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IDB Modernises Crucial Social and Environmental Safeguards
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Categories: Africa
IEDs: Tackling Terrorists’ Weapon of War
In Torit, South Sudan, the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) carries out mechanical and manual demining exercises. Credit: United Nations
By Pavithra Rao
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 27 2019 (IPS)
Some of the most memorable images of the late Diana, Princess of Wales, show her wearing a protective suit while touring a minefield in Angola in 1997 to raise awareness of the devastating effects of land mines.
After meeting 13-year-old Sandra Thijika, who lost her leg after stepping on a land mine, the princess told the media, “I’d read the statistics that Angola has the highest percentage of amputees anywhere in the world…that one person in every 333 had lost a limb, most of them through land mine explosions.” She used the occasion to call for a global effort to address the problem.
Two years later, on March 1, 1999, the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction (also known as the Ottawa Mines Ban Treaty or simply the Ottawa Treaty) entered into force.
By 2018, 164 states, including 50 African states, had signed up, committing to “not using, developing, producing, acquiring, retaining, stockpiling, or transferring anti-personnel landmines.”
However, 20 years since the treaty, there are still more than 50 million stockpiles of land mines, mostly in Angola, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Chad and Iraq, according to the US-based nonpartisan Arms Control Association, which is dedicated to drumming up support for arms control policies globally.
In a similar vein, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, a network of NGOs, is upbeat about progress made so far with the Ottawa Treaty, reporting that 28 states have completely cleared and ended the use of land mines.
These include South Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar, Ethiopia and Chad. Mozambique was declared free of land mines most recently, in 2015.
Non-state actors
While the treaty has proved successful with states, the bigger problem remains that of nonstate actors laying their hands on improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which include land mines.
Pavithra Rao
The United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) IED adviser, Bryan Sand, defines as an IED anything that is “activated by the presence, proximity or contact of a person.”“IEDs can be broken into three broad categories,” Sand says. “The first category consists of victim-operated IEDs—these meet the definition of a land mine; the second category are timed devices that are set to detonate at a specific time; and the third category is command devices, which can be operated when one either presses a button or steps on a switch, etc.”
While land mine use is decreasing, Sand says there is an upswing in the number of IEDS being used by nonstate actors. “IEDs are a huge problem, because individuals who do not have access to state munitions resort to improvised devices.”
Sand adds that terrorist groups such the Boko Haram in Nigeria and Al-Shabaab in Somalia are using IEDs as instruments of terror. “They are using these devices to circumvent what has been largely a very successful Ottawa Treaty on land mines.”
In a broader sense, IEDs are unpredictable, as they are not manufactured within the same set of specifications as regular land mines. Most IEDs are also cheaper and easier to manufacture.
How much impact can an IED have?
He elaborates: “When you look at the cost of an AK-47 vis-à-vis its effect, it is limited compared to the cost of an IED that can destroy many more lives and several hundred thousand dollars’ worth of property. This is why IEDs are weapons of choice for terrorist groups across Africa and globally.”
One of the loopholes in the Ottawa Mines Ban Treaty is that it targets land mines, not the full range of IEDs, which include antitank mines, booby traps and other devices.
Because IEDs are multi-dynamic, regulation is complex, Sand concedes. “It is difficult to enforce regulation on things that can also be used as technology. If I am activating an IED using a cell phone, how would one know that the cell phone is for personal use or for a nefarious purpose?” he asks rhetorically.
From the UN’s point of view, Sand says IEDs hinder the ability to deliver humanitarian aid—convoys that ought to move across roads can’t operate. “Look at Nigeria and Cameroon—they’re diverting resources that could be better spent elsewhere than dealing with IEDs,” he points out.
AU intervention
The African Union and its member states are looking to develop a strategy to deal with IEDs, while the UN is doing the same thing “so that a whole-of-government or whole-of-institution approach can be adopted…to get everyone on the same page,” says Sand.
For example, UNMAS undertook a mapping of the entire UN system and found, surprisingly, that 28 different UN agencies are dealing with individuals and groups affected by IEDs. UNMAS envisions a unified systemwide focus on IEDs.
Regarding deactivating land mines, much has been done, but there is still a lot more to do, says Sand. Countries such as Mozambique, Angola and Somalia, hit hard by land mines used in wars and conflict, are deploying technological tools such as electromagnetic radar and even using rodents to detect and neutralize land mines.
Military records, maps and information from local populations have also been crucial in detecting land mines. “It’s a huge amount of work and engagement with the local population, with the government, with civil society and NGOs,” explains Sand, and adds, “The UN assists in coordinating so much of this. It’s a bigger process and it’s resource driven.”
UNMAS also makes efforts with its limited resources to assist land mine victims. Sand says, “We want to help the victims and survivors in terms of rebuilding their lives. For example, we had a survivor come [to UN headquarters in New York and] speak about his experience—losing three of his limbs to an IED attack and the resources that were made available to him, and how he survived. It was truly remarkable.
“We need to make our resources more available across the world, so bettering ourselves in that delivery is important.” UNMAS, he concludes, envisions a world where people do not die because of land mines or IEDs.
*The Africa Renewal information programme, produced by the Africa Section of the United Nations Department of Global Communications, provides up-to-date information and analysis of the major economic and development challenges facing Africa today. Among the major items it produces is the renowned magazine, Africa Renewal (formerly Africa Recovery), which first appeared in 1987. It also produces a range of public information materials, including backgrounders, press releases and feature articles. It works with the media in Africa and beyond to promote the work of the United Nations, Africa and the international community to bring peace and development to Africa.
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Excerpt:
Pavithra Rao, Africa Renewal*
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Categories: Africa
Four Ways to Prevent Deaths from Lassa Fever
Credit: S. Oka/WHO
By Ifeanyi Nsofor
ABUJA, Nov 27 2019 (IPS)
Dr. Wouter, a Dutch doctor who helped perform surgeries and train colleagues in surgical skills in underserved areas of Sierra Leone died of Lassa Fever. He was infected as a result of performing a Caesarean section on an infected pregnant woman.
This was a very painful and avoidable death. I mourn with his family and the Dutch people over this loss. No health worker should die while trying to save lives. Sadly, every year 5,000 West Africans die from Lassa fever.
Lassa fever is a viral disease of inequity and disproportionately affects poor people. There are an estimated 100,000 – 300,000 annual cases of Lassa fever across West Africa, according to the U.S. Centres for Disease Control. Countries endemic for Lassa fever include Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria.
Lassa fever is a viral disease of inequity and disproportionately affects poor people. There are an estimated 100,000 - 300,000 annual cases of Lassa fever across West Africa, according to the U.S. Centres for Disease Control. Countries endemic for Lassa fever include Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria
The infection is a type of hemorrhagic fever, which is transmitted via contamination of foods and water by poop of a species of rats that are common across the region. Poor sanitation is a predisposing factor to multiplication of these rats.
Without a doubt, Lassa fever is common. For instance, based on recent epidemiological report by the Nigeria center for disease control, there are 101 suspected cases of Lassa fever, 11 confirmed cases and one reported death across 40 local councils in 11 States, including Nigeria’s federal capital city Abuja.
Based on November 2019 records, there were seven cases of Lassa fever and 2 deaths in Sierra Leone. While in Liberia, Lassa fever killed 21 as at September 2019.
Due to poor health systems across endemic countries, health workers in the line of duty are also at risk of Lassa fever. In a previous opinion piece, I wrote about Idowu, a young Nigerian Doctor who contracted Lassa fever after treating an infected 7-month old baby in north-central Nigeria in 2018. Dr. Idowu died less than a month later.
Another victim, Dr. Emeka got infected after treating a newborn that was bleeding profusely on admission. Dr. Emeka was abandoned by his colleagues and had to pay for his treatment in one of Nigeria’s Lassa fever reference hospitals. Although Dr. Emeka survived, he lives with Lassa fever complications.
Why should a disease whose causative organism, mode of transmission and treatment are known still be killing thousands every year? The answer to this question underscores the inequity around Lassa fever.
These are ways to ensure Dr. Wouter’s death is not in vain.
First, the international community must invest in producing a Lassa fever vaccine. This would be beneficial to endemic communities as well as protect health workers who work in such communities.
It is commendable that the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) has put out an advert for grants to develop a vaccine against Lassa fever. The total grant amount is $44 million. This initiative is a good one and should be supported by governments, ministries of health, communities, civil society organisations and the private sector.
Second, governments must prioritise other social issues that have huge influence on health and health-seeking behaviours. These are called social determinants of health and include access to clean water, availability of community sanitation, provision of education for all and promotion of healthy behaviours.
Poor sanitation is implicated in the spread of Lassa fever. As long as communities in endemic countries keep lacking access to clean water and are not educated about the benefits of keeping their environs clean, Lassa fever would continue to be endemic.
Third, governments should provide universal access to healthcare. No one should be denied care because of their inability to pay at the point of need. The World Health Organization’s definition of universal health coverage includes a spectrum of prevention, promotion, treatment, rehabilitation and palliation. All five components are important to stop Lassa fever.
Specifically, prevention of Lassa fever entails that countries also invest in epidemic preparedness. As it stands, no country in Africa is prepared for epidemics based on scoring by preventepidemics.org. This has to change to save lives and improve economic wellbeing on the continent.
Fourth, health workers must adhere to strict Infection, Prevention and Control (IPC) protocols at all times when attending to patients. As committed as health workers are to saving lives, they must realise that they need to be alive to do so.
The Lassa fever public health advisory for health workers by the Nigeria centre for Disease Control strongly advises health workers to observe these protocols regardless of patients’ presumed diagnoses.
The IPC protocols include proper wearing and removal of face masks, hand gloves, gowns, and goggles before and after entering the patient’s room; washing of hands with soap under running water always; limiting invasive procedures such as injections; and appropriate disposal and disinfection of items used by Lassa fever patients etc.
As we mourn Dr. Wouter, the global health community should be reminded that no one should die of Lassa fever in the 21st century; not health workers and definitely not poor people in endemic communities.
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Excerpt:
Dr. Ifeanyi Nsofor is a medical doctor, the CEO of EpiAFRIC, Director of Policy and Advocacy for Nigeria Health Watch
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Categories: Africa
Catalysing Change for Gender Equality
By Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana and Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
BANGKOK, Thailand – UNITED NATIONS, Nov 27 2019 (IPS)
Great strides have been taken to empower women and girls in the Asia-Pacific region since the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing adopted an ambitious global agenda to achieve gender equality twenty-five years ago. Gender parity has been achieved in primary education. Maternal mortality has been halved. Today, the region’s governments are committed to overcoming the persistent challenges of discrimination, gender-based violence and women’s unequal access to resources and decision-making.
Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana
The Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference for the Beijing+25 Review will meet in Bangkok this week to explore how more Beijing Declaration commitments can be met to improve the lives of women and girls in the region. Asia-Pacific governments have reviewed their progress and identified three priority areas, areas where action is imperative to accelerate progress in the coming five years.First, we must end violence against women, such a severe human rights violation which continues to hinder women’s empowerment. As many as one in two women in the region have experienced physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner in the last 12 months. Countries in the region have adopted laws and policies to prevent and respond to violence against women. This is progress on which we must build. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2015 adopted the Convention against Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, and a Regional Plan of Action on the Elimination of Violence Against Women in 2018. Free legal services, hotlines and digital applications to report violence, and emergency shelters and safe spaces for survivors are increasingly common. New partnerships are underway challenging stigma and stereotypes, working directly with boys and men. However, more investment is needed to prevent violence, and to ensure all women and girls who experienced violence will have access to justice and essential services.
Second, women’s political representation must be increased in Asia and the Pacific. Our region’s representation rates are behind the global average. Only one in five parliamentarians are women in Asia-Pacific. Despite governments committing to gender parity in decision making 25 years ago in Beijing, the region has seen the share of women in parliament grow at just 2.2 percentage points annually over the past two decades. We must therefore look to where faster progress has been made. In several countries, quotas have helped increase the number of women in parliament. These need to be further expanded and complemented with targeted, quality training and mentoring for women leaders and removing the barriers of negative norms, stigma and stereotypes of women in politics and as leaders.
Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
Third, economic empowerment remains key. Only half the women in our region are in paid work, compared with 80 percent of men. Ours is the only region in the world where women’s labour-force participation is decreasing in the past 10 years. Two out of three working women are in the informal sector, often with no social protection and in hazardous conditions. Legislative measures to deliver equal pay and policies to ensure the recruitment, retention and promotion of women must be part of the solution, as must supporting the transition of women from informal to formal work sectors. Digital and financial inclusion measures can empower women to unleash their entrepreneurial potential and support economic growth, jobs and poverty reduction. Action has been taken in all these areas by individual countries. They can be given scale by countries working at the regional level.Next year will mark the convergence of the 25 years of implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and the five-year milestone of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Investments and financing for gender equality need to be fully committed and resourced to realize these ambitious targets and commitments. Our hope is that the Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference for the Beijing+25 Review will help provide the necessary momentum. Now is time to craft priority actions for change and accelerate the realization of human rights and opportunities for all women and men, girls and boys. Let us remain ambitious in our vision, and steadfast in our determination to achieve gender equality and women empowerment in Asia and the Pacific.
Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of ESCAP, and
Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of UN Women
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Categories: Africa
Despite Halting Progress, UN Continues its Push for a Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone in the Middle East
Nuclear Test. Credit: United Nations
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 27 2019 (IPS)
A longstanding proposal for a regional nuclear-weapons-free zone (NWFZ) in the Middle East – one of the world’s most conflict-ridden regions – has been kicked around the corridors of UN committee rooms since 1974.
And as another effort to negotiate a legally-binding treaty concluded last week, there were lingering questions crying out for answers: how realistic is the proposal in the face of implicit opposition from US and Israel? Is the proposal still in the realm of political fantasy?
Expressing confidence in the ongoing negotiations, Emad Kiyaei, Director at the Middle East Treaty Organization (METO) and a former director at American-Iranian Council told IPS, a WMD-Free Zone in the Middle East is far from being a fantasy– and is based on the goodwill of the states from within the region to reach an agreement.
Last week’s conference, he said, was “a positive step forward and the states in the (committee) room were showing more flexibility and constructive discourse that we have witnessed in decades on this issue.”
He pointed out that the danger of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East shows that business cannot continue as usual.
“It is a real threat, however, and this threat is further exacerbated by the global nuclear weapons states that have used the Middle East in their power games and scapegoated in not reaching a final document at the 2015 NPT Review Conference.”
He said the states from within the region understand the gravity of the threat and
the need for a comprehensive process that reduces tensions and serves as a starting point for an inclusive discussion in goodwill.
The United Nations says it has been working to eliminate nuclear weapons, including through the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), as well as the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), both of which are yet to enter into force.
Dr Rebecca Johnson of the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy and author of “Unfinished Business” on multilateral negotiations, told IPS: “The stakes for international as well as regional security could not be higher.”
“Ending weapons of mass destruction possession and use in the Middle East has to be a vital priority for everyone.”
“It’s helpful that most of the P5 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, namely the UK, US, France, China and Russia) — and relevant states of the region attended the UN Conference — but very worrying that the United States and Israel decided to boycott,” she said.
“They behave as if they want to keep at least nuclear weapons and freedom of action for the foreseeable future. That’s a dangerous position to take, particularly after Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the US out of the JCPOA (2015 nuclear restraint agreement with Iran), which has reopened the door for Tehran to accelerate its nuclear production programmes, including uranium enrichment.”
Last week’s conference “was very limited in what it can accomplish in a week. What will it take to restore the JCPOA and bring Israel and the US to the table?”
“Politics is of course key here”, declared Dr Johnson.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed “the successful conclusion of the Conference” and congratulated the participating States, in particular on the adoption of a Political Declaration, and supported their continuing efforts to pursue, in an open and inclusive manner, the establishment of a Nuclear-Weapons and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction-Free Zone in the region.
Currently, there are five regional nuclear-weapon-free-zones – in Latin America and the Caribbean; Africa; Central Asia; Southeast Asia; and the South Pacific.
According to the United Nations, treaties covering those States are: African Nuclear Weapon Free Zone Treaty (Treaty of Pelindaba); South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty (Treaty of Rarotonga); Treaty on the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon Free Zone (Treaty of Bangkok); Treaty on a Nuclear Weapon Free Zone in Central Asia (Semipalatinsk Treaty); and, the first ever such zone, the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (Treaty of Tlatelolco).
The world’s five declared nuclear powers are the P5 in the UN Security Council while the four undeclared nuclear powers are India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea.
But there are at least three countries in the region—Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt – harboring intentions of going nuclear perhaps in a distant future.
Asked about the progress made so far, Kiyaei said since 2016, civil society in the region has been working with states from within the region and the international community to draw attention to the fact that the most important component missing was the belief that such a zone is possible and the goodwill needed to sustain this process.
The Middle East Treaty Organization (METO) with international experts has issued a draft treaty text that shows several possibilities to move forward if only the states want to achieve the zone, instead of using this topic to bash each other for short-term political points, he added.
“We have noticed a change of language that was shown even in the UN Resolution that was adopted for an annual conference on the WMD Free Zone. This is a rare opportunity whereby the conference on the zone is initiated and led by states within the Middle East, while the five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council (minus the United States) serve as observers”, said Kiyaei, co-author of “Weapons of Mass Destruction: A new approach to non-proliferation” (Brookings Institution and Chatham House).
Dr Johnson said: “The main diplomatic challenge is to take forward a positive process that engages positively with the existing treaty regimes covering all types of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).”
At a minimum, it would have been important for the November Conference to commit to holding a follow up conference under UN General Assembly auspices.
“They should also consider what positive initiatives can be taken to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Conference in 2020, especially in light of the 1995 Resolution on the Middle East and the failure to hold the 2012 Conference that was agreed in 2010.”
“I’ve been talking with various regional and P5 states about what diplomatic initiatives could be practical to propose in 2020, but let’s see first how last week’s UN Conference has progressed.”
Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, President of the UN General Assembly, warned delegates about the continued existence of more than 15,000 nuclear warheads stockpiled around the world, “and any use of these weapons would be a humanitarian and ecological catastrophe, causing irreplaceable damage.”
Although nuclear weapons have only been used once in history, the 1945 bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War attest to their devastation, he added.
Asked who the key non-starters are, Kiyaei said the United States and Israel decided not to participate in this year’s conference, however, their absence in the room is not necessarily a bad thing at this moment as it allows the other states to have a constructive discussion to serve as a positive and crucial step towards a positive outcome.
“Having said that, we call on Israel to pay attention that with consensus on all final decisions on the WMD Free Zone treaty, it has nothing to lose by joining the process and everything to gain.”
The US’s stand is that the time is not right and the states in the region are not ready for disarmament. “We would like to remind that there is huge difference between disarmament and dismantlement—there is no such thing as not being ready for disarmament as disarmament begins with a conversation if there is
goodwill”.
The question is not readiness, wanting or not wanting—as Israel has on numerous times supported the establishment of a WMD Free Zone in the Middle East.
“It is time to start this discourse—just as it is time for the nuclear weapons states to dismantle their stockpiles based on a specific timeline,” he declared.
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Categories: Africa
UN Warns of ‘Screen Teens’ not Getting Enough Exercise
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Categories: Africa
I am Generation Equality: Child Marriage Survivor & Activist
Fatmira Dajlani leads the “Roma Gateway for Integration” organization in Fushe Kruje, Albania . Credit: UN Women/Parllaku
By Fatima Dajlani
FUSHE KRUJE, Albania, Nov 26 2019 (IPS)
— I am Generation Equality because…
I didn’t want other girls to go through the same struggles I experienced. I got married when I was 14 years old. I had no idea what marriage was.
Three things you can do to stop child marriage:
Promote girls’ education and inform young girls and their community about the consequences of child marriage.
Facilitate exchange experiences among girls from non-Roma communities and those from Roma communities
Join #GenerationEquality campaign by sharing stories like these with your friends and social media networks.
There was no wedding, no such thing as the white dress. It was just a room where I had to prove my virginity. I remember the first day of my marriage with a lot of pain. It happened 24 years ago, but I remember this to be the ugliest thing in my life. I was just a child, I thought that if I didn’t obey, I would humiliate my family and hurt their pride.
I started working in the Roma community because I wanted to change their mentality, about child marriage. I didn’t want other girls to go through the same struggles I experienced. [My own experience] has driven me to work with young girls, to motivate them to be independent.
I talk about this every day in the Roma community. I explain to girls what marriage is, what it entails, and what they will sign up for if they get married at an early age. I tell the girls that they should not get married if they don’t want to, even if their parents insist.
I am ready to protect each one of them if they don’t want to get married. There have been many cases in which girls have refused, and their parents have finally given up.
Education is the key
It is very urgent to work with and raise awareness among girls and their mothers to fight child marriage. If the mother doesn’t want to give her daughter for marriage, she will not be married off early.
But it is almost impossible to fight the mentality about child marriage among parents. They justify it as being part of our culture and traditions, but that is not true.
We should educate Roma girls, give them the chance to be independent. In the Roma community in Fushe Kruje, (a town 30 km from the capital of Albania) girls aren’t allowed to go to school after the sixth grade, because they are considered matured at this stage. There are around 300 Roma families in this community and only two girls have made it to high school and university.
Recently, a 12-year-old girl got married and broke up only two weeks after.
Joining forces to end child marriage
Today, Roma girls are more informed about child marriage and they have understood that they can say no to marriage and oppose their parents. But the parents are worried that if their daughters are not married before 18, no one will marry them.
While among boys, it is different.
They don’t get married before 18 anymore. It is important to work with them as well. We talk to boys about many social issues that the community faces, such as domestic abuse, the use of alcohol and gambling.
Fighting child marriage should be a joint effort. The more activists and institutions join the cause, the greater the change. We all have a lot of work ahead of us.
*This was originally published on Medium.com/@UN_Women
The post I am Generation Equality: Child Marriage Survivor & Activist appeared first on Inter Press Service.
Excerpt:
*Fatmira Dajlani has been working as an activist for 14 years in Albania and is leading “Roma Gateway for Integration” organization in Fushe Kruje.
Billions of people across the world stand on the right side of history every day. They speak up, take a stand, mobilize, and take big and small actions to advance women’s rights. This is Generation Equality.
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Categories: Africa
Cities need to pull their weight in using education to help migrants and refugees
By PRESS RELEASE
PARIS, Nov 26 2019 (IPS-Partners)
A new policy paper by the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report at UNESCO, released ahead of the UNHCR Global Refugee Forum next month, shows the increasingly important role of cities using education of people on the move as a lever for their inclusion. It calls for international and non-governmental organisations to recognise cities as partners and for governments to clarify and support cities’ role in education.
People on the move tend to concentrate in urban areas, whether arriving from rural areas or across borders. Many living in cities are foreign born – from 46% in Toronto to 62% in Brussels, 83% in Dubai and 39% in Sydney. Those forcibly displaced also often end up in cities, with around 60% of the world’s refugees living in urban areas.
Manos Antoninis, Director of the GEM Report, said “Currently, many migrants in poorer countries end up in slums with limited access to a free education. In richer countries they are often segregated into schools in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Strong urban planning, inclusive learning environments and fighting discrimination are just some of the essential functions that cities can serve in addressing segregation. It’s a waste not to tap into this potential.”
The paper shows many cases of segregation happening in richer countries. In France, immigrants in 2007 were more likely to be in classes where 15% of students were immigrants. In Germany’s Hessen state, about 41% of children who did not speak German at home went to day-care centres where at least half the other children did not speak German either. In Turkey, housing market analysis indicated that natives moved out of neighbourhoods where Syrian refugees had settled.
Yet, the new paper, ‘Defending the right to the city for all’, shows that many cities, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, have no mandate and little financial support to tackle the issues. A review of Amman, Beirut, Tangier and Tunis, all with significant migrant or refugee population flows, showed they did not have any authority for delivering education services. A further review of 23 cities faced with migrant and displaced communities found that only 5 had a dedicated budget to support their efforts.
Cities that do have clear roles can make a huge difference in improving education access. Some are entirely or partly responsible for early childhood or primary education as in France, Italy and Germany and have the power to open access to people on the move. A few years ago, Turin in Italy decided not to apply a law requiring a residence permit to access education, spearheading a change in national policy. The city of Zurich in Switzerland provides an average of CHF 40,000 per year to schools with more than 40% of students with an immigrant background to help with language and reading skills.
Many cities help improve language skills, whether through online services as in Germany, or in language courses as in Italy with attached babysitting services so that migrant women can attend. Sao Paolo offers 600 places in municipal schools to learn Portuguese as a second language.
Links between schools and migrants are also prioritised. In Frankfurt, Germany, immigrant mothers and fathers attend their children’s classes in kindergarten and primary school twice a week; Linkoping in Sweden trains tutors with knowledge of Somali or Arabic to act as ‘link people’ for parents.
Cities also help fight discrimination with awareness campaigns, or by fostering exchanges between inhabitants. Valongo in Portugal created a Human Library project, called ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’, whereby people can be ‘borrowed’ as though they are a book to answer questions on a variety of topics. Oslo in Norway set up a community festival to encourage intercultural exchange, and Seoul in Korea had an annual Migrant World Film Festival for more than a decade.
The paper has recommendations for four main actors:
1. City governments must plan education in an inclusive and sustainable way, consulting with migrants and refugees in the planning phase, and ensuring that they can benefit from existing policy tools that promote inclusion in education.
2. National governments need to clarify cities’ role and promote networks between cities so they can learn from each other’s experiences and share scarce resources.
3. International organisations need to recognise cities as partners. They can also help develop cities’ technical and managerial skills…for instance by funding investments in professional education
4. Non-governmental organisations need to help ensure that the voices of migrants are heard when education services are designed and delivered in cities, and lobby for stronger coordination between local authorities and other national departments.
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Categories: Africa
Businesses Have Key Role in Safeguarding Human Rights
By Peter Paul van de Wijs
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, Nov 26 2019 (IPS)
Unanimously endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council in 2011, the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights are the authoritative global reference point articulating the responsibilities of companies to respect and protect human rights.
The UN Forum on Business and Human Rights meets this week in Geneva, where the theme is ‘governments as catalysts for business respect for human rights’. The Forum is an important opportunity to assess the progress nation states have made towards meeting their duty under the Guiding Principles, through the implementation of National Action Plans (NAPs) on Business and Human Rights.
The need for strengthened transparency
So, how are governments doing so far through their NAPs? An analysis by GRI – the international organization that helps governments and organizations understand and communicate their impacts – finds there is plenty of room for improvement.
We have reviewed the 23 NAPs produced by countries so far, which has identified that much more needs to be done by governments to help businesses understand, mitigate and improve their human rights impacts.
Strengthening transparency and reporting requirements is required, if governments are to stimulate the changes needed in business behavior. Our analysis found wide divergence in how countries set out expectations and provide support for businesses to effectively disclose and manage human rights risks.
Recommendations for change
GRI has singled out ten key recommendations, providing governments with practical advice on how their NAPs can use corporate reporting to improve their effectiveness.
While primarily aimed at governments drafting or updating their NAPs, these recommendations are also relevant to other stakeholders, including businesses, civil society, and research and national human rights institutions.
We identify that the NAPs need to:
- 1. Require public reporting on human rights impacts based on internationally recognized standards;
2. Clarify that companies should both disclose their human rights impacts and how they are managing them;
3. Include concrete targets and timelines to increase human rights reporting;
4. Use sustainability reporting data as part of a transparent monitoring process;
5. Be inclusive of the reporting by all businesses, including SMEs and state-owned enterprises;
6. Consider incentives for companies to increase and improve their reporting;
7. Provide support to companies through awareness raising and capacity building;
8. Include guidance that clearly explains reporting requirements;
9. Foster collaborations and partnerships between the state, companies and civil society;
10. And finally, clearly specify who is responsible for taking action.
Peter Paul van de Wijs
These recommendations are about ensuring governments and businesses are accountable for human rights impacts. That can only be possible when there is comprehensive understanding of what the current impacts are – information that can then inform changes that protect individuals against human rights abuses.Improved accountability through reporting
When it comes to human rights, the old phrase ‘what you don’t know won’t hurt you’ could not be further from the truth. The reality is that understanding how businesses can contribute towards fulfilling the aims of the UN Guiding Principles is impossible without clarity on how individual companies are performing, from a sustainability standpoint.
And that’s why our number one recommendation to governments is to improve reporting through requiring the use of international disclosure frameworks based on a multi-stakeholder and independent standard-setting process.
Experience shows the duty of governments to protect human rights cannot be fully realized through voluntary guidelines or self-regulation by companies alone.
Globally relevant disclosure standards
The GRI Standards, the world’s most widely adopted sustainability reporting framework, provide a cornerstone for any company seeking to be transparent about their impacts – and human rights are an important thread throughout.
Human rights impacts are addressed through GRI’s universal Standards – which every organizations that reports through GRI must use – as well as topic-specific Standards on child labor, and forced or compulsory labor. Yet we’re not standing still.
GRI is currently carrying out a review to see how we can further improve the positioning of human rights, which may include the development of new Standards or disclosures. We do this through an inclusive and multi-stakeholder approach, taking on board views from all parties.
This will include input from policy makers, NGOs, UN and human rights organizations – and, of course, businesses themselves.
We need smart solutions
No single initiative by governments and businesses will be able provide the comprehensive monitoring, mitigation and protection of human rights that is required. What we need is a ‘smart mix’ of policy measures – voluntary and mandatory, national and international.
It’s only through concerted effort and collaboration that we will be able to ensure the improved human rights reporting that will ultimately underpin the success of the UN Guiding Principles. GRI, through our mission to drive up corporate transparency and accountability standards around the world, is determined to be a part of the solution.
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Excerpt:
Peter Paul van de Wijs is Chief External Affairs Officer, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)
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Categories: Africa
Social Protection Necessary to Quickly End Poverty, Hunger
By Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Anis Chowdhury
KUALA LUMPUR and SYDNEY, Nov 26 2019 (IPS)
Historically, most social security systems have developed in the formal sector of rich economies. However, most of the poor and hungry in the world live in rural areas, surviving in the informal economy.
Meanwhile, the world economy continues to struggle to recover following the 2008 financial crisis. Prospects remained bleak as many governments pursued fiscal austerity in the face of perceived financial market pressures.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Most developing countries continue to experience high underemployment, even if official unemployment rates remain low. With low commodity prices and escalating trade tensions, things are likely to get worse in the medium term.Eliminating hunger and poverty
Even if long-term growth really lifts all boats, which there is no evidence for, it cannot eliminate hunger and poverty by 2030, especially as inequality mutes the impact of growth on poverty reduction. The struggle to escape poverty is slowed as growth is not inclusive.
Many non-poor households remain vulnerable to poverty as they face various shocks which cause them to fall into poverty. Such shocks typically have long-lasting negative impacts on the poor. However, with the requisite political commitment and fiscal resources, poverty and hunger can be reduced quickly with well-designed social protection.
The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) commits countries to “implement nationally appropriate social protection systems and measures for all, including floors, and by 2030 achieve substantial coverage of the poor and the vulnerable”.
The Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) 2015 State of Food and Agriculture showed that social protection can not only quickly reduce hunger, extreme poverty and deprivation, but also economic and social risk as well as vulnerability. Having social protection in place also enables governments to better respond to crises.
Reducing vulnerability
Social protection should involve policies and programmes designed to reduce and prevent poverty and vulnerability. World Bank estimates suggest that social protection prevented 150 million people worldwide from falling into poverty in 2010, albeit unevenly.
Anis Chowdhury
Social protection can also enable investments by beneficiaries to enhance their own productive capacities, earned incomes, consumption, health, education, and wellbeing. Contrary to widespread popular prejudices, it does not reduce adult work effort and incomes, enabling children to work less, and to attend school instead.Lack of social protection leaves people vulnerable to poverty, inequality and social exclusion, constituting a major obstacle to economic and social development. Higher incomes also boost demand in local economies, with desirable multiplier effects.
Social protection can ensure more and better food consumption, reducing food insecurity and seasonal hunger besides increasing dietary diversity. Improving food access and diets reduces the economic burden of undernutrition, improving living standards, productivity and incomes.
It also helps poor households better manage risk, reducing reliance on, and vulnerability to usury, clientelism and other exploitative arrangements. Gender-sensitivity in the design and delivery of social protection not only improves food security, but also empowers women.
Limited social protection
Social protection is a universal human right. But the International Labour Office’s (ILO) World Social Protection Report 2017-19 found only 45 per cent of the global population had at least one social benefit, while the remaining four billion people are totally unprotected.
Coverage gaps reflect underinvestment in social protection, particularly in African, Asian and Arab countries. The World Bank’s The State of Social Safety Nets 2014 reported that 345 million are covered, while 870 million of the extreme poor in the world are not covered at all.
Unsurprisingly, the biggest shortfalls are in low income countries, where 47 per cent of the population is extremely poor, less than a tenth of the population, or about one in five of the extremely poor, has some support.
In lower middle-income countries, 173 million (28 per cent) extreme poor are covered, but 479 million are not. In upper middle-income countries, 74 million (45 per cent) of the extreme poor get some support, while 93 million do not.
According to the World Bank’s World Development Report 2019, only 18 per cent of the poorest quintile in low-income countries gets social assistance, while two per cent have social insurance, with these rates rising to 77 and 28 per cent respectively in upper-middle-income countries.
Affordable?
Fiscal austerity has undermined social protection in recent times. Together with persistent unemployment, lower wages and fiscal austerity measures have contributed to increasing poverty, now affecting 86 million people in the European Union alone.
Efforts to induce private investments in recent decades have seen sharp declines in marginal tax rates as countries engage in harmful tax competition. This has also adversely affected governments’ abilities to maintain and extend social protection.
The Rome-based UN food agencies estimated how much it would cost to sustainably end hunger and poverty by 2030. The ILO’s costing estimates for 57 lower income countries imply that even the poorest countries can afford to extend some social protection to all their citizens.
While some countries have the fiscal space to quickly develop and extend social protection floors, others will have to gradually extend coverage and benefits. Most low income countries will need external budgetary support, at least initially.
Countries normally achieve universal coverage through a combination of contributory social insurance and tax-based social assistance. Countries can use the ILO Social Protection Floors Calculator to estimate the costs of child and orphan allowances, maternity benefits, disability and old-age pensions as well as public works programmes for those without jobs.
Sustainable?
Enough social protection can quickly end hunger and poverty, but is not sustainable without higher earnings for the poor able to work. An early big push for pro-poor investments will generate such additional incomes earlier, reducing longer term financing costs.
Over three quarters of the world’s poor live in rural areas, where almost half the world’s population resides. Raising rural incomes sustainably is necessary to eliminate poverty and hunger.
Rising incomes should, in turn, increase investments, expediting exit from the vicious cycle of poverty, and eventually reducing the need for social protection.
Clearly, ending hunger and poverty sustainably is eminently viable, feasible and affordable. With sufficient political will and solidarity, we can end hunger and poverty quickly and permanently.
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Categories: Africa
When African Women are Financially Included, an Entire Continent Wins
The Global Gender Summit, hosted by the African Development Bank (AfDB), and which is currently taking place from Nov. 25 to 27 in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali. Credit: Plasir Muzogeye/IPS
By Emmanuel Hitimana
KIGALI, Nov 26 2019 (IPS)
Kristine Ngiriye was 18 she had a brilliant idea that she wanted to translate into a business. But she was told by bankers to get married instead. Now the CEO of a consulting boutique that offers specialised services to governments and businesses and founder of Entreprenarium, an accelerator for African women in business she has made huge impact in business across the continent. Courtesy: Entreprenarium
Ngiriye is a case in point. Her mother had stepped in to be her guarantee and eventually her business journey led her to founding Entreprenarium in 2014.
“My business is here today, after a woman, my mother, committed to be my guarantee. With all the support I got along the journey I decided to help other women entrepreneurs to build their enterprises and help them grow,” Ngiriye told IPS. Ngiriye’s lists of accolades are long and her impact far-reaching. On the Entreprenarium’s Facebook page they describe themselves as “the first pan-African philanthropic accelerator that helps entrepreneurs start and sustain innovative businesses to drive Africa’s prosperity”. Since the accelerator was founded, some 2,000 entrepreneurs have been trained across Africa — Entreprenarium has offices in Libreville, Kigali, Dakar, Abidjan and Brussels — with $2.1 million invested towards technical assistance and the funding of 52 projects. In addition, Le Salon des Entrepreneurs de Guinée reports that Ngiriye is CEO of KN & Partners, a consulting boutique that offers specialised services to governments and businesses, which include political marketing and international business development. But Ngiriye still believes that while businesswomen have come a long way since when she first started out, men’s perceptions about a woman’s ability to achieve their dreams have not changed at all. “What [is currently] happening to these women is exactly what we lived through, which is lack of access to finance and technical assistance. I can say that after these past 27 years nothing has changed. Maybe they are a little bit lucky than I was to have a continent full of possibilities,” she said.What a first day of the #2019GGS here in #Kigali. Impactful conversations with Dr. @akin_adesina, President of @AfDB_Group, and our Founder, @kristingiriye, about the state of women’s access to finance in Africa and the solutions to reduce the financing gap for women entreprises. pic.twitter.com/orLd4ck1Oo
— Entreprenarium (@Entreprenarium) November 25, 2019
In a bid to change the status quo in the women and financing, AfDB launched the Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) in 2016 in Zambia, with the aim to mobilise $3 billion of new lending by banks and financial institutions for women in Africa. G7 leaders also approved a package totalling $251 million in support of AFAWA during the summit this August.- Since 2018, AfDB has partnered with Entreprenarium to train 1,000 female entrepreneurs on business development and financial management across the continent.
- The continent has a $42 billion financing gap between men and women.
- It is projected that closing the gender gap in Africa will boost the global economy by $28 trillion by 2025.
- The bank has a digital payment system called EcobankPay which also provides women who use this service with loans, even if their cash flow is inconsistent.
- Rwanda already has the greatest ratio of gender representation in parliament in the world — with 61 % of its parliamentarians being women.
- Investment to Make Africa a World leader in Renewables
- Mo Money Mo Solutions – the African Development Bank’s Ready to Double Investment Across the Continent
- African Development Bank Plans for a Self-sufficient, Integrated and Industrialised Continent
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Categories: Africa
First ladies panel seeks urgent policies to translate Africa’s demographic dividend into viable potential
“What a man can do, a woman can do just as well,” Jeannette Kagame, First Lady of Rwanda
“History will judge us if we don’t work together to take action now,” Chief Executive Officer of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, Ifeyinwa Ugochukwu
By PRESS RELEASE
KIGALI, Rwanda, Nov 26 2019 (IPS-Partners)
“Investments in gender equality are critical to realizing demographic dividend, but we need to ensure that women have the tools to overcome the barriers they face,” First Lady of Rwanda, Jeannette Kagame told participants at a panel at the Global Gender Summit in Kigali on Monday.
The panel, made up of First Ladies Kagame, Margaret Kenyatta, ministers and development experts, observed that too many women and girls still face barriers to basic rights, particularly access to labour market opportunities.
Rwanda’s First Lady recalled the role women played following the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi, where a number of families were wiped out, with women in many cases being the ones catering for families.
“What a man can do, a woman can do just as well,” she added.
She described the Summit as an important platform to highlight issues of women equality.
Rwanda has implemented gender several inclusive programs, which has enhanced economic equality in a country where women political participation has grown to 61% percent.
First Lady Kenyatta called for the removal of institutional barriers to accelerate women’s economic empowerment, “It has become urgent for Africa to translate its demographic dividend into viable potential.”
“This is the spirit of Africa’s vision to accelerate its path to sustainable socio-economic development. Our collective commitment to ‘leave no one behind’ is a new chapter in our struggle towards achieving gender equality.”
The panel heard that impediments to gender equality include lack of access to credit, low representation in decision making positions, lack of control over productive land and lack of financial control to make spending decisions on education and health.
Minister of Solidarity, Social Development, Equality and Family Jamila El Moussali of Morocco,
shared experiences from Morocco where policies have been introduced to increase women’s political and economic participation.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, Ifeyinwa Ugochukwu, called on stakeholders to come together to leverage each other’s strengths “translate women dreams into reality. History will judge us if we don’t work together to take action now.”
The African Development Bank and the government of Rwanda are hosting the Global Gender Summit from 25 to 27 November in Kigali. The Summit is being organised by the Multilateral Development Banks’ (MDBs) Working Group on gender for the first time in Africa.
Contact: Emeka Anuforo, Communication and External Relations Department, African Development Bank, email: a.anuforo@afdb.org
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Excerpt:
“What a man can do, a woman can do just as well,” Jeannette Kagame, First Lady of Rwanda
“History will judge us if we don’t work together to take action now,” Chief Executive Officer of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, Ifeyinwa Ugochukwu
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Categories: Africa
Enhancing partnerships for impact
By PRESS RELEASE
Nov 25 2019 (IPS-Partners)
The United Nations (UN) Kenya Resident Coordinator’s Office and Council of Governors convened a high-level meeting Kenyan County Governors, and the leadership of the UN Kenya Country team to enhance a common understanding on the Kenya United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) 2018-2022 and explore areas to deepen and further collaboration.
The 2018-2022 UNDAF for Kenya was officially signed and launched by the three UNDAF co-chairs, Cabinet Secretary National Treasury, Cabinet Secretary Devolution, planning and ASALs and the UN Resident Coordinator (RC) on 26th June 2018. The UNDAF was developed and is implemented within the context of Delivering as One, as a collective response of the UN agencies and the Government of Kenya to coherently, effectively and efficiently realize the national development priorities. The Cooperation framework is embedded on the country’s blue print for development, the vision 2030 and national priorities as outlined in the Medium-Term Plan (MTP) III, the Big 4 Agenda and the Sustainable development goals.
This UNDAF has three Strategic Priority Areas that are aligned to the three MTP III Pillars (Political, Social and Economic) of the Government’s Vision 2030 : 1) Transformational Governance encompassing respect for the rule of law, improved security, and effective implementation of devolution, 2) Human capital development comprised of education ,training and learning, health, Multi-sectoral HIV and AIDS response, access to safe water and sanitation, social protection, gender based violence and violence against children, access to adequate housing and strengthening capacities for addressing disaster and emergencies and 3) Sustainable and inclusive growth focusing on a competitive and sustainable economic growth that is increasingly resilient, green, inclusive, equitable, and creating decent jobs and quality livelihoods for all.
Through this framework, the UN in Kenya will in the coming five years, commit a total of Ksh.197 billion (approximately $1.9 billion) to support the government realize development needs of the country. 58% of the estimate budget (about Ksh.116 billion) will support human capital development contributing to two of the GOK Big Four Agenda, namely housing and universal health coverage. 27% (about Ksh.50 billion) will support sustainable development and growth contributing to the other two agendas of food security and manufacturing. The remaining 15% (about ksh.30 billion) will focus on transformative governance, which is a key enabler of the Big Four Agenda as well as the MTP III.
The UNDAF 2018-2022 is building on innovative approaches, strengths, lessons learnt, and efforts initiated by the UN, National and County Governments, and development partners in Kenya. As such, the new UNDAF speaks to and intend to advance the UN Secretary General’s agenda on repositioning the UN system. Regarding strategic change and reforms, the new UNDAF will make even greater strides towards, expanding public private partnerships for SDG realization; deepen integrated programming, supporting counties and bordering countries going to the furthest first, to enhance the roots of cohesion and socio-economic transformation.
The UNDAF results and common budgetary framework, bringing all UN agencies in Kenya to Deliver as One (DaO) responds to the UN Secretary Generals call for optimizing resources and improving the effectiveness of the UN’s response to countries and regions. The UNDAF integrates the global programming principles and approaches of: leave no one behind; human rights, gender equality and women’s empowerment; sustainability and resilience; and accountability towards realization of SDGs. This UNDAF will strategize social inclusion as a principle to address inequality and socio-cultural discrimination, which are perceived as some of the root causes of exclusion and vulnerability in the country.
Siddharth Chatterjee, UN Resident Coordinator to Kenya, lauded the Government of Kenya for its leadership at both national as well as county level and underscored the meeting demonstrated the strong partnership between the UN Kenya Country Team and Kenya’s County Governments for the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals agenda in Kenya in order to leave no-one-behind. The Resident Coordinator highlighted that over the period 2018 – 2019 the UN had provided US $205 million catalytic support towards UNDAF programming in support of Kenya’s Big Four agenda and the achievement of Kenya’s Vision2030
H.E Wycliffe Oparanya, Chairman of the Council of Governors, and Governor of Kakamega, shared his deep appreciation for Kenya’s long-standing partnership with the UN, and encouraged the UN to continue to advance its programming at County and grassroots levels in order to address the root causes holding back Kenya’s social economic development.
The Governors expressed their deep appreciation for the continued support from the UN Agencies and encouraged the need to deepen the engagement with all counties.
The forum acknowledged the need for stronger engagement with County Governments moving forward through a well-structured framework for engagement to ensure better coordination and improve impact.
For more information also see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErsGM7XD98w&feature=youtu.be
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Categories: Africa
Global Gender Summit 2019: African leaders take on the responsibility to urgently close the gender gap.
By PRESS RELEASE
KIGALI, Rwanda, Nov 25 2019 (IPS-Partners)
The 2019 Global Gender Summit, the first to be held on the continent, kicked off on Monday with a strong call to surge ahead on gender issues and move from commitment to action.
Africa’s only female President, Sahle-Work Zewde of Ethiopia, said Ethiopia’s parliament is one of the only two on the continent with over 50% gender parity in seats, and women currently hold key ministerial roles in defense and national security for the first time. Despite her own country’s huge advances, however, the work has just started, she said.
Zewde was speaking during the opening plenary of the Global Gender Summit, a biennial event organized by the multilateral development banks (MDBs), bringing together leaders from government, development institutions, private sector, civil society, and academia.
The Summit is taking place in Kigali Rwanda from 25th to November 27th.
“There is good momentum for women and African women, but the work has just started…‘There is no template to follow…we (women) can deliver, but we can deliver differently,” President Zewde said.
President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, who officially opened the Summit, described gender equality as “real commonsense.” Rwanda leads the word in gender representation in parliament with 61% of its parliamentarians being women — the highest in the world. In addition, half of all ministerial positions are held by women, just like in Ethiopia.
“We got it from the beginning that there is a lot of work to do…made investments to ensure that women are at the center of development. We are making sure that narrowing this gender gap is everyone’s responsibility,’ President Kagame said.
Echoing their sentiments, Chairperson of the African Union Commission Moussa Faki Mahamat said the African Union’s Agenda 2063 was deliberate about gender parity.
“What we are telling our heads of states is to take the bull by the horns…This discrimination is political, economic, and social; it is politically incorrect, unjustifiable socially…not to take (gender) into account is a real waste.”
In Africa, 70% of women are excluded financially. The continent has a $42 billion financing gap between men and women. And women, who are the majority of farmers, face a financing gap of close to $16 billion.
“The challenges are not just about gender. They are about under-representation and lack of empowerment of women,” African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina said.
“A smarter world must invest in women and girls. Let’s be smart, and let’s be wise. Women are the best investment any society can make,’ he added.
The African Development Bank is doing its part to transform the financing landscape for women with the launch of the Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA). AFAWA aims to mobilize $3 billion of new lending by banks and financial institutions for women in Africa. G7 leaders approved a package totaling $251 million in support of AFAWA during the summit in August.
Welcoming the conference participants, Rwanda’s Minister of Gender and Family Promotion, Soline Nyirahabimana, said the Kigali Conference center was set to glow orange in honor of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence. The 16 days kick off on November 25th, each year, which marks International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and runs until December 10th.
The 2019 Global Gender Summit is attended by the first ladies of Rwanda and Kenya as well as representatives of the heads of state of Gabon, Mali, Senegal, Chad and the King of Morocco. Also in attendance are ministers of genders from Niger, Somalia, Senegal, South Sudan, Tunisia, and Libya.
The Summit runs from 25th to 27th of November under the theme: ‘Unpacking constraints to gender equality.’
‘The African Development Bank believes in women. Women are bankable,” Adesina said.
Contact: Amba Mpoke-Bigg, Communication and External Relations Department, African Development Bank, email: a.mpoke-bigg@afdb.org
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Excerpt:
‘There is no template to follow…we (women) can deliver but we can deliver differently” - President Sahle-Work Zewde, President of Ethiopia
‘We are making sure that narrowing this gender gap is everyone’s responsibility,’ President Paul Kagame of Rwanda
‘This discrimination is political, economic and social; it is politically incorrect, unjustifiable socially.’ - Chairperson of the African Union Commission Moussa Faki Mahamat
‘A smarter world must invest in women and girls. Let’s be smart and let’s be wise. Women are the best investment any society can make,’ Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, African Development Bank Group
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Categories: Africa
Statistics and Stories – Time to Change the Refugee Narrative?
Rohingya refugees carry blankets at a camp in Bangladesh. Credit: Naimul Haq/IPS
By Farhana Haque Rahman
ROME, Nov 25 2019 (IPS)
Statistics and stories. When aid agencies appeal for funding to tackle the latest refugee crisis and journalists do their reporting, then these are the two narratives most chosen — one impersonal and the other upfront and individual. The sheer numbers can feel overwhelming. The UN refugee agency UNHCR says more than 70 million people are currently displaced by conflict, the most since the Second World War. Among them are nearly 26 million who have fled their countries (over half under the age of 18) and 3.5 million more are registered as asylum seekers.
Just last year, 13.6 million people were newly displaced, either as refugees crossing borders or as IDPs (internally displaced peoples). Syria accounts for the largest forcibly displaced population in the world, with nearly 13 million people on the move since war erupted in 2011, including 6.7 million refugees escaping across borders. Neighbouring Turkey is the world’s top host country, with 3.7 million displaced Syrians on its territory.
But then there are the images and personal stories that carry so much more impact than the bare statistics. For Syria possibly the most devastating, and also far reaching in political terms, was the picture of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi lying lifeless on a Turkish beach, drowned trying to reach Europe with his family. And the stories that do convey hope also make it seem possible to the public and donors that something can be done to help, even with relatively small amounts of money. Naturally everyone displaced by conflict has his or her own story, although it must be recognized that some would rather not tell theirs for reasons to be respected. I have my own to share, briefly.
I first became aware of Afghanistan when, as a young child in the ‘60s in what was then East Pakistan I read in Bangla, Rabindranath Tagore’s short story “Kabuliwalah”. The tale of the kind, compassionate man who periodically left his family behind to sell goods he carried in a large sack and make loans to Bengalis made a deep impression, as did his sense of humour and his attachment to a little girl Mini, clearly a cherished substitute for his own children back in Kabul. He was at first a rather frightening figure, giving her treats from his sack, but he slowly gained her and her father’s confidence and respect.
Farhana Haque Rahman
My next contact with Afghanistan was more direct, fraught with danger. While a student in an all-girls British run college in Lahore, Pakistan, my country of birth Bangladesh became independent. I fled what was then West Pakistan, avoiding camps and a protracted repatriation, to reach the newly independent country, taking a hazardous route by ‘tanga’ horse drawn carriages, trucks and buses across inhospitable terrain and mountain through Quetta and the border crossing of Chaman into Afghanistan. Along the way, in no man’s land, armed smugglers extorted more money from our group of about 40, some of them families with children, and one night we had to trek over mountains, exhausted to the point of hallucination. Fearing death but quite ignorant of the danger of rape, dressed in a white ‘burqa’ throughout the perilous journey, monitoring with piercing eyes the movement of those who were temporarily my guardian angels, I made it to the Indian embassy in Kabul after spending days in a dilapidated farmhouse in Kandahar, and, with Indian ID papers, we were flown to New Delhi then on to Kolkata by train, eventually making it to Dhaka after 552 hours of 23 harrowing days. I was fortunate to make it; the new country was still reeling from a war that cost millions of lives.Nearly 50 years later that is so often not the case, and that is why we should consider shifting the dominant narrative, moving beyond the statistics and the stories to convey a fuller understanding of what is happening to these tens of millions of displaced people and why, particularly in Europe.
Reece Jones, a professor of political geography, has researched how in recent decades countries have become inter-connected through complex networks of transport and communication, but the purpose of borders has shifted to become the place where the movement of people is controlled.
“Border security and the construction of walls have increased dramatically in the supposedly borderless world of globalisation,” he says.
As walls and fences go up, so do the dramatic increases in migrant deaths. The Associated Press reports that 56,800 people died or went missing crossing a border from 2014-18.
Countries announcing new border barriers recently include Austria, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Kenya, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia. President Donald Trump’s “beautiful wall” on the US-Mexico border was a popular theme in his election campaign. Britain is spending some $200 million on border security in France, including the building of a one-km concrete wall in Calais to stop people hiding
themselves in trucks crossing the Channel.
Prof. Jones says the borders of the EU are “by far the most deadly” with roughly two-thirds of all migration related deaths occurring there or on the way to the EU. The high death rate, he says, is a combination of an extremely dangerous border in the Mediterranean sea coupled with increased enforcement that drives people to use smugglers and take more risks, as tragically seen in the deaths of 39 Vietnamese found in a refrigerated trailer near a UK port last month.
Walls did not work in the past and only divert but do not prevent migrant flows, so why are so many going up? The answer is political. Walls are effective as symbols used by politicians to demonstrate they are addressing perceived economic, cultural and security threats from migrants.
The crucial legal distinction between who a legitimate refugee and an “illegal” economic migrant is one fiercely upheld by politicians and institutions. However, as noted by Daniel Trilling, author of Lights in the Distance: exile and refuge at the borders of Europe, the system of placing people into categories does not always fit the reality of their lives. And when the system breaks down, “people are cast into a legal and moral grey zone that lasts for many months or even years”.
The EU, says Trilling, has perhaps the world’s most complex system to deter unwanted migrants, spending billions of dollars on surveillance systems and patrols on land and sea. In reality the EU tries to prevent even genuine asylum seekers from reaching its territory.
“Asylum seekers are subject to particularly complex and often violent filtering. Once they cross Europe’s frontiers, their movement is restricted: they are locked up or segregated in accommodation far from city centres. Their right to work or to access social security is denied or severely limited. While their claims are being assessed, often by a process that is opaque, hostile and inconsistent, they
live with the threat that the freedoms they do have may be curtailed at any moment.”
A sense of panic and chaos is fuelled in the public by even twists of language, just as the media dubbed the Calais migrant settlements “the jungle”. The idea of a “global refugee crisis” may provoke sympathy among some, but it is also used by populist parties to spread the sense that we are at “breaking point”. More people are displaced by conflict than before but, as Dutch sociologist Hein de Haas points out, more than one in 10 migrants entering Europe do so legally. Well over 80 percent of displaced people remain in the developing world, such as the 4.5 million made homeless by scattered conflicts within the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), or 4.6 million Venezuelans who have fled their country, its economy in tatters and under US sanctions.
Over two-thirds of the world’s refugees come from just five countries: Syria, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Myanmar and Somalia.
In the future far greater displacements of people may occur for complex and interrelated reasons — war, the climate emergency, and outbreaks of diseases like Ebola in the DRC. Rapidly changing circumstances can make refugees of people most unexpectedly. Solutions lie in policy and resources.
Can we change the narrative ?
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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.
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Categories: Africa
Science & Policy Must Remain Partners in Mercury Challenge
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Excerpt:
Celia Chen is Director, Dartmouth Toxic Metals Superfund Research Program
David Evers is Executive Director and Chief Scientist, Biodiversity Research Institute
Minamata COP3 provides chance to get effectiveness evaluation right
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Categories: Africa
More Austerity for Developing Countries: It’s Bad News, and It’s Avoidable
The post More Austerity for Developing Countries: It’s Bad News, and It’s Avoidable appeared first on Inter Press Service.
Excerpt:
As the West questions damaging austerity policies, it is becoming the new normal for the rest of the world, risking achievement of sustainable development goals.
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Categories: Africa
Global Clothing Brands Should Respond to the #MeToo Mandate
Credit: Obaidul Arif/IPS
By Aruna Kashyap
Nov 24 2019 (IPS)
It has been two years since #MeToo went viral, and it’s about time the garment industry’s sexual harassment problem got the attention it deserves. Clothing and footwear brands can do much more to prevent and address gender-based violence in their supply chains, but first they need to confront how badly their inspection or “social auditing” programs fail women.
Clothing brands or factories often bring in social auditors to examine factory working conditions. But social audits primarily rely on in-factory interviews with workers who may fear retaliation, often leaving them ineffective for detecting workplace sexual harassment.
In fact, many auditors I have spoken to have offered useful insights about the limitations of audits. Recently, I spoke to an Indonesian social auditor who shared an anecdote about a garment factory he was inspecting in central Java a couple of years ago. He found a notebook on the factory production floor, and within its pages discovered a woman worker’s anonymous note suggesting she was being sexually harassed.
Clothing and footwear brands can do much more to prevent and address gender-based violence in their supply chains, but first they need to confront how badly their inspection or “social auditing” programs fail women
The auditor’s attempts to trace the notebook’s owners and encourage workers to speak up were futile, he said, reflecting his general difficulty with documenting sexual harassment in the industry. Workers he interviewed inside factories usually gave stock or terse responses that he felt factory managers coached them to provide.
On the rare occasions that women workers testified about sexual harassment, he said, factory managers would contest it. They asked him what “proof” he had beyond the complainant’s testimony and demanded to know her name. They argued that one worker’s testimony could not justify a “finding” of workplace sexual harassment in the audit report.
In contrast, women workers who speak outside factory premises feel less anxious about retaliation, according to workers themselves, auditors that Human Rights Watch interviewed, and labor advocates.
For example, the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), an international labor rights group, found evidence of sexual harassment after conducting off-site interviews with workers for three factories in Lesotho that supplied Levi’s, the Children’s Place, and Kontoor’s. Rola Abirmourched, one of the investigators, reported that despite routine social audits by third parties, sexual harassment in the factories was rampant.
The Lesotho investigation spurred the launch of a promising solution. For over a year, the WRC worked with factory unions and two prominent local women’s rights organizations—the Federation of Women Lawyers in Lesotho, and Women and Law in Southern Africa Research and Education Trust-Lesotho—to design a program addressing gender-based violence and harassment at work. The factory management signed a legally binding agreement with the unions, committing to implement the program.
The agreement creates an independent investigating body to look into complaints of sexual harassment in accordance with Lesotho’s laws. Levi’s, the Children’s Place, and Kontoor’s agreed to partially fund the program for two years.
This effort imparts some important lessons. For one, involving local women’s rights groups is critical, considering the garment industry’s gender imbalance: the majority of union leadership is male even though the garment workers themselves are predominantly women.
It’s also important to recognize the important role that unions and nongovernmental organizations can play in developing training programs, providing legal services, and facilitating access to counseling for gender-based violence and harassment.
The anti-retaliation protections, the legally binding nature of the program, and support from brands were key to the program’s success, said Libakiso Matlho, national director of Women and Law in Southern Africa Research and Education Trust-Lesotho. Programs by women’s rights groups to combat sexual harassment are often undercut by factories’ retaliation or failure to hold perpetrators accountable.
Global brands would be smart to take heed of how the Lesotho agreement incorporates key features of the landmark treaty against violence and harassment at work adopted by the International Labour Organization earlier this year. Under the Lesotho agreement, for example, the factories’ policies against gender-based violence and harassment also apply to its suppliers and third-party contractors. The agreement has strong anti-retaliation protections as well.
As garment workers struggle to find dignity at work, global clothing brands should institute strong worker-driven prevention and response programs that bring together credible local women’s rights groups and local unions, instead of depending on social audits. Brands can curb abuse by developing programs that truly empower workers.
Aruna Kashyap is senior counsel in the women’s rights division of Human Rights Watch.
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Categories: Africa
A Staggering One-in-Three Women Experience Physical, Sexual Abuse
Credit: UN Women
By External Source
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 24 2019 (IPS)
Violence against women and girls is among the most widespread, and devastating human rights violations in the world, but much it is often unreported due to impunity, shame and gender inequality, the UN highlighted ahead of Monday’s World Day to stamp out abuse of women and girls.
Here is the grim reality, in numbers: A third of all women and girls experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, half of women killed worldwide were killed by their partners or family, and violence perpetrated against women is as common a cause of death and incapacity for those of reproductive age, as cancer, and a greater cause of ill health than road accidents and malaria combined.
The prevalence of the issue, “means someone around you. A family member, a co-worker, a friend, or even yourself” has experienced this type of abuse, Secretary-General António Guterres said in his message to mark the Day.
“Sexual violence against women and girls is rooted in centuries of male domination”, he added, reminding the world that stigma, misconceptions, under-reporting and poor enforcement of laws perpetuate impunity in rape cases.
“All of this must change…now”, the UN chief urged.
Damaging flesh, imprinted in memory
A third of all women and girls experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, half of women killed worldwide were killed by their partners or family, and violence perpetrated against women is as common a cause of death and incapacity for those of reproductive age, as cancer, and a greater cause of ill health than road accidents and malaria combined
To spotlight the scale of the problem, on this year’s International Day of the Elimination of Violence against Women, the United Nations is sharing the many ways in which the scourge manifests itself in physical, sexual and psychological forms, and the organisation is underscoring the life-altering, adverse consequences women suffer as a result.
- intimate partner violence (battering, psychological abuse, marital rape, femicide);
- sexual violence and harassment (rape, forced sexual acts, unwanted sexual advances, child sexual abuse, forced marriage, street harassment, stalking, cyber- harassment);
- human trafficking (slavery, sexual exploitation);
- female genital mutilation
- child marriage.
The Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, issued by the UN General Assembly in 1993, defines violence against women as “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life”, the UN highlighted on the Day.
Beginning Monday, and for the upcoming two years, the UN chief’s UNiTe to End Violence against Women campaign will focus on the issue of rape as a specific form of harm, encouraging people to join the initiative and “Orange the World.”
UN Women’s Executive Director, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, expressed her concerns when it comes to rape specifically.
She said the end of the horrendous act would mean eliminating a “significant weapon of war from the arsenal of conflict”, the absence of a daily risk assessment for girls and women who actively work to avoid an incident that could leave them scarred.
“Rape isn’t an isolated brief act. It damages flesh and reverberates in memory. It can have life changing, unchosen results – a pregnancy or a transmitted disease”, Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka stressed, adding that consequences of a one-time act can sprawl into damaging long-term effects.
“It’s long-lasting, devastating effects reach others: family, friends, partners and colleagues”, she continued.
In addition, research by the World Health Organization (WHO), details disturbing impacts of violence on women’s physical, sexual, reproductive and mental health:
Women who experience physical or sexual abuse are twice as likely to have an abortion, and the experience nearly doubles their likelihood of falling into depression. In some regions, they are 1.5 times more likely to acquire HIV, and evidence exists that sexually assaulted women are 2.3 times more likely to have alcohol disorders.
More women abused than not, in US
Some national studies examining incidents in the United States show that up to 70 per cent of women have experienced physical and or sexual violence from an intimate partner, according to UN Women.
The agency cited that nearly a quarter of female college students reported having experienced sexual assault or misconduct in the US, but harm targeting women and girls knows no bounds.
Multi-country investigations by WHO show partner violence to be a reality for 65 per cent of women in some parts of sub-Saharan Africa, and around 40 per cent of women in South Asia, as well as Andean parts of Latin America.
Meanwhile, even in regions where incidents are less likely, as in East Asia and Western Europe, more than 16 per cent and 19 per cent of women have experienced intimate partner violence, respectively.
Psychological violence is another layer to the problem, with some 82 per cent of women parliamentarians in a recent study, reporting having experienced remarks, gestures, threats, or sexist comments while serving – most often via social media.
While gender-based violence can happen to anyone, women who identify with the LGBTI community, migrants and refugees, indigenous minorities, and those living through humanitarian crises, are particularly vulnerable to gender-based harm.
“Almost universally, most perpetrators of rape go unreported or unpunished”, Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka explained. “For women to report in the first place requires a great deal of resilience to re-live the attack…In many countries, women know that they are overwhelmingly more likely to be blamed than believed.”
Attacks targeting women continue to be an obstacle to achieving equality, and impede the promise of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to leave no one behind.
Several public events are being coordinated for this year’s International Day to commemorate the fight against gender-based violence, spotlighting rape specifically.
Criminalizing the offense, placing women in positions of power, and strengthening the capacity of law enforcement, are some steps to increase accountability in incidents of sexual assault.
The effects of such violations suppress voices and traumatize, at “an intolerable cost to society”, said Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka.
“No further generations must struggle to cope with a legacy of violation.”
This story was originally published by UN News
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Categories: Africa
Saudi UNESCO Win Riles Khashoggi Standard-Bearers
Saudi Arabia was elected to the United Nations cultural agency UNESCO’s top board. However, human rights activists say that the Saudi government, which has been implicated in the murder of journalist and government critic Jamal Khashoggi (pictured) in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last year, has been pursuing an ongoing crackdown on political freedoms. Many questioned the Saudi government's appointment to the UNESCO board. Courtesy: POMED/CC by 2.0
By James Reinl
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 22 2019 (IPS)
Human rights campaigners have reacted angrily to the election of Saudi Arabia to the United Nations cultural agency UNESCO’s top board, highlighting the kingdom’s ongoing crackdowns on political freedoms and critics.
On Wednesday, Saudi culture minister Prince Badr bin Abdullah bin Farhan celebrated Riyadh winning a four-year term on UNESCO’s 58-nation executive board, telling state-backed media of the kingdom’s global “role in building peace” and of promoting culture and science.
Critics, however, decried “hypocrisy” at UNESCO, saying the Paris-based agency should instead distance itself from Riyadh, which has been implicated in the murder of Saudi journalist and government critic Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last year.
Josh Ruebner, an author on two books on the Middle East and board member of the anti-autocrat campaign outfit Freedom Forward, also bashed UNESCO’s multimillion-dollar tie-up with Saudi youth charity the MiSK Foundation.
“UNESCO is supposed to be an advocate for press freedom,” Ruebner told IPS.
“But now the same Saudi dictatorship that assassinated Khashoggi is on UNESCO’s executive board. UNESCO was already taking money from the Saudi dictatorship via the fake Saudi charity MiSK. Now the hypocrisy has grown even worse.”
In recent months, the U.N. has faced mounting pressure over its cooperation deals with MiSK, the private charity of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de facto ruler Mohamed bin Salman, an ambitious moderniser who is better known as MbS.
UNESCO, which advocates for free speech and protecting journalists, inked a $5 million cooperation deal with MiSK in 2016, and the two groups have worked together on several events, including a Nov. 18-19 youth forum at the U.N. agency’s headquarters in Paris.
As delegates met in Paris, Ken Roth, executive director of the New York-based pressure group Human Rights Watch, accused UNESCO of “letting the Saudi crown prince whitewash his reputation by co-sponsoring” the two-day parley.
Why is UNESCO letting the Saudi crown prince whitewash his reputation by co-sponsoring a conference. UNESCO says it promotes media freedom. Has it forgotten about Jamal Khashoggi already? @MaurinPicard French: https://t.co/3jsy5UCbdM English: https://t.co/R9gYxd0AGG pic.twitter.com/hOGdrgku02
— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) November 20, 2019
Meanwhile, some 6,500 people have signed an online petition against the UNESCO-MiSk tie-up, which describes the Saudi charity as a “propaganda” vehicle aimed at obscuring Riyadh’s rights abuses at home and during its military operations in neighbouring Yemen.
In a tweet this week, Agnes Callamard, the U.N. official who investigated Khashoggi’s murder, criticized UNESCO, saying the “agency responsible for #pressfreedom” was too cozy with the Saudi officials responsible for the journalist’s death.
#UNESCO, the UN agency responsible for #pressfreedom said that in the absence of a court conviction for #JamalKhashoggi murder they dont have evidence permitting them to break their agreement with #SaudiArabia for their youth event. It says it all.. https://t.co/lN0sV04i7r
— Agnes Callamard (@AgnesCallamard) November 20, 2019
UNESCO spokesman Matthieu Guevel told IPS that the agency is “currently re-evaluating its partnership strategy”. Saudi Arabia was elected to the board by member governments, and was not a decision by agency officials, he added.
Saudi Arabia’s mission to the U.N. did not respond to requests for comment from IPS.
It was not the first scandal over U.N.-MiSK tie-ups.
Street protests over a separate deal between MiSK and the U.N.’s youth envoy, Jayathma Wickramanayake, led to a fancy panel session that was planned to take place in New York in September being canceled and relocated at short notice.
Critics highlight the murder of Khashoggi, who was killed and dismembered by a Saudi hit squad in Turkey in October 2018, which the CIA has reportedly concluded was ordered by MbS, though the young prince denies his direct involvement.
This month, the FBI indicted three men with being part of a Saudi government spying operation, which saw Riyadh pay Twitter employees to access accounts of users who criticised the kingdom online and relay their private details back to headquarters.
Bader al-Asaker, who runs MbS’ private office and acts as secretary-general of his MiSK charity, reportedly received phone calls from Khashoggi’s hit squad in Istanbul and masterminded the Twitter spying ring for his royal boss.
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Categories: Africa
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