National Water Policy, we do hope that women are at the front and center of India’s new water governance and regulatory framework.

 

Know more

• Listen to this episode of the ‘The seen and the unseen’ podcast which discusses India’s water crisis with water evangelist Vishwanath S.
• Learn more about water and related issues at India Water Portal.
• Explore IDR’s gender, agriculture, and WASH sections for more insights and perspectives on these issues.

Do more

• Use the India Water Tool to understand water risks and plan interventions for water management across the country.
• Reach out to the authors at hindustanunilever.foundation@unilever.com, to learn more about what they do, and to be part of the initiative to address India’s water challenges.

 

Arpit Jain is a programme lead at Hindustan Unilever Foundation. He supports programmes which aim to build scalable solutions to address India’s water challenges. He graduated from the National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal, and has studied Development Management at the Indian School of Development Management. He is also Young India Fellow, and has explored the worlds of strategy consulting, entrepreneurship, and philanthropy.

Reshma Anand is a business school graduate with over 20 years of leadership experience in mission-driven nonprofits, social ventures, and philanthropic organisations. She currently heads Hindustan Unilever Foundation, a nonprofit focused on water conservation and governance. Previously, Reshma founded two social ventures including a specialist advisory firm on sustainable social responsibility and an accelerator for agri and artisanal micro-entrepreneurs. Reshma is an Economics graduate from the University of Delhi, an MBA from IIM-Bangalore, an Aspen Fellow, and a TED India Fellow.

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

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By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 21 2020 (IPS)

The United Nations, which has long preached the irrefutable concept of income equality to the outside world, is now accused of condoning wage discrimination in its own backyard.

The message from the UN Staff Coordinating Council in Geneva was brutally frank—“protesting the UN’s hypocrisy” for launching “International Equal Pay Day*” while failing to reverse an illegal pay cut that has left 3,000 staff being paid 5 per cent less than colleagues on the same grades.

Ian Richards, President of the 60,000-strong Coordinating Committee of International Staff Unions and Associations (CCISUA), told IPS the UN’s International Civil Service Commission (ICSC), using questionable statistics, recommended cutting pay by 5 percent for all staff in Geneva.

But the Administrative Tribunal of the International Labour Organization (ILOAT), another Geneva-based UN agency, ruled the pay cut illegal and staff in specialized agencies had their pay restored.

However, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in New York decided not to go along with the ILOAT judgement in restoring pay, and has asked the UN Dispute Tribunal (UNDT) to rule on this, he said.

“The problem is that the UNDT is so short of judges that two years on from the pay cut they are unable to provide a timeline for any decision,” declared Richards.

Ian Richards

Currently, the UN is also critical of unequal pay between men and women worldwide – both in public and private sectors — singling out the widely-prevalent practice as wage discrimination against women.

Asked if there are there any charges of unequal pay between men and women staffers in the UN system, Richards said male and female staff, working on staff contracts, get the same pay.

However, in some UN departments, he pointed out, consultants and contractors hired by the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) make up two-thirds of personnel.

“For these colleagues we suspect there is a massive gender gap as they must individually negotiate their pay. We have asked UN management to conduct a gender pay audit, but so far, they haven’t done anything’,” said Richards

Further, many of these “Uber-style contracts” don’t provide for social security, health insurance nor maternity leave.

“Given how many staff start out as consultants, it is no surprise that women might be at a disadvantage. And the more the UN moves towards flexibiliizaiton, the worse this will get. If the UN really cares about the gender pay gap, they should stop the Uberization of their personnel,” he noted.

In a statement released February 20, the Staff Coordinating Council said that UN Staff in Geneva occupied the staff canteen holding banners with the slogans:

• “Equal Pay for UN Staff”
• “Two years and still waiting/Deux ans et toujours en attente”
• “Equal Pay Now/Salaire Egal Maintenant.”

A 5.2 % pay cut was imposed in February 2018 on all UN Staff and employees at specialized agencies such as the World Health Organization and the International Labour Organization.

This pay cut, said the Union, was declared illegal in July 2019 by the Administrative Tribunal of the International Labour Organization (ILOAT) which only has jurisdiction over the specialised agencies.

Crucially, staff directly employed by the UN were not covered by the ruling. This means they are now paid 5.2% less than agency colleagues on the same grades – a total loss of more than $20 million over the last two years.

Prisca Chaoui, Executive Secretary of the UNOG Staff Coordinating Council, said: “What makes this situation even harder for UN staff is the gaping chasm between the words and actions of the UN on the issue of Equal Pay”.

In December, the General Assembly adopted resolution 74/142 to establish International Equal Pay Day, calling on the world to support equal pay for work of equal value.

“The UN stands accused of hypocrisy for failing to ensure equal pay for its own staff,” Chaoui said.

In the statement, Richards said: “The astonishing admission from the UNDT that, right now, they don’t have the judges to hear our case means there is no end in sight to the UN’s equal pay scandal. Staff will take action and keep escalating action until we get justice on equal pay.”

The campaign for equal pay is being led by the United Nations Office at Geneva Staff Coordinating Council, supported by other local staff associations such as UNICEF, UNEP, UNDP and UNHCR.

Tatiana Valovaya, Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, attended the protest and heard the staff calls for equal pay justice.

*The General Assembly on 18 December 2019 passed resolution 74/142 establishing International Equal Pay Day – link: https://undocs.org/en/A/RES/74/142

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

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By Akash Chhetri
KATHMANDU, Feb 21 2020 (IPS)

A major discrepancy between Nepal government and foreign records of the number of Nepali children adopted in North America and Europe has exposed a trafficking ring that involves various child welfare agencies in Kathmandu.

The Ministry of Women, Children and Senior Citizens has records of only 64 children from Nepal sent for adoption to ten western countries from 2010 to 2019. However, a list submitted to the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) by the US Department of State and the nine other countries reveals that 242 Nepali children were taken for adoption in those nine years.

The ten countries are the United States, Denmark, France, Norway, Switzerland, Canada, Germany, Belgium, Italy and Sweden. There are 178 more Nepali children adopted internationally than the government has records for. Why the discrepancy?

“The data we have is authentic,” maintains Ministry spokesperson Gyanendra Paudel. “We have no idea how the details in other countries showed more numbers.”

But for Manju Khatiwada at the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), this is a clear case of child trafficking. She says: “The traffickers produce fake documents and influence both the government officials and parents to smuggle the children abroad.”

Official adoptions by foreign nationals have virtually stopped after reports of corruption and payoffs were publicised in the media ten years ago. But there is a high demand for adoption, especially in western countries, and a plentiful supply of poor Nepali parents who cannot support their children, and this differential drives trafficking. Some parents are also tricked by traffickers into giving up their children.

Manju and Bhimsen Khadka from Sindhupalchok used to sell roasted corn by the roadside in Kathmandu. One day ten years ago, a neighbour named Sarita Shrestha and her husband took pity on their three boys, and offered to place two of them, Rajkumar and Balkrishna, aged 8 and 6, at a children’s shelter.

The parents agreed because it would relieve the burden of feeding and educating them. But once the children were taken from them, the shelter’s management repeatedly refused to allow Manju and Bhimsen to visit them, and even started issuing threats.

“I begged them to at least let me see my sons just once, but they said they would finish me off,” Manju Khadka recalls tearfully. The parents lodged a complaint at the NHRC, which started an investigation, and found that Rajkumar and Balkrishna had already been adopted in Italy.

Says NHRC’s Khatiwada: “It is clear that the parents were tricked into thinking their sons would be educated, but they were instead stolen and sold by the shelter, which prepared original-looking fake documents at the Nepal Children’s Organisation in Naxal.”

The NHRC notified the government, saying Bal Mandir had sent the children to Italy for adoption, and recommending that Nepal’s adoption laws and policies be amended to plug the loopholes. It also said a public awareness campaign was necessary to warn parents about child trafficking.

After malpractices were uncovered in the 2000s, the Nepal government tightened laws on adoption. According to the ‘Terms and Conditions and Process Required for Approving Adoption of a Nepali Child by an Alien – 2008,’ prospective foreign parents cannot choose the child they want to adopt.

Foreign couples wishing to adopt a Nepali child must apply through a registered international agency or their embassies in Nepal, filling out forms offering details about the age, gender and other particulars that they seek in a child. A joint secretary-led ‘Family Matching Committee’ is then assigned to find the child from shelters. Clause 14 of the Terms and Conditions stipulates that these adoptions will take place on a first-come-first-serve basis.

However, the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) documents make clear that many adoptions have skipped the whole process. The documents show that Denmark received 20 Nepali children through adoption from Nepal in the last nine years.

But government records in Kathmandu show only two children had paperwork to leave for that country. The mismatch is even starker for France, for which government records here show only one adopted Nepali child, but the HCCH records 21 Nepali children adopted by French families.

Numerically, the United States shows the biggest discrepancy. The State Department report reveals that 102 children were adopted from Nepal in the last nine years, but the government’s records here show only 11.

According to the Bureau of Consular Affairs of the US Department of State, an American citizen wishing to adopt a child should be at least 25 years old, and in the case of couples both husband and wife should agree to adopt the child.

Prospective parents should not have any criminal background and should meet the criteria of the country from which they seek to adopt. The fact that 91 Nepali children adopted by Americans have no records in Nepal prove that they were transported outside of legal channels. HCCH records show that Norway, Canada, Switzerland, Belgium, Sweden and Italy had similar inconsistency with Nepal government records.

Only figures for Germany show the opposite: government records here show four children were adopted by German parents between 2010 and 2019, and HCCH data shows only two children were adopted in Germany.

Chapter 8 and Chapter 9 of the Civil Code 2017 have the provisions in accordance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. And there are a slew of policies and strict regulations governing inter-country adoption.

For example, the Standards for Operation and Management of Residential Child Care Homes 2013 says it is the state’s responsibility to look after children who have lost both parents, or the children of invalid parents, provided their kin cannot take care of them. The priority is for in-country adoption, and international adoption is only a last resort.

All these legal provisions make inter-country child adoption so strict that it is inconceivable that such adoptions take place without the knowledge of several government agencies. The discrepancy of HCCH and Nepali records thus reveals that children are being trafficked abroad in the guise of adoption.

An NHRC report on Trafficking in Persons 2019 points to a nexus between orphanages, child-care centres and foreigners wishing to adopt children. The report says there are 14,864 children in 533 children’s homes all over the country. Nearly 80% of children in such centres are not orphans, and have either one or both parents.

The only government shelter for orphans is Bal Mandir and it is run by the Nepal Children’s Organisation (NCO), which provides care, nutrition and education to orphans all over the country. The NCO has been implicated in facilitating documents for illegal inter-country adoption.

In August 2019, British national Dona Smith was arrested at Kathmandu airport with a newborn baby she claimed was her daughter. Smith was carrying a birth certificate from Lalitpur Metropolitan City and the baby’s passport, issued by the British Embassy, carried her name as Anna Bella Laxmi Shrestha Smith. Smith told suspicious immigration officials that the baby’s father was Nepali.

An investigation later found out that the baby’s real mother was a rape victim who gave birth to her at Paropakar Maternity Hospital. Smith admitted to paying Bal Krishna Dangol, director of the NCO, Rs450,000 for the baby and another Rs2 million to procure the necessary documents to take her out of the country. Deputy Superintendent of Police Hobindra Bogati says Dangol was found to be involved in a larger child-trafficking network. Both Dangol and Smith are now in jail.

Police figures show more than 1,000 children were trafficked in the past five years. DSP Silwal says the children are usually bought from willing poor parents but that some parents are tricked into sending them to shelters. The traffickers then sell them to adoption brokers who make contact with foreigners eager to adopt children.

“The children who are trafficked are often from the poor and underprivileged families or are street children,” Silwal says, “Traffickers prefer them because it is easier to tempt their parents.”

NHRC Commisioner Mohna Ansari says it difficult to curb such crimes unless there is public awareness. “In our poverty-ridden society with rampant illiteracy and scarcity, parents think sending children to shelters will at least give them a good education. They are easily tempted by strangers who promise to take care of them.”

Centre for Investigative Journalism-Nepal

 

“I want to see my sons again”

 

Ten years ago, two of Manju Khadka’s three sons, Ram Kumar, 8, and Bal Krishna, 6 (pictured, right) were taken to a children’s shelter by a neighbour who promised they would be educated and fed there. For three years, Khadka was repeatedly prevented from seeing them. Finally, she found out they had been adopted by a couple in Italy.

“I gave birth to them. I did not send them as babies, they were grown up and going to school,” says a tearful Khadka (pictured, above). “They threatened to finish me off.”

When she went to the police, they were rude and accused her of selling her children to the shelter. So Manju and her husband went to the National Human Rights Commission, but were unable to receive the help they needed to get their boys back. Ram Kumar and Bal Krishna are now 19 and 17 and living in Italy.

 

How Naresh became Chanorang Kim

Naresh Gharti, the youngest of his family, was born in east Rukum and was growing up in Pokhara. In 2018, South Korean tourist Nara Kim got to know the Gharti family and they agreed to let her adopt Naresh.

Faced with strict rules about inter-country adoption, Nara Kim decided to take a short cut. According to the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB), Kim produced a document, certified by Pokhara Metropolitan City, showing that Naresh was her son. She got a fake birth certificate for Naresh from a hospital in Pokhara.

The South Korean Embassy in Kathmandu provided Naresh with a Korean passport  (M 72504568) based on those documents. The passport changed Naresh’s name to Chanorang Kim. The last stop was to get a visa for Naresh at the Department of Immigration where officials got suspicious. Both Kim and Naresh were arrested at Kathmandu airport while trying to fly out in May 2019. Kim is in jail awaiting trial.

 

This story was originally published by The Nepali Times

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Credit: IPBES

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 20 2020 (IPS)

The UN’s highly-touted socio-economic agenda, which lays out an ambitious global plan for “people, planet and prosperity”, has been dominated by “goals, targets and deadlines.”

But regrettably, most developing nations are struggling to reach these goals—due largely to a shortfall in much-needed funding or lack of political will on the part of most governments.

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)– which was launched in 2015 and includes the proposed eradication of extreme poverty and hunger– are expected to be achieved by the targeted date of 2030.

But judging by the limited progress made so far, even the United Nations is skeptical about winning the race against global poverty and hunger– on deadline—besides achieving gender equality, quality education and climate action worldwide.

The 2016 Paris Climate Change agreement has “a global stock-take every 5 years to assess the collective progress towards achieving the purpose of the Agreement and to inform further individual actions by Parties.”

And the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets — aimed largely at protecting and preserving the world’s ecosystems–have a 2020 deadline, with just 10 months to go.

Credit: Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)

The 20 global targets were formulated under the 2011-2020 Strategic Plan for Biodiversity and grouped under five goals, including addressing the underlying causes of biodiversity loss by mainstreaming biodiversity across governments and society, reducing direct pressures on biodiversity while promoting sustainable use; and improving the status of biodiversity by safeguarding ecosystems, species and genetic diversity.

In the run-up to an upcoming UN Biodiversity Conference in China, officials and experts will convene at FAO headquarters, Rome, February 24-29. for negotiations on the initial draft of a landmark post-2020 global biodiversity framework and targets, extending through 2030.

The new framework will be considered and adopted by the 196 Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) at the 2020 UN Biodiversity Conference (CBD COP15), scheduled to take place October 15-28,
In Kunming, China.

Asked if the Aichi achievements are far below targets, Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, Acting Executive Secretary of the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), told IPS “as you point out, research is leading us to the conclusion that actions have not been sufficient to accelerate progress to achievement of the Aichi Targets to the extent required – and consequently, that none of the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets are likely to be fully met, although some specific components or elements within the targets have been achieved”.

She said the full assessment of the status of the targets will be published in Global Biodiversity Outlook 5, which will be released on 18 May 2020.

“But we can say in general, that there has been a wealth of policies and actions developed in all parts of the world to address biodiversity loss, even if cumulatively they have not been sufficient to meet the goals agreed by the global community.”

“We will need to build on these as we move forward to achieve the 2050 Vision”, she noted.

Elizabeth Maruma Mrema

Excerpts from the interview:

IPS: There have been reports that very few people have ever heard of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets compared to SDGs and the Paris climate change agreement. Is this a fair characterization? How important is public outreach and how will this be different for the post-2020 Biodiversity Framework?

Mrema: Progress has been made in public awareness and understanding of biodiversity and its values; there is wide variation across countries and attention to biodiversity in the media remains at a much lower level than coverage of climate change.

Nevertheless, the heightened public alarm about the impacts of climate change is frequently expressed alongside dismay at the state of biodiversity, in particular the extinction crisis.

The media coverage of the IPBES Global Assessment in 2019 was incredible, and this has demonstrated that people are ready to engage on this agenda. But more can be done.

This is why the Parties have asked that any post 2020 global biodiversity framework include an innovative and active communications and outreach strategy, which will be developed as part of the negotiations.

IPS: What shortcomings, if any, have been already identified in feedback about the zero draft of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework? Are you expecting any significant changes to the draft before adoption?

Mrema: The Parties will only provide their feedback on the zero draft when the meeting of the working group begins in Rome on 24 February. I invite you and your readers to follow the proceedings of the meeting, which will be webcast.

IPS: As the 20 targets are expected to expire by the end of 2020, will the Parties to the CBD adopt a revised set of targets for the post-2020 global biodiversity framework? Any indications of what these revised targets would be?

Mrema: As you correctly point out, the period for the implementation of the Strategic Plan 2011-2020 is nearing its end. In 2018, the Conference of the Parties, at its fourteenth meeting in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt adopted a process for developing a post-2020 global biodiversity framework by establishing an Open-ended Working Group (WG2020) to support this process and appointing two Co-chairs, Francis Ogwal (Uganda) and Basile van Havre (Canada) to lead the process.

Subsequently, the WG2020, at its first meeting in August 2019 in Nairobi, requested the Co-chairs and the Executive Secretary, with the oversight of the Bureau, to prepare a zero draft text of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework for consideration by the second meeting of the Working Group, which will be held from 24 to 29 February 2020 in Rome.

The Co-chairs and the Acting Executive Secretary, made this “zero draft” of the global biodiversity framework available on 13 January.

The Zero draft was prepared based on extensive regional and thematic consultations, the advice from the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice and from the Working Group on Article 8 J and written submissions.

The Zero draft was also developed taking into account global trends and future scenarios, including the Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services,

The framework is built around a theory of change which recognizes that urgent policy action globally, regionally and nationally is required to transform economic, social and financial models so that the trends that have exacerbated biodiversity loss will stabilize in the next 10 years (by 2030) and allow for the recovery of natural ecosystems in the following 20 years, with net improvements by 2050 to achieve the Convention’s vision of “living in harmony with nature by 2050”.

The zero draft contains suggested global goals for 2030 and 2050 and action-oriented targets for 2030. As I noted, there will be considered by the Parties at their meeting taking place next week in Rome.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

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A large number of children are regularly transported across Zimbabwe’s borders by women who are not their mothers. Courtesy: Michelle Chifamba

By Michelle Chifamba
HARARE, Feb 20 2020 (IPS)

Elton Ndumiso*, a bus-conductor who works the route from Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, to neighbouring South Africa, sees it all the time: Zimbabwean women travelling with three or four children, who are clearly not their own kids, and taking them across the border.

It’s a crime that most bus drivers or conductors either turn a blind eye to, or become accomplices in by assisting the women. 

Ndumiso told IPS that in many cases some bus drivers and conductors go as far as “talking to” or even bribing border officials, to allow them to let the children and women enter neighbouring countries without regular migration documents.

The practice is not a new one.

“A number of children have been transported by female smugglers to cross the border. Some of the women will be in possession of signed affidavits that claim they are the legal guardians of the children. It is difficult to prove what the intensions of the smugglers would be once they have crossed the border to South Africa,” Ndumiso told IPS.

• The Parliament of Zimbabwe notes that child trafficking is one of the greatest challenges the country is facing as a result of the prevailing economic conditions.
• And according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) — an intergovernmental United Nations agency that provides services and oversights around migration — there are a number of cases of Zimbabwean parents living in neighbouring countries who pay smugglers to reunite them with their children in their new country.

Ndumiso may not know what risks await the children after they cross the border, but he’s seen cases of children being at risk during the journey as well. He remembered a recent case of a woman who was smuggling four children across the border into South Africa and had lost one of the kids when the bus stopped for a break.

“The young child was eight years old and disappeared in the small mining town of Mvuma in Midlands Province were the bus had stopped for recess. We searched for the child but could not find her. We had to leave the woman at the nearest police and a police report was made,” Ndumiso told IPS, explaining that the woman had claimed she was transporting the children to join their parents in South Africa.

IOM told IPS that despite there being a large number of instances of child smuggling and trafficking across Zimbabwe’s porous borders, these cases still remain unknown and unreported because of the nature of the crime. 

IOM-Zimbabwe head of programmes Ana Medeiros told IPS that this was largely due to the fact that in many cases victims were afraid to speak out and tell their stories.

• The 2018 Zimbabwe Parliament Committee on Human Rights’ report states that figures about this illicit crime are unavailable.
• In the report, parliament recorded that in Zimbabwe the crime of child trafficking is difficult to establish as large amounts of money is gathered in the illegal trade to create networks around the world.
• “These are calculative syndicates who create links within the government and … world to recruit unsuspecting victims who are lured by the need to improve their lives,” read the report.

Head of the Zimbabwe Gender Commission, an independent rights body in this southern African nation, Virginia Muwanigwa, told IPS that very few cases of child trafficking are addressed each year in Zimbabwe as they are difficult to trace.

“In most cases, the traffickers who pay the smugglers to transport the children along the borders are close family members who may have … affidavits and consent from parents or guardians of the children for transportation and may also pay a bribe to border officials,” she explained. 

According to IOM, smuggling is mostly prevalent on the borders of South Africa and Botswana because documents can be forged and people bribed to allow entry without proper documents.

Medeiros, however, was careful to point out that, “smugglers are not traffickers because in most cases they are paid for their service to facilitate the process of smuggling. However, in some cases they may be linked to the traffickers.” The easily porous borders means that the trafficking of children is also prevalent.

“Child trafficking cases are difficult to trace because minors are not responsible for their actions and there is a thin line between smuggling and trafficking. Trafficking is not always clear as many trafficked people may be recorded as migrants in the country of destination,” Medeiros told IPS.

And Medeiros told IPS that when it comes to cases of child trafficking, usually trusted people like church and family members recruited children with promised work or education outside the country where they either ended up in domestic servitude or as sex salves.

“As a result of the nature of the crime, the component of confidentiality when investigating the issues of child trafficking and lack of knowledge on the crime of human trafficking, many families and children fall victim to trafficking, particularly with people who are close to them who are paid by traffickers to recruit young children,” Medeiros told IPS.

IOM is currently supporting Zimbabwe with capacity building and training programmes to educate people on the crime of human trafficking.

“IOM has supported the government through the Ministry of Public Service Labour and Social Welfare and Civil Society Organisations in providing information through promotional materials such as flyers, banners, T-shirts, road-shows throughout the country’s provinces to educate people on trafficking,” Medeiros told IPS.

In addition, the U.N. agency also shelters victims of trafficking, also providing them counselling.

“At the shelters victims receive counselling and share their stories on how they ended up being smuggled or trafficked,” Medeiros added.

The United States Department of State Trafficking in Persons in Zimbabwe says it also provided more than $ 750,000 in assistance for anti-trafficking programmes covering victim services, awareness and referrals, aligning legislation and building mutual capacity.

The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ), which actively supports the U.N. Sustainable Development Goal 8 of decent work and economic growth, has focused much of its work on eliminating modern slavery. It, however, acknowledges that globally the legal system has failed to put an end to trafficking and that new laws are needed to protect citizens from this.

“The legal system can be the driver for change — so let’s use the instruments already in place — the law firms that are willing to drive change. Initiate any new laws/programmes not as a marketing add-on but a business norm and a business imperative. We need rule of law and safety of citizens in place — civilised society cannot exist without the rule of law in place,” GSN states on its website.

Muwanigwa too wants to see stronger laws in place to protect Zimbabwe’s children.

“There is need for legislation reform as very few cases of child-smuggling or trafficking in persons are investigated. Resource constraints are also the major drawback when it comes to issues of human trafficking in Zimbabwe,” Muwanigwa told IPS.

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

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

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

 

** Writing with Nalisha Adams in Bonn, Germany

Related Articles

• How to Recognise Nigeria’s Trafficked Kids
• Human Trafficking – It Came Disguised as the Opportunity of a Lifetime

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Excerpt:

While there are a large number of instances of child smuggling and trafficking across Zimbabwe’s porous borders, these cases still remain unknown and unreported because of the nature of the crime. 

The post Zimbabwe’s Thin Line between Child Smuggling and Child Trafficking appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Jemimah Njuki
NAIROBI, Feb 20 2020 (IPS)

The global gender community will meet in New York in March to review progress on gender equality and women’s empowerment in the 25 years since the Beijing declaration. The theme for this year’s Commission on the Status of Women gathering is Generation Equality, emphasizing how the current generation must close the gender gap. 

Examples of gaps include how women’s representation in national parliaments is only 23.7 per cent. In 39 countries, daughters and sons do not have equal inheritance rights. In 49 countries there are no laws protecting women from domestic violence, and globally 750 million women and girls are married before the age of 18. In the agriculture sector where I work, women are just 13 per cent of agricultural land holders globally.  

While the UN hopes these kinds of gender gaps can close in a generation, analysis by the World Economic Forum in their Global Gender Gap Report 2020 sets different expectations.  The report says it will take 99.5 years to close the gender gap if we accelerate progress, but if we continue the current pace, it could take up to 257 years. This is alarming. 

It will take 99.5 years to close the gender gap if we accelerate progress, but if we continue the current pace, it could take up to 257 years

While numerous development actors are engaged in projects around the globe that seek to achieve gender equality and empowerment of women and girls, governments and other agencies need to act fast and at scale to accelerate progress to ensure we become generation equality.

First, there needs to be political commitment by governments across the world to address gender inequality and women’s political participation. This can be in the form of women’s representation in parliament, gender responsive budgeting or advancing policies that protect the rights of women.

By February of 2019, only 12 countries — led by Rwanda with 61.3% — had over 40% representation of women in parliament. The proportion of ministerial posts held by women however remains low, at only one in five. France, Canada and Spain and more recently Scotland have all had cabinets with at least as many women as men.

Equal political participation by women and men needs to be the norm rather than the exception. Strategies that have worked include quotas for women’s representation, reforming pollical parties to be more gender equal, and ensuring a level playing field for women political aspirants. 

Second, governments need to accelerate laws that protect the rights of women and girls. Without these laws, the efforts of organizations will not be sustainable as they are not protected under the law. Evidence shows that discriminatory laws still exist in many countries.

For example, the Women, Law and Business report 2020 shows that 90 out of 190 countries still have at least one restriction on the jobs women can hold. In terms of laws to redistribute women’s care work, more than half of the economies covered mandate paid leave specifically reserved for fathers, but the median duration of that leave is just five days.

Only 43 economies have paid parental leave that can be shared by mothers and fathers. This is despite research that shows law reforms and policies that empower women are not only good for women’s empowerment, but they also boost economic growth.

For example, when women can move more freely, work outside the home and manage assets, they’re more likely to join the workforce and strengthen the economy.

Third, we must address the harmful social and cultural norms and societal perceptions of women as laws by themselves are not enough in protecting the rights of women. Evidence from Bangladesh for example shows women who routinely wore burkah/hijab, and hence are more compliant with religious and cultural norms are less likely to be engaged in outside work.

In Kenya, while equal inheritance of land and other property is entrenched in the constitution, women own less than 7 percent of the land in the country, mainly due to cultural norms that still do not recognise the rights of women and girls to inherit land.

Engaging men, boys, traditional and religious leaders can change norms and practices that are harmful to women and girls. In countries like Zambia and Malawi, traditional chiefs have been instrumental in reducing forced and early child marriage. 

And finally, we must invest in research and evidence to test what works, where we are making progress and where progress is not happening so as to inform future action. While there are indicators to track progress, the analysis of what is working in different contexts to achieve gender equality is not always that robust.

Tools like the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index, tracks women’s empowerment in agriculture and shows the impact of different interventions on different indicators of women’s empowerment. Analysing data used to track SDG 5 on gender equality to track what is working and use the lessons for future implementation can help to accelerate progress. 

While some progress has been made in addressing gender inequality in recent years, a big push in this last decade before the expiry in 2030 of the Sustainable Development Goals is clearly needed. Now we must use different tools than those which created the problem.

 

Jemimah Njuki is an expert on gender equality and women’s empowerment. She is an Aspen New Voices Fellow. You can follow her @jemimah_njuki

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Credit: IPS

By Stefania Fabrizio, Daniel Gurara and Lisa Kolovich
WASHINGTON DC, Feb 20 2020 (IPS)

Making sure that opportunities to enter the workforce are fair and rewarding for women benefits everyone. Yet, the average female workforce participation rate across countries is still 20 percentage points lower than the male rate, largely because gender gaps in wages and access to opportunities, such as education, stubbornly persist.

Our new study finds that fiscal policy choices that address gender equality—such as investing in education or infrastructure, developing better sanitation facilities, implementing individual-based tax regimes, and offering parental leave—create more economic opportunities for women, increase growth, and reduce poverty and inequality.

When governments actively promote policies to increase female labor force participation, more women do indeed join the labor force. Most measures pay for themselves in the long run without additional costs for governments and the added bonus—a larger workforce leads to higher economic activity and growth, which generate additional tax revenue for the country.

Inclusive fiscal policies

Since the mid-1980s, at least 80 countries across all levels of development and regions have adopted fiscal policies to promote gender equality. Previous IMF research suggests that in advanced economies, when governments actively promote policies to increase female labor force participation, more women do indeed join the labor force.

Canada, Czech Republic, and Sweden, for example, have witnessed a substantial increase in women’s paid work when the countries switched to using individual rather than family income taxation.

For low-income and developing countries, programs aimed at reducing gender gaps in education, particularly for secondary and university education, have supported more economic opportunities for women.

Other effective fiscal policies, such as better infrastructure, decrease the time spent on unpaid care work, while providing more women the choice to enter into paid employment.

The bottom line is that greater gender parity at all levels, from unskilled workers to top management positions, can also foster the creation of new ideas—leading to higher productivity.

Credit: Food Tank

Competing demands

Policymakers face difficult choices every day, given limited room in the budget and competing demands. These choices often come down to investing in schools or roads, introducing new revenue measures, or offering free, high-quality childcare.

Here, policymakers must consider not only what happens to economic growth, but also how these policies can reduce income and gender inequality.

To help with these decisions, our recent analysis examines how policies designed to increase women’s labor force participation can accomplish multiple economic and social goals.

We find that some gender-responsive fiscal policies increase labor productivity and in turn, sustainable growth. Take for instance, an effort to reduce the gender gap in literacy rates.

In low-income countries the average literacy rate of men is about 70 percent while it is only 54 percent for women. But if fiscal policies can be used to close this gap, then women’s productivity increases and ultimately, more women are equipped for jobs in more skill-intensive sectors.

Labor-saving infrastructure, such as greater access to safe water, frees time, particularly for women. For instance, in Malawi, women on average spend 54 minutes a day collecting water. Better access to infrastructure means that women may then choose to pursue paid work.

Removing tax distortions for the earner in the family with the lower wage, usually the woman, by changing the personal income tax structure from a family to an individual system creates incentives for more women to work, and with greater diversity in the workforce, fresh and innovative ideas can boost productivity.

Securing the future

Not all gender-responsive fiscal policies benefit women equally. Subsidizing childcare and providing paid maternity leave would have a greater impact on poorer women because they typically face higher childcare costs relative to their income.

For example, in the US, poorer women spend 17.4 percent of their income on childcare compared to 7.8 for richer women.

Time horizons matter too. A mix of measures could help support economic goals in a sustainable manner while tackling immediate social needs.

For example, investing in education to equip girls with the same skills as boys would boost women’s human capital while shaping future labor productivity. In the meantime, cash transfers that target poorer working women may help reduce poverty and inequality.

Our research shows that tackling gender-biased social norms is crucial. In fact, removing discriminatory practices and addressing social norms amplifies the positive effects of gender-responsive measures. Not only would this improve human rights, but it also would help promote women’s economic empowerment.

According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), discriminatory laws and social practices reduce women’s years of schooling by 16 percent and decrease labor force participation by 12 percent, resulting in a global income loss of 7.5 percent of the global GDP.

Progress in some countries is encouraging. For example, under the Promundo initiative, 34 countries have introduced programs to engage men and boys on gender norms with participants responding very positively to the initiative.

Real changes are happening. Still, we have a long way to go to make the world a place with the same opportunities for men and women. Policymakers and citizens working together can foster equality, equity, and brighter prospects for all, and ensure that gender equality becomes a reality in all of our lifetimes.

IMFBlog, where this article was originally published, is a forum for the views of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff and officials on pressing economic and policy issues of the day.

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF and its Executive Board.

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Excerpt:

International Monetary Fund (IMF)

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By PRESS RELEASE
SEOUL, South Korea, Feb 20 2020 (IPS-Partners)

On February 20, 2020 – Mr. Ban Ki-moon, 8th Secretary-General of the United Nations, has officially begun his second term in office as the President of the Assembly and Chair of the Council of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI). In his letter to Members of GGGI, President and Chair Mr. Ban reaffirmed his commitment to raise awareness of the Institute and its work to tackle climate change and help countries accelerate achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“Leading the Institute is not a new endeavor for me but, rather, a continuation of my previous mission at the UN. Although GGGI is much younger and smaller than the UN, it is a treaty-based intergovernmental organization, the existence of which is to counter climate change by working very much in tandem with the Paris Agreement and the SDGs,” said Mr. Ban.

On October 16, 2019, Mr. Ban was unanimously re-elected by the Members of the Assembly and the Council to serve as GGGI’s President and Chair for another two-year term commencing February 20, 2020.

During his first two-year term, GGGI’s membership has expanded to 36 Members, with 8 new Members – namely Paraguay, Tonga, Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan, Burkina Faso, the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, Ecuador and Angola – joining the organization. His vision and leadership will help GGGI deliver greater impact for its Members – supporting them to achieve solid and ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement, that are due at the COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow in November 2020.

Many countries, including GGGI’s Members, are stepping up efforts to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. One of GGGI’s priorities for 2020 centers around supporting its Members to meet their ambitious NDC commitments. In addition, GGGI is contributing to reducing billions of tons of CO2e; increasing access to sustainable services for 600 million people; enabling adaptation services for 16 million people; and protecting 80 million hectares of natural capital throughout the world.

Mr. Ban reiterated the importance of bringing the world together to take action on climate change and move toward a sustainable future – especially as 2020 is a crucial year for climate action, where countries have to recommit to the Paris Agreement.

ABOUT THE GLOBAL GREEN GROWTH INSTITUTE (GGGI)

Based in Seoul, Republic of Korea, the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) is a treaty-based international, inter-governmental organization that supports developing country governments transition to a model of economic growth that is environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive. GGGI delivers programs for more than 30 Members and partners – in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and the Pacific – with technical support, capacity building, policy planning and implementation, and by helping to build a pipeline of bankable green investment projects.

GGGI supports its Members and partners to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals and the Nationally Determined Contributions to the Paris Agreement.

To learn more about GGGI, visit www.gggi.org and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Instagram.

@FrankRijsberman         @gggi_hq         @bankimooncentre

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By Maged Srour
ROME, Feb 19 2020 (IPS)

In a groundbreaking ruling in January 2020, the International Court of Justice demanded that Myanmar halt all measures that contribute to the genocide of the Rohingya community.

The order was lauded by international bodies and organisations who have been involved with and/or closely following the case since the Gambia filed a lawsuit against Myanmar for human rights violations against the Rohingya community.

The United Nations Secretary General has said he “welcomes” the order and “will promptly transmit the notice of the provisional measures ordered by the Court to the Security Council,”

The Rohingya refugees continue to remain in camps in Bangladesh, where they are vulnerable to human trafficking and other forms of violence.

IPS has been reporting extensively on the Rohingya tragedy over the past several years.
http://www.ipsnews.net/2020/01/experts-laud-international-court-justice-order-myanmar-halt-genocidal-conduct/

Here, IPS brings together a select number of powerful images from the Rohingya community seen through the lens of Mohammad Rakibul Hassan, a Bangladeshi photojournalist, filmmaker and visual artist.

The post What Future for the Rohingyas after the ICJ Ruling? appeared first on Inter Press Service.


Schoolgirls in Peshawar. Section 89 Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), which allowed for the use of corporal punishment by parents, guardians and teachers "in good faith for the benefit”, was suspended last week by the Islamabad High Court. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS.

By Zofeen Ebrahim
ISLAMABAD , Feb 19 2020 (IPS)

“He struck his head, his side, his stomach and went on hitting him. When Hunain said he could not breathe, the teacher slammed him against the wall, saying, ‘Being dramatic are we?’” This is the eye witness account from a classmate of 17-year-old Pakistani student, Hunain Bilal, who was allegedly beaten to death by his teacher after he failed to memorise his lessons.

It was a story that had sent shockwaves through Lahore after Bilal died from his injuries in September. But Section 89 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) allowed for the use of corporal punishment by parents, guardians and teachers “in good faith for the benefit” meant that the teacher accused of Bilal’s death could not be tried for murder.

Bilal’s cousin, 21-year old media studies student Rimsha Naeem, has been concerned that the small social media uproar that placed a spotlight on the issue of corporal punishment in Pakistan was only fleeting. And that instead the memory her cousin’s tragic death would slowly fade as and the government appeared to be soft-peddling the issue.

“The murderer did not have to bear any consequences and is out on bail,” she said explaining why it was imperative that a law be put in place to stop “such barbarity so no parent should ever have to bear this tragedy”.

Last week, however, saw a victory for the rights of school kids across the country when singer and rights activist Shehzad Roy filed a successful petition with the Islamabad High Court to ban the practice of corporal punishment of children up to the age of 12.

“It was a huge win for us!” said a jubilant Roy, speaking to IPS after the court suspended Section 89 of the PPC. He is happy as now the children of the Islamabad Capital Territory, the only area in Pakistan where they remained unprotected by law or any administrative order, will hopefully be spared the rod.     

• In 2017, Sindh became the first province to ban corporal punishment by enacting a law — the Sindh Prohibition of Corporal Punishment Act — because the “child has the right to be shown respect for his personality and individuality” it states. Moreover it has made it a criminal offence.
• By eliminating smacking, spanking and even verbal lashing, it is hoped the child will no longer be humiliated in a classroom setting, a seminary, or at home.
• Other provinces in the country have administrative orders against corporal punishment, but these are not enforceable.

Roy said corporal punishment only caused harm and often led to a child dropping out of school or running away from home. Dr. Murad Khan, Professor Emeritus at Karachi’s Aga Khan University’s Department of Psychiatry, endorsed this. “The more damaging effect is that it leads to poor performance, loss of confidence and self-esteem, a sense of helplessness, anger (that can turn into violence towards others and self), anxiety and depression. In addition there is humiliation, shame and loss of dignity. All this affects a person mental health and well being,” he added.

Referring to a Harvard study, Roy told IPS that corporal punishment affected the same part of the brain area that is affected by severe physical and sexual abuse.

And the scars never heal, said Khan.

“The effect of corporal punishment on different individuals is different. Some grow up to be abusers themselves; some grow up angry at parents and family for not protecting them. Others grow up with poor self confidence and self esteem. Many hate all authority figures and have difficulty in forming trusting relationships.”

Khan also pointed out that in terms of behaviour change there is enough research to show that corporal punishment never works “neither as a deterrent nor in terms of changing a student’s behaviour”. He told IPS students should certainly be disciplined for any transgression – academic, social, behaviour etc. but never physically.

But Roy’s work is far from over. In the absence of a bill, the other three provinces, namely Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, have standing administrative orders barring corporal punishment to be inflicted. To this, Sami Mustafa, an educationist who has been running a school system in Karachi for over four decades, said tersely, “When was the last time these court orders worked in improving the educational culture of schools?”

“These administrative orders do not mean much,” agreed Roy because these “do not criminalise the act” and so like in the case of Bilal, the teacher cannot be tried for murder. What’s more, “it is an interim order and so far is limited to schools” pointed out human rights lawyer, Sara Malkani. Nevertheless she found “filing this petition is an important step” and one which was “in the right direction”. “The goal now is to get a final order that permanently bans corporal punishment,” she told IPS.

Roy, too, is aiming for a more permanent solution. “I want to re-ignite a conversation whereby the legislators in these provinces can find it upon themselves to legislate.”

And with a “good law” to take cue from, according to Shahab Usto, who is representing Roy, the work for other provinces in law-making should not be too difficult. 

“Sindh’s law is quite comprehensive and can be replicated in other provinces,” he told IPS. “It encompasses all the possible situations where a child faces punishment be it school, work, rehabilitation centre, jail or other places. There is no need to reinvent the wheel, it will only take more time,” he said.

He further said the Sindh Child Protection Authority Act 2011 could be brought in aid to reinforce the implementation of the Prohibition of Corporal Punishment Act, as the former contains provisions for institutional arrangement.

“Both laws, if implemented in a mutually supplementary way, could make a substantive improvement towards protecting the child human rights in Sindh, for now,” he said. 

With Pakistan having ratified and becoming a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child back in 1990, which mandates member states to legislate the laws protecting children, Usto pointed out that Pakistan was “already behind schedule by 30 years”.    

Roy and Usto may be happy with the IHC’s verdict for now, but child rights activist and senior lawyer, Anees Jillani, has his misgivings about “judicial interventions” in matters that should “ideally be handled by the parliament and provincial assemblies coming up with a comprehensive law handling this issue”. He said this new trend by the judiciary overstepping its domain to “attract media attention” rather “unhealthy”.

“I don’t want his life to have gone in vain,” said Naeem, Bilal’s cousin. “This unfortunate event may well have gone unnoticed by society had my cousin not died from his injuries which created an uproar on the social media, after which the mainstream media took it up…This happens to scores of kids every day, and is seen by our society as an acceptable way of disciplining a child.”

Related Articles

• Inclusive Education Still Evades People with Disabilities

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A Malawian nurse at a training session. A report looking into the discontinuation of U.S. global health assistance to foreign non-governmental facilities providing abortion or abortion-related services, says that the ban is affecting the population in Malawi. Credit:Claire Ngozo/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 19 2020 (IPS)

A report released last week has detailed the complex ways in which President Donald Trump’s ‘Global Gag Rule’ (GGR), that blocks U.S. global health assistance to foreign non-governmental facilities providing abortion or abortion-related services, is affecting the population in Malawi, a country already hard hit with numerous climate change disasters. 

The report, titled ‘A Powerful Force: U.S. Global Health Assistance and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in Malawi’ was released on Feb. 10 by Washington, D.C.-based sexual and reproductive health rights organisation CHANGE, the Center for Health and Gender Equity. 

Serra Sippel, president of CHANGE, told IPS they chose to study Malawi in part because the country is a recipient of U.S. assistance in the three key fields of sexual and reproductive health: family planning, maternal and child health, and HIV and AIDS. 

“The GGR impacts health structures and when health structures are impacted, it is often the marginalised and criminalised groups who bear the brunt of the impact,” Sippel told IPS. “This includes people living in rural areas, adolescent girls and young women, and female sex workers.”

The report details the numerous ways in which GGR affects the fabric of a country where many communities are already averse to abortion, often owing to religious concerns. This means that when a young woman needs to get an abortion, they might do so in unsafe ways in order to keep them secret. 

One partner organisation is quoted in the report as saying, sometimes a girl “would drink a potion like a solution of washing powder and some will use sticks” to engineer her own abortion. 

In the Sub-Saharan country, where abortion is a taboo and can even lead to 14 years in prison in cases where there is no “life endangerment” of the pregnant person, more than 50,000 women suffer annually from unsafe abortion practices, according to the report. 

Marie Stopes International (MSI), which doesn’t have direct services in Malawi, estimates that about 78,000 women undergo unsafe abortion practices in the country, according to the report. Abebe Shibru, MSI’s country director in Zimbabwe, shared with IPS the general effect it’s having in sub-Saharan Africa.  

“The GGR continues to aggravate the situation of undermining women’s right for choice,” Shibru told IPS. “Lack of adequate services for family planning, increasing rate of teen age pregnancy and increasing maternal mortality, mostly from unsafe abortions, are some of the issues that the GGR contributes to.”   

Sippel told IPS that the local MSI affiliate Banja La Mtsogolo (BLM) was “forced to end their participation in the U.S. PEPFAR DREAMS Partnership, a highly effective HIV prevention programme, because of the GGR”.

Some of the impact is top-down from the government. In 2015, the Termination of Pregnancy Bill, introduced in Malawi to ensure safe abortion in cases of incest, rape, fetal anomaly, was “slowed down” by the Minister of Health given their fears that it would affect U.S. foreign aid in the country while President Trump is in office, according to the report. 

“We also met with the International Planned Parenthood Federation affiliate Family Planning Association of Malawi (FPAM) who was forced to stop their participation in the LINKAGES project which provides HIV and AIDS prevention, care, and treatment services for key populations. Because of the GGR they were forced to close four clinics,” Sippel added. 

There is also a further effect on a community that’s hard hit by climate change, and vulnerable to a range of climate concerns such as intense rainfall and droughts, among many other issues. These issues, although not directly related to GGR, further amplify the negative effects such foreign policy has on those at the center of the crisis, according to advocates.

“When women are displaced because of climate change, their risk of exposure to gender-based violence often increases,” Sippel told IPS. “They are walking longer distances to get water and firewood. Also, as women enter camps post-disaster, their access to SRHR services can often be limited.”

 

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• Female Genital Mutilation: Not just an Emotional and Health Impact on Women but a $1.4 Billion Dollar Cost to Communities
• Ending Bullying and Humiliation over Menstruation as Girls and Boys in Conservative Eswatini are Educated about Reproductive Health

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