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Credit: UN Development Programme (UNDP)

By Stephen Browne
GENEVA, Jan 9 2020 (IPS)

Like his predecessors, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has been pushing a reform program to help the organization adjust to the demands of contemporary global governance.

Over nearly 75 years, the UN has innovated and adapted. At first, humanitarian assistance was not envisaged to go beyond the needs of people displaced by global conflict. Yet that program now disburses nearly $30 billion a year through its largest field agencies, growth that has led to some radical changes in the organization.

The UN’s peacekeeping practices also had to be invented and have since adapted to intrastate conflict and global terrorism. Human rights was initially a verbal aspiration only.

But with the Universal Declaration in 1948, they have been enshrined in many covenants and treaties that have been overseen since 1993 by a high commissioner and a well-staffed office in Geneva.

That leaves the fourth pillar of development, where services, training and research are administered by more than 30 separately managed organizations and a similar number of departments, institutes and commissions.

The development system cries out for reform, but progress is continually frustrated by inertia. This sprawling organizational domain originally comprised the first specialized agencies, some predating the creation of the UN itself, and “brought into relation” with the organization in 1945.

Their parallel, independent existence has defied attempts to bring coherence into the UN’s development work, particularly as the “development system” grew.

More specialized agencies joined the family, and many UN funds and programs were established to respond to newly perceived development challenges, dispersing the UN’s development efforts further.

The UN Development Program (UNDP) was intended to act as principal funder and coordinator of the system. But each agency and organization of the system began to supplement its financial needs by going directly to the UN’s main donor governments, as UNDP became its own separately funded implementing agency. As a funding rival, UNDP could no longer be considered a useful coordinator.

What has emerged is an extensive web of patronage underpinning UN development. Northern countries patronize the UN selectively through their preferred organizations and funding patterns, to align with their own agendas.

Today, four-fifths of funding through the UN development system is earmarked by donors, while core funding has shrunk concomitantly.

Credit: FAO/Xavier Bouan

For their part, the governments of the Global South — and individual ministries in them — have also developed preferential relationships with individual UN organizations. So, whether patrons and patronized, member states see advantages in a disjointed UN system that keeps expanding in response to their demands and lacks a central blueprint.

Consequently, member states are largely satisfied with the status quo and reluctant to support more consolidation and coherence and less wasteful duplication and overlap.

More is better than less, and change is not primarily motivated by cost-effectiveness, which would be required for any organizational reform.

The pervasive patronage system goes a long way in explaining why conservatism prevails in intergovernmental discussions on reform. So why pursue reform if many of the member states are opposed?

The answer is that even if cost-effectiveness does not drive change, the fact remains that the UN could do more with less in the development domain, and it is for the UN organizations themselves to strive to be more valuable for “we, the peoples,” particularly in helping countries to achieve their own 2030 Agenda, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

A high-level panel in 2006 proclaimed the shortcomings of the UN development system as “Ineffective governance . . . policy incoherence, duplication and operational ineffectiveness . . . competition for funding, mission creep and outdated business practices.”

Ten years later, many of the same sentiments were echoed by an independent team of advisers. The latest reforms proposed by Guterres fully acknowledge the problems, but can they be resolved?

Take funding. Unwinding the patronage system will mean first shrinking the preponderance of conditional funding by donor governments. A new “funding compact” has been drawn up that aims to increase core funding from 20 to 30 percent and encourage more pooling of donor resources. It’s a start, although there is not much optimism that even these modest goals will be achieved.

Next, consolidation. The system is too large and unwieldy. The many governing bodies need to acknowledge their common interests and combine their oversight functions, reducing the tendency for the same governments to speak with different voices on different boards.

Again, the prospects for more united governance are not promising. Meanwhile, atomization at the field level has increased, with evermore numbers of representative offices, now over 1,400.

The answer has been to “deliver as one” with closer collaboration within country teams. In the latest reform, the transfer of responsibility for field coordination has been removed from UNDP and given to UN resident coordinators, reporting solely to the deputy secretary-general, Amina Mohammed.

These coordinators will also be given more staff and resources. These are positive steps. However, fewer than half of the developing countries have signed up to the One UN concept, favoring the patronage system.

A larger systemic challenge persists. Each of the main functions of peace operations, human rights, humanitarian relief and development in the UN system are still managed by separate clusters of entities, with separate funding sources and separate lines of vertical communication.

Except for a few crisis-prone countries, these functions are managed in isolation from one another.

So while development is “sustainable,” it does not incorporate considerations of rights inherent in the UN’s own concept of human development. There are humanitarian coordinators in addition to resident coordinators for development. Peace operations are still mainly concerned with mobilizing armed personnel.

Belatedly, there are new attempts at management reform, which is welcome. But here, again, there are flaws, starting with senior appointments. While the current secretary-general was appointed through a more meritocratic process, there has been no departure from the double jeopardy that allows the veto-wielding powers — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — to choose both their own top posts and the incumbents in the UN secretariat.

Management comes from the top, and this second form of UN patronage hurts chances for a more effective UN. Considerations of geography and gender cannot take precedence over the “highest standards of efficiency, competence and integrity” enshrined in the language of the Charter.

“Reform, that you may preserve,” said Thomas Macaulay, the British politician and essayist, nearly 200 years ago. The continued life of the UN, particularly in development, depends on its ability to change.

*The post Can UN Development Be Reformed? Not at This Rate appeared first on PassBlue.

The post Can UN Development Be Reformed? Not at This Rate appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Stephen Browne, PassBlue*

The post Can UN Development Be Reformed? Not at This Rate appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Neena Bhandari
SYDNEY, Australia, Jan 8 2020 (IPS)

As nature’s fury wreaked havoc across Australia, reducing to ashes all that came in its way – people, flora, fauna, picturesque historic towns and villages once popular with local and overseas tourists – it was unlike anything the country had witnessed before. The staggering scale and intensity of the devastation could best be summed up as apocalyptic.

Bushfires, not uncommon in Australia’s vast woodland, scrub or grassland areas, started early in September with summer still few months away (December – February), igniting a fresh debate on the country’s woeful record on climate change. 2019 was the country’s driest and hottest year on record with the temperature reaching 1.52 °C above the long-term average.

With temperatures soaring close to 50 °C, parched land, low humidity, strong winds fuelled the fires that since September have claimed 24 lives, including three volunteer firefighters, and razed more than 6.3 million hectares of land. Thousands have been rendered homeless and there has been a heavy toll on wildlife.

For Diana Plater, a writer, who grew up witnessing bushfires in the regional towns of New South Wales (NSW), the magnitude and persistence of the fires raging this southern summer was unimaginable. Two years ago, she trained to be a volunteer firefighter to help her small community in the scenic valley of Foxground, two-hour drive south of Sydney.

The NSW Rural Fire Service is one of the world’s largest volunteer-based emergency services with over 70,000 men and women volunteers, who have played a crucial role in helping affected communities. Plater told IPS, “I believe it is important to be physically and mentally strong and practical and you learn this as a firefighter. It is exhausting but the camaraderie and humour we share keeps us going.”

Scientists and environmentalists have been warning that global warming will increase the intensity and duration of fires and floods, mounting pressure on Australia to do more towards cutting greenhouse gas emissions. In 2019, 61 percent of Australians said “global warming is a serious and pressing problem”, about which “we should begin taking steps now even if this involves significant costs”. This is a 25-point increase since 2012, according to the 2019 Lowy Institute poll findings on climate change.

Australia has set a target to cut emissions by 26 percent of 2005 levels by 2030. At the 25th United Nations Climate Change Conference in Madrid in December 2019, one of the major sticking points was Australia wanting to use an expired allocation of credits (often referred to as “carryover credits“) – which is an accounting measure where a country counts historical emissions reduction that exceeded old international goals against its current target.

According to Climate Council, Australia’s leading climate change communications organisation, “After successfully negotiating extraordinary low targets under the Kyoto Protocol (Australia’s 2020 target – 5 percent below 2000 levels), the Australian Government is planning to use these expired allocations from an entirely different agreement to undermine the Paris Agreement as well. The Australian Government’s use of disingenuous and dodgy accounting tricks to meet its woefully inadequate 2030 climate target is irresponsible because it masks genuine climate action”.

• Australia has one of the highest per capita emissions of carbon dioxide in the world. It contributes 1.3 percent to global emissions with a relatively small population of about 25 million people.
• Australia is also the world’s largest exporter of metallurgical coal, accounting for 17 percent of world production in 2018, and is the world’s second-largest thermal coal exporter, exporting 210 million tonnes in 2018-19 valued at AUD 26 million.

Environmental groups argue that it is feasible for Australia to move to a low carbon economy and the country has huge potential for solar power and wind energy.

Former Australian Greens Party leader and veteran environmental activist, Bob Brown told IPS, “We need leadership in a global climate crisis, beginning with no more coal mines or gas or oil wells, but transferring to renewable energy. This is the sunny country and we have fantastic solar technology. We have the ability to become world leaders in both the technology and its application and the export of that application to countries like India.”

The economic impact of the Australian bushfire crisis will be huge as so many properties have perished in the fires. “The insurance claims will be enormous, but so too will be the permanent climate change-related rise in insurance premiums going forward. The destruction and disruption of businesses in regional NSW and Victoria is ongoing for many months, again this cost is huge, but unquantifiable,” Tim Buckley, Director of Energy Finance Studies at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), told IPS.

The fires have been devastating for livestock, wildlife and their habitat. World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Australia’s Senior Manager Land Clearing and Restoration, Dr Stuart Blanch told IPS, “Until the fires subside the full extent of damage will remain unknown. Many forests will take decades to recover and the fires are worsening Australia’s extinction crisis”.

Professor Chris Dickman from the University of Sydney estimates that 480 million native mammals, birds and reptiles have been affected by fires in NSW alone since September 2019. This includes the death of thousands of koalas, along with other iconic species such as kangaroos, wallabies, gliders, kookaburras, cockatoos and honeyeaters.

• The koala, an arboreal mammal endemic only to Australia, is highly susceptible to heat stress and dehydration. Images of burnt koalas being rescued have been heartwrenching.
• Deborah Tabart, chairman of the Australian Koala Foundation, had warned in May 2019 that the marsupial was “functionally extinct”.
• “We now stand even more firmly on that position. The heat, no water in river systems (which are so important to a healthy koala habitat), drought, mis-management of water and unsustainable use of the environment are all key players in this catastrophe. Bushfires have decimated koala’s natural habitat. We immediately need a Koala Protection Act,” she told IPS.

The acrid bushfire smoke blanketing cities and towns has exposed people to very high levels of air pollution over extended time periods.

Bruce Thompson, Dean of the School of Health Sciences at Swinburne University said, “The smoke generated by the current bush fires is a very serious health issue especially for those with respiratory conditions such as Asthma, Emphysema, Bronchitis and even upper respiratory conditions such as laryngitis. The central issue is not only the large particles that are inhaled but more importantly the very fine particles that are less than 2.5microns (pm2.5). These particles cause inflammation and get inhaled very deep into the lungs causing the lung to become inflamed. They also can cross over from the lung into the bloodstream and cause inflammation in areas such as the heart.”

• The bushfires have also impacted drinking water catchments. Professor Stuart Khan, Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering at the University of New South Wales said, “While rainfall is desperately needed to help extinguish fires and alleviate the drought, contaminated runoff to waterways will present a new wave of challenges regarding risks to drinking water quality.
• “Bushfire ash is largely composed or organic carbon, which will biodegrade in waterways, potentially leading to reduced oxygen concentrations and poor water quality. Ash also contains concentrated nutrients including nitrogen and phosphorous, which may stimulate the growth of algae and cyanobacteria in waterways”.

At the time of press more than 100 fires were still raging in south-eastern Australia.

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Credit: Annabelle Avril - Women in Europe for a Common Future (WECF)

By Patricia Bohland
MADRID, Spain, Jan 8 2020 (IPS)

After nearly two weeks of negotiations at COP 25 climate negotiations in Madrid last month (2-13 December), governments will be adopting a new 5-year Gender Action Plan (GAP) that progressively builds upon the first GAP, and works to address many of the concerns raised by women and gender groups at the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), including calls for greater focus on implementation and scaling up gender-just climate solutions.

The GAP has been unanimously agreed to by governments who are called to lead or contribute to actions to promote gender-equality in the UNFCCC process as well as support all activities. Crucially, this GAP takes into account human rights, ensuring a just transition, and the challenges Indigenous Peoples face while fighting for climate justice and protecting their communities.

“In comparison to the initial GAP, new activities provide the opportunity to meaningfully shift towards capacity building and enhanced implementation of gender-responsive climate action at all levels, including for example, the promotion of gender-responsive technology solutions and preserving local, indigenous and traditional knowledge and practices in different sectors” said Ndivile Mokoena, GenderCC – Women for Climate Justice Southern Africa.

The negotiations were not easy, with Parties failing to deliver a text for the closing of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) as expected, and the COP25 Presidency having to host high-level consultations in the final week to come to a consensus.

Delays in negotiations included initial process challenges to arrive at a basis for negotiating text, followed by disagreement on inclusion of previously agreed language on human rights and just transition, as well as over references to finance and means of implementation.

“While it was frustrating to witness delays in the negotiations, particularly challenges to agreed language on rights, the fact that we have achieved and adopted a 5 year gender action plan that includes many of the key demands of Parties as well as views of women and gender groups goes to show the critical importance to which countries have started to understand and value gender equality in climate action.”

“I think the political will shown by negotiators under this agenda to negotiate towards consensus and achieve a robust outcome could and should be modeled under all other items in this process. In particular, I want to highlight the incredibly strong leadership of the Government of Mexico in facilitating Parties to come to this agreement. It was inspiring to witness!” said Bridget Burns, WEDO, United States.

Political will was also built through the effective mobilization efforts of both the Women and Gender Constituency and other civil society allies who refused to see this COP stall progress on gender equality.

“Mobilization efforts via social media, letters to Ministers, including protests by civil society movements were critical to raising political awareness on GAP,” said Kavita Naidu, Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD), Thailand.

However, there are concerns that the Gender Action Plan lacks clearly defined indicators and targets for measuring its progress, such as a progressive target on advancing women’s leadership in the process.

Credit: Annabelle Avril/ WECF

“While the GAP acknowledges intersectional identities that women hold, including indigenous women and women with disabilities, more work needs to be done to understand the multidimensional and non-binary social intersections that impact the ways in which people mitigate to and build resilience to climate impacts.”

“The adoption of the enhanced GAP does not mean our work is done. We will need to focus our work now at the national level to ensure the implementation of the GAP, as well as monitoring its implementation,” Nanna Birk, LIFE Education Sustainability Equality, Germany.

While Women and Gender Constituency applauds this outcome, it fully recognizes and maintains that no real action on gender equality can be achieved without progress from Parties to fully implement the Paris Agreement, including to limiting warming to 1.5 degrees.

“We know we are far from that reality. The GAP is a tool to advance progress on both gender equality and effective climate solutions, but gender equality does not live in the GAP. It is realized through just and bold climate action. We remain appalled by the lack of progress overall in these negotiations and move forward boldly to lift up women’s rights and the voices of women and gender advocates everywhere as we know that real climate action can only be achieved when these voices and leadership are centered and heeded.” added Burns.

Read the agreed outcome of the gender agenda item here.

The Women and Gender Constituency (WGC) is one of the nine stakeholder groups of the UNFCCC. Established in 2009, the WGC now consists of 29 women’s and environmental civil society organizations, who are working to ensure that women’s voices and their rights are embedded in all processes and results of the UNFCCC framework, for a sustainable and just future, so that gender equality and women’s human rights are central to the ongoing discussions.

http://womengenderclimate.org

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Courtesy: ESCAP

By Mia Mikic and James Gregory Gallagher
BANGKOK, Thailand, Jan 7 2020 (IPS)

Imagine going through the day without consuming or using some product, service, data, technology, personal contact, or payment which has not – at least in some part – crossed one or more national borders before reaching you.

We live in a globalized world where connections across borders are no longer just between governments or businesses but increasingly person to person. Many of us would have a hard time to adjust to life without these benefits from globalization.

Globalization, described as the spread of products, services, technology, information, and jobs across national borders, is often understood as the deepened interdependence of economies, cultures, and people.

The pace of globalization has been primarily driven by technological progress intertwined with the steady reduction of costs in international transactions coming from the policy side.

Mia Mikic

Fragmentation enabled the spread of production through global value chains integrating many developing countries into the global economy. Millions of new trade-related jobs were created in countries such as China, Viet Nam, and other South-East Asian economies with increased productivity, incomes, and reduced poverty [APTIR, 2015]. Women have especially benefited from the expansion of global value chains (GVCs) into developing countries.

But there is the other side to this story. The benefits of globalization have not been shared widely or equitably. While workers producing smartphones, cars, or other GVC products in a few developing countries were gaining, their gains were relatively less than high-skilled or capital owners locally and overseas.

Offshoring production has meant a loss of mostly lower-skilled jobs in the advanced economies. These changes gave rise to a denouncement of globalization in both developed and developing countries. The high-speed growth of GVCs in the late 1990s and early 2000s, might have contributed to a degradation of the environment and overuse of resources.

The spread of resentment against globalization was recognized in several economies through populist policies focusing on short-term gains for those assumed to be hurt by globalization. Such policies go directly against the rationale for having a global governance of trade.

James Gregory Gallagher

Unilateralism advances national interest at the expense of other countries and invites similar retaliatory policies and ultimately trade wars. ESCAP has estimated that the imposed tariffs could cause GDP losses of at least $400 billion worldwide (almost a loss of Thailand’s GDP) and $117 billion in Asia and the Pacific (100 million workers being paid a minimum monthly wage of $100 for a year).

Yet the loss is potentially much more significant. Trade tensions have spread from bilateral tit-for-tat tariffs, into the multilateral arena threatening the functioning of the global trade governance under the WTO. This system is not flawless and the calls for reform are justified. But that should not mean destruction before fixing it.

The global trade regime functions as a public good which is necessary to enable trade for delivering sustainable development. As demonstrated by ESCAP work, there are direct and indirect links between trade and the attainment of sustainable development. The channels are the following.

1. Trade facilitation and in particular digital trade facilitation reduces the cost of trade (by about 25%) and make its benefits accessible to many more, in particular women and SMEs.
2. Services are increasingly important for employment and value creation. They are closely linked to the process of digitalization of economies. The use of digital frontier technologies will allow for a new phase of globalization, unleashing the ability of professional services to be remotely provided across the globe. Asia’s advantage in offering varied professional services through digital technology are clear and would contribute to all three dimensions of sustainable development (prosperity, inclusivity, and environmental responsibility). Moreover, digitalization will offer more opportunities to countries and groups still excluded to participate in global markets.
3. As shown in APTIR 2019, the amount of NTMs has been increasing. The trade costs that come from NTMs are estimated to be more than double that of ordinary customs tariffs, with the economic costs of SPS and TBT measures estimated being up to 1.6% of global GDP, amounting to $1.4 trillion and the average trade costs of the Asia-Pacific region from NTMs is 15.3%. Yet NTMs often serve as a tool for the delivery of crucial public policies, such as the protection of human, animal, and plant health and protection of the environment. Can we keep NTMs but make them cheaper to use? Yes! By adopting new digital technologies and adjusting policies so that NTMs are aligned with international standards.

For these channels to remain open, there must be a functioning system of rules based on transparency, stability, predictability, and fairness. By working together, governments can improve the current WTO regime.

The opportunity comes up with the 12th Ministerial Conference in 2020 in Kazakhstan, and the ESCAP secretariat is already working with the Governments and other stakeholders towards ensuring that trade remains an effective means of implementation for sustainable development.

The post Let’s Give Trade a Chance appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Mia Mikic is Director, Trade, Investment and Innovation Division in ESCAP & James Gregory Gallagher is an Intern, Trade, Investment and Innovation Division

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By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 7 2020 (IPS)

The latest November 2019 UBS/PwC Billionaires Report counted 2,101 billionaires globally, or 589 more than five years before. Earlier, Farhad Manjoo had seriously recommended, ‘Abolish Billionaires’, presenting a moral case against the super-rich as they have and get far, far more than what they might reasonably claim to deserve.

Anis Chowdhury

Manjoo also argues that unless billionaires’ economic and political power is cut, and their legitimacy cast in doubt, they will continue to abuse power to further augment their fortunes and influence, in ways detrimental to the economic, social and public good.

Benign billionaires?
In defence of billionaires, Josef Stadler, head of ultra-high net worth at UBS Global Wealth Management, argued that their wealth “has also translated into their philanthropy, as billionaires seek new ways to engineer far-reaching environmental and social change.”

Philanthropic ethics expert Chiara Cordelli notes that philanthropy and donations have diverted social responsibility from governments, and created other problems by bypassing democratic political processes and accountability. “The philanthropist should not get to decide – in virtue of her or his disproportionate influence – which world we should live in”.

An ostensibly benign ‘billionaire effect’ cannot offset the adverse impacts of billionaires’ wealth accumulation, tax avoidance and abuse of power to corrupt political processes and policy making. Rather, ‘every billionaire should be regarded as a policy failure’. To create fairer societies, we need to end extreme wealth concentration and its problematic consequences.

Dubious sources
Robert Reich has shown that a significant share of billionaires’ wealth is undeserved and does not bear any reasonable connection to their ability, intelligence or contribution, as expected in a society supposedly based on meritocracy and fair competition.

Oxfam estimates that about a third of billionaire wealth is inherited. There is no real economic case for inherited wealth as it undermines social mobility, economic progress and meritocracy, the main basis of legitimation in modern society.

Other work finds that about 43 per cent of billionaire wealth comes from crony connections to governments and monopolies, e.g., when billionaires use such connections and corruption to secure government concessions and contracts.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

In developing countries, this share was even higher, 56 per cent, according to a 2015 Oxfam study. The Economist’s crony capitalism index also suggests that corruption and crony connections to governments are behind much billionaire wealth.

Another source of billionaire wealth is abuse of monopoly privileges granted by patent laws. While intellectual property has been justified as necessary for innovation, recent research, summarized by the The Economist, disputes the supposed link between patent rights and innovation, and deems the patent system a dysfunctional way to reward innovation or new ideas.

Since the 1980s, patent rights have been extended well beyond what may be considered necessary to incentivize innovation. For Richard Posner, a respected US judge, “such extensions offer almost no incentive for creating additional intellectual property”.

Insider trading – taking advantage of privileged information not yet made public – has been significantly abused for ‘unfair’ advantage in markets. The New York Times has found, “Some of the most prominent cases of illegal insider dealings have involved very wealthy people”.

Growing wealth concentration
A large and growing share of the global economy is controlled by a few large transnational corporations (TNCs). Decades of mergers, acquisitions and ineffectual anti-trust legislation have seen market power concentrated despite claims to the contrary.

Such TNCs, cartels, other monopolies and oligopolies extract lucrative rents, enabling them to secure super-profits, accelerating wealth accumulation and concentration at the expense of petty producers, workers and consumers.

The way wealth is used by the super-rich confirms their own ‘social disutility’. They accumulate more quickly by paying as little tax as possible, making good use of tax advisers and havens. A study found that the super-rich pay as much as 30% less tax than they should, denying governments billions in lost tax revenue.

The extremely wealthy also get the best investment and tax evasion advice, enabling billionaire wealth to increase by an average of 11% annually since 2009, far more than average investors and ordinary savers get.

‘Dark money’ corrupts societies
The secretive Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP), representing over 20,000 wealth managers, has successfully lobbied many governments to reduce taxes on the richest. STEP has spent billions to ‘buy’ legal impunity, politicians and the media to lower taxes on its clientele. Such lobbying has accelerated wealth concentration and accumulation.

Such ‘dark’ money is used to influence elections and public policy the world over. An Oxfam study has shown how politicians have been ‘bought’ by Latin America’s super-rich, e.g., with substantial financial backing for ethno-populist, racist and religiously intolerant leaders.

Over a century ago, monopoly power was seen as a major threat to the US economy and society. Anti-trust legislation and action, especially by President Theodore Roosevelt, broke up cartels and monopolies. Years later, his cousin, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt warned, “government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organised mob”.

Neoliberalism “oversold”
However, in recent decades, neoliberal economists have taken a much more benign view of oligopolies and monopolies, distinguishing them from classical liberal economists committed to market competition.

Conversely, insisting on competition in small developing economies has effectively prevented domestic firms from becoming internationally competitive by building on economies of scale and scope.

Significantly, even the International Monetary Fund, which imposed neoliberal policies for nearly four decades as a condition for credit support, now accepts that neoliberalism was “oversold”, while the World Bank acknowledges disappointing growth after neoliberal reform.

Deregulation, liberalization, privatization and globalization have strengthened the market power of corporations, reduced the progressivity of tax systems, reduced public provisioning, increased the frequency and intensity of financial crises, and slowed growth and development.

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A study of Yazidi survivors found that some were negatively affected by their experiences with journalists, expert Sherizaan Minwalla said. Credit: UNFPA/Khetam Malkawi

By External Source
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 7 2020 (IPS)

Sexual and gender-based violence terrorizes women and girls around the world, affecting as many as one in three women. Reporters play an essential role in bringing these cases to light so that authorities can take action and prevent further abuses. Yet reporting on gender-based violence comes with serious risks to survivors.

When journalists tell these stories carelessly, or without proper training, they can leave survivors feeling exploited or exposed to stigma and retaliation.

When members of the Yazidi community faced targeted sexual violence and enslavement by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS or Da’esh), news reports sparked urgent action by the international community.

Some women hoped sharing their stories would help bring justice. But others felt the reporting itself caused harm, said Sherizaan Minwalla, a legal expert who has studied the issue.

“We explored how Yazidi women themselves felt about the ways in which journalists gathered and reported on their stories,” she explained.

“Overall, a majority of our respondents described experiences with, or perceptions about, reporters that suggested a patterned breach in ethics among journalists, who appeared to disregard the extent to which the reporting of the story might negatively impact highly traumatized survivors, with further harm to women’s individual and collective well-being.”

Dr. Nagham Nawzat specializes in providing care to Yazidi survivors in Iraq. Interviews with health professionals, counsellors and the community can help reporters show the wider impact of sexual and gender-based violence. Credit: UNFPAIraq/Turchenkova

But new initiatives are aiming to help journalists navigate the dangers of this important reporting. UNFPA and the Rutgers University Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL) are partnering to help provide resources and guidance to reporters, among other efforts.

“Journalism constitutes one of the few available avenues for [survivors’] stories to be heard,” said Jafar Irshaidat, a UNFPA communications specialist in Jordan. “Unfortunately, journalists can inadvertently become part of the problem.”

Irshaidat has led trainings for journalists that both encourage the coverage of gender-based violence and caution reporters about the potential to cause harm. These seminars use videos and guided discussions to explore issues of consent, protection, re-traumatization and myths about victims of violence.

“This training was truly eye-opening. I was never really exposed to information on gender-based violence and the sensitivities of reporting on it,” said Bushra Nairoukh, a reporter in Jordan. “I feel more responsible as a journalist now that I have been introduced to this important subject.”

UNFPA has also worked with humanitarian partners to create media guidelines and a Syria-specific handbook for journalists. UNFPA offices in Yemen, Syria and elsewhere have also conducted media workshops on these issues.

These efforts are already making a difference. Since 2014, more than 500 journalists have attended the UNFPA trainings held in Jordan, and some 1,500 have been reached through related messages.

“I learned a lot about the potential consequences of reporting and how to carefully phrase my writing to ensure that I am not harming those I’m trying to help, particularly vulnerable women and girls,” said Fatma Ramadan, from Egypt.

Krishanti Dharmaraj, the Executive Director of CWGL, and Dr. Natalia Kanem, Executive Director of UNFPA, at the partnership signing. Credit: UNFPA/Malene Arboe-Rasmussen

CWGL, the founder of the global 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence campaign, has been working in parallel to create a handbook, website and app to help journalists address these issues.

In 2018, CWGL and UNFPA jointly held consultations with dozens of journalists in Amman to understand their challenges and needs. The information gathered will help inform CWGL’s handbook and other resources under development.

Many journalists have indicated that trainings should reach further into the newsroom, as well. “Journalists complain that, in many cases, their stories are dropped at the editor’s table, stressing the need to target editors in any awareness efforts,” Irshaidat said.

At the same time, he added, journalism offers opportunities for creative thinking and problem solving. Reporters can be encouraged to find novel ways to report on gender-based violence without relying on invasive personal interviews, such as “more explorative features that examine the wider social ramifications of gender-based violence and male dominance,” he said.

On 19 December, UNFPA and CWGL officially partnered together to work towards eliminated gender-based violence. The partnership will include efforts to reach, inform and empower journalists – who can then help change global perceptions about violence and gender norms.

“We are looking at our work around the journalist initiative and shifting the discourse on how [gender-based violence] is reported in the media,” said Krishanti Dharmaraj, the Executive Director of CWGL, at the partnership signing in New York.

“This alliance is going to pick up the pace,” said UNFPA Executive Director Dr. Natalia Kanem. “It is going to accelerate action.”

This was originally published by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA).

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Credit: United Nations

By Alexey Kravchenko
BANGKOK, Thailand, Jan 6 2020 (IPS)

Currently, approximately 300 million tons of oil-based plastic waste are produced every year. A significant amount of plastic waste ends up in the oceans, having a detrimental effect on marine ecosystems and coastal communities. Most of this waste originates from the Asia-Pacific region.

If unaddressed, by 2050 there could be more plastic than fish in the oceans.

Recognizing the problem, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development addresses plastic pollution in the ocean. It is widely acknowledged that regulating single-use plastics and microplastics is a major component in achieving this target.

An increasing number of countries in the Asia-Pacific region and across the world are now introducing regulations addressing consumption, production and trade in single-use plastics and plastic waste.

Perhaps the most stringent recent example of addressing single-use plastics is in Kenya, where, since August 2017, producing, selling or even using plastic bags can result in four years in prison or a fine of up to $40,000.

Prior to the ban, plastics were ubiquitous on the streets, and 3 out of 10 animals in abattoirs were found to have plastics in their stomachs.

Alexey Kravchenko

Eight months after, the number has gone down to 1 in 10, and the streets are much cleaner. This, however, came at a significant cost – it was estimated that up to 60,000 jobs were lost as a result – Kenya was a major plastic producer and exporter.

Highlighting the need for regional cooperation, illegal imports from neighbouring countries began to emerge, and the Government of Kenya is urging its neighbours to institute similar bans.

While many developed countries remain better at ensuring that plastics and other waste do not end up in waterways through adequate refuse collection mechanisms and littering fines, recycling remains an issue. This was seemingly addressed through exporting waste plastic for recycling to other countries, most significantly to China.

Since 1992, China imported almost half of the world’s plastic waste for recycling.

However, recognizing the negative effect these imports were having on its environment and air quality, in 2018, the Government of China banned the importation of plastic waste.

Over the coming decades, as much as 111 million tons of plastic will have to find a new place to be processed or otherwise disposed of as a result of China’s ban.

The ban led exporters to seek other markets, and exports of plastic waste to other countries in the region, such as India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have skyrocketed.

Expectedly, this resulted in deteriorating environmental situations in the recipient countries and generated backlash: following China’s example, both Malaysia and Thailand have since banned the import of plastic waste.

Recognizing the damaging effect of trade in plastic waste, on 11 May 2019, a total of 180 Governments adopted an amendment to the Basel Convention to include plastic waste in a legally-binding framework that will make global trade in plastic waste more transparent and better regulated, while also ensuring that its management is safer for human health and the environment.

According to this Agreement, exporting countries will now have to obtain consent from countries receiving contaminated, mixed or unrecyclable plastic waste.

Such trade regulations are commonly referred to as non-tariff measures (NTMs) – policy measures other than tariffs that can potentially have an economic effect on international trade in goods.

During the past two decades, while applied tariffs in the Asia-Pacific region have been halved, the number of NTMs has risen significantly. NTMs often serve legitimate and important public policy objectives, but their trade costs are estimated to be more than double that of ordinary customs tariffs.

As such, they have become a key concern for traders as well as for trade policymakers aiming to ensure that trade can continue to support sustainable development.

This year’s Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Report by ESCAP and UNCTAD provides an overview of NTM trends and developments in Asia and the Pacific. It explores how NTMs relate to the Sustainable Development Goals and points to the importance of aligning NTMs with international standards as one way to bring down trade costs of NTMs, as well as of strengthening regional cooperation and streamlining and digitalizing compliance procedures.

The post Not all Trade is Good – the Case of Plastics Waste appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Alexey Kravchenko is Associate Economic Affairs Officer, Trade, Investment and Innovation Division at the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)

The post Not all Trade is Good – the Case of Plastics Waste appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: Foreign Policy

By Nadia Kanji
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 6 2020 (IPS)

“Fire bullets at the traitors of the country,” chanted mobs of Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, supporters wrapped in Indian flags in Delhi last week.

It’s been less than a month since protests emerged against the BJP’s Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), a new law to redefine and restrict who is considered an Indian citizen. In a violent crackdown, 27 peaceful protesters have been killed and police have detained 1500 others. BJP vigilante mobs continue to threaten and beat people protesting this controversial bill.

The CAA became law on December 11th, 2019 to provide a path to citizenship for minorities that fled from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan prior to 2014, but its most controversial point is that it specifically excludes Muslims. Critics call it discriminatory and say it threatens the secular nature of India’s constitution by trying to establish a Hindu religious state, or a “Hindu Rashtra,” akin to other religious states like Saudi Arabia or Israel’s attempt for a Jewish nation state.

In addition to the CAA, the Indian government is also planning to implement a National Register of Citizens, also known as the NRC, across the whole nation by 2021. The most recent NRC was implemented by the Indian government in the state of Assam in 2015 forcing Indians to provide documented proof of their citizenship to be considered Indian citizens. The result was the disenfranchisement of 1.9 million mostly Muslim residents who now risk being sent to illegal detention camps as they do not have what the government considers sufficient documentation or “legacy documents” which must date back to the 1970s. People fear that its extension to the rest of the country will not only affect Muslims who are not safeguarded by the CAA, but also the poorest, unlettered parts of society.

According to Indian historian and executive-director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, Vijay Prashad, the BJP has couched the CAA as a progressive refugee policy which is redundant given that India is already a signatory of the Global Compact for Migration as well as other international treaties on migration and refugees.

“Why not bring these treaties to be ratified by India, why bother to create your own bizarre thing if there’s already an international framework to say that we accept refugees and migration?” he asked rhetorically. “Well it’s because they’ve used the question of migration not for migration itself but to define what is an Indian citizen, which is a very chilling thing because now they are making the claim that Muslims are not citizens in India,” Prashad told IPS News.

Prashad says this is a core part of the BJP’s right-wing ideology. India’s home minister Amit Shah even referred to undocumented Muslim migrants coming from Bangladesh to India as “termites” and “infiltrators” and threatened to throw them into the Bay of Bengal.

India is currently the world’s largest democracy which historically has not used religion as a prerequisite for citizenship. According to Ramya Reddy, human rights lawyer from Georgetown University Law Center, the CAA puts India’s democracy at risk by violating Articles 14 and 21 of the Indian constitution, which deal with equality and liberty.

Protests

Daily protests have been met with extreme violence by the police who have fired stun grenades, smoke bombs, tear gas, and even used live ammunition to shoot and kill protestors. Police have attempted to stop protests by imposing Section 144 of the Penal Code, a draconian law from the British Raj historically used to crush freedom fighters by prohibiting the assembly of more than 4 people. The section of this law, however, is being applied selectively.

“When the radical Hindutva supporters gather, this is not considered an unlawful gathering according to the police because they’re pro-government. The police even escort them,” said Aatir Arshad a Bachelor’s student from Jamia Millia University who’s been involved in recent protests.

Jamia Millia Islamia University, a public college in New Delhi with a majority-Muslim student body, became the center of the protest movement in Delhi after police stormed the university campus, dragged out several students, beat them up and arrested them, including those who were not participating in the demonstrations.

“They rushed into the library, where students were not even protesting, they were just studying for their exams and the police beat them up,” Arshad told IPS News. “That moment was apocalyptic for Jamia Milia Islamia. They also harassed students and then claimed they did nothing.”

Arshad adds that police also entered the mosque on the university campus, beat up the Imam, as well as the guards of the university. Protests are still going on because of the events from that day.

Ahla Khan, an alumnus from Jamia Millia and resident of the Jamia Nagar area, explained to IPS News how on the first day of protests her and her sister were just walking to Jamia University when they got caught in the middle of a confrontation between police and protesters. They ran to the sidewalk and watched as police hit students with batons.

“I was watching a guy standing there, just looking at his phone doing nothing. The police ask him ‘where are you going’ and he doesn’t say anything. And just like that the police start beating him up,” says Khan.

She explains how the protesters have been highly organized and peaceful in Delhi. Many have volunteered to distribute tea in the biting cold weather, organized assemblies and facilitated plays and book readings. Chants and slogans have called for repealing the CAA as well as for Azaadi, or freedom. Police have been more restrained than in Uttar Pradesh (UP) where police violence has been lethal. The Chief Minister of UP called a meeting in late December threatening to seize property of those involved in protests “to compensate damage to public property.”

“In UP police and RSS goons have been barging into people’s houses, hitting them, beating people up, thrashing their entire houses, looting them, TVs and fridges broken,” said Khan.

The government has also made several attempts to prevent media outlets from covering police violence and has blocked the internet is several parts of India where there are massive protests. Internet shutdowns have become commonplace, with the shutdown in Kashmir being the longest ever in a democracy.

International Response

While many protesters are still languishing in jail, the United Nations has voiced concern over the CAA with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric, calling for “restraint and urg[ing] full respect for the rights of freedom of opinion and expression and peaceful assembly.” UN Human Rights Commissioner Michelle Bachelet’s spokesperson stated that the law “would appear to undermine the commitment to equality before the law enshrined in India’s Constitution.”

Despite this, Reddy says that this doesn’t have any enforcement as domestic law always takes precedence over international law. Even though the UN has criticized the CAA, “[changes have] to happen domestically or with pressure,” she said. And right now, no other major international powers like the UK, the US, and Canada have come out against this because they’re strong allies [of India],” Reddy told IPS News.

In fact, on a recent visit to Washington, D.C. India’s External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar cancelled a meeting with the House Foreign Affairs Committee after the other members of Congress refused to exclude Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), a critic of the CAA, NRC, and India’s actions in Kashmir.

South Asian students in the United States are expressing their dismay with the Indian government by launching a campaign demanding their House of Representatives “express their disapproval through targeted sanctions against Modi government officials until both laws are repealed.” So far, the letter has been signed by the Yale South Asian Society, Harvard College U.S.-India Initiative, Columbia University South Asian Organization, University of Pennsylvania South Asia Society Board, Cornell University South Asian Law Students Association, Brown University South Asian Students Association and Dartmouth University Muslim Students Association Al-Nur, and many other student groups.

Democratic Deficit

Implementing a nationwide National Register of Citizens will cause massive economic disruption, according to a recent report by the Wire. The article states that the NRC in the state of Assam alone, which makes up just 3% of the population, “took almost a decade, required the involvement of over 50,000 government employees and cost more than Rs. 1,200 crore,” or just over 168 million US dollars. While the Indian development dream is flailing with its ranking in hunger slipping annually and unemployment rising, the implications of implementing these exclusionary laws go beyond the marginalization of Muslims to also draining resources from some of the world’s poorest residents.

“This is not about a policy you can really implement,” said Prashad. “You can’t actually, practically expatriate 200 million Muslims.” Prashad also pointed out in his recent article that India’s Muslims form the eighth-largest country in the world.

The point, he adds, is that “this is a marker saying we are redefining citizenship and emboldening the hard-right and mobs on the street to make it clear to Muslims that they are not welcome here and that India is a Hindu country,” Prashad told IPS.

Despite the hard attempt by the government quell any resistance to the CAA, protests have been occurring daily with Muslims, Dalits, Buddhists, Christians, Sikhs, farmers, lawyers, workers, writers, and journalists joining together to prevent what could leave millions stateless in “the largest disenfranchisement in human history.”

When asking Aatir Ashad, who’s been protesting daily, about his experience he tells IPS News that whenever there’s a call for a protest, the police just close all of the metro stations so that no one can reach the protest site.

“Great democratic country we’re living in,” he says sarcastically, distressingly, as he prepares for another day of joining the protests.

The post India’s Citizenship Law Triggered by Rising Right-Wing Ideology appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Protesters demonstrate against direction taken by climate change talks. Credit: Ana Libisch/IPS

By Farhana Haque Rahman
ROME, Jan 6 2020 (IPS)

Let’s face what lies ahead with open eyes: 2020 is going to be a very tough year for the world, and developing countries in particular. The infant decade has already begun with the harbingers of climate disaster as thousands fled to beaches in Australia from raging bush fires, and the Middle East braced for more conflict after a U.S. air strike in Baghdad killed Iran’s top general.

But even as the world needs a concerted and decisive response to its challenges, we risk more of the backsliding and indifference towards humanity that in 2019 characterised the behaviour of many powerful governments, from Australia to the United States, from Brazil to China.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has cited wars, the climate crisis, gender-based violence and persistent inequality in warning that the world is well behind meeting the deadlines of its 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The 2019 SDG report showed momentum for positive change, but also identified several areas that need urgent collective action: the climate crisis, human suffering, quality education, and gender discrimination.

Many countries and stakeholders have indeed responded with pledges of “SDG Acceleration Actions”. But we need to be brutally honest about the gulf between past promises and action.

Warning that the world will still have 500 million people in extreme poverty in 2030, Mr. Guterres has called for this to be a Decade of Action. But he surely didn’t envisage what President Donald Trump had in mind with the drone strike he ordered that killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad on January 3. Iran quickly pledged “tough revenge” and “World War III” was trending on Twitter.

Even without further conflict in the region, the proxy war fought in Yemen between Iran and Saudi Arabia is expected by the UN to continue as “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis” in 2020 after nearly five years of fighting. An estimated 24 million people, or 80 per cent of Yemen’s population, will remain in need of aid.

Worldwide 168 million people will need humanitarian aid and protection in crises across more than 50 countries in 2020, according to the UN’s emergency relief coordinator. The UN humanitarian affairs coordination office (OCHA) launched its Global Humanitarian Overview 2020 with an appeal for nearly $29 billion in aid from donors. “It is the highest figure in decades,” Mark Lowcock, head of OCHA, said, blaming climatic shocks, large infectious disease outbreaks and intensifying, protracted conflicts for an increase of some 22 million people in need last year.

Armed conflicts are already killing and maiming a record number of children, with women and girls at higher risk of sexual and gender-based violence than before.

The UN Children’s Fund UNICEF has called for $4.2 billion for its 2020 emergency appeal to reach 59 million children with life-saving support in 64 countries. This is more than triple the funds requested in 2010.

“Around the world today, we’re seeing the largest number of children in need of emergency assistance since we began record-keeping. One in four children lives in a country affected by conflict or disaster,” said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore.

UN risk assessments were blown off course by worse than expected climate crisis-related events, such as drought, flooding and tropical cyclones.

But the world’s efforts to deal with the climate emergency have been dealt a most severe blow by the policies of Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro.

Deforestation of the Amazon, the world’s largest tropical rainforest, soared in 2019 to levels not seen in a decade. Protected areas have been opened to mining and agricultural conversion, and murders of environmentalists have increased. Commenting on the global picture, Rhett Butler, founder of the Mongabay non-profit environment website, says: “After a decade of increased deforestation, broken commitments, and hundreds of murders of rainforest defenders, the 2020s open as a dark moment for the world’s rainforests.”

Farhana Haque Rahman

Agronomists such as Carlos Nobre and Thomas Lovejoy warn that the Amazon is reaching a critical tipping point as it shows signs of shifting from humid tropical forest towards degraded wooded savanna which would result in releasing massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. It is urgent that Brazil move away from unsustainable agribusiness monocultures of cattle, soy and sugarcane, and launch a major reforestation project on already degraded lands.

But Mr Bolsonaro is also joined by Mr Trump, who will seek re-election this year, in abandoning climate leadership and damaging global conservation efforts.

The latest mantra for climate scientists and UN envoys seeking to broker global agreements is that “2020 is the last best chance” to turn the tide of the climate emergency. Under the 2015 Paris Agreement countries pledged to review and, hopefully, ramp up their efforts to cut greenhouse gases by this year, meaning that a lot of effort is needed ahead of the crucial UN climate conference, COP26, to be held in Glasgow in November.

As noted by climate news site Carbon Brief, with key emitters such as the US, Australia and Brazil hostile towards international climate action, a lot now hangs on China and the EU acting as one to maintain the Paris Agreement’s momentum.

But China, along with Brazil and India, have been called out by the Association of Small Island States as actively blocking ambitious outcomes in discussions on carbon credit discussions.

Last month’s COP (Conference of the Parties) in Madrid was widely viewed by climate activists as a flop.

Protestors outside the conference hall, including Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, demonstrated the yawning gulf between their aspirations and those inside of procrastinating governments.

The diplomatic Mr Guterres said he was “disappointed” at the outcome and said the major emitters of greenhouse gases need to “do much more” in 2020.

Indeed. Much, much more.

The post 2020: a Year Full of Danger appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Farhana Haque Rahman is Senior Vice President of IPS Inter Press Service; a journalist and communications expert, she is a former senior official of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

The post 2020: a Year Full of Danger appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Roberto Savio
ROME, Jan 3 2020 (IPS)

In a world shaken by so many problems, it is difficult to look at 2020 and not make some kind of holistic analysis. While enormous progress has been made on many fronts, it is clear that the tide has turned, and we are now entering – or have already entered – a new low point in the history of humankind..

Roberto Savio

Today, we face an unprecedented existential threat brought about by the climate crisis. According to scientists, we have until 2030 to stop climate change, after which human conditions will be under several threats. Yet, we have just had a world conference in Madrid on climate change, which ended in nothing. Not only that, but since the beginning of the last decade, there has been a singular change of the relations of politicians with climate. Climate has become not a scientific but a political issue, with a number of politicians of not minor weight, like Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, Viktor Orban, Matteo Salvini and Vladimir Putin arguing that there is no climate crisis. Some of them, like Australia prime minister Scott Morrison, take holidays in Hawaii even as fires have destroyed an area large as Belgium.

Since the end of the last decade, we have seen also another change in a vital environment: democracy. With the fall of Berlin Wall in 1989, everybody was told that the threat of communism had now gone. As Francis Fukuyama famously wrote, it was the end of history. Capitalism and market would unify the world, and lift all boats, it was said at the time.

Then came the big financial crisis of 2008-2009 which cost governments (and therefore people) 12 trillion dollars and it became clear that only some boats were being lifted. Budget trimmings affected especially welfare, education and health, while at the same time some people were becoming fabulously rich. World debt doubled, (it now stands at 325 trillion dollars), and suddenly nationalistic, xenophobic and right-wing parties sprouted everywhere. Before the crisis of 2009, there was only one, in France. Even Nordic countries, long-time symbol of civism and tolerance saw the arrival of extreme right-wing governments.

The thirty years between the fall of Berlin Wall and the financial crisis, left a culture of competition, individualism and loss of values – a culture of greed. And the ten years between that crisis of and our incoming decade saw the rise of a culture of fear. Immigration became the catalyst We were being invaded, Islam was not compatible with our society, our jobs were being stolen, crime and drugs were coming in and the same leaders who do not believe in climate change became the guardians of Christianity, enacting restrictive laws to the applause of citizens, regardless of human rights. In the last two decades, trade unions have become irrelevant, and laws have been introduced that support the making of jobs precarious and reductions in social protection. People started having fear, looking at the uncertain future of their children.

Historians affirm that the two main engines of change in history are greed and fear. We enter the decade of the 2020s with both. Worse, many analysts believe we do so with hate.

The fact is that two flags that we thought had been discarded by history are making a comeback.

One is the flag ‘in the name of God’. We think of ISIS and Al Qaeda, but this is the basis of the image of Putin, Orban, Trump, Bolsonaro and Salvini. The use of religion by the right wing has been able to rally the poor. Theologian Juan Josè Tamayo has called politicians with bible in hand the Christo-neo-fascist alliance. In the last elections in Costa Rica, evangelical pastor Fabricio Alvarado won with a campaign based on the defence of Christian values and neoliberalism, against abortion and the paganism coming from Europe. This is precisely the electoral theme of Orban in Hungary, Kacynsky in Poland and Putin in Russia.

In Brazil, the evangelical church was vital in getting Bolsonaro elected. In El Salvador, the new president Nayib Bukele asked an extreme right-wing evangelical pastor to offer a prayer during his inaugural ceremony, and there is a draft law that would make the Bible compulsory reading in all schools. You will all remember how, after the overthrow of Eva Morales by the army, the new president of Bolivia Jeanine Áñez and her supporters went around with a bible in their hands at all ceremonies.

And let us not forget that Trump was elected because of the support of the evangelical church, which has 40 million faithful. He moved the US embassy to Jerusalem to get their support. Evangelicals believe that when Israel will recover all the territory of the biblical time, Christ will come to earth for a second time, and they will be the only ones that will be rewarded. The other country which moved its embassy to Jerusalem, Guatemala, was also the result of the move of an evangelical president.

Theologian Tamayo speaks of an international of hate: hate against gender equality, against LGTBs, against abortion, against immigrants. Those who propagate hate defend reinforcement of the patriarchal family, the submission of women, they despise what is not traditional, they mistrust science and statistics, they deny climate change, and they hate Muslims, Jews and blacks. What is being totally ignored in all this is the problem of social inequalities, the growing economic gap for reasons of ethnicity, culture, gender, social class, sexual identity, and so on.

Tamayo observes that this is becoming a new international movement, which is now coming to Europe, as the recent Spanish elections show. Vox, the extreme right-wing party, created just four years ago, now has 52 seats in the Parliament, and is the third largest party, like AFD in Germany. The party of Italy’s Salvini, with his rosary beads, has become the number one party, and he could become prime minister at any moment. And we know well of the very large conservative front against the Pope in the Catholic Church which also wants to save traditions, is against LGBTs, is for a patriarchal family, etc., etc. All this is about using religion, fear and hate for political gains.

And what about the flag ‘in the name of the nation’? Well, the best example is Benjamin Netanyahu who has passed a law which makes being a Jew the requisite for Israeli citizenship. This is how Narendra Modi in India is trying to deprive Muslims (170 million) of Indian citizenship; it is how the government in Myanmar is treating over one million Rohingyas. Those cases join religion with the fight against minorities and different religions in the name of the nation. China has now launched a campaign for a Chinese dream (also persecuting Uighur Muslim minorities). This is exactly the same strategy as that of Trump, who calls for the American dream. The United States has no allies, and anybody who makes money in trade with the United States is an adversary, be it Canada or Germany. “America First”, which in fact means “America Alone”.

So, the flags “in the name of God” and “in the name of the Nation” frequently overlap. Italian political scientist and economist Riccardo Petrella observes that in recent decades, a third flag has appeared with a large audience: ‘in the name of money”, and also that in the last two decades corruption has become another universal countervalue.

In its last report, Transparency International, the organisation which fights and denounces corruption, analyses how corruption is weakening democracy. Freedom House, a conservative US foundation, found that since 2006, 113 countries have seen a net decline in their freedom score, while only 62 have seen some improvement. The Economist says that democracy was stagnating in 2018, after three consecutive years of deterioration. Of the 62 countries which transitioned from authoritarian rule to some form of democracy, in the last quarter of the 20th century, half of them have seen their level of democracy stagnate or even falter. Transparency international highlights that while fight against corruption is high on the populists’ platform, when in power they tend to weaken democratic institutions, and engage into corruption like their predecessors. It cites the cases of various country, from Guatemala to Turkey, from the United States to Poland and Hungary. When corruption seeps into the democratic system it corrupts leaders. Economic corruption has increased in the last forty years, after the “greed is good” campaign, as the market has substituted man as the centre of society. It reaches the entire public sector, besides obviously the private sector.

Two-thirds of humankind now have no trust in police and other public services, because they are considered corrupt, and they believe that corruption is so diffuse that it cannot be eliminated.

We have become accustomed to hearing about corruption in the last two decades, because it is in the news every day. We have slowly become trained to look as natural things that are at all no natural: a good sign of the extent to which we have lost a moral compass.

If you ask children today if wars and poverty are natural, they will probably answer yes. And, as adolescents, they will also probably consider corruption as natural.

It is therefore evident that two fundamental environments for humankind are in danger. One in the short term is the natural environment. The conditions of life on the planet can worsen dramatically, and we have all the forecasts. We have only the coming decade to try to reverse the trend of climate change, be it natural (some say) or man-made (all scientists). But then the question is: how long do we have to protect our political environment, which runs our economic, social and cultural life, before that also goes into an irreversible decline?

Of course, a bloody dictatorship is less dramatic than seas rising seven metres, temperatures 3 degrees, or l0osing all our glaciers, and many rivers and water sources. Now that we have all the data, why do citizens not act for the survival of their environment?

On the other hand, 2019 will remain in history the year of mass demonstrations. In 21 countries, in Latin America, Africa, Asia, Europe, millions of people went out on the street to protest against corruption, social injustice, the gap between political institutions and citizens, the fear and decline of social welfare as a political priority, Young people, who have deserted political parties and elections, have been frequently at the forefront. They are at the head of the campaign for a sustainable world, where an adolescent, Greta Thunberg, has brought together young people from all over the world. But the system does not appear to be really listening to them, unless they become violent as in Chile, Paris, Baghdad or Hong Kong.

These reflections bring us to three conclusions.

The first is that, not by accident, the enemies of the fight to defend our natural environment are also the enemies of our political environment. they do not care if the first is destroyed, because they are intertwined with corporations, gas and oil companies, farmers who want to take over land (like the case of Brazil and Amazonia), or coal companies, like in Poland and Australia. But they want to twist the political environment in their favour, for their power. Orban of Hungary has campaigned for am illiberal democracy. Bolsonaro has gone further, talking about the good old days of the military dictatorship. And all of them, from Trump to Salvini, look on international cooperation, multilateral agreements and any initiative that reduces the freedom of a country for peace and justice (like the United Nations or the European Union) as enemies. They are all in favour of building walls, forgetting that the Second World War taught us to abolish them.

The second is that democracy is in danger, for the same reasons that the environment is also in danger. There is no ability and will among populists to reach any internal agreement. Would it be possible today to create the United Nations, or sign the Declaration on Human Rights? Certainly not just as there is no will to fight climate change.

The third, therefore, is what is going to happen in the new decade we are now entering. It looks like it will be a decisive decade. In just a few years, we must take action on how we will deal with two existential issues: how to remain in our present environment, and how we will live together.

All this will be decided by voters. And this raises an issue: is it legitimate to believe that fascism, xenophobia and nationalism are the answer to our problems? Humans should learn from their mistakes (like all other animals do). And we should have learnt from the two world wars that those beliefs are not an answer but the roots of war and confrontation.

So, here a final reflection. According to Steven Pinker, the Canadian cognitive scientist, writing in The Economist, in the last seven years humans have become healthier, live longer, are more secure, richer, freer, more intelligent and educated. This trend should continue. But humans have evolved, because they have dedicated themselves mainly to the advantages of reproduction, survival and material growth not because of wisdom or happiness.

The first urgent step is to reconcile progress with human nature. We have cognitive abilities, and also the ability to cooperate and be emphatic, unlike other animals. Between the Age of Enlightenment and the Second World War, we made important progress on science, democracy, human rights, free information, market rules and the creation of institutions for international cooperation. This trend cannot be stopped, argues Pinker; it is now in our genes.

Well, in ten years we will know if all this is in the human genes or is just one of the many passages of history. Also, because in 2022, Bolsonaro and Orban should leave office: Erdogan in 2023; Netanyahu, Modi, Putin and Trump in 2024. So, in just four years (a microsecond in human history), we will know how the world is, and what damages are irreversible or not, and if we have made any progress in halting the climate crisis. But Trump, etc, have been elected…

The post Reflections for a New Year appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: United Nations

By Nayema Nusrat
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 3 2020 (IPS)

“Right now, I don’t want to get married. I have a long life and a dream in front of me”, a 14-year-old young girl from Bangladesh told her parents as she was just not ready to get married.

The UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 5.3) has targeted to end child marriage by 2030. According to a report published last June by the UN children’s agency UNICEF, 12 million girls are married before they turn 18 every year, 650 million girls and women alive today were married before they were 18.

Nankali Maksud, Senior Advisor and Coordinator, Prevention of Harmful Cultural Practices at UNICEF, told IPS that evidence shows child marriage is not limited to particular groups or cultural norms, rather a broad combination of structural and socio-cultural drivers.

“These include poverty, lack of educational and economic opportunities, social expectations, discrimination against girls and women and restrictive gender roles, beliefs about protection of girls and low awareness of and access to alternatives”.

He also added, “In many settings, girls are perceived as a burden on household expenses, with child marriage often viewed as the best option out of a menu of poor choices.”

“In some contexts, child marriage is viewed as a path that unburdens the family and preserves its honor while protecting girls. Evidence suggests that when such structural and socio-cultural underlying causes—the drivers of child marriage—are eliminated, the practice will decline and, ultimately end”.

A spokesperson for UN Women (UNW), the United Nations entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women, told IPS, child marriages may be further exacerbated by increased insecurity in settings where there is a humanitarian crisis.

“For example, the prevalence of child marriage in the Middle East and North Africa region is near the global average, with around one in five young women married before they turn 18 years of age. This marks progress in the last 25 years, though the rate of decline appears to have stalled within the past decade”.

And in certain conflict areas, progress has reversed, “such as in Syria and Yemen, (where it has) been reversed substantially as conflict often produces negative coping mechanisms particularly in dire economic situations that can increase the rate of child marriage”.

Credit: United Nations

UNICEF saw worldwide progress in child marriage reduction rates in recent years, while South Asia has witnessed the largest decline, from nearly 50 per cent to 30 per cent, in large part due to progress in India.

UNICEF’s Maksud said: “The proportion of women who were married as children decreased by 15 per cent, from one in four to one in five, in the last decade”.

Globally, “The total number of girls married in childhood is now estimated at 12 million a year. This points to an accumulated global reduction of 25 million fewer marriages than would have been anticipated under global levels 10 years ago” UNICEF and UN Women pointed out.

While talking about the progress in child bride rate in Africa, Maksud noted “Data also points to the possibility of progress on the African continent. For example, in Ethiopia – once among the top five countries for child marriage in sub-Saharan Africa – the prevalence has dropped by a third in the last 10 years”.

Countries with such harmful practices like child marriage need to prioritize their responsibilities in order to be aligned with SDG target (SDG 5.3) to end child marriage by 2030.

According to Maksud, “the accountability for achieving the SDGs lies with countries and their responsibility to prioritize ending harmful practices such as child marriage. With the right investments and accelerated progress, the SDG target is achievable”.

On the contrary, Heather Barr of Human Rights Watch (HRW) told IPS that it’s probably unlikely that the UN goal of ending all child marriages by 2030 can be achieved.

She said, “I think this target has already contributed significantly to reducing child marriage and will continue to do so. But it’s goal of ending all child marriages by 2030 probably will not be fully achieved. There is just too far to go and too many countries that continue to—legally or illegally—tolerate child marriage”.

The spokesperson from UN Women told IPS about their view on the feasibility of reaching SDG goal- despite a significant progress seen in the past decade, no region seems to be on track to eliminate the practice by 2030.

“A substantial acceleration is needed because the current rate of decline in child marriage is insufficient to meet the ambitious SDG target”.

“The annual rate of decline in child marriage has been 1.9 per cent over the past 10 years but would have to be 23 per cent to achieve the SDG target on ending child marriage by 2030. If the rate of progress since 1990 does not improve, it will take nearly a century to eliminate child marriage worldwide, and more than 150 million more girls will marry by 2030”.

“Even at the faster rate of decline in the past decade, it would take 50 years to end child marriage. Therefore, progress must be accelerated significantly”.

Maksud also pointed out, “However, to end the practice by 2030 – the target set out in the Sustainable Development Goals – progress must be accelerated 12 times faster than in the past decade. Without acceleration of progress, more than 150 million additional girls will marry before their 18th birthday by 2030 due to population growth”.

UN Women lays emphasis on the importance of improving gender equality which is one of the biggest drives according to various research. “Among the main challenges that remain is the lack of a gender-transformative approach in tackling this harmful practice. Evidence shows that delaying the age of marriage alone is insufficient.”

“Gender equality needs to be promoted holistically, including by placing stronger emphasis on promoting girls and women’s agency, addressing the inherit power dynamics in marriages and society, and shifting attitudes, norms and behaviors around gender roles”.

Barr concurs about the importance of promoting gender equality. “Our research on child marriage, in countries around the world, has left us convinced that the main cause of child marriage is simply gender inequality”.

UN Women spokesperson pointed out additional important factors “there are increasing changing marriage patterns that show that peer marriages, cohabitation and adolescent pregnancy leading to marriages exist alongside the traditional understanding of child marriage or forced marriage.”

“A proper gender approach requires that we recognize that early marriages and voluntary marriages also constitute harmful practices given the disproportionate impact it has on girls and the barriers it creates to their educational and economic opportunities”.

According to UNW, itis crucial to integrate women’s economic empowerment approaches to educational interventions responding to child marriage. Although poverty is not the only driver, poverty remains a key driver of child, early and forced marriage, which disproportionately impacts girls and young women and continues to be a deeply gendered practice.

“In order to empower girls and young women to use their voice, make their own choices and exercise their agency, it is crucial to ensure that a whole system and life-cycle approach is implemented to support the broadening of economic opportunities for young women by promoting skills and social protection for girls and young women who are at risk of child, early and forced marriages”.

UNICEF found strong correlation between the length of time a girl stays in school and the biggest reductions in child marriage. “And for adolescent girls, emerging evidence indicates that having a secondary education is much more beneficial for ending child marriage than having just a primary education”.

It is estimated that there would be 14 per cent fewer marriages if all girls had just a primary education, compared with 64 per cent fewer if girls also had secondary education.

“While just being in school can protect against child marriage, evidence shows that the quality of education has important implications. Adolescent girls who do poorly in school, do not learn well and fall behind are sometimes pulled out of school by their parents to marry”.

Ending child marriage will only be a reality if we address it through a comprehensive gender-transformative approach that tackles the root causes of gender inequality.

UNICEF’s Maksud sees potential in achieving SDG goal by 2030 if certain key steps are taken to accelerate the progress, which include “increasing girls’ access to education and particularly secondary education, proactive government investments in adolescent girls’ protection programmes as well as strong public messaging around the illegality of child marriage and the harm it causes”.

The post Child Marriages Unlikely to End by UN’s 2030 Deadline appeared first on Inter Press Service.

At the radio station in Selibabi, Mauritania. Credit: World Bank/Vincent Tremeau

By External Source
SELIBABI, Mauritania, Jan 2 2020 (IPS)

“I refused to marry off my daughter for a simple, good reason: I want my daughter to be empowered,” said Lemeima mint El Hadrami, 49. “I don’t want her to go through the same difficulties I did when I was young.” El Hadrami was married when she was only 13.

As is often the case for child brides, she became pregnant in adolescence and was forced to drop out of school. She had two daughters, both following difficult pregnancies. Then her husband left them.

“Back then, people didn’t know that child marriage was harmful to a girl’s health. It was a common practice for us,” she recalled. El Hadrami is from Selibabi in southeastern Mauritania, a country where 37 per cent of girls are married off by age 18.

Ending child marriage in Mauritania and other countries in the Sahel, where the median age women and girls marry is 16.6, calls for a change in society’s unwritten rules governing the practice. This means getting buy-in from religious and community leaders on a whole host of related issues, including gender discrimination and ending gender-based violence.

The UN Population(fund (UNFPA) is working with partners to help raise awareness of the cascading harms caused by child marriage – from school discontinuation to higher maternal health risks and poorer long-term outcomes for girls and their families.

“An immature girl cannot bear a child because she herself is still a child whose body is not ready to carry a baby,” said Telmidy, the imam of the Kuba Mosque in Selibabi, stressing that many adolescent girls in his communities have died for that reason alone.

El Hadrami (centre) with her daughters and sister. Credit: World Bank/Vincent Tremeau

Telmidy is one of 200 religious and community leaders mobilized across Mauritania by the Sahel Women’s Empowerment and Demographic Dividend (SWEDD) project, a collaboration between UNFPA and others, to show that child marriage is in fact haram, or forbidden by Islam.

“Early marriage is a complex issue and we have addressed it in a manner that respects Islam,” he said. “Islam protects the dignity of men and women.”

Telmidy and his fellow imams want to be agents of change. “We discuss and share our knowledge of Islam and our experience by going door to door or during Friday prayers and people are starting to understand and respond.”

The SWEDD project is financed by the World Bank and implemented by the governments of Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Mauritania and Niger, with technical support from UNFPA.

In addition to working with religious leaders, the project shares messages on girls’ empowerment through a popular radio programme.

“I was really moved by the messages on the radio,” El Hadrami said. “I do not want my daughter to experience the same difficulties that I did. I would like her to go as far as possible in her studies, to have a good job – a job that will allow her to enjoy a decent standard of living. She could become a minister, a doctor or a midwife.”

The radio messages work in concert with the faith-based outreach efforts.

Imam Telmidy raises awareness about the dangers of child marriage to women. Credit: World Bank/Vincent Tremeau

“The recommendations and guidelines broadcast on the radio are very important, especially because they are supported by religious beliefs,” said Telmidy. “People must listen to the radio to be informed.”

The imams have reached around 370,000 people in rural Mauritania with training sessions on the dangers of child marriage. UNFPA is also helping the national network of Islamic scholars to learn about sexual and reproductive health issues, including not only related child marriage concerns, but also the benefits of birth spacing, and the importance of ending gender-based violence and female genital mutilation.

“Islam is a religion that honours human beings. Any action that harms an individual’s physical or mental health is therefore forbidden,” said Hademine Saleck Ely, an imam from the Central Mosque of Nouakchott. “But some people are wedded to traditional practices and do not understand the danger of these customs.”

Telmidy pointed out that acquiring knowledge is compulsory for all Muslims: “The Qur’an shows that a father has a responsibility to educate his daughters and protect them, and that he must delay their marriage until they turn 18… He must also allow them to earn a living, that is their right.”

“We must assume our responsibilities and fulfill our mission to share our knowledge with the community,” he added.

A version of this story was first published at www.worldbank.org.

The post In Mauritania, Imams take to Radio Waves to say Child Marriage is Against Islam appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Hosted by the governments of Kenya, Denmark and UNFPA, world leaders gather for the 3-day Nairobi Summit on ICPD25 to advance sexual, reproductive health & rights for all. November 12, 2019. Photo Courtesy: Redhouse Public Relations

By Siddharth Chatterjee
NAIROBI, Kenya, Dec 31 2019 (IPS)

Happy New Year, Kenya. 2020 marks a decade of action towards the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

Peace and development are inextricably linked, with each making the achievement of the other far more likely. This puts the conflict-prevention and development work of the UN at the heart of the agenda in East Africa, but in a multi-agency and programme environment, making meaningful progress is challenging.

Aware of this, the UN began a process of structural reforms led by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres who made reforms of the United Nations, a priority at the very beginning of his term in January 2017. The aim being to deliver better results through cooperation, collaboration and integration. 2019 was the year that the impact of these reforms became real and nowhere more than in the peace, conflict-prevention and development pillars of the UN’s work.

At the country level, that shift towards a nimble, 21st century UN challenges deeply entrenched practices and operations. In a country team with over 23 individual agencies, funds and programmes, the reform process can be complicated, even messy.

To the credit of the Kenya country team, we overcame the challenges of ceding long-held agency interests for the collective good and achieved some ground-breaking milestones in our partnership with governments, civic organizations and the private sector.

The most outstanding was our venturing out to confront challenges that transcend borders. East Africa faces major threats to peace and development across multiple fronts, and respective UN country teams have, in a remarkable show of teamwork, sought to harmonize their responses to these threats. Internecine border conflicts and the effects of climate change together make a formidable challenge that brought together UN teams from Kenya and Uganda, in a pact that seeks to bring sustainable development to the Karamoja triangle.

This pact follows from another successful regional collaboration project on the Kenya-Ethiopia border where communities accustomed to recurrent hostilities are now reaching out to each other to find solutions to common socio-economic challenges.

We believe that our regional surge towards prevention, peacemaking and diplomacy will have a particular impact on the youth, who suffer an enduring sense of being neglected and ignored. This narrative is a breeding ground for extremism and radicalization, so addressing such concerns was a key point of deliberation during last July’s African Regional High-Level Conference on Counter-Terrorism and the Prevention of Violent Extremism in Nairobi.

The same regional approach was behind the initiative by Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Somalia to sign the Declaration and Action Plan to End Cross-border FGM in April 2019. This was the first time multiple countries had come together to tackle this pernicious cross-border crime.

But there remain many in the region still left behind by development, and we continue to stand up for them through our UN Development Assistance Framework 2018-2022. The framework’s gender equality and rights focus is unmistakable, because in too many communities, the simple fact of being born female shatters one’s chances of living in full human dignity.

Our focus on giving a leg-up to those left farthest behind has attracted a positive response from our partners in national and county governments. By staying in lockstep with national priorities on issues such as health, agriculture and housing, the common thread of messages from our partners is that we are staying effective and responsive to the ambitions of Kenyans.

As 2020 beckons, the decade of action starts and it has to be a sprint to deliver on the SDGs, the UN team in Kenya is rolling up its sleeves with greater urgency, ambition and innovation. We will enhance regional cooperation and private-public partnerships as we work with the Government towards lifting millions of the citizens of this region out of poverty and upholding their human rights.

We are re-imagining ways of delivering development in ways such as the co-creation of an SDG innovation lab between the Government of Kenya, the Centre for Effective Global Action at the University of California in Berkeley, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the UN. The SDG Lab will kick off with support for the delivery of Kenya’s Big Four agenda by harnessing, big data, technology and innovation to achieve scale and impact.

As a UN country team, we got off the blocks in 2019 in pursuit of UN Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohammed’s challenge to “flip the orthodoxy” for the repositioning of the UN. We have dared to go beyond the typical and will do whatever it takes to respond effectively to the challenges faced by Kenya’s people, now and in the future.

Siddharth Chatterjee is the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Kenya.

The post 2020 Is the Decade of Action & It Has to Be a Sprint appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By External Source
Dec 23 2019 (IPS-Partners)

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has endorsed the candidacy of African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina for a second term at the helm of the institution.

The decision was announced at the end of the fifty-sixth ordinary session of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of ECOWAS, held on Saturday in Abuja, Nigeria.

“In recognition of the sterling performance of Dr. Akinwumi Adesina during his first term of office as President of the African Development Bank, the Authority endorses his candidacy for a second term as the President of the bank,” ECOWAS said in a communique issued after the meeting.

Adesina is the eighth elected President of the African Development Bank Group. He was elected to the five-year term on 28 May 2015 by the Bank’s Board of Governors at its Annual Meetings in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, where the same electoral process will play out next year.

Adesina is a renowned development economist and the first Nigerian to serve as President of the Bank Group. He has served in a number of high-profile positions internationally, including with the Rockefeller Foundation, and was Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development from 2011 to 2015, a career stint that was widely praised for his reforms in the agricultural sector. The former minister brought the same drive to the Bank, making agriculture one of the organization’s priority areas.

Speaking earlier at the opening ceremony, Adesina reminded the group of the African Development Bank’s investments in the region.

“You can always count on the African Development Bank – your Bank,” Adesina told delegates.

ECOWAS President Jean-Claude Kassi Brou commended the Bank’s involvement in West Africa and said it had provided “invaluable technical and financial interventions…in the implementation of numerous projects and programmes”.

The ECOWAS summit included a progress report on the region’s economic performance. It noted the role of the African Development Bank in the continent’s transformation and called for greater cooperation in order to fund projects in West Africa.

“The Authority takes note of the region’s improved economic performance, with ECOWAS real GDP growing by 3.3% in 2019 against 3.0% in 2018, in a context characterised by a decline in inflationary pressures and sound public finances,” the statement said.

“It urges the Member States to continue economic reforms and ensure a sound macroeconomic environment in Member States, with a view to accelerating the structural transformation of ECOWAS economies and facilitating the achievement of the monetary union by 2020.”

The Authority commended efforts made on currency and monetary policy convergence in ECOWAS and laid out plans to advance the movement. These efforts are a key part of the regional integration agenda championed by the African Development Bank, as exemplified by the African Continental Free Trade Area, which aims to become the world’s largest free trade zone.

 

Media contact:  Emeka Anuforo, Communication and External Relations Department, email: e.anuforo@afdb.org.

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By External Source
Dec 23 2019 (IPS-Partners)

The year 2019 was a year of exciting firsts for the African Development Bank Group. The year was marked by innovation and several new milestones that brought us closer to the “Africa we want.”

The Bank pushed its High 5 strategy forward in tandem with the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

We saw continuing progress in Africa’s structural transformation, due in large part to projects financed and supported by the African Development Bank. An increase in the Bank’s capital, completed at the end of October, demonstrated shareholders’ high level of confidence in the institution.

The second Africa Investment Forum, held in November in Johannesburg, attests to continuing investor interest in African infrastructure and development projects.

Looking back at 2019’s key moments:

 

January

On 17 January, the African Development Bank released its 2019 African Economic Outlook report. The theme: ‘Regional Integration for Africa’s Economic Prosperity’ provided short- and medium-term projections on critical socio-economic issues such as employment, and highlighted challenges encountered, and progress made.

Launch of the AEO : https://flic.kr/s/aHsmx6C92x

 

February

On 10 and 11 February in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Bank President Akinwumi Adesina and Lesotho’s King Letsie III co-chaired the official launch of the ‘African Leaders for Nutrition’ scorecard. The continental Nutrition Accountability Scorecard reinforces commitments by African governments to end malnutrition and promote healthy children. The event took place as part of the 32nd Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union.

Also, the Bank held its second annual consultative meetings with Governors of the Bank to exchange views and ideas on accelerated engagement in the region. During consultations, the Governors called for a greater focus on women to close Africa’s gender gap, climate change, and development in fragile states.

ALN addis – African Leaders for Nutrition : https://flic.kr/s/aHskSL7HQE

 

March

The Bank hosted the third African Forum for Resilience at its headquarters in Abidjan, under the theme ‘Fragility, Migration, and Resilience.’ 300 participants including heads of government, international organizations, leaders of civil society, academics, and the business community, discussed several challenges resulting from migration: security, youth unemployment, gender issues, and the effects of climate change.

Forum for resilience : https://flic.kr/s/aHskPrCmMV

 

April

The Ivoirian minister for tourism, Siandou Fofana, in conjunction with the Bank, presented a government strategy, entitled ‘Sublime Côte d’Ivoire.’ The country’s stated objective is to become the continent’s fifth-leading tourism destination.

Delegations from the Congo, DRC, Chad, and the Central African Republic also met with the Bank to prepare the lenders roundtable. The goal was to mobilize $2.2 billion to finance two comprehensive projects in central Africa’s transport sector.

 

May

The Portuguese minister of foreign affairs, Augusto Santos Silva, led a high-level delegation to the African Development Bank headquarters and met with Senior Vice President Charles Boamah. A few days later, the president of Burkina Faso, Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, received his mission roadmap as a champion of the African Leaders for Nutrition.

 

June

The Bank’s Annual Meetings returned to the continent after being held in Ahmedabad, India in 2017 and in Busan, South Korea in 2018. The highly successful and productive meetings took place in Malabo, capital of Equatorial Guinea, and brought together some 3,000 participants. The theme was strengthening regional integration in Africa.

Best of video : https://vimeo.com/343230079

 

July

The agreement to establish the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which took effect at the end of May, began its operational phase. It opens the way for the most significant common market created in recent history. A year earlier, 49 African countries signed the agreement in Kigali, Rwanda, the last step in a vast economic project to integrate 55 African countries and create a common market with a combined GDP of $2.5 trillion.

 

August

Eleven new directors joined the Bank’s Board of Directors.

African heads of states and key business leaders from around the world attended TICAD 7 in Yokohama, Japan, under the theme ‘Advancing Africa’s Development through People, Technology and Innovation.’ The Japan-Africa summit provides an opportunity to explore investment opportunities and learn from Japan’s technological, industrial, economic, and development experiences.  TICAD is held every three years alternately in Japan and Africa since 2016.

African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina called on Japanese companies to be “bolder” about making investments in Africa.

In Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron and the G7 heads of state provided $251 million in loan support to the Bank’s Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) initiative for women entrepreneurs in Africa.

TICAD: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmGyTx4x Biarritz AFAWA : https://vimeo.com/380775965

 

September

The Bank’s president presented the transformational ‘Desert to Power’ initiative to heads of state at the G5 Sahel Summit in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. The initiative’s goal is to produce 10GW of solar energy to bring 250 million people out of energy-deprived darkness.

Also, in September, the general secretaries of international financial institutions met for the first time in Africa, at the Bank’s headquarters in Abidjan.

At the UN General Assembly in New York, the African Development Bank and the United Nations held a first-of-its-kind meeting between both institutions to discuss the accelerated and collaborative delivery of the SDGs and the Bank’s High 5 development goals. Seven African presidents attended the meeting.

G5 Desert to power sahel picture : https://flic.kr/s/aHsmGYGnnm UNGA: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmHi1xjK

 

October

During an extraordinary meeting of shareholders on 31 October in Abidjan, the Bank’s governors, representing shareholders from 80 countries, approved a historic capital increase of $115 billion. The institution’s capital more than doubled to $208 billion, which solidified the Bank’s leadership in financing development in Africa. The increase, the largest since the Bank’s creation in 1964, provided clear evidence of shareholders’ trust. Aside from significant opportunities to do more for Africa, the increase in capital will allow the Bank to maintain its AAA rating, with a stable outlook, from the top rating agencies.

GCC picture: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmJ4McrV

 

November

Once again, Johannesburg hosted the Africa Investment Forum.

The Forum ended on a high note with 56 boardroom deals valued at $67.6 billion tabled – a 44% increase from last year. Of these, fifty-two deals worth $40.1 billion secured investor interest.

The Africa Investment Forum is championed by the Bank in partnership with Africa50, Afrexim Bank, the Trade Development Bank, the Development Bank of Southern Africa, the Islamic Development Bank, the Africa Finance Corporation, and the European Investment Bank.

Abidjan welcomed the third Conference on Land Policy in Africa, co-sponsored by the Bank.

Also, the Bank co-hosted delegations from around the world for the 1st Global Gender Summit held on the African continent, in Kigali, Rwanda. The gathering, attended by the presidents of Ethiopia – Sahle-Work Zewde, and Rwanda, Paul Kagame – moved the needle forward on gender equality and women’s empowerment in Africa and around the world.

Several agreements were signed as part of the Bank’s AFAWA initiative to facilitate project financing for women entrepreneurs in Africa.

On 5 November, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Senior Minister of Singapore, was hosted at the Bank’s headquarters as the guest speaker at the third Kofi Annan Eminent Speakers Series.

AIF best of video: https://vimeo.com/373188656 Gender family picture: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmJDsy5D

 

December

Three key events closed out the year. First, the African Economic Conference held in Sharm-El-Sheikh, Egypt, where the future of African youth was the focus of discussions. The same week, Johannesburg hosted the fifteenth replenishment of the African Development Fund (ADF-15), during which donors announced $7.6 billion in financing for low-income African countries.

The United Nations World Climate Change Conference (COP25), held in Madrid from 2 to 14 December, was attended by a Bank delegation led by Anthony Nyong, Director for Climate Change and Green Growth. Nyong was nominated earlier this year as one of the ‘100 Most Influential People in Climate Policy 2019’ by Apolitical, a peer-to-peer learning platform for governments.

African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina received the All Africa Business Leaders 2019 African of the Year award in recognition of his bold and innovative leadership in helping shape the development of Africa’s economies. The AABLA award recognizes remarkable leadership and salutes game changers of business on the continent.

All in all, it has been a fast-paced and productive year for the African Development Bank Group.

Our message as we move into 2020, remains loud and clear: The African Development Bank will continue to stand alongside regional member countries to accelerate sustainable development, economic growth, and social progress, and … to make a transformational difference.

AEC best of video: https://vimeo.com/377400840 ADF picture: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmJNciUp

The post Looking back at 2019: Key moments appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Nayema Nusrat
NEW YORK, Dec 23 2019 (IPS)

“When I think about Bangladesh, I think about everybody. Not everybody is enjoying Rabindranath and the great literature and culture that Bangladesh has. But I think everybody has got the right to have this experience”, deeply felt by late Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, founder of BRAC (Building Resources Across Communities), a unique, integrated development organization that many have hailed as the most effective anti-poverty organization in the world; who passed away December 20, 2019at the age of 83.

Sir Fazle Hasan Abed. Credit: The Daily Star

Sir Fazle, who was knighted by the British Crown in 2009, grew BRAC into the world’s largest non-governmental organization. BRAC has provided the opportunity for nearly 150 million people worldwide to improve their lives, have enhanced food security and follow a pathway out of poverty. The scale and impact of BRAC’s work in Bangladesh and ten other countries is unprecedented.

He pioneered a new approach to development that has effectively and sustainably addressed the interconnectedness between hunger and poverty. In this regard, Sir Fazle broke new ground by melding scalable development models, scientific innovation, and local participation to confront the complex causes of poverty, hunger and powerlessness among the poor.

Sir Fazle was honored with scores of awards in his lifetime for his significant contributions in developing world; he was named as 2015 World Food Prize Laureate for his unparalleled achievements in building BRAC.

Among many of the other distinguished awards he received are, Spanish order of Civil Merit; Leo Tolstoy International Gold Medal; Lego Prize; Thomas Francis, Jr Medal in Global Public Health; Trust Women Hero Award; Inaugural WISE Prize for Education; Palli Karma Shahayak Foundation (PKSF) Lifetime Achievement in Social Development and Poverty Alleviation; David Rockefeller Bridging Leadership Award; GleitsmanFoundation International Activist Award; Olof Palme Prize; and Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership.

United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Executive Director Henrietta H Fore expressed his condolence, “All of us at UNICEF will miss his ideas and advice. We will never forget the example he set”.

Sir Fazle, founded numerous projects, including health, agriculture, and education with a vision to pull the poor out of poverty in every way. “Everything we did in Bangladesh we did with one focus: getting poor people out of poverty because we feel that poverty is dehumanising”, Sir Fazle had said to The Guardian.

For anyone growing up in Bangladesh, BRAC is a common name, almost every village kid you will meet inevitably goes to BRAC schools. BRAC’s Early Childhood Development (ECD) and Centre for Play programmes are designed to provide learning opportunities to children, especially in the early years. The play-based programmes are designed for refugee/displaced children who need help to recover from trauma. BRAC’s pre and primary schools have more than 12 million children graduated.

Dr. Muhammad Yunus, noble prize laureate, Chairman of Yunus Center noted in his tribute to Sir Fazle that how his contributions have positively touched almost everyone growing up or living in Bangladesh – “It is certainly not an exaggeration to say that there is hardly anyone among the 170 million people of Bangladesh who do not benefit in some way from Abed’s programs or enjoy products and services provided by his organizations. If she is a poor person or a village woman, then she is in contact with Abed’s activities at every step of her life – In education, health, income generation, self-Awareness and many more”.

Sir Fazle believed in gender equality, women empowerment and their role in poverty alleviation; in 1978, BRAC established ‘Aarong’, one of the biggest ethical lifestyle retail chains in the country,primarily by engaging rural artisan women who producedhandcrafts aiming at pulling them out of poverty. Today, ‘Aarong’ supports approximately 65,000 artisans impacting lives of more than 325,000 people through ‘Ayesha Abed Foundation’ and 850 entrepreneurs with fair terms of trade; giving them access to BRAC’s holistic support including mental health care, hygiene awareness and subsidized latrines, micro credit, legal aid, day care and education for their children.

Melinda Gates, co-founder of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, recalled Sir Fazle’s contribution in her message saying, “We were saddened to hear of his passing and will forever draw inspiration from his work, as will the rest of the world, which he left so much better than he found”.

The first ever Sexuality and Rights conference in Bangladesh was held by BRAC School of Public Health, in 2007. It created an inclusive space for both men and women in Bangladesh. There are so many women with successful careers locally and internationally, who would not be where they are today without BRAC School of Public Health.

Nobel Prize-awarded couple Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, in their message, said, “How often do we see people like Sir Fazle Hasan Abed? His absence has left a great sense of loss in all of us”.

BRAC has distributed USD 1.5 billion in micro loans as one of many of its projects to help the poorest people in Bangladesh graduate out of extreme poverty. In order to make micro finance sustainable for the poorest, BRAC built an effective business model around micro financing which included grants known as transfer of assets which could be a cow or half a dozen of goats, or any resources that would generate an income for them; a stipend system until they start earning income utilizing the resources, and one on one counselling sessions which taught them strategies on how to best use the loans and resources to maintain sustainable flow of income and build a habit of saving money.

Former World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said, “The scale and impact of what he has done, and yet the utter humility with which he has done everything, is a lesson for every single one of us.”

Another of many of his greatest initiatives was to combat the increasing child and infant mortality rate. During the 1980’s diarrheal diseases became one of the top reasons of the premature mortality of children under 5 years in Bangladesh. BRAC introduced home-made oral saline to the mothers through various campaigning, and started immunization program for infants in village, which were revolutionary steps decreasing the rate of child death. “We went to every household in Bangladesh teaching mothers how to make oral rehydration fluid at home to combat diarrheal deaths”, the pioneer recalled as stated by The Guardian.

WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Sir Fazle Abed’s passion and work in alleviating poverty and empowering the poor inspired many. “My thoughts are with him and his family and friends,” he added.

BRAC now has extended its operations in 14 more countries, touching the lives of many more helpless people globally.

“His nearly 50 years of visionary leadership at BRACtransformed millions of lives in Bangladesh and beyond and changed the way the world thinks about development. Driven by an unwavering belief in the inherent dignity of all people, he empowered those in extreme poverty to build better futures for themselves and their families”, said former US President Bill Clinton in remembrance of Sir Fazle.

There are just a handful of people who change the world and impact millions of lives, Sir Fazle Hasan Abed was one of them who will continue to live on globally through his remarkable contributions. Dr. Yunus has articulated it perfectly, “Abed has left behind a confident Bangladesh. The story of his immense courage, self-confidence, and creativity will continue to inspire all generations to come. Abed will live as an icon of Bangladesh for posterity”.

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Dr. Rehman Sobhan with Sir Abed. Photo: Courtesy

By Rehman Sobhan
Dec 20 2019 (IPS-Partners)

(The Daily Star) – I can think of few people who have done more for the world’s deprived population than Fazle Hasan Abed. His contribution spans Bangladesh where BRAC, the organisation he founded in 1972, services close to 10 million of the country’s underprivileged households. Through Abed’s commitment to serve the world’s deprived, BRAC has now extended its reach across the globe. It has invested its experience in rehabilitating the tsunami victims in Sri Lanka and the war-ravaged population in Afghanistan where two of its officials, working in high risk areas, were held hostage by the Taliban. BRAC is now reaching out on a large scale to serve the underprivileged populations in various regions of Africa. It has been actively engaged in Pakistan, Philippines, Tanzania, Uganda, South Sudan, Liberia and Sierra Leone. BRAC has even extended its reach across the Atlantic to Haiti.

BRAC’s extraordinary engagement with the deprived has transformed it into the largest NGO in the world, with an annual budget which is approaching a billion dollars and a staff of over 111,000. BRAC’s singular contribution to the world of serving its deprived communities has been its ability to take its programmes to scale so that they graduate from micro-welfare projects to the transformation of entire communities. It is now more than an NGO. Its scale of operations would suggest that it is now a corporation for the deprived. Its organisational capacity as well as its market recognition are comparable to any of the top international NGOs such as Oxfam, and have been recognised as management case studies in the best business schools. BRAC is now in a position to underwrite over 80 percent of its budget through operating one of the world’s largest microfinance programmes. Its investments in a variety of socially-oriented commercial ventures, such as BRAC Bank, have further enhanced its internal income generating capacity, which has enabled it to expand its programmes to reach even larger numbers of the deprived.

The remarkable growth and reach of BRAC owes in large measure to the herculean endeavours of Fazle Hasan Abed, its founder. Abed has combined extraordinary entrepreneurial and management skills with a genuine passion for public service which began with a commitment to the dispossessed of his own country, but has now extended to the deprived across the world. Abed, who began his professional life as a highly paid executive of a multilateral institution, went through the life-changing experience of direct involvement, first in one of history’s most devastating natural calamities, and then through his response to the genocide inflicted on the Bangalis in 1971. Abed’s exposure to the human consequences of such acts of violence by man and nature persuaded him to invest the rest of his life in helping not just the victims of devastation but those whose entire life is engaged in coping with the uncertainties of nature and the injustices of society.

In responding to the challenge of deprivation, Abed has demonstrated a renaissance vision, which equipped him to recognise its holistic nature in Bangladesh. He constructed a multi-faceted agenda for change which incorporated credit, healthcare, education and skill development so as to empower the excluded to stand on their own feet. His approach of transforming the poor from victims into masters of their own fate encouraged him to build an organisation which could graduate from aid dependence to fiscal self-reliance through building up the market competitiveness of its income-generating programmes. The growth and transformation of BRAC has made it a role model for other NGOs not just in Bangladesh but across the world. These achievements have been recognised in a plethora of awards and prizes which have been showered on Abed and BRAC, and given Abed access to global political leaders, heads of international institutions and CEOs of the corporate world.

Abed has invested 45 years of his life in serving the deprived at home and abroad. His humility and understated projection of his remarkable achievements conceal a quiet determination to let his actions speak louder than his words. As he enters the eighth decade of his life, his commitment to public service remains undiminished. Within Bangladesh, he continues to broaden and deepen his engagement with the deprived. But Abed will not rest until he has brought about genuine change in the lives of the deprived not just at home but across the world. May he continue in his quest to serve the deprived as long as he has the strength and will to do so.

The writer is the Chairman of Centre for Policy Dialogue.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

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By Crystal Orderson
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Dec 20 2019 (IPS)

From Dec 11-12 the plight of people with Leprosy took centre stage during the National Conference on Zero Leprosy Initiative 2030 and at the historic and the first-ever the Conference of Organizations of persons affected by Leprosy- in partnership with the Nippon Foundation.

Participants engaged and discussed issues impacting on the lives of people with leprosy.

In another first for the country, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina addressed the National Conference on Dec 11thand said that the discrimination against leprosy sufferers should end and committed her government to ensure a leprosy-free Bangladesh before 2030.

IPS had a team of three senior journalists, led by Crystal Orderson, Stella Paul and Rafiqul Islam at the conference filing daily multimedia reports on the discussions and talks on one of the world’s neglected diseases.

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Plastics are increasingly polluting the seas and oceans and threatening marine ecosystems. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Janaya Wilkins
LONDON, Dec 20 2019 (IPS)

Plastic pollution is currently the largest global threat to marine life. Each year, 10-20 million tonnes of plastic ends up in our oceans, killing approximately 100,000 marine mammals and over a million seabirds.

Whilst the media has certainly helped raise awareness and inspire a change of attitude towards plastics, the amount of plastic in our oceans is still rising. As a result, vast numbers of sea species are now critically endangered, and the need for urgent action has never been stronger.

Marine Debris

So, where does all this plastic come from? Well, around 80% of all marine debris, derives from from land-based sources. This includes littering, illegal waste dumping, and the improper disposal of products such as wet wipes, sanitary products and cotton buds.

And although more parts of the world are now turning their attention towards the issue, the amount of rubbish entering the ocean is rising, with one truckload of plastic entering the ocean every single minute.

The remaining 20% of marine debris is the result of ocean based activity. This is mainly from the fishing industry, but also caused by boats that collect trash and dump it out at sea.

Dwindling Populations

Currently, there are more than 5 trillion plastic particles floating around the world’s oceans and this number is continuing to rise fast. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and the World Economic Forum, there could be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050 if we don’t act now.

But what exactly would this mean for marine life?

The WWF states as many as 700 marine species are currently threatened by plastics. But whilst large numbers die from choking on shards of plastic, the chemicals in plastic such as petroleum and bisphenol, are proving just as deadly.

Credit: UN Environment

Recent studies have revealed that 50% of the world’s coral reefs have already been destroyed, and another 40% could be lost over the next 30 years.

When plastic is ingested, these toxic chemicals are released and absorbed into the body tissue. Overtime, this can impact fertility and weaken the immune system. As a result, those feeding on plastic are breeding less and becoming increasingly vulnerable to diseases and infections, resulting in population decline.

This is particularly concerning for top marine predators such as dolphins, polar bears and whales, with studies revealing higher contamination levels among predators at the top of the food chain. Yet this isn’t caused by ingesting plastic directly.

Instead, pollutants are accumulating in their bodies through a process called trophic transfer. This is where toxins consumed by smaller creatures such as plankton and krill are stored into their body tissue. Over time, these toxins are passed up through the food chain. In most cases, these toxins come from microplastics.

The Rise of Microplastics

Microplastic are small plastic particles (less than 5mm) and it’s estimated there are between 15-51 trillion of these individual individual plastic pieces floating in our oceans.

In a recent UK study, scientists examined 50 stranded sea creatures including porpoises, dolphins, grey seals and a pygmy sperm whale, and microplastics were found in the gut of every single animal.

And it’s not just ocean creatures that are at risk. Microplastics have also been discovered in seafood, with research suggesting that each seafood consumer in Europe ingests an average of 11,000 plastic particles each year.

How Can We Beat It?

Plastic pollution is a man-made disaster, and it won’t go away by itself. To end plastic pollution, we must start by reducing our plastic consumption, particularly single-use plastics.

Much of the power lies with the large corporations and manufacturers, and they desperately need to realise their responsibility, and find other alternatives to plastic.

But you can still make an impact on a smaller scale, by reducing your own plastic consumption and encouraging others around you.

It won’t be easy, since almost everything we buy is packaged in plastic. In fact, UK supermarkets alone produce 800,000 tonnes of plastic every year. But start by making small changes wherever possible.

Look for zero waste products like shampoo bars and deoderant sticks, or products made from plastic alternatives such as bamboo toothbrushes and glass milk bottles. Participate in a beach clean every time you visit a body of water.

There are also plenty of great charities working to help combat plastic pollution. Plastic Oceans, Project Aware and Changing Tides Foundation are just a few examples but there are many more out there to choose from!

*SLO active are an exciting new social enterprise dedicated to cleaning up and protecting our ocean. They are cause-led, focusing on oceanwear and activism. For every piece bought, SLO active will donate to one of their ocean charity partners of your choice. They call it ‘Earth to Ocean’. Learn more at https://sloactive.com/.

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Excerpt:

Janaya Wilkins is the founder and CEO of SLO* active, the lifestyle brand dedicated to protecting the ocean by selling sustainable luxury ocean wear.

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By Haider A. Khan
DENVER, Colorado, Dec 20 2019 (IPS)

When I decided to become a US citizen in 1990s, it was a deliberate decision to spend my life fighting for preserving and deepening democratic freedoms at a place where I have spent all my adult life. Having struggled against a brutal military dictatorship while I was a teenager, I knew that democracy is something you have to fight hard for. Therefore, when I became a citizen, for the swearing in event I took with me key documents of US democratic heritage. These included the constitution, the federalist papers and related documents from the 1780s. Since that ceremony I have tried to learn as much as I could about the crucial idea of democratic checks and balances among the executive, legislative and judiciary branches of our government. I have come to realize how prescient some of the revolutionaries from the 1770s and 1780s were in identifying the potential sources of tyranny and corruption of democracy. I have always looked at the impeachment provisions in this light.

Haider A. Khan

As we know, George Mason, the author of Virginia’s Declaration of Rights, over the course of the constitutional convention, realized the threat to democracy from the powerful executive branch of the new government he and his fellow revolutionaries were creating. Mason rightly concluded that the president of the republic could become a tyrant as oppressive as any absolute monarch. We also know that this line of thinking led to Mason’s intervention in the debates on September 8, 1787, when he asked why were treason and bribery the only grounds in the draft Constitution for impeaching the president? His fear was that treason would not include “attempts to subvert the Constitution.”And he was right.

It was his fellow revolutionary from Virginia, James Madison who helped Mason to develop a separate class of impeachable offenses. This was what by now should be familiar to us from the House Judiciary Committee hearings— “other high crimes and misdemeanors.” It was clear also from the seeming lack of understanding of the Republican house members why this phrase has been so contentious. It also underlined how the inclusion and interpretation can offer people fighting against tyranny of a dangerous executive power as the one at present some crucial assistance.

We have to thank the foresight and insight of three Virginians—Mason, Madison and delegate Edmund Randolph for this inclusion. These three men had very different positions on the Constitution; but their arguments in the debates in Philadelphia and at Virginia’s ratifying convention in Richmond produced crucial definitions of an impeachable offense. Ultimately, the delegates agreed that a president could and should be impeached for abuses of power that subvert the Constitution, the integrity of government, or the rule of law.

These three Virginians—Mason, Madison, and Randolph— all defended vigorously the rights of the legislative branch to carry on procedures of impeachment if the evidence pointed towards abuses of power that subvert the Constitution, the integrity of government, or the rule of law. Thus on July 20, they opposed the arguments of Charles Pinckney of South Carolina and Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania who had moved to strike the impeachment clause. The argumens of Charles Pinckney of South Carolina and Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania were remarkably similar to what many Republican members of the House said during the debate on Dec. 18, 2019. In 1787 Morris had argued: “[If the president] should be re-elected, that will be sufficient proof of his innocence,”. “[Impeachment] will render the Executive dependent on those who are to impeach.” Mason’s response was forthright :“Shall any man be above justice? Shall that man be above it who can commit the most extensive injustice? Shall the man who has practiced corruption, and by that means procured his appointment in the first instance, be suffered to escape punishment by repeating his guilt?”

Consistently, James Madison argued that the Constitution must provide “for defending the community against the incapacity, negligence, or perfidy of the Chief Magistrate.” “He might pervert his administration into a scheme of peculation or oppression.” Furthermore, Madison presciently warned. “He might betray his trust to foreign powers.” This has turned out to be the key issue in the recent impeachment investigations and hearings dividing the pro- and anti-impeachment house members. At the end, as we also know, the delegates voted, 8 states to 2, to make the executive removable by impeachment thus following up on the English parliamentary model of impeachment.

We may debate whether the Founders got the balance on impeachment just right or settled for a vague standard that is often too weak to stop abuse of power by the president. This is clearly an issue in the current situation. Johnson’s acquittal—in spite of Kennedy’s defense of it in his 1955 book— may have enabled him to disable progressive legislation during the reconstruction.

But when as an ordinary citizen I look back on these debates and further practices in the US history, the brighter side of our historic legacy stands out. There have always been sincere and serious fighters for institutionalizing checks and balances to guarantee freedom. But the application is a complex process. The current situation looks bleak because of the more than usual dose of lies, half truths and plain ignorance of our constitution by some of our law makers. However, the constitutional arguments offered defending the right of the ordinary citizens’ representatives to take the task of impeachment seriously shows that the spirit and wisdom of Mason, Madison and Randolph are still alive among the majority of the house members.

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