Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

The post Exclusive: Winnie Byanyima Speaks about Inequality in Africa and Next Steps at UNAIDS appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Winnie Byanyima, Oxfam's outgoing director who is taking up the post executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, speaks exclusively to IPS on the main issues in the report.

The post Exclusive: Winnie Byanyima Speaks about Inequality in Africa and Next Steps at UNAIDS appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 5 2019 (IPS)

The United Nations will be hosting six high level plenary meetings –- unprecedented even by its own standards—during the beginning of the 74th session of the General Assembly in late September.

The meetings are being viewed primarily as an attempt at reviving multilateral diplomacy at a time when a rash of hard-right nationalist leaders, including US President Donald Trump, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines and Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, are either rooting for authoritarianism, abandoning international treaties or undermining multilateralism—not necessarily in that order.

Regrettably, they are joined by a fistful of other demagogic leaders both from the North and the South, including from Russia, Italy, Myanmar, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Poland and Turkey – among others.

The United Nations is expecting over 180 world leaders, including foreign ministers and high-ranking government officials, to participate in the six-day mega event.

The multilateral bodies — and international treaties– that have taken a beating include the UN Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Human Rights Council, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and Paris Climate Change agreement.

As one delegate puts it: “It is either a resurrection of multilateralism or a prelude to an obituary for international order”.

Scheduled to take place September 23-27, the meetings will cover a wide range of political and socio-economic issues on the UN agenda, including climate change, universal health care, sustainable development goals (SDGs), financing for development (FfD), elimination of nuclear weapons and the survival of small island developing states (SIDS) facing extinction from rising sea levels.

Speaking to reporters last month, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that multilateralism is under attack from many different directions precisely “when we need it most.”

“In different areas and for different reasons, the trust of people in their political establishments, the trust of states among each other, the trust of many people in international organizations has been eroded and … multilateralism has been in the fire,” he complained.

On the upcoming six summits, Guterres warned “the people of the world do not want half measures or empty promises. They are demanding transformative change that is fair and sustainable.”

But will the talk-fest produce concrete results or end up being another political exercise in futility?

In an interview with IPS, Jayantha Dhanapala, a former Sri Lankan Ambassador and UN Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs, said: “As we survey the graveyard of multilateral security, environmental and economic agreements underpinning the mutually beneficial liberal order, fires burn 20% of the lungs of the world in the Amazon and even the Arctic has its tundra burning.”

“And the numbers of refugees fleeing violence and persecution are the highest in recorded history.”

With the unrivalled super-power under the quixotic leadership of Donald Trump, even developing countries like the Philippines, Brazil and others have abandoned global norms, Dhanapala told IPS.

“A rule based international order is collapsing before our eyes and Britain is on the brink of a messy Brexit while trade wars ruin Sino-US trade and drive the world towards a ruinous recession and the end of sustainable development.”

Martin S. Edwards, Associate Professor and Chair, School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University told IPS: “I think you’re right that the depth and breadth of the work that the UN is launching is more than just symbolic.”

With Bolsonaro set to address the General Assembly right before President Trump (on September 24), their comments will mirror each other, and will be in stark contrast to many of the other delegates, he added.

But the important thing, he pointed out, is that there’s needed substance here.

“The US might well sit out the Climate Action Summit, and that’s fine. The work of the UN and the member countries will go on without it”.

As for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), he said, this is a signature UN initiative that needs more attention and focus.

“The world is not on track to reach many of these goals, and without greater commitment by member governments, they are not likely to be met by 2030. With the US disengaged from many of these discussions, it falls to the Secretary General to recommit leaders to these goals,” Edwards noted.

James Paul, a former executive director of the New York-based Global Policy Forum, told IPS “This is a time of great international uncertainty and instability. What does this mean for the UN as a cluster of high-profile meetings approaches? And what can we expect from these events?”

“My sense is this: nationalistic enthusiasm is now waning at the popular level and posturing leaders are under increasing pressure from below to deliver more than rhetoric. So multilateral diplomacy may be headed for a much-needed revival, with a stronger and more egalitarian agenda coming to the fore.”

“As we have seen at the recent G-7 meeting in Biarritz, leaders are changing course and opting for more cooperation, though still far less than what is required. Above all, the environmental crisis is serving to mobilize public attention and energized youth are insisting that their voices be heard,” said Paul, author of the recently-released book titled “Of Foxes and Chickens: Oligarchy and Global Power in the UN Security Council”.

Greta Thunberg, the dynamic young Swedish activist, he said, will be at the UN climate meeting to dramatize the need for common action and to symbolize the essential role that the UN can play.

Will the leaders act with the seriousness and determination that she demands? It may be, as climate activists rightly say, our last chance. No politician will be excused for inaction in such a dramatic circumstance.

The UN has much to offer at this moment in history, Paul declared.

Greta Thunberg, 16-year-old climate activist from Sweden, sails into New York Harbor flanked by a fleet of 17 sailboats representing each of the Sustainable Development Goals on their sails. She embarked on a trans-Atlantic voyage on 14 August from Plymouth, England to New York City on a solar-powered, zero-emission racing boat, the Malizia II, to attend the UN Climate Action Summit in New York September 23, one of six summit meetings scheduled to take place late September. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten

Dhanapala told IPS a gloomy future lies ahead unless a new leadership replaces the present.

The UN, he argued, has lost its moral influence and not even the upcoming ritualistic General Assembly gathering of heads of state can salvage sensible limits on nuclear weapons, conventional weapons and a new generation of Lethal Autonomous Weapons or robotic weapons while negotiating an end to regional wars.

Next year, in 2020, he said, the UN will observe its 75th anniversary when a new chapter rededicating this unique global body to the ideals of the Charter opens.

“New stringent agreements must be negotiated at the planned gatherings without the charade of rearranging the deck chairs on a sinking Titanic. The UN has the creative minds to do this. Can its member states summon the political will to do so?,” he asked.

Edwards said one other thing that is important to underscore is that these upcoming meetings will be a real credit to Secretary General Guterres’ quiet leadership style.

He has responded to the President’s call for a more minimal multilateralism by going big, but doing so without the bombast that is a hallmark of the Trump administration.

So, this might be an interesting inflection point. The world has proven with climate that it can move forward without the US. The question is how much this happens in other areas moving forward?, he asked.

“I like the attention on Financing for Development (FfD), but that meeting is probably not going to be a successful as developing countries raise the issue of G20 broken promises on foreign aid, and G20 countries are too cheap to admit it,” he declared.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

The post UN’s Upcoming Summits May Foreshadow a Revival of Multilateralism or an Obituary for World Order appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Farhana Haque Rahman and Raghav Gaiha
ROME, Sep 5 2019 (IPS)

In an inaugural lecture at the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University, Amartya Sen began with a swipe at Queen Victoria who complained to Sir Theodore Martin in 1870 about & quote: this mad, wicked folly of ‘Woman’s Rights’ “, as in her rarefied world nobody could trample upon her rights. The world has of course changed dramatically and women’s rights are widely acknowledged but injustices persist. Our concern here is with health injustices that are widely prevalent in India. These take multiple forms: female foeticide, widespread morbidity and denial of access to good quality healthcare until a critical condition develops. Our focus here is on vulnerability of women to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and their limited access to good quality healthcare in India.

Farhana Haque Rahman

NCDs kill 40 million annually, accounting for about 70 % of all deaths globally. NCDs are chronic in nature and take a long time to develop. They are linked to aging and affluence and have replaced infectious diseases and malnutrition as the dominant causes of ill-health and death in much of the world, including India. The major NCDs include cardiovascular diseases, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes. These account for 42 % of deaths in India. Some of the risk factors associated with NCDs are aging, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, smoking, excessive use of alcohol and excess weight.

The burden of NCDs shifted to the older segments of population ( 60 years), highest prevalence being amongst to the oldest men and women ( 80 years+), with higher prevalence among women.

In sharp contrast to women who recorded a significant rise, overall prevalence of NCDs among men fell significantly during 2004-14, based on the National Sample Survey data for India. Men accounted for the majority in 2004, but women did so in 2014. The majority of NCD cases were in the rural areas for both men and women. However, the prevalence among urban women was higher than among urban men in 2014.

There was a significant affluence gradient to prevalence of NCDs among men, with a sharp increase in the prevalence from the lowest expenditure quintile to the highest in 2004. This is similar to what women experienced. A similar pattern is reproduced among both men and women in 2014, but with one reversal. While the prevalence among the most affluent men was higher than among the most affluent women in 2004, the latter recorded a higher prevalence ten years later, in 2014.

Raghav Gaiha

An important issue is whether higher vulnerability of women to NCDs manifests in greater access to good quality healthcare. To assess this, we rely on the India Human Development Survey 2015. To assess the quality of health care, we distinguish between two healthcare providers: public hospitals/doctors and private hospitals/doctors. More respondents rank private healthcare providers higher in quality than public providers. Another proximate indicator of quality is location of healthcare facilities. Quality of treatment received at home and in the same village is often inferior to treatment received in another village/town/district. The point to note is that a village may or may not have a primary healthcare centre but towns and districts are much better equipped with healthcare facilities for specialized treatment of NCDs. So location is another predictor of quality of healthcare.

Public providers were chosen by just under one-third of old women suffering from at least one NCD. In a striking contrast, large majorities –about two-thirds- depended on private providers (excluding traditional faith healers) in 2012. Similar proportions are reproduced for old men. So on this quality criterion, there was little difference between old men and women.

But the distance travelled by women and men reveals a contrast.

Large shares of old women, about 45 %, suffering from at least 1 NCD had their first treatment at home and in the same village. The majority, about 55 %, travelled to another village/town/district. Large shares of men suffering from 1 NCD, about 40 %- were treated at home and in the same village while the majority, about 58 %-travelled to another village/town/district.

From this perspective, the fact that larger shares of women received treatment at home and in the same village than men with a chronic NCD suggests that women had lower access to costlier and more specialized treatment despite their greater vulnerability to NCDs; however, the difference between men and women in their reliance on private providers is not significant.

In brief, while women are more prone to NCDs, their access to costlier and more specialized healthcare is lower than that of men. So the evidence favoring discrimination against women in good quality healthcare is limited but suggestive of a bias.

Social and family norms that restrict women’s access to health care are not as rigid as generally believed. Greater awareness of equity and better recognition of women’s contribution to household and social welfare could enhance their access to health care. Besides, outside employment options for women with some bargaining power (eg, high school education) could reinforce their autonomy.

(Farhana Haque-Rahman, a journalist and communications expert, is a former senior United Nations official and Raghav Gaiha is Visiting Scholar, Population Studies Centre, University of Pennsylvania and (Hon.) Professorial Research Fellow, Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, England).

The post Is There Discrimination Against Women in Healthcare in India? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM / ROME, Sep 4 2019 (IPS)

Some world leaders try to prove their alpha male status by presenting attractive and submissive wives as tokens won in virile scrambles with other potent stags. A recent example of such puerile machismo was exposed in a twitter battle between the Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and his French equivalent Emmanuel Macron. Since taking office in January, Mr Bolsonaro has railed against what he considered to be foreign meddling in Brazilian environmental politics. Wild fires raging in the Amazonian rain forest have generally been blamed on a rampant deforestation said to be endorsed by Bolsonaro´s regime. Emmanuel Macron tweeted a photo of burning Amazonian forestland with the comment: ”Our house is burning. Literally.” Bolsonaro reacted immediately and accused Macron of supporting an international alliance intending to take control over Amazonia while treating Brazil like a ”colony”. Bolsonaro twittered:

We cannot accept French President Macron´s improper and wanton attacks on the Amazon, nor can we accept that he disguises his intentions. 1

Some days later, Bolsonaro expressed approval of a Facebook-posting by one of his supporters. It presented an unflattering photo of France´s First Lady, mocking her appearance and comparing her unfavourably to Brazil’s First Lady. The post declared: ”Now you understand why Macron is persecuting Bolsonaro” indicating that Brigitte Macron is not as attractive as Michelle Bolsonaro, who is 28 years younger than Brigitte. Emmanuel Macron is 24 years younger than his wife and in the opinion of chauvinist males this makes him less macho than Jair Bolsonaro who has a wife that is 27 years younger than him. Bolsonaro replied to his Facebook fan: ”Do not humilate the guy, ha, ha,” while Macron retorted by stating that Bolsonaro had been ”extremely disrespectful” to his wife, adding that:

It’s sad, it’s sad first of all for him and for Brazilians. Brazilian women are probably feeling ashamed of their president. Since I have a lot of esteem and respect for the people of Brazil, I hope they will very soon have a president who is up to the job. 2

Unfortunately, I doubt that Bolsonaro´s fans had been offended by their president´s behaviour. It is common, not only in Brazil, that people confuse competent leadership with displays of masculinity. A macho man may in political propaganda be depicted as a guarantee for strength and security, while female leaders may, due to their gender, be presented as less determined and accordingly unfit for the presidency, defined as the most masculine institution of all.

The recent U.S. presidential election was by many viewed as a battle between manhood and femininity, where opponents to Hillary either judged her as a proponent of ”feminine traits” making her weak and unfit for office, or as a menacing ”mannish”, maybe even lesbian lady who threatened male dominance and masculinity.

The mix-up of masculinity with politics means that women candidates to influential positions often are forced to navigate an assumed ”masculine deficit” of strength and dedication by excessively exhibit willpower, vigour and toughness, displaying ”hawkish” attitudes, while downplaying their roles as mothers and/or wives, altering their vocabulary and lower the tone of their voices. This while female partners of male contenders are expected to display beauty and youthfulness, as well as an unquestionable loyalty to the virile men they ”belong” to.

To perceive strong women leaders as imbued with ”manly” traits appears to be quite common. The future Israeli prime minister Golda Meir wrote in her memoris that when she in 1956 became foreign minister in Ben-Gurion´s government a story – which as far as I know, is all it was – went the rounds of Israel to the effect that Ben-Gurion described me as ‘the only man’ in his cabinet. What amused me about it was that obviously he (or whoever invented the story) thought that this was the greatest compliment that could be paid to a woman. I very much doubt that any man would have been flattered if I had said about him that he was the only woman in the government! 3

However, such statements did not mean that Meir was a feminist. In 1973, she told Oriana Fallaci: ”Those nuts that burn their bras and walk around all disheveled and hate men? They’re crazy. Crazy.” 4 Golda Meir was often called The Iron Lady, as the strong-willed and outspoken Otto von Bismarck, who in his lifetime was considered to be the epitome of Prussian manhood was called The Iron Chancellor. British prime minster Margaret Thatcher was also labelled The Iron Lady. She has been described as uniting a ”dual nature of masculine and feminine imagery” 5 radiating ”feminine” housekeeping qualities, combined with aspects of a hard, masculine warrior and leader.

Contrary to what is generally the case of male leaders, women´s qualities tend to be connected with their dress and looks. Mrs. Thatcher kept her hair swept back from her face, giving her hairdo the impression of a helmet. She wore earrings and a necklace of pearls – not any frivolous diamonds, often wore gloves and almost always carried with her a black, square handbag, thus creating the image of a decisive and serious woman, not sexy or glamorous, but self-assured and effective. An appearance that occasionally created fear and insecurity among male opponents, like the French president Jaques Chirac who once famously exclaimed: ”What more does this housewife want from me? My balls on a tray?”, or Labour politician Tony Banks who in 1997 in a sexist manner described Thatcher as behaving ”with all the sensitivity of a sex-starved boa constrictor.”

A woman who through her manner and dress does not emit feelings of control and self-assurance, but adaptability, submission and accessibility may not be taken seriously and thus not be accepted as a leader. This might be the reason to why several strong and influential women leaders seem to cultivate a persona that does not make them appear as excessively feminine or sexy. The powerful Indian prime minster Indira Gandhi once declared:

I do not behave like a woman. The ”lack of sex” in me partly accounts for this. When I think of how other women behave, I realise that it is the lack of sex and with it a lack of woman’s wiles, on which most men base their views on me. 6

This reminds of the image Angela Merkel appears to cultivate – a political style transmitting a sharp sense of power, a scientist´s strict devotion to data projecting effectiveness and leadership qualities. Vogue has described the German chancellor as a short matronly woman […] wearing her signature black trousers and sensible walking shoes. 7

The same article characterised Merkel as a courageous and strong woman, for example by describing a meeting with Vladimir Putin in 2007 when the Russian president had allowed his huge Labrador to enter the room, well aware that the German chancellor since her early childhood is traumatized by dogs after having been severely mauled by one of them.

Her aides were furious with the Russian, but she was not. ´I understand why he has to do this,´ she said, ´to prove he’s a man. He’s afraid of his own weakness.´ What Putin and other alpha-male politicians often miss is that Angela Merkel may be afraid of dogs, but she is not afraid of men. 8

It may be denied that male and female roles remain an important part of human power games, though I assume Merkel was right about Putin´s behaviour – it was based on fear. Fear of losing a mask of a virile masculinity, something which also is apparent in the ridiculous discourses of male leaders like Bolsonaro and Trump, who brag about their beautiful and submissive wives, whom they display as hunting trophies conquered in competition with other alpha males.

At the same time they show contempt for female adversaries. Jair Bolsonero told a female congress woman: “I’m not going to rape you, because you’re very ugly”. Appalling misogynist language is also a trademark of Donald Trump who labels leaders like Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Meghan Markle and Mette Fredriksen as ”nasty” women, calls his one-time aide Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth ”that dog”, the actress Rosie O´Donell a ”pig”, and famously stated that when Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly critizised him she had ”blood coming out of her wherever” and that the political commentator Mika Brzezinski was ”bleeding badly from a face lift”. Unfortunately, these are just a few examples of a misogynist stance that still is evident within a global political discourse that deny women the right of being respected as equals to men. Several world leaders present their female partners as adornments to their power display, at the same time as they fear and attack female opponents, accusing them of having transgressed traditional boundaries of ”womanhood” to become ”hags and witches” who constitute a threat to male dominance.

1 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-27/macron-hits-back-at-bolsonaro-over-post-about-his-wife/11451166
2 Ibid.
3 Quoted in Hall Jamieson, Kathleen (1995) Beyond the Double Bind: Women and Leadership. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 128.
4 Fallaci, Oriana /1973) ”Golda Meir: On Being a Woman,” Ms.Magazine, April.
5 Webster, Wendy (1990) Not a Man to Match Her. London:The Women´s Press, p. 73.
6 Jayakar, Pupul (1992) Indira Gandhi: A biography. New Dehli: Penguin Books, p. 479.
7 Marton, Kati (2017) “How Angela Merkel Became the Most Powerful Woman in the World,” Vogue, July 18.
8 Ibid.

Jan Lundius holds a PhD. on History of Religion from Lund University and has served as a development expert, researcher and advisor at SIDA, UNESCO, FAO and other international organisations.

The post Women in Politics: Adornments and Witches appeared first on Inter Press Service.

India’s minister for environment, forests and climate change, Prakash Javadekar (left), said he would be happy if CoP 14 could achieve consensus on such difficult issues as drought management and land tenure. Courtesy: Ranjit Devraj

By Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI, Sep 4 2019 (IPS)

Expectations are high, perhaps too high, as the 14th Conference of the Parties (CoP 14) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), now into the third day of its two-week session, is being held outside the smog-filled Indian capital of New Delhi.

At the inauguration on Monday, India’s minister for environment, forests and climate change, Prakash Javadekar, soon after ceremonies to mark his taking over as president of the Convention for the next two years, said he would be happy if CoP 14 could achieve consensus on such difficult issues as drought management and land tenure.

Other issues on the agenda of CoP14, themed ‘Restore land, Sustain future’ and located in Greater Noida, in northern Uttar Pradesh state, include negotiations over consumption and production flows that have a bearing on agriculture and urbanisation, restoration of ecosystems and dealing with climate change.

According to Ibrahim Thiaw, executive secretary of the Convention, CoP14 negotiations would be guided by, its own scientific papers as well as the Special Report on Climate Change and Land of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released in August.

The IPCC report covered interlinked, overlapping issues that are at the core of CoP14 deliberations — climate, change, desertification, and degradation, sustainable land management, food security and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems.

“Sustainable land management can contribute to reducing the negative impacts of multiple stressors, including climate change, on ecosystems and societies,” the IPCC report said. It also identified land use change as the largest driver of biodiversity loss and as having the greatest impact on the environment.

Javadekar said he saw hope in the fact that of the 196 parties to the Convention 122, including some of the most populous like Brazil, China, India, Nigeria, Russia and South Africa have agreed to make the U.N. Sustainable Development Goal of achieving land degradation neutrality (LDN) targets by 2030 as national objectives.

But the difficulty of seeing results on the ground can be gauged from India’s own difficult situation. Nearly 30 percent of India’s 328 million hectares, supporting 1.3 billion people, has become degraded through deforestation, over-cultivation, soil-erosion and wetland depletion, according to a satellite survey conducted in 2016 by the Indian Space Research Organisation.

A study, conducted last year by The Energy and Resource Institute (TERI), an independent think-tank based in New Delhi, estimates India’s losses from land degradation and change in land use to be worth 47 billion dollars in 2014—2015.

The question before CoP14 is how participating countries can slow down loss of land and along with it biodiversity threatening to impact 3.2 billion people across the world. “Three out of every four hectares have been altered from their natural states and the productivity of one every four hectares of land has been declining,” according to UNCCD.

Running in parallel to CoP14 is the 14th session of UNCCD’s committee on science and technology (CST14), a subsidiary body with stated objectives — estimating soil organic carbon lost as a result of land degradation, addressing the ‘land-drought nexus’ through land-based interventions and translating available science into policy options for participating countries.

On Tuesday, as CoP4 launched into substantive business, the participants at the CST and other subsidiary bodies began to voice real apprehensions and demands.

Bhutan representing the Asia Pacific group, highlighted the need for cooperation at all levels to disseminate and translate identified technologies and knowledge into direct benefits for local land users.

Bangladesh pointed out that LDN targets are sometimes linked to transboundary water resources and also called for mobilising additional resources for capacity building.

Colombia, speaking for the Latin America and Caribbean group, appreciated the value of research by the scientific panels, but urged introduction of improved technologies and mitigation strategies to reduce the direct impacts of drought on ecosystems, starting with soil  degradation.

Russia, on behalf of Central and Eastern Europe, mooted the establishment of technical centres in the region to support the generation of scientific evidence to prevent and manage droughts, sustainable use of forests and peatlands and monitoring of sand and dust storms.

Civil society organisations, led by the Cape Town-based Environmental Monitoring Group, were also critical of the UNCCD for putting too much emphasis on LDN and demanded optimisation of land use through practical solutions that would ensure that carbon is retained in the soil.

“Retaining carbon in the soil is of particular value to India and its neighbouring countries, which presently have the world’s greatest rainwater runoffs into the sea,” says Himanshu Thakkar, coordinator, South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP), a New Delhi based NGO, working on the water and environment sectors.

“What South Asian countries need to do urgently is to improve the rainwater harvesting so as to recharge groundwater aquifers and local water bodies in a given catchment so that water is available in the post-monsoon period that increasingly see severe droughts,” Thakkar tells IPS. “This is where governments can be supportive.”

Benefits such as preventing soil degradation and consequent landslides that have become a common feature in South India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

A study published in May said half of the area around 16 of India’s 24 major river basins is facing  droughts due to lowered soil moisture levels while at least a third of its 18 river basins has become non-resilient to vegetation droughts.

Responding to the suggestions and demands the Secretariat highlighted  recommendations to ensure mainstreaming of LDN targets in national strategies and action programmes, partnerships on science-policy to increase awareness and understanding of LDN and collaborations to assess finance and capacity development needs.

In all, the delegates, who include 90 ministers and more than 7,000 participants drawn from among government officials, civil society and the scientific community from the 197 parties will thrash out 30  decision texts and draw up action plans to strengthen land-use policies and address emerging threats such as droughts, forest fires, dust storms and forced migration.

“The agenda shows that governments have come to CoP14 ready to find solutions to many difficult, knotty and emerging policy issues,” said Thiaw at the inaugural session. The conference ends with the parties signing a ‘New Delhi Declaration’ outlining actions to meet UNCCD goals for 2018-2030.

Related Articles

• Desertification a Frontline Against Climate Change: IPCC
• Burning Forests for Rain, and Other Climate Catastrophes
• Money Grows on Trees–Don’t Uproot Them

The post Achieving Global Consensus on How to Slow Down Loss of Land appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Smallholder farmers in Isiolo, Kenya sorting beans before sending them to the market in Nairobi. the latest Africa Agriculture Status Report (AASR) shows that small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the main drivers of food economy on the African continent. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu
ACCRA, Ghana/ELDORET TOWN, Kenya, Sep 4 2019 (IPS)

Viola Kiptanui, a resident of Langas estate in the outskirts of Kenya’s Eldoret town, has discovered a new way of life – eating only what she knows the source – thanks to a new smallholder entrepreneurship venture.

“Given the many health problems that have emerged, there is need for one to know exactly what they are feeding their families,” said Kiptanui a mother of three children.

Within the Langas shopping centre, residents stream to a newly-established grocery called ‘iAgribizAfrica’ to buy fresh green vegetables and fruits that are grown by Uasin Gishu County’s smallholder farmers and sold directly to the grocery.

“Such entrepreneurships represent a profound turnaround from mere decades ago,” said Dr. Thomas Reardon of Michigan State University, a lead author of the latest Africa Agriculture Status Report (AASR).

The report, released on Sept. 3 on the sidelines of the Africa Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) in Accra, Ghana shows that entrepreneurs from small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the main drivers of the food economy on the African continent.

According to the 220-page document compiled by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), 64 percent of total food consumed on the continent is sourced from SMEs, with only 16 percent coming from larger enterprises, and the remaining 20 percent being grown and eaten by farming households.

“There has been a ‘Quiet Revolution’ in agrifood private sector value chains linking small farmers to burgeoning urban markets and growing towns in Africa. This has spurred farmers’ participation in food and farm input markets,” said Reardon during a media briefing prior to the launch of the report.

These SMEs, often women-led, include food processors, wholesalers, and retailers, and they provide a range of services, from transport and logistics to the sale of inputs such as fertilisers and seed to farmers – says the report.

According to Rodgers Kirwa, a 27-year-old farmer and founder of iAgribizAfrica, there is a growing demand for food whose origin can be traced. 

“I started this business in 2018 and so far, I have 40 smallholder farmers within my network,” he told IPS at the AGRF in Ghana.

The 40 farmers were all recruited and registered by the young entrepreneur, and at some point supported for farm inputs on credit in case of a pressing need.

“The idea is to have farmers we know very well, so that we can monitor what they are growing, advice them on farm inputs, and monitor how they are using them for the safety of our customers,” said Kirwa.

Besides the entrepreneurship, Kirwa is a member of another online platform known as ‘Mkulima Young’ (young farmer) which was started with 10 partners, among them three young agronomists, two marketers, and social media enthusiasts. The platform now has 30,000 subscribers from Kenya and Uganda, mostly seeking information about farming enterprises. It is from this platform that farmers get answers to all their questions.   

“SMEs are the biggest investors in building markets for farmers in Africa today, and will likely remain so for the next 10 to 20 years,” said Dr. Agnes Kalibata, President of AGRA in a statement. “They are not a ‘missing middle,’ as is thought, but the ‘hidden middle,’ ready for support and investment to thrive further. Today, we bring them out into the light.”

Contrary to common belief, the report shows that large enterprises play a relatively minor role in directly supporting small-scale farmers, and the food value chain in Africa.

“We live in a global market,” Kalibata said. “Our job today is to ensure that these SMEs are grounded enough to provide the right kind of support to family farms; and to be competitive so that they can survive and thrive in an increasingly interconnected and global market,” she said noting that the smallholder entrepreneurs’ success will determine the future of agriculture and food security on the African continent.

However, according to Reardon, there are challenges. “The journey has taken off, but not flying in its full potential,” said the lead researcher. “We need sound policies that will support these SMEs, good infrastructure and capacity building for them,” he said.

So far, governments that have invested in this have already registered a positive impact.

In Ghana, for example, the government has subsidised the cost of fertilisers by 50 percent, an intervention programme that has been in place since 2008 when the country ran into a food crisis due to poor yields, according to Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, the country’s Minister of Food and Agriculture. “This has been a huge success, and farmers have more than enough produce from their farms at the moment,” he told journalists at the AGRF.

According to Vanessa Adams, Vice President of Country Support and Delivery at AGRA, there is need to use appropriate technologies and available food systems to ensure that what is produced is sold at the right time.

“Bumper harvests are fantastic, but not after market crushes,” she said.

Related Articles

• Using Climate-Smart Solutions to Promote Peace in South Sudan
• Africa Needs Strong Political Will to Transform Agriculture and Spur Economic Growth

The post SME’s the Main Drivers of Africa’s Food Economy appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Ganga Tilakaratna, Deshal de Mel and Zhengian Huang
BANGKOK, Thailand, Sep 4 2019 (IPS)

On the road to sustainable development, Sri Lanka provides an interesting case study. Having overcome a three-decade domestic conflict, Sri Lanka has begun its transformation towards a sustainable and resilient society. The extreme poverty rate ($1.90 a day) dropped to 0.8 per cent in 2016. The unemployment rate is below 5 per cent since 2010.

Free education and health policies have resulted in high youth literacy rates (98.7 per cent) and high life expectancy (75 years). Measured by its index of human development, Sri Lanka is a high achiever.

However, Sri Lanka still faces major challenges. Improving the quality and relevance of education, providing medical treatment and care facilities for the ageing population, and fighting climate disasters call for further policy support, financial mobilization and partnership strengthening.

Government initiatives to mainstream Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Sri Lanka has been incorporating the SDGs into its national policy framework. Since the endorsement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, Sri Lanka has taken several momentous initiatives.

The most important one is the Sustainable Development Act in 2017, which establishes the legal framework to implement the SDGs with improved institutional and policy coherence. Under this Act, the Sustainable Development Council has been established, which formulates related national policies and guides new development projects.

From increasing investment to raising investment efficiency

Investments needed to achieve the SDGs are huge, but not beyond reach. Preliminary estimates by ESCAP suggest that Sri Lanka needs an annual additional investment of 4.4 per cent of the 2018 GDP through 2030 to provide a social protection floor (1.7 per cent), poverty gap transfers (0.2 per cent), quality education (1.6 per cent) and climate-resilient infrastructure (0.8 per cent).

Some of these investment needs have been mainstreamed into the Sri Lankan Government’s budgets. For example, the Budget 2019 focuses on:

• Quality education

• by reforming curricula to enable the combination of Science, Technology, Engineering, Math and the Arts (STEM + A), enhancing continuous professional training for teachers, and introducing more technology in education delivery;

• Healthcare

• services and facilities by enhancing investments in healthcare delivery, quality and infrastructure;

• Agriculture

• by linking smallholder farmers to value chains of larger enterprises, investing in climate-proof warehousing, and enhancing natural disaster insurance for farmers;

• Climate resilience

• by improving irrigation infrastructure quality, strengthening eco-system conservation, and expanding natural disaster insurance scheme; and

• Gender

equality by sharing costs of maternity benefits, facilitating childcare services by businesses and schools, and encouraging participation of women on corporate boards.

Despite the Government’s initiatives, financing the SDGs remains a challenge. Relatively low level of tax revenue constrains Sri Lanka’s domestic resource mobilization.

The country’s access to concessionary finance (e.g. ODA) has declined given its elevation to middle-income status. Its export earnings and foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows have remained below potential.

Various measures have been taken to attract FDI and boost export earnings including implementation of a new National Export Strategy and easing business environment by digitalizing company registration and land registry.

In addition to these measures, improving investment efficiency is critical. ESCAP estimates that the developing Asia-Pacific countries can achieve similar levels of outputs and outcomes in health and education sectors using 30 per cent fewer resources. Among its peer countries, Sri Lanka performs well in health and education sectors; however, its investment efficiency in infrastructure could be improved.

To enhance infrastructure investment efficiency for the public sector, public financial management institutions – notably project appraisal, selection and management – need to be strengthened.

Effective coordination among different government branches for construction permits, environmental clearance and land acquisition is important, as these processes often lead to project delays.

Ensuring a steady flow of resources for operations and maintenance is a necessary condition for success. Good maintenance generates substantial savings, reducing the total lifecycle costs of infrastructure projects.

Multi-stakeholder partnerships

Raising awareness among relevant stakeholders and building capacity of relevant institutions are necessary to achieve the SDGs. Developing multi-stakeholder partnerships provide much room for improvement in Sri Lanka to fully engage the general public and the private sector. An effective mechanism is needed for collaborative engagement in SDG implementation, from policy formulation to monitoring.

Furthermore, regional cooperation is an area with great potential that has not yet fully entered the SDG discourse in Sri Lanka. Regional cooperation in South Asia and the broader Indian Ocean economy can help Sri Lanka accelerate its SDG progress in several areas, including climate change, renewable energy transition and food security.

The 2030 Agenda provides a blueprint to achieve a more sustainable future for all. Sri Lanka’s efforts in mainstreaming the SDGs into its national planning and budgeting are an interesting case for the rest of the Asia-Pacific region to learn – a country does not need to wait until it achieves economic affluence before tackling social well-being and environmental health. Developing countries should incorporate social and environmental goals into their path towards prosperity.

The post Sri Lanka Faces Major Challenges on UN’s 2030 Development Agenda appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Ganga Tilakaratna is Research Fellow & Head of Poverty and Social Welfare Policy Research, Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, Deshal de Mel is Economic Advisor, Ministry of Finance, Sri Lanka & Zhenqian Huang is Associate Economic Affairs Officer, Macroeconomic Policy and Financing for Development Division, ESCAP

The post Sri Lanka Faces Major Challenges on UN’s 2030 Development Agenda appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Jamal Kahshoggi, a US-based journalist who frequently criticised the Saudi government, was killed while visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, where he was collecting papers for his wedding. Courtesy: POMED/CC by 2.0

By James Reinl
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 4 2019 (IPS)

The United Nations is under growing pressure to scrap an event it is co-hosting with the private foundation of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammad bin Salman, who has been linked to the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

On Tuesday, Sunjeev Bery, director of Freedom Forward, became the latest leader of a campaign group to press the U.N. to cancel the Sept. 23 event, saying it would help repair bin Salman’s reputation over the Khashoggi murder. 

The event, known as the Misk-OSGEY Youth Forum, is a partnership between the U.N.’s youth envoy, Jayathma Wickramanayake, and the Misk Foundation, a culture and education foundation chaired by bin Salman, who is better known as MBS.

“No one — especially not the U.N. — should be partnering with MBS or his personal Misk Foundation,” Bery told IPS.

“Saudi Arabia’s brutal crown prince is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Yemeni children. His thugs imprisoned leading women’s rights activists and murdered Jamal Khashoggi.”

Kenneth Roth, the director of Human Rights Watch, a campaign group, last week accused the world body of helping to “whitewash” MBS’s record; Mandeep Tiwana, from Civicus, a rights group, called the event “disturbing”.

 

Why is the UN helping the Saudi crown prince whitewash his record by co-hosting a conference with a foundation he leads just a year after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi? https://t.co/r65LWZWN0J pic.twitter.com/7C8LoV4MTb

— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) 31 August 2019

The U.N. youth envoy’s office declined to comment on the row. U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the world body had repeatedly issued “very strong statements … calling for accountability” in Khashoggi’s killing.

The Misk-OSGEY Youth Forum will take place in New York only 10 days before the first anniversary of Khashoggi’s murder on Oct. 2 last year, when Saudi government agents killed and dismembered the journalist inside the country’s consulate in Istanbul.

The CIA later determined that MBS had personally ordered the hit. Saudi officials, who initially said Khashoggi had left the consulate alive, now say the journalist was killed in a rogue operation that did not involve MBS.

Saudi Arabia’s mission to the U.N. did not answer requests for comment from IPS.

The four-hour workshop for 300 young people at the New York Public Library will occur on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly and promote green themes, corporate responsibility and other aspects of the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) agenda.

It will feature Alexandra Cousteau, an environmentalist and granddaughter of French explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau; and Bart Houlahan, an entrepreneur who promotes sustainable business practices.

Other speakers include Andrew Corbett, an expert on entrepreneurship at Babson College, Paul Polman, former CEO of consumer goods firm Unilever, and Ann Rosenberg, an author and U.N. technology expert.

Dr. Reem Bint Mansour Al-Saud, a Saudi princess and an envoy to U.N. headquarters in New York, who advocates for empowering women and development in the Gulf kingdom, will also speak at the workshop.

Khashoggi, a United States-based journalist who frequently criticised the Saudi government, was killed while visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, where he was collecting papers for his wedding.

U.N. expert Agnes Callamard issued a report in June that described the assassination as a “deliberate, premeditated execution,” and called for MBS and other Saudi officials to be probed.

The Misk-OSGEY Youth Forum comes after years of tensions between the U.N. and Riyadh over the war in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia is leading a military coalition against the country’s Houthi rebels. 

The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and caused led to a major humanitarian crisis. 

“The crown prince and his violent government must be held accountable for their human rights crimes,” said Bery, who advocates for the U.S. to cut ties with Saudi Arabia and other authoritarian regimes.

“Instead, misguided U.N. staff are absurdly giving the crown prince a public relations platform as he attempts to wipe away the blood of so many dead Yemeni children.”

Related Articles

• Beyond Saudi Arabia: The World Is Failing Journalists
• Truth Never Dies: Justice for Slain Journalists
• Don’t “Whitewash” Khashoggi’s Murder
• Stop The War on Children
• UN Seeks Probe into Saudi Bombing of Civilian Targets
• Aid Groups Condemn Yemen Blockade, Warn of ‘Catastrophic’ Famine

The post U.N. Criticised for Link-up with Saudi Prince MBS appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The United Nations headquarters showcasing the Sustainable Development summit, September 2015. The essayist, an expert in governance and democracy, bemoans the growing participation of multinational corporations in UN system forums. Credit: CIA PAK/UN PHOTO

By Harris Gleckman
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 4 2019 (IPS)

Global governance is slipping away from the United Nations.

Whether it is in managing the Internet, where the UN’s governing structure offers only an advisory role for governments; or climate change, where the most exciting actions are now corporate-led partnerships outside the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change; or the Gates Foundation-sponsored Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, which is in a tug of war with the World Health Assembly on who sets health policy in developing countries, the institutional basis for global decision-making is changing.

Where nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) were once the largest nonstate entities attending UN system meetings, transnational corporations have become the biggest players. They participate in well-attended public-private partnership sessions at the UN Conference on Trade and Development, the Human Rights Council and the High-Level Political Forum, the key body for following up on the Sustainable Development Goals.

The latest institutional foray is a World Economic Forum-UN partnership agreement. Under this arrangement, senior UN leaders are invited at national, regional and international levels to interact with forum members, many of whom are actually causing the global problems that the UN system is tasked to fix, such as climate change.

These developments are part of a new global governance approach, one in which a team of corporate executives, leaders of civil society organizations (CSOs) , officials from governments and the UN system, academics and other players take on the governance of a specific international challenge.

In the economic, social and environmental fields, this governance arrangement is called multistakeholderism, as each new global decision-maker is said to represent a “stakeholder” in an issue. In practice, these governance arrangements can have a role equal to or greater than the one held by the intergovernmental body officially assigned to address a universal problem.

These experiments in a new form of global governance and the 2010 report on the Global Redesign Initiative by the World Economic Forum run counter to efforts to enhance a sense of democracy as part of global decision-making.

Corporate executives — not leaders of small- and medium-size enterprises, nor microenterprises — are central to these groups and public-private partnerships. Yet these bodies have their own internal governance and constituencies; as a result, they redraft global principles that were agreed on by governments to meet their own, often business-focused, concerns.

The selected government officials, those considered sympathetic to the goals of multistakeholders, sit on the board as only one of the decision-makers. At the same time, the other players are elevated to a role in global governance without any democratic basis for their participation.

This dynamic is quite different from the one prevalent during the conferences of the 1990s, when civil society organizations, farm and labor organizations, educators, scientists, women and businesses gathered to provide diversified voices to governments, which alone led international decision-making.

UN public-private partnerships tend to worsen changes in the relationship between the intergovernmental process and UN secretariat staff members, who act as the administrative arm of a UN entity.

Where once the secretary-general and the heads of UN specialized agencies and programs saw themselves — and were seen by UN member governments — as governed by a specific intergovernmental body, now the secretariats act more autonomously. They strike up relationships with multiplayer bodies like the World Economic Forum and corporations without intergovernmental oversight.

A result of the increase in institutional ties between the UN and senior corporate executives is that civil society organizations, educators, scientists, women and other social communities have less ability to influence the behavior of the UN bodies and the intergovernmental process.

The weakening tie is driven both by outside factors and internal realities. The pressures on the UN system are significant. There is the cumulative effect, for example, of more than 30 years of flat or negative regular budget growth of the UN.

As an extension of President Trump’s effort to deconstruct the domestic regulatory state in the United States, his administration is also striving to deconstruct the UN system.

Internally, the secretariats perceive that taking relatively autonomous actions is one way to deliver on their generic assignments and to offset the underfunded regular budget by reaching out to potential corporate donors.

This increased autonomy is often reflected in more willingness to accept invitations to join a multistakeholder group to “represent” the UN and governments or to invite major corporations to join a secretariat-led multiparty group. These new links can allow corporations to assert that they are working with the UN — albeit without intergovernmental oversight.

They can also influence a UN secretariat to frame solutions to global problems in ways that are sensitive to their corporate constituency but not necessarily focused on government expectations or the need for leading the world toward systemic reforms.

Of course, the interests of corporations vary. For some consumer-oriented businesses, their increased role in UN operations is a chance to secure a role in creating a global sustainability market for a specific product or service.

For other multinationals, particularly those affiliated with the World Economic Forum, it is an opportunity, after the shocks of the 2008 financial crisis, to re-legitimate the globalized market in the minds of international and national elites.

It does not need to be so. Steps can be taken by governments to reassert leadership in managing globalization and mitigating global environmental crises. These could include a clear definition of conflict of interests to guide secretariats when they partner with a specific enterprise; an intergovernmental review of multistakeholders’ plans to ensure they follow UN goals; and improving intergovernmental oversight of the entire UN system through regular meetings of the heads of all intergovernmental bodies.

With the advent of many players involved in decision-making and international public-private partnerships, the secretariats are increasingly semiautonomous from their intergovernmental body, reaching out to one constituency, the international business community, thus marginalizing their overall roles with other global constituencies.

These developments undermine a public view that democracy — one country-one vote with all of its exceptions — will be the guiding global governance principles today and in the future.

The post They Call it Multistakeholderism. Where Does That Leave the UN? appeared first on PassBlue.

The post They Call it Multistakeholderism. Where Does That Leave the UN? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Sep 3 2019 (IPS)

Large transnational corporations (TNCs) are widely believed to be paying little tax. The ease with which they avoid tax and the declining corporate tax rates over the decades have deprived developing countries of much needed revenues besides undermining public faith in the tax system.

Anis Chowdhury

The rise of digital giants, such as Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple, is an additional concern for all countries. Digitalization makes it hard to establish where ‘production’ takes place. Hence, digital tech TNCs’ revenues typically bear little relation to reported profits and tax bills.

Corporate tax rules favour rich countries
Through the OECD, developed economies have long set corporate tax rules, without much consideration for the effects on developing countries’ revenues.

UN initiatives on profit shifting and tax avoidance have been largely resisted by developed countries. At the Third UN Financing for Development Conference in Addis Ababa in mid-2015, developing countries failed to ‘elevate’ the UN Tax Committee into an inter-governmental body. Even more modest efforts to strengthen it failed, due to opposition from developed countries.

On-going efforts — under the OECD’s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project to reform international corporate tax rules, mandated by the G20 — suffer from legitimacy deficits, as developing countries continue to be marginalized, with only consultative roles.

BEPS Actions were decided by a group of 44 OECD, OECD accession countries and G20 members. Although the UN set up a subcommittee to facilitate inputs into the BEPS process from developing countries, the UN Committee of Tax Experts remains marginalized.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

The so-called BEPS Inclusive Framework (IF) tries to ensure that OECD-set standards are enforced in developing countries even though their legitimate concerns remain unresolved, while unilateral actions by developed countries continue to harm them.

The OECD designed BEPS still allows companies to move their profits anywhere legally via ‘transfer pricing’ to take advantage of low-tax jurisdictions which some OECD countries provide. This favours developed countries which can better afford lower corporate tax rates.

Therefore, the latest report of the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT) argues that BEPS has achieved all it can. Instead, it proposes new tasks, dubbed ‘BEPS 2.0’, urging the OECD to reject transfer pricing.

Digital economy challenge
Recent, highly profitable, ‘highly digitized’, ‘technology-driven’ business models — which rely heavily on intangible assets, such as patents or software, that are hard to value – are another reason for rethinking international corporate taxation.

Assuming links between income, profits and physical presence now seems irrelevant, triggering new concerns. Countries with many users or consumers of digital services have little or no tax revenue from these companies which insist they have no physical presence there.

Current tax systems are unable to prevent egregious tax avoidance by digital TNCs. With their marginal cost of production at zero, all revenue can be taxed effectively without negatively affecting the supply of digital services.

The OECD has been addressing this issue within the BEPS Framework over the past half-decade without reaching consensus. “With no consensus on taxation of the digital economy, some countries have resorted to unilateral measures”, notes the UN Committee of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax Matters.

The recent unilateral action by France to tax tech giants invoked the US threat of new tariffs on French exports. Clearly, the overriding priority now is to establish an international corporate tax system for the digital economy benefiting both developing and developed countries.

Unitary taxation
The ICRICT has proposed that the international taxation system should move toward unitary taxation of multinationals, which would deter their abuse of transfer pricing as global income would need to be consolidated.

Global profits and taxes could then be allocated geographically according to objective criteria such as sales, employment, resources, even digital users in each country. A global minimum effective corporate tax rate of 20-25% of all profits earned by TNCs would be an advance.

The ICRCT also recommended four measures to tackle harmful international tax competition, namely putting a floor under tax competition, eliminating all tax breaks on profits, establishing a level playing field and ensuring participation.

Recent IMF research has proposed various options and three criteria for consideration: better addressing profit-shifting and tax competition; overcoming legal and administrative obstacles to reform; and fully recognizing the interests of emerging and developing countries.

However, as the UN Committee of Experts emphasized, “the solution should be simple to administer … and easy to comply with” as “developing countries often neither have the capacity to administer complex solutions nor are they equipped to handle costly international dispute settlement processes.”

IMF and UN roles
The IMF claims near-universal membership, which enables better understanding of developing countries’ problems. It also provides technical support on tax issues to over a hundred countries yearly. But as Fund governance is stacked against developing countries, only the UN can better ensure that developing country interests receive due recognition.

The Platform for Collaboration on Tax (PCT), a joint effort by the IMF, World Bank, OECD and UN, has tried to enhance co-operation on tax issues. As the PCT is not a political body, there is need to recognize the UN Tax Committee as the principal PCT decision-making body to ensure its decisions fairly serve both developed and developing countries.

Countries must work together so that more inclusive, equitable and progressive multilateral coordination can accelerate progress. Clearly, a new approach to international corporate taxation is urgently needed.

Anis Chowdhury, Adjunct Professor at Western Sydney University & University of New South Wales (Australia), held senior United Nations positions in New York and Bangkok.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram, a former economics professor, was Assistant Director-General for Economic and Social Development, Food and Agriculture Organization, and received the Wassily Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought in 2007.

The post Ensuring Fairer International Corporate Taxation appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Peter Burian
BRUSSELS, Sep 3 2019 (IPS)

The EU has presented a new strategy for Central Asia. The first one has been adopted in 2007 and revised in 2015. Where do you see improvements?

Our new Strategy will aim to focus future EU action in the region on two key priorities. Firstly, we want to be partners for resilience. We want to strengthen the capacity of Central Asian states and societies to overcome internal and external shocks and enhance their ability to embrace reform.

This should translate into closer cooperation on human rights and the rule of law. This will also imply closer cooperation in security, including counter-radicalisation and counterterrorism, but also new areas such as hybrid threats and cyber-security. We also want to cooperate with the countries of the region to turn environmental challenges into opportunities.

Secondly, we want to step up our cooperation to support economic modernisation, and there is a lot the EU can do to support the development of a stronger and competitive job-generating private sector in the region.

We should also cooperate more closely to improve the climate for investment and the EU remains a leading supporter of the accession of Central Asian states to the WTO.

Peter Burian

Where do the EU’s interests lie when it comes to Central Asia?

Central Asia has always been important for Europe: for its history, for its culture and for its role in connecting East and West. Now Central Asia is regaining its historic role as a gateway between Europe and Asia.

Central Asia is a young and growing market with untapped potential for trade and transport, but it also represents an important element of our energy security. EU has a strong interest that Central Asia develops as a peaceful, resilient and more closely interconnected economic and political space.

The region is of significant importance for the EU also in terms of security. Neighbouring with Afghanistan, the region shares many challenges starting from illicit drug trafficking and irregular migration and ending with threats of violent extremism and terrorism.

When facing these threats, we are in one boat. And from this point of view, Central Asia is even a closer neighbour of the EU than it seems. In case of any major security crisis in the region, the EU will be one of the first to face the consequences.

Besides Brexit and domestic conflicts, we see that the eroding transatlantic relationship remains high on the EU’s agenda. How much attention can Central Asia therefore expect in the upcoming years?

I believe our member states and EU institutions helped me to answer your question by adopting the new EU Strategy on Central Asia, reconfirming the long-term commitment to security and stability of the region.

I dare to say that also thanks to EU’s contribution and support for sustainable development in the past quarter of a century the region managed to preserve a large degree of stability and countries of Central Asia strengthened their statehood, identity and sovereignty.

In the light of existing challenges, the region is facing this support will be needed in the foreseeable future. It is in our interest to keep the attention to Central Asia and help to strengthen its resilience.

I believe that with our rather modest investments into human capacity building, education, job creation and strengthening the rule of law and good governance it is possible to create conditions for utilizing the potential of the region and prevent negative tendencies to materialize into major threats to stability of Central Asia.

Even when you look to the recent past when the EU member states were deciding on budgetary allocations for Central Asia’s regional MIP for 2014-2020 seven years ago you would see that the EU managed to increase the funding for implementation of various regional and bilateral projects in Central Asia by more than 50 per cent.

A meeting of Central Asian states. Credit: UN

With Russia and China two geopolitical heavyweights are very active in Central Asia. In contrast, how’s the EU perceived as an actor in the region?

One of the reasons the Central Asian countries are seeking a closer partnership with the EU is their natural interest to diversify their choices and options. Being located between such big political, economic and security players as China and Russia, our Central Asian partners see the EU as a balancing power in the regional equation.

From our part, we want to forge a stronger, modern and non-exclusive partnership with the region so that it develops as an area of cooperation and connectivity rather than competition and rivalry.

The EU’s partnership with the region is not directed against anyone. The Central Asians appreciate our ability to engage on a non-exclusive basis without imposing binary choices. The EU does not aim to be a “Great Game” player on a “Grand Chessboard” but rather a reliable and committed partner for the region.

We remain open for cooperation and synergies with everyone, including China and Russia, based on full transparency and fully respecting the Central Asian states’ ownership and sovereignty.

The increasing indebtedness of countries like Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to Chinese creditors makes the population more and more concerned about their countries’ sovereignty. What can the EU do concretely to offer less developed countries a real alternative?

The EU is providing to the countries of Central Asia a real alternative. EU cooperation with the region already amounts to over €1bn through both bilateral and regional envelopes. Together with other instruments this amount is even higher – around €2bn.

To fulfil the economic potential, there is the need for something more than big infrastructure projects or trains delivering goods that only run through these countries. There is a need to have real, long-term investments that bring benefits to local communities, based on sustainable and long-standing solutions.

We also share a mutual interest in developing and strengthening connections between Europe and Central Asia, whether that is transport links, digital infrastructure, energy networks, or contacts between people. This could create new jobs, promote innovation and modernisation, which allows Central Asia avoiding the debt trap and the trap of poor quality projects.

But at the same time the connectivity for us is not and should never be about creating spheres of influence. For us, connectivity always will be rather focussed on creating opportunities for everyone.

This interview was conducted by Joanna Itzek, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES)

The post Central Asia Has Always Been Important for Europe appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

In an interview* with Peter Burian, the current EU Special Representative for Central Asia.

The post Central Asia Has Always Been Important for Europe appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The post Eastern Caribbean Embarks on Strategy Towards a Blue-Green Economy appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Picture courtesy: Rachita Vora

By Alokparna Sengupta
HYDERABAD, TELANGANA, India , Sep 3 2019 (IPS)

We have the potential to lead the world in animal welfare, but the tendency to look at the issue in a vacuum has prevented this movement from being taken seriously.

Since early civilisation, animals have been an integral part of human experience. We have domesticated them for both agriculture and companionship. However, over time our kinship with them has morphed into abuse in which the welfare of animals is highly compromised. Now we see animals purely for their utility; in fact, a perception has been created that humans always have precedence over animals. It has now become common practice to inflict cruelty upon them.

Animal welfare has always been seen as a niche subject, often relegated to being an emotional one. It has also been perceived as a street dog issue or service for pet or privately-‘owned’ animals, mainly dogs and cats. Of course, protection of cows has often grabbed headlines as well, but never for their welfare, and the issue is often politically motivated.

Illegal wildlife trade generates revenues between USD 7 and 23 billion annually: it is “the fourth most lucrative global crime after drugs, humans, and arms”

In comparison to other animal welfare issues (those that extend beyond what we have highlighted above), people’s awareness tends to be limited to issues pertaining to wildlife exploitation; in particular, tiger conservation and human-wildlife conflict (for example, with leopards and snakes). But animals are abused across the country and world, whether in laboratories, farms, or pet shops; and the abuse is often justified for human good.

 

One such example is the elephant

India has prohibited ivory trade since 1972, when the Wildlife Protection Act came in; however there are still concerns about the illegal trade and the animals’ treatment in captivity. Their exploitation is masked by activities they are forced into, such as leisurely rides; being chained in temples to give blessings; and being hired out for festivals, weddings, and celebrations, where they are often tormented amongst noisy, frenzied crowds.

This form of tourism is fuelling a rise in elephants captured from the wild and kept for entertainment. Such elephants are either bred in captivity or stolen from their mothers and made to undergo a process aptly named ‘breaking the spirit’, which subjects them to pain, starvation, confinement, and isolation.

Once the spirit is broken, the animal is subjected to poor working conditions. And in the absence of its natural environment, it begins to behave differently, swaying its head from side to side—a sight we have all seen too often. These conditions often result in stress, leading to instances of violence and human-animal conflicts. Elephants we see on television losing control are representative of the direct result of years of confinement and abuse.

In India, elephants are epitomised as symbols of a very popular Hindu god, and yet their treatment has been just the opposite.

 

What then, can we say about the fate of lesser known species?

Pangolins, for instance—scaly ant-eaters who are targeted mainly for their meat and scales—are the most trafficked mammal in the world. It is believed that since 2000, more than one million pangolins have been traded internationally.

These shy creatures are valuable to both people and the ecosystem. They protect crops because they are natural pest controllers, and reduce the need for toxic insecticides. Their sharp claws, long snouts, and tongues help aerate the soil, and more so, each pangolin can eat millions of insects each year.

Their meat and scales are usually exported to China for making traditional Chinese medicines, cosmetics, and jewellery.

These are just two examples; there are plenty more. In fact, so severe is the illegal wildlife trade–generating revenues between USD 7 and 23 billion annually–that it is “the fourth most lucrative global crime after drugs, humans, and arms”.

 

Pangolins—ant-eaters who are targeted mainly for their meat and scales—are the most trafficked mammal in the world | Photo courtesy: AJT Johnsingh, WWF-India and NCF, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

 

And this is just the tip of the iceberg

The suffering that sinks the titanic, is of those animals that are raised for food. This is an issue that is so neglected that even most of the animal protection community turns a blind eye.

Animal agriculture, which was once predominately carried out by smallholder farmers and considered a symbiotic relationship, has now been highly industrialised where the single point of focus is to increase productivity per animal. In our desire to do this, we have trait selected chickens to grow so freakishly fast that their own skeletons cannot hold their body weight. These abnormally large animals are then used for meat.

More than 80 percent of India’s eggs come from egg-laying hens confined in small cages, termed ‘battery cages’, where they cannot stand up straight, turn around, or spread their wings. The space given to each is reportedly less than an A4 size sheet of paper.

Factory farms don’t inflict harm just on animals; there are environmental impacts as well. The volume of waste that is allowed to accumulate in factory farms presents an enviornmental hazard. Water quality issues also arise from factory farm-generated waste, which include contamination of surface water and ground water. In addition, the microbial breakdown of organic carbon and nitrogen compounds in the animal manure can contribute to air pollution and odour problems. Emission of noxious levels of gases puts workers and nearby residents at risk of developing several acute and chronic illnesses.

 

What has India done to address some of this?

All is not grim. India has historically enacted good laws; for instance, the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act enacted in 1960 by the Parliament of India, prevents the infliction of unnecessary pain or suffering on animals. This act has been utilised to appeal to the government against nefarious acts committed towards animals. India also enjoys one of the strictest wildlife protection laws. While some countries are now waking up to regulating trade in wildlife—a case in point being ivory trade—India leads the prohibition on ivory trade, including that of the extinct mammoth to prevent any proliferation of the trade.

Some of the biggest triumphs for animal welfare in India in the last decade, saw the ban of dolphinariums (aquariums for dolphins) in 2013, by the Ministry of Environment and Forests. In addition, the Government of India banned animal testing for cosmetics in 2014, followed by a prohibition on the import of cosmetics tested on animals, placing India on the map for scientifically progressive countries.

India has also prohibited the export of shark fins for use in shark fin soup. (Did you know that India was the third largest shark landing nation in the world?) We are also one of the few nations which does not allow wild animals in circuses. The government is now planning to remove all animals from circuses.

While these are positive developments, regulators and the government constitute just one slice of the pie. What we need today is widespread acceptance of animal protection as a serious social issue. Animal and non-animal social sectors must recognise their intersectionality and work together. Corporates need to look at what role their institutions are playing in animal cruelty, be it procuring battery caged eggs or team outings at captive animal spaces.

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “The greatness of a nation and its progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated”. India has the potential to lead the world in animal welfare, however the tendency to look at animal welfare issues in a vacuum rather than as an interlinked issue with other civil society concerns, has prevented this movement from being taken seriously.

 

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

The post Animal Welfare: Where Does India Stand? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Alokparna Sengupta is the deputy director for Humane Society International/India

The post Animal Welfare: Where Does India Stand? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: WHO/2017<7strong>

By Ryan Forrest, Sara Rose Taylor
OTTAWA, Sep 2 2019 (IPS)

Trends in global consumption of cigarettes haven’t improved since the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) came into force, according to a study published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) earlier this summer.

Perhaps this is because the FCTC on its own is not a magic bullet. Governments have paid the issue of tobacco-use a lot of lip service but they have invested very little to match the global burden of the epidemic.

Simply agreeing on what needs to be done (i.e. negotiating and ratifying the FCTC) will not on its own lead to reductions in tobacco use. What’s important is whether countries are adopting, implementing and enforcing tobacco control laws and policies in line with their obligations under the treaty.

Tobacco control policies work when implemented, and one of the key lessons to take from the study in the BMJ is that countries urgently need support to do so.

Framing the debate on FCTC impact

Among the most quickly and most universally ratified treaties in existence, FCTC has long been hailed as a breakthrough in efforts to protect the world’s citizens and economies from the harmful effects of tobacco use, which remains a leading global cause of preventable death.

Credit: BMJ 2019;365:l2287

The FCTC has also been looked to as a testing ground for new approaches to global health governance; a potentially replicable model that could be applied to address other health and development issues.

The value and importance of the FCTC and the usefulness of the efforts of the large global tobacco control community that has worked for many years to negotiate the treaty and later to support its ratification and implementation around the world are widely acknowledged.

Much less is known, however, about the impact of the FCTC on smoking patterns.

But what is most needed is a nuanced understanding of how the FCTC impacts cigarette smoking patterns in different regions of the world and the contribution of the treaty to tobacco control policy development and implementation.

We know, indisputably, that tobacco control policies work when implemented, but we also know from experience that implementation and enforcement of these policies is a major challenge in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

These countries often lack the data, organisational structures, human resources, and funds necessary to develop sustainable national tobacco control programmes.

Oiling the wheels of progress

Funding is perhaps the biggest challenge in most LMICs. A 2011 report by the World Health Organization notes that public spending on tobacco control in LMICs ranged from just US$0.0048 to US$0.01 per capita – far short of the estimated per capita cost of US$0.11 required to implement effective tobacco control programs in most LMICs.

There has also been a shocking lack of international investment in tobacco control – amounting to just US$70 million in Development Assistance for Health (DAH) in 2017 according to the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation’s most recent report. That’s just 8.5% of all DAH allocated for non-communicable diseases, and an even tinier fraction of all DAH.

WHO criteria for the highest level of achievement of key tobacco control demand-reduction measures. Credit: The Lancet Public Health Volume 2, ISSUE 4, Pe166-e174, April 01, 2017

The new analysis in the BMJ of the FCTC’s impact since its adoption should serve as an urgent call to action for the international community. Tobacco use causes more than 8 million deaths compared to approximately 3 million deaths for malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis combined.

Progress on reducing global tobacco use requires a concentrated effort on strengthening FCTC implementation in LMICs. Despite the growing evidence that accelerating FCTC implementation contributes to progress in decreasing tobacco use, too many countries are still lagging behind and failing to invest in tobacco control.

Understanding the priorities and accelerating progress

The newly adopted Global Strategy to Accelerate Tobacco Control identifies specific areas where governments can focus action to create the most impact. Immediate priorities include strengthening national tobacco control plans and adopting stronger price and tax measures.

Raising tobacco taxes to increase tobacco product price and decrease affordability is a particularly compelling policy proposal. A 10% increase in price yields a 4% decrease in consumption in high-income countries and a 5% decrease elsewhere, and the best way for governments to influence prices is to substantially increase taxes.

This is the case in the European Union (EU), where new evidence published in the Tobacco Control journal suggests that high cigarette prices are extremely effective in decreasing cigarette consumption and contributing to public health.

Credit: Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Movement for the UN High-Level Meeting on UHC Key Ask 5: Invest More, Invest Better – Sustain public financing and harmonise health investments

A conclusion that is in line with the new FCTC impact analysis in the BMJ, which points out that some of the difference in consumption trends between high- and low-income countries may be due to the effects of “EU accession rules requiring stringent tobacco control measures among new members”.

Taking a whole- of-government approach

Tobacco use is one of the most challenging health issues that modern societies face. Trying to understand what this challenge means for low- and middle-income countries is crucial. Equally important is to understand that the full and immediate implementation of the FCTC reduces tobacco use.

In just a few weeks, developed and developing countries will meet in New York to review progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Countries cannot afford to overlook the tobacco epidemic and how tobacco control efforts captured under SDG 3.a – though critically under-resourced – are contributing to decreasing tobacco use.

In LMICs, in addition to civil society stakeholders, various government sectors (not only health) must have equal responsibility for ensuring full and effective FCTC implementation. In fact, Article 5 of the treaty addresses tobacco control governance considerations with a view to encouraging robust multi-sectoral mechanisms and protection of tobacco control policies from the commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry.

Making the public health case for FCTC implementation is not enough. An economic case can also be made, for instance. The total global economic cost of smoking was estimated to have been US$1.4 trillion in 2012.

This economic burden is particularly damaging for LMICs, who already lack economic resources for development; in 2012, LMICs shouldered 40% of the total economic cost. A multi-faceted approach is vital for LMICs because country delegations to international negotiations such as the upcoming SDG Summit typically comprise representatives of Departments of finance, trade, agriculture and other sectors.

For sustainable development, there is much to be done. There will be little progress if there is no urgent action to reduce tobacco use in LMICs. It’s time for the international community to match the scale of the tobacco use problem with the resources and financing needed to enable progress.

The post Why Governments Must Prioritise Sustained Tobacco Control Investment in Low- & Middle-Income Nations appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Ryan Forrest is Policy and Research Advisor; Sara Rose Taylor, PhD is Research Officer; Mafoya Dossoumon is Communications Manager

The post Why Governments Must Prioritise Sustained Tobacco Control Investment in Low- & Middle-Income Nations appeared first on Inter Press Service.