Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

Secretary-General António Guterres briefs the General Assembly meeting on his Priorities for 2020 and the Work of the Organization. Credit: UN / Mark Garten

By Antonio Guterres
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 23 2020 (IPS)

2020 marks the 75th anniversary of the United Nations. I draw tremendous strength from all that we represent and all that we have achieved together.

Yet anniversaries are not about celebrating the past; they are about looking ahead. We must cast our eyes to the future with hope. But we must also do so without illusion.

I want to speak to you in stark and simple terms about the challenges we face. I see “four horsemen” in our midst — four looming threats that endanger 21st-century progress and imperil 21st-century possibilities.

The first horseman comes in the form of the highest global geostrategic tensions we have witnessed in years.

Devastating conflicts continue to cause widespread misery. Terrorist attacks take a merciless toll. The nuclear menace is growing. More people have been forced from their homes by war and persecution than at any time since the Second World War. Tensions over trade and technology remain unresolved. The risk of a Great Fracture is real.

Second, we face an existential climate crisis. Rising temperatures continue to melt records. The past decade was the hottest on record. Scientists tell us that ocean temperatures are now rising at the equivalent of five Hiroshima bombs a second.

One million species are in near-term danger of extinction. Our planet is burning.
Meanwhile, as we saw at COP25, too many decision-makers continue to fiddle. Our world is edging closer to the point of no return.

The third horseman is deep and growing global mistrust. Disquiet and discontent are churning societies from north to south. Each situation is unique, but everywhere frustration is filling the streets. More and more people are convinced globalization is not working for them.

As one of our own reports revealed just yesterday, two of every three people live in countries where inequality has grown. Confidence in political establishments is going down.

Young people are rising up. Women are rightly demanding equality and freedom from violence and discrimination.

At the same time, fears and anxieties are spreading. Hostility against refugees and migrants is building. Hatred is growing.

The fourth threat is the dark side of the digital world.

Technological advances are moving faster than our ability to respond to – or even comprehend – them. Despite enormous benefits, new technologies are being abused to commit crimes, incite hate, fake information, oppress and exploit people and invade privacy.

We are not prepared for the profound impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution on the labour market and the very structure of society. Artificial intelligence is generating breathtaking capacities and alarming possibilities.

Lethal autonomous weapons — machines with the power to kill on their own, without human judgement and accountability — are bringing us into unacceptable moral and political territory.

These four horsemen – epic geopolitical tensions, the climate crisis, global mistrust and the downsides of technology – can jeopardize every aspect of our shared future.

That is why commemorating the 75th anniversary with nice speeches won’t do.
We must address these four 21st-century challenges with four 21st-century solutions.

Let me take each in turn. First, peace and security, that I mentioned. There are some signs of hope.

Last year, conflict was prevented in the wake of several critical elections, from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Madagascar …from Mali to the Maldives and beyond.

Despite hostilities in Yemen, the fragile cease-fire in Hodeidah is holding. A constitutional committee in Syria has taken form, even if it is still facing meaningful obstacles.

A peace agreement in the Central African Republic is being implemented. And the recent Berlin conference on Libya brought key players around the peace table at a critical moment, committing to “refraining from interference in the armed conflict or in the internal affairs of Libya” and urging “all international actors to do the same”.

All of these efforts require patience and persistence. But they are essential and save lives. As we look ahead, we have our work cut out for us.

We see Gordian Knots across the world — from the Gulf to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, from the Sahel and Lake Chad to Venezuela.

Security Council resolutions are being ignored. Outside interference is fueling fires.
And we are at risk of losing pillars of the international disarmament and arms control [architecture] without viable alternatives.

Yes, the United Nations continues to deliver life-saving aid to millions of people in desperate need. But temporary relief is no substitute for permanent solutions.

Prevention must orient all we do as we engage across the peace continuum. We must strengthen our mediation capacity and our tools for sustaining peace, leading to long-term development.

Our Action for Peacekeeping initiative is enhancing performance and safety. We are becoming more effective in the protection of civilians, and we have more female peacekeepers than ever before.

The 20th anniversary of Security Council resolution 1325 on women, peace and security is also an opportunity to further match words with deeds.

At the same time, we know peacekeeping is not enough where there is no peace to keep. We need to create the conditions for effective peace enforcement and counter-terrorism operations by our regional partners, under chapter VII of the Charter and with predictable funding.

This is especially true in Africa, from the Sahel to Lake Chad. And we must focus on the roots of crisis and upheaval — combatting the drivers of violence and extremism – from exclusion to economic despair, from violent misogyny to governance failures.

Last year, I launched first-of-its-kind action plans to combat hate speech and to safeguard religious sites.

This year, I will convene a conference on the role of education in tackling hate speech.
And we must continue to advance the Agenda for Disarmament.

I call on all State Parties to work together at the 2020 Review of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons to ensure the NPT remains able to fulfil its fundamental goals – preventing nuclear war and facilitating the elimination of nuclear weapons.

The second “horseman” is the threat of climate catastrophe. We must respond with the promise of climate action.

We are at war with nature. And nature is fighting back hard. One cannot look at the recent fires in Australia – at people fleeing their homes and wildlife consumed by the flames – without profound sadness at today’s plight and fear for what the future may bring.

Meanwhile, air pollution combined with climate change is killing, according to the World Health Organization, 7 million people every year.

Gradual approaches are no longer enough. At the next climate conference — COP26 in Glasgow – Governments must deliver the transformational change our world needs and that people demand, with much stronger ambition – ambition on mitigation, ambition on adaptation, and ambition on finance.

Every city, region, bank, pension fund and industry must completely reimagine how they operate to keep temperature rise to 1.5 degrees. The scientific community is clear. We need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45 per cent from 2010 levels by 2030, and reach net zero emissions by 2050.

The main obligation rests on the main emitters. Those countries that contributed most to this crisis must lead the way.

If they dither, we are doomed. But I still believe the climate battle is a battle we can win.
People get it. Technology is on our side. Scientists tell us it is not too late.

Economists and asset managers tell us climate smart investments are the key to competing and winning in the 21st century.

All the tools and knowledge to move from the grey economy to the green economy are already available. So let us embrace transformation – let us build on the results of last September’s Climate Action Summit — and let us make the commitments to make Glasgow a success.

Together with Glasgow, we have two other opportunities to act decisively this year.
First, the Oceans conference in Lisbon in June.

The world’s oceans are under assault from pollution, overfishing and much else.
Plastic waste is tainting not only the fish we eat but also the water we drink and the air we breathe.

We must use the Lisbon conference to protect the oceans from further abuse and recognize their fundamental role in the health of people and planet.

For example, based on the success of several national initiatives, it is time for a global ban on single-use plastics.

Second, the Biodiversity conference in Kunming in October. The rate of species loss is exponentially higher than at any time in the past 10 million years.

We must make the most of the Kunming conference to adopt a post-2020 global biodiversity framework.

Living in harmony with nature is more important than ever. Everything is interlinked.

To help vanquish the third horseman — global mistrust —we must build a fair globalization.

We have a plan. It’s called the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and all of your governments pledged to make it a reality.

The good news is that I hear tremendous enthusiasm for the SDGs wherever I go —from political leaders at the national and local levels, to entrepreneurs, investors, civil society and so many others.

We see concrete progress – from reducing child mortality to expanding education, from improving access to family planning to increasing access to the internet.

But what we see is not enough. Indeed, we are off track. At present course, half a billion people will still be living in extreme poverty by 2030.

And the gender gap in economic participation would have to wait more than 250 years!
That is unacceptable.

For all these reasons, we are launching a Decade of Action to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. The Decade of Action is central to achieving a fair globalization, boosting economic growth and preventing conflict.

We will leverage the reformed United Nations Development System to engage partners from the local to the global: To mobilize a movement for the Sustainable Development Goals.

To unlock financing. To generate the ambition, innovation and solutions to deliver for everyone, everywhere.

Throughout the Decade of Action, we must invest in the eradication of poverty, social protection, in health and fighting pandemics, in education, energy, water and sanitation, in sustainable transport and infrastructure and in internet access.

We must improve governance, tackle illicit financial flows, stamp out corruption and develop effective, common sense and fair taxation systems.

We must build economies for the future and ensure decent work for all, especially young people. And we must put a special focus on women and girls because it benefits us all.

The 25th anniversary of the Beijing Platform is an opportunity to rethink economic, political and social systems from an equality perspective.

It’s time to drive women’s equal participation in decision-making and end all forms of violence against women and girls. We must dismantle obstacles to women’s inclusion and participation in the economy, including through valuing unpaid care work.

And we must listen and learn from so many women around the world who have been driving solutions.

I will convene, on an annual basis, a platform for driving the Decade of Action. The first SDG Action Forum in September will highlight progress and set the trajectory for success.

So let us make the 2020s the Decade of Action and let us make 2020 the year of urgency. And, as we do so, let us spare no effort to rebuild trust.

I make a special appeal to all Member States: Listen to people. Open new channels for all to be heard and find common ground.

Respect freedom of peaceful assembly and expression. Protect civic space and freedom of the press.

And let us harness the ideas and energy and sense of hope of young people —in particular young women — demanding change and constructive solutions.

Fourth, to address the dark side of digital world, we must steer technology for positive change.

I see several areas for action — starting with the global labor market. Automation will displace tens of millions of jobs by 2030. We need to redesign education systems. It’s not just about learning but learning how to learn, across a lifetime.

We need more innovative approaches to social safety nets and rethinking the concept of work, and the lifelong balance among work, leisure and other activities. We also must usher in order to the Wild West of cyberspace.

Terrorists, white supremacists and others who sow hate are exploiting the internet and social media. Bots are spreading disinformation, fueling polarization and undermining democracies.

Next year, cybercrime will cost $6 trillion. Cyberspace itself is at risk of cleaving in two.
We must work against digital fragmentation by promoting global digital cooperation.

The United Nations is a tailor-made platform for governments, business, civil society and others to come together to formulate new protocols and norms, to define red-lines, and to build agile and flexible regulatory frameworks.

Some responses may require legally-binding measures. Others may be based on voluntary cooperation and the exchange of best practices.

This includes support for existing processes and institutions like the Open-Ended Working Group on information and telecommunications in the context of security, and the Group of Government Experts on advancing responsible behavior in cyberspace and within the General Assembly.

I believe consensus has been built to strengthen the Internet Governance Forum to serve as a central gathering point to discuss and propose effective digital policies.

Following up on the Report of the High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation, I will soon present a Roadmap for Digital Cooperation covering internet connectivity, human rights, trust and security in the age of digital interdependence.

At the same time, we need a common effort to ensure artificial intelligence is a force for good. Despite last year’s important step within the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, we are still lurching toward a world of killer machines acting outside human judgment or control.

I have a simple and direct plea to all Member States: Ban lethal autonomous weapons now. These are the four big threats — and four big solutions I see in the year ahead.

Across this work, the promotion and protection of all human rights must be central. I am deeply concerned about the different ways in which respect for human rights is being eroded around the world.

As I have repeatedly underscored, the Charter compels us to place people and their rights at the heart of our work. That is why, next month in Geneva, I will launch a call for stepped up global action on human rights and human dignity.

In order to meet all these challenges, we must continue to make the United Nations fit for the challenges of our new age.

That is why from day one, and with your support, I have pursued wide-ranging reforms rooted in flexibility, transparency and accountability.

In 2020, we will build on our progress. Indeed, we already began the year with a major success.

On January 1st — for the first time in UN history — we achieved gender parity across our senior-most ranks of full-time Under-and Assistant-Secretaries-General taken together.

We did it two years ahead of schedule. And I plan to keep going — ensuring greater inclusion and parity at all levels of the Organization.

I appeal for your support in removing out-dated regulations and byzantine procedures that stand in the way. I am equally committed to making 2020 a year of meaningful progress for more equitable geographical distribution and greater regional diversity among staff of the United Nations.

We have launched a Secretariat-wide strategy to do so. But, as you know, reaching gender parity and diversity targets also depends on the ability to fill vacant posts — and that largely depends on resources.

I am also determined to build on our efforts to prevent and end sexual harassment.
A specialized investigation team in the Office of Internal Oversight Service is already up and running.

A new sexual harassment policy is being incorporated into respective frameworks across the wider UN family. A centralized, system-wide screening database is in place to deny the ability of sexual harassers to sneak back into the system.

Our strategy to combat sexual exploitation and abuse is also advancing, including through greater assistance and support to victims.

In the broadest sense, I am determined to make the United Nations a workplace leader in ensuring all staff are respected, all have a voice, and all are enabled to do their best.

We are making progress on our new disability inclusion strategy. And I am strongly committed to ensuring equality and non-discrimination for LGBTI staff in the UN system and our peacekeeping operations.

The year ahead will be pivotal for our common future. I want people around the world to be a part of it. Too often, governments and international institutions are viewed as places that talk —not places that listen.

I want the United Nations to listen. In this 75th anniversary year, I want to provide as many people as possible the chance to have a conversation with the United Nations.

To share their hopes and fears. To learn from their experiences.

To spark ideas for building the future we want and the United Nations we need. We are launching surveys and dialogues around the world to do so.

And we are giving a priority to the voices of young people. Together, we need to listen.
And together, we need to act.

At this 75th anniversary milestone, let us make the difficult yet vital decisions across our agenda that will secure a peaceful future for all.

The post UN Plans to Launch a “Decade of Action” to Deliver Development Goals by 2030 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, in an address to the General Assembly

The post UN Plans to Launch a “Decade of Action” to Deliver Development Goals by 2030 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Tribal women converge at the Boipariguda weekly market in Koraput District, in India’s Odisha state, to sell and buy farm produce. Indigenous communities remain at the centre of those affected by climate change, he said, disproportionately bearing the brunt of the crisis and facing higher risks. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 23 2020 (IPS)

More than 70 percent of the global population is currently living in parts of the world where income inequality has grown, according to a World Social Report 2020 launched by United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA). 

The report, which was launched at the U.N. on Tuesday, identified four “megatrends” that impacts this inequality:  technological innovation, climate change, urbanisation and international migration.

“The report underscores that these mega trends can be harnessed for a more equitable and sustainable world or they can be left alone to divide us further,” Elliott Harris, U.N. Chief Economist and Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development at DESA, said at the launch. 

He added that the current climate crisis especially causes the slowdown in reducing inequality between countries and further “presents major obstacle to reduce poverty”.

Indigenous communities remain at the centre of those affected by climate change, he said, disproportionately bearing the brunt of the crisis and facing higher risks. 

“And it’s affecting intergenerational inequality as well,” he said. 

Technological innovation, digital division

With regards to technology, Harris said technological innovations are “pushing wage inequality upwards”. 

“Despite its immense promise, technological change creates winners and losers and its rapid pace brings additional new challenges,” he said. 

But the “digital divide” exists through access to technology and technological devices (or lack thereof). According to the report, almost 90 percent of the population of most developed countries have access to the Internet, while only 19 percent of the population in least developed countries have the same access. 

According to the U.N. Committee for Development Policy (CDP) data from 2018, the list of least developed countries includes many countries in Africa — a continent being lauded for its massive technological growth.

As a PwC report on Africa states, “disruptive innovation is transforming Africa’s economic potential, creating new target markets and unprecedented consumer choice”. It then begs the question how technological divide is perpetuating inequality in these countries. 

When asked, Harris acknowledged this growth but added those countries that are lagging behind have a lot of “catching up” to do.

“The fact remains that because of the rapid advancement of technological innovation, the time that its taking to establish a digital infrastructure is time at which the advanced countries continue to move ahead at increasingly rapid pace,” he told IPS. 

“The cycles of tech innovation are getting shorter and shorter,” he said, adding a hypothetical analysis that by the time a developing country has set up 5G, a developed country is already establishing 8G.

“And we need to make a really concerted effort to catch up really quickly,” he said, “we need a big jump; we can’t go progressively at the speed at which we did it in the past.” 

A vicious cycle?

Another notable observation made in the report was how those who are poor and remain without access to education or healthcare remain at the core of the struggle.

“Disparities in health and education make it challenging for people to break out of the cycle of poverty, leading to the transmission of disadvantage from one generation to the next,” read a part of the report.

This is especially concerning at a time when the world has a massive refugee population that only continues to grow, whether due to climate change or conflict. The U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) states the current refugee crisis is “unprecedented” with a total of 70.8 million people forcibly displaced.  

For communities that remain in transit, it poses a challenge to establish access to health and education, which can thus hinder the process of breaking out the poverty cycle, thus perpetuating the gap between the poor and the rich. 

When asked, Harris said this vicious cycle is “a very serious concern that we have.” 

“The problem, of course, is [in] many cases the refugees are concentrated in places that do not have large amount of additional resources they can devote to support refugees and so they are very dependent on the support of the international community,” he told IPS. 

“It’s been relatively less difficult to mobilise support at the onset of the crisis when people have to flee,” he said, adding that maintaining that support when in some cases they’re in refugee camps or displaced from their homelands for years at a time” is what becomes challenging. 

He lauded the efforts by host countries for doing their best in hosting the refugees, and added that the international community has a responsibility to “step up and help these host countries.” 

Marta Roig, Chief of Emerging Trends and Issues in the Development Section, Division for Inclusive Social Development, DESA, was also present at the launch.

Related Articles

• ‘Women Not Speaking at the Same Table as Men’ Means a Widening Digital Gender Gap in Africa
• Exclusive: Winnie Byanyima Speaks about Inequality in Africa and Next Steps at UNAIDS
• Traditional Farming Holds All the Aces

The post Global Inequality Continues to Grow: UNDESA Report appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Resident of Hamdaniya district stands before a house destroyed in a Coalition airstrike, February 2017. Credit: Mark Lattimer /Ceasefire

By Mark Lattimer
LONDON, Jan 22 2020 (IPS)

As Iraq this month faces the threat of new conflicts – including a proxy war between the US and Iran – the shadow of the last conflict runs long.

Two years ago the Iraqi prime minister declared victory over ISIS, but parts of Ninewa and Anbar are still in ruins, some 1.5 million people remain displaced and families have only begun to grieve for the tens of thousands killed.

Nowhere is this devastation more apparent than in Mosul, Iraq’s second city and the epicentre of the ISIS conflict. The World Bank has estimated that losses to the Mosul housing sector alone are estimated at US $6 billion.

And as revealed in a new report from the Ceasefire Centre for Civilian Rights and Minority Rights Group International, 35,000 claims for reparation for deaths, injury or destruction of property have now been lodged by victims of the ISIS occupation and the ‘liberation’ battle.

Interviews with civilians on the ground uncover a complex picture of loss and abandonment. The population who suffered under the occupation feel they were doubly punished by the devastating conflict waged to end it. Yazidis, Christians and other minorities who were forced to flee still remain largely displaced, despairing at the fact that no-one has been brought to justice for the crimes committed against them.

In such circumstances, individual reparations are essential, not least for reconciliation, a concept much-invoked by international missions in Iraq but rarely specified. Without formal recognition for the loss they have suffered and practical help to rebuild, civilians cannot move on.

As one interviewee explained: ‘The compensation payments will never bring me back the loved ones I lost, nor will they allow me to rebuild my house as if nothing happened. But they will help us all to rebuild the city and bring back life into it.’

But among those claiming reparations, long-standing frustration is turning into growing resentment. The claims have been made under Iraq’s Law 20 which established a system for awarding compensation to ‘the victims of military operations, military mistakes and terrorist actions’.

Over 420 billion Iraqi dinars (US $355 million) has been awarded under the scheme since it was first established ten years ago, but it has been overwhelmed by the scale of claims from the ISIS conflict. Claimants in Mosul complain of cumbersome bureaucratic procedures and pay-outs are agonisingly slow.

Meanwhile, the US-led Coalition against ISIS appears to have washed its hands of responsibility. During the nine-month battle the Coalition supported Iraqi forces mainly from the air, and it was Coalition bombardment which, along with ISIS vehicle-borne IEDs, was responsible for most of the material destruction of the city.

The monitoring group Airwars has conservatively estimated that between 1,066 and 1,579 civilians were killed by Coalition air and artillery strikes during the battle for Mosul. Local estimates are much higher. The Coalition describes all civilian deaths caused by its action as ‘unintentional’ and refuses to accept any liability for violations for which reparations should be paid.

Even the system of making discretionary ‘condolence’ payments in such cases, which the US employed previously in Afghanistan as well as Iraq, appears not to be applicable. In its annual report on civilian casualties, the Department of Defense states: ‘…in cases where a host nation or government requests US military support for local military forces, it may be more appropriate for the host nation or its military to respond to the needs and requests of the local civilian population by offering condolences themselves’.

But questions about the tactics used by the Coalition in Mosul, and in other recent sieges, are becoming hard to ignore. The civilian death toll acknowledged by the Coalition is slowly climbing, as it is pressured to reassess credible local reports, and currently stands at 1,347 deaths caused by Coalition actions in the anti-ISIS conflict across Iraq and Syria.

A claim last year by the UK Ministry of Defence that no civilians had been injured in over 1,300 Royal Air Force strikes in Iraq was met with open disbelief. In November the Dutch Defence Ministry finally admitted that Dutch forces had been involved in two airstrikes in Iraq in which at least 74 people, including civilians, were killed, but it still denied any liability for reparations.

The people of Mosul have nonetheless started to rebuild their homes and their city, albeit with inadequate support. Sponsorship by foreign governments of prestige projects, including the reconstruction of the great mosque of al-Nuri, is important for restoring Moslawis’ pride in their city and their cultural heritage.

Less high profile, but arguably more significant, is the ongoing work of UN and other humanitarian agencies to support basic services, including for IDPs. But, as so often in Iraq, the UN is caught in a bind. UN OCHA warned earlier this week that operations to deliver medicine, food and other assistance to 2.4 million in need were now compromised by the delay in the Iraqi government renewing letters of authorization.

Nor is the ISIS conflict over. In the west of Iraq military operations against ISIS continue, including with the support of the Coalition.

ISIS’ supporters are now gone from Mosul, a city which more than any other in Iraq knows the reality of ISIS rule. But with little official acknowledgement of the suffering of the population, practical help slow in coming for civilians to rebuild their lives, and tens of thousands of young men growing up in displacement, the situation is not sustainable.

As one interviewee for the report said: ‘I haven’t seen such anger in Mosul since 2003. It is a very dangerous situation.’

Iraq has tragically demonstrated in recent decades that the failure to deal with the legacy of past conflicts affects both the speed and the severity of their return. For the cause of both justice and peace, the question of reparations for civilian harm is now urgent.

‘Mosul after the Battle: Reparations for civilian harm and the future of Ninewa’ is published on 22 January and available at https://bit.ly/3ayqB0M

The post Mosul, an Epicentre of the ISIS Conflict, is a Devastated Iraqi City appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Mark Lattimer is Executive Director of CEASEFIRE Centre for Civilian Rights

The post Mosul, an Epicentre of the ISIS Conflict, is a Devastated Iraqi City appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By GGGI
PARIS, Jan 22 2020 (IPS-Partners)

The Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) signed a Declaration of Intent and a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs (MEAE) and the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), a French development bank today to promote sustainable development and climate action. The signing was witnessed by Mr. Ban Ki-moon, President and Chair of GGGI.

The MoUs complement the joint declaration of the France-Korea Summit in 2018 where the two countries pledged to support GGGI’s activities and efforts to accelerate the adoption of green growth models in developing and emerging countries.

“This is the first time GGGI has signed MoUs with the Government of France and a French development bank. The cooperation agreements we signed today will be a start of our collaboration, bringing opportunities on a number of fronts. We look forward to strengthening our partnerships with the MEAE and AFD to support countries achieve solid and ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) for the Paris Agreement,” said Dr. Frank Rijsberman, Director-General of GGGI.

Meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and setting ambitious climate action targets require strong partnerships and collaboration between development partners. The MEAE plans to promote collaboration between AFD and GGGI with regards to joint funding programs.

Remy Rioux, Director-General of AFD said, “We are delighted to work together with GGGI to build innovative green investments mechanisms, especially in Africa as one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change despite contributing the least to global warming. By partnering with GGGI, I am confident that we will create synergies and support countries to deliver on Paris Agreement commitments.”

Under the MoU, GGGI and AFD have agreed to collaborate through undertaking several financing operations to promote sustainable economic development in developing and emerging countries, including the least developed countries. The two organizations seek to deliver economic growth that is both environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive. GGGI and AFD will help countries access climate finance to implement ambitious climate actions with a focus on the development of National Financing Vehicles. In addition, the two organizations will enhance countries’ NDC planning and implementation by providing support for long-term low-carbon and resilient economic development strategies/plans and Monitoring, Review and Verification (MRV) systems.

GGGI will strengthen its commitment to French-speaking developing countries to achieve their climate action goals, including the implementation of their NDCs, the formulation of resilient and low-carbon long-term economic development strategies, and the development of reliable systems for measuring, reporting and verifying greenhouse gas emissions.

“The signing of the Declaration of Intent comes at a time when there is an urgent need to take action in addressing global warming, which is in line with the commitments of the Paris Climate Agreement and 2030 Agenda,” said Philippe Lacoste, Director for Sustainable Development, MEAE.

GGGI will support countries to accelerate access to climate finance, particularly by developing innovative green investment funds and mechanisms, facilitating these countries to access the Green Climate Fund (GCF), as well as working together on the development of portfolio of green bankable projects.

The post GGGI inks Declaration of Intent and MoU with the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs and the Agence Française de Développement to strengthen cooperation appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: Joe Brusky.

By Eco Matser
AMSTERDAM, Jan 22 2020 (IPS)

For the first time, the world’s elites meeting this year at Davos have listed environmental issues as their top concerns about the next decade.

The WEF’s annual Global Risks Report raises the alarm on increased extreme weather events, manmade environmental damage – including oil spills and contamination, major biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and failure of governments and businesses to mitigate and adapt to climate change. All resulting in loss of human and animal life, and major damage to infrastructure, with irreversible consequences for the environment.

“The political landscape is polarized, sea levels are rising and climate fires are burning. This is the year when world leaders must work with all sectors of society to repair and reinvigorate our systems of cooperation, not just for short-term benefit but for tackling our deep-rooted risks,” said Borge Brende, President of the World Economic Forum.

“The political landscape is polarized, sea levels are rising and climate fires are burning. This is the year when world leaders must work with all sectors of society to repair and reinvigorate our systems of cooperation, not just for short-term benefit but for tackling our deep-rooted risks,”

Borge Brende, President of the World Economic Forum

Does this mean that after Davos 2020 businesses and governments are actually going tackle these realities seriously and with the necessary financial investments? Seeing is believing.

 

Fundamental change of systems needed

If businesses and governments are serious about combating climate change, they must increase investments in climate change mitigation and adaptation as well as in the larger development agenda (Agenda 2030). However, this alone will not be enough.

If businesses do not start fundamentally changing current financial systems, we risk gaining only short-term benefits instead of addressing the real root causes.

The current world economy still relies on fossil fuels and energy-intensive production systems. And the fossil fuel industry continues to receive large subsidies from governments and investment banks. Although investment in renewable energy is on the rise, as long as fossil fuels are subsidized we will not make a shift towards zero-carbon economies.

Many argue that not investing in fossil fuels hinders the development of low-income countries by denying them access to the same economic opportunities as high-income countries.

However, this just masks a lack of will on the part of the world’s business elites who have the power and finances to pioneer a true transition. They are ignoring the fact that the economics of renewable energy have changed and there are many ways for low-income countries to leapfrog fossil fuels.

To succeed, the governments and companies at Davos should do two things:

1. Apply an integrated approach to mitigation, adaptation and development.
2. Ensure an inclusive process and equal access to benefits of climate change measures.

 

An integrated approach

Mitigation, adaptation and development should not be three separate work streams. As shown in this article, effective climate action requires coherence between measures. Take investing in renewable energy. It directly reduces the emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

But when used to provide energy access to the most vulnerable, it also brings communities social and economic benefits that increase their resilience to climate change.

For example, access to energy provides services for small-scale farmers or community enterprises, like solar powered agricultural irrigation systems, or food processing and storage. This in turn increases their general economic and climate resilience.

Another example is access to clean cooking solutions instead of burning wood. This not only reduces air pollution and deforestation, but also improves women and children’s health and frees up time for studying or income-producing activities. This in turn strengthens their position in society.

 

Inclusive process and equal access

On the one hand, we must invest vast resources to mitigate and adapt to global climate change; on the other, we need to tackle the deep injustices that lie at the heart of the climate crisis. The challenge is therefore to ensure a just transition in which all communities have equal access to the benefits of measures taken to tackle climate change.

Ironically, developing countries bear the brunt of the effects of climate change created by 150 years of unfettered industrial and agricultural development in the West. So we, in the West, have a moral obligation to help finance an inclusive climate transition and achieve the SDG development agenda.

 

A truly just transition

A truly just transition means including those who are generally left out of the decision-making processes: women, youth, and local or rural (indigenous) communities. So give back power to local communities and offer opportunities for collaborative decision-making.

Access to information, public participation and direct involvement of local communities are key to foster transformative societal change. But failure to act on the climate crisis in an inclusive, participatory manner will certainly fuel even greater distrust of political elites and representative democracy.

So, as governments and businesses gather in Davos, we urge them to listen to the words of Borge Brende when he says world leaders must reinvigorate the system of cooperation and focus on long-term benefits.

Only when they start investing substantially in tackling root causes and transforming systems in an integrated and inclusive way, will putting climate change at the top of the WEF’s agenda really mean something. Hivos will follow the conversations with interest and believe when we see.

 

This opinion piece was originally published here

The post Will 2020 World Economic Forum Deliver on Combating Climate Change? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Eco Matser is Hivos global Climate Change / Energy and Development Coordinator

The post Will 2020 World Economic Forum Deliver on Combating Climate Change? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 22 2020 (IPS)

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres declared last week that the United Nations just “managed to survive its deepest financial crisis in a decade.”

But if countries continue to default on their assessed contributions to the world body – as 47 countries did in 2019 — the UN may be heading for another liquidity crisis in 2020, he warned.

“Unless all member states pay their assessed contributions on time and in full”, Guterres declared, “we risk receiving insufficient funds to implement the entire programme of work and the full budget approved for 2020.”

That budget, voted by the 193-member General Assembly last month, was $3.1 billion for 2020: an increase of approximately $8 million on what was initially requested by Guterres.

And it also marks the first time since 1973 that the UN is adopting an annual budget instead of a two-year one.

UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on January 10 the United Nations closed out 2019 with 146 out of 193 member states having paid their dues in full for the last year’s budget.

Asked how another cash crunch was expected to impact on UN staffers in 2020, Patricia Nemeth, President of the United Nations Staff Union (UNSC) told IPS the General Assembly approving the budget– and individual countries paying their dues on time– are two different issues.

If member states don’t pay their contributions on time, then there could indeed be another cash crisis with repercussions for UN staff — both at UN headquarters and in overseas postings, she said.

“It’s not just about salaries; even the prospect of a repeat of last year’s liquidity crisis is disruptive to our daily work as UN staff, as we are unable to plan in advance so as to deliver our mandate in the most efficient and cost-effective manner”, said Nemeth, who is also Vice President for Conditions of Service at the 60,000-strong Coordinating Committee of International Staff Unions and Associations (CCISUA).

Currently, the total membership of the UN staff union in New York is approximately 6,400 but overall it is close to 20,000 (representing UNHQs NY staff, locally recruited staff in overseas peacekeeping missions and some of the departments that are governed by the Secretariat but their offices based outside of New York ie.United Nations Information Centres (UNIC)

Credit: United Nations

Addressing the Group of 77 developing countries last week, Guterres said: “I will continue to manage our cash situation carefully, and I count on your continued support to help us avoid a deeper crisis. To this end, I hope that we could find more sustainable solutions to our cash problems.”

Over the years, he pointed out, “we have spent our budgets on the assumption that we should receive sufficient cash at the start of each year to execute the entire budget smoothly during the year.”

“In reality, we receive nearly half in the first three months but almost a quarter comes only at the very end of the year, leaving a very poor liquidity situation especially from July to October.”

“We could manage in the cash-strapped months if we had sufficient liquidity reserves and more flexibility in managing our resources as a pool. But our regular budget liquidity reserves are insufficient and structural impediments prevent us from minimizing the impact across programmes,” Guterres said.

He also said the UN’s programme implementation is now increasingly being driven by the availability of cash, “which is entirely against the way we should be working.”

Asked if the UN is in the process of eliminating short term and consultancy contracts –and whether teleconferencing has replaced overseas assignments– Nemeth said the UN does not eliminate temporary contracts, which are a regular component of the hiring structure.

“While the Staff Union will always advocate for job security, we do understand that the UN sometimes needs to make short-term hires to cover specific needs.”

However, she said, all staff working for the UN should be full-fledged employees, with a contract that guarantees the backing, resources and independence required to perform their tasks exclusively in the interest of the Organization and its mandates.

As for consultancy contracts, she said, “we welcome the General Assembly’s instruction ‘that the Organization should use its in-house capacity to perform core activities or to fulfill functions that are recurrent over the long term’”.

On teleconferencing, she said: “We cannot say that teleconferencing has replaced overseas travel, as UN staff are often posted in a country different from their own to perform specialized assignments”.

However, aside from their permanent assignments, colleagues make every effort to limit travel for meetings and discuss issues whenever possible via virtual technology.

“We are fully aware of the economic and environmental cost of our travel,” said Nemeth.

Asked if regular staffers are assured of permanent stay in New York or was it mandatory for them to serve in overseas posts, Nemeth said regular staff are not assured a permanent position in New York.

All international staff, she said, are encouraged to move geographically during their career.

“A new mobility policy is under development (under the umbrella of the staff-management committee working group) and we will have to see whether or not the proposal contains a mandatory requirement to move”.

She said the Staff Union in New York does not advocate for mandatory mobility, based on the results of a survey that was conducted in 2019 among New York staff.

Staff are very interested in a mobility scheme that is voluntarily in nature and that focuses on intra-departmental moves and/ or inter-agency mobility within the UN system, Nemeth declared.

On the UN’s proposed new locations, including Budapest, Nairobi, Montreal and Shenzen, Nemeth said: “There is no decision by the Member States, as of today, concerning the Global Service Delivery Model or any potential new offices”.

This will be discussed at the first resumed session of the General Assembly in the spring.

“We are following the matter closely, as it could affect the jobs of colleagues who are locally hired in the existing headquarter locations.”

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

The post UN Chief & Staff Union Predict Another Cash Crisis in 2020—if Member States Don’t Pay Up appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Soi Cate Chelang, a self-taught palette seat designer and carpenter, hard at work. She says that even after a decade of running her business she is unable to get bank credit to expand. Her situation is not a unique one in Africa. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

By Miriam Gathigah
NAIROBI, Jan 22 2020 (IPS)

What stands between Soi Cate Chelang and her dream of turning her small pallet-making business into a major enterprise is capital.

In Kenya, Chelang may well be a pioneer in making seats out of wooden pallets — the flat pieces of wood used to support goods or containers during shipping.

While she has no formal training in carpentry, Chelang tells IPS that she comes from a long line of carpenters, having trained under her grandfather and uncle. And what she doesn’t know, she learns from online lessons on carpentry.

She started the business more than a decade ago — before anyone else was doing it — and her products have been popular with consumers.

“My designs stand out because I combine many different elements. It is not just about turning wood into a seat. I use colourful fabrics and female clients enjoy fabrics that brighten their homes. I also make kids furniture from pallets and use fabric that have popular cartoons on them,” she expounds. Chelang sells her three-seater household pallet sofa for 100 to 300 dollars, depending on the design and material used.

Clients seek her services through her social media pages where she markets her products under the name Soi Pallet Designs.

Not enough credit to grow

But the 35-year-old is worried that the opportunity to cash in on her unique designs is passing her by.

“I do not have the money to set up a proper workshop and showroom. I cannot apply for contracts to make pallet seats for major entertainment clubs in the city because I do not have capital to finance such big orders,” she says, explaining that such clubs are interested in her designs.

“I managed to take one order of 5,000 dollars in 2018 because one of my mentors provided me with the capital to finance the order,” she says.

But that was a once-off. Because without collateral, she says, the banks will grant her a business loan. So for now she has to make seats to order. Even in this instance her clients must first pay 30 to 50 percent of the total cost to enable her to purchase materials and pay for some of her labour costs.

“I work with three carpenters who I pay on a daily basis. We only take one order at a time because I do not have a proper workshop and I cannot afford to hire more carpenters,” Chelang expounds.

The circumstances have served to confine her business to her home in Kisumu City some 350 kilometres away from Kenya’s capital Nairobi.

Traditional credit not available for African women 

But Chelang’s inability to expand her business is not a new story. According to the MasterCard Index of Women Entrepreneurs 2017, a lack of capital is one of the major challenges facing women doing business in Africa today, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.  

This is despite data by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) report of 2017-18 showing that sub-Saharan Africa has taken the lead as the only region where women form the majority of self-employed individuals. 

• According to the report, globally, Africa has the most positive attitudes towards entrepreneurship as 76 percent of working age adults consider entrepreneurship a good career choice, while another 75 percent believe that entrepreneurs are admired in their societies.
• Over the last decade, the number of women joining entrepreneurship is on a steady rise, the GEM report states. Women are high-technology developers in Kenya or, like Chelang, are making waves in the informal sector.
• Female entrepreneurs are also in the steel manufacturing business in South Africa, and in the cocoa agro-processing businesses in Ivory Coast and the larger West African region.
• Even more impressive, the MasterCard Index of Women Entrepreneurs 2017 indicates that Uganda and Botswana have the highest percentage of women entrepreneurs globally. Other countries in this league include Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria and Zambia.

Women in entrepreneurship stand to gain from the African Development Bank’s affirmative action financing. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

Setting up lasting financial structures to benefit Africa’s women

Aware of the financial constraints facing women in business, the African Development Bank (AfDB) is making concerted efforts to address the widening financing gap between male and female entrepreneurs in Africa.

The pan-African bank has placed the financing gap between male and female entrepreneurs across Africa, at a whopping 42 billion dollars.

To address this gap, the African Heads of State launched the Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) programme back in 2016. 

• As a joint pan-African initiative between AfDB and the African Guarantee Fund, AFAWA is a risk-sharing facility that will de-risk lending to women-owned and women-led businesses.
• During the most recent Global Gender Summit held in Kigali in 2019, AFAWA was officially launched in Rwanda. The affirmative action programme received a one-million-dollar commitment from the Rwandese government. Still in 2019, G7 leaders approved a package totalling 251 million dollars in support of AFAWA.
• Additionally, Attijariwafa Bank, a Moroccan multinational commercial bank, and the African Guarantee Fund have signed a 50 million dollar Memorandum of Understanding towards risk lending to women through partial guarantees.

By using a holistic approach, this affirmative action programme will address the major factors preventing women in Africa, including the access of financial products and services such as loans. Consequently these financial services will also be accessible and affordable as well.

AFAWA finance will unlock three billion dollars in credit for women in businesses and enterprises in Africa. Towards this goal, this programme will work with existing commercial banks and microfinance institutions to engineer lasting structural changes, to the benefit of women across the continent.

Further, there will be a rating system to evaluate financial institutions based on the extent to which they lend to women, and the consequent socio-economic impact. Top institutions will receive preferential terms from the pan-African bank.

Sustainable, women-owned businesses will contribute to the economy

Financial experts such as Irene Omari say the AFAWA is important for women’s financial inclusion. A banker and leading entrepreneur in the Lakeside City of Kisumu, Omari tells IPS that “banks do not take female entrepreneurs seriously. Banks are still a long way from embracing women doing business. We are still considered very high risk by financial institutions because we lack collateral”.

As the sole proprietor of Top Strategy Achievers Limited, a multi-million-shilling branding and printing company, she is all too familiar with the financial challenges facing women in business today.

“I started working at 23 years old in the hospitality industry. I would also act as a middle person between branding companies and clients. In Kisumu City this services were hard to find. I saved every coin that I made and used it as capital,” she says.

Omari registered her company in 2013. She began operations in the same year while still employed at a local bank. “My salary paid the two staff that I had in the beginning, office rent, and all other overheads until the company could stand on its feet,” she says.

She says that because women, like Chelang, are not considered bankable they are significantly constrained in setting up solid, physical infrastructures to drive the growth and sustainability of their businesses.

“This is the reason why women are in self-employment where they basically work for themselves and not in entrepreneurship where they bring as many employees on board as possible,” Omari expounds.

• In Omari’s case she is an entrepreneur, and need not be at the place of work at all times because the business can thrive and be sustainable even in their absence. In self-employment, the presence of the business owner must be felt at all times.

Francis Kibe Kiragu, a lecturer in gender and development studies at the University of Nairobi, tells IPS that while women have sufficiently demonstrated a desire to run their own enterprises, they suffer crippling financial exclusion.

“Women in self-employment or entrepreneurship are therefore driven by necessity and not innovation. They just want to meet their basic needs and as a result, they are perceived as contributing very little to the economy,” he observes.

Because of these challenges, he says that women are more likely than men to discontinue running a business. The GEM 2017 report confirms Kiragu’s assertions as it indicates that, while Africa may have the highest number of women running start-ups, the number of women running established businesses is lower.

In fact, in the sub-Saharan Africa region alone, there are two women starting a new business venture for every one woman running an established business, the report indicates.

“I started designing, making and marketing my pallet seats at 25 years old. Ten years later I am still facing the same financial challenges I faced when I started. Many times I have come close to abandoning this dream and finding employment,” says Chelang.

Through the AFAWA it is hoped that women like Chelang will soon be able to leverage financial instruments to their and their businesses’ benefit.

Related Articles

• African Development Bank Plans for a Self-sufficient, Integrated and Industrialised Continent
• Investments to Cushion African Countries against Climate Shocks Not Enough

The post Bridging Africa’s Great Gender-Financing Divide appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Women ragpickers in Delhi scavenging through a pile of refuse for recyclable material. Credit: Dharmendra Yadav/IPS

By External Source
NEW YORK, Jan 21 2020 (IPS)

Inequality is growing for more than 70 per cent of the global population, exacerbating the risks of divisions and hampering economic and social development. But the rise is far from inevitable and can be tackled at a national and international level, says a flagship study released by the UN on Tuesday.

The World Social Report 2020, published by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), shows that income inequality has increased in most developed countries, and some middle-income countries – including China, which has the world’s fastest growing economy.

The challenges are underscored by UN chief António Guterres in the foreword, in which he states that the world is confronting “the harsh realities of a deeply unequal global landscape”, in which economic woes, inequalities and job insecurity have led to mass protests in both developed and developing countries.

Income inequality has increased in most developed countries, and some middle-income countries - including China, which has the world’s fastest growing economy

“Income disparities and a lack of opportunities”, he writes, “are creating a vicious cycle of inequality, frustration and discontent across generations.”

 

‘The one per cent’ winners take (almost) all

The study shows that the richest one per cent of the population are the big winners in the changing global economy, increasing their share of income between 1990 and 2015, while at the other end of the scale, the bottom 40 per cent earned less than a quarter of income in all countries surveyed.

One of the consequences of inequality within societies, notes the report, is slower economic growth. In unequal societies, with wide disparities in areas such as health care and education, people are more likely to remain trapped in poverty, across several generations.

Between countries, the difference in average incomes is reducing, with China and other Asian nations driving growth in the global economy. Nevertheless, there are still stark differences between the richest and poorest countries and regions: the average income in North America, for example, is 16 times higher than that of people in Sub-Saharan Africa.

 

Four global forces affecting inequality

The report looks at the impact that four powerful global forces, or megatrends, are having on inequality around the world: technological innovation, climate change, urbanization and international migration.

Whilst technological innovation can support economic growth, offering new possibilities in fields such as health care, education, communication and productivity, there is also evidence to show that it can lead to increased wage inequality, and displace workers.

Rapid advances in areas such as biology and genetics, as well as robotics and artificial intelligence, are transforming societies at pace. New technology has the potential to eliminate entire categories of jobs but, equally, may generate entirely new jobs and innovations.

For now, however, highly skilled workers are reaping the benefits of the so-called “fourth industrial revolution”, whilst low-skilled and middle-skilled workers engaged in routine manual and cognitive tasks, are seeing their opportunities shrink.

 

Opportunities in a crisis

As the UN’s 2020 report on the global economy showed last Thursday, the climate crisis is having a negative impact on quality of life, and vulnerable populations are bearing the brunt of environmental degradation and extreme weather events. Climate change, according to the World Social Report, is making the world’s poorest countries even poorer, and could reverse progress made in reducing inequality among countries.

If action to tackle the climate crisis progresses as hoped, there will be job losses in carbon-intensive sectors, such as the coal industry, but the “greening” of the global economy could result in overall net employment gains, with the creation of many new jobs worldwide.

For the first time in history, more people live in urban than rural areas, a trend that is expected to continue over the coming years. Although cities drive economic growth, they are more unequal than rural areas, with the extremely wealthy living alongside the very poor.

The scale of inequality varies widely from city to city, even within a single country: as they grow and develop, some cities have become more unequal whilst, in others, inequality has declined.

 

Migration a ‘powerful symbol of global inequality’

The fourth megatrend, international migration, is described as both a “powerful symbol of global inequality”, and “a force for equality under the right conditions”.

Migration within countries, notes the report, tends to increase once countries begin to develop and industrialize, and more inhabitants of middle-income countries than low-income countries migrate abroad.

International migration is seen, generally, as benefiting both migrants, their countries of origin (as money is sent home) and their host countries.

In some cases, where migrants compete for low-skilled work, wages may be pushed down, increasing inequality but, if they offer skills that are in short supply, or take on work that others are not willing to do, they can have a positive effect on unemployment.

 

Harness the megatrends for a better world

Despite a clear widening of the gap between the haves and have-nots worldwide, the report points out that this situation can be reversed. Although the megatrends have the potential to continue divisions in society, they can also, as the Secretary-General says in his foreword, “be harnessed for a more equitable and sustainable world”. Both national governments and international organizations have a role to play in levelling the playing field and creating a fairer world for all.

Reducing inequality should, says the report, play a central role in policy-making. This means ensuring that the potential of new technology is used to reduce poverty and create jobs; that vulnerable people grow more resilient to the effects of climate change; cities are more inclusive; and migration takes place in a safe, orderly and regular manner.

Three strategies for making countries more egalitarian are suggested in the report: the promotion of equal access to opportunities (through, for example, universal access to education); fiscal policies that include measures for social policies, such as unemployment and disability benefits; and legislation that tackles prejudice and discrimination, whilst promoting greater participation of disadvantaged groups.

While action at a national level is crucial, the report declares that “concerted, coordinated and multilateral action” is needed to tackle major challenges affecting inequality within and among countries.

The report’s authors conclude that, given the importance of international cooperation, multilateral institutions such as the UN should be strengthened and action to create a fairer world must be urgently accelerated.

The UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which provides the blueprint for a better future for people and the planet, recognizes that major challenges require internationally coordinated solutions, and contains concrete and specific targets to reduce inequality, based on income.

This story was originally published by UN News

The post UN Report: Rising Inequality Affects More Than 70% of the Globe appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Colorized scanning electron micrograph of MERS virus particles (yellow) both budding and attached to the surface of infected VERO E6 cells (blue). Credit: NIAID

By Ifeanyi Nsofor
ABUJA, Jan 21 2020 (IPS)

The coronavirus outbreak — which began in Wuhan, China, and causes a pneumonia-like illness — is raging across Asia, infecting close to 300 people and killing four. It was initially known to be transmitted from animals to human, and was just confirmed to be transmitted from human to human.

The rapid nature of its origin and speed in transmission reminds us that national security is threatened when a pathogen can travel from a remote village to major cities on all continents in 36 hours. Therefore, global health security should be given the same priority as national security.

The history of infectious disease outbreak is not new. In 1918, the Spanish flu pandemic infected about 500 million people globally (a third of world’s population then) and caused the death of 20 million to 50 million victims.

The 2014 -2015 Ebola outbreak in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone infected 28,000 and killed over 11,000. By the end of the West Africa Ebola outbreak, the three nations lost a combined GDP of $2.8 billion.

Infectious diseases continue to be a huge problem. Of recent, Ebola and measles outbreaks in DRC have killed 2236 and over 6,000 respectively.

This Corona virus outbreak is happening during the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday as millions travel to visit with loved ones in country and travel abroad, making the current threat a global one. Most urgently, all countries must collaborate to contain this outbreak now

The ease of travel in today’s global community means the world must always be prepared for disease outbreaks. It is no longer whether an infectious disease outbreak would happen but when.

Globally, 100,000 aircraft carry millions of passengers from one city to the other daily. A visit to flightradar24.com puts this in perspective and shows how interconnected countries are.

International borders really do not protect against infectious disease outbreaks. This is why governments, national public health institutes, communities, private sector and global health actors must act rapidly to contain this outbreak and others happening elsewhere.

Also, processes must be put in place to prevent future outbreaks. These are four interventions to ensure response and prevention happen.

 

First, increased screening at international borders using computerized thermal cameras should be intensified. No one should be exempt from this screening no matter how highly placed they are.

In 2015, the global health community learnt the hard way the dangers of giving preference to diplomats in the way Patrick Sawyer moved freely from Monrovia to Lagos despite being already infected with Ebola.

That oversight led to a short Ebola outbreak in Nigeria which could have gotten out of hand if not for quick response mounted by Nigerian authorities and other global health organisations. Beyond international air borders, most countries have very porous and poorly manned land borders.

To overcome this challenge, communities along these borders must be properly informed about this current outbreak, its presenting symptoms and who to call when they suspect individual have symptoms.

 

Second, prepare for the spread of fake news on infectious diseases and be proactive about pushing out the right information to counter it. Community education is very important, especially at this time when the infection is raging. People are scared and can easily fall prey to fake news.

National public health institutes must take charge and disseminate the right information through different channels including TV, radio, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp and community engagements.

The experience with the spread of fake news during the Ebola outbreak in Nigeria in 2015 led to people bathing with salt water because they believed it would stop them from getting infected with Ebola. That fake news led to deaths of two victims.

 

Third, governments in consultation with national public health institutes should designate specialized centers for handling suspected cases. At the same time, they should provide the necessary drugs for treatment too.

These must be coordinated with staff at ports of entry. There should be no confusion about where to take a suspect case. If a suspected case presents at hospitals, there must be plans to immediately direct the individual to the right part of the hospital to prevent the spread of the infection.

In 2015, while evaluating the African Union response to Ebola in West Africa, I heard firsthand the harmful effect of having hospital security workers who are not well informed. At Saint John of God Hospital in Port Loko District, Sierra Leone, the wrong handling of an Ebola case by a security officer led to deaths of 10 health workers.

 

Fourth, all governments must invest in epidemic preparedness. Although it is not cheap, it is cost effective. For instance, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control estimates that it would cost 40 cents per person for Nigeria to be prepared for epidemics.

This amounts to $80 million for a population of 200 million. Not doing this and a pandemic occurs, Nigeria would lose $9.6 billion in GDP annually, according to the International Working Group on Financing Preparedness.

Every country must have a financed plan and ensure that their national public health institute gets the required funds to lead prevention, detection and response to infectious diseases. Infectious diseases spare no one.

As the World Economic Forum holds in Davos, Switzerland, business leaders must discuss ways of supporting governments to fund epidemic preparedness. It makes business sense and will protect their investments.

This Corona virus outbreak is happening during the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday as millions travel to visit with loved ones in country and travel abroad, making the current threat a global one. Most urgently, all countries must collaborate to contain this outbreak now.

 

The post Why the Coronavirus Should Worry Us All appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Dr. Ifeanyi Nsofor is a medical doctor, the CEO of EpiAFRIC, Director of Policy and Advocacy for Nigeria Health Watch

The post Why the Coronavirus Should Worry Us All appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Ms. Marlene Schiappa. Credit: UN Women/Antoine Tardy

By External Source
Jan 21 2020 (IPS)

Marlène Schiappa, Minister of State for Gender Equality and the Fight against Discrimination in France, attended the 25th year Regional Review Meeting of the Beijing Platform for Action for the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Region last month. She highlighted why this meeting is key for advancing the gender equality agenda and the priorities for the Generation Equality Forum in 2020, a global gathering for gender equality, convened by UN Women and co-chaired by France and Mexico.

Why is the Beijing+25 Regional Review Meeting important for advancing the gender equality agenda?

We are here in Geneva in order to dedicate some time to working together, which is essential. France is pleased and proud to host the Generation Equality Forum in July 2020, which will mark the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action. This will be an opportunity for us to strengthen the commitments that were made at the time [in 1995], but also to make new commitments with concrete gender equality goals through coalitions of states.

For this meeting, what is your message to the governments and decision-makers here and also to the civil society activists, specifically the youth?

I would urge governments to engage in the Generation Equality Forum under the aegis of UN Women, because no country in the world has succeeded in achieving gender equality in all areas, whether it may be equal pay, gender-based violence, sharing of domestic tasks, or combating female genital mutilation and forced marriages.

You’re co-chairing the Generation Equality Forum in July 2020. What are your expectations for this forum, what would you like to achieve?

No country can achieve gender equality on its own, which is why I believe deeply in a collective commitment to women’s rights in the form of multilateralism, which is the rationale of the feminist diplomacy led by France. I would urge all countries to engage in the coalitions of states of the Generation Equality Forum and also to engage in the Biarritz Partnership launched by President Emmanuel Macron as part of the French presidency of the G7.

It is a partnership that aims to review the best gender equality laws in the world. We propose that states commit to implementing Appendix 1, which calls for an innovative new law for gender equality in each country. France has made this commitment and we will, therefore, work to promote the economic empowerment of women.

In your opinion, what are the gender equality and women’s rights priorities for this region, and in the broader sense for Generation Equality?

First of all, I would say that the right to control one’s body is a right that must be reaffirmed. The issue of sexual and reproductive rights seems to me to be paramount. I think it’s very complicated for a woman to be able to live her life freely if she doesn’t have control over her own body.

Secondly, the fight against gender-based and sexual violence is the priority of the President’s five-year term. Similarly, I think it is difficult to fight for equal pay if women fear physical harm in the street, when they travel, and even when they go home.

Women are victims of domestic violence and are beaten or demeaned by the person with whom they live. It is very difficult in these cases for women to have the necessary mindsets to develop their careers.

Therefore, this seems to me to be a top priority of the feminist struggle to fight for the integrity of women’s bodies against sexual violence. And then I think it’s important to fight for women’s economic empowerment, and for their ability to start businesses all over the world.

We call on all states to ratify and implement the provisions of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence [also known as the Istanbul Convention] and its mechanisms to protect women, but also to enable women to become tomorrow’s leaders and to create and manage companies, in particular through quotas, which is a proven system in France.

I know that we are sometimes told that women are not going to be nominated just because they are women. For generations, we have been nominating men just because they are men.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) has calculated that if we do not have a coercive policy, we will achieve gender equality in the year 2234. With UN Women’s support, we have the ambition to ensure that by 2020, we create the first generation that understands the importance of equality between women and men all over the world.

Courtesy UN Women

The post “For Generations, We Have Been Nominating Men Just Because They are Men” appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Nomcebo Mkhaliphi posing with girls from the Kwaluseni Infantry Primary School in Eswatini. Courtesy: Nomcebo Mkhaliphi

By Mantoe Phakathi
MBABANE , Jan 21 2020 (IPS)

When 14-year-old Nomcebo Mkhaliphi first noticed the blood discharged from her vagina, she was shocked. Confused, she turned to her older sisters for advice.

“My sisters told me that they were experiencing the same every month and that they used fabric, toilet paper and newspapers as sanitary wear,” recalls the now 45-year-old Mkhaliphi. She had to follow suit and use these materials because she had no money to buy sanitary pads.

Mkhaliphi and her four siblings were single-handedly raised by their father in a poor household in rural Makhonza, south of Eswatini. Mkhaliphi’s parents had separated when she was nine, so conversations about menstruation were never had, both at home and school. 

Recounting her experience with periods invokes sad emotions for Mkhaliphi. She had three significant moments at school where her periods put her at the centre of gossip, bullying and humiliation.

At some point, she stained her tunic, followed by other incidents where a toilet paper and a newspaper she wore in the place of a sanitary pad fell to the ground after getting soaked, right in front of other learners.

“These incidents lowered my self-esteem because other students used my experience to bully me,” says the mother of two boys and a girl.

Instead of dropping out of school like other girls in a similar situation, Mkhaliphi persevered until she completed her high school education. Today, she volunteers her time to teach young girls and boys at schools and communities about menstruation, particularly the stigma associated with periods. She includes boys so that they stop seeing periods as a laughing matter but a natural occurrence for their female peers.

“There’s a lot of stigma associated with menstruation. When a woman is on her periods, she is said to be in ‘cleansing’ something that portrays her as dirty. That’s why in other families a menstruating woman is not allowed to cook, while in some churches they’re not allowed to come closer to the pastor,” Mkhaliphi tells IPS, adding that some churches order women to sit at the back and not participate in the service.

What’s worse, it’s taboo to talk about menstruation because in the Swati culture it has always been portrayed as a secret. This small landlocked southern African nation is the continent’s last monarchy, with a population of just under 1.4 million.

Through her talks, Mkhaliphi is using her story to end the stigma associated with periods and building confidence among girls by giving them the right information about their sexual reproductive health. She also gives talks to primary school children because, she says, it is important to talk to them while they are young.

“Girls open up to me about their own sad stories once they hear about my experience,” she says.

One such girl is Nomthandazo* (14) from a public school in Eswatini’s industrial town, Matsapha, who said she used to abscond from school when on her period because one day the newspaper she was wearing fell off and she was became the target for ridicule at school for a long time.

With no money to buy pads, she pretended to be going to school and would hide from her parents for about a week until her period was over.

“I now use rags. They take long to dry but they’re better than newspapers,” she tells IPS.

Some parents fail to have a conversation with their children about periods. For instance, Temphilo* from rural Sihhoye told her stepmother as soon as she saw blood, thinking that there was something wrong with her. Indeed, there was, according to her stepmother, who beat her up and accused her of having sex.

“I bled for almost a month and she didn’t even take me to hospital because she felt I brought it on myself,” Temphilo tells IPS. After that first irregular period, her periods followed the regular course of lasting 4 to 5 days.

But it took Mkhaliphi to assure her that menstruation is a natural thing that occurs to every woman and she should not be ashamed of herself because of it. So far, Mkhaliphi has reached over 3,000 girls since she started this initiative after she was retrenched from her work as a legal secretary in 2016.

“I get invited to many places where teachers and community leaders ask me to speak to learners and the youth in communities,” she says. “But it’s difficult to reach out to everyone because of lack of financial resources.”

Mkhaliphi has taken the conversation to Twitter, @nomcebo_mkhali where she now raises awareness. Twitter has exposed her to individual donors who contribute pads and a bit of money to support the girls. Given the number of places to visit and girls from poor backgrounds, she needs more assistance.

#Girls deserve #Menstruation dignity #StopTheStigma #Pads @umbrios @YonWumman @Passie_Kracht @TJVRD @RaeUK @Anyechka pic.twitter.com/x2XMou14KJ

— Nomcebo Mkhaliphi (@nomcebo_mkhali) 6 December 2019

“It’s sad that most girls are still using unsafe materials which are not only inadequate for protection but can also lead to diseases,” she says.

The 2017 Eswatini Annual Education Census recorded that 220 girls absconded from school at primary level although the education was free. Reasons were not given for the dropouts but Mkhaliphi says it could partly be lack of sanitary wear.   

“Building the girl’s confidence is not good enough if they won’t have access to the things that will preserve their dignity when they’re menstruating,” says Mkhaliphi.

Chairperson of the Ministry of Health Portfolio Committee in the House of Assembly, Mduduzi Dlamini, concurs with Mkhaliphi.

“It doesn’t make sense that sanitary wear is not provided for free both at school and at community centres,” says Dlamini.

A participant at the recent 25th International Conference on Population Development (ICPD25) in Nairobi, Kenya, he promised that the provision of free sanitary wear to girls was one of the issues that he would push for discussion in parliament.

“What I learnt from the conference is that when girls lack toiletries, like pads, they become vulnerable to sugar daddies who buy them these things,” Dlamini tells IPS. “Some girls end up getting infected with HIV by sugar daddies all because they didn’t have access to pads. Government needs to address this issue.”   

According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) “women are disproportionally affected by HIV” in Eswatini – 120,000 of the 190,000 adults living with HIV are women. In addition, “new HIV infections among young women aged 15–24 years were more than quadruple those among young men: 2400 new infections among young women, compared to fewer than 500 among young men”.

So far, Kenya and Botswana are the only African governments on track to offer free sanitary wear by law. 

*Names withheld to protect their identity.

The post Ending Bullying and Humiliation over Menstruation as Girls and Boys in Conservative Eswatini are Educated about Reproductive Health appeared first on Inter Press Service.

School feeding programme in Togo. Credit: WFP/João Cavalcante

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Wan Manan Muda
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jan 21 2020 (IPS)

If well planned, coordinated and implemented, a government funded school feeding programme for all primary school children can be progressively transformative. Such a programme, involving government departments and agencies working together, can benefit schoolchildren, their families, farmers and public health, now and in the future.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Such a scheme should comprehensively supply adequate food for all, especially schoolchildren, and improve their nutrition, thus overcoming hunger and malnutrition besides improving the children’s physical and mental development, and school learning, attendance, participation and performance.

School meals, well planned by nutritionists and dieticians familiar with local food practices and alternatives, using safe food grown by family farmers free of toxic agrochemicals, and hygienically prepared, will significantly improve the nutrition, health and wellbeing of the children.

 

3-pronged approach

A comprehensive and ambitious three-pronged approach to school feeding would go a long way to address contemporary malnutrition, of both micronutrient deficiencies of minerals and vitamins as well as overweight, obesity and other diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

Nutrition education for schoolchildren must promote an adequate, balanced and comprehensive understanding of health and nutrition. Teachers and the media will need to effectively share better knowledge of nutrition, health and wellbeing, and related food behaviours, dietary lifestyles and healthy living.

The programme should enable children to learn, from an early age, about food, its production, safety, preparation, consumption and effects on the human body.

Menus served can be rotated every two to four weeks to enhance dietary variety. Strict implementation and enforcement can help ensure that only healthy food is available in schools.

Learning from relevant experiences everywhere, good implementation and appropriate enforcement can also inculcate values of responsibility, equity, concern, empathy, cooperation and hygiene.

 

Nutritious school meal programme

A nutritious school feeding programme — properly designed and supervised by well-informed nutritionists and dieticians to meet school children’s micronutrient (vitamins and minerals) needs, and 25-30% of their macronutrient needs, such as carbohydrates and proteins — can go a long way.

Wan Manan Muda

The programme should meet much of the children’s dietary needs besides promoting knowledge of health and nutrition as well as healthy food habits. Menu planning should be aligned with the country’s dietary guidelines and international best practices for healthier school meals.

Meal requirements should adopt minimum standards, as stipulated in the country’s Recommended Nutrient Intake (RNI) or Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA), but modified to increase consumption of fruits, vegetables and whole grains, and to set minimum and maximum calorie intake levels.

Programme success is often partly due to active parental involvement, especially to ensure school food hygiene, safety and quality.

Children in such programmes generally have significantly better scores for both cognitive and physical development. Participating students significantly reduced their body mass indices (BMIs) even if they snacked outside school.

 

Agrarian transformation

The procurement policy for the school feeding programme offers a unique opportunity for agrarian transformation. Food procurement for the programme can be used to induce farmers to safely produce more nutritious and healthy food, especially vegetables and fruits.

With the promotion of international trade and export orientation, not many farmers produce food, typically staples, often due to subsidies from governments, aid programmes and sometimes consumers. Many of those growing cereals often remain among the poorest farmers as they cannot compete with industrially produced cereals, often imported from abroad.

Instead of large transnational companies, family or ‘homestead’ farmers should be the main source of food procured for school meal programmes. With sufficient, appropriate agricultural research and extension, the programme can not only provide safe, non-toxic and nutritious food for children, but also increase farmer incomes.

If well designed and implemented, it can strengthen or revive farmer cooperatives and organizations to better serve the farmers’ and the nation’s needs as locally grown food supplies can be more easily regulated to ensure safe and healthy food supplies.

In many countries, from Brazil to China, the quality, safety and nutrition of food supplies on local markets have improved as farmers produce more than necessary to meet procurement contract requirements for school meal programmes.

 

Scheme implementation

Three types of school feeding programmes have different implications and consequences:

• (1)

Universal

• programmes in which all schoolchildren get free meals without conditions or requirements.

 

• (2)

Targeted

• programmes in which only selected children to qualify for free meals, such as those from destitute families, or severely undernourished children, due to stunting and wasting, although qualification requirements are often abused.

 

• (3)

Local

• programmes in which all children in a designated area receive free meals, e.g., rural areas, poor urban areas, post-disaster zones,

et al

.

The experiences of Japan and other societies show that only universal programmes can achieve all the objectives of such initiatives. Unlike targeting, the universal approach reduces the shame associated with receiving free meals, encouraging more children to participate with dignity.

Most middle-income countries and some low-income countries can well afford such universal programmes, which benefit countries in several significant ways, if well designed and implemented with broad popular participation, including both parents and farmers.

The post School Lunch Programmes for Progress appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts, Jan 20 2020 (IPS)

The digital revolution arrived late at the heart of ministries of foreign affairs across the Western world. Ministries latched on to social media around the time of Tahrir Square and Iran’s 2009 Green Revolution, beguiled by a vision of the technology engendering a networked evolution toward more liberal societies.

Foreign ministries scrambled to make ‘Twitter-Diplomacy’ part of their push-strategy in strategic communication and began, though arguably too slowly, to analyse US-based digital platform-generated data to inform foreign policy decisions. ‘Tech for Good’ was the universal assumption a decade ago.

Since then, the impact of hyper-connectivity and its effect on hierarchically organised, slow-moving Western foreign and development policy organisations has become clearer and far less simple.

Unbridled by legal barriers or democratic institutional control, China practices a brand of digital colonialism abroad and sells wide-scale surveillance in Africa and Asia. Russia has gone on the offence, unleashing troll armies and hacker collectives upon Europe and the United States as the new face of Moscow’s international power.

Unregulated, expressed positive intent notwithstanding, US-based tech titans end up enabling the digital amplification of human rights abuses. Deep social and political impacts are unfolding.

And yet, foreign ministries are still comparatively under-equipped with the diagnostic capacity to identify, analyse and act in an anticipatory way on the waves of information rolling through the digital realm.

How diplomacy has been changing

This digital deficit is bound to become a true Achilles heel as technological progress forges steadily ahead. Addressing the foreign policy consequences of platform action was one thing.

Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook

Now, the advent of 5G systems and the capacity to run larger volumes of data across them, to develop greater applications for artificial intelligence (AI) and the internet of things, will not only have deeply disruptive impacts on our societies and the way we work — from manufacturing to services but it will also present steep challenges to how our bureaucracies manage big data and how — in the case of ministries of foreign affairs — they harness capacities for anticipatory foreign policy making.

To be sure, the advent of greater data capacities holds promises — not just challenges — for diplomacy. Well-cultivated, big data will radically improve the consular process, bolster the preparation of diplomats for complex, multi-level negotiations on trade and sanctions and boost the ability to forecast humanitarian crises linked to climate change effects from drought to flooding.

Big data aggregation could also help identify disinformation campaigns targeted against a certain country more quickly and accurately. Chat bots are already improving the more tedious aspects of consular affairs, supporting registration processes or legal aid for refugees.

Much as geo-coding and social media mapping is already helping Global Affairs Canada and the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office understand where their messages resonate most effectively, in the near-term future a bigger volume of data and increased interpretation capacities might be used to locate citizens in need and to monitor social media to predict possible consular crises.

For the core work of diplomacy — negotiation — the capacity to engage big data analytics could serve to remove bias, aggregate data on possible negotiation impacts (i.e. on large groups of national or foreign citizens or corporations) and pull together geospatial and sensor data for more objective, fact-based information gathering and generally support better, evidence-based decision making. To realise the advantages of these data streams, the data will have to be harnessed and interpreted by trained analysts and diplomats.

The financing asymmetry of AI development

So, while progress has been made on the diagnostic front and EU-internal coordination on AI in limited areas is improving, staffing and budgetary resources remain dangerous vulnerabilities in the West — both for R&D and industry, to say nothing of the bureaucratic architecture.

While China invests USD 150bn in AI development in its current five-year plan, the largest comparative player — the US with a new tripled commitment (to USD 4.9bn) — cannot even remotely compete with that kind of cross-sectoral investment. Plus, China wields strong state-control, has the Great Firewall and data harvesting capacities across the globe to power rapidly evolving AI.

Above all, a real financial commitment is needed. Until the numbers add up to building true capacity, taxpayers must assume that European (and even the US government) isn’t sufficiently serious about all elements of their national security in light of the deeply disruptive forces AI and quantum computing will bring.

Rotational tech and STEM talent placements in US and European foreign ministries help in identifying key strategic challenges but they are little more than a band-aid. For real change to occur, pressure is needed from the leadership of individual ministries, from the urgency generated by the inter-agency process (intelligence, defense, development and economic ministries together) and increasingly by the supranational level.

The German Armed Forces’ new encrypted messenger service is a perfect example: Following the close observation of the development of a similar secure, closed communications system based on Open-Source software in France (Tschap is now used in over 30 French government institutions), the German Ministry of Defense announced the implementation of its own messenger system in December 2019.

Based on the type of tech platform chosen, the system’s design could foreseeably be extended or copied such that it might facilitate the creation of similar capacities to support a seamless inter-agency process between the foreign ministry, the armed services and intelligence sources in crisis communication.

The example proves that a combination of pressure from the top, inter-European knowledge exchange and a functional dedication of resources can create digitally sovereign tools in what might seem a staid, slow-moving system.

While pooled resources in systems architecture are critical, software advances like these – though arguably late – shouldn’t be maligned. Imagine the degree of functional progress that could be possible, if the EU-27 were able to more systematically aggregate and recombine and redeploy, say, the knowledge acquired by its digital diplomats in Silicon Valley (i.e. Denmark and France), even in an environment of fiscal austerity and insufficient R&D investment.

A new transatlantic dialogue

Even though the 5G debate threatens to further fray already weakened cross-Atlantic ties, a transatlantic digital policy dialogue (beyond cyber defence) on bureaucratic systems adaptation is essential. A European — or even a transatlantic collaboration platform — could help individual EU27 systems make critical decisions with respect to design, knowledge management, personnel structure and cultural transformation and recruitment.

Here are the priorities: First, there is systems architecture. Mere data collection capacities will not allow the crafting of anticipatory foreign policy. A ‘whole-of-government’ approach is necessary.

As newly minted EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen points out, where national and supranational bureaucracies still work on a siloed, ‘need to know’ basis, current and future challenges of connectivity require a ‘need to share’ architecture: greater inter-ministerial exchange to be able to use information generated digitally.

That was a combination of on-the-ground sensor data, satellite imagery and diplomatic intelligence could forecast the next migration wave or humanitarian crisis.

On the digital front, ministries will need systems that are safe, European-sourced, internally controlled and fit-for-purpose. The inclusion of Huawei parts in the telecoms infrastructure in Germany is causing a major rift between the Chancellory and the Bundestag, while the example of mass-scale spying through Chinese technology in the African Union building stand as vivid examples of why just this type of debate is essential to a democracy in the big data age.

Who will build the diagnostic dashboards foreign ministries need to have in-house? Who will populate them with critical data flows? The annual GovTech conference in Paris, where tech developers are confronted with public policy problems points in the right direction, though more of these ‘tailor made’ solutions will be needed.

Second, there is the personnel issue. Diplomatic careers now are built on experience, on knowledge and interpretative capacity honed over time across cultural, linguistic and historical barriers. The advent of AI in diplomacy can put knowledge that takes an entire career to craft at the disposal of a relative novice.

These shifts will begin to put systems of internal evaluation, promotion, meritocracy into question: how to create foreign policy desks in HQ and in embassies abroad that best utilise the changing skills capacities of different generations of diplomats?

How to recruit the best and brightest technology-savvy minds into foreign service when they could work at triple their salaries outside of public policy? How to integrate, promote and retain top-tier talent even on short-term contracts while preventing the risks of compromise and espionage?

Here, collaborating with graduate schools of public policy in Europe and the US that focus on institutional transformation, and creating appropriate coordinating forums on the European and transatlantic level could be a critical asset, as Western, liberal foreign ministries grapple with the same issues.

This links directly to a third issue: A new ethos for public service in the digital world is needed. Where China and Russia can command next generation tech talents for their data-weaponised power-projection, Western countries cannot.

To maintain societal systems that drive an even deeper global integration and connection while bearing the hallmarks of liberal democratic order, government institutions will need to attract the best and brightest into their ranks. A new culture of the techno-talented for public service in the digital age is needed.

It is high time for the acceleration to begin.

This article first appeared in *International Politics and Society (IPS) which is published by the International Political Analysis Unit of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Hiroshimastrasse 28, D-10785 Berlin.

The post From Digital Diplomacy to Data Diplomacy appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook is a German and American national and the founding Executive Director of the Future of Diplomacy Project at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), which examines the challenges to negotiation and statecraft in the 21st century.

The post From Digital Diplomacy to Data Diplomacy appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: United Nations

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

As the United Nations commemorates its 75th anniversary this year, the financially-crippled Organization is also saddled with a rash of administrative problems, plus an ongoing cash crisis, perhaps one of the worst in history.

At a town hall meeting with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last month, UN staffers in Geneva, led by the Staff Coordinating Council (SCC), raised several issues, including the impact of the illegal pay cut on incomes, family life, and staff morale, and the growing number of obstacles to career development.

And they also singled out the harassment and retaliation against whistle blowers, (with harassments apparently going unpunished); the “exploitation” of colleagues on temporary and consultancy contracts; “management abuse” of rules under the new delegation of authority; and the negative impact of administrative offshoring and plans for hot-desking.

And that’s only for starters.

Guterres initially “refused to meet staffers”, according to a message from SCC. The request for a meeting was made when the Secretary-General was in Geneva on Dec 4.

Reacting to the refusal, the SCC pointedly said the welfare of staff should be a prime concern for any organization.

“It’s clear from the huge number of stories we’ve received and responses to our survey that UN Geneva staff are not just angry and disaffected at the injustice of the illegal pay cut they have suffered, there have also been significant consequences for the lives of many of their families.”

“Any decent employer (read: United Nations) should want to listen to the views of their staff, however challenging. Trying to ignore such opinions and experiences hurts employees and is damaging for the wider organization, and that’s just part of why we were so disappointed to learn of the Secretary General’s refusal to meet with UN Geneva staff on the topic of equal pay”, the SCC said.

“This was a missed opportunity, but it is far from the end of the matter. The Staff Council doesn’t take no for an answer”—and it eventually pulled it off.

Perhaps reacting to the SCC attack on him, Guterres agreed to address the town hall meeting during his second visit to Geneva on December 16.

But the SCC said the Secretary General’s response for equal pay was “significant”. Guterres told staffers: “Equal pay is obviously a norm that should be respected everywhere”

“I fully understand that this system of unequal pay is unacceptable and it will have to be solved. I will do everything I can for that to happen. I fully understand how angry you are with this situation that is unfair and I’m interested in solving it,” Guterres added, according to SCC.

The SCC also said: “These are encouraging words and we will hold him to them. Whilst such a commitment is a notable step forward for our campaign, we remain concerned as he also refused to take immediate action to resolve the situation by adding: “I don’t have the power to do what you ask me to do.”

A big test will come when the UN Dispute Tribunal delivers their ruling on the issue. “We are confident they will find in favour of equal pay and, given the Secretary General’s words, staff will expect him to accept the decision and not lodge any appeal”.

“In the meantime, we will watch every move and keep up the pressure, not just on equal pay, but on the other issues that we raised and which he acknowledged,” said Prisca Chaoui, SCC Executive Secretary and Ian Richards, President.

The UN Office at Geneva (UNOG) says it serves as the representative office of the Secretary-General in Geneva, which also houses the Human Rights Council and UN agencies such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labour Organization.

A focal point for multilateral diplomacy, UNOG services more than 10,000 meetings every year, making it one of the world’s busiest conference centres. And with more than 1,600 staff, it is the biggest duty stations outside of United Nations headquarters in New York.

Asked about the impact of the cash crunch on UN staffers, Ian Richards, who is also the Geneva-based President of the 60,000-strong Coordinating Committee of International Staff Unions and Associations (CCISUA), told IPS the General Assembly has ordered that a certain number of posts be kept vacant at any time.

“This basically has the effect of a promotion-and-recruitment freeze despite workload on the rise and the growing dangers for staff in places like Iraq and Afghanistan”.

“Staff are not happy,” he added.

Asked if the UN is in the process of eliminating short term and consultancy contracts, and also replacing overseas assignments with teleconferencing as spelled out by Guterres, Richards said these are being used much less on the regular budget, which has implications for impacted personnel.

Teleconferencing has always been there, he noted, but there are limits to its usefulness.

“You can’t conduct an investigation or research mission on the other side of the world by teleconference. And sometimes you need to get key people around the table for a solid 3 days if you want to solve a particularly complex problem”.

“You can’t do that by teleconference when people are scattered across time zones,” he declared.

Asked if regular staffers are assured of permanent stay in New York or is it mandatory for them to serve in overseas posts, Richards said the “mobility policy” is currently suspended, pending a new one.

The suspended policy turned out to be cumbersome to administer. He argued that something more simple and less top-down is required while providing staff a reassurance that if they go to the field, their service will be recognized and they have a way back to headquarters, he added.

Meanwhile, the General Assembly has postponed until spring a proposal to move some of the UN offices to Budapest, Kuala Lumpur, Mexico City and Nairobi.

“It’s been under consideration for several years and hasn’t got anywhere,” said Richards, pointing out that, ultimately, it’s not a financially viable project and many managers and member states know this.

“And as the UN’s administrative systems become ever more technology-based, the usefulness of physical service centres goes out the window. We’re in 2020 now, not 2005,” said Richards.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

The post Geneva Staff Battles UN Chief over Unequal Pay & Illegal Salary Cuts appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The United Nations on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance has recently offered her assistance to the Indian Supreme Court in a long hearing about India deporting Rohingya refugees to Myanmar. Pictured here are Rohingya refugee women in Jammu, India. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 20 2020 (IPS)

University of California professor E. Tendayi Achiume, who is a United Nations Special Rapporteur, has recently offered her assistance to the Indian Supreme Court in a long hearing about India deporting Rohingya refugees to Myanmar.

The hearing, which began in 2017, has this update at a crucial time when the world’s largest democracy is reeling from citizenship rulings that explicitly exclude Muslims from certain neighbouring countries. 

Achiume, who is a U.N. Special Rapporteur on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, submitted the application to the Supreme Court on Jan. 10, according to local news agency The Wire. 

“Litigation schedules are long and complex, and the timing of my filing reflects that,” Achiume told IPS this week, in reference to why she made her application at this time. 

According to the Wire, which reviewed the application, Achiume did so in order to “aid the court in upholding India’s obligations under various international law instruments and principles to which it has committed”. 

• India, although not the most common destination for Rohingya refugees, has a large number of the population, many of whom migrate from neighbouring Bangladesh.
• At the time of reporting, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had documented 17,911 Rohingyas in India as registered with the organisation. 

In 2017, when the hearing began, the Indian government, responsible for the current crisis in Kashmir as well as the Citizenship Amendment Act, told the court that Rohingyas pose “a threat to national security”. 

Two years later, this sentiment remains relevant given the recent citizenship ruling as well as the crisis in Kashmir have stoked further anti-Muslim rhetoric in India. In the past, Indian Home Minister Amit Shah has used similar rhetoric of “threat” to national security against Bangladeshi immigrants in the country.  

Last week, at the launch of 2020 World Report Human Rights Watch (HRW), the organisation’s head reiterated that the current rulings in the country are discriminatory. 

“We are extremely concerned about the anti-Muslim drift by the Modi government,” Kenneth Roth told IPS at the launch where he also blasted Aung San Suu Kyi for her defence of Myanmar’s practices against the Rohingya population in the country.  

While the recent rulings do not directly affect Rohingyas from Myanmar, the current anti-Muslim sentiment heightened by these rulings adds another layer of complication for a community that is known to be largely Muslim and has their share of challenges already. 

As it is, the Rohingya community already is vulnerable to discrimination in India. India’s decision to deport Rohingyas “raises critical issues as to its compatibility with these instruments and principles of international human rights law,” Achiume wrote in the application. 

“In India, Rohingya face protection risks due to difficulties in obtaining legal documentation and access to basic services,” Kathryn Mahoney, Senior Communications Officer at UNHCR told IPS. “UNHCR is also aware of instances of arrest and detention of Rohingya refugees and asylum-seekers at the border.” 

This already festering sentiment against the Rohingya, when viewed under current circumstances, can prove grave for the community. 

“I believe there is strong reason to believe there are heightened concerns for Rohingya and others in the current legal and political climate that is fostering intolerance and discrimination against Muslims,” Achiume told IPS. “India’s judiciary has an important role to play in upholding the country’s human rights commitments.” 

In their statement to IPS, UNHCR reiterated the urgency with which forced repatriation efforts by India must be stopped for the Rohingya community that still remains vulnerable to violence and displacement in Myanmar. 

“UNHCR is deeply concerned by the return of Rohingya asylum-seekers from India to Myanmar, who may be at risk of serious human rights violations or persecution,” Mahoney told IPS. “UNHCR does not believe that current conditions in Myanmar are conducive to the safe and dignified repatriation of Rohingya refugees.” 

Related Articles

• The Story Behind The Gambia’s Lawsuit against Myanmar over the Rohingya Genocide
• Little Hope of Justice for Rohingya, Two Years after Exodus
• With Poor Human Rights Record, Repatriation Not Possible

The post UN Special Rapporteur Offers Assistance to Indian Supreme Court in Case of Rohingya Deportation appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Joseph Chamie
NEW YORK, Jan 20 2020 (IPS)

Whenever the issue of population comes up, pro-growth demographic dogma invariably dominates. Governments, political parties, businesses, the media and many others typically praise population growth and lament population slowdown, stabilization or decline. The demographic dogma basically advocates maintaining robust population growth and a larger and youthful population. 

Population declines, even slowdowns, generally inspire angst among most policymakers, military officials, business leaders, economists and others, as they see them tied to economic, political, social and cultural decline. The dogma foresees financial ruin and a loss of political influence and national power resulting from demographic declines and population aging. 

Fear of population decline and aging is promoted by many groups, especially business leaders who tend to gain the most financially from a growing, youthful population of consumers and workers.

The pro-growth demographic dogma is fundamentally a Ponzi scheme. It is a pyramid scheme that generates more money, power and influence for some by adding on more and more people through natural increase and in some cases immigration. Questions about the sustainability of long-term population growth are typically dismissed or left unanswered

For example, while Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Alibaba founder Jack Ma may disagree on many issues, they are in agreement that the biggest problem facing the world in the future is not enough people.

Although world population is projected to add 2 billion people by midcentury, the two prominent businessmen claim, “The biggest issue in 20 years will be population collapse. Not explosion. Collapse.”

In the United States, the Chamber of Commerce regularly calls for the government to continue importing foreign workers. In a recent interview, Chamber CEO Tom Donohue commenting on the ongoing labor shortage in the country said: “The fundamental issue is that the United States of America is out of people.”  

However, data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics show there is no labor shortage. In addition, automation, artificial intelligence and robots are reducing labor needs in many sectors of the US economy. 

The pro-growth demographic dogma is fundamentally a Ponzi scheme. It is a pyramid scheme that generates more money, power and influence for some by adding on more and more people through natural increase and in some cases immigration. Questions about the sustainability of long-term population growth are typically dismissed or left unanswered.

In an unrelenting public relations campaign, every effort is made to equate sustained population growth and a youthful population with economic prosperity and developmental progress. The dogma warns that population declines, even slowdowns, and demographic aging will lead to serious financial problems and a bleak future by reducing the labor force, hampering productivity growth, contracting the domestic market base, lessening public finances and increasing social costs for the elderly. 

Concerns about the environment, climate change, poverty, gender gaps, socio-economic inequalities, human rights and peace and security are either ignored or considered best addressed by a growing and youthful population. A growing and youthful population, according to the pro-growth advocates, leads to a robust expanding economy, which in turn ensures social wellbeing, cultural dynamism and political and military strength. 

With sustained rates of below replacement fertility and projections showing future population decline and aging, the governments of many countries, including Austria, China, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Singapore, South Korea and Spain, have population policies to address what they consider to be a looming national crisis (Table 1).

 

Source: United Nations Population Division.

 

Some governments are promoting marriage, childbearing and parenting through public relations campaigns, incentives and preferences. While incentives and family-oriented measures may encourage some couples to have children, those policies are costly and their overall effect on fertility is weak at best. 

The many forces pushing fertility below replacement levels are simply too powerful for governments to overcome. In short, men in power are not able to persuade women to bear more children than they desire.

Most countries experiencing population slowdowns and decline are averse to turning to immigration. While they desire higher rates of population growth, they are opposed to altering the ethnic and cultural composition of their populations through immigration. Recently, for example, Austria’s recently re-elected chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, said that illegal immigrants are as much a threat to his country as climate change. 

Even in countries with a tradition of immigration, such as Australia, Canada and the United States, opposition to additional immigration is increasing, especially from countries having very different cultures. The United States government, for example, has reduced its annual number of immigrants and imposed a travel ban restricting the entry into the country from certain countries. 

Population declines and slowdowns are frequently entangled in political, social, religious and ethnic concerns. Demographic downturns are typically perceived as losses of power, influence and standing by particular groups of individuals. 

In democratic societies population numbers are closely linked to political power, financial assistance, social influence and cultural traditions. Elections and representation in legislative bodies and the distribution of government monies, in particular, are closely tied to population numbers. 

Also increasingly in societies with serious ethnic, language, religious and cultural cleavages, population numbers and proportions are critical matters. The fear among many, especially nativist and far-right groups, is becoming a minority in their own homeland. Their primary demographic concern boils down to tribalism or  “more of us and less of them”. 

In Europe, for example, le grand replacement, or the great replacement, is a proposition originated by French author Renaud Camus that concerns the replacement of one population with another one. In this particular instance, white Christian Europeans in France are seen being replaced by non-white non-Christian immigrants and their descendants. 

The proposition in its various forms has spread among some right-wing groups, in particular white nationalists throughout Europe and in Northern America and beyond. Driven by fear over the loss of white primacy, white nationalists believe that white identity should be the organizing principle of Western society with some calling for white ethno-states.

Tapping into le grand replacement, Hungary’s prime minister, Victor Orbán, at a recent demography summit held in Budapest aimed at promoting policies to encourage procreation not immigration said: “There are political forces in Europe who want a replacement of population for ideological or other reasons.” 

Orbán’s remarks were supported by the former Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, who added that dying populations, not climate change, were the biggest threat to western civilization. Another summit participant, Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vučić said: “Serbian people have one expression for negative population growth: the white plague.”

World population is expected to reach the 8 billion in 2023, 9 billion in 2037 and 10 billion around midcentury. Most of the nearly 2 billion addition to the world’s population over the next three decades will be taking place in the poorer countries of Africa and Asia, 60 and 33 percent of the increase, respectively (Table 2).

 

Source: United Nations Population Division.

 

Recognizing the serious consequences of this expected population growth, growing numbers of people and organizations are rejecting the pro-growth demographic dogma. For example, recently some 11,000 scientists declared unequivocally that the planet Earth is facing a climate emergency and among their six urgently needed actions included: “Stabilize a global human population that is increasing by more than 200,000 people a day, using approaches that ensure social and economic justice.”  

So, be advised: whenever the issue of population comes up, don’t be taken in by the pro-growth demographic dogma. A world soon reaching 8 billion people and an additional 2 billion in a few decades is seriously challenging humanity’s sustainability on planet Earth, which is enduring an array of human-induced calamities, including climate change, environmental degradation, fresh water depletion, deforestation, pollution and loss of biodiversity.

The post Pro-Growth Demographic Dogma appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A protester in the Slovak capital, Bratislava holds up a picture of murdered journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kusnirova. Hundreds of thousands of people took part in protests across the country in the weeks after the killing, eventually forcing the resignation of the Prime Minister and Interior Minister. Credit: Ed Holt/IPS

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Jan 20 2020 (IPS)

As four people appear in court in Slovakia over the murder of journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kusnirova, both 27, the trial is being seen by many as a historic moment for not just press freedom in the country but public faith in its justice system.

Miroslav Marcek, Tomas Szabo, Alena Zsuszova, and Marian Kocner have all been charged with Kuciak’s murder. A fifth person, Zoltan Andrusko, was last year sentenced to 15 years in jail for being an intermediary in the murder after agreeing a plea bargain.

On the first day of the trial last week, Marcek, a 37-year-old former soldier, admitted shooting the pair at Kuciak’s home in Velka Maca, 40 miles east of the Slovak capital Bratislava, in February 2018. Szabo, Zsuszova and Kocner have denied the charges against them.

But it is Kocner, a powerful local businessman with alleged links to organized crime and whom Kuciak had written about, who has become for many the central figure in the trial and a symbol of deep-rooted corruption at the highest levels of the state.

And the outcome of the court case is being seen as a test of not just whether the media will in future be free to hold the wealthy and powerful to account, but also whether the judiciary can do the same now.

Adam Valcek, an investigative reporter with the Slovak daily newspaper Sme, told IPS: “In terms of what this trial means for Slovakia, [what happens now] is absolutely fundamental. This what we journalists have been saying for a long time – that the state had been taken over and was being run by an elite. Also, Kocner was able to control the organs of the state.”

The killings of Kuciak and Kusnirova shocked the nation and prompted the largest mass protests in the country since the fall of communism.

Prime Minister Robert Fico and Interior Minister Robert Kalinak were forced to resign, and the head of the police service later stepped down.

Police said that the murders were related to Kuciak’s work as an investigative journalist – Kuciak’s last story had exposed alleged links between Italian mafia and Fico’s Smer party – and the subsequent investigation uncovered alleged links between politicians, prosecutors, judges, and police officers to the people involved in the killings.

Soon after the murders it also emerged that Kuciak had been threatened by Kocner.

There have been rumours of Kocner’s connection to organized crime for decades and it is alleged that his links to politicians and state officials at the highest levels, including Fico, Prosecutor General Dobroslav Trnka, and other judicial figures, meant that he could act with impunity.

He also allegedly used contacts to obtain information on people which he could then use to blackmail them.

Prosecutors in the Kuciak murder trial have argued that he did the same with the journalist. They said Kocner eventually ordered Kuciak’s killing to stop him reporting on the businessman after he had failed to uncover any information he could use to discredit the journalist.

The trial, which is set to run at least until February, has made international headlines and is being closely followed by press freedom watchdogs and international media groups.

Among the local journalism community, though, some have spoken of both hope and fear over what it could mean for their future work.

“It is alarming,” said Lukas Fila, publisher of the Slovak daily Dennik N.

He told IPS: “Government members, top prosecutors, judges, and police officers were involved in one way or another with the alleged perpetrators of these crimes. Journalists were being spied on by former members of the intelligence services. A former policeman and soldier carried out the murder. We could go on. It is now evident that working as a journalist in Slovakia is not safe.

“On the other hand, the trial provides some hope. We have learned things that we cannot unlearn. If anything can return a feeling of safety, it is only severe punishment for all those involved not only in the murder, but also all the other crimes that have surfaced as a result of the investigations.”

The court hearings are in their early stages and those following them are so far reluctant to speculate on the outcome.

In an editorial just before the start of the trial the Sme daily suggested that Kocner would probably not be found guilty. But some journalists who spoke to IPS said that the proceedings over the initial few days of hearings had led them to believe he may actually be convicted.

Whatever happens, the outcome of the trial will be, one way or another, a watershed in Slovak history.

“This is a fundamental moment which will show whether the country can clearly deal with and punish crimes designed to silence journalists uncovering the truth based on facts and whether journalists can freely do their work without fear for their lives,” one Slovak journalist told IPS.

Underlying the reticence some journalists have speaking openly about the threats to their community, the journalist, who has more than two decades of experience in Slovak media, added: “After a series of scandals and the exposure of links between dubious individuals and judges, prosecutors and police, trust in the judiciary is weak.

“For this reason, this is an equally important trial for the judiciary. We need to know that justice exists in Slovakia, and that the justice system is capable of, and determined to, act against ‘big fish’.”

Others expressed concern about what might happen if Kocner is not found guilty.

Fila said there could be “a real threat to the lives of journalists, police officers, and prosecutors, and a degree of public outrage, which could have enormous political consequences”.

“It remains to be seen which way history will go. It may be remembered as a moment when the country gained new hope, or when frustration rose to previously unseen levels,” he said.

Valcek pointed out, though, that even if Kocner was not convicted, he might not escape punishment for other crimes. He is currently also on trial over alleged forgery of promissory notes and is facing separate allegations of tax fraud.

“Kocner could end up like Al Capone – not convicted of murder, but eventually jailed for economic crimes,” said Valcek.

Related Articles

• Q&A: A New Model for Independent Journalism in Slovakia
• Never Been a Worse Time to be a Journalist
• Getting Away with Murder in Slovakia

The post Slovak Journalist’s Trial a Fundamental Moment to Prove if Country can Punish Crimes Designed to Silence Journalists appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: Mahila Housing Trust

By Bijal Brahmbhatt
AHMEDABAD, India, Jan 17 2020 (IPS)

As global temperatures continue to rise, vulnerable populations around the world are facing increasingly complex climate risks – with ongoing droughts in Zimbabwe and floods devastating Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta.

From flooding and cyclones to heatwaves and droughts, the stresses and shocks inflicted by growing climate extremes are severe. And they cannot be tackled by one-track solutions, especially in resource-poor developing countries.

Instead, players in the global development space should take a more integrated approach when helping strengthen communities most at risk from climate shocks, to ensure that the interrelated challenges they face are addressed in their entirety.

For instance, in developing countries, rural poor families are often drawn to urban areas in search of better prospects, but often end up living in slums in a vicious cycle of perpetual poverty.

As well as putting greater strain on infrastructure, this displacement exposes them to unsanitary conditions – leaving them more vulnerable to illnesses and climate stresses, and often unable to work or improve their circumstances as a result.

So, for resilience-building solutions to be impactful and work for the whole community, either/or solutions will not suffice. Approaches that are either technical or social might be effective in strengthening one aspect of climate resilience – such as building flood defences, or improving access to potable water – but not more complex, interrelated issues.

It is only by integrating both social and technical approaches to resilience-building that more comprehensive, sustainable solutions can be constructed.

Developing a hybrid model is one way to achieve this, which is precisely what India-based Mahila Housing Trust has done with its mission to empower women in poor communities across South Asia to build resilience against increasing climate pressures.

Founded as an autonomous non-profit in 1994, Mahila Housing Trust has evolved into an agile social enterprise – aided in recent years by mentoring and support from the Global Resilience Partnership.

Using a combined social-technical approach to development, Mahila Housing Trust bridges the gap between poor women within high-risk contexts and mainstream institutions.

Through this hybrid model, it helps women improve their living conditions, build resilience against climate stresses and develop the leadership skills, knowledge and confidence necessary to participate in local governance.

Meanwhile, it ensures its commercial viability by training women to become agents of resilience solutions – from green energy and heat-mitigating technologies, to health interventions such as improved access to drinking water and better sanitation facilities.

The not-for-profit side of Mahila Housing Trust delivers back-end support to its empowerment and resilience-building programmes, while the enterprise side ensures the organisation and its beneficiaries are able to generate funding and income.

This hybrid model has also enabled Mahila Housing Trust to launch “Awaas Sewa” – a social enterprise dedicated to the development and implementation of innovative climate-resilient technologies.

The enterprise identifies, pilots, rates and validates new solutions, then teaches women leaders how to market them – building resilience amongst poor communities and generating a turnover at the same time.

Operating across seven cities in India, Nepal and Bangladesh, the enterprise has so far trained more than 1,500 women leaders to become “climate-saathis”, or climate partners.

In these roles, the women have conducted energy audits and helped families in more than 100 informal settlements to invest in energy-saving and climate-resilient solutions – such as heat-resistant modular roofing.

By converting this network into a sustainable enterprise, these women leaders now earn an income through promoting and selling energy-efficient, climate stress-combatting solutions – helping 27,000 others in their communities become more resilient in the process.

Plus, if women in the community need financial support to purchase and install these solutions, Mahila Housing Trust also has women-led credit cooperatives, which provides financing for climate-resilient technologies.

Yet this commercial aspect is only one small component of the organisation’s model; its sustained results so far have only been achieved through building partnerships across all different levels and sectors.

Strengthening the resilience of poor communities requires a bespoke, holistic approach that directly engages people on the ground. Maintaining a focused yet collaborative approach, Mahila Housing Trust works closely with a multidisciplinary team of partners in a united effort to improve the living conditions in poor urban communities.

With the goal of empowering women to improve their circumstances at the very heart of Mahila Housing Trust’s work, its partnerships mean the organisation can develop cross-cutting resilience solutions that address urbanisation, livelihoods and climate resilience all at once.

By adopting such an integrated approach, rather than just strengthening climate or economic resilience, development players can forge wholesale resilience amongst even the most vulnerable communities.

The post Empowering Women in Poor Communities & Building Resilience Against Climate Pressure appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Bijal Brahmbhatt is Director, Mahila Housing Trust

The post Empowering Women in Poor Communities & Building Resilience Against Climate Pressure appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A company in Pokhara has enlarged household digesters into an industrial scale plant that uses climate-friendly technology that could ultimately be scaled nationwide to reduce Nepal’s balance of trade gap.

By Kunda Dixit
KASKI, Nepal, Jan 17 2020 (IPS)

Nepal’s future may not be in hydropower, as most assume, but actually in the dung heap. A new industrial-scale biogas plant near Pokhara has proved that livestock and farm waste producing flammable methane gas can replace imported LPG and chemical fertiliser.

Over the past 30 years, Nepal has become a world leader in spreading locally-designed household biogas digesters. There are now 300,000 of them, helping reduce deforestation, improving people’s health and lifting women out of drudgery and poverty.

Now, a company in Pokhara has enlarged household digesters into an industrial scale plant that uses climate-friendly technology that could ultimately be scaled nationwide to reduce Nepal’s balance of trade gap.

Biogas has a three-fold advantage. It reduces greenhouse gas emissions, and is therefore climate friendly. It allows us to manage raw waste. And it can slash our import bill for LPG and chemical fertiliser

Kushal Gurung’s grandfather was in the British Army, and he also applied for recruitment but failed the eyesight test. So, he set up Gandaki Urja in Pokhara that works with wind, solar and hydropower, but he believes Nepal’s best option for sustainable growth lies in energy from waste.

“Nepal must abandon fossil fuels, but even among renewable energy sources biogas has a three-fold advantage. It reduces greenhouse gas emissions, and is therefore climate friendly. It allows us to manage raw waste. And it can slash our import bill for LPG and chemical fertiliser,” says Gurung. “It is a win-win-win.”

A tipper truck has just arrived from Gorkha at Gandaki Urja’s biogas plant at Kotre near Pokhara, which with its dome digester looks like a nuclear reactor. The truck tilts its container to empty 5 tons of smelly poultry waste into a pit where rotting vegetables and cow dung from a farm in Syangja are all being mixed before being fed into the 4,000 cubic meter digester that is kept inflated.

In the absence of oxygen, bacteria already in the cow dung go to work to break down the waste into methane, carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulphide. The impurities are removed by filters to produce 200 cylinders of bio-CNG a day which are sold to big hotels and restaurants in Pokhara.

Customers pay a deposit for the cylinders and pressure regulators, and usually use up about two cylinders a day. The cost per kg for the bio-Compressed Natural Gas (bio-CNG) is the same as the state subsidised Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG). However, customers prefer the biogas because it saves them up to 30% cost because it has higher calorific value than LPG, and there is no residue that goes waste.

“So far, the customers are satisfied, and we see demand growing in the future as word spreads,” says Ashim Kayastha, Director of Gandaki Urja.

Half the plant’s revenue comes from bio-CNG and the other half from the effluent which is dried and sold as organic fertiliser. The plant can produce up to 11,000 tons of fertiliser a year and is sold to surrounding farms.

The future of bio-CNG depends on scaling up the technology since any municipality generating more than 40 tons of biodegradable waste per day could have its own biogas plant. Nepal imports 500,000 tons of chemical fertiliser a year, and if each of 100 municipalities produced 5,000 tons of organic fertiliser Nepal could slash its import bill.

This could also significantly reduce the country’s annual import of Rs33 billion worth of LPG from India which grew four-fold in the past 10 years, making up 2.5% of Nepal’s total import bill. But to scale up, industrial biogas needs the same government incentives as hydro, solar and wind power.

At the moment hydropower investors enjoy a 100% corporate tax holiday for 10 years, and 50% for the next five years. There is only 1% tax on imports of equipment for solar, wind and hydropower, there is no such provision for the equipment for industrial scale biogas. Instead, there is a tax on interest, and also VAT on bio-CNG.

 

 

“The government should look at this not only as an energy project, but at its multifaceted benefits,” says Kushal Gurung of Gandaki Urja. “There is a waste-to-energy and fertiliser angle, too. If we want to make Nepal fully organic in the next ten years, projects like these need to be prioritised.”

Gandaki Urja got a boost from an unlikely source, Business Oxygen (BO2) in Kathmandu which helps entrepreneurs running Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to scale up by injecting equity and providing technical assistance.

Says Siddhant Pandey of BO2: “We are always on the lookout for climate investments, and we realised that bio-CNG would be an incredible adaptive resilience investment. It would displace imports of LPG and fertiliser. It was going to be clean, no carbon footprint, and it made business sense because it met our internal return on investment expectation.”

The challenges are ensuring reliable sources of raw material and building knowhow for the technology within Nepal.

Says Pandey: “The Pokhara plant is a drop in the ocean, it can abe replicated in all 7 provinces. We know it is scalable, and it depends how proactive provincial governments will be.”

 

This story was originally published by The Nepali Times

Related Articles

• Solar and Biogas, the Perfect Agroenergy Duo in Brazil
• Biogas Makes Pig Farming More Sustainable in Southern Brazil
• Producing Clean Energy from Pigsties in Brazil

The post BIOGAS: Cow Dung Holds the Key to Nepal’s Green Economy appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: UN Women

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 17 2020 (IPS)

The United States and 18 other UN member states have come under fire for denying a woman’s legitimate right to “bodily autonomy”—the right to self-governance over one’s own body without coercion or external pressure.

The Executive Director of Women’s March Global, Uma Mishra-Newbery, told IPS the United Nations has worked towards progress in fighting for women’s rights.

But many countries on the Human Rights Council continue to negotiate women’s human rights off the table, she pointed out.

In Sept 2019, she said, the world watched as the US, in partnership with 18 other member states, put forth a statement saying there is no international right to abortion.

She said UN member states have also witnessed “the continued and grave human rights violations in Saudi Arabia”, including the continued torture of imprisoned women human rights defenders like Loujain al-Hathloul.

“Yet the UN and member states fail to hold Saudi Arabia truly accountable for its actions. The UN must hold these governments accountable as they work to strip women’s rights away without repercussions”, she declared.

Beside the United States, the 18 countries singled out include Bahrain, Belarus, Brazil, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Guatemala, Haiti, Hungary, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Nigeria, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

The member states who deny women access to safe and legal abortion represent 1.3 billion people, according to Women’s March Global.

As part of a global campaign for women’s reproductive rights, Women’s March Global has called attention to the “dangerous and alarming repeal of women’s rights to bodily autonomy, bringing international attention to these pressing issues.”

The 45 marches—the fourth annual event, with the participation of millions of women and allies – took place in Africa, Canada, Central and South America, Europe and Asia.

Purnima Mane, a former UN Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), told IPS the March on January 18 to protest the inadequate progress and sometimes downright rollback of women’s right to exercise bodily autonomy through the right to abortion, “comes at a critical juncture in our history.”

She said as many as 48 of the 58 existing UN countries, signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.

Nonetheless, the UN as a body, has been limited in its work on abortion, due to its exclusion as a right from human rights treaties as a result of significant opposition from many quarters, she added.

“Besides, these treaties are not legally binding and some countries specifically see these issues as covered by domestic law.”

For example, she said, the Programme of Action (PoA) of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), focuses on the obligation of governments to prevent unsafe abortion but does not refer to making abortion legal.

This obligation can of course open the door for national debates on how women’s overall health and bodily autonomy are linked. International human rights treaties which most governments have ratified, support the right of women to liberty and to health.

The UN often provides platforms to learn from examples of countries which have implemented these rights successfully, integrating women’s rights more broadly, including the right to bodily autonomy, said Mane, who is a former President and CEO of Pathfinder International.

Antonia Kirkland, a global lead at Equality Now, told IPS that UN Women, alongside the Mexican and French governments and feminists around the world, have chosen bodily autonomy and sexual and reproductive health rights as one of the Generation Equality Forum’s six Action Coalition themes to in the lead up to Beijing +25.

“This is a good sign that attention and resources are being focused in this direction and can hopefully help counteract moves towards greater restrictions on access to abortion in countries like the USA, as well as forced pregnancy and motherhood in Latin American countries”.

Kirkland said over the past few years, there has been an alarming and sustained rollback on women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights around the world.

Focusing the first women’s rights March of the new decade on bodily autonomy is about shining a much-needed spotlight on the systematic oppression that continues to prevent women and girls from exercising self-governance over their own body and reproductive choices, she noted.

Mane said abortion has, in fact, been available in many countries for years but it is heavily regulated with severe restrictions which make it difficult to access.

Over the last few years, these restrictions have grown rapidly almost globally. Animosity towards contraception complicates the situation even though there is ample evidence to show that preventing unintended pregnancies through access to modern contraception, reduces abortion rates in the first place, she added.

“The combination of restrictions in the practice of legal abortion and poor access to contraception for avoiding unintended pregnancies, lead to an increase in unsafe abortion and high rates of morbidity and mortality among women”, said Mane, who has served on boards of several international, non-profit organizations including as Governor of the Board of Governors, International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Canada.

Mane also pointed out that women’s right to access to contraception is the first and essential step advocated by UNFPA for enhancing women’s health and reproductive rights.

“If women receive the needed education and information, have access to appropriate services and commodities, and benefit from a conducive policy and programme environment, their ability and right to make decisions concerning their own bodies will be enhanced which will benefit their health and well-being”.

She said the UN assists national governments in the process of making all of the above happen through the supportive role they play globally and nationally.

Organizations like UNFPA need all the support and encouragement they can get to do their bit in moving the world towards the goal of ensuring that women are in a position to make decisions concerning their own bodies and ultimately their own lives.”

Kirkland said the United Nations has a vital role to play in the protection of women and girls’ sexual and reproductive health and rights, and this involves working in partnership with member states to ensure that everyone is free to make their own decisions about their body, and is able to easily access family planning support, healthcare services and information.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

The post Women Activists Escalate Demand for “Bodily Autonomy” as 19 Nations Dissent appeared first on Inter Press Service.