Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

Survivors of a boat carrying migrants that sunk in the Mediterranean during the night of 9 and 10 May, gather at a shelter in the Tunisian coastal city of Zarzis on May 11, 2019. Photo: AFP / FATHI NASRI

By AFP
TUNIS, May 11 2019 (IPS-Partners)

(The Daily Star) – Around 60 migrants most of them from Bangladesh have died after their boat capsized in the Mediterranean Sea after it left Libya for Italy, the Tunisian Red Crescent said today.

Survivors told the Red Crescent the tragedy unfolded after some 75 people who had left Zuwara on the northwestern Libyan coast late Thursday on a large boat were transferred to a smaller one that sank off Tunisia.

“The migrants were transferred into a smaller inflatable boat which was overloaded, and 10 minutes later it sank,” Mongi Slim, a Red Crescent official in the southern Tunisian town of Zarzis, told AFP.

Tunisian fishermen rescued 16 people and brought them to shore in Zarzis.

The survivors said they spent eight hours trapped in the cold sea before they were spotted by the fishermen who alerted the Tunisian coastguard, Slim said.

The bodies of three people were plucked out of the waters on Friday, the Tunisian defence ministry said.

Survivors said the boat was heading to Italy and had on board only men, 51 from Bangladesh, as well as three Egyptians, several Moroccans, Chadians and other Africans.

Fourteen Bangladeshi nationals, including a minor, were among the survivors, said the Red Crescent.

“If the Tunisian fishermen hadn’t seen them (migrants), there wouldn’t have been any survivors and we would have never known about this” boat sinking, said Slim.

Charity ships have plied the Mediterranean Sea to rescue migrants in large numbers but the number of rescue operations have dwindled as these vessels have come under fire, namely from the populist Italian government, over their action.

Italy’s far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has imposed a “closed ports” policy, refusing to allow migrants rescued at sea to enter his country.

On Friday, however, more than 60 migrants disembarked in Italy after two boats which had left Libya faced difficulties at sea and needed assistance.

The UN agency for refugees UNHCR called for stepped up search and rescue operations to avoid future tragedies in the Mediterranean, which it calls the “world’s deadliest sea crossing”.

“Across the region we need to strengthen the capacity of search and rescue operations,” said Vincent Cochetel, the agency’s special envoy for the Mediterranean.

“If we don’t act now, we’re almost certain to see more tragic events in the coming weeks and months,” he warned.

According to the UNHCR, the journey across the Mediterranean “is becoming increasingly fatal for those who risk it”.

“In the first four months of this year, one person has died (crossing the Mediterranean) for every three that have reached European shores, after departing from Libya,” it said.

Libya, which has been wracked by chaos since the 2011 uprising that killed veteran dictator Moamer Kadhafi, has long been a major transit route for migrants desperate to reach Europe.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

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Millions of South Africans headed out in large numbers, some braving cold and wet weather to cast their ballot in the country's sixth democratic elections on May 8, 2019. Courtesy: Crystal Orderson

By Crystal Orderson
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, May 10 2019 (IPS)

Millions of South Africans headed out in large numbers, some braving cold and wet weather to cast their ballot in the country’s sixth democratic elections this week. The 2019 election was one of the most competitive and contested elections that also saw a whopping 48 parties on the national ballot—up 300 percent from a mere 10 years ago.

For years South Africa’s majority was excluded from this democratic right by the minority apartheid government and the first time they were able to vote was in 1994. The ruling African National Congress, ANC, has won every election since then and there was never any doubt that the ruling party will would again remain in power. However, it was the margin of victory that was key in these elections.

The ruling party received over 58 percent of the vote along with another mandate to rule the country for the next five years. The main issues for citizens in this election was more jobs, a better economy and an end to rampant corruption. For the ANC to keep momentum and make an impact, it will have to deliver on these issues over the next two years.

Senior Economist Dawie Roodt told IPS that the main issue now is what President Cyril Ramaphosa’s plans are for the economy and dealing with corruption. “Another issue we are watching is the appointment of the new cabinet and the ministers he will appoint in the key portfolios like finance. The challenges are daunting and there are a  few key priorities how is he going to deal with Eskom and some other economic issues like job creation and the state’s debt levels.”

A Mandate for Change
In this election, Ramaphosa needed a victory to turn the tide against corruption and service delivery protests. In 2014, the ANC won 62.15 percent of the votes, with the Democratic Alliance, DA, receiving 22.23 percent while new political kid on the block, the Economic Freedom Fighters, EFF, took 6.35 percent.

In 2014 voter turnout was at 73,48 percent and this week it dropped by nine percent to around 65 percent—with the decline coming as a surprise to many.

The lack of show at the polls indicates a disillusioned electorate, unhappy with the current state of politics. Ramaphosa will have to work hard to get the electorate to believe in the country again.

Economist Khaya Sithole told national radio station 702 Talk Radio that Ramaphosa needs to keep the momentum of the changes to the economy. “He has the 12-24 months to deliver on the promises of jobs and people will question him if he is going to do the right thing or not.”

Roodt says South Africans voted for Ramaphosa so that he can make the changes needed and there is renewed hope that he will announce a smaller and leaner cabinet to implement these changes.

“Ramaphosa promised us a smaller government and cabinet. I am however not too concerned around the size of the cabinet, I just want to see that we efficient people to be in charge, ministers are often also appointed because of their loyalties and not per se for the job they do,” said Roodt.

All eyes on Ramaphosa
Casting his ballot in Soweto on election day, Ramaphosa told a large media contingency that this year’s vote served to remind people of the 1994 elections.

“In 1994 our people were just as excited as this because they were heralding a new period, a new future for our country and today this is what I am picking up.”

The 66-year-old Ramaphosa added that the vote was also about confidence and about the future, admitting that the party had failed in some cases.

“Over the 25 years, we have achieved a great deal. We have not yet filled the glass. The glass is half full,” he said.
South Africans are desperate for a turn around. The extent of corruption under former President Jacob Zuma’s rule, have left many feeling hopeless, angry and disillusioned.

In recent years, South Africans have become poorer, struggling to support their families with a sluggish economy. With one in three people without jobs, there is growing desperation to see change. And all eyes are on Ramaphosa, who is under enormous pressure to save the sinking ship.

Ailing economy
And South Africans want the new ANC-led government to be decisive in its decisions to re-build a stagnant economy and create much-needed jobs.

The other headaches for Ramaphosa include:

• increasing debt—SA’s debt to GDP ratio will peak at just over 60 percent in 2023/2024;
• continued low growth projections—the growth forecast for 2019 was revised downwards from 1.7 percent to 1.5 percent;
• and failing state-owned entities, like the power utility Eskom.

Ramaphosa has set himself an ambitious task of attracting 100 billion dollars in new investments that he believes will kick start the ailing economy.

Eskom the albatross around South Africa’s neck

Ramaphosa will have to do some tough things, including cutting the number of ministries, reducing the massive government wage bill, and cleaning up corrupt state-owned entities, like Eskom.

Eskom is the largest utility in Africa yet it is also the albatross around Ramaphosa’s neck. The government has had to bail it out with millions of taxpayer’s dollars. The power utility has a debt burden of more than 28 billion dollars and rating agencies see this as one of the biggest risks to Africa’s most industrialised economy.

During Finance Minister Tito Mboweni’s Budget Speech in March, he outlined financial support of about five billion dollars to the cash-strapped utility over three years, with support totalling about 10 billion dollars over the next decade as part of the government’s rescue plan.

Roodt said that at the moment the agenda for Eskom is to basically “just survive”. “The dismal state of Eskom is that they are in debt and they need billions to just survive,” he said.

Roodt added he wanted to see action from Ramaphosa concerning Eskom’s excessive wage bill.
“There are far too many people being paid excessive wages and there are about between 20 and 30 000 to many people working there, we need to cut down and trim Eskom.”

Economists argue this is not enough. Ramaphosa will have to go ahead with the break up of the entity and will have to look at public-private partnerships—but the trade union federation may not support this.

This is part of the problem for Roodt. “Cutting the workforce will not be easy—unions are part of the tripartite alliance with the ANC, you will need strong political leadership and hopefully Ramaphosa will have the mandate.”

The tripartite alliance is an alliance between the ANC, the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party (SACP). Traditionally the latter two parties have always stood with the ANC in elections. However, in 2017, the SACP contested the country’s municipal elections. For this week’s elections the SACP contested once again as part of the tripartite alliance.

All eyes will be on Ramaphosa, a seasoned negotiator who chaired the country’s constitutional-making process, to see how he handles this matter.

What now? Some of the tasks ahead…..

There are 400 seats in the national assembly and during the 2014 election, the ANC had 249 seats, down from the 264 seats it had from the 2009 election. In 2019 this is likely to be less, and at the time of print, the ANC had over 200 seats. This will mean that the ANC will have a majority to make the changes that are needed.

After a decade of former president Zuma’s rule, rampant corruption, maladministration and the high unemployment rate have created a ticking time bomb for the country. Ramaphosa wants to bring renewal to South Africa to ensure job creation and an end to rampant corruption.

He has promised this would be the major issues on his agenda. South Africans will have to wait and see whether he will be committed to this once he takes office at the Union Buildings in Pretoria in June.

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Muhammadu Buhari, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Credit: UN Photo/Cia Pak

By Selorm Branttie
ACCRA, May 10 2019 (IPS)

Days before Algeria’s 82-year-old strongman president Abdelaziz Bouteflika was ousted from power, the country made one last ditch attempt to keep control: it shut down the internet.

A few weeks later, 75-year-old Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s rule ended with a picture of mainly female protestors going viral on social media platforms.

If there has been any common threads in the unseating of authoritarian African leaders in the past few months, then it has been age and the internet.

Indeed, the main contenders in Nigeria’s recent general elections were the incumbent Muhammadu Buhari, 76, and Abubacar Atiku, 72. Together with the likes of Cameroon President Paul Biya, Uganda President Yoweri Museveni, Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo and a host of other African leaders, they share one thing in common: they are all over 70.

Yet, they are still keen on their presidential ambitions with some even amending constitutional provisions to extend their tenures – sometimes from hospital beds in other countries.

Only five percent of Africans are aged 65 and above, but the political expectation is that this five percent should set the agenda for the 70 percent or so Africans who are under 35 years of age. Already, the average life expectancy across Africa is between 61 and 65 years, which means that all these leaders are, statistically speaking, already living on borrowed time.

If there has been any common threads in the unseating of authoritarian African leaders in the past few months, then it has been age and the internet.

As more technology has become available to an average person in Africa, the continent’s technology challenge has  moved beyond access to harnessing tech innovations to how it can improve performance in areas like education, or health. We need leaders who value and are fluent in these new technologies and their promise.

Countries like Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Chad and Mali have some of the lowest human development indices in the world according to the UNDP’s Human Development Indices for 2018. These countries are also ones with some of the highest costs per 1 gigabyte of internet data — at around $10.

Despite these costs, across the continent are real examples of how the internet is changing lives. The mobile economy in 2017 alone added US$150 billion to African economies

But the internet revolution in Africa is encountering a bottleneck: elderly African leaders. And the reality is that these laggards are mostly  born generations before the rise of the internet. It has become obvious that the struggle of Africa’s older leaders to understand technology has had dire consequences for their citizens.

In July 2018, Uganda put a tax on social media and mobile money payments to raise revenue and “control gossip”. Within a day, certain accounts indicated a 60 percent drop in transactions. By December 2018, Uganda had lost 5 million internet users as a direct result of these taxes. The sharp drop in remittances meant that businesses were impacted in areas like agriculture, remittances from urban areas to family and relatives in rural areas as well as  basic e-commerce.

The Global Network Initiative reports that  between 0.4 percent and 1 percent of a country’s daily GDP is lost because of internet shutdowns, or about $6.6 million per 10 million users daily.

On January 15, 2019, Zimbabwe shut down internet connectivity for three days in a bid to quell public protests. According to Netblocks, this shutdown affected an estimated 17 million people and cost the nation’s economy some $17 million dollars.

Sub-Saharan Africa’s greatest asset is its youth. There are 420 million people between 15-35, of which just more than 30 percent are unemployed, according to the African Development Bank. Because the median age of an African today is 19.4 years, leaders should focus on transforming  African economies to become centers of entrepreneurial success.

Dr Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia, currently Africa’s youngest leader at 42, believes that strengthening e-commerce and virtual government is more important than running state monopolies. By selling off half of the state-owned Ethio Telecom, he has demonstrated the willingness to open up the telcom sector to innovation.

Of course, it can also be said that younger African leaders are not always best equipped to modernize their nations. Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, 61, has improved e-governance and innovation to the point where his country ranks just behind Mauritius in a World Bank assessment of African business environments. His younger neighbor, the 54-year old Pierre Nkurunziza in Burundi, however still ranks among the lower performers in Africa 14 years in power after gaining power at the age of 40.  Youth itself is not necessary, but a youthful, outward-looking mindset is.

Many African leaders are also aware that the internet can provide the very tools that can threaten their political control.  They will be watching warily the situation in Algeria, where activists have used the internet as part of a campaign to challenge 82-year-old president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who has been in power for two decades.

One easy way African countries could revitalize their political leadership would be to limit political leaders to the civil service retirement age.

In Nigeria, the presidential contest was declared for Buhari, who at age 76 is 16 years older than the mandatory retirement age for Nigerian civil servants. Ethiopia’s Abiy Ahmed, on the other hand, would have to work another 13 years to even qualify for early retirement in his country.

African voters should ask themselves which type of leader is better equipped to guide their countries into the future.

Selorm Branttie is the Global Strategy Director of mPedigree, which designed the world’s first SMS based anti-counterfeiting solution. He is very passionate about how technology can create a new future for Africa and the global south.  

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By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, May 10 2019 (IPS)

The rise of right-wing nationalism and the proliferation of authoritarian governments have undermined human rights in several countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.

As a result, some of the international human rights experts – designated as UN Rapporteurs – have either been politically ostracized, denied permission to visit countries on “fact-finding missions” or threatened with expulsion, along with the suspension of work permits.

The Philippines government, a vociferously authoritarian regime, has renewed allegations against Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, the UN Special Rapporteurs on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The Deputy Chief of Staff for Civil-Military Operations, Brigadier General Antonio Parlade, told reporters that the United Nations had been infiltrated by the Communist Party of the Philippines through Tauli-Corpuz.

But a group of UN human rights experts denounced the politically-inspired charges against a longstanding UN envoy on human rights.

“The new accusations levelled against Ms. Tauli-Corpuz are clearly in retaliation for her invaluable work defending the human rights of indigenous peoples worldwide, and in the Philippines,” the experts said

Anna-Karin Holmlund, Senior UN Advocate at Amnesty International, told IPS “We have witnessed several deeply worrying personal attacks by UN Member States against the independent experts, including personal attacks, threats of prosecution, public agitation and physical violence in the past year”.

“It is clear they are targeted for simply doing their job,” she added.

On occasion, she noted, these have been carried out by members of the UN Human Rights Council that are expressly required to uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights.

“Such attacks are part of a disturbing trend of a shrinking space for human rights work more broadly in many places around the world,” declared Holmlund.

Meanwhile, the Government of Burundi has closed down the UN Human Rights Office triggering a protest from Michelle Bachelet, the UN Human Rights Commissioner in Geneva.

And under the Trump administration, the US has ceased to cooperate with some of the UN Rapporteurs, and specifically an investigation on the plight of migrants on the Mexican border where some of them have been sexually assaulted—abuses which have remained unreported and unprosecuted.

The government of Myanmar has barred a UN expert from visiting the country to probe the status of Rohingya refugees.

In March, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Diego García-Sayán, postponed an official visit to Morocco because the government “has not been able to ensure a programme of work in accordance with the needs of the mandate and the terms of reference for country visits by special procedures.”

He was scheduled to visit the country from 20 to 26 March “to examine the impact of measures aimed at ensuring the independence and impartiality of the judiciary and prosecutors, and the independent exercise of the legal profession.”

“It is most regrettable that the suggestions of places to visit and schedule of work were not fully taken into consideration by the Government. It is an essential precondition for the exercise of the mandate of Special Rapporteur that I am able to freely determine my priorities, including places to visit,” he said.

Referring to the situation in Colombia, Robert Colville, Spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said May 10: “We are alarmed by the strikingly high number of human rights defenders being killed, harassed and threatened in Colombia, and by the fact that this terrible trend seems to be worsening”

“We call on the authorities to make a significant effort to confront the pattern of harassment and attacks aimed at civil society representatives and to take all necessary measures to tackle the endemic impunity around such cases.”

In just the first four months of this year, he pointed out, a total of 51 alleged killings of human rights defenders and activists have been reported by civil society actors and State institutions, as well as the national human rights institution.

The UN Human Rights Office in Colombia is closely following up on these allegations. This staggering number continues a negative trend that intensified during 2018, when our staff documented the killings of 115 human rights defenders.

And last month, Israel revoked the work permit for Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine Director of Human Rights Watch, prompting a protest from the United Nations.

“This ruling threatens advocacy, research, and free expression for all and reflects a troubling resistance to open debate,” a group of UN experts said. “It is a setback for the rights of human rights defenders in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Dr Palitha Kohona, a former chairman of the Israeli Practices Committee, mandated to monitor human rights violations in Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, told IPS that official visits to the West Bank were barred by Israel (“and not for want of trying”) but not to Gaza, which they could not.

He said several approaches were made through the Israeli Missions in New York and Geneva to seek approval to interview persons on the ground in the West Bank, but to no avail.

“In 2011, we waited an extra day in Amman hoping to get approval which was never forthcoming. A ministerial visit by delegates from the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) to the West Bank was stopped at the Allenby Bridge by Israel”.

The Rafah crossing was controlled by Egypt and the Gaza authorities. Entry to Gaza for the Committee was through Sinai following a long bus ride from Cairo across the Sinai desert, said Dr Kohona, a former Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations.

“I visited Gaza twice in 2010 and 2011 with the Committee. I believe that these were the only two occasions that the Committee was able to visit Gaza.”

Egypt itself seemed to make the entry uncomfortable for the Committee, perhaps to keep Israel happy, he said.

In 2011, the Committee was held up for over four hours at the Rafah Crossing to Sinai. “Eventually I had to contact the Sri Lanka embassy in Cairo by phone to get us across”.

According to a report in the New York Times March 10, Leilana Farha, the UN Special Envoy for Housing was “shocked” to discover that some of the Egyptians she interviewed in Cairo’s poor areas “had suffered reprisals for talking to her.”

“Some were flung from their homes by officials, their belongings strewn in the streets. Others were harassed by the security services or barred from leaving Egypt,” said the report from New York Times correspondent Declan Walsh in Cairo.

“The foreign ministry accused Farha of fabricating stories and implied that she was a terrorist sympathizer, bent on smearing Egypt”.

The Times said “such defensive, conspiratorial talk is standard fare on Egypt’s television stations, which are heavily influenced by (Egyptian President) el-Sisi’s government. And it has seeped down into the street.

The United Nations currently has 38 Rapporteurs or independent experts appointed by the Human Rights Council in Geneva to investigate violations of the legitimate political, economic and legal rights of individuals and minorities worldwide going as far back as 1982.

These fact-finding missions, undertaken by UN Rapporteurs, cover a wide range of issues, including investigations into torture, extra-judicial killings, arbitrary executions, involuntary disappearances, racism, xenophobia, modern day slavery and the abuse of the rights of migrants and indigenous peoples.

Urmila Bhoola of South Africa, Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, told IPS she has visited Niger, Belgium, Nigeria, El Salvador, Mauritania, Paraguay and, lastly Italy, in October 2018.

She pointed out that “country visits are only conducted upon invitation from governments”.

“I have issued requests for country-visits to many countries but due to the mandate’s name and focus, member states are often reluctant to invite the mandate on contemporary forms of slavery, to conduct a visit”.

In this sense, she pointed out, member states may not openly refuse a visit but may not reply to country visit requests.

According to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, member states generally cooperate with the independent human rights experts in the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council.

The number of States that have never received a visit by a mandate holder has diminished to 22. And the number of States that have issued a ‘standing invitation’ to Special Procedures has now reached 120 Member States and 1 non-Member Observer State.

Some States receive more than one visit per year. Each year, on average, Special Procedures conduct around 80 visits to different States.

At this time, said a spokesperson, “ we have not been notified of any changes concerning cooperation with Special Procedures by the United States’ Permanent Mission here in Geneva. Indeed, they have been in contact with several mandate holders recently”.

In December, 2017 the Government of Myanmar informed the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar that all access to the country has been denied and cooperation withdrawn for the duration of her tenure.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

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At the 2018 Stockholm Forum

By Dr Marina Caparini
STOCKHOLM, May 10 2019 (IPS)

Let us be blunt: the world is in crisis. Peace, human rights, our planetary ecosystem, and our systems of conflict management and global governance are under enormous strain.

Global military expenditures reached 1.8 trillion in 2018, their highest level in real terms since the Cold War, driven by great power competition between the US and China. The ‘Doomsday clock’ is now set at 2 minutes to midnight, as the world has moved closer than ever to nuclear self-destruction as a result of US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal (the Joint Common Plan of Action (JPOA)), and withdrawal from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, and uncertainties about North Korea’s nuclear plans.

And, buttressed by regular reports about the growing effects of global warming, rapidly declining biodiversity and the extinction of thousands of species, climate change is now widely acknowledged by citizens and experts in many countries as the world’s biggest threat.

The past decade has seen a reversal of the long-term trend of declining civil wars. According to the UN-World Bank publication Pathways to Peace, the world has seen sharp increases in the number of internal armed conflicts in the world over the past decade, most involving numerous non-state armed groups, and such conflicts are both increasingly internationalized and protracted.

Mostly as a result of conflict, some 68.5 million people are currently displaced, with the overwhelming majority of refugees residing in poor or middle-income countries. While there are often multiple, complex causes of conflict, key structural factors include weak institutions in combination with political and economic exclusion.

In developing and post-industrial states alike, factors such as growing income inequalities and the continued failure of most countries to significantly control corruption are undermining governance and faith in the ability of states and the political class to uphold the public good. Across the world we are witnessing a rise in populism rooted in anti-pluralism and exclusionary nationalist politics, attacks on the basic democratic tenets and a crisis of democracy.

With the global rolling back of human rights, there is a shrinking of civic space and dramatic decline in countries considered safe for journalists and for human rights defenders and women’s rights defenders.

And within the leading global governance bodies, such as the UN Security Council, divisions among major powers and failure in leadership to constructively address current crises in Libya, Sudan, Yemen and Venezuela are calling into question the continued credibility of such arrangements.

Within this fraught context, leading individuals from the humanitarian, development and security fields will be convening in Stockholm next week*. The Stockholm Forum on Peace and Development, cohosted by SIPRI and the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, will discuss how the world can better respond to emergencies and crises, and how it can stabilize and strengthen prospects for peace and longer term development.

By bringing together subject and regional specialists, humanitarian workers, human rights defenders, peace researchers, police and military representatives, political leaders and policy makers, the Forum seeks to stimulate essential, sometimes difficult, conversations among those who are working to support peace, rule of law and development embodied by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The international and professional diversity of those who will attend reflects the recognition of the need for interdisciplinary understanding of drivers of conflict, coordination across sectors and comprehensive approaches in responding to violence, hunger and injustice.

Substantial participation by representatives from the Global South reflects the need to develop truly people-centred approaches that are context specific, politically informed and locally owned. It embodies the realization that technocratic, template approaches to preventing conflict and assisting shattered states and societies are not acceptable and do not work.

With its commitment to advancing peace through evidence-based data, research and analysis, SIPRI is proud to co-host the Forum and to contribute to global efforts to find solutions to the grave problems that confront us.

*Follow the Forum Plenary live-stream on 14 and 16 May: Opening Session and High-Level Panel on Mediation: https://youtu.be/yaGj1RQOVKY Closing High-Level Panel on Inclusive Peace: https://youtu.be/ks28SC5MWhM

Read more: https://www.sipri.org/events/2019/2019-stockholm-forum-peace-and-development

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Excerpt:

Dr Marina Caparini is a Senior Researcher and Director of the Governance and Society Programme at SIPRI. Her research focuses on peacebuilding and the nexus between security and development.

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By Geneva Centre
GENEVA, May 10 2019 (IPS-Partners)

(Geneva Centre) – As a new deadly tidal wave of violence, hate speech and exclusion sweeps across the world, it is now high time for the international community to a joint stand against racism, racial discrimination and intolerance and to address the fundamental structural root causes of these scourges through the implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (DDPA).

This was the key thread of the “Emergency Assembly on the Rise of Global Racism” that was held on 9 May at the United Nations Office in Geneva. The Assembly was organized jointly by the Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue, the World Against Racism Network and the Global Coalition for the International Decade for People of African Descent.

“We are gathered today to reach out, to revive public awareness and to warn against the worrying rise of extremist ideologies. They are taking openly aggressive forms particularly through Islamophobia, Afrophobia, anti-Arabism, Christianophobia and anti-Semitism. Innocent people in all parts of the world continue to suffer daily from this scourge one could describe as ‘social cancer,” the Executive Director of the Geneva Centre and moderator of the conference Ambassador Idriss Jazairy said.

The Executive Director of the Geneva Centre said that prejudice based on culture, fostering intolerance and promoting religious discrimination constitutes a denial of the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms. It was the antinomy of a culture of peace, tolerance and most of all of empathy in a spirit of human fraternity, he underlined to the audience:

“Although the DDPA was adopted 18 years ago, it continues to remain fully valid up to this day. It calls for a consolidated strategy to restore rights and dignity for all. Taking into account recent trends witnessed in New Zealand, Sri Lanka and California, we are challenged to counter this scourge. It is empathy and not ethnicity that creates a community and lays the foundation for sustainable and inclusive societies.”

Ambassador Jazairy likewise warned against compounded forms of racism such as those targeting women wearing headscarf in Europe who are discriminated both as Muslims and as women whose freedom of choice as to their own bodies is challenged. He appealed to decision-makers to apply the Outcome Declaration “Moving Towards Greater Spiritual Convergence Worldwide in Support of Equal Citizenship Rights” adopted by the 25 June 2018 World Conference on religions and equal citizenship rights that received personal endorsement by the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

He also drew the attention of the meeting to the historical event organized by the government of the United Arab Emirates on 4 February 2019 bringing together HH Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al Azhar His Eminence Ahmed-el Tayib who adopted the now famous document on “Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together.”

No country can claim to be free of racism, racism remains a global concern

In his keynote speech, the Ambassador and Permanent Observer of the African Union to UN in Geneva HE Ajay Kumar Bramdeo warned that the resurgence of global racism is taking more violent and aggressive forms “Trends of intolerance and xenophobia are increasing, both in intensity and scale, We must all recognise that no country can claim to be free of racism, that racism is a global concern, and that tacking it should be a universal effort” Ambassador Bramdeo said.

Ambassador Bramdeo underscored the importance of enhanced international cooperation to address all forms and manifestations of racism and appealed to all States to ensure the effective implementation of the DDPA. He appealed to the forthcoming meeting of the Group of Independent Eminent Experts to come to the “obvious conclusion that the DDPA continue to be one of the most important documents in the global fights against racism, racial discrimination and related intolerance.”

HM Dòwoti Désir-Hounon Houna II, Chair of NGO Committee for the Elimination of Racism, Afrophobia & Colorism underlined that the rise of Afrophobia and discrimination against people of African descent is on the rise in societies worldwide. The DDPA – she said- articulates methodologies to address these ‘social ills’. Decision-makers must therefore ensure the effective implementation of the DDPA and develop anti-racist policies to counter these scourges, Queen Hounon Houna II from Benin said in a video statement.

The Secretary at the World Against Racism Network and Secretary-General of the International Youth and Student Movement for the United Nations (ISMUN) Mr Jan Lonn thanked the wide-ranging audience for their interest in this crucial issue. He underlined the fact that this conference was being held in the UN, which was born after the anti-fascist backlash of the Second World War. It was highly symbolic as the DDPA now needed further support and action from UN member States for implementation at national level as well as within UN bodies such as the Human Rights Council, ECOSOC and the General Assembly. He also stressed the need for much greater awareness promotion in terms of a global campaign against racism.

The Executive Councillor of the Executive Council of the City of Geneva Mr Remy Pagani observed that the struggle against all forms and manifestations of racism and exclusion is a long-term challenge which has to be addressed resolutely. He recalled how dangerous it could be to be exclusively inward-looking and reject the Other. He mentioned that Geneva had a special responsibility in this regard, as historically, it has been for centuries a refuge for victims of persecution in other countries of Europe and today represents a city which is the humanitarian capital of the world. In conclusion, he stated that the commitment of all those present to promote justice, equality and peace was essential and invaluable.

The Chair of the National Forum Civil Society of People of African Descent in the Netherlands Dr Barryl Biekman stated that the socio- economic neglect and marginalization of people of African descent in the Netherlands, partially influenced by historical and present-day developments, must be challenged. She stated that the betterment of the position of people of African descent can only be achieved and by changing negative mind-sets on all levels and by collectively focusing on inclusivity of the multiple perspectives present in the Dutch multicultural society.

UN human rights mechanisms must take the lead in addressing racism

The Chair of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent Dr Ahmed Reid referred to the Working Groups’ Thematic Report to the UN General Assembly on stereotypes. He added that it was a cruel paradox that in the year of the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, racism, racial discrimination, afrophobia, xenophobia, nativism and related intolerance is continuing to prevail all over the world. He stressed the need to fight stereotyping of people of African descent through black criminalization and black profiling both of which contribute to racial violence. He concluded by proposing that racism be fought through a culture of encounter and dialogue and real empowerment of all segments of society.

The Chair of the Group of Independent Eminent Experts on the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action Ms Edna Roland shared with the audience the four major issues that the Group she chairs had identified. The first was the question of racist hate speech and its use or misuse by politicians to try to influence public opinion and hence the results of elections. The second consisted in considering and analysing and understanding racism as being a result of history, in particular colonialism. Thirdly, she observed that the Sustainable Development Goals do not mention the ethics and issues of racism which represent an impediment to development. She suggested therefore that national governments should include this in their national SDP implementation plans provisions concerning the implementation of the DDPA. Lastly, she stressed the need to develop a multi-year outreach programme to implement the DDPA including mobilizing NGOs and seeking new ideas to fight against xenophobia, racism and related intolerance.

Faith communities can strengthen the international community to end racism

Reverend Dr Jin Yang Kim, Coordinator of Pilgrim-teams for Justice and Peace World Council of Churches (WCC), said in his statement that faith communities must play an active role in countering the rise of global racism. Reverend Yang Kim highlighted that the WCC actively addresses racism and racial discrimination in collaboration with churches worldwide and undertakes pilgrim visits to countries in Asia.

“These pilgrim team visits will be informed about the status of relevant UN recommendations on racial discrimination prior to visiting countries. Such recommendations are those which have been issued by the Human Rights Council (OHCHR) under the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) mechanism, by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, and the UN Special Rapporteur on Racism, regarding the country to be visited,” Reverend Yang Kim stated.

In a video message by the UN Representative of the United Methodist Church and President of the Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the UN (CoNGO), Mr Levi Bautista warned against the aggressive display of hatred, racism and bigotry played out in different societies. He appealed to decision-makers and civil society representatives to join forces in dismantling and eradicating racism in all of its forms and manifestations.

“Racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance all work, singularly and collectively, to diminish our common humanity. They thrive at the intersections of race, caste, colour, age, gender, sexual orientation, class, landlessness, ethnicity, nationality, language and disability,” Mr Bautista said echoing the main observations of the Ecumenical statement delivered by the Nobel laurate and Archbishop Desmond Tutu during the holding of the 2001 World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance held in Durban.

There was a general agreement that the world is witnessing a political tidal-wave of racism which was a shared concern. The rise of populist and nationalist parties in Europe and in the Americas was exploiting the hatred of the other by political parties to gain votes in national elections. There was acceptance of the fact that racism was not circumscribed to certain regions, but an evil of global proportions.

Therefore, it called not for grandstanding and holier-than-thy-neighbour attitudes but for joining forces from North and South, East and West, to counter and roll-back such trends. Furthermore, the conference deplored the absence of any reference to the DDPA in the SDGs of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development of the UN and considered that national implementation plans should include such a reference. Finally, emphasis was put by the meeting on the implementation of a multi-year awareness promotion agenda and of addressing the issue of racism already at primary school level.

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Tito Zungu, Airplane (South Africa, 1970).

By Vijay Prashad
May 9 2019 (IPS-Partners)

(Tricontinental) – When the late South African artist Tito Zungu wanted to depict the world of the migrant labourer, he settled on the envelope. It was by infrequent letters that the migrant would be able to be in touch with family – letters dictated to professional letter writers at one end, which would be read out by professional letter readers at the other. With pencil and coloured pens, Zungu drew airplanes and boats as well as transistor radios on these envelopes – images that showed how the migrants moved and how they sought some entertainment.

Around the time that Zungu drew on envelopes, the great South African musician Hugh Masekela turned his attention to the migrant miners. His song, written in 1971, Stimela: The Coal Train captured the great damage done to the people of Africa by migration and mining (Stimela is the Nguni word for train).

There is a train, Masekela sings, that comes from Namibia and Malawai, from Zambia and Mozambique. It is full of conscripted labour, people who come to work in Johannesburg’s gold mines. ‘For almost no pay’, these miners go ‘deep down in the belly of the earth’. The ‘evasive stone’ does little for the miners, their pay low, their food terrible, their homes ‘flea-ridden’. And then these miners dream, but their dreams drift into the awfulness of reality,

They think about the loved ones they may never see again
Because they might have already been forcibly removed
From where they last left them.

The wealth goes elsewhere. It is no coincidence that the English named their new coin the ‘Guinea’ in 1663 – a reference to Africa’s western coast (which was in turn was named this way by the Portuguese and Spanish to honour the great commercial city Djenné – now in central Mali). English money is shaped by plunder from Africa. This was the situation in the 17th century and it remains the situation – in large measure – today.

Naeem Mohaiemen, ‘Do not fear/I will arrange a procession/soldiers will march past carrying flowers not guns/only for you/my love’ (after Shahid Kadri), 2017.

Silence is not the mood of the miners. They have fought against the theft of their labour from the days of colonialism into these neo-colonial times. Their protests have been fierce, and the reaction to them has been deadly. The attack on the miners at Marikana (South Africa) in 2012 is emblematic, but it is also quite ordinary.

Miners – like landless workers – are familiar with gunfire and teargas, from one end of Africa (Marikana, South Africa) to the other (Jerada, Morocco). But state violence and the violence of corporations does not stop the miners and the landless workers. In South Africa, an election was held on Wednesday, 9 May, where the miners and landless workers lined up to vote (resulted are expected on 11 May). Many of them are part of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) and of the Abahlali baseMjondolo – the ramparts of the working-class in the country. Despite the expected victory of the African National Congress – whose hold over the electorate has not slipped in the post-apartheid period since 1994 – tens of thousands of landless workers put in their ballot for the Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party (SRWP), a new formation in the country. They emerged after the Marikana massacre, whose platinum mine was owned by Lonmin – a firm that had on its board of director Cyril Ramaphosa, the current leader of the African National Congress. Whether it is in South Africa or Zambia, Sudan or Ghana, the landless workers on the continent – against incredible odds – continue to struggle for more of the surplus, to battle for a future.

From Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research comes our Dossier no. 16, Resource Sovereignty: The Agenda for Africa’s Exit from the State of Plunder. This dossier takes up the themes of resource theft and resource sovereignty. To understand these themes, we turned to Gyekye Tanoh, head of the Political Economy Unit at the Third World Network (Africa), based in Accra (Ghana). Gyeke’s interview is rich and rewarding. He takes us through a journey of the plunder on the continent – from the theft of surplus value from the landless workers to the various forms of deeply corrupt theft of resources through illicit financial flows, by repatriation of profits, through mispricing and by deflation of the value of the raw materials removed from the continent. He offers a shocking piece of data from a recent Bank of Ghana report – of the $5.2 billion worth of gold exported by foreign-owned mining firms from Ghana, the government received only $68.6 million in royalty payments and only $18.7 million in corporate income taxes. That’s 1.7% of the value of the gold – the price of which inflates as soon as it leaves Ghana’s shores. Furthermore, the return to the communities that live above the gold is a mere 0.11%. Those who mine the gold get the least return from it.

Capitalism’s scandalous mining behaviour camouflages its plunder behind the discourse of ‘good governance’. The claim made is that it is not the foreign-owned mining firms (many of them Canadian, for which see our Briefing no. 1), but the corrupt elite in Africa that is responsible for the enduring poverty. No doubt corruption of any sort is a drag on the lives of the landless workers. This corruption, Gyeke explains, is symptomatic of the structure of the world economy. From many countries on the continent, debt servicing payments – often for odious debts – are larger than the sum of money pocketed by government officials and local elites.

We highly recommend this interview with Gyekye. It is filled with insights that bear serious reflection and further debate and discussion.

Residents from Lesetlheng village in South Africa’s North West Province celebrating outside the Constitutional Court after it set aside the High Court interdict evicting them from their farm land. Ihsaan Haffejee, 2018.

So much plunder, so much poverty. The weapons that the poor wield today are their ballot papers, their running shoes and their organisations. The ballot papers allow them – if they have the right – to exercise their vote. This right is being slowly eviscerated by money, fake news and voter suppression. The running shoes allow them to migrate to ever distant shores, but as the walls grow more dangerous around the West, these shoes are less and less useful. Finally, the landless workers have the weapon of organisation, to form political platforms that amplify their class interests. But these are weaker these days, fighting to shift the tide of history. It is the guns of money that are first turned on them. It is what killed Berta Cácares in Honduras in 2016. It is what threatens the lives of those who stay firm against plunder: people like Francia Márquez, a leader in the fight against illegal gold mining in Colombia (who survived an assassination attempt on 4 May). Francia Márquez won the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2018 for her work against the extraction sector, the same award given to Berta Cáceres in 2015, the year before she was assassinated.

In 1899, the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague pledged to end war, to create ‘a real and lasting peace’. Since 1899, there have been hundreds of attempts to use negotiation to end war, with the formation of the United Nations to provide an institutional space for negotiation rather than war. Wars come now with frightening regularity. US warships are on their way to the coast of Iran. The US threatens Venezuela with war. Trade wars are on between the US and China, an issue discussed by economist Prabhat Patnaik in our seventh dossier. The high-minded aspirations of the Permanent Court of Arbitration and of the UN remains, but it is cheapened by the need of powerful and rich countries to exercise their dominion by boycotts and bombardments.

The escalation of pressure on Iran – by sanctions and threats of war – should chill the heart of any sensitive person (my column documents these threats, and the impact of sanctions on Iran). War against Iran will inflame the region that stretches from the Mediterranean Sea to the Hindu Kush Mountains. It is to be avoided. But wars are not irrational. They are used by powerful states to exercise dominion, to send a message to the landless workers that they must bend their heads and go into the mines without making too much noise.

Colonel Ewart Grogan, a British officer and settler-colonial leader in Kenya, said of the Kikuyu, ‘We have stolen his land. Now we must steal his limbs’. What Grogan meant was that having stolen the land of the Kikuyu peoples, they must now be converted into labourers. But the crucial word here is ‘stolen’. To steal requires force. It is by war that the world is made, and it is by war that the unequal power relations are maintained.

The post We have Stolen His Land. Now We Must Steal His Limb appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

From the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

The post We have Stolen His Land. Now We Must Steal His Limb appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A 2009 study found that almost 250,000 children worked in auto repair stores, brick klins, as domestic labourers, and as carpet weavers and sozni embroiderers in Jammu and Kashmir. Credit: Umer Asif/IPS 

By Umar Manzoor Shah
 SRINAGAR, India-administered Jammu and Kashmir, May 9 2019 (IPS)

Mubeen Ahmad was nine years old when his mother sold him into service to a mechanic for the petty sum of few thousand Indian rupees. His mother had found it hard to support the family after his father, a labourer, was killed during one of the anti-India protests in Jammu and Kashmir in 2008.

So Ahmad learnt how to repair deflated tyres and erratic car engines instead of attending school. “I was made to work amid the freezing cold during winters and there was no one to whom I could have narrated my ordeal,” the 20-year-old, who now owns a shop in Srinagar, the state’s capital, tells IPS.

Rights activist Aijaz Mir tells IPS that children like Ahmad can be found on almost every street in Kashmir as a majority of homes here have lost their sole bread winners because of the ongoing conflict in the region.

Jammu and Kashmir, a northern Indian state known for its picturesque tourist resorts and majestic mountains, has long been embroiled in a violent secessionist movement.
The seven-decade dispute over Kashmir has become a humanitarian nightmare. It is the cause of wars and conflicts between nuclear rivals Pakistan and India, and remains the reason for an ongoing armed rebellion against New Delhi’s rule.

The Kashmir dispute is the oldest unresolved disagreement on the United Nation’s agenda.
Over the last 30 years, an estimated 100,000 people—including civilians, militants, and army personnel— have died in the region as the armed struggle for freedom from Indian rule continues.

“Nobody talks about this dark and dreadful side of the conflict which is consuming our children in hordes. We have found that the families of the victims too don’t want to send them to school because there is no one who could earn at their dwellings,” Mir tells IPS.

In 2018 alone there were 614 incidents of violence in the state, resulting in the deaths of 257 militants, 91 security forces and 38 civilians.

Both India and Pakistan have gone to war over the territory twice, in 1947 and 1965, and fought a smaller-scale conflict in 1999 and again in February when a Kashmiri militant rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into a convoy of Indian paramilitary forces, killing at least 40 soldiers in the worst attack in the region in three decades.

As recently as Monday, May 6, violence disrupted the ongoing elections as militants hurled grenades at polling stations in the southern part of the state.

Violence and death are a part of life here, but children are the silent sufferers in this bloody conflict.

On the outskirts of Srinagar, 13-year-old Shaista Akhtar is busy weaving designs on a traditional rug. It is 9 am and she will not be stopping her work to leave for school anytime soon.

Five years ago, Akhtar was was studying in grade 3 when her father—a carpenter by profession—was caught up in an attack by Islamist militants. It was the day her life changed.

The grenade that was meant for the army continent had missed its target, landing instead on the road Akhtar’s father was travelling on. He, and two others, died on the scene.

The death of her father is faintly imprinted in her mind and all she remembers of the time are the wails of her mother and two elder sisters.
After his death, her two elder sisters decided to quit their studies and began to work like their mother in order to support the family.

Akhtar was sent to a local weaver who taught her how create the tapestries unique to Kashmir’s colourful, traditional rugs and shawls. Two years later, by the time Akhtar was 10, she had learnt her trade.

“I earn almost INR 3500 [50 dollars] every month. The only satisfaction I derive out of my work is that I help my family to sustain. Otherwise, I yearn to go to the school, study sciences and mathematics along with other kids there,” she tells IPS.

But Akhtar’s story is not unique.
According to government figures, there are over 175,000 children actively involved in child labour in the state, which has a population of 12 million.

Mir says the actual number of child working could be much higher as government figures only reveal the reported cases and a majority of the child labour cases go unreported due to the fear of punishment.

An independent report titled “Socio Economic and Ethical dimensions of Child Labour in Kashmir” conducted in 2005 by Professor Fayaz Ahmad claimed that at the time there were more than 250,000 children in the state working in auto repair shops, brick klins, as domestic labourers, and as carpet weavers and sozni embroiderers.

One of the prime reasons for child labour was poverty, the report stated.

A 2009 study conducted by the Department of Sociology, University of Kashmir, reveals that about 66 percent of child labourers have only studied until the eighth grade. It further states that 9.2 percent of child labourers are between five and 10 years old, while 90 percent of them are between 11 and 14 years old.

The study also points out that once children start earning money, 80 percent of them stop attending school.

Inam-ul- Haq, 13, is one of those children who had to stop attending school to earn an income. He works as a helper at a roadside eatery in southern Kashmir, earning no more than 1500 INR (21 dollars) a month.

He began working to support his younger brother and bed-ridden, diabetic mother after his father died in the 2016 street protests. More than 90 civilians were killed during the six-month, anti-India protests.

“My mother is diabetic and younger brother a five year old kid. Who could have earned for them if not me?” Haq tells IPS, adding that even if his earnings are meagre, he is content that his family doesn’t starve or go to bed hungry.

In Kashmir, the 1986 Child Labour Act bans the employment of children below the age of 14. But according to Zahid Mushtaq, an editor at the local Srinagar newspaper, it is very rare that culprits are brought to book.

“The reason is simple. Family of the child and the child himself doesn’t testify in the court that he is working anywhere. In most of the cases, the victim is so poverty stricken that officials do not initiate action against the accused as it could cost the child his job,” Mushtaq says.

Mushatq also blames the lack of rehabilitation centres and failed government policies as being among the reasons for the spiralling number of cases of child labour here.  According to Mushatq, victims of violence are eligible for government’s financial assistance but the incredibly slow processing of these cases means that they gather dust as the victims suffer further.

For Akhtar, she knows that studying is the key to a good life. A life where she will be respected.

“I dream of becoming a teacher and teach kids English. As I am not studying at present, my life would remain as it is. There will be nothing good the world would offer to me.”

So instead she prays “that some help may descend from the heavens so that I wouldn’t have to earn and can go to school.”

—————————————–The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ) http://gsngoal8.com/ is pursuing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 8 with a special emphasis on Goal 8.7 which ‘takes immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms’.

The origins of the GSN come from the endeavours of the Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders signed on 2 December 2014. Religious leaders of various faiths, gathered to work together “to defend the dignity and freedom of the human being against the extreme forms of the globalization of indifference, such us exploitation, forced labour, prostitution, human trafficking” and so forth.

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• Modern Day Slavery Rated World’s Largest Single Crime Industry

The post As Fathers Die, Kashmir’s Children Become Breadwinners appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

This is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Riana Group.

The post As Fathers Die, Kashmir’s Children Become Breadwinners appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Roger Hamilton-Martin
LONDON, May 9 2019 (IPS)

International aid organisations have reacted positively to the appointment of new UK International Secretary of State for Development, Rory Stewart.

Stewart was appointed by UK Prime Minister Theresa May on 1 May in a cabinet reshuffle that saw him switched out from his position as the UK’s Minister for Prisons. As Secretary of State, Stewart will run the Department for International Development (DfID).

The DfID administers an annual budget of 0.7% of gross national income (GNI), or around £14bn, covering UK international aid for education, health, social services, water supply and sanitation, government and civil society initiatives, environmental protection and humanitarian assistance.

Christian Aid’s head of UK advocacy Tom Viita said that “any modern DfID Secretary needs to understand the issues of climate change, conflict and international diplomacy and thankfully Rory Stewart has an excellent grasp of these crucial subjects.

“The first item on his to-do list must be the global climate emergency that is affecting the world’s poor from Mozambique to Myanmar.”

In remarks on the day of his appointment, Stewart reflected this concern, stating that “of course there is… a “climate emergency.” Ice shelves are melting at ten times their predicted rate. 39 million acres of tropical forests were lost in 2017 alone, and we risk losing more than a third of the species on earth by 2050.”

Stewart said the government “must be radical on the environment because it’s the right thing to do, not because it’s popular.”

Brazilian firefighters responding to storm-ravaged Mozambique

“I would argue that spending, not 7%, not 1%, but 0.7% of your GDP on that kind of issue really makes a difference, not just to the planet but to you and me,” he said.

Christine Allen, Director of Catholic aid agency CAFOD, said it was “an incredibly important time” for Stewart to be joining DFID, given the many global crises currently being faced by aid agencies.

“We’re looking forward to working with him to help tackle the fundamental causes of poverty, inequality and climate degradation,” she added.

Meanwhile an Oxfam spokesperson said Stewart “has a strong track record on foreign affairs,” and that the organisation is “hopeful that, as International Development Secretary, [he] will play a key role in maintaining Britain’s world-leading role in the fight to end poverty.”

Stewart brings significant experience in international affairs to the role, in particular the Middle East. The son of diplomat Brian Stewart, he was briefly commissioned as a second lieutenant in the British Army in 1991, before joining the Foreign Office. He served in the British Embassy in Indonesia from 1997-1999, and at 26 was appointed the British Representative to Montenegro.

Between 2000 and 2002, Stewart walked on foot across Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, India and Nepal, a journey of 6000 miles. His walk across Afghanistan shortly after the US invasion is described in his book, The Places in Between.

He subsequently worked for the UK government’s administration of Iraq following the invasion in 2003. Stewart has written in criticism of the Iraq invasion and occupation, noting in 2013 that “I still find the scale of our failure astonishing.”

Stewart lived in Kabul from 2006-2008. There he founded the Turquoise Mountain, a non-profit investing in Afghanistan’s traditional crafts to preserve cultural heritage and create economic opportunities in the country.

He left Afghanistan to return to the UK and enter politics, and was elected the Conservative MP for Penrith and the Border in May 2010 – shortly after Brad Pitt’s film company bought the rights to tell the story of his life in a biopic.

Stewart takes over at DfID from Penny Mordaunt MP, who was given the role of Secretary of State for Defence. The cabinet reshuffle was triggered by the sacking of Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson, who was accused by the Prime Minister of leaking information to the press from a meeting of the National Security Council.

The leak, made to the Telegraph, concerned UK government plans to involve Chinese state company Huawei in the UK’s proposed 5G communications network.

Stewart previously served briefly as a Minister of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and as a joint Minister of State for the Department for International Development.

Other UK aid agencies also welcomed Stewart’s appointment. Nigel Harris, CEO for Christian poverty charity Tearfund, told IPS that Stewart is taking on his role “at a pivotal moment – a time when it is vital to strengthen the UK’s relationship with the rest of the world.”

The Director of Islamic Relief UK, Tufail Hussain, said Stewart “is a strong supporter of UK aid.” The charity this week launched its Ramadan Appeal with DfID’s support, which will see £2m of the total funds raised for the appeal matched by the UK Government. The money will go towards helping people in Ethiopia to access water.

While Stewart has stated he is committed to the role, he has expressed even higher ambitions. Only days after his appointment, he said “yes” when asked if he would declare his candidacy to replace Prime Minister Theresa May if she leaves her role as Prime Minister, an eventuality that appears increasingly likely.

The post Aid Organisations Welcome New Development Chief appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Roger Hamilton-Martin is a free lance journalist based in London

The post Aid Organisations Welcome New Development Chief appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Sania Aziz Rahman
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, May 9 2019 (IPS)

In April 2019, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) published a report on a “roadmap to 2050” in terms of renewable energy.

The report highlighted the possibility that by 2050, about 86 percent of the world’s power demands could be met by renewable power. It also highlighted that 50 percent of global electricity production could be provided via renewable energy sources.

What could this mean for the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which comprises Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)?

First of all, there seems to be a massive shift in the region’s policies towards economics, and subsequently, technology. The UAE for one has initiated the Vision 2021 programme, which includes sustainability as one of the country’s major goals – and seems to be taking it quite seriously.

The country has set a target of achieving 30 percent of its energy needs from renewable energy by 2030. That might not be as ambitious as Denmark – a country that has slightly lesser GDP than the UAE, but has still set a goal to achieve 50 percent of its energy from wind power.

Still, the UAE is leading in the region, especially when it comes to concentrated solar power (CSP) technology. The UAE was, until recently, the only country to have that technology in the GCC.

CSP refers to a type of solar technology that uses giant mirrors to direct sunlight on to a receiver, which converts it into heat. There are several types of such mirrors, they can parabolic troughs or rounded dishes, or power towers.

Concentrated solar power can be a lot more effective than solar photovoltaic (PV) technology. This is because PV uses solar panels that
can only work when there is sunlight, meaning electricity can only be generated as long as sunlight falls on the panels.

CSP on the other hand, stores the sunlight as heat, which can be used at a later time, and even when there is no sunlight. In effect, CSP works like any other thermal power plant.

The only difference is that the heating material for all other thermal power plants is fossil fuels like oil and natural gas. In nuclear power plants, the heating agent is usually uranium.

Susan Kraemer, news editor for SOLARPaces.org, an international network for CSP research, told IPS that, “(CSP) has a built-in advantage over PV, which is that as a thermal power source, it can store its solar energy cost effectively in large tanks of molten salts and therefor is a form of solar able to deliver its solar energy round the clock, not just while the sun shines.”

A solar farm made up of PV panels would have to add a battery, to provide dispatchable energy like CSP.” The batteries, Kraemer said, have a limited cycle life, and would have to be changed regularly, whereas CSP as thermal storage can be recycled indefinitely.

However, CSP does come with one disadvantage. It is more expensive than PV technology.

“The added complexity makes CSP more expensive to build than PV. However, some value in combining the two, to get both advantages: CSP is cheapest night time solar and PV for cheapest daytime solar.”

The UAE was the first from the GCC countries to get CSP technology, and is currently the only country in the GCC to have actual electricity generation through this. The UAE has had CSP since 2013 – with an installed capacity of 100 MW and electricity generation of 261 GWh.

The UAE seems to be pioneering the development of CSP within the GCC countries, with one of biggest investments being the Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park in Dubai. It boasts to be the world’s largest single site solar park – and aims to achieve 1000 MW capacity by 2020 and 5000 MW by 2030.

The owner of this park is Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA). It will, DEWA claims, have both PV and CSP technology, along with a research centre, and a solar powered water desalination plant.

It is difficult to gauge exactly how many homes this can power because solar megawatts depend on the amount of sunlight it receives, and the angle at which the receiver is set.

However, some statistics can help. For example, Masdar states that its 10 MW and 1MW solar power plant and rooftop panels can power 500 homes for a year. How does this compare to other countries in the world?

Worldwide, there are only 19 countries to have installed capacity for concentrated solar power. Below is a comparison of the countries.

Saudi Arabia only recently acquired this technology in 2018 – although it has not produced any power. Its installed capacity stands at 50 MW.

Meanwhile, the other GCC countries are either in process of developing CSP or considering CSP options. Kuwait completed its first CSP power plant in May 2018, while Oman will have its first CSP run electricity grid by 2023.

The post Is UAE Leading the Way for Concentrated Solar Power in GCC? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Sania Aziz Rahman is a data journalist doing a fellowship with Climate Tracker

The post Is UAE Leading the Way for Concentrated Solar Power in GCC? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Haider A. Khan
DENVER, May 8 2019 (IPS)

With the recent military moves announced uncharacteristically by the White House first, the world is witnessing with grim fascination what could turn out to be the early moves towards a war against Iran. How plausible is this scenario and what is likely to happen geopolitically if and when the US belligerence leads to an actual military confrontation with Iran?

Haider A. Khan

We have already seen this process of downward spiraling of US-Iran relations beginning with the US unilateral exit from the historical Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) without the consent from our European allies with the resulting division between the US and Europe regarding policies towards Iran. US also restored sanctions against Iran but gave some time for energy-needy allies to import energy from Iran against a deadline. Some like Japan complied grudgingly with the US orders. Others, particularly China and India went on importing Iranian energy.

Recently, the US has escalated the pressure on Iran by banning those countries still importing Iranian oil from doing so. If anyone does sanctions-breaking business with Iran they will be properly punished, the Trump administration has warmed. The sanctions may not work as well as Trump’s analysts and US propaganda machine have claimed; but even their partial effects could be a call for Iran to wake up. However, contrary to the wishful thinking of Trump, this wake-up call for Iran will mean in all likelihood, not to negotiate by capitulating to US demands. The sanctions together with the most recent military moves have already produced— according to all neutral observers’ reports— a “rallying-around-the flag” response by the majority of people of Iran. Contrary to the claims of some pro-US Iranian dissident groups abroad, pro-Israel lobbyists and Saudi-UAE propagandists, the sanctions have not weakened the regime politically in Iran at all. Ironically, the sanctions have isolated—indeed divided— the genuine pro-democracy critics of the Islamic Republic within Iran and have strengthened the hardliners politically.

As this further escalation using bullying rhetoric accompanied by confirming bullying behavior continues with more military moves by the US fleet and announcements from the White House— led by Bolton— the situation can only worsen. If the most recent episode is an indication after Bolton’s mpvesfirst, there will soon be echoes from other parts of the US government more directly in charge of foreign policy and military matters. If that keeps happening, the Iranian hardliners will surely double down and prepare for an asymmetric war—something they have announced already as a possible scenario. Given Iran’s military weakness vis- a- vis the US and its regional allies, such a response will seem to these military minds to be eminently rational in terms of military tactics. Anyone familiar with the recent developments in non-cooperative game theory will be able to understand this response as a logical deduction in the environment that the US has created with the series of moves that began with the US unilateral withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

The asymmetric response by Iran—the Iranian military strategists have made clear—will also draw in the Hezbollah and other Iranian military assets in the region outside of Iranian borders. Thus further future involvement of Syrians and even Turkey can not be ruled out at this point. Given the geopolitical strategic importance of both Iran and Syria to Russia, even if Turkey does not get involved, Russia will surely have to consider its options in terms of its long term geopolitical strategic interests. As a rising power, PRC may not become directly involved, but it is a safe bet that China will aid Iran financially and like Russia also by supplying some categories weapons—particularly aircrafts and surface to air missiles. If Trump thinks that attacking Iran will bring Chinese to the negotiating table to make further real concessions to the US, he is surely fantasizing.

This being the case, what will the US really gain geopolitically? According to political analysts, there are two groups in US high level policy making arena. Trump, it is claimed, is a transactions oriented leader and wants Iran to come to the table after suffering losses with a better deal for the US. But the details of how this could happen or what kind of deal the US could expect have not been revealed.

The second group centered around Bolton—according to the geopolitical analysts— wants to draw Iran into a military confrontation if economic sanctions by themselves do not lead to a regime change. Even in my worst case economic scenario for Iran a regime change from sanctions alone does not seem likely. So will the US or its proxies such as Israel and Saudi Arabia then engage in an actual military operation?

The very possibility is worrying. But sober calculations in light of outcomes of interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya do not seem encouraging. There is no prospect of a quick victory against Iran and any lengthy intervention will destabilize the region further. It is also not clear what the Chinese and Russian military responses in the medium run will be. The conflict may escalate into a regional war and even an extra-regional war depending on some of these responses.

Therefore, without sounding alarmist, one has to hope that Trump is bluffing even though Bolton and the neocons are not. But even if Trump exercises a false brinkmanship even when it is not necessary and will ultimately not work, in order to get the US a better deal— whatever that means— according to military logic, the Iranians will be foolish to act on the assumption that there is a substantial difference between Trump and Bolton leading to Trump’s putting an end to US moves towards a war or warlike situation. To be clear-eyed about this danger, from all available evidence, the Iranian strategists are preparing to not fall into a US laid trap by acting first and provoking a US military response that will start a war. However, once they think that US is about to start bombing Iran, they will surely take what they consider to be appropriate asymmetric actions. And therein lies the dangers of a conflagaration that can easily get out of any great power’s control.

The writer is a Professor of Economics, University of Denver. Josef Korbel School of International Studies and former Senior Economic Adviser to UNCTAD. He could be reached by email hkhan@du.edu

The post From Sanctioning Iran to War? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Uma Mishra-Newbery and Kristina Stockwood
GENEVA, May 8 2019 (IPS)

Amid a high-profile public relations campaign to convince the world just how much the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is modernising – highlighted in last year’s lifting of the ban on women driving – Saudi authorities continue their relentless persecution of women human rights defenders.

A trial that has drawn international condemnation and intensified criticism of the country’s human rights record, features nine women who were arrested in 2018 for campaigning for the right to drive and an end to the Kingdom’s male guardianship system.

Since April 4, 2019, Saudi Arabia has arrested at least an additional 13 writers and bloggers, including two dual Saudi-American citizens and a pregnant feminist, in apparent retaliation against supporters of the detained women activists.

Along with the ongoing trials, the latest arrests serve to show that allowing women to drive was little more than a publicity stunt as part of a marketing campaign involving expensive golf tournaments, concerts featuring international celebrities, endorsements from some of the world’s richest multinational companies.

The past 12 months have been anything but the modern, revolutionary times promoted by Vision 2030 and Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, who has led a brutal crackdown on civil society and women’s rights since he came to power. Dissent is absolutely not tolerated.

Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi – who had become a critic of the Crown Prince – was viciously murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The Saudi-led war on Yemen has continued, prompting numerous countries to halt arms sales to Saudi Arabia, including Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands and Finland. Weapons and armoured vehicles have also been used to violently suppress public protests in Saudi Arabia.

Activist Israa Al-Ghomgham became the first woman activist to face the death penalty after she was arrested for peaceful pro-democracy demonstrations in 2015. While she is no longer at risk of capital punishment, she remains imprisoned and her co-defendants still could face death simply for protesting.

One of the most glaring human rights violations of the past year, however, has been the unlawful imprisonment and subsequent torture, sexual assault, and solitary confinement of numerous women human rights defenders.

Male guardianship has been further entrenched by a recently popularized app allowing men to track and control the location and travel of the women under their control (this app is readily available on Apple and Google Play, by the way). Rather than protesting the app, we should pressure Saudi Arabia to end the guardianship system.

Last May, Saudi Arabia arrested a dozen women’s rights activists just weeks before the Saudi government was set to lift its ban on women drivers. Most of these activists had been actively working for years to help end the guardianship system, and to lift the driving ban, publicly touted as part of the Crown Prince’s reform plan.

But before the ban was lifted, they received phone calls telling them to keep their mouths shut and just enjoy the fact that they could now drive. In June and July 2018, at least another eight defenders were arrested, bringing the total to over twenty known women’s rights defenders in detention.

Among the women who remain in prison since last year are Loujain Al-Hathloul, Nouf Abdelaziz, Hatoon Al-Fassi, Samar Badawi, Nassima Al-Sadah, Mohammed Al-Bajadi, Amal Al-Harbi, and Shadan Al-Enazi.

Not all of them have been brought to trial yet, and others can’t be named. Of great concern is that some reports put the number of rights defenders detained since Prince Salman came to power in the thousands.

According to numerous testimonies, some of the women detained last year were repeatedly tortured by electric shocks, floggings and waterboarding, leaving them shaking uncontrollably and unable to walk or sit properly and with bruises and scratches covering their thighs, faces and necks.

In addition to torture, several detainees have been subject to sexual assault and sexual harassment. At least one of the detained women attempted suicide multiple times.

On March 13, nine women’s rights defenders were finally brought to court with two other women. But none were given access to any legal counsel until the second session of the trial two weeks later.

Foreign reporters and diplomats were not allowed in court. The women found out that confessions signed under duress during interrogation would be used against them.

On March 28, 2019, three women were temporarily released, including long-time women’s rights campaigner and academic Aziza Al-Youssef and Eman Al-Nafjan, who blogs on women’s rights.

Cheering this release only contributes to the Saudi propaganda cycle. It doesn’t change the fact that they were severely tortured while arbitrarily detained for months, nor that they are still charged for their women’s rights activism and will be back in court in early June.

Not to mention that Al-Youssef’s son Salah Al-Haidar was among those arrested this April, along with feminist writer Khadijah Al-Harbi, who is pregnant.

At the second session of the trial, the judge indicated that more women on trial would be freed on bail yet on April 3, the women were again in court, and remained imprisoned. Instead, another round of arrests began the following day.

The next hearing and possible verdict for the eight women on trial who have not yet been freed was scheduled for April 17 but inexplicably cancelled.

Saudi Arabia continues to act with impunity – facilitated by the silence of the international community until recently. The actions of the Kingdom have been largely swept under the rug, disguised by the claim that it is reforming and modernizing.

Saudi Arabia is still a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC), allowed a seat at the table despite their blatant disregard for human rights. This must change.

Recognising the jarring absence of action by international actors, civil society has filled the gap by actively calling for accountability of Saudi authorities and ensuring that the women’s rights activists who have been detained remain constantly in the public eye.

The #FreeSaudiWomen coalition, a group of seven NGOs advocating for the immediate and unconditional release of all Saudi women human rights defenders, created a petition which has been signed by nearly a quarter of a million people.

Continuous awareness of the human rights violations in Saudi Arabia is the first step. But there is more that can be done: acting to hold accountable governments, companies, performers and sporting groups that continue to engage with Saudi Arabia’s white-washing campaign, is the other.

Unless a systemic act of solidarity is enacted, Saudi Arabia will continue to use its economic and military power to suppress the fundamental civic freedoms of women’s rights activists in the country. On so many levels, we should be very scared that the United States thinks it’s okay to sell nuclear power technology to Saudi Arabia – with six deals recently approved secretly.

The Saudi crisis involves numerous key players and a solution might seem unattainable, but a world that does not act when a country arbitrarily imprisons and tortures its citizens sets a terrifying precedent for leaders across the globe.

In a context where 6 out of 10 people live in countries where civic freedoms are restricted in some form, according to the CIVICUS Monitor, Saudi Arabia is a stark example of what can happen when states act in impunity.

As a start, 36 UN Member states issued a statement at the UN HRC’s session this March calling for the immediate release of the women’s rights defenders and an investigation into the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

While they should be lauded for their actions, together with other stakeholders, member states to the UN need to up the ante: issue a full resolution at the next session of the Council holding Saudi Arabia accountable.

The post Campaign to Whitewash Saudi Arabia’s Image Does Little for Women in the Kingdom appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Uma Mishra-Newbery is the Interim Executive Director of Women’s March Global, which is a founding member of the Free Saudi Women Coalition & Kristina Stockwood works with the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR), which is a founding member of the Free Saudi Women Coalition.

The post Campaign to Whitewash Saudi Arabia’s Image Does Little for Women in the Kingdom appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Dan Smith
STOCKHOLM, May 8 2019 (IPS)

On 8 May last year, US President Donald J. Trump announced that the United States would pull out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which sets limits on Iran’s nuclear programme to ensure that it cannot produce nuclear weapons.

Despite the US withdrawal, the JCPOA remains in force; it is a multilateral agreement to which seven of the original eight parties still adhere.

When they arrived at the agreement in July 2015, the parties to it were Iran, the USA, China, Russia, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the European Union. A few days after the JCPOA was agreed, it was endorsed by the United Nations Security Council.

The JCPOA limits Iran’s uranium enrichment programme until 2030 and contains monitoring and transparency measures that will remain in place long after that date. Along with other international experts, SIPRI’s assessment from the outset has been that the agreement is technically sound with robust verification procedures.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is responsible for monitoring Iran’s JCPOA implementation. It has consistently found that Iran is fully living up to its undertakings. In short, well-crafted and properly implemented, the JCPOA closes off Iran’s pathway to nuclear weapons, should it decide to go in that direction.

The 15-member UN Security Council unanimously endorsed the Iran nuclear deal in July 2015.

However, Saudi Arabia, Israel and most US Republican politicians opposed the agreement. Donald Trump made abandoning the deal a keynote of his 2016 election campaign.

Like most other critics, he has described as major flaws the JCPOA’s temporary nature and its lack of controls on Iran’s ballistic missile programme. He is also highly critical of Iran’s actions in Syria and elsewhere in the region, which he characterizes as its ‘malign behaviour’.

This makes it clear that, rather than an evidence-based technical objection to the agreement or its implementation, the US decision to withdraw from the JCPOA was a political measure aimed against Iran.

The time-limited nature of the JCPOA is by no means unique—the major US-Russian strategic arms control agreement, for example, expires in 2021. It is normal in such cases to find an appropriate opportunity to discuss extending the agreement.

Regardless of its views about Iran’s regional policies and actions—or, indeed, about the policies and actions of its regional rivals such as Israel and Saudi Arabia—the US withdrawal from the JCPOA is ill-conceived and regrettable for many reasons.

It undermines the value of multilateral diplomacy and raises questions about the sanctity and sustainability of interstate agreements.

Furthermore, it challenges the authority of the UN Security Council, which has unanimously passed a resolution endorsing the JCPOA and calling on all UN member states as well as regional and international organizations to take action to support the agreement’s implementation.

US withdrawal from the JCPOA risks seriously weakening trust and confidence in international institutions and arrangements that are essential parts of the global security architecture.

In particular, the US action undermines the global effort for nuclear non-proliferation by sabotaging an important and effective anti-proliferation agreement. It is to be hoped that the remaining parties to the JCPOA will find ways to support its continued implementation.

The post US Withdrawal From Iran Nuclear Deal: One Year On appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Dan Smith is Director at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)

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By Dumiso Gatsha
GABARONE, Botswana, May 8 2019 (IPS)

Walking down 44th street towards UNICEF House was a poignant moment for me: having sought out resources, gone through strenuous immigration processes and having had my assumptions unraveled with the realities of New York City (NYC). This was it.

I must stress my experience as a first timer in NYC. I was shocked at how unclear the air is, the uncleanliness in public spaces and the fears I had just by being in America.

I quickly reflected on how many other developed countries always surprised me in a more positive way. Despite coming from a developing country, Botswana; it is in NYC that I literally choked on the impact of climate change.

It is here, that I feared walking down the streets with my rainbow bracelets would result in hate speech or violence. It is also here that income inequality is so blatant and glaring on most street corners I walked past. Many countries are the same.

However, having known of the American Dream and its advancements within human rights and development; my awareness to the world and its injustices has been heightened.

The Global Action Plan (GAP) initiated in 2018 is a commitment by 12 development organisations and UN agencies to accelerate progress on the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)s and exploring avenues of ensuring that no one is left behind in the process.

In many countries, young people are denied access to comprehensive health for being bigger bodied, loving the wrong person or not having the means to get to a health facility. There has been progress in reducing maternal mortality, addressing some gender disparities and improving policies for better service delivery.

However, it is not enough as new HIV incidences, backdoor abortions and reliance of substances influence the health and wellbeing of young people. Being the majority demographic in Botswana and Sub Saharan Africa; young people are at risk of what can be prevented or better managed.

The data that often informs policy makers is quantitative and relies on standardizing or averaging a population. This often excludes the outliers; those most vulnerable to systematic injustice, economic exclusion and under-servicing beyond health. These do not occur in isolation.

There are determinants that enable these wrongs; illicit financial flows, corruption, pollution and inherent bigotry. When the symptoms of violence against women, harmful political propaganda or institutionalized racism emerge; we live in a world of more pain than love.

At Success Capital NGO, young people have discovered the importance of linking lived experiences to high level commitments. We acknowledge that despite there being limited resources and reach, we must ensure that the voices of those most marginalized and vulnerable should be heard.

We have discovered that an enabling environment will move young people from being survivors of injustice and socioeconomic complexity, to young people that strive and succeed to the best of their diversity and dreams. What does this look like?

It compromises of a world where laws encourage equity in opportunity, impede impunity in private sector practices and enable the spirit of Botho/Ubuntu among communities. Botho in Tswana or Ubuntu in Nguni is understood as empathy, being equals in a collective or being in existence because of another.

This is unique to the African context and central to ensuring that no one is left behind – particularly because the world is largely unequal. It acknowledges that privilege, power and patriarchy still exist and manifest themselves in variant ways.

By aligning service provisions in health, strengthening governance mechanisms and ensuring inclusive economic participation; everyone can have a place for belonging and becoming. It is through storytelling and documenting these within the frameworks of UN treaty bodies, special procedures and other advocacy/accountability mechanisms that some change can be encouraged.

GAP acknowledges that there are shortcomings when organisations or movements work in isolation. There can be duplicate work, inefficiency or even exclusion in practices. For example: we asked ourselves about the 10% left out by the UNAIDS’ 90:90:90 strategy or how ILO has not facilitated establishing norms around gender favorable home-care or social protection guides for care-givers in poverty-stricken homes.

Similarly, why would legislators believe policing bodily autonomy would impede, reduce or mitigate people’s decision making in issues of consensual sex?. The same applies for attempts to not recognize or accommodate those who do not conform with variants of migration, profession, gender, family, cultural lifestyle, ethnicity, beliefs, genitalia or sexual orientation.

Diversity has never been a threat to a community or ideology. However, in this era of misinformation, lack of citizen participation and populism; it has been easy to create phobias around people and issues that have existed generations before us. It is in reshaping the narratives that exist in our daily experiences that we can truly fulfil the aspirations of democracy and multilateralism.

Young people are increasingly fighting for the space to share their experiences and the intersecting issues that affect them. Good education can hopefully get you meaningful employment, which in turn may enable a better personal life and access to health care, inclusive of mental wellbeing.

Similarly, the ability to advocate for one’s rights and freedoms at community, domestic, regional and global levels can ensure those most excluded and marginalized can have a say. The UN certainly has a long way to go in encouraging states and enabling meaningful and diverse youth participation, particularly from the Global South.

However, it needs the private sector, civil society and community civic participation to ensure everyone can contribute towards the SDGs. A world that can be kind enough to collectively work towards peace, civility, belonging and everyone’s prosperity can ensure no one is left behind by 2030. It all starts with dialogue in your areas of influence and Botho.

* Dumiso Gatsha is a Fellow member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and independent consultant for state shadow reports, participatory human rights research and grassroots civic action.

Success Capital is a youth led, managed and serving NGO based in Gaborone, Botswana.

The post Leaving No One Behind: Young People’s Participation at UN appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Dumiso Gatsha* is a human rights defender, feminist and part-time PhD (Law) candidate.

The post Leaving No One Behind: Young People’s Participation at UN appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: Frank Rijsberman.

By Frank Rijsberman
SEOUL, May 8 2019 (IPS-Partners)

(GGGI) – On October 1, 2016, I officially began my four-year term as Director-General of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI). Together with GGGI’s Members, Management Team and staff, I started an exciting journey, implementing the Work Program and Budget (WPB) 2017-18 approved by the Council, while at the same time building and redesigning GGGI’s business models.

The past two-and-a-half years have seen change in the organization’s business processes, which include shifting focus to country offices from the Seoul headquarters; moving toward putting more emphasis on results – focusing on GGGI’s 6 Strategic Outcomes in its Refreshed Strategic Plan 2015-2020 as well as its business plans, projects, corporate results frameworks and impact assessment work; and bringing flexibility and adaptability in its project cycle.

In a world where I believe the aid industry will be disrupted, and many other disruptions will affect our Members, providing both threats and opportunities is key. Will our Members be leaders? Or will they be followers? Will they leapfrog, or see an ever-widening gap? Will they be disruptors or be disrupted.

Now, we are in the midst of developing a strategy for the next 10 years, known as GGGI’s Strategy 2030. To drive the formulation of the Strategy 2030, we are in the process of examining thematic areas, value creation models and outlining broad goals that are aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement. GGGI recently held its Ninth Meeting of the Management and Program Sub-Committee (MPSC) at the Institute’s Seoul headquarters where our Members were given an opportunity to actively engage in and contribute to the organization’s strategy development process.

Midway through my tenure, I realize now is an ideal time to reflect upon my experience, look at where the organization stands and examine what is happening in the world around us.

I am always optimistic, but impatient optimism is also the mantra of Bill and Melinda Gates that I share completely. This phrase refers to optimism that development actually works and has brought huge progress to billions of people, despite the nay-sayers and that we need to be impatient given the urgency of the challenges we face. Whether you take your inspiration from the IPCC 1.5 degree report, or the environmental events such as the 2018 forest fires and droughts, or the air pollution crisis in Seoul – there are plenty of goods reasons to be impatient to see progress at scale, and be optimistic that we can make it happen. That is why I am proud to be an impatient optimist!

In 2007 in Silicon Valley, Apple launched the first iPhone, and Google and its colleagues were busy disrupting many industries. None of us book our travel and hotels like we used to or find restaurants like we used to. I haven’t visited my main bank in France in years, as I do all my business with them online. Amazon is worth more than the next five biggest retailers put together. And we are in the middle of witnessing the renewable energy disruption and are on the cusp of the e-mobility disruption.

In his brand new book “ The Business of Changing the World”, Raj Kumar, editor in Chief of Devex, argues that we are also in the middle of a disruption of the aid industry – and I find that he puts very eloquently what have become my convictions as well during my period among the disruptors when I worked in Silicon Valley for Google.org and the Gates Foundation.

Raj Kumar argues that Old Aid is about:

• Good intentions – focusing on how much money was spent.
• The giver, the donor – with the other side referred to as the “beneficiary”.
• Monopolies of the UN, the World Bank and some big donors like USAID and DFID (or “monopsonies” to be more).
• Following the rules, rather than focusing on the results.

In contrast, New Aid is:

• All about the results, first and foremost, and evidence-driven and based on data.
• About the customers rather than the beneficiaries.
• About many more new players – foundations, social entrepreneurs, start-ups, and even the mainstream private sector discovering the true triple bottom line.
• But above all is about the results, delivering impact and being accountable, not covering our backs by having followed the rules.

Why does any of this matter for GGGI? In a world where I believe the aid industry will be disrupted, and many other disruptions will affect our Members, providing both threats and opportunities is key. Will our Members be leaders? Or will they be followers? Will they leapfrog, or see an ever-widening gap? Will they be disruptors or be disrupted.

History shows that the incumbents rarely manage to be the disruptors. AT&T would not believe that mobile phones would rapidly eat their landline business. The UN and the World Bank have been engaged in near-continuous reforms for decades now, but I don’t see them taking a lead.

In fact, all during my career I have encountered the pessimists that claim that new technologies will not be relevant for developing countries for a long time. That was the case in the early 1980s when I advocated for the use of personal computers in water resources management. Or later that decade when I wanted to distribute DVDs instead of books. Or more recently, in 2008-9 when few people believed that smart phones would be relevant for poor people in developing countries.

Credit: Frank Rijsberman.

Yet, traveling for GGGI in 2017, going “off the grid” in Myanmar, poor people’s rural houses often had small solar panels outside, lighting one or two bulbs inside, and allowing people to watch movies on DVD players. Non-Governmental Organizations brought those solar home kits to the most remote villages. In Kiribati last year, the most remote GGGI presence I have visited, I was in a phone shop where they sold low-end smart phones for about $10. And big billboards outside advertised mobile banking – for people who never had a bank account, no credit rating, enabling them to send money to family in outer islands over their phones. Most people could not have imagined this 10 years ago – and yet we are planning for the next 10 years, where changes will, if anything, most likely be at a faster pace.

 

Credit: Frank Rijsberman.

 

What is our route and what is our destination? Will we be disruptors or be disrupted in the world of New Aid? I think the jury is still out – both are still possible – but I think we have worked hard to increase the odds that we can be disruptors, if that is the path we choose. I, for one, would love to be a disruptor, but it may well be a bumpy ride – fasten your seat belts!

My sense is that GGGI will have a chance to help its Member countries to transition their economies to a low-carbon future, contribute to solving dramatic global climate change, increase the blue skies and healthy landscapes, and provide decent green jobs for people to work in. These are what gets me up, and excited to come to work, in the morning.

The post Impatient Optimism for GGGI appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Dr. Frank Rijsberman is Director-General, Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI)

The post Impatient Optimism for GGGI appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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By GSN
NEW YORK, May 7 2019 (IPS-Partners)

The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ), a platform that connects over 1000 change-makers in the areas of faith, government, business, media, NGOs, academia and sport with the common aim of delivering the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals ( UN SDG ) Goal 8 has been honoured today at the 2019 David Rockefeller Bridging Leadership Awards.

The GSN was created by it’s founders with the aim of accomplishing inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment, and decent work for all with a particular focus on Goal 8.7 which is dedicated to combating modern-day slavery in all its forms, including human trafficking, forced labor, prostitution, and organ trafficking.

The David Rockefeller Bridging Leadership Award is an internationally recognised annual event that brings together representatives of renowned international organisations to share ideas and solutions around social entrepreneurship, climate change, philanthropy, and ending human trafficking and modern-day slavery. Past honourees have included the likes of President Bill Clinton, Sir Richard Branson, Bill and Melinda Gates, and Nelson Mandela.

Mr. Jafar, a leading entrepreneur, philanthropist and business leader, together with fellow co-founders Monsignor Marcelo Sanchez, Chancellor of the Pontifical Academies of Sciences and Social Sciences in the Vatican, and the Rt Reverend Dr. Alastair Redfern, former Bishop of the Church of England will receive the award on behalf of the GSN.

“There are a lot of moving parts in accomplishing the GSN mission and we are truly humbled to be nominated. This award is an acknowledgment of not just the individual work of the GSN Co-Founders but also of the efforts of it’s Founding Members and hundreds of like-minded partners whom are dedicated and committed to our cause” said Raza Jafar.

About David Rockefeller Bridging Leadership Awards

The David Rockefeller Bridging Leadership Awards takes place annually in Manhattan, New York and is presented by Synergos, a global organisation that is working toward deepening trust and collaboration to solve the complex problems around poverty.

About the Global Sustainability Network ( GSN )

The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ) is a worldwide and rapidly growing network of more than 1000 leaders and change-makers across multiple sectors including faith, government, business, media, NGOs, academia and sport committed to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 8, on sustainable economic growth and decent work for all, The GSN maintains a special focus on Goal 8.7 aimed at ending modern-day slavery, human trafficking and human organ trafficking.

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Excerpt:

-- PRESS RELEASE --

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Anis Chowdhury
KUALA LUMPUR and SYDNEY, May 7 2019 (IPS)

Over the last four decades, growing concentration of market power in the hands of oligopolies, if not monopolies, has been greatly enabled by ostensibly neo-liberal reforms, worsening wealth concentration and gross inequalities in the world.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

The ‘counter-revolution’ against Keynesian and development economics four decades ago, which inspired the Washington Consensus, claimed to promote economic liberalization, including market competition, but strengthening property rights entitlements, especially for intellectual property, has been far more important.

Such oligopolistic and monopolistic trends have recently accelerated in much of the world, while already feeble anti-trust efforts have lagged far behind. Over a century after US President Teddy Roosevelt’s anti-trust initiatives, with the neoliberal rhetoric of recent decades, many all over the world still have great expectations of similar US reform initiatives.

Privacy legislation for?
Responding to the ‘big data’ controversy, Apple CEO Tim Cook’s recent Time magazine opinion called for US privacy legislation informed by four principles for user rights: first, corporations should collect as little user data as possible; second, users should know what data has been collected and why; third, users should be able “to access, correct and delete [their] personal data”; and fourth, data should be secure, “without which trust is impossible”.

Cook has also proposed a US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ‘data-broker clearinghouse’, with all entities handling data required to register so that the public can track how their data has been sold, and delete their own, if they so choose.

While national privacy legislation should include these principles, the proposals do not recognize that transparency and post hoc control do not address some of the worst dangers posed by online platform monopolies such as Google and Amazon.

Anis Chowdhury

Their monopolistic market power implies that users are often not really able to exercise their notional rights to privacy. For example, without a realistic alternative to Google’s search function, people have little option but to provide personal information about themselves, especially when their work or participating in society requires them to use Google.

Effective privacy legislation thus requires regulating such corporations so that they no longer have any incentive to exploit user data. As Cambridge Analytica whistle-blower Christopher Wylie has suggested, “We should take a step back from this narrative of consent and start to look at the fact that people don’t have a choice.”

Digital public policy?
Facebook and Google are able to collect considerable personal data, enabling them to secure monopoly profits by renting their platforms and data to third parties.

These third parties can then use the Facebook and Google platforms and their vast personal data troves to manipulate what individual users see, read, think and buy. Google thus earned some US$95 billion, while Facebook earned about US$40 billion in 2017 alone.

Appropriate public policy can make this business model far less lucrative. The US has previously used various ‘common carriage’ rules to limit or prevent railways, telecommunication companies and other monopolistic owners of essential infrastructure from discriminating among different users.

For example, AT&T was not allowed to set different rates or terms of service for different people based on what it could learn about their personal lives. Applying similar rules to Google, Facebook and Amazon now would reduce much of their incentive to collect, use, sell or rent personal data by limiting their means to profit from thus using such information.

To be sure, Apple also benefits from the Google and Facebook business models. In 2018, Google paid Apple US$9 billion to become the default search engine on Apple products, while Goldman Sachs expects such payments to increase to US$12 billion in 2019.

US reforms today
The US-based Open Markets Institute (OMI) has proposed new laws to overrule pro-monopoly judicial precedents and to empower employees, consumers and small businesses against abuses by large monopolies.

Accordingly, the OMI has proposed four measures to the US Congress’ Judiciary Committee: first, investigate growing concentration in and control of specific industries; second, conduct hearings on the relationship of such concentration to political corruption; third, educate the public about what it describes as the national ‘monopoly crisis’; and fourth, advocate anti-monopoly policies and principles with other Congressional committees and federal agencies.

The OMI recommends starting with pharmaceuticals, hospital fees, dominant platforms, advertising, labour, inequality, agriculture, other FTC priorities, the US Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, trade and national security.

Developing countries?
However, it is doubtful that the rest of the world, especially developing countries, can count on US policy reforms to protect, let alone advance their best interests, whether in terms of development or even, appropriate competition policy.

Given the limited size of most developing economies, a single minded obsession with competition may well undermine the likelihood of achieving economies of scale and international competitiveness, both important for accelerating economic development.

Size matters, and what may be appropriate for large economies may not be appropriate for smaller national economies. Furthermore, the limited jurisdiction of US legislation is likely to encourage corporations to engage in regulatory arbitrage abroad to their own advantage.

In any case, even if US lawmakers and regulators are able to protect and advance the US public interest through appropriate and effective regulatory policy, there is little reason to assume that the best interests of others will be best served by the effective exercise of US regulation

The post Neoliberal Reforms Strengthening Monopoly Power and Abuses appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Roseate spoonbills (Platalea ajaja), coastal birds in Sonora, Mexico. Conservation efforts over the past decade have reduced the extinction risks for mammals and birds in 109 countries, however, there remains a mass loss of biodiversity around the world. Credit: Mauricio Ramos/IPS

By A. D. McKenzie
PARIS, May 7 2019 (IPS)

An alarming report about the massive loss of biodiversity around the world warns that future generations will be at risk if urgent action isn’t taken to protect the more than one million species of plants and animals threatened with extinction.

Such extinction could happen “within decades” and could affect 40 percent of amphibian species, more than a third of marine mammals and nearly 33 percent of reef-forming corals, said the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

“Biodiversity is important for human well-being, and we humans are destroying it,” Sir Robert Watson, the outgoing chair of the IPBES, said as the report was launched Monday, May 7.

The body, formed in 2012 and comprising more than 130 government members, stated in its comprehensive review that nature is “declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history”.

The IPBES Global Assessment Report added that the rate of species extinction is also “accelerating”, and that this entails serious effects for the world’s human population as well, with an increasing impact on food, water and energy security, and on peace and stability.

“It’s a security issue in so far as the loss of natural resources, especially in poor, developing countries, can lead to conflict,” Watson said.

In a media briefing at the end of a six-day plenary—hosted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in Paris—scientists called for bold measures at all levels of society to save the planet’s biodiversity, putting the issue at the same level of urgency as climate change.

“Unless we act now, we will undermine human well-being for current and future generations,” Watson said. “It’s a moral issue: we should not destroy nature. And it’s an ethical issue because the loss of biodiversity hurts the poorest of people, further exacerbating an already inequitable world.”

While climate change up to now has not been a dominant factor in biodiversity loss, it is expected to equal or surpass the issues of overfishing, pollution of sea and land (with toxic waste, plastics and heavy metals), the spread of invasive species decimating native ones, and the destruction of natural forests, the IPBES said.

Scientists said the “picture is less clear” for insect species, but the available evidence points to about 10 percent being threatened.

IPBES experts further state that at least 680 “vertebrate species” (or species with backbone) have been driven to extinction since the 16th century, and more than nine percent of all domesticated breeds of mammals used for food and agriculture had become extinct by 2016, with at least 1,000 more breeds still threatened. This has happened at a faster rate than in previous eras.

The 455 experts involved in the report analysed upwards of 15,000 scientific papers among their fields of research, said IPBES Executive Secretary Anne Larigauderie. They ranked the five “direct drivers of change in nature with the largest relative global impacts” on the world’s estimated eight million species.

These five drivers are: changes in land and sea use; direct exploitation of organisms; climate change; pollution; and invasive alien species, according to the report.

Ocean pollution, with toxic waste and tons of plastic devastating marine life, is now common knowledge, but perhaps people are less aware that the use of fertilisers has created some 400 coastal ecosystem “dead zones”, affecting 245,000 square kilometres.

Despite the disturbing statistics, Larigauderie said the IPBES still wished to send a message of hope.

“We don’t want that people feel discouraged, that there’s nothing that can be done, that we’ve lost the battle, because we’ve not,” she said.

A CEIBA Biological Centre (CEIBA) study investigated the impact of global warming on tropical ectotherms, namely, butterflies and lizards, whose body temperatures are determined by the environment. Amazonian ectotherms may be adjusting their behaviour to cope with the heat, but at the expense of the normal activities required for survival and breeding. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

Conservation efforts over the past decade have reduced the extinction risks for mammals and birds in 109 countries, and more than a hundred highly threatened birds, mammals and reptiles are “estimated to have benefitted from the eradication of invasive mammals on islands”, according to IPBES experts.

They emphasised that there was still time to give nature a chance to recover if the world takes transformative action for global sustainability, including the use of renewables, ecological farming methods and reducing run-off pollution into oceans.

“What we offer is scientific evidence never put together before,” said Eduardo S. Brondizio, one of the three co-chairs of the report and professor of anthropology at Indiana University.

“This is evidence that can be taken seriously, and people can be awakened to take action,” Brondizio told IPS. “This report is important for change.”

During the briefing at UNESCO, Brondizio had clear words for society at large and for the financial sectors and policy makers.

“We need to change our narratives,” he said. “Both our individual narratives that associate wasteful consumption with quality of life and with status, and the narratives of the economic systems that still consider that environmental degradation and social inequality are inevitable outcomes of economic growth.”

“Economic growth is a means and not an end,” he added. “We need to look for the quality of life of the planet.”

He said that “positive incentives” were required to “move away from harmful subsidies” that were contributing to unsustainable business models.

The report says there has been a 15 percent increase in global per capita consumption of materials since 1980 and a 300 percent increase in food crop production since 1970, reducing the habitat of some species and causing pollution through fertilisers.

Elephants from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. A recent report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services states more than one million species of plants and animals threatened with extinction. Credit: Malini Shankar/IPS

Meanwhile, 85 percent of wetlands present in 1700 had been lost by 2000, and 3.5 percent of domesticated breed of birds were extinct by 2016.

Among the “cross-sectoral solutions” that the report proposes, Brondizio highlighted complementary and inter-dependent approaches to food production and conservation, sustainable fisheries, land-based climate-change mitigation and “nature-based” initiatives in cities – which is crucial for overall sustainability.

He pointed out that over the past decade, the “largest portion of urban growth has been in the urban South”, with the largest portion being among the poor who live in cities with stressed environmental issues.

If adequate action isn’t taken to halt the loss of biodiversity in cities, to deal with climate change and to improve quality of life for urban residents, the negative impact will be globally felt, he said.

Brondizio equally called for the need to recognise the knowledge, innovations and practices, institutions and values of indigenous peoples and local communities.

“They are equal partners in this journey, and we need their inclusion and participation in environmental governance,” he said.

Also addressing the report, UNESCO’s Director-General Audrey Azoulay stressed the importance of education in ensuring sustainability and of sharing knowledge to heighten awareness. 

“Following the adoption of this historic report, no one will be able to claim that they did not know. We can no longer continue to destroy the diversity of life. This is our responsibility towards future generations,” she said.

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Retractable Ground Floor in Dubai HealthCare City. Credit: Google Street View

By Karishma Asarpota
DUBAI, May 7 2019 (IPS)

Dubai is an Emirate in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with a population of about 3 million. The discovery of oil in the 1960’s transformed Dubai from a sleepy port town to a global metropolis. The recent shift to address environmental sustainability in Dubai draws attention to energy issues in the city.

As per Dubai’s Integrated Energy Strategy, the Emirate aims to increase renewable energy production to 44% by 2050. This will help to reduce the dependence on natural gas for electricity production and reduce fossil fuel-based greenhouse gas emissions. Further, this will be supported with a goal to reduce energy demand by 30% in the next 20 years.

The urban area of Dubai has grown by almost 24 times in the last 44 years. This makes the pattern of urban development central to discussing energy efficiency in Dubai.

The way our neighbourhoods are designed can have an impact on energy efficiency. As residents, we can contribute to this goal is by reducing the amount of energy and water we consume in our homes. But a bigger responsibility is in the hands of urban designers, planners and architects.

Often, we turn to technological solutions to address the energy question such as installing more solar panels, implementing district energy systems or upgrading to a smart gird. These solutions overshadow urban design solutions that can help reduce our energy needs to begin with.

To be more successful at achieving an energy-efficient neighbourhood, technological solutions should complement urban design solutions. Here are some of the ways in which we should rethink architectural or urban design solutions.

1 – Improve pedestrian and cyclist infrastructure
More neighbourhoods in Dubai need to have continuous pavements and cycling lanes to support pedestrians and cyclists. This will help encourage residents to change their travel choices and reduce the number of trips made through mechanical means of transport resulting in energy savings and its related carbon emissions.

But we should be mindful of the extreme desert climate in the city. Dubai experiences a tropical desert climate with temperatures reaching an average of 45℃ for many days. It is unrealistic to expect people to cycle and walk in the extreme heat without implementing design solutions to provide relief from the heat such as shading and street orientation.

We need to turn to more climate appropriate urban design solutions like retractable ground floor (image 1) or narrow and shaded pedestrian areas.

Dubai Metro connectivity across the city. Credit: Karishma Asarpota – (Author)

2 – Provide access to public transit

Residential neighbourhoods should be within walking distance of a public transit stop to encourage the use of public transport and reduce car-based travel. Ridership of Dubai Metro has increased from 6% in 2006 to 15% in 2015, which is remarkable.

The Dubai Metro has about 329,365 daily commuters which is just about 10% of the city’s population. This is low as compared to other cities like Hong Kong or Vancouver where about 90% and 20% of the population are daily commuters on public transport.

Though Dubai is taking steps in the right direction many areas still remain disconnected from access to convenient public transport. The map shows the connectivity of Dubai Metro.

3 – Design climate responsive buildings

The way buildings are designed can have a significant impact on indoor and outdoor thermal comfort. This has a direct impact on the amount of energy that is needed to maintain a comfortable indoor climate. Buildings should be designed to respond to the micro-climate of a place to avoid heat gain.

Dubai Sustainable City. Credit: Luca Locatelli, Institute for National Geographic

Dubai Sustainable City is an example of a project that considered energy demand in the architectural and urban design. Decisions such as orientation and density helped reduce energy demand with little financial investment.

Villas in Dubai Sustainable City use 42% less electricity as compared to traditional villas in Dubai.

4 – Build a more compact development

Promoting compact and denser development can reduce transport demand and its associated energy use and emissions and will increase land use efficiency in urban areas. Moreover, less resources are needed to meet infrastructural need such as transport or utility networks.

As Dubai has grown, the city has spread along the coast increasing the distance between neighbourhoods and making the city dependent on car transport.

5 – Increase renewable energy supply

Increasing energy supply in neighbourhoods using renewable sources of energy like solar or geothermal can help diversify fuel sources and move away from carbon based fuels which have a high carbon emission rate.

Sheikh Zayed Road, Dubai. Credit: Zuhair Lokhandwala

The Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park currently has an installed capacity of 200 MW and is planned to expand to 5,000 MW by 2030. Al Shams is the new initiative by DEWA aimed at promoting decentralized solar power production within individual buildings. Though Al Shams is a step in the right direction, incentives to make solar power more widespread are lacking.

6 – Implement district cooling systems

In Dubai, district cooling systems increase the efficiency of cooling networks as chilled water is produced at a central point and then distributed to individual buildings to be utilized in individual AC (air-conditioning) systems.

AC systems generate warmer water which is sent back to the district cooling plant for chilling. District cooling plants can increase their efficiency by installing a thermal storage unit. A thermal storage unit helps to manage demand better as it is capable to store chilled and warm water.

Solar panels on a residence. Credit: Beacon Energy Solutions, Dubai

This helps to reduce the size of the cooling plant as added storage means that the plant can produce chilled water at night when ambient temperature is low and chiller efficiency is high.

This way the plant needs to be designed as per average demand and not peak demand. New neighbourhoods should be built using a district energy system as it can increase energy efficiency by about 40%.

7- Conserve water

Water is a precious resource which should not be misused especially in the Gulf region as it is water stressed. Moreover, water in Dubai is produced through desalination which is an energy intensive process.

District cooling system schematic. Credit: Karishma Asarpota – (Author)

Conserve indoor and outdoor water use and avoid wasting water. Indoor water fixtures should be upgraded to more efficient fixtures where feasible. Outdoor landscaping should employ only native species and use treated sewage effluent for maintenance.

Using native species for outdoor landscaping. Credit: Silvia Razgova, The National, Abu Dhabi

The post Building a More Energy-Efficient Neighbourhood in Dubai appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Karishma Asarpota is an urban planner, researcher and Climate Tracker Journalism Fellow

The post Building a More Energy-Efficient Neighbourhood in Dubai appeared first on Inter Press Service.