Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

Many specialist doctors and nurses in Africa are migrating to greener pastures, leaving cancer patients with few options. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

By External Source
LONDON, Feb 7 2020 (IPS)

Low- and middle-income countries could see an 80 per cent rise in cancer over the next 20 years if treatment and prevention services are not stepped up, according to the latest World Cancer Report.

The report, compiled by the World Health Organization (WHO), warns that cancer prevention is taking a back seat in poor countries, as their health systems tackle such immediate problems as infectious diseases, child health and nutrition.

The report found that less than 15 per cent of low-income countries offer comprehensive cancer treatment—including diagnostics, treatment and prevention—compared to 90 per cent of rich countries.

Modelling employed in the report showed that, by 2040, the global burden of cancer is set to double to around 29-37 million new cases a year. Cancer is responsible for a third of premature deaths, as well as a cause of financial hardship and prolonged disability in poor countries, the report said.

Types of cancer affect people in poor and rich countries differently. The report found that Kaposi Sarcoma, a skin cancer that causes lesions and is related to HIV, poses the greatest risk for those in the poorest countries, followed by cervical cancer.

“At least 7 million lives could be saved over the next decade, by identifying the most appropriate science for each country situation [and] by basing strong cancer responses on universal health coverage.”

Tobacco use remains responsible for 25 per cent of all cancer deaths, the report said, but while smoking is becoming less popular in wealthy countries, it is increasingly common in the lowest-income ones—raising their cancer burden.

The report’s authors said that such differences must be considered when developing responses to cancer.

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: “At least 7 million lives could be saved over the next decade, by identifying the most appropriate science for each country situation [and] by basing strong cancer responses on universal health coverage.”

The report zoomed in on cervical cancer, for which infection with Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) is one of the preconditions. A vaccine against the virus exists but is hard to come by in poorer nations. The report showed that 34 per cent of young women in high-income countries received vaccination against HPV, but only 3 per cent of young women low-income countries had been vaccinated.

The data marries with the findings of a report published on 30 January in medical journal The Lancet. The report, based on two scientific studies, found that 91 per cent of global cervical cancer deaths in 2018 occurred outside high-income countries.

Bernard Stewart, a professor of medicine at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia said that, along with low healthcare budgets, doctors in developing countries have to deal with stigma and cultural beliefs, which make a one-size-fits-all approach to tackling cervical cancer difficult.

Recognition of possible stigmatisation is essential when implementing screening programmes aimed at girls and young women, Stewart said, adding: “Action depends critically on the values and perspectives of particular communities, rather than being amenable to generalisations.”

The cost of healthcare interventions around cancer also plays a role in preventing a wider roll-out of screening and treatment in developing countries, the report warned. A model developed by the WHO showed that providing cancer services to 90 per cent of the global population would cost around US$140 billion over the next decade—and save around 7.3 million lives.

Most of this money would go towards training doctors in cancer detection and prevention, the report said, as a lack of knowledge of the disease is one of the main causes of late diagnoses and treatment.

“If people have access to primary care and referral systems then cancer can be detected early, treated effectively and cured,” said Ren Minghui, the WHO’s assistant director-general for universal health coverage.

But Stewart says this may be difficult to achieve, as health systems in the lowest-income countries face a multitude of problems, including inadequate transport, infrastructure and staff. “Actions in remote locations, for example, are almost always more expensive than reaching comparable populations in cities,” he said. “Cost is always a consideration, especially in the context of priorities, other health-related policies or other budgetary constraints.”

 

This story was originally published by SciDev.Net

The post UN Health Agency Predicts 80 Percent Rise in Cancer Burden Among Poorest Countries appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The Education Relief Foundation (ERF), jointly with the Republic of Djibouti, convened the Third Forum on Balanced and Inclusive Education (III ForumBIE) 2030. The Forum held in on 27-29 January 2020 aimed to develop strategies for achieving United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4), on inclusive and equitable quality education.

By Maged Srour
ROME, Feb 6 2020 (IPS)

The Education Relief Foundation (ERF), jointly with the Republic of Djibouti, convened the III ForumBIE 2030 on Balanced and Inclusive Education On January 27-29 2020. This third ForumBIE 2030, with the overall aim to develop strategies for achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) on inclusive and equitable quality education, concluded with the signing of the Universal Declaration on Balanced and Inclusive Education, which established a new international organization : ‘Organization for Educational Cooperation’.

Below, we bring you images from the III ForumBIE2030 that took place in Djibouti City, capital of the small Horn of Africa country. An IPS team of three journalists and analysts, Joyce Chimbi, Stella Paul and Maged Srour attended and reported on the Summit.

The Education Relief Foundation (ERF), jointly with the Republic of Djibouti, convened the Third Forum on Balanced and Inclusive Education (III ForumBIE) 2030. The Forum held in on 27-29 January 2020 aimed to develop strategies for achieving United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4), on inclusive and equitable quality education.

The Summit took place in Djibouti City, capital of the small Horn of Africa country of Djibouti.

The Summit took place in Djibouti City, capital of the small Horn of Africa country of Djibouti.

Delegates and representatives from 38 governments, civil society organisations and academia gathered to discuss common objectives of achieving ‘balanced and inclusive education’ through concrete steps. These steps are described in the Universal Declaration of Balanced and Inclusive Education (UDBIE), the important document that was presented and signed at the Summit.

The focus of the Summit was not only the signing of the UDBIE, it was also an opportunity for stakeholders to highlight the most pressing challenges faced by countries in achieving inclusive education. Among the issues that were raised: how much progress has been made so far; which groups face more difficult access to education (i.e. women, indigenous populations, minorities, disabled people), where are people struggling the most to have access to education and what can be done to take concrete action.

The focus of the Summit was not only the signing of the UDBIE, it was also an opportunity for stakeholders to highlight the most pressing challenges faced by countries in achieving inclusive education. Among the issues that were raised: how much progress has been made so far; which groups face more difficult access to education (i.e. women, indigenous populations, minorities, disabled people), where are people struggling the most to have access to education and what can be done to take concrete action.

Women and girls are the ones who have more difficulty in accessing education. About one third of countries in the developing world have not achieved gender parity in primary education. Moreover, data by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), shows that only 35 percent of students studying STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) in higher education globally are women.
At the Summit, many delegates emphasized the need to include more concrete action to empower women to access education.

Women and girls are the ones who have more difficulty in accessing education. About one third of countries in the developing world have not achieved gender parity in primary education. Moreover, data by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), shows that only 35 percent of students studying STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) in higher education globally are women.
At the Summit, many delegates emphasized the need to include more concrete action to empower women to access education.

During the informal session of the three-day event, delegates from 38 countries discussed the upcoming creation of the Organization for Educational Cooperation. They also fully explored the dynamics of the challenges to achieve inclusive education, examining trends and facts in different regions – Africa, Asia, Latin America, Middle East and North Africa – while also proposing concrete actions to “tailor education to local contexts”, “prepare students to address world challenges”, “transforming the dynamics of the classrooms” and “responsibility of the academia” in these processes.

During the informal session of the three-day event, delegates from 38 countries discussed the upcoming creation of the Organization for Educational Cooperation. They also fully explored the dynamics of the challenges to achieve inclusive education, examining trends and facts in different regions – Africa, Asia, Latin America, Middle East and North Africa – while also proposing concrete actions to “tailor education to local contexts”, “prepare students to address world challenges”, “transforming the dynamics of the classrooms” and “responsibility of the academia” in these processes.

At the Closing Ceremony of the Third Forum BIE 2030, 38 governments, civil society organisations and academic entities became the first to sign the Universal Declaration of Balanced and Inclusive Education (UDBIE). Furthermore, 30 signatories, including governments and civil society organisations, agreed to establish the Organization of Educational Cooperation (OEC), a new international organization from the Global South with the aim to create platforms and mechanisms of solidarity-based technical and financial cooperation and support for educational reforms.

Sheikh Manssour Bin Musallam, President of The Education Relief Foundation, (second from left) who sponsored the Summit, was elected as the first Secretary General of the OEC. In this photo, on his right, is Ismail Omar Guelleh, President of the Republic of Djibouti.

Kadra Mahamoud Haid, first lady of Djibouti, (second from right) was present at the opening ceremony of the Summit.

The Summit was a moment of international and national interest, covered by many local and international news organizations, including IPS Inter Press Service News Agency. Stella Paul (India), Maged Srour (Italy) and Joyce Chimbi (Kenya) formed the oart of the IPS reporting team.

The Summit was a moment of international and national interest, covered by many local and international news organizations, including IPS Inter Press Service News Agency. Stella Paul (India), Maged Srour (Italy) and Joyce Chimbi (Kenya) formed the oart of the IPS reporting team.

The event was followed extensively on social media, with thousands of tweets and posts on the main social networks.

The event was followed extensively on social media, with thousands of tweets and posts on the main social networks.

The event was followed extensively on social media, with thousands of tweets and posts on the main social networks.

The event was followed extensively on social media, with thousands of tweets and posts on the main social networks.

Djibouti is a country where the security situation remains fragile and conflict in the border area with Eritrea is a continuing concern. The country has been facing threats from terrorism, civil unrest, crime and piracy. For this reason, the Summit was held in tight security. The Summit was an opportunity for the country to show its capacity to host international meetings without incident especially after the 2014 incident when the Somalia-based terrorist group Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at a restaurant in the capital city.

The post Organization of Educational Cooperation Established to Meet SDG4 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Female genital mutilation (FGM) traditional surgeon in Kapchorwa, Uganda speaking to a reporter. The women in this area are being trained by the civil society organisation REACH in how to educate people to stop the practice. Credit: Joshua Kyalimpa/IPS

By External Source
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 6 2020 (IPS)

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) poses serious risks to the health and well-being of women and girls, but it also exacts a crippling economic toll, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). 

New modelling by the UN agency to coincide with the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, marked on Thursday, reveals that the cost of treating the total health impacts of FGM would amount to $1.4 billion globally per year.

The figure sees individual countries devoting nearly 10 per cent of their yearly expenditure to treat FGM; for some countries, it could be as high as 30 per cent.

“FGM is not only a catastrophic abuse of human rights that significantly harms the physical and mental health of millions of girls and women; it is also a drain on a country’s vital economic resources”, said Dr Ian Askew, Director of WHO’s Department of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research.

“More investment is urgently needed to stop FGM and end the suffering it inflicts.”

 

FGM a ‘manifestation of gender inequality’: UN chief

Female genital mutilation is a blatant manifestation of gender inequality, said UN chief António Guterres, in his message to mark the International Day, noting that it was “deeply entrenched in social, economic and political structures. It is also a human rights violation and an extreme form of violence against girls.”

He applaued the focus on the Day on the power of young people to make their voices heard: “We must amplify those voices and help them to advocate for change and for their rights. Together, we can eliminate female genital mutilation by 2030. Doing so will have a positive ripple effect on the health, education and economic advancement of girls and women.”

 

More than 200 million affected

It is estimated that more than 200 million women and girls today have undergone FGM, which involves altering or injuring female genital organs for cultural or non-medical reasons.

The procedure is mostly carried out on young girls between infancy and 15-years-old, and the impacts on their health and well-being can be immediate—from infections, bleeding, or psychological trauma—to chronic health conditions that can occur throughout life.

Women subjected to FGM are also more likely to suffer life-threatening complications during childbirth, and to experience pain or problems when they menstruate, urinate or have sex.

 

Medicalized FGM on the rise

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) further reports that around a quarter of FGM survivors, or roughly 52 million women and girls, were cut by health care providers. The death of a 12-year-old girl in Egypt last month highlighted the dangers of medicalized FGM.

Although the Egyptian authorities banned FGM in 2008, it is still common there and in Sudan, according to UNICEF.

Agency analysis indicates that medicalized FGM is increasing due to the misguided belief that the dangers of FGM are medical, rather than a fundamental violation of a girl’s rights.

“Doctor-sanctioned mutilation is still mutilation. Trained health-care professionals who perform FGM violate girls’ fundamental rights, physical integrity and health,” said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore.

“Medicalizing the practice does not make it safe, moral, or defensible.”

 

Abandoning FGM is possible

The trend toward medicalized FGM comes as opposition to the practice continues to grow.

Since 1997, global efforts have led to 26 countries in Africa and the Middle East enacting legislation against FGM, while 33 other countries with migrant populations from nations where it is practiced have also followed suit.

UNICEF also found that the proportion of girls and women in high-prevalence countries who want FGM stopped has doubled over the past two decades.

“We are making progress. Attitudes are changing. Behaviors are changing. And overall fewer girls are getting cut,” said Ms. Fore, the agency’s chief.

Dr. Christina Pallitto, a scientist at WHO, added that many countries and communities are showing that abandoning FGM is possible.

“If countries invest to end female genital mutilation, they can prevent their girls from undergoing this harmful practice and promote the health, rights and well-being of women and girls,” she stated.

This story was originally published by UN News

The post Female Genital Mutilation Costs $1.4 Billion Annually: UN Health Agency appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Vegetable vendors in Zimbabwe. While the country is experiencing massive food shortages, many vendors say they are forced to throw rotting vegetables away as people don’t have the money to purchase their goods any longer. Credit: Michelle Chifamba/IPS

By Ignatius Banda
BULAWAYO, Feb 6 2020 (IPS)

Piles and piles of rotting vegetables at food markets situated right in Zimbabwe’s central business district would elsewhere be viewed as a sign of plenty.

But this Southern African nation has not been spared the irony of food wastage at a time of food shortages.

In Bulawayo’s sprawling vegetable market in the CBD, which provides a livelihood for hundreds of vendors, rotting vegetables have become the norm.

With the country facing an ever-growing food crisis that has seen international appeals for humanitarian assistance, the lack of activity at vegetable markets in the country’s major cities highlights the challenges developing countries face with balancing food production and consumption.

“We cannot give away the vegetables just because we fear they will rot,” said Mihla Hadebe, who sells anything from tomatoes to cabbages to mangoes and cucumbers.

“Even if we lower prices, people just do not have money that is why you see a lot of vegetables rotting like this,” Hadebe told IPS from his vegetable stall.

And this is happening at a time vendors say there is a shortage of vegetables that range from staples such as African kale, cabbages and tomatoes, and whose shortages have pushed up prices.

While a bunch of kale sold for ZWD.2  (about 1 US cent) in December, the price has now shot up to ZWD5 (about 3 US cents), Hadebe said “because there is nothing [available] where we buy these veggies. The farmers say there is no water”.

According to the Southern Africa Media in Agriculture Climate and Environment Trust (SAMACET) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation it is difficult to quantify the losses but they acknowledge the wastage in Zimbabwe is quite huge.

Zimbabwe is one of many countries included in the Food Sustainability Index, created by the Barilla Centre for Food and Nutrition and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), and the country has become the focus of concerns about under-nutrition amid a crippling drought blamed on climate uncertainty.

Vegetables are thrown away despite reminders by nutritionists of their value in daily consumption habits.

The 2018 Barilla report titled Fixing Food, noted that Zimbabwe was one of 11 African countries still lagging behind in “implementing health eating guidelines at national level.”

“Given the fact that about a third of the food the world produces is lost or thrown away, sustainable agriculture can only go so far. Tackling consumer food waste and post-harvest waste (the loss of fresh produce and crops before they reach consumer markets) will involve everything from changing consumption patterns to investing in infrastructure and deploying new digital technologies. None of this is easy,” the report noted. 

“But while enough food is already being produced to feed the world’s population, ending hunger and meeting rising demand for food will not be possible without addressing this high level of food loss and waste,” the report says.

It comes at a time when Zimbabwe seeks to address the growing problem of under-nutrition. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has already raised alarm about high levels of poor nutrition in the country, noting that the problem is especially worse among children and women.

“In Zimbabwe, nearly 1 in 3 children under five are suffering from malnutrition, while 93 per cent of children between 6 months and 2 years of age are not consuming the minimum acceptable diet,” James Maiden, UNICEF Zimbabwe spokesperson told IPS.

“Across the country about 34,000 children are critically suffering from acute malnutrition,” Maiden said.

While in urban and rural areas, families have long produced their food in community gardens, the projects have suffered because of extreme weather despite being fed by boreholes.

“What is happening is terrible. We have borehole but as you can see our vegetables are suffering under this heat,” said Judith Siziba, one of many women who plants vegetables for domestic consumption in the city of Bulawayo.

“There is nothing we can do but watch. We thought even if there are no rains, the boreholes would offer us relief but no,” she told IPS.

This is at a time concerns have been raised that climate change has also affected groundwater levels when boreholes are expected to offer relief to the agriculture sector to ensure food security.

Zimbabwe is one of many countries that have seen record high temperatures, throwing agriculture activity into uncertainty as food insecurity worsens.

This has worsened everyday diets amid poor salaries despite full supermarkets in a country that falls under sub-Saharan African region where the Food Sustainability Index says is home to the world’s hungriest populations.

The World Food Programme (WFP) says the number of people requiring food assistance continues to rise in Zimbabwe, stating that half the population — nearly 8 million people — is now facing food insecurity. It has also raised concerns about under-nourishment for both children and adults.

“WFP is working towards doubling the number of people it assists in Zimbabwe. We aim to support 4.1 million people who are facing hunger,” said Isheeta Sumra, the WPF-Zimbabwe spokesperson.

“As things currently stand, we urgently need $200 million to see us through till mid-2020. The situation is dire, and we can foresee our needs growing over 2020,” Sumra told IPS.

Nathan Hayes, an analyst with the EIU, believes the country has been slow in responding to the food and nutrition crisis.

“Making matters worse, poor rains have exacerbated the food crisis. This ongoing economic crisis means that social safety nets have been cut, leaving many families vulnerable and unable to afford sufficient food each day,” Hayes told IPS. 

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The post Vegetables Rot in Food Markets across Zimbabwe While Half the Population Faces Food Insecurity appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Nearly half of Zimbabwe's population -- some 8 million people -- face food insecurity. Yet in food and vegetable markets across the country wastage is high as piles of once-nutritious vegetables rot.

The post Vegetables Rot in Food Markets across Zimbabwe While Half the Population Faces Food Insecurity appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Location: Mt Hampden, 30km outside Harare The water-shortage crisis has worsened recently due to the drought. Children are missing school twice a week. Women are being abused at water sources. Children and women are walking up to 2 kilometres to access water. Credit: Lovejoy Mtongwiza (Twitter: @LJaymut10), award-winning Zimbabwe-based photojournalist.

By Craig Dube
HARARE, Zimbabwe, Feb 6 2020 (IPS)

In November 2019, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food described Zimbabwe – a country once hailed as the bread basket of Africa – as a state on the brink of man-made starvation.

Some 5.5 million inhabitants are food insecure, with over 2 million also lacking access to essential services such as healthcare and clean water. These numbers are expected to rise to over 8 million and 3.5 million respectively in 2020, affecting some 60% of the population.

At the end of January, a Humanity First team led by Tahir Ahmad, its head of humanitarian operations, travelled to Zimbabwe to lay plans for humanitarian response efforts and set up a Zimbabwean office.

Humanity First is an international aid agency, registered in 43 countries across six continents, which has been working on human development projects and responding to disasters since 1994.

Excerpts from the interview:

Craig Dube:
What brings you to Zimbabwe, and what have you found?

Tahir Ahmad:
When we initially came here in 2018, in the wake of Cyclone Idai, we saw that Chimanimani [in southeastern Zimbabwe] was an area that seemed isolated, but was not alone in terms of need. In the problems people there were experiencing because of the cyclone – hunger, thirst, the lack of decent shelter and healthcare provision – they weren’t alone. These conditions were widespread wherever we went, even in Harare.

Tahir Ahmad

We’re back in Zimbabwe now to get things moving faster: get all the infrastructure in place, get everyone trained up very quickly, do needs assessments and help local Humanity First staff understand how to translate their needs assessment into project proposals that we can look at, get funds and mobilise quickly to do the work.

CD: What will Humanity First prioritise?

TA: We just came back from Mashonaland West province, and I remember driving away from every area thinking, “This challenge is too big for us”. The people there need… everything. But there are some core needs, like food and running water.

I’m a bit breathless at the moment: I saw so many people and their needs are so diverse. We were in urban areas where there were number of functioning boreholes, their hand pumps were working fairly well, and the water was flowing nicely. But this was put into perspective when an old woman told us: “The distance is fine – when I was well and when we were eating food. Now we don’t really have the strength to walk that distance.”

The price of maize, for example, is just ridiculous in the context of people’s income. In some areas the average wage is about three hundred [Zimbabwean] bond dollars per month (about USD$15), but a 10kg bag of maize is 100 bond dollars.

People are so hungry, and the heat is searing. They need sustainable food supplies, and purified water, too. Many are resorting to getting water from lakes, and there’s a risk of cholera, typhoid, or — at best — diarrhea.

Many women want to sew to bring some value into their local economy. But if they’ve got a sewing machine, it’s either broken or they have no way of powering it any more.

We saw many instances of grandmothers who no longer have children, for various reasons – including deaths, illness or abandonment – and are living in dire poverty, with a yard full of grandchildren

We saw people who were unable to work because of cataracts; one grandmother we met was pretty close to blindness because of them. Before that, she had been able to sustain her family; she had some technical expertise in carpentry, and she had sold food as well. If we restore her sight, it’ll make a big impact not only for her, but for the nine grandchildren she’s looking after.

There are plenty of elderly people who are completely immobilised, and disabled kids who need special care and attention; wheelchairs, or at least crutches. It’s more a case of what don’t they need, really, than what they need. If I told you what they need, I’d be here all day.

CD: How do you make change happen as an organisation? What capacity do you have to say, “These are the things we can do to bring change”?

TA: As an organisation, our expertise is about mobilising logistics, it’s not just about supplying immediate needs. One thing we’re looking to do is a root cause analysis, which is essentially:

You’re hungry. Why are you hungry?
Because I have no food.
Why have you got no food?
Because I have no money.
Why have you got no money?
Because farming isn’t going on very well.
Why is it not going very well?

Because of poor irrigation systems.
This root cause analysis is a process of asking, why, why, why?

There are a number of places where, if we could just get a few boreholes installed, we could give farmers access to water, perhaps fund a few irrigation systems. Not install them ourselves, but fund people to do it, which will give them the ability to self-sustain. In the meantime, though, there are areas that need food now.

I simply don’t see enough of a marketplace where we can say, here’s some cash, some vouchers or some EcoCash [mobile money]; go buy your own food. The marketplace is not functioning well, and the supply is not flowing well enough to serve the number of people we want to serve. Once we get that immediate stuff done, then we’ll be looking at, how we turn immediate assistance into development. We are looking at sustainable livelihoods.

CD: As a Zimbabwean, I find it hard to imagine the scale of the challenges some regions of my country are facing.

TA: Absolutely. You can go to a shopping mall in Harare and buy coffee and a few cakes, and that’s the equivalent of five people’s monthly wage in some rural areas.

I would really encourage people from Harare and other major cities to go out to rural areas. Go and see for yourselves, and come back and advocate. Advocate, advocate, advocate.

CD: What people and organisations will Humanity First be engaging with in Zimbabwe?

TA: Operational partnerships happen out there in the field. You bump into people, you go to coordination meetings, and you try not to duplicate efforts. The key thing is getting an understanding of the operational environment.

We spent a big chunk of this trip talking to multiple NGOs and the Zimbabwean government. NGOs and other actors tend to work in isolation, but this time I think everyone’s seen that the challenges are big. You cannot not work together.

CD: In 2020, why do we still need humanitarian aid organisations?

TA: A few years ago, the future of aid was cash transfers. But everything is dependent on the marketplace and the environment, because every disaster or crisis is different. The solution has to be government-led, and in Zimbabwe, it is to a degree. It is about investing resources in manpower and human capital development, planning and programming toward that end goal of human development.

When we talk about aid, we talk about humanitarian actors coming in… and in many cases not being very effective. It’s because traditionally they have just been treating symptoms, where, if people are hungry, they don’t ask why, they just give food and walk away.

So, the challenge for us, and for many organisations, is thinking about what the end status we want to see is, and who we need to work with to make it happen, although that’s a very simplistic way of putting it.

We have a long-term desire for involvement here, not from a humanitarian perspective, but a development perspective. The plan is to design the development programme first and then look at the humanitarian programme as the enabler, almost the precursor. In contexts like Zimbabwe, it is the development part that is the most challenging.

CD: How do you ensure that the people and areas you serve do not become aid dependent?

TA: That’s pretty simple: sustainable livelihoods. If you have a sustainable livelihood focus from the outset, then generally people won’t be looking for handouts. And in fact, here in Zimbabwe, no one’s looking to us for sympathy. No one’s begging.

When you look at the root-cause level, Zimbabweans are looking for ways to support themselves. Communities genuinely understand that food supplies aren’t always sustainable. You can do a six-month [food aid] programme, but there’s little point if people will be starving in the seventh month.

If instead you have a sustainable livelihood focus, and invest the time in your assessments, speak to as many people as possible, understand local economies, and understand the systems and see how one factor within a local economy can have massive repercussions in the wider economy within a good systems thinking frame, then you can have massive impact in terms of sustainability.

CD: What are the key challenges for Humanity First’s work in Zimbabwe?

TA: It’s not going to be the government or their structures – counter to what I thought would be the case. I mean, the government is doing the best they can. I’ve had a few meetings with ministers and they are leveraging all the help they can get. I know there are a lot of detractors of the Zimbabwean government, but every meeting I’ve had has been very welcoming. They have only been enablers.

The big challenge is going to be inflation. It’s going to be people’s ever-greater needs, if we’re not fast enough. We are racing against the clock – and that’s the whole humanitarian community, not just us.

We need to act fast enough to fight issues like cholera, typhoid and malnutrition. We need to get here and start working straightaway in a coordinated manner.

CD: What makes you hopeful?

TA: We did a community gathering with 500 people in Mashonaland West. We had only asked for 100, but many more people came; and some had travelled 7 km or more. And what gave me hope, in dialogue with them on both an individual level and a focus group level, was their resilience.

I found myself thinking, what if this had happened to me? I have no idea what I would do. I imagined having no income at all and no one to rely on, no vertical resilience coming from the state, and not being able rely on my friends or family or the wider community. I wouldn’t know how to survive.

But the people we met were doing it. Imagine: you have no food, no electricity, no water, no transportation, no IT capacities, no ways to communicate and you’ve got a limited skillset. What do you do? But they make it happen: Zimbabweans’ resilience makes me hopeful. They are tough as nails, but time is our challenge.

*Craig Dube is a Zimbabwean native and health equity professional working in the fields of socio-political determinants of unequal health outcome and poverty alleviation. He is a 2018-19 Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity. Craig completed an MSc in Inequalities and Social Science at the London School of Economics in 2019, followed by a traineeship at Oxfam UK.

The post A Humanitarian Response for the Crisis in Zimbabwe appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Craig Dube*, Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity, interviews Tahir Ahmad, head of humanitarian operations at Humanity First

The post A Humanitarian Response for the Crisis in Zimbabwe appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Central American migrants walk along the highway near the border with Guatemala, as they continue their journey trying to reach the US. PHOTO: THOMSON REUTERS

By Abdullah Shibli
Feb 6 2020 (IPS-Partners)

Jeanine Cummins, the author of the latest American best-seller novel “American Dirt”, is taking a lot of flak for her story based on the experience of a Mexican woman named Lydia and her eight-year-old son who flee their home and cross over to the USA. Several critics have pointed out that Cummins exploited the harrowing experience of an illegal migrant but at the same time used “harmful stereotypes”. Some have even hinted that the novel glamorises the life of migrants and their struggles.

The criticism of insensitivity towards the plight of migrants who have been trying to enter the USA has been a major public issue in the recent past since the Trump administration launched a major operation to stem the flow of Latin Americans entering the USA illegally. While those who are waiting at the southern border to come to the USA do not face the extreme hardships that humans on the move at other locations face every day, the story of a migrant anywhere is a heart-breaking one. Whether we are talking about the migrants from war-ravaged Middle East, the hunger-driven droves in Yemen and East Africa, the Venezuelans temporarily living in Cordoba or, closer to home, the Rohingyas chased out of their own country, migrants are the modern equivalent of the Jews in exodus fleeing torment in ancient Egypt.

Regardless of the criticism of American Dirt, the central character in the novel has a lot in common with the typical Latin American migrant at the US-Mexico border seeking to get in. They are escaping danger or deprivation at their homeland, but also face incredible dangers along the way. In December 2018, the Associated Press found in an exclusive tally that almost 4,000 migrants had died or gone missing in the previous four years after embarking on their journey through Mexico. That’s 1,573 more than the previously known number calculated by the United Nations. “And even the AP’s number is likely low—bodies may be lost in the desert, and families may not report missing loved ones who were migrating illegally.” These Latin American migrants are among about 56,800 worldwide who died or disappeared over the same period, the AP found.

We all know that migrants anywhere face considerable risks. Unfortunately, migrants from Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, and El Salvador also have to cope with the danger of drug trafficking and gang violence in Mexico. More than 37,000 people have gone missing throughout Mexico because of this violence, with the highest number in the border state of Tamaulipas, through which many migrants cross. “The sheer numbers of the disappeared, along with crushing bureaucracy and the fear of gangs, makes it difficult for families to track what happened to their loved ones,” said the Associated Press report.

The southern flank of the USA has witnessed several humanitarian crises in recent years, regardless of the best attempts of the NGOs, the press, and civil society to head off major disasters like in the Middle East. Most of the migrants who flock to the US border originate from the Central American republic of Honduras where decades of misrule, corruption, and marauding gangs have created a living hell for 10 million Hondurans. They cross over to Guatemala and El Salvador before they can enter Mexico. The Hondurans, who often travel in a caravan for safety and camaraderie, are joined by other Latin Americans mostly from neighbouring countries. It is common knowledge in the USA that an average citizen of these countries is a victim of violence, pillage, government atrocities, repression, and economic deprivation. It would not be an exaggeration to suggest that the “northern journey” is perilous for these people, who are only trying to save their own lives.

“People move to survive. They move in search of food. They move away from danger and death. They move towards opportunities for life. Migration is tied to the human spirit which seeks adventure, pursues dreams, and finds reasons to hope even in the most adverse circumstances. Such movement affects the communities [that] migrants leave and the communities that receive these migrants. This movement also impacts communities along the route of transit,” states a report titled “Ethical Dimensions of Migration, Diversity and Health” published the Faculty of Public Health in UK.

US government agencies, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Border Patrol have cracked down hard on the movement of migrants at its southern border. Between October 2018 and May 2019, it was reported that 444,309 Central Americans were caught at the border, which is double the 223,564 apprehended in all 12 months of the fiscal year 2018. Over 80 percent of those apprehended are families with children or minors travelling alone.

Take the case of a mother of two minor children who faced insurmountable obstacles on a border crossing known as the Gateway to the Americas International Bridge last November. Laura walked, rode, and travelled by other means from Nicaragua, stood on the pavement of the bridge over Rio Grande between Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, and Laredo, Texas, all without nearly any protection from the elements and freezing temperature. For three days, she and her children have been waiting in a no-man’s land between these two countries.

“They said that they were going to let us through but that it’s full inside,” Laura said as a CBP agent standing on the Gateway Bridge a few feet away from her was checking documents. A dozen adults and small children were bundled up, single-file, in front of her. It was gusty, and they had tied their blankets to the side of the bridge as a makeshift curtain. A Salvadoran woman in line next to Laura glanced at the city behind her, among Mexico’s most dangerous, and said, “No, no, we cannot go back.”

Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) is in a very difficult situation thanks to his neighbour in the north, President Donald Trump. In the past, refugees, asylum seekers or desperate Latin Americans hoping to reach the USA have been able to use the US-Mexico border as the gateway. Now, after the USA threatened the Mexican government with dire consequences should the latter fail to stop the desperados from crossing over to the USA, President Obrador has been obliged to resort to some extraordinary measures to stem the flow to the north. The current US administration has threatened not only to cut any foreign assistance to Mexico, but also to hurt the Mexican economy in other ways if the refugees are not forcibly turned back and blocked from travelling through Mexico to reach the US border. Advocates for migrants say that the Trump administration has all but slammed the door on migrants fleeing violence and persecution, exposing children and other vulnerable populations to grave risks.

In a press briefing on October 2019, Mark Morgan, the acting CBP commissioner, declared, “If you come to our borders with a child, it’s no longer an immediate passport into the interior of the United States.”

Dr Abdullah Shibli is an economist and works in information technology. He is Senior Research Fellow at the International Sustainable Development Institute (ISDI), a think-tank in Boston, USA.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

The post In a migrant’s story, facts are truer than fiction appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: Amnesty International

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 6 2020 (IPS)

The world’s young activists, numbering over 3.8 billion, are on the war path.

The rising new socialist movements—which included “Black Lives Matter,” “Occupy Wall Street” “Un-Occupy Palestine” and “the #Me Too Movement” triggering women’s marches— were aimed at battling racism, institutionalized inequalities, political repression and sexual harassment.

In its recent cover story, Time magazine dubbed it “Youthquake” – a new phenomenon shaking up the old order, as young activists lead the fight against right-wing authoritarianism, government corruption and rising new hazards of climate change.

Joanne Mariner, Senior Crisis Response Adviser at Amnesty International (AI), told IPS “it is stunning to see how aggressive government efforts to quash protests, including by killing protesters, have not even succeeded in stopping them in the short run”.

In the long run, far too much is at stake, she said, where the coming years are likely to see more protests rather than fewer.

And it is more so in Asia, says AI, in a recently-released report which reviews human rights in 25 Asian and Pacific states and territories during 2019.

“2019 was a year of repression in Asia, but also of resistance”.

“As governments across the continent attempt to uproot fundamental freedoms, people are fighting back – and young people are at the forefront of the struggle,” says Nicholas Bequelin, AI’s Regional Director for East and South-East Asia and the Pacific.

“From students in Hong Kong leading a mass movement against growing Chinese encroachment, to students in India protesting against anti-Muslim policies; from Thailand’s young voters flocking to a new opposition party to Taiwan’s pro LGBTI-equality demonstrators. Online and offline, youth-led popular protests are challenging the established order,” he added.

Also, the rise of a new generation determined to lead the fight against climate emergency has led to a major youth movement worldwide, resulting in protest marches, with thousands of young people demonstrating in the streets of New York and in several world capitals.

According to Time magazine, the world’s under-30 population has been rising since 2012, and today accounts for more than half of the world’s 7.5 billion people.

Credit: Amnesty International

Asked for the primary reasons for this surge in young activism, Mariner said this new era of youth activism reflects young people’s understanding that it’s their future at stake.

“If they don’t demand more from governments, including a voice in the decisions that affect their lives, their future is uncertain. It is the young who will inherit this fast-warming planet, and they see all too clearly the consequences of their elders’ inaction and irresponsibility,” she argued.

Meanwhile, the Youth Assembly, described as one of the longest-running and largest global youth summits, is scheduled to take place in New York city February 14-16.

The theme of next week’s 25th session will be: “It’s Time: Youth for Global Impact” aimed at underlining the importance of engaging young people, “especially at a time when the youth are influencing and leading movements that can change the world.”

Meanwhile, the Amnesty International report says China and India, Asia’s two largest powers, set the tone for repression across the region with their overt rejection of human rights.

Beijing’s backing of an Extradition Bill for Hong Kong, giving the local government the power to extradite suspects to the mainland, ignited mass protests in the territory on an unprecedented scale.

Since June, Hong Kongers have regularly taken to the streets to demand accountability in the face of abusive policing tactics that have included the wanton use of tear gas, arbitrary arrests, physical assaults and abuses in detention. This struggle against the established order has been repeated all over the continent, said AI.

In India, the AI report noted, millions decried a new law that discriminates against Muslims in a swell of peaceful demonstrations. In Indonesia, people rallied against parliament’s enactment of several laws that threatened public freedoms.

In Afghanistan, marchers risked their safety to demand an end to the country’s long-running conflict. In Pakistan, the non-violent Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement defied state repression to mobilize against enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions.

Divya Srinivasan, Equality Now’s South Asia Consultant, told IPS young people across Asia have shown incredible resilience and bravery in their continuing battle against government repression in 2019.

One remarkable feature of these protests is that in many instances, they have been led by women and girls, including those from minority communities, she added.

In India, one of the epicentres of protests against the new anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) which discriminates against Muslims, has been the neighbourhood of Shaheen Bagh in New Delhi.

Srinivasan said women and children have braved the winter chill and gathered in huge numbers to continuously occupy a highway around the clock in a peaceful protest that has already lasted over a month.

“The voices of these women, particularly Muslim women, have been bravely opposing the Government’s discriminatory laws, and voicing concerns about the oppression of minorities and police brutality.”

“The Shaheen Bagh protest began on December 14th with around a dozen local women and their children and numbers soon swelled into the hundreds”, she said.

And the site has become a creative space for many children and young people, with singing, storytelling, poetry, and talks happening daily, and drawings, graffiti, posters, photographs, and art installations decorating the roadside where people are camping”

In early 2019, Srinivasan said, India saw another historic protest in the form of the Dignity March, which was a 10,000-kilometre long march through 24 states that brought together thousands of survivors of sexual violence, including many young women and girls, who were raising their voices to call for justice, dignity, and an end to victim-blaming and stigma.”

“Young women across Asia are making their voices heard. We cannot ignore them any longer,” declared Srinivasan, a licensed attorney in India with a background in women’s rights, including work on sexual harassment in the workplace and sexual violence against women.

Asked whether there is a role for the United Nations to either support or give its blessings to these youth activists, AI’s Mariner said: “The UN, including at the highest levels, can and should speak out to demand that governments respect the right of peaceful protest”

She pointed out it was heartening to hear UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres condemn the killings of protesters in Iraq, “although he has been far less vocal regarding repression elsewhere”.

Also encouraging, from the perspective of UN action, are the numerous UN special rapporteurs who have called on the authorities in Hong Kong, India, and Indonesia, among others, to protect the rights of those who participate in protests, she declared.

The AI repot said people speaking out against these atrocities were routinely punished, but their standing up made a difference. There were many examples where efforts to achieve human rights progress in Asia paid off.

In Taiwan, same-sex marriage became legal following tireless campaigning by activists. In Sri Lanka, lawyers and activists successfully campaigned against the resumption of executions.

Brunei was forced to backtrack on enforcing laws to make adultery and sex between men punishable by stoning, while former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak took the stand on corruption charges for the first time.

The Pakistani government pledged to tackle climate change and air pollution, and two women were appointed as judges on the Maldivian Supreme Court for the first time.

And in Hong Kong, the power of protest forced the government to withdraw the Extradition Bill. Yet, with no accountability for months of abuses against demonstrators, the fight goes on.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

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Agricultural, construction, mining and other outdoor workers are facing highest productivity loss from extreme heat. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

By Manipadma Jena
NEW DEHLI, Feb 5 2020 (IPS)

Last June when more than half of India was reeling under daily temperatures topping 40 degrees Celsius, Nursing Behera’s 11-month-old son burned both his legs when a pot of boiling water fell on him.

In their tin shack, for three days the child neither slept nor ate, whimpering in pain.

“It’s a furnace in summer our one-room hut, the table fan only pushes out hotter air. For three days I missed work, sat next to my little boy and wracked my mind how I could bring him a little relief,” Behera, a daily-wage meat cutter in a small chicken and egg outlet in eastern India’s Bhubaneswar city, told IPS.

He then thought to purchase a huge slab of ice – one as big as full-grown man. He wheeled it into the hut, angled the fan over it for a cool breeze and placed his son near it. It was only after this that his son’s burns scabbed up.

The accident, and the extreme heat that made it difficult for the boy to recover quickly, cost Behera. Not only in the wages he lost for not going to work for three days, but also in the costs to purchase and transport the ice. In total it was 15 days wages that had been lost.

But loss in labour productivity due to extreme heat could cost India 2.5 to 4.5 percent of its GDP by 2030 finds a McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) report released in January.

India, like most developing countries, heavily relies on manual labour. As of 2017, heat-exposed work has produced about half of India’s GDP, the report notes. According to World Bank data, India’s GDP stands at $2.719 trillion. In India heat-exposed employment, where workers are exposed to extreme heat or high outdoor temperatures such as in the construction and farming industries, comprises as much as 75 percent of its total labour force.

“By 2050, it is expected that some parts of India will be under such intense heat and humidity duress that working outside would effectively not be viable for almost 30 percent of annual daylight hours,” Mekala Krishnan, senior fellow at MGI and co-author of the report, told IPS.

“Record-breaking temperatures year after year place outdoor workers on the frontlines of climate change. Construction, outdoor and informal workers are exceptionally vulnerable to extreme weather,” Anjali Jaiswal, senior director of the India programme at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a New York headquartered non-profit environmental advocacy group, told IPS.

The trajectory of heatwaves in India has been calamitous. From 44 heatwaves in 1970, the numbers have catapulted to 524 heatwaves in 2017, reducing slightly to 484 in 2018, according to government data.

A 2015 heatwave claimed 2081 lives, the most since 1970. As a result, from that year, heatwaves have been categorised as a national disaster, along with floods, earthquakes and others. 

Effect of extreme heat on outdoor workers’ physical and mental health

As heat and humidity increase, labour productivity in outdoor work will drop because workers will need to take longer and more frequent breaks to avoid heatstroke. Moreover, their bodies will protectively fatigue, in a so-called self-limiting process, to avoid overheating.

India’s deadly 2015 heatwaves got researchers out in the sun asking outdoor construction workers how the extreme climate was affecting their health and productivity. The study said most workers reported increased tiredness and exhaustion, some suffered dizziness, nausea, loss of appetite, weakness and fainting spells. Still others said exposure to direct solar radiation blurred their vision, also impaired their judgement, made them light-headed in the evening and irritable. Most complained of musculoskeletal pain, which is triggered by loss of body salts from excessive sweating. 

However, workers did not report these health issues to supervisors. They perceived these injuries as part of their job or they feared negative consequences from the employer. Leave from work meant lost wages, they told researchers.

Labour productivity loss cuts into the national economy

“We estimate that the effective number of outdoor daylight hours lost in an average year because of diminished labour productivity would increase by about 15 percent by 2030 compared with today,” Krishnan who leads the McKinsey Global Institute’s research on gender economics, inclusive growth, and economic development, told IPS.

“This adds up equivalent to an additional four weeks of heat-related work stoppage, from 11 am to 4 pm, assuming a 12-hour workday,” she added.

When four weeks of productivity loss per worker is multiplied by the hundreds of thousands outdoor workers in large parts of India, it can add up quickly to hit the GDP.

By 2030 over half of the world’s population will live in hot climates with increasing exposure to potentially dangerous heat conditions according to international organisation Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL).

India could become one of the world’s first places to experience heatwaves that cross the survivability limit for a healthy person, if no significant decarbonisation or adaptation measures are undertaken, the McKinsey report said.

In many regions, warming has already surpassed 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial period (1861–1880). Heatwaves already kill an estimated 12,000 people annually across the world, a number the World Health Organization says will grow to 255,000 people per year by 2050 if global warming grows unchecked.

Extreme heat will fuel more economic inequality

“Long working hours in the hot sun, lack of income and access to cooling and water, often along with poor living conditions are additional stressors,” Jaiswal said.

“Indeed, one of the characteristics of climate risk highlighted in the McKinsey report is its regressive nature. Poorer regions often have climates that are closer to physical thresholds. They rely more on outdoor work and natural capital and may have fewer financial means to adapt quickly,” Krishnan said.

Without sustainable cooling, it will be the developing world that feels the most significant “productivity penalty,” according to Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) — an initiative launched by the United Nations to help achieve universal energy access.

‘In a warming world, cooling is not a luxury. It is an issue of equity,’ SE4ALL holds.

Today, air conditioner penetration is roughly 10 percent across India’s 1.3 billion population, compared to roughly 60 percent across China, cites the McKinsey study.

But beyond purely economic loss, there is the ‘social cost of carbon’ climatologists said. Climate crises potentially impact millions of people with knock-on long-term social effects as illustrated by Behera’s case where his family’s health, associated mental trauma played havoc.

India is adapting to extreme heat but not fast enough

India is already acting on several short to medium-term adaptation action. “Through the heat action plans (HAP), more work breaks are provided during peak heat periods, more medical officers are trained to identify extreme heat symptoms, and drinking water is being widely provided in cities by non-profits,” Jaiswal said adding, “most importantly, state and city governments have early warning systems that warn communities ahead of time of upcoming heat events.”

In India, 23 states and over 100 cities are working on heat action plans, led by the government’s National Disaster Management Authority in partnership with the Indian Meteorological Department, NRDC and the Indian Institute of Public Health.

MGI estimates it would cost India up to $110 billion by 2030 to address some of the lethal heat-waves risks, including adequate air conditioning penetration. Capacity and knowledge building, investment in adaptive technology and infrastructure, and supporting the economy’s transition away from outdoor work are some obvious adaptation steps. In 2019,‘India Cooling Action Plan’ – a 20-year policy road map (2018 to 2038) to address the sustainable cooling requirements – was brought in.

On heat health insurance for India’s outdoor workers MGI’s Krishnan told IPS that, “While insurance cannot eliminate the risk from a changing climate, it is a crucial shock absorber to help manage risk. Insurance can help provide system resilience to recover more quickly from disasters and reduce knock-on effects.”

“However, as the climate changes, insurance needs to be further adapted to continue providing resilience and, in some cases, to avoid potentially adding vulnerability to the system,” she added.

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Though most developed countries treat sewage, treatment levels do not generally remove nutrients from the wastewater that is discharged. One exception is the state of Maryland (U.S.) where all major sewage treatment plants are required to upgrade to enhanced nutrient removal technologies that will remove most of the nutrients from the wastewater. Credit: Chesapeake Bay Program

By Manzoor Qadir and Vladimir Smakhtin
HAMILTON, Canada, Feb 5 2020 (IPS)

Vast amounts of valuable energy, agricultural nutrients, and water could be recovered from the world’s fast-growing volume of municipal wastewater.

Some 380 billion cubic meters (1 m3 = 1000 litres) of wastewater are produced annually worldwide — five times the amount of water passing over Niagara Falls annually. That’s enough to fill Africa’s Lake Victoria in roughly seven years, Lake Ontario in four.

Furthermore, wastewater volumes are increasing quickly, with a projected rise of roughly 24% by 2030, 51% by 2050.

Looked at another way, the volume of wastewater roughly equals the annual discharge from the Ganges River in India. By the mid-2030s, it will roughly equal the annual volume flowing through the St. Lawrence River, which drains North America’s five Great Lakes.

Among major nutrients, 16.6 million metric tonnes of nitrogen are embedded in the world’s current annual volume of wastewater, together with 3 million metric tonnes of phosphorus and 6.3 million metric tonnes of potassium.

Theoretically, the recovery of these nutrients could offset 13.4% of global agricultural demand for them.

Recovery of these nutrients in that quantity could generate revenue of $13.6 billion globally at current prices: $9.0 billion in nitrogen, $2.3 billion in phosphorus, and $2.3 billion in potassium.

The energy embedded in wastewater, meanwhile, could provide electricity to 158 million households — roughly the number of households in the USA and Mexico combined.

Beyond the economic gains, environmental benefits of recovering these nutrients include minimizing eutrophication — the phenomenon of excess nutrients causing dense plant growth and aquatic animal deaths due to lack of oxygen.

In its new study, funded by the Government of Canada, the UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) provide these estimates and projections based on a new analysis of the world’s total annual wastewater production.

In many countries, official data on wastewater is often scattered, poorly monitored and reported, or simply unavailable. Nonetheless, our study offers important approximations of global and regional wastewater volumes and insights into its potential benefits.

Our study found that Asia is the largest wastewater producing region by volume — an estimated 159 billion cubic meters, representing 42% of urban wastewater generated globally, with that proportion expected to rise to 44% by 2030.

Other top wastewater-producing regions: North America (67 billion cubic meters) and Europe (68 billion cubic meters) — virtually equal volumes despite Europe’s higher urban population (547 million vs. North America’s 295 million).

The difference is explained by per capita generation: Europeans 124 cubic meters; North Americans 231 cubic meters).

By contrast, Sub-Saharan Africa produces 46 cubic meters of wastewater per capita — about half the global average (95 cubic meters), reflecting limited water supply and poorly-managed wastewater collection systems in most urban settings.

Achieving a high rate of return on wastewater resource recovery will require overcoming a range of constraints. But success would significantly advance progress against the Sustainable Development Goals and others, including adaptation to climate change, ‘net-zero’ energy processes, and a green, circular economy.

It is important to note that many innovative technologies are available today and are being refined to narrow the gap between current and potential resource recovery levels. In the case of phosphorous, for example, recovery rates of up to 90% are already possible.

Also needed to advance progress: to leverage private capital by creating a supportive regulatory and financial environment, particularly in low- and middle-income countries where most municipal wastewater still goes into the environment untreated.

Municipal wastewater was and often still is simply deemed to be filth. However, attitudes are changing with the growing recognition of the enormous potential economic returns and other environmental benefits its proper management represents.

As the demands for freshwater grow and scarce water resources are increasingly stressed, ignoring the opportunity for greater use of safely-managed wastewater is an unthinkable waste.

We hope this study helps inspire the development of national action plans leading to wastewater collection and resource recovery and reuse.

Safely managed, wastewater is a key achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 6.3, which calls on the world to halve the proportion of untreated wastewater, and to substantially increase its recycling and safe reuse globally by 2030.

*The paper, “Global and regional potential of wastewater as water, nutrient, and energy source,” is published by Wiley in Natural Resources Forum, a UN Sustainable Development Journal. Co-authors: Manzoor Qadir, Praem Mehta, UNU-INWEH, Canada; Younggy Kim, McMaster University, Canada; Blanca Jiménez Cisneros, UNAM, Mexico; Pay Drechsel, IWMI, Sri Lanka; Amit Pramanik, Water Research Foundation, USA; Oluwabusola Olaniyan, Winnipeg Water and Waste Department, Canada.

The post World Drains Away Valuable Energy, Nutrients & Water in Fast-Growing Wastewater Streams appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Vladimir Smakhtin is Director, and Manzoor Qadir is Assistant Director, of UNU-INWEH, a global leader in research related to unconventional water sources, supported by the Government of Canada through Global Affairs Canada and hosted by McMaster University.

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Former child solider Mulume Bujiriri* (front left) from the Democratic Republic of Congo. A new report on Children and Armed Conflict states that children allegedly associated with terrorist organisations should be treated as victims of terrorism, not accomplices and noted that often governments “criminalised” children instead of offering them the proper support. Credit: Einberger/argum/EED/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 5 2020 (IPS)

Counter-terrorism efforts adopted by governments around the world in response to threats of terrorism are affecting children negatively in numerous ways, a report by Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict (Watchlist) claimed last week. 

The policy note claimed a lot of these counter-terrorism measures “lack adequate safeguards for children” and lose sight of how they’re detrimental to children against the bigger picture of fighting terror threats. 

It further listed six ways in which children are affected through counter-terrorism efforts by states: treatment of children alleged to have terrorist affiliations; inability of governments to maintain internationally recognised juvenile justice standards; erosion of “principle of distinction”; being huddled in the definition of “foreign terrorist fighters”; denial of access to humanitarian needs brought upon by measures such as sanctions; and the Screening, Prosecution, Rehabilitation and Reintegration (SPRR) measures being loosely applied. 

Children allegedly associated with terrorist organisations should be treated as victims of terrorism, not accomplices, the report read, adding that too often governments instead “criminalise” children without providing them proper support. 

“Children have been tortured, subjected to ill-treatment, and unlawfully and/or arbitrarily detained on national security-related charges for their actual or alleged association with these groups,” read the report. 

Experts echo this sentiment.

“Children may also be vulnerable to recruitment and exploitation by these armed groups,” Joe English of United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) told IPS. “From north-east Nigeria to Somalia, Iraq and Syria to Yemen and beyond, children who have been recruited and exploited by armed groups in any kind of conflict are first and foremost victims whose rights have been violated.”

According to a 2019 U.N. report on terrorist exploitation of the youth, children can get recruited by terrorist units for a variety of reasons, such as their location and its proximity to a terrorist group, financial instability, societal perceptions or political marginalisation, and exposure to extremist propaganda — factors children have little control over. 

“We know that armed groups use duress, coercion, manipulation and violence to force or persuade children to join them, while some children may have lived in areas controlled by these armed groups have no meaningful choice but to associate with them,” says English. 

That is why it’s crucial that children are provided with care instead of further marginalisation if they are preyed upon by terrorist groups.

“All children in these situations, must be treated primarily as victims of human rights violations. Children affected by armed conflict should be supported with evidence-based services that aid their recovery and support their reintegration into communities,” says English of UNICEF, adding that the children should instead be provided support to “reintegrate into their communities and recover.”  

Meanwhile, it’s also important to ensure that international laws and procedures are followed in the event that children are detained. 

As the Watchlist report claims, special provisions designed for children in the justice system, as dictated by International Humanitarian Law (IHL), must be followed. 

English, of UNICEF, agrees. “Detention of children should only be a measure of last resort and for the shortest possible time,” he says. “Children should not be investigated or prosecuted for alleged crimes committed by their family members or for association with designated terrorist groups or other armed groups. Children should be provided with psychosocial services, legal assistance and support to reintegrate into their families and communities.”

While children are vulnerable to falling prey to terrorist ideology or recruiting due to a number of reasons, it’s not that the population is devoid of concerns about terrorism. According to a UNICEF survey conducted across 14 countries in 2017, violence and terrorism are concerns on children’s radars — as issues that they would be impacted by as well as issues their peers will suffer from. The survey included children from the ages of 9 to 18, according to English, who shared the data with IPS.

“Children across all 14 countries surveyed were equally concerned about terrorism with 65 percent of all children surveyed worrying a lot about this issue,” he said. 

As such, heavy concerns remain regarding children’s well-being in conflict-prone areas. There are numerous ways in which they can be affected, says English, echoing the findings of the Witness report. 

“Children are disproportionately victims of armed conflict, including conflicts with armed groups that target and terrify civilians,” he told IPS. “Children may be caught up in attacks themselves, or lose their parents, family members or caregivers. Their homes, schools or the hospitals and health clinics they rely on may come under attack.”

Currently UNICEF operates in 14 countries providing services to children on their path out of armed forces and armed groups, says English, and working with governments to advocate for children to be identified as victims so that their families receive support to rehabilitate them. 

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By Barilla Foundation
Feb 5 2020 (IPS-Partners)

Today, February 5, 2020, Italy is celebrating its seventh National Day against Food Waste.
According to the Food Sustainability Index, developed by Barilla Foundation with the Economist Intelligence Unit, every year Italians waste 65 kg of food per person.

This is an alarming figure considering that in addition to being an ethical problem, food waste fuels climate change, generating 8% of annual greenhouse gases.

Food lost or wasted every year around the world translates into a financial loss of 2.6 trillion dollars a year, while also wasting the natural resources used to produce it.

The fruit and vegetables we throw away every year in fact required over 73 million cubic meters of water to be produced, enough to fulfill the drinking water requirements of a whole region of Italy like Apulia for 153 days. Not to mention the fact that 28% of the land available around the world is used to produce food that isn’t consumed.

The figures for this waste show that we are facing a dramatic situation which, globally, is stopping us from achieving the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN’s 2030 Agenda. Visit the Barilla Foundation website to find out all the projects, articles and publications put in place to better understand the causes and therefore identify the solutions in terms of food losses and waste.

Su-Eatable Life Project, a three-year initiative funded by the European Commission, designed to save about 5,300 tons of CO2 equivalent and around 2 million cubic meters of water related to food consumption in Europe, has been launched. With the support of an easy-to-use information system, sustainable menus will be introduced to company and university canteens (in Italy and the UK). Barilla Foundation is spearheading the project, working alongside GreenApes, Wageninen University and the Sustainable Restaurant Association.

Each of us can play a part in making a change! Here are a few tips to reduce waste in the home

1) Shop rationally: before you buy, check what you really need, make a list – and stick to it – remember that wasting food is also a waste of money
2) When you’re cooking, keep an eye on your quantities and only cook what you can eat
3) Check your labels: always check the ‘eat before’ dates
4) When storing food in the fridge, put the short-life food in front and store in the freezer what you are not likely to eat soon
5) Recipes to avoid food waste: don’t bin leftovers and food waste, they can be turned into new creative dishes

The post Italy dedicates a day to the fight against Food Waste appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Gold mine known as "Ocho muertos" ("Eight Dead") in Las Claritas, Venezuela. Credit: Clavel A. Rangel/HRW

By External Source
NEW YORK, Feb 5 2020 (IPS)

Residents of Venezuela’s southern Bolívar state are suffering amputations and other horrific abuses at the hands of armed groups, including Venezuelan groups called “syndicates” in the area and Colombian armed groups operating in the region, both of which exercise control over gold mines, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday, February 4.

The armed groups seem to operate largely with government acquiescence, and in some cases government involvement, to maintain tight social control over local populations.

“It is critical for gold buyers and refineries to ensure that any Venezuelan gold in their supply chains is not stained with the blood of Venezuelan victims.”

Venezuela has reserves of highly valued resources like gold, diamonds, and nickel, as well as coltan and uranium. Although the government has announced efforts to attract partners for legal mining and a crackdown on illegal mining, most gold mining in southern states, including Bolívar, is illegal, with much of the gold smuggled out of the country.

The various syndicates that control the mines exert strict control over the populations who live and work there, impose abusive working conditions, and viciously treat those accused of theft and other offenses – in the worst cases, they have dismembered and killed alleged offenders in front of other workers.

“Poor Venezuelans driven to work in gold mining by the ongoing economic crisis and humanitarian emergency have become victims of macabre crimes by armed groups that control illegal mines in southern Venezuela,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “It is critical for gold buyers and refineries to ensure that any Venezuelan gold in their supply chains is not stained with the blood of Venezuelan victims.”

The operations of these illegal mines are also having a devastating impact on the environment and the health of workers, local sources said. Internal economic migration due to the economic and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela has increased the number of people seeking to work in mining areas. Many residents live in fear and are exposed to harsh working conditions, poor sanitation, and an extremely high risk of diseases such as malaria.

In October 2019, Human Rights Watch interviewed 21 people who had worked in mines or mining towns in Bolívar state in 2018 and 2019, including the mines near Las Claritas, El Callao, El Dorado, and El Algarrobo.

In October and November, Human Rights Watch interviewed 15 other people, including leaders of indigenous groups in the area, journalists and experts who visited the area recently, and family members of people working in mines, and reviewed reports by independent groups and media outlets, which were consistent with accounts from the people interviewed in the field. Human Rights Watch also reviewed satellite imagery that shows the growth of mining in this area.

 

Satellite image recorded as of January 3, 2020 shows the extension of Las Claritas mining site in Bolivar State, Venezuela. © 2020 Planet Labs

 

Numerous people interviewed said that many mines in Bolívar are under the tight control of Venezuelan syndicates or Colombian armed groups. The International Crisis Group has reported that both the Colombian rebel group National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional, ELN) and at least one dissident group that emerged from the demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC) operate in the area. Several people interviewed also said that these groups were active in Bolívar.

People interviewed also said that Venezuelan authorities are aware of the illegal mining activities. Ten people who worked at the mines, two journalists covering the area, and a local indigenous leader said that state security agents have visited mining sites to collect bribes.

Some of these sources said they witnessed this. Two people working in the mines and the indigenous leader, interviewed by Human Rights Watch separately, claimed they saw a top official from the Nicolás Maduro government visit the mines in different incidents.

The armed groups, who are effectively in charge of the mines and the settlements that have grown up around them, brutally enforce their rule. “Everyone knows the rules,” one resident said. “If you steal or mix gold with another product, the pran [the syndicate leader] will beat or kill you.” Another said “They are the government there…. If you steal, they ‘disappear’ you.”

As detailed below, four residents said that they witnessed members of syndicates amputating or shooting the hands of people accused of stealing. Several other residents said they knew of cases in which syndicate members had cut offenders into pieces with a chainsaw, ax, or machete.

Residents are also exposed to mercury, which miners use to extract the gold, despite it being prohibited in Venezuela. Mercury can cause serious health problems, even in small amounts, with toxic effects on the nervous, digestive, and immune systems, and on lungs, kidneys, skin, and eyes.

Studies conducted in mining areas in Bolívar many years ago already found high levels of mercury exposure, including among women and children, for whom the health risks are even higher and, for pregnant women, include serious disability or death of the fetus and, if carried to term, the child.

In addition, residents described consistently harsh working conditions in the mines, including working 12-hour shifts without any protective gear and children as young as 10 working alongside adults.

The malaria epidemic affecting Venezuela is closely correlated with the upsurge of illegal mining in the south of Venezuela. Often, miners live outdoors in tents, which increases their exposure to mosquitoes. Deforested mining pits, which fill with rainwater, provide an excellent breeding environment for malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

 

Satellite imagery show a significant increase in the number and expansion of mining sites along Chicanan River in Bolivar State, Venezuela, since 2016. © 2020 Planet Labs

 

Nearly every person interviewed who had worked in mines or mining towns had had malaria, many of them multiple times. The public health system, amid the humanitarian emergency in the country, has not been able to provide treatment to everyone. Several interviewees said they sometimes had to purchase antimalarial drugs, which could cost up to two grams of gold, currently about US$100 on the international market.

Human Rights Watch has been unable to find any public information regarding investigations into the criminal responsibility of government officials or Venezuelan security forces implicated in these abuses.

On November 14, Human Rights Watch requested information from Venezuela’s authorities on the status of prosecutions against those responsible for abuses committed by armed groups in Bolívar, including government officials and members of Venezuelan security forces complicit in abuses, but has received no response.

Human Rights Watch was unable to identify whether any of the gold mined under the control of syndicates was sold or whether it is in the supply chain of any specific companies. Nonetheless, companies should be vigilant about gold from Venezuela and undertake human rights due diligence to identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for their impact on human rights connected to their operations, consistent with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

In the case of Venezuelan gold, this includes identifying and assessing risks in supply chains, monitoring a business’ human rights impact on an ongoing basis, publishing information about due diligence efforts, and having processes in place to remediate adverse human rights impacts of their actions.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has stated that businesses have an obligation to adopt due diligence procedures to ensure that the minerals they engage with do not come out of “conflict” or “high-risk” areas – that is, areas in which armed conflict, widespread violence, collapse of civil infrastructure, or other risks of harm to people are present.

“National and international companies buying gold from Venezuela should know whether it comes from mines in Bolívar state and should have due diligence procedures in place to ensure that their supply chains are free from illicit, exploitative, and violent activities,” Vivanco said.

“If companies find that their gold supply is linked to some of these abuses, or are unable to trace its source, they should work to fix those problems or cease working with those suppliers.”

 

This story was originally published by Human Rights Watch

 

The post Venezuela: Violent Abuses in Illegal Gold Mines appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Youth at the Grand Médine town hall in Dakar, Senegal. Senegal has a large youth population, half of which is under the age of 18. By 2025, 376,000 youth are expected to enter the job market that offers only 30,000 jobs. And this number will rise to 411,000 in 2030, according to the Wilson Centre. Credit: Samuelle Paul Banga/IPS

By Mantoe Phakathi
MBABANE, Feb 4 2020 (IPS)

Africa’s inability to produce adequate skills is negatively impacting its economic growth.

In fact, the continent is not getting a good return even on the minimal investment it is making in education, says Thembinkosi Dlamini, an economist and senior extractives lead at Oxfam South Africa.

He was responding to one of the main findings in the African Development Bank’s (AfDB) 2020 Africa Outlook Report, released last week. Titled Developing Africa’s Workforce for the Future, the report  notes that most African countries at all levels of income exhibit lower educational attainment, both in quantity and quality.

Thembinkosi Dlamini told IPS that education in Africa remains untransformed to meet the skills of the future. He attributed this to lack of foresight and dwindling public investments in education.

The report notes that many African countries’ student expenditure is the lowest in the world, at $533 for primary and $925 for high school. This is despite the fact that African countries allocated an average of 5 percent of GDP and 16 percent of government budget to education – just above the United Nations recommended lower limit of 4 and 15 percent, respectively from 2010-17.

As a result, Africa’s growth has not been inclusive because of the lack of jobs in high-productivity sectors such as manufacturing. Moreover, large swaths of the population are stuck in low-productivity, low-paying jobs in traditional agriculture and informal sectors.

“The slow pace of structural transformation stems from shortcomings in human capital reflecting low skills and education levels,” reads the report. 

Only about a third of African countries have achieved inclusive growth. The report observes that countries with better education outcomes and higher rates of structural change are more likely to achieve inclusive growth.

“Countries with active inequality-reducing policies have better prospects of reducing extreme poverty more by 2030,” states the report.

The report also points out that there is a lack of complementarity between physical and human capital in African countries resulting in a limited contribution of education to increasing labour productivity growth at the macro level.

“Public investments in both education and infrastructure can yield greater benefits in promoting long-term growth than investing only in education or only in infrastructure because both types of investment strongly complement each other,” reads the report.

Speaking at the launch of the report in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, AfDB president, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, said physical infrastructure, while important, is not enough to drive much needed greater growth and productivity of African economies.

“African countries should accelerate investments as well as the development of human capital,” said Adesina.

Unemployable with a master’s in engineering

The lack of investments or available job market is a case in point for Mkhonzeni Dlamini’s [no relation to Thembinkosi Dlamini]. 

Mkhonzeni Dlamini (32) graduated with a BA in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Eswatini six years ago. He thought getting a job would be easy because Eswatini’s government had classified his qualification as one of the priority courses owing to the shortage of engineers in the country. However, Mkhonzeni Dlamini failed to get a job the following year. He then decided to pursue a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering in Taiwan, hoping that this would improve his chances. He graduated in 2018 and returned home.

“Even now, I’m unemployed,” he told IPS, adding: “I don’t understand why a person with my skill is failing to get a job considering that the country needs engineers to develop.”

The visibly frustrated Mkhonzeni Dlamini blamed this situation to the “government’s poor planning”, saying that there are many other young graduates, including doctors, who are idling at home because there are no jobs.

“The government doesn’t seem to have a training plan to match available jobs. In fact, the government doesn’t seem to know how many students are on training and plan to create jobs for those graduates,” said Mkhonzeni Dlamini.

Having searched for a job since his return in 2018, he is now considering leaving the continent.

“Like many African graduates who are frustrated like me, we’re now thinking of going back to the countries that colonised us,” he said. Mkhonzeni Dlamini is exploring possibilities of getting a job in the United Kingdom.

Educating Africa’s youth for jobs of the future

Meanwhile, Adesina said youth unemployment must be given top priority. With 12 million graduates entering the labour market each year and only three million of them getting jobs, the mountain of youth unemployment is rising annually.

He said given the fast pace of changes, driven by the 4th industrial revolution – from artificial intelligence to robotics, machine learning, quantum computing – Africa must invest more in re-directing and re-skilling its labour force and, especially the youth, to effectively participate.

“The youth must be prepared for the jobs of the future – not the jobs of the past,” said Adesina.

Thembinkosi Dlamini agreed.

“We haven’t seen academic papers recently testing the relevance of the education to current and future needs of the economy,”Thembinkosi Dlamini told IPS, adding: “The report correctly points out the high skills mismatch particularly amongst youth employees [saying] that Africans are miseducated.”

Leave no country, no youth behind

Despite the limitations in the workforce, the report notes some success stories on the continent.

In 2019, East Africa was the fastest-growing region, and North Africa continued to make the largest contribution to Africa’s overall GDP growth, due mainly to Egypt’s strong growth momentum. Moreover, six African countries are among the world’s 10 fastest-growing economies: Rwanda at 8.7 percent, Ethiopia 7.4 percent, Côte d’Ivoire 7.4 percent, Ghana 7.1 percent, Tanzania 6.8 percent, and Benin 6.7 percent.

Former Liberian President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who attended the launch together with ministers and other dignitaries, described these six economies as the “stars among us”.

“We want to see more, particularly countries like mine, which have been left behind, so that more can be done to give them the support that they need,” she said.

• Economic growth in Africa is estimated at 3.4 percent for 2019, about the same as in 2018. Although stable, this growth rate is 0.6 percentage point less than the rate projected in the 2019 African Economic Outlook. It is also below the decadal average growth for the region (5 percent).
• The slower than expected growth is due partly to the modest expansion of the continent’s “big five” — Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, and South Africa — which jointly grew at an average rate of only 3.1 percent, compared with the average of 4.0 percent for the rest of the continent’s economies, notes the report.
• Africa’s GDP growth is marginally above the world average of 3.0 percent for 2019 and well above the average for advanced economies at 1.7 percent.
• It also exceeds that of emerging and developing economies outside Africa, excluding China and India. 

While the statistics matter, AfDB’s Adesina said the faces behind the figures should be prioritised.

“And every single day we work, let’s look at the real lives behind the statistics. Let’s hear their voices. Let’s feel their aspirations,” said Adesina.

Related Articles

• Bridging Africa’s Great Gender-Financing Divide
• When African Women are Financially Included, an Entire Continent Wins

The post Africa Must Prioritise Upskilling its Unemployed Youth, Development Bank Urges appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Dr. Palitha Kohona
CANBERRA, Australia, Feb 4 2020 (IPS)

I love visiting Canberra in the summer. The air is clean. The water in lake Burley Griffin is crystal clear and the “go boats” merrily bob up and down with their wine sipping occupants while black swans frolic in peace.

Canberrans, who are habitually relaxed, become more friendly. Clothes worn become decidedly casual and barely adequate.

BBQs get lit and the smell of burnt meat and beer induced laughter pervade the backyards. And the “laid back like a lizard on a summer’s day” becomes more than a casual expression.

But this year was different. Summer temperatures continued to establish new records. The capital clocked up an unprecedented 43 degrees Celsius, a figure more familiar in Middle Eastern cities.

Bush fires have continued to ravage the countryside for months, destroying hundreds of thousands of acres of forest and farm land (an area bigger than Scotland has been consumed by the flames so far) and thousands of houses.

The Canberra airport was closed for an afternoon due to the threat posed by an expanding grass fire close by.

Farm animals, by the thousands, have perished in the intense heat and insurance claims are expected to exceed one billion Dollars. Millions of native animals, some endangered, have also been wiped out.

Thick smoke caused by the fires blanketed major cities, including Canberra, turning day into night in this normally sun swept land of clear skies, raising fears of possible long-term health implications.

On some days, the air quality in the capital Canberra, was considered to be the worst in any capital city in the world. Restaurants suffered seriously with customers staying at home in droves due to the thick smoke hovering over the city.

The Rose sipping sophisticates just stayed at home. Adding insult to injury, a cricket match at the Manuka Oval in the city was cancelled due to the smoke.

The simmering debate on climate change boiled over, even raising concern in Davos, but the deniers, some in high places, continued to shy away from the hard issues, issues that are likely to impact on the future of our planet.

An unbelievably ferocious hail storm seriously damaged over 30,000 cars in Canberra and resulted in a flood of insurance claims. The city, nay the country, is not equipped to deal with so many modes of transport being damaged in such a short period.

Certainly. it will not be possible to replace the damaged cars any time soon. The city may have to adopt innovative solutions to cope with this challenge, including expanding its fleet of buses and even providing free rides. Canberra, enamoured with the private car for so long, may have to get used to public buses and even using the much- denigrated light rail service.

Canberra folk might even begin to tolerate an additional few minutes in daily travel time, which is not even an issue in other capital cities! It may even be a blessing in disguise providing more texting and emailing time for the commuter without running afoul of the police.

A chorus of messages of sympathy poured in from world leaders. The world was genuinely shocked at what Australia was experiencing. But it was heartening that the country, faced with this unprecedented catastrophe, rallied quickly and methodically set about the task of containing the fires, rebuilding and restoring.

The example set to the world was truly impressive. Many good practices were actually implemented.

Much has been said about what could be done to avoid or at least minimize damage of this nature in the future, not only in Australia but elsewhere in the world where unexpectedly severe natural phenomena have begun to cause widespread disruption to the lives of ordinary people and national economies. The debate will continue.

But to facilitate discussion, and the possible adoption of appropriate measures in response in the future, we will propose some ideas gleaned from Australia’s experience and experiences elsewhere in the world. Bush fires in Australia will continue to occur in the future. Some will be more devastating than others.

Why not establish a centrally controlled dedicated fund to be accessed only in the event of a major natural disaster, especially bush fires. Other natural disasters like droughts, floods and tsunamis also can be covered.

This will be in the nature of a fund controlled by the central government and will obviate the need to scamper around to locate monetary resources after the event. In Australia and other federal jurisdictions, the primary responsibility for dealing with natural disasters will remain with the constituent states.

An interstate mechanism with individuals with experience and expertise in the field which could be activated at short notice might also help. A rich country like Australia should be capable of setting aside resources for this purpose given that natural disasters seem to be happening at all too frequent intervals.

Likewise, in Australia, the federal government could acquire a reserve of equipment, fire trucks, fixed wing aero planes, helicopters and other equipment to be kept ready to respond quickly in an emergency. The need to obtain equipment at short notice from overseas can thus be obviated.

What is more, Australia’s reserve stock of equipment could be lent to other countries in emergency situations. The occurrence of major forest fires has become a noticeable summer phenomenon in the northern hemisphere also. Tsunamis, floods, forest fires, etc occur regularly elsewhere in the region. While, it may be possible to recover the cost of making equipment available, the goodwill generated would also be considerable.

Operators of such equipment could be trained in advance. They could be members of the civil defense force who could be called up for duty at short notice. A pool of such trained personnel would be an asset readily available to be deployed to assist in any emergency situation.

In the meantime, Australia should also take a more proactive attitude towards anthropogenic climate change. There is a crescendo of voices around the world pushing governments to do more about climate change. It is an issue which has galvanized opinion in the past.

Historically, Australia played a leading role in global discussions in advocating measures to address environmental degradation, climate change, ozone depletion, hazardous waste, preservation of the Antarctica, sustainable development, etc. Australia spoke with a voice that commanded respect. It can continue to play a lead role and recover its moral authority without necessarily compromising its economic options.

In Australia, it is also vital to deal quickly with the seriously negative impact of the bush fires on tourism which has affected thousands of businesses and jobs. The tourist industry, a major employment generator, is hurting.

The images of the ferocious fires and the blanketing smoke beamed in to living rooms around the world cannot be erased overnight. A multi-media response is immediately required. It is important to acknowledge what happened honestly and highlight the proactive and businesslike manner in which the Australian people responded.

The bravery of ordinary volunteer firefighters and civilians, reflecting the nation’s “can do and we will spirit”, need to be given prominence in the media. The rapid recovery action taken, despite the odds, needs underlining.

Depending on the tourist market, people from those markets need to highlight Australia’s response in the different languages. Australia has been through much but the opportunity presented to demonstrate what it can do is significant.

As the lucky country reels under the impact of the fires, smoke, floods, heat and hail, it still remains the land of dreams for many.

*Dr Palitha Kohona, a former Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the UN and Chief of the UN Treaty Section, has previously proposed the creation of a Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM) by the United Nations to deal with environmental emergencies.

The post Coping with Australia’s Surfeit of Natural Disasters & Lessons to be Learned appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Michael Lim Mah Hui
KUALA LUMPUR and PENANG, Feb 4 2020 (IPS)

Financialization has worsened inequality through various channels, including macroeconomic policies. For example, quantitative easing and low, if not negative interest rates have fuelled credit and asset price bubbles, while fiscal spending cuts have adversely affected those depending on government assistance.

Unequal gains
Inequalities have increased due to financialization. The rich benefit from more rentier options and government efforts to protect the value of financial assets. The main gains of financialization tend to go to those who most successfully speculate at low cost, and to the asset management and investment firms involved.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Financial globalization has been accompanied by increased income inequality and broad stagnation in real incomes of wage earners in OECD countries. These developments starkly contrast with the 1990s’ promises of ‘citizens as investors’ and agents for ‘democratizing finance’.

Financialization in high-income countries has transformed everyday life with more and more financial products (home mortgages, private health insurance, pensions, stocks, and other securities) needed to deal with future uncertainties no longer mitigated by the welfare state.

Financial globalization affects lives and livelihoods in developing countries somewhat differently. Financialization is less pronounced in the South than in the North as fewer people have access to the formal financial system. Middle class families seek asset-based welfare — via mortgage housing, insurance and pension funds — while financial inclusion may reach others.

Financialization enriches
As yields on long term securities plunge and asset prices surge, very low interest rates encourage companies, private equity, hedge funds and the rich to borrow even more to invest in financial assets, sending prices even higher.

Finance also increases inequality through greater wealth concentration thanks to exclusive wealth management services for rich clients who get favoured access to specialized services and structured, high yield products.

Corporations and wealthy individuals use the best available professional services for tax avoidance and evasion, often facilitated by banking secrecy.

Michael Lim Mah Hui

Private banking employs top fund managers to manage the wealth of rich clients, offering double digit returns while ordinary depositors have to accept modest interest rates on their deposits.

Rising debt and equity transactions have generated lucrative fees for bankers, traders, fund managers and private equity investors, mainly benefiting market players with means.

With finance capturing more profits than manufacturing, unlike before, those working for finance now secure much higher incomes compared to others. ‘Excessive’ financial sector salaries took off in the 1980s, reaching 40% just prior to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, with ‘rents’ accounting for 30-50% of this ‘excess’.

The protracted decline of real wages in the US and the UK has been enabled by new rules and laws favouring wealth owners over labour incomes. In the US, capital gains can be taxed a maximum of 20%, while the highest marginal tax rate for wages is 37%.

Financial inclusion
By contrast, the poor have less, but also costlier access to finance, and contribute more to financial gains for others, e.g., through subprime mortgages, or unsecured personal loans.

Stagnant or declining wages have imposed greater indebtedness on the poor, with finance reaping lucrative profits from such lending to households. Between 1960 and 2007, US household debt rose from 41% to 100% of annual GDP.

But the celebratory discourse of ‘financial inclusion’ presumes that everyone successfully manages their involvement in increasingly complex financial markets, and that light regulatory touches and ‘financial literacy’ effectively deter predatory financial practices.

With real wages for many not rising for decades, increased financial inclusion has meant greater indebtedness for many of them.

Some national financial authorities have tried to make financialization more inclusive through initiatives to reach the ‘unbanked’, e.g., via micro-finance schemes and ‘agent banking’, with technological innovation and FinTech showing potential in this regard.

Such technological innovations in finance have had mixed distributional consequences. Higher computing capacity has enabled financial innovations that enrich investors, with economies of scale, at the expense of the less tech savvy and less well informed. But innovations can also serve those with less means.

Vicious cycle
If inequality contributed to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, ‘unconventional’ monetary policy responses to the crisis, especially quantitative easing (QE), have also exacerbated inequality as QE works by raising financial asset prices.

With the earliest hints of recovery after 2008 and the bailouts, the ‘masters of the universe’ who had been pleading for them, claiming they were ‘too big to fail’, changed their tune, condemning fiscal efforts as irresponsible.

Financial crises thus offer opportunities for those with power and influence to secure reforms to their advantage. This also happened following the 1997-1998 Asian financial crises, after a decade of financial liberalization following military rule in South Korea.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) provided emergency credit, requiring major structural changes, including greater ‘labour market flexibility’, reducing workers’ bargaining power and reversing the rising wage shares and low inequality of growth before 1998.

The post Financialization Increases Inequality appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Woman gives birth to healthy baby in …., Democratic Republic of the Congo, facilitated by the delivery that day of emergency reproductive health kits. Credit: UNFPA

By Julitta Onabanjo, Shoko Arakaki and Sennen Hounton
GENEVA / JOHANNESBURG / KINSHASA, Feb 4 2020 (IPS)

Eleven-year-old “Anne” went to a health facility with her mother in the conflict-affected province of Ituri, in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. At first, she could barely tell her story.

Traumatized and frightened, she feared reprisal from her attackers. Painstakingly, she recounted the brutal rape she had suffered and the pain that she felt in her body. It took her a while to gain confidence in the service provider and to allow support for her recovery.

Today, Anne remains displaced with her mother, staying in a camp, as it is not safe for them to return home. With support and services, she has resumed some of her daily activities. She now plays with other children and will eventually return to school.

After decades of conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), women and girls continue to suffer disproportionately from the crisis. They also offer one of the best hopes for peace and stability.

In the camp with other displaced persons, Anne now plays a new role. She sensitizes her peers about gender-based violence and reproductive health and rights. When she speaks, others listen.

For this reason and more, local women and girls play an increasingly critical role in humanitarian action and recovery. With their survival strategies, they offer hope, resilience and solutions to long-lasting challenges.

It is time for increased support and funding to place the needs, rights and leadership of women and adolescent girls at the centre of humanitarian efforts.

As we celebrate the anniversary of the first peaceful political transition of power, there is renewed hope, and a genuine window of opportunity, to address and accelerate progress for gender equality.

In a historic first, the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has committed, through an addendum to the joint communique signed by the Prime Minister, to implement concrete actions to fight conflict related sexual violence.

The Congolese National Police and National Army have endorsed national plans to combat gender-based violence with zero tolerance for sexual violence, with a commitment to integrate the protection of women and children during military operations.

With this new momentum, there is no time to waste. Ongoing humanitarian situations now affect 12 of 26 provinces in the country, and recent floods and food insecurity place increased strain and hardship on women and families. The humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of the world’s worst protracted crises.

The number of people who urgently require humanitarian assistance is up from 8.5 million in 2017 to 15.6 million in 2020, including 5 million people displaced from their homes.

Today, many survivors like Anne suffer psychological consequences, such as depression and trauma. Through the multi-stakeholder Call to Action on Protection from GBV in emergencies, which launched a roadmap in DRC in 2019, and the new national strategy to eliminate gender- based violence, concerted efforts are underway with a broad array of partners to strengthen the rule of law and accountability.

This must help thousands of survivors like Anne to rebuild their lives.

Investing in safety, dignity and health

As stated by Mark Lowcock, UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, “Doing more to strengthen our support to women and girls in humanitarian crises is in everyone’s interest.”

UNFPA is working with the Government, the UN system and civil society to promote sexual and reproductive health and rights, gender-based violence prevention and response, and mental health and psychosocial support. The majority of our partners are national and local NGOs, including women’s organizations.

In the 2020 humanitarian response plan for the DRC, UNFPA is appealing for US$65 million to strengthen protection and provide life-saving services to three million people, including 700,000 women of childbearing age. This will support the provision of life-saving reproductive health equipment, drugs, contraceptives and supplies.

With this support, women will enjoy safe birth, couples and individuals will have access to free family planning enabling them to make choices, GBV prevention will be strengthened, and GBV survivors will have access to free life-saving psychosocial and medical services.

In addition, youth friendly services, including recreational spaces and peer education for boys and girls, will benefit young people.

By investing in women and young people, prospects for peace and stability will increase in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Now is the time to act.

The post Women & Girls Up Front — the Humanitarian Response in Democratic Republic of Congo appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Julitta Onabanjo is Regional Director, UNFPA East and Southern Africa based in Johannesburg; Shoko Arakaki is Director, UNFPA Humanitarian Office, Geneva; & Sennen Hounton is UNFPA Representative in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)

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People wear face masks in the waiting area at China's Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport. Credit: UN News/Jing Zhang

By Fairuz Ahmed
NEW YORK, Feb 3 2020 (IPS)

We are now living in a hyper communicative world where news does travel faster than lightning. Boundaries, borders, geographical and time differences have become next to obsolete in today’s speed driven world. At any point in time people, news and local occurrences can influence internationally without much local isolation. Along with the advantages of technology, communications and connections world is also facing new challenges that are proportionally evolving with advancement. One region affected today is affecting the global economy and population in frenzy of minutes, hours and days.

China’s population reached 1 billion in 1982. As of November 2019, China’s population stands at 1.435 billion, the largest of any country in the world. And Chinese nationalities are avid travelers. In less than two decades China has grown to the world’s most powerful outbound market. According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) Chinese tourists overseas spent $277.3 bn in 2018, up from around $10 bn in the year 2000. (1)

In February 2020, China has reported an outbreak of a highly pathogenic strain of the H5N1 virus which is a subtype of the influenza A virus which can cause illness in humans and many other animal species when affected. The flu has been detected at a farm in Shaoyang city of the southern province of Hunan in China. The case occurred on a farm with 7,850 chickens, 4,500 of which have died of the bird flu. The authorities have culled 17,828 poultry following the outbreak. (2) No human cases of the Hunan H5N1 virus have been reported yet.

The pandemic influenza virus has its origins in avian influenza viruses. The highly pathogenic avian influenza virus subtype H5N1 is already panzootic in poultry, with attendant economic consequences. It continues to cross species barriers to infect humans and other mammals, often with fatal outcomes. A study published in the open-access journal Respiratory Research reveals that, in human cells, the virus can trigger levels of inflammatory proteins more than 10 times higher than the common human flu virus H1N1. This might contribute to the unusual severity of the disease caused by H5N1 in humans, which can escalate into life-threatening pneumonia and acute respiratory distress. (3)

The outbreak of the H5N1 virus has a severe impact on the global economy and health. The virus was first detected in 1996 in geese in China. Asian H5N1 was first detected in humans in 1997 during a poultry outbreak in Hong Kong and has since been detected in poultry and wild birds in more than 50 countries around the world. However, bird flu is highly deadly to humans who contract it, with a mortality rate of more than 50 percent in cases over the last 15 years, which is much deadlier to humans than either SARS (a 10 percent mortality rate) or the novel coronavirus (a 2 percent mortality rate in the outbreak so far). From 2003 to 2019, WHO reported a total of 861 confirmed human cases of H5N1 worldwide, of whom 455 have died. In China, 53 human cases of bird flu infections have been reported in the past 16 years, with 31 having died. (4)

This outbreak of H5N1 is following the outbreak of the Wuhan coronavirus, which is believed to have originated from a bat in the Hubei province, which is North of Hunan, continues to spread throughout the country. The number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus worldwide is now 14,557, most of which are in China, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) data. The death toll has risen to at least 304. A 44-year-old man in the Philippines died of the virus on Saturday, making him the first reported death outside of China. All territories and provinces in China have now been impacted by the virus. (6) The rise in new coronavirus cases outside China now constitutes a global health emergency, the World Health Organization’s Emergency Committee declared on all countries to take urgent measures to contain the respiratory disease. (5) Coronaviruses are a large family of respiratory viruses that can cause diseases ranging from the common cold to the Middle-East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) (7).

The Novel Coronavirus has now spread to 16 countries. While this represents only one percent of the total, the geographic spread is wide, with patients diagnosed in Australia, Europe, and North America as well as several countries in Southeast Asia. At a press briefing in Geneva, Michael Ryan, the head of the World Health Organization health emergency program, said that “the whole world needs to be on alert now. The whole world needs to take action and be ready for any cases that come from the epicenter of another epicenter that becomes established”. (8)

Chinese authorities have announced a temporary ban on outbound group travel. Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and the Philippines have stopped accepting visitors from China’s Hubei province, and Russia and Mongolia have closed their borders with China. The latest numbers of cases detected so far internationally according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control of Coronavirus outside China till February 3rd, 2020 are: 20 cases in Japan, 19 in Thailand, 15 in South Korea, 12 in Australia, 11 in Taiwan there, 8 cases in Malaysia, Singapore, the United States, Germany, and & in Vietnam. UAE, Canada, Italy, The United Kingdom, Russia, Cambodia, Finland, Nepal, Spain, SriLanka, and Sweden have also reported the detection of cases. (9). Across the world, from United Airlines to British Airways have cut flights to and from China or suspended them altogether. The chief economist at SMBC Nikko Securities estimates that if the Chinese government banned travel overseas for six months—an extreme scenario—spending by Chinese group tourists would decline $83.1 billion and take 0.1 percentage points off global economic growth. (10)

China is planning to push a net 150 billion yuan into its economy to help protect it from the impact of the coronavirus outbreak. China’s central bank said the move would ensure there was enough liquidity in the banking system and help provide a stable currency market. Analysts say the impact of the virus – which has left major cities in full or partial lockdown, could harm growth if it lasts for a prolonged period. Global markets have been also been shaken by the epidemic. (11)

The Chinese authorities have established massive efforts and helped to slow down the spread of the virus, but it has not been halted. There is a continuous increase in the number of cases and the evidence of human to human transmission outside China is deeply concerning. The inbound and outbound travel occurring before the cases were detected have created a massive impact on spreading the virus.

Notes:

1. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/comment/rise-of-the-chinese-tourist/
2.(https://cmr.asm.org/content/20/2/243)
3. https://www.news-medical.net/news/2005/11/14/14469.aspx
4. https://www.thestar.com.my/news/regional/2020/02/02/china-reports-h5n1-bird-flu-outbreak-in-hunan-province
5. https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/01/1056372
6. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/02/coronavirus-live-updates-white-house-studying-economic-impact.html
7. https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/01/1056112
8. https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/01/1056222
9. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51345855
10. https://time.com/5775027/wuhan-coronavirus-global-economy/
11. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-5134749710

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Kenyans register Huduma-Namba. Credit: Reuters/Goran Tomasevic

By Siddharth Chatterjee
NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb 3 2020 (IPS)

A recent opinion piece in the New York Times titled, “Kenya’s New Digital IDs May Exclude Millions of Minorities” raises an issue that the UN is passionate about: that the pursuit of sustainable development should leave no one behind.

In seeking inclusivity of all in the development narrative. Kenya is making important gains in making the invisible, visible.

The court ruling that gave the Government the green light to continue with digital civil registration- if implemented in an inclusive and non-discriminatory manner, could assist many citizens who have come to be known as ‘invisible’ people – including stateless persons, people with disabilities, and people living in rural and remote areas. This will improve inclusion and access to services.

Most of these groups continue to miss out on a range of key services such as schooling, bank accounts, obtaining a mobile phone, getting a job, voting and registering a formal business.

Estimated to number one billion globally, they are ‘invisible’ because they have often failed to get registered, with UN member states adopting SDG Target 16.9 “to provide legal identity for all, including birth registration” by 2030, with consensus that identification is a key enabler of many other SDG goals and targets.

Several organizations including the UN and the World Bank Group are currently supporting civil registration and ID-related projects that will enhance and strengthen the transparency, efficiency, and effectiveness of governance and the delivery of public services and programmes.

For years, Kenya has had unique challenges in the registration of citizens, especially due to a migrant population, and those with historical and cultural ties to relatively unstable areas, particularly on the border with Kenya. The terrorist attacks by the Somalia-based Al Shabaab have often led to stricter requirements for proof of citizenship by those living in the bordering counties. This is an issue the national and county authorities must come together to resolve.

I have seen first-hand the scourge of cross border terror attacks in Kenya and we are mindful of the concerns of the state security apparatus, but the primacy of Human Rights must be safeguarded.

A compounding factor is that many Kenyans do not have birth certificates as many mothers give birth at home. In the absence of birth certificates, registration officers have had to demand for other documents as proof of citizenship, demands that have been deemed discriminatory. This is challenge and must be resolved. Birth registration is important because it’s the first step in ending statelessness in the country. As per UNHCR, it is estimated that there are at least another 14,000 stateless people in Kenya seeking nationality who need help.

There have been cases of non-citizens acquiring IDs by corrupting government registration officials.

The issue of registration of minority ethnic groups has been raised by human rights groups for a long time. Embracing of digital technology per se is not in itself the problem. Indeed, a past report by the Kenya National Human Rights Commission proposed the fast-tracking of a bio-metric system of registration among other policy and administrative recommendations.

While biometric registration is expected to reduce cases of fraudulent issuance of IDs, there are also genuine fears that digital technology can increase many of the risks associated with collecting and managing personal data, and this is one of the issues being canvassed in the on-going court case. This underscores the need to implement the digital registration respecting rights to data protection and ensuring participation of the public for their buy in.

The high court emphasized this in its ruling on 31 January 2020.

To its credit, the government has already acknowledged the challenges related to civil registration, and the Minister for Interior Mr Fred Matiangi has been remarkably hands-on in reforming the department.

President Uhuru Kenyatta has launched the blueprint themed “powering Kenya’s transformation” one of whose pillars is the use of digital services and platforms to generate more revenue; reduce waste; improve Government services and efficiency and increase citizen participation.

Despite its unique challenges, Kenya cannot be an exception and will need to join the rapidly growing number of countries implementing new digital ID systems. Kenya is indeed a leader on this biometric ID project and as such the example that Kenya will undoubtedly influence others within the region. This is why the UN in Kenya is dedicated to an ongoing process of support to develop the country’s capacity, institutions, laws and regulations to make the registration process inclusive and fit-for-purpose in the digital age.

This support is in line with the Principles on Identification for Sustainable Development that were developed in 2017 and endorsed widely by the UN and international organizations, non-governmental organizations, development partners, and private-sector associations.

As Kenya prepares for its national elections in 2022, and with over 1 million voters coming of age every year, a robust digital identity can dispense with the need of voter registration which is time consuming and expensive

While speaking to Joe Mucheru, the Cabinet Secretary for ICT, Innovations and Youth, he said, “as emphasised in the court ruling, we will together with all key partners, including the UN to develop rigorous security systems and regulations for data protection”.

The UN in Kenya is committed to partner with the Government to avoid risks of exclusion and discrimination, especially those of the poorest and most vulnerable and leave no one behind.

Siddharth Chatterjee is the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Kenya.

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By PRESS RELEASE
Djibouti City, Feb 3 2020 (IPS-Partners)

At the Closing Ceremony of the III ForumBIE 2030, 38 governments, civil society organisations and academic entities became the first to sign the Universal Declaration of Balanced and Inclusive Education (UDBIE). Furthermore, with the objective of achieving the aspirations and commitments contained within the UDBIE, 30 signatories, including governments and civil society organisations, agreed to establish the Organisation of Educational Cooperation (OEC), a new international organisation from the Global South creating platforms and mechanisms of solidarity-based technical and financial cooperation and support for educational reforms.

The OEC, whose General Assembly will function on the democratic basis of one country, one vote, ensuring accountability to its Member States which will benefit from its support, will also count civil society and academic organisations as Associate Members with limited rights.

The OEC will be established with a wholly-owned financial subsidiary, accountable to the General Assembly, capable of generating funds ethically and sustainably in support of educational reforms. This subsidiary, structurally directed towards investments in socially and ecologically responsible projects in its member states, will eventually fully finance the organisation’s operations and provide funds for the OEC to support Member States’ education systems with solidarity-based financing.

The OEC is designed with a rational, streamlined structure, follows a strategy of efficient systematic intervention, and puts education at the service of communities, of society and of national development as required by the commitments made in the UDBIE.

Sheikh Manssour Bin Mussallam, President, The Education Relief Foundation

The OEC’s first Secretary General has been elected with the task of setting up and presiding a Preparatory Committee, which will lay the groundwork for the OEC until the Constitutive Charter of the Organisation enters into force, upon its ratification by a minimum of 10 of the founding State signatories. The Constitutive Charter’s entry into force will trigger the convening of the first General Assembly.

All signatories to the UDBIE embrace the four key pillars of balanced and inclusive education: Intraculturalism, Transdisciplinarity, Dialecticism and Contextuality. They commit to applying these principles within their education systems, with the cross-sectoral support of the OEC, based on the contextualised needs of their populations, their national priorities, and the global imperative of sustainable development.

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A boy in the Bedouin refugee community of Um al Khayr in the South Hebron Hills where large scale home demolitions by Israeli authorities took place. Credit: UNRWA

By Ameen Izzadeen
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Feb 3 2020 (IPS)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu was slapped corruption charges last week while he was hobnobbing with US President Donald Trump in Washington. Bibi has, apparently, done his homework in psychology. He knew the quickest way to get around Trump was to flatter him.

Addicted to praise, Trump is incapable of understanding that there is a great deal of deception if someone praises him too much. In a June 16, 2017 article, USA Today opinion columnist Windsor Mann wrote, “Flattery is Trump’s cocaine — he’s addicted to it — and, like cocaine, it’s not always genuine.”

Rarely does he get sincere praises from honest people. So, Trump often self-praises himself.

On Tuesday, when Trump announced his Middle East peace plan, Bibi was superlative in his praises. As the drama unfolded in a White House room full of sycophants ready with applauses to ego massage praise-addict Trump and insincere Netanyahu, it became obvious that the peace plan was not worth the paper it was written on.

It also became clear that Trump did not have a thorough knowledge of the Middle East, for he failed to identify a typo in the text on the teleprompter. He read al-Aqsa as al-Aqua.

Many believe that the timing of the announcement was aimed at bolstering the political base of both Trump and Netanyahu – Trump embroiled in an impeachment battle was trying to appease pro-Israeli evangelical Christian voters, a key component of his support base, while Netanyahu used the occasion to go one-up over his political rival Benny Gantz in Israel’s election battle of the right-wings.

When Trump, impeached by the House of Representatives, and Netanyahu, an indicted suspect in a corruption case — a paper pharaoh and fake Moses – make a plan, it will be far from being value-based.

No wonder, the peace plan they unveiled promotes anything but peace and is an agenda to legalise Israel’s illegal land grab on the West Bank. No wonder peace analysts are unanimous in condemning the Trump plan as ‘dead on arrival’. (DOA)

It is one-sided and a travesty of justice in breach of the hallowed legal principle Audi alteram partem —which requires that the other side also be listened to. There was no Palestinian side in this ex-parte ruling that Trump’s pro-Israeli son-in-law Jared Kushner was instrumental in drafting.

If there is one US president who cares no two hoots about the Palestinians, it is Trump. He stopped aid to Palestine and his country’s annual US$ 360 million contribution to the United Nations Relief Work Agency which cares for more than five million Palestinian refugees.

Trump, Kushner and Netanyahu could not find a single Palestinian to endorse the plan made by Zionists for Zionists to continue their crimes in Palestine. Pro-American Arab states, however, have welcomed the peace effort but avoided extending support for the content of the plan.

Key regional powers Turkey and Iran, meanwhile, have given an outright thumbs-down to Trump’s plan, which declares Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel, thus ignoring the Palestinians’ aspiration of making East Jerusalem their future capital. The Palestinians are condescendingly told they can have their capital anywhere east of Jerusalem.

Rejecting the Trump plan, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Jerusalem and “all our rights are not for sale and are not for bargain.”

The Palestinians have dismissed the plan as Balfour 2.0, whereby one country (the United States) is trying to hand over chunks of another’s country (Palestine) to a third country (Israel) just as Britain in 1917, through an atrocious colonial act of injustice, allowed the Zionist movement to set up a homeland in Palestine.

In 1947, the United Nations adopted a partition plan that unfairly divided historic Palestine, giving the Jews who were a little more than 30 percent of Palestine’s population, 55 percent of the land. Most of them were European migrants who came to Palestine following the 1917 Balfour declaration. The indigenous Palestinians who were about 67 percent of the population were given 45 percent of the land.

The Trump plan will leave the Palestinians with a mere 15 percent of historic Palestine. In other words, 85 percent of Palestine will come under Israel’s sovereignty while the balance to be declared as the State of Palestine will be bits and pieces of territory – or Bantustans connected by tunnels and roads guarded by the Israeli military.

Trump’s plan was unofficially conveyed to Arab leaders more than two years ago. This came after the Trump administration on December 6, 2017 recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s undivided capital.

At the US-sponsored Middle East economic conference in Bahrain in June last year, the plan was partially unveiled by Trump’s son-in-law and Middle East envoy Kushner. The Palestinians boycotted the event where they were promised billions in development aid if they accepted the plan.

To promote the plan, Kushner partnered Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman. On December 3, 2017, a New York Times report said the Saudis had summoned Palestinian President Abbas to force him to accept Trump’s plan, where, instead of Jerusalem, the neighbouring town of Abu Dis that overlooks the Dome of the Rock mosque, was offered as the Palestinian capital.

When news leaked out that the Saudis were backing Trump’s plan and had no qualms over al-Aqsa– Islam’s third holiest site –being placed under Israeli sovereignty, the Saudi royals became jittery, fearful of the reaction on the Arab streets.

King Salman invited Abbas to Saudi Arabia again and assured his support for the Palestinians’ stand. Abbas’ Saudi visits indicated that the Saudi establishment is divided over the Palestinian issue. Once the old king becomes history, the kingdom is likely to endorse Trump’s plan.

In December 2017, after Trump misused the US veto to quash yet another United Nations mechanism to bring peace to Palestine, the world community overwhelmingly passed a UN General Assembly resolution asking nations not to establish diplomatic missions in the historic city of Jerusalem.

They did so, defying Trump’s threat to developing nations that they would face an aid cut if they voted for the Jerusalem resolution. Just as the then US president George W. Bush’s 2003 Middle East peace roadmap, Trump’s plan, touted as the deal of the century, is bound to collapse, because it is not founded on justice. It is the fraud of the century.

It ignores international law, numerous UN resolutions, principles of justice, and norms of decency. Sri Lanka, as a true friend of Palestine, should not endorse Trump’s plan which promotes chaos and conflict instead of peace.

*Ameen Izzadeen is Editor International and Deputy Editor, Sri Lanka Sunday Times

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