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Credit: Mann Deshi Foundation

By Ashlin Mathew
NEW DELHI, Mar 29 2019 (IPS)

Radhika Baburao Shinde was all of 12 years old when she was married off to a man who was 10 years older. She was sent away to live with her new husband, a truck driver, and his family in remote, drought-prone Satara district, 330 kilometers southwest of Mumbai. She left school and went to work as a laborer on her husband’s family farm.

When Shinde had children of her own—a daughter and two sons—she wanted them to have a better life. In villages across India, where an estimated 833 million people live on less than $3.20 a day, it usually falls to women like Shinde to take care of their children and ensure they have enough to eat.

A chance encounter in 2014 helped her break the cycle of poverty. Employees of the Mann Deshi Foundation, which teaches business skills and lends money to rural women, arrived in her village offering training in various trades for a nominal fee.

Shinde completed a 120-hour course in tailoring and acquired the skills she needed to start a small business catering to her neighbors, in addition to her farm work. This helped her earn the equivalent of $5 a month to spend on her children—a considerable sum for an area where the median household income was less than $70.

Her in-laws weren’t pleased. They didn’t want her new business to distract her from farming. “There were many fights, and eventually they consented,” she recalls.

Labor force participation

The women-run Mann Deshi Foundation, established in the 1990s, is among a handful of organizations seeking to break down social, legal, and economic barriers to women’s entrepreneurship in India.

Despite rapid growth, wide gender disparities in the economic sphere have been stubbornly persistent. The result has been a tragic waste of human potential that has hampered efforts to reduce poverty in the world’s second most populous country.

Perhaps one of the starkest signs of Indian women’s plight is their labor force participation rate, which was just 27 percent in 2017, about one-third that of men. By that measure, India ranks 120th among 131 countries, according to data from the World Bank. Women entrepreneurs do no better.

Only about 14 percent of Indian women own or run businesses, according to the Sixth Economic Census, conducted in 2014. More than 90 percent of companies run by women are microenterprises, and about 79 percent are self-financed.

Women account for just 17 percent of GDP in India, less than half the global average, Annette Dixon, the World Bank’s vice president for South Asia, said in a speech in March of last year. If even half of Indian women were in the labor force, the annual pace of economic growth would rise by 1.5 percentage points to about 9 percent, she estimated.

The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2018 ranks 149 countries on four measures: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. India ranks 108th overall, with particularly low scores on two metrics: health and survival and economic participation.

Small wonder, then, that the country also fares poorly in indexes of entrepreneurship. India ranked 52 among 57 countries in the 2018 Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurs, ahead of Iran and behind Tunisia. The index looks at things like financial access, advancement outcomes, and ease of doing business.

“Many times, there are pressures and opposition from within the family due to societal stereotypes that force women to just take care of the house as her key responsibility,” says Aparna Saraogi, cofounder of the Women Entrepreneurship and Empowerment (WEE) Foundation. “Also, the lack of child-care support systems holds women back.”

Lack of collateral

There are other hurdles. Women in India rarely own property that could serve as collateral for start-up loans. They have less education than men, on average. When they do work, they receive lower wages than their male counterparts and generally occupy low-skill jobs in agriculture and services, often in the informal economy.

Unequal access to finance is a major barrier for aspiring entrepreneurs, who need capital to start a business, however small. Providing equal access to finance while promoting female entrepreneurship would raise GDP and reduce unemployment, according to a 2018 IMF study, “Closing Gender Gaps in India: Does Increasing Women’s Access to Finance Help?”

The potential benefits would be greatest—amounting to a 6.8 percent increase in GDP—if India also simplified its notoriously complex labor market regulations and improved women’s skills, the study found.

“If our economy is to grow by 9 to 10 percent consistently in the next three decades, we have to create ecosystems that support every kind of woman entrepreneur,” says Sairee Chahal, founder of SHEROES, a community platform that allows women to reach out to counselors by telephone or via an app.

The organization has helped victims of domestic violence like Sathiya Sundari, who lives in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. When she left an abusive relationship, she found herself with no means of support. She turned to SHEROES, which helped her start a beauty parlor.

“I didn’t know what it would take to run a business,” she recalls. “SHEROES sent mentors to train and guide me and also set up a crowdfunding campaign to help me begin my business,” Sundari says.

The campaign raised the money she needed in just six days in 2017. Her beauty parlor now earns her about 8,000 rupees ($113) a month, a figure that rises to 15,000 rupees during the December–March wedding season. That’s better than the median monthly household income of 7,269 rupees in rural areas of Tamil Nadu.

Unequal education is another major barrier. The literacy rate for Indian women is 64 percent, compared with 82 percent for men. It’s no coincidence that states with higher literacy rates also have more women entrepreneurs.

The region comprising India’s four southernmost states plus Maharashtra, where literacy is higher than the national average, is home to more than half of all women-led small-scale industrial units in the country, according to the Sixth Economic Census.

Yet even among India’s educated urban elite, women entrepreneurs face discrimination. Meghna Saraogi, who lives in New Delhi, is one of them. She runs a fashion app called StyleDotMe, whose users upload photos of themselves trying on various outfits and get feedback from other users in real time. She recalls her experience seeking start-up capital in the mostly male world of technology.

“There were many who asked what would happen to the business when I got married and had a child,” she says. “Then there were others who were not sure if a business with a woman at the helm would find any investors at all.”

In the end, she got two rounds of funding totaling the equivalent of $322,000 in 2016 and 2017 through the Indian Angel Network (IAN). Last year, StyleDotMe launched an interactive augmented reality platform for jewelry called mirrAR.

Meghna Saraogi’s success story should be the norm, but it isn’t. Padmaja Ruparel, cofounder and president of IAN, says only about a quarter of the fund’s portfolio of more than 130 start-ups are led by women. Of the 10,000 deals they review each year, fewer than a third are brought by women, Ruparel says.

“It is not policy or regulatory changes that women are looking for, but better representation and a change in mind-set,” says Debjani Ghosh, president of the National Association of Software and Services Companies. “India has to grow up and realize that there is no need to fear having an equal number of women in the room.”

Still, there are signs of progress in the technology sphere. IAN, for example, has seen the proportion of pitches from women rise from 10 percent four years ago to 30 percent today. Says Ghosh: “Investors have slowly woken up to the fact that there is a need to look at the merit of ideas rather than the gender of the founder.”

Low female participation in public life may help explain the persistence of formal and informal barriers. Women accounted for just 19 percent of ministerial positions in India and 12 percent of members of Parliament as of January 2017, putting it in 148th place among 193 jurisdictions tracked by the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

“There has to be a mechanism to have an effective legal structure which is supportive of women’s empowerment,” says Aparna Saraogi, of the WEE Foundation. “It should effectively address the gaps between what the law prescribes and what actually occurs.”

Women often lack the knowledge and skills to tap opportunities, says Chetna Sinha, founder of the Mann Deshi Foundation. To help fill that gap, the foundation runs a help line for women entrepreneurs and organizes mentorship programs. It also runs mobile business schools, a women’s bank, and a community radio station.

“Our program highlights access and control of finances,” Sinha says. “We identify and train women according to their needs.”

Among the foundation’s trainees is Rupali Shinde. At age 14, she married into a family that owned a small leather-crafting business that earned them a monthly income of $56, barely enough to send their two children to school. Seeking to expand the business, she took out a loan of $1,405 from the Mann Deshi Bank, but she lacked the know-how to make a go of it. Counselors at the bank encouraged her to take a one-year business course.

“I became financially and digitally literate, and they helped me with practical solutions,” she says. She now has five women working for her, and her family’s income has risen to $281 a month—enough to enroll her daughter in an engineering course.

The WEE Foundation provides a six-month entrepreneurship mentorship program to both tech and nontech start-ups free of charge based on applications from around the country, says Aparna Saraogi. The program is funded by India’s Department of Science and Technology.

“We have mentored more than 500 women-led start-ups since 2016 and enabled more than 5,000 women with skills to ensure that they can earn a living,” she says.

Some vocational programs in India still favor men. Skill India, a government-sponsored program, teaches young men trades such as plumbing, masonry, and welding. But courses for women focus on beauty, wellness, and cooking, and none aim to develop entrepreneurs.

Women like Radhika Baburao Shinde have seen their careers take unexpected turns. She expanded her modest tailoring business with help from the Mann Deshi Foundation, adding a cloth shop. Then, she took a free, six-day course in animal husbandry at a local agricultural research institute after Mann Deshi counselors told her that it would help her improve her income.

“Once I came back, I started going to nearby homes to check their goats and to tell them about artificial insemination, sonograms. I inseminated 100 goats free of cost, and when these goats gave birth to healthy kids, people started trusting me. I started to get calls from nearby villages too.” Now she earns about 8,000 rupees a month—and hopes to save enough to send her 16-year-old daughter to college.

Entrepreneurs like Shinde are blazing a path for the next generation of women. Not only are they making sure their own daughters get the education they need to start businesses of their own, but they are serving as role models for the wider community, offering Indian women hope for a brighter future.

*The article was first published in Finance & Development, the IMF’s quarterly print magazine and online editorial platform, which publishes cutting-edge analysis and insight on the latest trends and research in international finance, economics, and development.

Opinions expressed in the article are those of the author; they do not necessarily reflect IMF policy.

The post Making it in India: Women Struggle to Break Down Barriers Starting a Business appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Ashlin Mathew is a news editor for the National Herald newspaper in New Delhi.

The post Making it in India: Women Struggle to Break Down Barriers Starting a Business appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Devolution and ASALs CS Eugene Wamalwa & UN RC Siddharth Chatterjee in a group photograph with the UN Kenya Country Team during the annual retreat to review UNDAF progress.

By PRESS RELEASE
NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 29 2019 (IPS-Partners)

Devolution and ASALs Cabinet Secretary Hon. Eugene Wamalwa has said that the reforms being carried out by the United Nations are enabling the global agency to align its activities better and coordinate more effectively in delivering on national development priorities.

As the co-chair of the UNDAF National Steering Committee, Mr. Wamalwa was addressing the heads of UN agencies in Kenya at a retreat that is reviewing the UN Country Team’s achievements, one year since the launch of the 2018 – 2022 UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) in June 2018.

“It is almost two years now since we started walking the journey together to develop what has now become one among the best-in-class UNDAFs. The UNDAF and Delivering as One in Kenya is a result of UN member states’ desire for increased coherence in development partnership, and a specific request by the Government of Kenya for stronger accountability for results”.

He said that the Government recognizes the UN leadership for its determination to ensure every project responds and aligns to priorities such as President Kenyatta’s Big Four development agenda.

The CS pointed out the Kenya-Ethiopia cross-border programme as an example of programmes that are using innovative approaches to solve emerging threats.

“This is a programme that will transform our borders from centres of conflict to centres of resilience,” he said. A similar programme will be launched along the Kenya-Uganda border.

Through its Emergency Trust Fund for Africa, the European Union (EU), is supporting the €68 million Cross-Border programme that is covering the entire length of the Kenya-Ethiopia border, south-west Somalia and the cross-border area between Western Ethiopia and East Sudan.

Between 2018 and 2020, various stakeholders including IGAD, the UN and governments in the four countries will implement projects that aim to promote stability by building up local-level peace and security structures and provide investment to support the socioeconomic transformation of the areas through cross-border trade, greater resilience and diversified livelihoods.

“For decades, the people of the border regions of Africa have grappled with violent conflict, climate shocks and marginalization, with the communities finding themselves with little prospects, a widespread sense of exclusion that predisposes them to radicalization and extremism,” said Mr. Wamalwa.

UN Kenya Resident Coordinator Siddharth Chatterjee said that under the UNDAF, 21 UN agencies based in Kenya will raise & contribute about US$1.9 billion to implement the new UNDAF.

He said that the UN and the Government of Kenya, through its Strategic Plan for Devolution, have put in place various initiatives for integrating and transforming communities in ASALs and cross-border areas, aiming to unlock the potential of the regions and accelerate national development.

Chatterjee added that, “The reforms being advanced by the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres are very keen on the nexus between peace and development, and in Kenya we are frontloading development approaches in those regions that have previously been at the periphery, in line with the SDGs mission of leaving no one behind and reaching the farthest first.”

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Approximately 15 percent of the world’s population, or an estimated 1 billion people, live with disabilities. But neglect, discrimination, and abuse are still all too common among disabled youth, leaving them deprived of rights including those to education, health, and employment. Credit : Melody Kemp/IPS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 29 2019 (IPS)

People with disabilities are being left behind, and steps must be taken to ensure their inclusion in the world of education and work.

Approximately 15 percent of the world’s population, or an estimated one billion people, live with disabilities. But neglect, discrimination, and abuse are still all too common among disabled youth, leaving them deprived of rights including those to education, health, and employment.

“Children with disabilities must have a say in all matters that affect the course of their lives…They must be empowered to reach their full potential and enjoy their full human rights – and this requires us to change both attitudes and environmental factors,” United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet recently said.

UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities Catalina Devandas Aguilar echoed similar sentiments upon the launch of her annual report, stating: “Deprivation of liberty on the basis of disability is a human rights violation on a massive global scale. It is not a ‘necessary evil’, but a consequence of the failure of States to ensure their obligations towards people with disabilities.”

Aguilar noted that a key factor preventing the inclusion of disabled youth is the ongoing discrimination against and segregation into special schools and institutions.

According to the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), 90 percent of children with disabilities in developing countries do not attend school.

More than 10 percent of persons with disabilities have been refused entry into school because of their disability, and more than quarter reported schools were not accessible or were hindering to them.

Such exclusion also extends to the labor market as the employment-to-population ratio of persons with disabilities aged 15 and older is almost half that of persons without disabilities.

In fact, unemployment among persons with disabilities is as high as 80 percent in some countries, according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Women with disabilities are two times less likely to be employed.

Those who are employed tend to earn lower wages than their counterparts without disabilities.

“This is a legacy of a model which has caused exclusion and marginalisation…we can no longer have children being hidden away and isolated, children with disabilities must have the opportunity to dream of a full and happy life,” Aguilar said.

In Bangladesh, the Bridge Foundation hopes to bridge these gaps and help create opportunities.

Inspired by the movie ‘Forrest Gump’ and the autobiographies of Helen Keller and Stephen Hawking, Natasha Israt Kabir wanted to support and empower people with disabilities, or the “differently abled.”

“I believe there should not be norm in the way things are done, but there should always be opportunities to do things differently… achieving sustainable development won’t become a reality without the social inclusion and empowerment people living with disabilities,” Kabir said.

Kabir, along with co-founder Swarna Moye Sarker, implemented a programme teaching information technology (IT) and arts, providing people with disabilities with the skills to work. They also established an online platform helping students showcase their skills and talent in order to sell their products and even gain employment.

“I believe technology will give them a voice, help them connect with the world and become independent,” Kabir said.

“Children with disabilities need special care and special management for their education and to merge them with the mainstream education system, social and youth led organisations like Bridge Foundation are playing a pivotal role,” Executive Director of the Center for Research and Information (CRI) Sabbir Bin Shams told IPS.

“Increasing and improving youth led initiatives for vulnerable women and children with disabilities may turn the experiences of economic growth a more equitable and inclusive one,” he added.

In a UN newsletter, Kabir recounted some of the programme participants including Falguny, a physically-challenged student without wrists who was able to quickly develop fast computer operating skills.

Another student, Rajon, showcases determination and courage everyday, attending classes with crutches.

“These people are the source of my strength and inspiration now. I strongly believe—if you have the idea and vision to change the world, yes! You can,” Kabir said.

The Bridge Foundation received the Joy Bangla Youth Award in 2018 for its work in empowering people with disabilities.

 

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Aerial image of the area where the third nuclear power plant is to be built in Angra, next to the Angra 1 and Angra 2 plants, in a coastal area near the city of Angra dos Reis, south of Rio de Janeiro, in southeastern Brazil. Credit: Divulgação Eletronuclear

By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 29 2019 (IPS)

Two military-inspired initiatives are leading Brazil’s new government, which includes a number of generals, down the path of mega-projects, which have had disastrous results in the last four decades.

Completing the country’s third nuclear power plant and setting the construction of eight others on track is the plan under study, announced by the Minister of Mines and Energy, Admiral Bento Albuquerque.

Brazil’s extreme right-wing government risks repeating the disaster of the nuclear programme of the 1964-1985 military dictatorship , which in the 1970s also began to build nine generating units and managed to put only two in operation, at a cost of tens of billions of dollars, while leaving a third plant unfinished.A widespread paranoia among the Brazilian military is the alleged threat to national sovereignty posed by indigenous reservations and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), which they say could lead to a declaration of independence or to the "internationalisation" of parts of the Amazon rainforest.

Another major project, which has been promised by decree before April, is to build a highway, a hydroelectric plant and a bridge over the country’s largest river, in a well-preserved part of the Amazon rainforest.

It is an old proposal by retired General Maynard Santa Rosa, head of the Strategic Affairs Secretariat of the Presidency, who defends it mainly for reasons of national security.

The goal is to generate electricity for the middle reaches of the Amazon basin, where Manaos, a city of 2.1 million people, is located, and to promote local development to curb international environmental and indigenous organisations, the general wrote in a 2013 article.

A widespread paranoia among the Brazilian military is the alleged threat to national sovereignty posed by indigenous reservations and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), which they say could lead to a declaration of independence or to the “internationalisation” of parts of the Amazon rainforest.

President Jair Bolsonaro, a former army captain, warned of the dangers posed by the Triple A, an Andes-Amazon-Atlantic ecological corridor, although it is merely a proposal by the Colombian NGO Gaia Amazonas, as a way to protect nature in the far north of Brazil and parts of seven other countries that share the Amazon basin.

That was the reason, according to the president in office since January, that Brazil decided not to host the 25th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP25), which in the end will be held in Chile in January 2020.

Retired General Augusto Heleno Pereira, head of the Institutional Security Cabinet, with the rank of minister, has repeatedly mentioned the fear that Brazil will lose parts of the national territory if indigenous communities, especially groups with reservations along the border, join together with NGOs or international agencies to seek independence.

The new government is the most militarised in Brazilian history, including more army, navy and air force officers than in any other period, including the last military dictatorship.

In addition to eight ministers, there are more than 40 other high-level government officials who come from the military. And that presence is set to expand, since the ministers of Education, Ricardo Velez Rodriguez, and Environment, Ricardo Salles, are in favor of the militarisation of schools and of their ministries.

Rebuilt but unpaved portion of the BR-163 highway, in the Amazonian state of Pará, in northern Brazil. The government of Jair Bolsonaro wants to build a section of the road that was in the original design but was not even marked out in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS

Military thinking, therefore, orients various sectors of the government. This is the case of the occupation of the Amazon rainforest by large infrastructure works. “Integrating in order not to hand over” the Amazon was the slogan of the dictatorship, which has been taken up again by the current administration.

In the energy sector, the nuclear option was implicit in the appointment of Admiral Albuquerque, as he was formerly the navy’s director general of nuclear and technological development.

He was in charge of a programme to build four conventional submarines, the first of which was launched in December, and a nuclear-powered submarine.

The navy developed a parallel nuclear programme, kept secret for several years, that succeeded in mastering uranium enrichment technology, even though Brazil had assumed international commitments to renounce any use of nuclear weapons.

Multiplying the number of nuclear power plants is part of the technological and strategic plans of the military that consider the advance of knowledge in that area essential.

In addition, Brazil has large uranium deposits and developed a nuclear fuel and equipment industry that would be boosted by the demand created by new power plants and submarines.

But there is a strong possibility of repeating the frustration of the programme initiated in the 1970s, due to similar financial difficulties. In the face of the foreign debt crisis of the 1980s, several mega-projects of the military dictatorship, labeled “pharaonic” by critics, were aborted.

Brazil acquired its first nuclear power plant in the United States, with a reactor from Westinghouse. It was named Angra 1 because it was installed 130 km west of Rio de Janeiro as the crow flies, on the edge of the sea, in the municipality of Angra dos Reis.

The works lasted from 1972 to 1982 and the plant began to operate in 1985, with a generating capacity of 657 megawatts.

Meanwhile, in 1975, the military government signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with Germany, which included the construction of eight other plants, with technology transfer.

Only the first of them, Angra 2, installed in the same small bay surrounded by mountains, finally began to operate – after a process that lacked transparency – in 2000, generating 1,650 megawatts.

The second German technology unit, Angra 3, began to be built in 1984, although work was interrupted two years later and only resumed between 2010 and 2015.

Reviving a project of astronomical costs sounds like an unlikely undertaking for a government that pledged to voters that it would carry out a fiscal adjustment, starting by reducing the deficit of the social security system.

Besides, the plant would be using outdated technology and equipment stored for more than three decades, all from Germany, which is dismantling its last nuclear plants.

Against the expansion of Brazil’s nuclear industry conspires the cost of its energy, much more expensive than hydropower, which is abundant in Brazil, and than solar and wind energy – alternatives sources whose cost is steadily dropping.

Above all, megaprojects have a track record that includes many failures.

The highway that General Santa Rosa wants to promote in the Amazon is precisely the northernmost and abandoned stretch of one of the mega-projects designed by the military dictatorship and whose construction began in the early 1970s.

BR-163 was supposed to cross the entire Brazilian territory from south to north, stretching a distance of 3,470 km. But construction came to a halt in Santarém, where the Tapajós River flows into the Amazon River. It was a white elephant for more than two decades, until the expansion of soybeans in the state of Mato Grosso made it useful again.

The idea of the new project is to complete it up to the Surinam border, but it is not economically justified. The stretch where the largest soybean production is transported to the ports for export is economically viable, but 90 km of that stretch are still not paved, which would require a large investment.

The government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2011), of the leftist Workers’ Party (PT), also unleashed a wave of mega-projects that largely failed, such as railways, ports, shipyards, refineries and petrochemical plants, and turned into corruption scandals.

Large hydroelectric plants were completed, but triggered protests from local populations, which tarnished their image. And that would likely be the reaction if the current government’s works in the Amazon continue to forge ahead, since they would cause damage to a number of indigenous and “quilombola” – Afro-descendant communities – territories.

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By Porimol Palma
Mar 28 2019 (IPS-Partners)

(The Daily Star) – A transnational human-trafficking syndicate committed crimes against humanity in Malaysia and Thailand against the Rohingya from 2012 to 2015, the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (SUHAKAM) and Fortify Rights, a nongovernment rights body, have found in a six-year investigation.

During 2012-15, more than 170,000 people boarded ships from Myanmar and Bangladesh bound for Malaysia and Thailand, and the trade over Rohingyas is estimated to have generated between $50 and $100 million a year.

At sea and in the camps of Thai and Malaysian borders, the trafficking network committed “murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation or forcible transfer, imprisonment, torture, and rape, as part of a widespread and systematic attack directed against Rohingya civilians from Myanmar and Bangladesh” with knowledge of the widespread and systematic attack underway, the report said.

The majority of people trafficked were Rohingya Muslims, but in late 2014 and 2015, traffickers began to target Bangladeshi nationals as well, says the joint report “Sold Like Fish” released in Bangkok yesterday.

“The Commission and Fortify Rights therefore have reasonable grounds to believe that human-trafficking networks committed crimes against humanity at sea and in camps in Malaysia and Thailand against Rohingya civilians from 2012 to 2015,” said the report.

It comes at a time when the world witnesses one of the biggest refugee crisis as some 750,000 Rohingyas fled a brutal military crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, where they are denied citizenship and basic rights, since August 2017.

Escalation of conflicts between Arakan Army and Myanmar military is currently displacing thousands in Rakhine state.

Meanwhile, dozens of cases of trafficking of Rohingyas from the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar to Malaysia and Indonesia made headlines in recent months.

“The victims of these crimes and their families suffered tremendously, and these horrific crimes should never happen again in Malaysia and anywhere else for that matter,” said SUHAKAM Commissioner Jerald Joseph in a statement.

WHAT HAPPENED IN 2012-2015?

On April 30, 2015, the Thai authorities discovered more than 30 bodies in a mass grave in a makeshift camp near Malaysian border. Then on May 25 the same year, Malaysian police announced discovery of 139 graves and 28 suspected human-trafficking camps in Wang Kelian, Perlis State.

The discoveries led to a crackdown against human traffickers only to find another crisis in the sea where some 5000 to 6000 victims of human trafficking — believed to be Rohingyas and Bangladeshis — were found drifting in rickety boats. After initial reluctance, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia rescued them.

The investigation is based on more than 270 interviews with eyewitnesses, survivors, human traffickers, government officials, and others from 2013 to 2019.

It revealed traffickers piled hundreds and thousands of Rohingya refugees into repurposed fishing vessels and deprived them of adequate food, water, and space, committing torture and, in some cases, rape at sea.

Traffickers murdered captives, and many died by suicide at sea. In the Thai and Malaysian jungle camps, traffickers provided their captives with three options: raise upwards of $2,000 in exchange for release, be sold into further exploitation, or die in the camps, the report said.

Members of a syndicate tortured, killed, raped, and otherwise abused untold numbers of men, women, and children, buying and selling them systematically in many cases, in concert with government officials.

Traffickers from Myanmar, Thailand, and Malaysia denied their captives access to adequate food, water, and space, resulting in deaths, illness, and injury. They tortured Rohingya captives with pipes, bats, clubs, belts, wires, tasers, nails, threats and intimidation, and other means, the report said.

“When I was unable to pay the money to the men, they poured boiling water on my head and body,” said a Rohingya Muslim who was 16 years old when traffickers tortured him in a camp on the Malaysia-Thailand border in 2014.

The perpetrators also murdered or caused the death of captives and buried bodies in mass graves and, in some cases, forced captives to bury bodies.

“People died every day,” said a 20-year-old Rohingya woman who survived a human-trafficking camp on the border. “Some days more, some days less, but people died every day.”

Traffickers also systematically sold untold numbers of Rohingya women and girls into forced marriages and situations of domestic servitude in Malaysia, said the report.

“For years, this was a calculated business and attack on the Rohingya community,” said Matthew Smith, Chief Executive Officer of Fortify Rights.

“The massive scale and horrific severity of these operations were never properly documented or fully prosecuted. This new evidence demonstrates the need for accountability.”

However, that still remains a far cry. In 2017, Thailand convicted 62 defendants, including nine Thai government officials, for crimes related to the human trafficking. Since 2015, Malaysian courts convicted only four non-Malaysian persons of trafficking-related offences connected to the mass graves discovered at Wang Kelian in Perlis.

Eyewitness testimonies indicate the complicity or, in some cases, direct involvement of government authorities in the transnational trade over Rohingya refugees. Thai authorities extra-judicially transferred or sold them from state custody to members of a transnational human-trafficking syndicate, the report said.

Late last month, Malaysia created a Royal Commission of Inquiry to investigate and ensure accountability for the human trafficking and mass graves in Wang Kelian.

“There’s a fresh political will in Malaysia to right these wrongs and ensure justice and accountability for Rohingya and all victims of these heinous crimes,” said Jerald Joseph of SUHAKAM.

SUHAKAM and Fortify Rights demand protection of the survivors of these attacks under Malaysian law as survivors of human trafficking, and, in the case of Rohingya, protection as refugees.

The Malaysia government should put into place measures to prevent such crimes from occurring again, the report said.

“The international community should do everything in its power to address the root causes of this crisis in Myanmar.”

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

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WHO-SEARO Goodwill Ambassador for ASD Saima Wazed Hossain with the Honorable Prime Minister of Bhutan during a ‘Special Session’ featuring self-advocates. Credit: Rohit Vohra, APF

By Saima Wazed Hossain
DHAKA, Mar 28 2019 (IPS)

The Kingdom of Bhutan is a landlocked country surrounded by Bangladesh, India and the Tibetan region of China. It is a country that brought the term Gross National Happiness as a concept by which to measure a country’s progress. In April 2017 it celebrated WAAD by hosting the International Conference on Autism & Neurodevelopmental Disorders (ANDD2017) in Thimphu.

Not only did it bring together the senior most political leaders for both countries, Prime Minister H.E. Sheikh Hasina and H.E. Dasho Tshering Tobgay, but also Her Majesty the Druk Gyaltsuen, Jetsun Pema Wangchuk, wife of the King of Bhutan.

The 3-day conference, hosted by the Ministry of Health, Royal Government of Bhutan and co-organized with Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Bangladesh, WHO-SEARO, Shuchona Foundation, and Ability Bhutan Society, the event was organized without any external funding partners and by invitation only.

The theme, developing effective and sustainable multi-sectorial programs for individuals, families and communities living with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) was actively discussed through open ended discussions by panels that comprised of experts, care-givers, parents and self-advocates addressing the core challenges faced by families and still left largely unaddressed in the era of the SDGs.

The inaugural ceremony at the Royal Banquet Hall was honored by the presence of Her Majesty the Druk Gyaltsuen, who launched a book titled, Guideline for Differently Abled Friendly Construction published by the Royal Government of Bhutan.

 

Panelists speaking during the session on ‘Early Identification’. Credit: Rohit Vohra, APF

 

Followed by speeches by the honored guests, debut of a short film on inclusion produced by Shuchona Foundation and a powerful presentation by Dr. Yolanda Liliana Mayo Ortega, Founder/Executive Director of CASP on ‘The power of two’.

This was followed by a High-Level Discussion on Enabling countries to successfully address ASD and other NDDs as part of their SDGs featuring participation by regional directors and representatives of UNICEF, UNESCAP, UN Women, UNESCO, IOM, ILO and WHO, country representatives and experts. Chaired by H.E., Sheikh Hasina, Co-Chaired by Dr. Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Regional Director of WHO-SEARO and moderated by Saima Hossain the discussion focused on common aspirations and not only set the tone of the Conference but the powerful remarks by speakers paved the way for an effective way forward so that children and adults with NDDs can be included in the global development agenda.

The majority of the conference comprised of 5 thematic sessions on identification, intervention, education, employment and independent living. Each session comprised of 2 panels with 7 participants consisting of self-advocates, professionals and caregivers.

The first thematic session discussed community-based early identification systems, focusing on issues in understanding screening vs. diagnostic evaluation and how rigorous methods can be implemented within the health system. Although early identification is of utmost importance, ASD is difficult to identify conclusively before 5 years of age, and panellists recommended that recognizing developmental deficits with the help of parents and caregivers, will ensure that relevant intense interventions are provided and conducted at the community level at the earliest ages possible.

Day 2 sessions focused on issues surrounding Models for Intervention Services and Evidence-based Intervention Programs. Successful examples of various community-based models for intervention delivery was discussed. The panel on Education explored how individuals with ASD and other NDDs have varying levels of skills and benefit from maximum time with same age typically functioning peers. Self-advocate, Dr. Stephen Shore emphasized the need for various models for appropriate education and variety of resources required for inclusion in all settings.

 

The Honorable Prime Minister of Bhutan speaking at the inaugural ceremony. Credit: Rohit Vohra, APF

 

A Special Session, featured self-advocates, Dr. Stephen Shore (USA), Daniel Giles (Australia), and Qazi Fazli Azeem (Pakistan) and a special guest Prime Minister  Dasho Tshering Tobgay. While each one’s experience was starkly different, it was an opportunity to showcase the uniqueness of ASD and how no two persons on the spectrum are truly alike.

Despite their differences in experiences, each of them has supportive families, friends, and a sense of community and belongingness. They emphasized the importance of individualized customized approach, the family as the central focus of services, developing a sense of self, as a pathway to effective self-advocacy.

The final day’s panels on employment and independent living focused on human rights and emphasized that the right to employment, earning and self-care is an important but often overlooked aspect of disability; the panellists, shared their successful models for training and living independently with varying degrees of support.

A Round-Table Discussion followed by the launch of the Regional Collaborative Framework for Addressing Autism by the Advisor for Mental Health (WHO-SEARO).

Government, civil society, and international organizations, as well as professional bodies and academia discussed the existing challenges of the treatment gap, lack of awareness and policies, stigma, paucity of financial, institutional and human resources, and the need for a coordinated response and intergovernmental collaboration for inclusive development.

A call was made to ensure cost-effective systematic response that is structured, coordinated and feasible for low-resource countries. In addition to panels, 11 technical workshops on the latest diagnostic and intervention tools, posters, and a side event of the international Early Childhood Development Task Force were held concurrently.

The Conference of 300 stakeholders from 31 countries not only adopted the Thimphu Declaration and Regional Collaborative Framework, but also compiled essential recommendations to ensure international resolutions are effectively implemented in the era of the SDG’s.

Following ANDD2017, the Royal Government of Bhutan has requested Shuchona Foundation to develop a multisectoral national strategic plan for ASD.

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The post Developing Effective and Sustainable Programmes for Those Living with and Affected by Autism Spectrum Disorder appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Saima W. Hossain, a licensed school psychologist, is the WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Autism in the South East Asia Region, Chair of the National Advisory Committee on Autism and NDDs in Bangladesh, and Chairperson of Shuchona Foundation

The post Developing Effective and Sustainable Programmes for Those Living with and Affected by Autism Spectrum Disorder appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Social Protection and Financing Social Development

By Amina J. Mohammed
BANGKOK, Thailand, Mar 28 2019 (IPS)

2019 will be a defining year for the 2030 Agenda; and the regional forums will pave the way for our first stocktaking on the SDGs in the General Assembly in September.

Asia-Pacific is a region like no other. This is an incredibly diverse group of countries. From large economies to the small island states. From G20 economies to countries facing long-lasting crises and seeking a transition back into development. From middle to low income countries – this region is a microcosm of our global community.

Each face unique challenges, but all driven by the same ambition of a better future for all. Over recent years, I have watched with fascination the progress of nations of Asia and the Pacific in their road to sustainable development.

Your governments have taken on the challenge of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with decisive leadership. You are making significant investments to enhance data and statistical coverage, take partnerships to scale and promote people-centered policies, strategies and programmes.

This region has also established strong foundations for cooperation and peer exchange. And here I want to acknowledge the leadership of our ESCAP Executive Secretary, for ensuring that you are well supported.

You have a regional roadmap for implementing the 2030 Agenda, which ensures clarity in the direction of travel. Your follow-up and review infrastructures re designed to allow you to understand the human stories behind the numbers and to exchange best practices to move forward.

Many of you are leaders in south-south cooperation and – as we were reminded in Buenos Aires last week – cooperation amongst countries from the south is an invaluable asset to advance sustainable development.

And you are taking steps, together, to leave no one behind – today’s focus on inclusion and equality speaks to that commitment.

This is a powerful message of the 2030: no matter where you are born, how marginalized your community is – the world is determined to carry everyone along in our journey to 2030.

I encourage you to take advantage of the discussions today to address a few fundamental questions: Who are the “no-ones” that we pledge to not leave behind? What determines their exclusion? What does it mean to feel included – or excluded? Are we doing enough, collective, to empower all individuals in our human family?

These are not theoretical questions voiced through microphones in meeting rooms of New York, Bangkok or other capitals of the world.

These are real-life dilemmas for billions around the world, who look at the 2030 Agenda as a life-changing possibility for a better future.

We must recognize that we are not on track to deliver on the ambitions we set for ourselves. The data starting to emerge indicates that the world is not on track to achieve the SDGs.

In Asia-Pacific, rising inequalities have become a major obstacle to accelerating progress. Inequality of wealth, of access to basic services and inequality in the ability to withstand setbacks and respond to the ravages wrought by climate change, are all on the rise. The numbers are clear.

The region’s combined income inequality has increased by over 5 percent in the past two decades, including in the region’s most populous countries – China, India and Indonesia.

As a result, 70 per cent of the population in this region lives in countries where inequality has grown over recent years.

Gender inequality continues to hinder progress. Close to two-thirds of all working women are in the informal sector, with insecure employment and little – if any – social protection.

And while the region is now home to the largest number of billionaires in the world, millions of people lack access to fundamental services. This erodes social and economic progress, but also undermines the social contract, with consequences for peace and stability.

Environmental degradation is also taking its toll. The average loss in productivity due to pollution is roughly 8 times higher in developing countries than in developed countries in the region.

I know I speak for all of us when I say that it is time to share the benefits of growth and globalization more widely. It is a matter of urgency to empower our women and girls; to leverage the immense potential of youth for positive change and innovation; to reverse the trend on inequalities; and to put people and planet at the center.

There is no need to look far. There are abundant examples in this region that point the way forward for empowerment and inclusion of everyone.

But the question we must all address is: how can we increase ambition and accelerate implementation of the 2030 Agenda?

Allow me to highlight three drivers. First, we need to break down the silos that constrain policy action across sectoral lines. The paradigm shift ushered in by the 2030 Agenda is not complete.

We have not yet fully transitioned from the Millennium Development Goals into the era of the SDGs. For example, addressing climate change is not only about preventing catastrophic events; reducing fossil fuels use has also direct and immediate benefits on health.

Second, we need to match intentions with finance – both public and private. There is growing private interest in SDG financing and a proliferation of impact investment in the region. This is great. But we are still far from the “trillions” that are required to achieve the SDGs everywhere, for everyone.

Third, we need to take action to scale to partnerships at a scale that we have not witnessed before. We will not achieve the 2030 Agenda – nor win the race against climate change – without involving all sectors of society towards our common goals.

You can count on the United Nations to continue to transform and better support your efforts. The Secretary-General is leading a deep reform of the United Nations, to place prevention at the center and ensure that the Organization is better positioned to support the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.

We now have a roadmap for change and clear and ambitious mandates by the UN General Assembly. And we are moving forward at full speed.

We know many of you are already engaged with our UN Country Teams to leverage these reforms and effect change on the ground. At the end of this process, you can expect to see more cohesive, effective and accountable UN Country Teams. We want to adapt more closely to the priorities and needs of each developing country, with an empowered leader for development, with much better coordination.

Resident Coordinators will be critical to leverage more systematically all the expertise ad assets that are scattered across the UN – including in our Regional Economic Commissions and specialized agencies.

We are currently working on the review of all our regional assets, to see how we can maximize our impact in support to country action. We need a architecture that responds to the heightened demands of the 2030 Agenda.

On 1 January, we have crossed a major milestone in this reform process with the creation of an independent and empower system to coordinate all development activities of the UN.

Resident Coordinators were also Representatives of the UN Development Programme. Now they dedicate full attention to the coordination, policy and partnerships needs of the SDGs.

And UNDP can fully focus on its important development mandate, and reassert its role as a though leader that is so deeply valued. Later today, I will meet with Resident Coordinators from the region, who are here to engage in these regional discussions and come back with new tools to support you.

Resident Coordinators are our leaders for development on the ground. And they work to support your efforts and make the 2030 Agenda a reality for all. I know they are excited to proceed in this journey with you.

The clock is ticking on the 2030 Agenda, and the true test of our reforms will be results in each country. It is our collective responsibility to show greater urgency.

I know that we have both the energy and the leadership in this conference room to make it happen. In that spirit of partnership and shared endeavor, I wish you all the best for a successful forum.

The post Rising Inequalities in Asia-Pacific have become a Major Obstacle to Accelerating Progress appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Amina J. Mohammed, the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, in a keynote address to the opening session of the Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development.

The post Rising Inequalities in Asia-Pacific have become a Major Obstacle to Accelerating Progress appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 28 2019 (IPS)

The widespread political repression in countries such as the Philippines, Egypt and Saudi Arabia– and rising right-wing nationalism in the US, Brazil, Italy, India, Poland and Hungary– have increasingly triggered attacks on human rights and civil society organisations (CSOs).

The annual 2019 “State of Civil Society” report released March 27 details a “terrifying picture of fundamental freedoms under serious threat in 111 of the world’s countries”– well over half of all the countries globally.”

Only four per cent of the world’s population live in countries where fundamental freedoms of association, peaceful assembly and expression are respected and enabled.

Authored by the Johannesburg-based CIVICUS, a global alliance of CSOs and activists dedicated to strengthening citizen action and civil society worldwide, the study warns that the rise of right-wing populism and the influence of anti-rights extremist groups are helping to fuel these threats to democracy in so many nations.

But the report also outlines the various ways, in various countries, that civil society and citizens are fighting back, and claiming victories in defence of their rights.

As one of the “alarming examples,” it singles out the Italian government’s decision to impose a hefty fine on one of the world’s best known humanitarian organisations, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), while simultaneously freezing their assets, impounding their rescue vessel and investigating their staff for human trafficking…in retaliation for their efforts to save refugees from drowning in the Mediterranean Sea.

And there were also instances of activists being charged, tried and convicted in the United States for providing water supplies for migrants crossing the deadly Sonoran desert on the US/Mexico border.

Lysa John, CIVICUS Secretary General, says “civil society, acting on humanitarian impulses, confronts a rising tide of global mean spiritedness, challenging humanitarian values in a way unparalleled since the Second World War.”

“We need a new campaign, at both global and domestic levels, to reinforce humanitarian values and the rights of progressive civil society groups to act,” added John.

The theme of this year’s ICSW, which takes place in Belgrade April 8-12, is “The Power of Togetherness” focusing on harnessing the power of collective action to respond to rights restrictions and rightwing globalism.

According to the CIVICUS report, in Europe, the US and beyond – from Brazil to India – right wing populists, nationalists and extremist groups are mobilising dominant populations to attack the most vulnerable.

This has led to an attack on the values behind humanitarian response as people are being encouraged to blame minorities and vulnerable groups for their concerns about insecurity, inequality, economic hardship and isolation from power.

This means that civil society organisations that support the rights of excluded populations such as women and LGBTQI people and stand up for labour rights are being attacked.

As narrow notions of national sovereignty are being asserted, the report points out, the international system is being rewritten by powerful states, such as China, Russia and the USA, that refuse to play by the rules.

“Borders and walls are being reinforced by rogue leaders who are bringing their styles of personal rule into international affairs by ignoring existing institutions, agreements and norms”.

The report also points to a startling spike in protests relating to economic exclusion, inequality and poverty, which are often met with violent repression, and highlights a series of flawed and fake elections held in countries around the world in the last year.

“Democratic values are under strain around the globe from unaccountable strong men attacking civil society and the media in unprecedented – and often brutal – ways,” said Andrew Firmin, CIVICUS’ Editor-in-Chief and the report’s lead author.

And 2018 is being billed as a year in which regressive forces appeared to gain ground.

But the past year was also one in which committed civil society activists fought back against the rising repression of rights.

The report points out to the successes of the global #MeToo women’s rights movement to the March for Our Lives gun reform movement led by high school students in the US– to the growing school strike climate change movement, collective action gained ground to claim breakthroughs.

“Despite the negative trends, active citizens and civil society organisations have been able to achieve change in Armenia, where a new political dispensation is in place, and in Ethiopia, where scores of prisoners of conscience have been released,” said John.

The report makes several recommendations for civil society and citizen action. The report calls for new strategies to argue against right-wing populism while urging progressive civil society to engage citizens towards better, more positive alternatives.

These include developing and promoting new ideas on economic democracy for fairer economies that put people and rights at their centre. Notably, the report calls for reinforcing the spirit of internationalism, shared humanity and the central importance of compassion in everything we say and do.

Meanwhile, says the report, international institutions mostly struggled, hamstrung by the interests and alliances of powerful states, doing little to respond to the great challenges of the day, failing to fight overwhelming inequality, silent on the human rights abuses of states such as Saudi Arabia and Sudan, letting down the people of Syria and the Rohingya people of Myanmar, among many others.

Asked if the United Nations shouldn’t name and shame these countries where right wing extremism is on the rise, Mandeep Tiwana, Chief Programmes Officer at CIVICUS, told IPS the UN is facing serious funding challenges which make it dependent on the contributions of big countries for its operating budget.

“This might be leading to situations where ultra-nationalist leaders or those who subscribe to authoritarian precepts are getting a free pass for their actions that flagrantly violate the spirit of the UN Charter and also international law”.

He also pointed out that the funding situation is so dire that a number of UN bodies are courting private corporations to shore up their funding including with regards to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which could lead to undesirable policy influence in the fight against inequality, on labour rights and on efforts to reduce high level corruption.

Often restrictions on civil society are worsened when the increasingly close partnerships between governments and the private sector go unscrutinised.

It’s also important to remember, said Tiwana, that while the UN is increasingly turning to the private sector for assistance in achieving sustainable development, it is often civil society organisations that are working hand in hand with the UN in delivering humanitarian services on the frontlines, and risking their lives doing so.

“The divisive and selfish actions of nationalist leaders indicate that we might be heading towards a full-blown crisis of the multilateral system”.

“In the present situation where we are facing a crisis of compassion from the actions of meanspirited right wing populists, it’s important that the UN stands with civil society organisations and activists working towards just, equal and sustainable societies”.

He argued that public statements from senior UN officials across the institutions’ various pillars, followed by actions and willingness by UN officials on the ground to engage governments that attack human rights and civil society, are urgently needed in the present scenario.

The UN needs to make common cause with political leaders and governments committed to strengthening multilateralism and the international human rights framework in these testing times, he declared.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

The post Civil Society Organisations Under Attack by Rightwing Governments & Extremist Groups appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

This article is part of a series on the current state of civil society organisations (CSOs), which will be the focus of International Civil Society Week (ICSW), sponsored by CIVICUS, and scheduled to take place in Belgrade, April 8-12.

The post Civil Society Organisations Under Attack by Rightwing Governments & Extremist Groups appeared first on Inter Press Service.

In Bangladesh a large number of girls said they felt uncomfortable to go to school or travel during their period due to abdominal pain and the fear of leakage from rags. Credit: Shafiqul Alam Kiron/IPS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 28 2019 (IPS)

As menstruation continues to be shamed in many communities, one organisation is rising up to the challenge to ensure “safe menstruation for all women of Bangladesh.”

Half of the approximately four billion women around the world are of reproductive age. For these women and girls, menstruation is a natural monthly reality. However, a lack of awareness and access to basic health and hygiene products or facilities has turned this reality into a barrier in Bangladesh.

“Menstruation is not an openly discussed topic in Bangladeshi society due to cultural beliefs and social norms around the body and blood,” Executive Director of the Center for Research and Information (CRI) Sabbir Bin Shams told IPS.

“Lack of awareness, proper education, economic constraints lead to rising of ‘conservative’ behaviour which finally impedes lifestyle improvement among girls,” he added.

Approximately 95 percent of women in Bangladesh do not use sanitary napkins either because they are unavailable or unaffordable. Instead, women and girls often use old rags and husk sand which often cause severe reproductive health problems such as reproductive tract infections and cervical cancer.

According to the World Health Organization, cervical cancer is the second most common type of cancer in Bangladesh, with approximately 12,000 new cases detected every year and over 6,000 deaths due to the severity of the disease.

Kamrun Nesa Mira saw this firsthand after visiting a remote river island in Bangladesh. After suddenly getting her period, she could not find a shop to buy sanitary pads so turned to a local woman who gave her a piece of old cloth.

While Mira took the cloth as a temporary placeholder, she was shocked and concerned when the woman told her to cover the cloth with sand, realising that many rural women do not practice safe menstruation.

While visiting a nearby school, Mira also found that many girls don’t go to school while on their period.

In fact, 95 percent of girls said they felt uncomfortable to go to school or travel during their period due to abdominal pain and the fear of leakage from rags.

This prompted Mira to help establish the All for One Foundation which promotes positive hygiene practices and provide access to affordable sanitary products.

“A natural thing like menstruation cannot be the barrier towards female education and life expectancy. In this context, awareness activities by youth led organisation, All for One Foundation to educate girls and women of underprivileged communities about safe menstrual practices are important for the progress of Bangladesh,” Shams said.

The organisation provides menstrual hygiene education not only to girls to prepare them for their first period, but also to male students and parents in order to help break the taboo around menstruation.

“You cannot change the life of a person entirely, but at least you can guide her to the direction through which she can change her own,” Mira said.

In the fight to make sanitary napkins more affordable, All for One Foundation found that such products are deemed to be “luxury” products and have an imposed sales tax of 45 percent.

This means a pack of 8-10 sanitary napkins cost between 75 and 140 Bangladeshi Taka (BDT). However, a tea worker earns approximately 85 BDT per day, leaving many women unable to afford sanitary products.

The group has since raised awareness of the issue and has been pushing for a tax exemption at a national scale.

“Sanitary napkins ensure safe menstruation. Menstrual hygiene is a basic right. Menstruation is a health condition and not a disease. And thus, safe menstruation should be accessible to every woman,” said All for One Foundation on its website.

While the initiative is still small, it is growing and expanding its reach.

“If organisations and youths play more active and constructive roles in building awareness, social norms and practices can be altered gradually and which may lead Bangladesh to become an inclusive nation,” Shams told IPS.

Young Bangla, the largest youth platform in Bangladesh, recognised the outstanding contribution to society and awarded the All for One Foundation the Joy Bangla Youth Award in 2018.

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The post Safe Menstrual Practices Important for Progress appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Roberto Savio
ROME, Mar 28 2019 (IPS)

Since the powerful march of hundreds of thousands of students in 1,000 towns against climate change, an unexpected campaign of delegitimation, ”demystification” and demonisation has started against Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teenager who started the movement. After searching the media, social media and websites, this campaign can be divided into four different groups.

Roberto Savio

The first could be called the stupid. A writer reports pictures of Greta eating a banana, claiming that this proves she has double standards. She wants to reduce gas emissions, and then she eats banana which come from far away. Why does she not eat an apple, which are produced locally in Sweden? Another writer observes that Greta has two beautiful large dogs, but those dogs must be eating meat, and cows are the greatest source of emission of methane (much more damaging than C02) and a cow uses up 15,000 litres of water before reaching the age of slaughter. Then, a third observes that Greta may well skip planes, but by using trains she is clearly using electrical power, which is still basically generated by coal. Then there is another reader protesting strongly because she has bought a sandwich in the train, which comes with a plastic wrap, and she is thus contributing to the damage caused by plastic to the seas. We are clearly in the realm of stupidity, because is impossible for anybody to do anything in this world without contributing to its degradation. This will only change when the political system corrects our lifestyle (just note how, by the sound of it, this is improbable!) If Greta were to ask her parents to give the two dogs away, were not to move from Stockholm at all, and were to eat only local apples, would this make such a substantive contribution to a better climate? Or is it more constructive to campaign and mobilise hundreds of thousands of people?

The second group can be called the jealous. These are the climate scientists who have written everywhere that they started to fight climate change even before Greta (who is now 16) was born. How is it possible that they have been ignored and now a little girl with no preparation is able to mobilise people all over the world? No self-criticism of the fact that they have not been able to inspire and communicate with students. Besides, Greta did not campaign as an expert. Her message in Davos, in Brussels, everywhere, was: Please listen to the scientists. An old Chinese proverb goes: never fight your allies.

The third group is the purists. They have been redistributing reports by Swedish journalists everywhere which delve into Greta’s background, discovering that her parents are active ecologists, that her father has always supported her, and that she has been influenced by a famous activist who has been behind her every step. They claim that in order to believe Greta, it would therefore have been necessary for her parents to have been indifferent to climate issues, and that she should have been totally alien to ecological circles. And this campaign continues, even though all Swedish journalist are unanimous in declaring that Greta has not been an instrument of anyone, and that she is only following only her commitments. Also because, by grace of the gods, she has a mental condition called Asperger’s Syndrome, which makes her a very single-minded person, indifferent to recognitions, compliments and compromises. So, in a letter to Le Figaro, one of the purists asks if it is logical to put hundreds of thousands of students from all over the world “under the guide of a zombie”. This category also includes many complaining that Greta is not denouncing the fact that Sweden is making money by selling weapons. Greta has denounced no one, so those responsible are quite happy. Greta has not started any campaign against finance because she does not understand that only by subduing finance can you change climate. And so on, according to the lenses through which her critics look at her.

And of course, there is the most legitimate group, the paternalists. This is a physiological group comprising those who think that young people have no idea about real life, and nothing serious will come out of the students’ movement, unless they listen to their elders. Their place is in school, not on the streets, they do not have the maturity to understand themes which require a scientific preparation. Exemplary is a letter published in Corriere della Sera, in which somebody observes that young people hardly read books any longer, use smartphones all day long and ignore classical music or theatre – they lack the gravitas necessary for real change. An extreme example of how paternalism is the twin of patriarchalism was a comment made by a well-dressed adult in a group observing the students marching for climate change: “I wonder how many of those girls are still virgin.” Asked about the relationship between virginity and climate change, the answer was: ”Well, until a girl is virgin, she can still have illusions, but not after.”

Those various reactions against a young girl who is simply asking to grow up in a sustainable world is clearly representative of how much society has changed in the last decade. We have come a long way. The period after the Second World War was characterised by the need to reconstruct, to make sacrifices, to make Europe an island of peace, to believe that politics were a participatory tool for changing society for the better. Social elevator, the certainty of young people that they would be better off than their parents, was everybody’s belief. Political rallies saw millions of people on the streets, with hopes and commitments. We all know how that world of idealism collapsed. With the destruction of the Berlin Wall, ideologies were the first to go. The keyword was pragmatism. But it was a pragmatism prisoner of the neoliberalism philosophy which was untouchable. As Margaret Thatcher famously said, There Is No Alternative (TINA). Social costs were unproductive, and finance took on a life by itself, no longer linked to the word of production. The state was pared down to the minimum. We should remember that Reagan proposed the abolition of the Ministry of Education and full privatisation of healthcare. The United Nations was considered obsolete: trade, not aid. For three decades, from Reagan (1981) to the great financial crisis of 2008, the motto was: compete, become rich, at national and Individual level. Politics become a mere administrative activity, devoid of long-term vision. The arrival of Internet changed society from an interactive and connected thread of relations based on platforms to share, into a net of parallel virtual worlds in which to seek refuge and avoid public action. The media followed by downgrading the complexity of information, concentrating on events and ignoring processes. TV basically passed into the field of entertainment with programmes that were shaping popular culture, like Big Brother, or the L’Isola dei Famosi (Island of the Famous). Greed was considered good for society and praised by Hollywood. We were all living in a financial bubble that burst in 2008. It was then clear that politics no longer controlled finance, but vice versa. According Bloomberg, in order to bail out the banking system, the United States had to spend 12.8 trillion dollars, Europe spent 5 trillion dollars, 1.6 trillion just to stabilise the euro. China spent 156 billion, and Japan over 110 billion. Nobody knows for sure how much it cost the world to save its banking system, which was (and is), without any control or regulatory body. If the amount paid to bail out the banks had been distributed to the 7.5 billion people of the world, they would each have received 2,571 dollars. Enough to start a frenzy of acquisitions, especially in the South of the world, with an enormous leap in production. It would have practically solved all the world’s social problems indicated as the Millennium Goals by the United Nations in an agreement subscribed to by all countries. But, by then, the banks were more important than people … and for their illicit activities, the ungrateful banks have paid in fines totalling over 800 billion dollars since their bailout. Let us remember that greed was already being praised in Hollywood in 1987 by Gordon Gekko in the famous film ‘Wall Street’. Gekko famously says: “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good”. It is no coincidence that at the time of the financial crisis of 2008, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, said: ”It is perhaps time to admit that we did not learn the full lesson of the greed-is-good ideology.” And the following year, in a speech to the Italian Senate, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said: We have gone from free market to free greed.” And many manifestations of global civil society, like the World Social Forum, have been denouncing the submission of politics to finance, and how greed has become a value.

But after the thirty years of greed-is good came the major financial crisis of 2008, due to the irresponsibility of the financial system. That crisis brought an additional negative social impact which was fear: fear of unemployment, fear for the future, fear of terrorism. It became clear that the social elevator that had worked since the end of the Second World War had stopped, with millions of young people from all over the world stuck in it. The American dream itself was in crisis. And a new decade came, one of fear. As usual in cases of fear, a new narrative emerges. After the thirty years of greed, we have now a decade of fear. Neoliberalism, TINA, have lost any credibility. All political parties have betrayed the hopes of their voters. The people have been left out by the elites, by those in the system. So, since 2008, nationalist populist parties that claimed to defend the people flourished all over Europe, where before the crisis they had been practically non-existent (except for Le Pen in France). They continue to flourish. In the last Dutch elections, a new populist party, The Forum for Democracy, won 16 seats in the Senate. Its leader, Thierry Baudet, has discarded the bewitched invention of climate change, idolatry of the sustainable, indoctrination of the left. This is a position common to all populist parties. Their success has been to direct the fear against the different: different religions, different customs, different cultures … in other words, immigrants. Xenophobia has joined nationalism and populism.

Every year there has been a decline in real revenue, in dignified jobs. Traditional political parties have lost credibility and electorates have switched to new politicians, not part of the elite, who speak on behalf of the people and look to the glorious past as the basis for the future, ignoring any technological development. The social divide, taken as the basis by the new political culture, went into full destructive speed: in just ten years, 28 people concentrated in their hands the same wealth as 2.3 billion people. This is money taken away from the general economy; it means that for every billionaire there are thousands of impoverished people. In just the last year, the 42.2 million people in the world with more than one million dollars in financial assets, grew by 2.3 million This is why Pope Francis says that behind every large property there is a social mortgage.

It took a long road to abandon the world which came out of the Second World War an arrive at the present one: a world where phenomena that are abnormalities, like war and poverty, are now considered normal by most young people. Corruption, which has of course always existed, has now become another natural fact. Democracy, which was considered the central foundation of society, is now considered a debatable possibility, with Orban, Salvini and company promoting illiberal democracy.

Fear and greed have changed our society. We are in the middle of a transition, to where nobody knows. What is clear is that the present system is no longer functional and requires very serious corrections. The tide of nationalism, populism and xenophobia is taking us backwards to miseries that we had forgotten, instead of forwards. Electoral campaigns are not based on programmes but on discrediting opponents. When Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, disagreed with Trump, the latter’s Trade Secretary said that there must be a special place in hell for the Canadian PM. TV debates have become a school of incivility. The question is: are we entering a new era based on incivility? For the first time in the history of the British parliament, the various opponents are unable to find a way out from a referendum based on facts that where all lies.

We must recognise that we are living in a world where positive things are few and apart. A political, cultural and social climate where nothing is accepted as legitimated, hiding the truth, and manipulated by the enemy. An era of transition, that should be called “the era of evil think”.

The reaction to Greta Thunberg and her mobilisation is a good example of “evil think”. Instead of raising sympathy and support, this young girl is being submitted to this new culture of “evil think”. And yet she is campaigning for survival of the planet, the only one we have, and where we must all live together, regardless of our myths, religions, parties and nationalities. She says: do not ask my generation to solve the problem of climate change, because when we have grown up, it will be already too late. When she reaches the age of 50, there will be 10 billion people, basically all living in towns. But in just ten years, when she will be 26, humankind will need 50 percent more energy and food, and 30 percent more water, an element which is already scarce in a great part of the world, and which is a source of income for private companies. No wonder she is trying to stimulate action!

Save the world NOW is a message that has been able to mobilise students from all over the world. In the era of “evil think”, instead of supporting her, there are those looking at what she eats, what her dogs eat, and what is behind her and manipulating her. In other words, we are in an era in which we are not able to think positively: an era shaped by greed and fear, and with what today’s culture has given us: evil thinking. It is a safe bet that if Greta had sold sportswear, she would have been accepted as a normal phenomenon, and nobody would look at whether she was eating bananas or apples. This is a good index of how we have lost the ability to dream and go forward.

Roberto Savio is publisher of OtherNews, Italian-Argentine Roberto Savio is an economist, journalist, communication expert, political commentator, activist for social and climate justice and advocate of an anti neoliberal global governance. Director for international relations of the European Center for Peace and Development.. He is co-founder of Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency and its President Emeritus.

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Cyclone Idai’s aftermath in Mozambique. Credit: Denis Onyodi:IFRC/DRK/Climate Centre

By Sally Nyakanyanga
HARARE, Mar 28 2019 (IPS)

It was one of the worst tropical cyclones hit Southern Africa in recent times. Cyclone Idai, which has been characterised by heavy rains and flooding including mudslides in some parts of Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Malawi, has left more than 750 dead, with thousands marooned in remote rural areas, whilst others are still unaccounted for. More than 1,5 million people are affected by the cyclone in the region.

Almost two weeks after the cyclone hit, many of the areas have not been accessible as roads, bridges, homes were completely destroyed and communication cut off making it impossible for the rescue teams to provide support in the affected areas.

But as people begin to pick up the pieces of their lives, and as aid pours into the region from all corners of the world, questions are being asked about the disaster preparedness of many countries.

While the highest tolls of those affected are from Mozambique, eastern Zimbabwe was also hard hit by Cyclone Idai. There, large areas of water bodies are present where homes once were.

Meteorology and Early warning systems

Claris Madhuku, director for Youth Development Trust, a community-based nonprofit organisation based in Zimbabwe’s Chipinge and Chimanimani areas (the areas most affected by the cyclone), tells IPS that information provided by Zimbabwe’s meteorological department ahead of Cyclone Idai making landfall had been insufficient to prepare people of the danger.

In addition, many people did not have the capacity to cope with the cyclone and there were no safe alternative places for communities to flee to in the event of an evacuation.

“As an organisation we only managed to provide information on the cyclone by word of mouth as well as social media, in this case What’s app, which is rarely taken seriously as it is often seen as a gossip platform,” says Madhuku.

The country’s Civil Protection Unit, which is part of Zimbabwe’s Local Government Ministry, had told people to move to higher ground. It was a case of being between a rock and a hard place, as even those who sought refuge at high-lying areas were affected by mudslides.

Climate change expert, Dr. Leonard Unganai stated that almost every season tropical cyclones form in the southern hemisphere, but only five percent tend to make a landfall.

But since 2018 was the warmest year on record, as seen by the droughts and dry spells that characterised the 2018/2019 farming season, this created conducive conditions for cyclones to form.

“A tropical cyclone requires energy that’s why they tend to form mostly on the ocean as the ocean temperatures are a bit warm. Furthermore, with climate change, a situation whereby surface temperatures are rising even the oceans are warming up which creates favourable conditions for these extreme weather events to form,” says Unganai, adding that there is likely to be an increase in terms of the intensity of the severity of the cyclone system.

“We have a warm atmosphere and warm oceans such that when they strike they tend to cause a lot of destruction,” Unganai tells IPS.

Climate change adaptation and mitigation.

Unganai advised that there should be more awareness and education around climate change. In the case of Cyclone Idai there was lack of preparedness and people underestimated the gravity or amount of rain that would fall.

Local rescue operations in the aftermath have not all been effect as in some cases people resorted to using shovels and hoes to dig up rocks and trees. The lack of adequate equipment and tools to undertake rescue operations has been obvious and the country has turned to neighbours and other partners for assistance. South Africa has offered sniffer dogs in order to identify dead bodies trapped under boulders.

“There is a lot of panic as there is a mismatch of official statistics available about people who are missing, pointing to the fact that more people could have lost their lives,” Madhuku notes.

There is obviously a need for governments to put in place measures and systems to ensure adequate support and disaster mitigation. 

“We still going to get tropical cyclones affecting lives, we need to map areas that are susceptible – having long term plans to deal with future cyclones if they happen. Ideally we need to ensure that every part of the country should have some level of preparedness,” Unganai advises.

Where people are housed after a natural disaster is also import.

Some areas in Chimanimani and Chipinge had preciously designated for plantations, but in the aftermath of the cyclone there are settlements of people seeking shelter. 

Madhuku remembers back in 2000 when Cyclone Eline affected communities in the eastern part of the country. People had fled the destruction and ended up erecting permanent structures on the river banks and below the mountains.

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Dr. Ainka Granderson, manager of the Caribbean Natural Resources Institute's climate change programme in Trinidad and Tobago. Credit:Jewel Fraser/IPS

By Jewel Fraser
PORT-OF-SPAIN, Mar 28 2019 (IPS)

Fishers in Anguilla saw posted on Youtube this week a video they helped produce that depicts the impacts of climate change on their industry. Titled “Anguilla’s Fishing Dilemma”, the four-and-a-half minute video highlights some of the main challenges Anguilla’s 92 licensed fishers face in earning a living.

Kenyetta Alord, one of the fishers who worked on the video, told IPS that the video was important to “demonstrate to people that you definitely need help.” He and several other fishers produced the video as part of a workshop sponsored by the UK’s Darwin Plus project for climate change adaptation in fisheries. Darwin Plus helps Britain’s overseas territories, including those in the Eastern Caribbean such as Anguilla, by funding projects in the areas of conservation and environmental sustainability.

The workshop, which ran in late December, was conducted by the Trinidad-based Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI) and Anguilla’s Department of Fisheries and Marine Resources. “It was part of a campaign of mobilising the knowledge fishers have to get them and the agencies that support them to start taking action on climate change,” said Dr. Ainka Granderson, senior technical officer and manager of CANARI’s Climate Change and Risk Reduction Programme.

Twenty-five participants attended the workshop, including delegates from the Anguilla National Trust, dive operators, and government agencies that work in fisheries and marine resource management, Granderson said.

“The idea is that there is a lot of local knowledge about the impacts [of climate change] that have not been tapped into by the authorities,” she said. “So the workshop was to get [participants] thinking about how they can share their knowledge and raise awareness about these specific aspects.”

Granderson said fishers often may not have “a clear voice” when it comes to decision making with regard to the fishing industry. The workshop on communications using participatory videos was designed to help them “say what are their priority needs and what are the actions they would like to see to build their resilience.”

The fishing industry is important for Anguilla’s economy, said Director of Anguilla’s Department of Fisheries and Marine Resources Kafi Gumbs. She told IPS via e-mail that the fishing industry is “the second highest revenue generator” for Anguilla. “Besides revenue, it forms an important part of the locals’ diet and culture.”

She said authorities in Anguilla were concerned that the impacts of climate change could lead to the collapse of the fishing industry and related ecosystem services. In addition, her department was concerned about possible migration “and/or no or delayed migration” of some pelagics; sea level rise; loss of calcium carbonate plants and animals such as conch and lobster, the latter being Anguilla’s main fisheries export; as well as damage to reefs and water inundation, since “a lot of the hospitality businesses which the local fishers depend on are along the coast.”

The fishers also feel the impacts of climate change in the form of rougher seas, said Granderson, that seriously reduce the number of days they are able to fish. “Snow storms in the U.S. produce groundswells, making very rough sea conditions. Every two weeks there are days when they cannot go out. It is an ongoing issue.”

Alord confirmed that rough seas pose a major challenge for local fishers. “Now you have to wait at least a month or two before you go out. Before, there were calm days in every month,” he said. But “now we have to wait two months to go out, so we are earning a lot less.”

And because of the increasing fishing effort required, due in part to the effects of climate change, fishers also have to go further out to sea, greatly increasing their fuel costs. “Fuel is incredibly expensive on these small islands, which rely on fossil fuel. They spend a lot of money,” Granderson told IPS.

Alord told IPS that his boat, which carries a crew of three, routinely spends hundreds of dollars on fishing trips in one week.

He said the training in video production was valuable for helping the fishers to showcase their concerns. It helped them appreciate the importance of identifying a target audience for their video, as well as helped them in crafting their message in the most effective way.

Alord said, “We had to show why we need these things in place. We have to present the videos in the most [graphic] way where we definitely have to make them understand what we are saying.”

Granderson said the workshop training was successful partly because most of the fishers in Anguilla are young.”Because of that they were very accustomed to using Youtube.There was already a fisher who has his own Youtube channel that everybody follows, so they were tech savvy and used to using video,” Granderson said.

She said she was pleased with the response of the Anguillan fishers and their turnout for the workshop, which was unusually high.”There are a lot requests for their time, so there is a lot of stakeholder fatigue.” She added that the quality of the video produced was also superior to that of other participatory videos CANARI had done over the years. “We will do an official launch next week….The feedback was generally very positive,” Granderson said.

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• Accelerating the Caribbean’s Climate Resilience

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Meretha Pierson, a nurse in the leprosy clinic of Majuro, Marshall Islands, shows the medication to cure leprosy that are provided for free. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella Paul
MAJURO, Mar 28 2019 (IPS)

Meretha Pierson has been a nurse for the past seven years, working in the government-run leprosy clinic in Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands. Her patients come in all ages, from different economic backgrounds and different professions. But, aside from their diagnosis, they all have something else in common: everyone wants to keep their illness a secret.

“Everyone requests me not to tell their neighbours. But women who are young, request me to not inform even their spouses. ‘Please don’t tell my husband,’ they say.  Sometimes, such a request is really hard to keep,” Pierson tells IPS.

Unwanted labels

There is a reason why Pierson, one of the handful of trained health workers who can detect a case of leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease, can’t always promise full confidentiality to her patients.

Marshall Islands is believed to have 50 to 80 new cases of leprosy every year – a number that is very big for a population of only 60,000.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), if more than 1 in every 10,000 people are affected by leprosy, then it should be considered as a disease that has not been eliminated.

Marshall Islands, as classified by the WHO, is therefore far from eliminating the disease.

But it is a classification that the government is eager to get rid of. In mid-2018, the government and the country’s Ministry of Health, ran a three-month long health screening campaign where over 27,000 citizens were tested for both leprosy and tuberculosis so that every affected person could receive treatment.

Concrete details on the number of leprosy cases are yet to be made public, but health workers like Pierson have already been instructed to keep a close eye on the patients who do not return to report on their health and who stop treatment in the middle of the course. And this is why it makes it really difficult to keep the promise of not alerting anyone to their illness as health workers are often compelled to seek out the patients.

Tracking these patients down and convincing them to restart their medication is both a necessity and a requirement that forms part of the government’s new campaign to curb the disease.

But as they do so, the requests for confidentiality becomes more frequent.

“They do not want us to go to their houses. So, we make phone calls, call them to a place outside of their homes and their neighbourhood and that’s where we do our counselling and advise them to return to the clinic for a check-up and continue the treatment. But it’s hard,” Pierson tells IPS.

The leprosy hotspots in the Marshall Islands. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

Discrimination towards the caregiver

However, it is not only patients who are stigmatised on this island nation. Health workers themselves often bear the brunt themselves in a society where over 80 percent of the population are of Christian faith. Pierson, a Mormon, says that she has often faced discrimination from her neighbours and relatives who have suspected her of having leprosy.

“They think because I work in a leprosy clinic, I am carrying the germ or the disease myself. Some even ask why I do not give up this job. I have to always tell them that I am a nurse and I do not have leprosy myself. Even in the church, I get those stares,” she says. Fortunately, her husband is supportive and has never asked her to leave her job.

The hotspots

There are around 30 atolls that comprise the Marshall Islands and about a quarter of them are known as the hotspots of leprosy, according to Dr. Ken Jetton, the main physician at the country’s Department of Public Health.

Jetton officially diagnoses and confirms leprosy cases after Pierson detects a possible case and refers the patient to him.

He tells IPS that few of these ‘hotspots’ include the atolls of Kwajalein, Ailinglaplap, Mili, Arno, Wotje and Ebon. During the recent mass health screening, about 47 new cases were reported from these places.

The data sheet is yet to be complied, but once this is done, a proper plan will be drawn up to treat each patient until they are cured, Jetton reveals. The medication, Multi Drug Therapy (MDT), an oral medicine, is given free of charge in 6 packs for children and 12 packs for adults.

Understanding the gaps in country’s leprosy elimination campaign is one of the reasons why a team from the Sasakawa Memorial Health Foundation (SMHF), led but its executive director Takahiro Nanri, as well as the world’s leading expert on leprosy, Dr. Arturo Cunanan, are travelling around the Marshall Islands and the Micronesia region. They have been meeting with senior government and health officials and leprosy experts and have visited clinics in Marshall Islands and the Federated State of Micronesia. Yohei Sasakawa, chair of the Nippon Foundation, the parent body for SMHF, is the WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, and Japan’s Ambassador for the Human Rights of People Affected by leprosy. He will be touring the region in April to also assess the progress governments have made.

However, Pierson says that despite the screening and follow up activities, social stigma, especially towards the female leprosy patients might take longer than expected to fade away. This is because the island nation is still largely ignorant of the fact that leprosy as a curable disease, she explains.

Patience, therefore, is the key, she reminds. “We must be patient and  also have empathy for those who hide their diseases from others. They are vulnerable and scared of losing their dignity and we need to understand this,” says the nurse.

Related Articles

• Q&A: Why Treating Leprosy as a Special Disease Violates the Rights of the Person Affected by It
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• Living with Leprosy on the Climate-Vulnerable Kiribati Island Atolls

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A lack of gender equality in career opportunity and long work hours perpetuate wage differences between men and women.

By Kazuo Yamaguchi
CHICAGO, Illinois, Mar 27 2019 (IPS)

Japan is not making progress in gender equality, at least relative to the rest of the world. Despite the Japanese government’s attempts in recent years to pass legislation promoting the economic activity of women, Japan ranked a miserable 110 out of 149 in the World Economic Forum’s 2018 Gender Gap Index, which benchmarks countries on their progress toward gender parity across four major areas.

While this rank is a slight improvement over 114 out of 146 in 2017, it remains the same or lower than in the preceding years (111 in 2016 and 101 in 2015).

Among the primary reasons for Japan’s low ranking is its large gender wage gap. At 24.5 percent in 2018, the gender wage gap is the second largest among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations, surpassed only by South Korea.

Why is this gap so large in Japan? A major cause is the large number of women who are “non-regular” workers. “Regular” workers in Japan are employed on indefinite terms without specific job obligations and are strongly protected from firings and layoffs, while non-regular workers—including many fulltime employees—have fixed-term contracts with specific job obligations.

Just over 53 percent of employed women ages 20 to 65 fall into the non-regular category, compared with just 14.1 percent of employed men in 2014.

As is true elsewhere, Japan’s non-regular employees have nearly uniformly low wages, irrespective of age and gender. For regular employees, on the other hand, wages increase with age until the employee reaches approximately 50 years old.

This is because in a large majority of Japanese firms, regular employees receive wage premiums based on years of service. The gender disparity in the proportion of non-regular employees is perpetuated by the employers’ perception that new graduates are more desirable candidates for regular employment.

Because employers tend to prioritize the hiring of these younger job seekers for regular employment, women who leave their jobs for childrearing and attempt to re-enter the job market at a later date have very limited opportunities for regular employment.

However, my analysis of the gender wage gap by a combination of employment types (four categories distinguishing regular versus non-regular employment and full-time versus part-time work) and age categories finds that gender differences in employment type—specifically the larger proportion of women than men employed in non-regular positions—explain only 36 percent of the gender wage gap (Yamaguchi 2011).

In fact, the primary factor is actually the gender wage gap within full-time regular employment, which accounts for more than half of the overall gender wage gap. The elimination of the gender wage gap among regular workers is therefore a more pressing issue than fixing the overrepresentation of women in non-regular employment.

A major cause of gender wage disparity among regular employees in Japan is the dearth of female managers. According to the 2016 Basic Survey on Equality of Employment Opportunity by the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare, women hold 6.4 percent of the positions of department director or equivalent; 8.9 percent of section head or equivalent; and 14.7 percent of task-unit supervisor or equivalent.

This same survey also asked employers with very few female managers for the possible causes of the paucity of women in the higher ranks. The two major reasons identified among many prespecified possible reasons were “at the moment, there are no women who have the necessary knowledge, experience, or judgment capability” and “women retire before attaining managerial positions due to their short years of service.” Such perceptions held by employers are misguided, as my own research (Yamaguchi 2016) reveals a very different picture.

I conducted an analysis of firms with 100 or more employees and found that only 21 percent of the gender disparity among regular workers in middle management (section heads) and above could be explained by gender differences in education and employment experience.

The rest of the disparity arose from gender differences in the rate of promotion to managerial positions among employees with the same levels of education and experience. The limited employment duration of women was not a major factor.

My analysis further showed that being male increased the odds of becoming a manager more than tenfold, whereas being a college graduate made it only 1.65 times more likely. (The study controlled for other determinants for becoming a manager.)

We regard societies where social opportunities and rewards are determined primarily by individual achievements as “modern” and societies where they are determined by an ascribed status as “pre-modern.”

Although “post-modernism” has been discussed in Japan, contemporary Japanese society maintains characteristics that cannot even be considered “modern.” Gender at birth is what determines whether a person becomes a manager in Japan, not individual achievement such as earning a college degree.

Gender-segregated career tracks are largely to blame for the country’s gender inequality in the rate of promotion to managerial positions. In Japan, there is a managerial career track (sogo shoku) and a dead-end clerical track (ippan shoku).

This track system is strongly associated with gender. Many women do not pursuesogo shoku jobs despite their greater opportunity for career development because they require regular overtime hours.

Indeed, among women, the major correlate of becoming a manager is the presence of long work hours, indicating that women who do not work long overtime hours are deprived of opportunities to become managers.

However, extended work hours for women are incompatible with Japanese family roles after marriage due to the strong persistence of traditional division of labor in which the burden of childcare and household tasks is chiefly borne by women.

As a result, Japanese firms’ insistence on long work hours is an inherent source of gender inequality, especially for the attainment of managerial positions.

Another major cause of the gender wage gap is the high degree of gender segregation in professions. In OECD countries, women tend to be overrepresented in the human services professions, such as education, health care, and social work. In Japan, two additional characteristics exist.

First, even among human service professions, women are underrepresented in the high-status professions—for example, the proportion of women among physicians and college educators in Japan is the lowest among OECD nations.

Second, women are seriously underrepresented in non-human-service professions—such as research, engineering, law, and accounting.

My latest research takes a close look at the gender wage gap among professionals, focusing on the Japanese and US labor markets.

Drawing on a 2005 nationwide survey for Japan and the 2010 US Population Census, I looked at gender proportions in the two categories of careers described above: the human services professions, excluding high-status professions, such as physicians and college educators, which I chose to call Type-II professions, and other professions, including high-status human service professions and all non-human-service professions, which I called Type-I professions.

The research showed that in Japan, the proportion of women in the latter category is remarkably low: in the United States, 12.7 percent of female employees are in Type-I professions, compared with fewer than 2 percent of Japanese female employees (see chart). Women’s jobs in Japan are clearly concentrated in Type-II professions.

This division of professions leads to a large gender wage gap for two reasons. First, while gender wage disparity in Type-I professions is very small, women are severely underrepresented in these professions.

Second, there are large gender wage disparities within Type-II professions. Whereas the average wage for males in Type-II professions is higher than the wages of male clerical, sales, or manual workers, the average wage for females in Type-II professions is not only lower than the average wage for males in the same type of work, but it is also lower than the average wage of male clerical, sales, and manual workers.

My research also shows that the smaller proportion of women in management and Type-I professions cannot be explained by gender differences in educational background, including college majors (Yamaguchi, forthcoming).

Japan and Turkey are the only two countries in the OECD where college graduation rates of women are still lower than those of men, and therefore, we may expect that gender equalization would reduce gender inequality in the attainment of high-status occupations.

My analysis reveals, however, that if current gender-specific matching of education and occupation continues as the college graduation rate of women increases, it will be reflected mostly by the increase of women in already female-overrepresented Type-II professions.

The increase of women in female-underrepresented managerial and Type-I professions, on the other hand, will be minimal. Hence, on average, achieving gender equality in educational attainment will not greatly reduce the gender wage gap.

The only exception to this rule would lie in the equalization in the proportion of college graduates majoring in science and engineering. This would increase the share of female scientists and engineers, thus reducing gender disparity in the proportion of Type-I professions and thereby narrowing the gender wage gap to some extent.

The fact that educational background does not explain gender segregation among professions in Japan suggests that the segregation is a reflection of Japanese hiring practices. As a result of practices rooted in gender stereotypes, women lack the opportunity to go into professions other than those deemed suitable for women.

The main careers open to Japanese women are extensions of women’s traditional family roles, such as children’s education, nursing, and other supportive roles in health care.

Employers in Japan ought to acknowledge that the workplace is not an extension of gender divisions at home, but rather a place for individuals to fulfill their potential and contribute to society. But such an acknowledgment, for the most part, remains to be seen.

Although the government aims to pay equal wages for equal jobs—especially for regular and irregular workers with the same job—I believe that providing equal occupational opportunity, especially for managerial and high-status professional positions, is more critical for the reduction of the gender wage gap in Japan.

Moreover, since the lack of opportunity for women persists not only because of hiring practices but also because of the long work hours required, the government should aim to create the conditions for better work-life balance. It could do so by changing the work culture that relies on long work hours and by promoting flexible workplaces. It could also encourage a change in the attitude that assumes child-care and home-care responsibilities are only for women.

*The article was first published in Finance & Development, the IMF’s quarterly print magazine and online editorial platform, which publishes cutting-edge analysis and insight on the latest trends and research in international finance, economics, and development.

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Excerpt:

KAZUO YAMAGUCHI is the Ralph Lewis Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago*.

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Cabinet Secretary Sicily Kariuki pushing hard for UHC in Kenya. Credit: MOH Kenya

By Felipe Jaramillo and Siddharth Chatterjee
NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 27 2019 (IPS)

Consider this. One million Kenyans fall into poverty every year due to catastrophic out of pocket health expenditures.

For the almost four in every five Kenyans who lack access to medical insurance, the fear that they are just an accident or serious illness away from destitution.

Ill health is easily the most destructive wrecking-ball to any country’s plans for sustainable development, which validates President Uhuru Kenyatta’s commitment to deliver Universal Health Coverage (UHC) by 2022, as part of his Big Four development agenda.

The number of Kenyans who continue to suffer from communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB, as well as the increasing burden of non-communicable diseases like diabetes, cancer and hypertension, present formidable challenges to the country.

Among the poorest in Kenya, only 3% have health insurance, which is provided by the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF). Among the wealthiest, many who also have private cover, this rises to 42%, indicating again that the poorest are at risk of being left behind even further, and do not have an appropriate safety-net to fall back on.

Felipe Jaramillo

Investing in UHC is: 1) a moral obligation – it is not acceptable that some members of society should face death, disability, ill health or impoverishment for reasons that could be addressed at limited cost; and 2) a very smart investment – prevention of malnutrition and ill health will have enormous benefits in terms of longer and more productive lives, higher earnings, and averted care costs.

But delivering quality affordable healthcare for all comes at a cost. And this cost should certainly not be carried by those who cannot afford it.

The delivery of UHC requires robust financing structures. When people have to pay most of the cost for health services out of their own pockets, the poor are often unable to obtain many of the services they need, and even the rich may be exposed to financial hardship in the event of severe or long-term illness. Pooling funds from compulsory funding sources (such as mandatory insurance contributions) can minimise the financial risks of illness across a population.

Health Cabinet Secretary Sicily Kariuki recently unveiled a team of experts to spearhead radical reforms at the NHIF. This new initiative will build on past efforts at reforming NHIF, which were only partially implemented. The team will analyse the financial sustainability of NHIF, oversee legal and regulatory reforms among other propose organisational reforms to reposition NHIF as a national social health insurance provider and ensure its accountability and transparency.

Siddharth Chatterjee

The realization of UHC in Kenya will only be achieved if the Government of Kenya will increase its budget allocation towards health and lead solid health system strengthening initiatives – as for example the NHIF reform – to increase efficiency, effectiveness and accountability within the health sector.

The health system strengthening initiatives currently on their way in Kenya are critical, yet exciting, and require “all hands-on deck” and much collaboration.

The Government of Kenya can count on the support of the World Bank, and United Nations family as its development partners.

Within the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) 2018-2022 for example, the human capital development pillar (which includes health) is receiving the largest share of human and financial resources – and rightly so, as we recognise the importance of supporting the Country to realise the vision of UHC by 2022.

The World Banks’ Transforming Health Systems for Universal Care Project for Kenya is improving utilization and quality of primary health care services with a focus on reproductive, maternal, new-born, child, and adolescent health services. Supporting health financing reforms is a key component of this project. Under the recently approved Kenya Social and Economic inclusion Project (with US$ 250 million IDA credit and US$ 70 million of DFID grant), the Bank is supporting the Government to systematically enrol and register National Safety Net Program beneficiaries in the NHIF through an established referral mechanism.

The Government of Kenya is aligning forces as well with the private sector. Through the United Nations’s SDG Partnership Platform, the Government has already been identifying and scaling up transformative primary health care partnerships through galvanising support from the private and philanthropic sectors.

The successful delivery of the NHIF reform will demonstrate Kenya’s ability to efficiently pool revenues to cover for a healthcare package with essential services for all Kenyans, at all ages. This again will enhance confidence to join and invest in NHIF and create opportunities within the health sector to develop new partnership models for the delivery of care which all will help the Country to make rapid strides towards the realization of UHC.

Kenya can lead the way in realising Universal Health Coverage – and we stand with Kenya to “Deliver as One” and leave no one behind.

Siddharth Chatterjee is the UN Resident Coordinator to Kenya.

Felipe Jaramillo is the World Bank country director for Eritrea, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, based in Nairobi

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Credit: Getty Images

By Richard Mahapatra
NEW DELHI, Mar 27 2019 (IPS)

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) on January 16 declared that 2018 was the sixth- warmest year in the last 117 years or since 1901, when recording started. Pointing towards changing weather and climate parameters, it also noted that the last monsoon rainfall was the sixth-lowest since 1901.

“The 2018 annual mean land surface air temperature for the country was +0.41°C above the 1981-2010 average, thus making 2018 the sixth-warmest year on record since 1901,” said a release from IMD.

That India is witnessing consistent warmer seasons is clear from the IMD’s analysis that pointed out that 11 out of 15 warmest years were in the last 15 years (2002-2018). The last year was also the consecutive third-warmest year after 2016 and 2017.

“The past decade (2001-2010/2009-2018) was also the warmest on record, with anomalies of 0.23°C/0.37°C. The annual mean temperature during 1901-2018 showed an increasing trend of 0.6°C/100 years, with a significant increasing trend in maximum temperature (1.0°C/100 years), and relatively lower increasing trend (0.2°C/100 years) in minimum temperature,” said IMD.

Climate change impacts are likely to lower the living standards of nearly half of India’s population, says a new World Bank report.

According to the report titled ‘South Asia’s Hotspots: Impacts of Temperature and Precipitation Changes on Living Standards’, rising temperatures and erratic rainfall pattern could cost India 2.8 per cent of its GDP.

It says that almost half of South Asia, including India, lives in vulnerable areas and will suffer from declining living standards.

Approximately 60 crore Indians live in areas where changes in average temperature and precipitation will negatively impact living standards. These areas, called hotspots, were identified using spatial granular climate and household data analysis.

The analysis was done for two scenarios—one indicating a pathway where climate change mitigating actions were taken and the other where current trends of carbon emissions continued.

“We have attempted to identify how climate change will affect household consumption, and that is the basis of the estimation and hotspot mapping. The granular data is from the household level, which is aggregated to give larger level analyses at block, district, state and country levels,” Muthukumara Mani, lead economist, World Bank South Asia region told Down To Earth.

A warming trend is now witnessed in all seasons including the winter (January-February). “The country averaged season mean temperatures during all the four seasons, with the winter season (January-February, +0.59°C) being the 5th warmest since 1901 and the pre-monsoon season (March-May, with an anomaly of +0.55°C above average) being the 7th warmest ever since 1901,” said IMD.

Similarly, there is a declining trend for the monsoon as well. “The 2018 Northeast monsoon season (October-December) rainfall over the country as a whole was substantially below normal (56 per cent of LPA, 1951-2000 average). This was 6th lowest since 1901,” reported the IMD release.

The post Changing Weather Will Affect Living Standards of Half of India’s Population appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Richard Mahapatra is Managing Editor, Down To Earth, Asia's premier fortnightly on politics of environment and development published by the Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi, India

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A mother washes kitchen utensils in the Aguas Calientes River, while her children play. She told IPS that this small river, part of the watershed of the Lempa River - the longest in El Salvador - always had an abundant flow, but now due to climate change and the use of water for the irrigation of sugar cane, the water level is down. Credit: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

By Edgardo Ayala
SAN CARLOS LEMPA, El Salvador, Mar 27 2019 (IPS)

For nearly three decades, several communities in southeastern El Salvador have collectively and efficiently managed the water they consume, but monoculture production and climate change put their water at risk.

“These are the collateral effects of climate change, as well as deforestation and monoculture,” the president of the Lempa Abajo Community Development Association, Patrocinio Dubón, told IPS.

Dubón is a native of San Carlos Lempa, a village in the eastern municipality of Tecoluca where the offices of the association – which administers a community water project that emerged 25 years ago – are located

Like other nearby villages, San Carlos Lempa includes the name of the Lempa River, which runs across more than 440 km of this small Central American country before flowing into the Pacific Ocean. It is the longest in El Salvador and is vital to the life and agricultural activity of a considerable part of the local rural communities.

These coastal lands, former cotton plantations, were parceled out and distributed to part of the recently demobilised guerrillas after the end of El Salvador’s 1980-1992 civil war.

Because the indiscriminate use of agrochemicals in cotton and later sugar cane had polluted the aquifers, residents of San Marcos Lempa stopped using that water and instead sought a cleaner source, which they found in a well located 13 km further north.

With the support of international development aid, they set up the community water project, which now supplies 26 nearby communities comprising some 2,000 families who would otherwise find it difficult to have access to piped water.

According to official figures, 95.5 percent of urban households have access to piped water, but the figure drops to 76.5 percent in rural areas.

The beneficiaries of the water project pay 5.65 dollars per month for 15 cubic metres, the amount needed to supply a family of six. With the installation of water meters in each household, it is possible to verify if consumption has increased, and the cost is added to the bill.

To access this community network, each family had to pay 389 dollars for the installation and other costs of the system, but if they did not have the money, they were allowed to pay the amount in six installments.

Patrocinio Dubón, a former guerrilla fighter who lost his right arm in a 1989 battle during El Salvador’s civil war, is the president of the Lempa Abajo Community Development Association, whose water project supplies San Carlos Lempa and 26 other villages in the municipality of Tecoluca, San Vicente department, in eastern El Salvador. Credit: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

Currently, about 70 percent of local residents are connected to the system, and the rest get their water from neighbors who are hooked up.

Threats to the community water system

However, the sustainability of the project is now at risk because the impacts of climate change, deforestation and sugarcane monoculture have hit the country’s watersheds, and this region is no exception, Dubón said.

The water level in the well that supplies San Carlos Lempa, he noted, has dropped almost three metres from the optimum level it was at a few years ago, which has made it necessary to adopt rationing measures.

“We have been rationing it for the past two years, serving different communities on different days,” he said.

A technical study will soon begin to be carried out, and “we are going to ration it even more,” Dubón added.

The sugar industry, whose primary raw material is sugar cane, is a powerful sector with influence on the economy and politics of this Central American country of 7.3 million people.

The Sugar Association, which represents the industry, is made up of six sugar mills, the majority of which are controlled by influential Salvadoran agribusiness families.

The sugar sector generates some 48,000 direct jobs and another 187,000 indirect jobs, and generates more than 186.5 million dollars in revenue, according to industry figures.

However, the industry has been under constant fire from environmental groups due to the pollution caused by the expansion of the crop, whether through the indiscriminate use of agrochemicals, excessive consumption of water for irrigation, or other harmful practices for the environment.

These include the burning of sugar cane to remove the outer leaves around the stalks before harvesting, to make it easier and faster for the thousands of sugar cane workers to cut the cane. But the fires pollute the environment.

However, the most worrying thing is the intensive use of water to irrigate the fields.

Silvia Ramírez shows how the water level has dropped in small rivers around the village of San Fernando in eastern El Salvador, due, among other reasons, to the excessive use of water by sugarcane producers, who build small dams to divert the water to their crops, affecting the surrounding rural communities. Credit: Courtesy of Edgardo Ayala

In a 2016 article, IPS focused on the impacts of the sugar cane industry on the way of life of peasant farmers and onl local ecosystems. At the time, the industry downplayed the effects and claimed that it irrigated just 15 percent of the 116,000 hectares dedicated that year to sugar cane.

The problems faced by the San Carlos Lempa water system are no exception.

In the village of San Fernando, also in the municipality of Tecoluca, the water supply has been affected by the same issues.

“We are rationing it to take care of it,” Silvia Ramírez, administrator of the Santa Mónica Water Board, told IPS.

Because the beneficiaries also manage their consumption through water meters, the local families “have learned to use it rationally,” she said.

In other municipalities in the country, which receive water from the state-run water company, faucets often run dry, even in households connected to the main water grid.
to the main grid, they often have no water.

Salvadoran media regularly report roadblocks by angry residents in urban neighborhoods or rural municipalities complaining about the lack of water.

Controversial water bill

The water conversation efforts of rural communities contrast with the decisions that Salvadoran legislators are reaching with respect to a controversial water bill, especially the article that stipulates the creation of a National Water Authority (ANA).

The lawmakers in the Environment and Climate Change Commission in the legislature reached an agreement on Mar. 18 that the industrial and agricultural sectors should participate in the board of directors of the new water authority.

The agreement, which was given a green light by eight of the 11 members of the legislative commission, has not yet been discussed or approved in the plenary session. But it does have the backing of all of the political parties represented in the commission, except for the ruling Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, which steps down from power in June.

This means that, if the bill moves on to debate in the coming weeks, there is already a preliminary agreement for these influential sectors, with interests alien to those of the general population, to not only participate in the water authority, but also to control the decisions taken regarding water supplies.

The social movement, which began with protest marches during the week of International Water Day, celebrated on Friday, Mar. 22, argues that only public bodies should participate in the water authority.

“If we include these private sectors, which are only moved by the profit margin, it’s like the fox guarding the henhouse,” activist Marielos de León told IPS.

The ANA would consist of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, city governments, citizen water boards and the University of El Salvador, in addition to the two private sectors in question.

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Gendarmerie officers stand guard on March 24, 2019, in Moroni, Comoros. Two journalists have been detained without trial in the country since February. (Gianluigi Guercia/AFP)

By Editor, CPJ
NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 26 2019 (IPS-Partners)

(CPJ) – Authorities in the Comoros should immediately release journalists Abdallah Abdou Hassane and Oubeidillah Mchangama, who have been held in pretrial detention on an array of charges for over a month, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

The journalists, who report for the Facebook news page FCBK FM, were arrested in mid-February and are detained in a prison in the Comoros capital, Moroni, while awaiting trial, according to their lawyer, Abdoulbastoi Moudjahid, who spoke with CPJ.

On February 12, the journalists were charged with defamation, disturbing public order, incitement to violence, offence against the head of state, insulting the magistrate, forgery, and use of false materials, according to their lawyer and FCBK FM; they have both pled not guilty.

While in detention, both journalists have been questioned multiple times about their FCBK FM posts, Abdoulbastoi told CPJ. The lawyer did not elaborate on any individual posts that the journalists have been asked about.

According to FCBK FM and Abdoulbastoi, the journalists frequently criticized the government in their posts and Facebook Live broadcasts, including making at least one call for President Azali Assoumani to resign.

The country held its presidential election on March 24 and has not yet released the results, according to media reports; the opposition alleges that the polls were rigged to secure Azali’s reelection.

“That these two journalists have been held in pre-trial detention so long suggests that this case is little more than a pretext to silence critical voices during an election period,” said CPJ’s Sub-Saharan Africa representative, Muthoki Mumo. “Authorities should free Abdallah Abdou Hassane and Oubeidillah Mchangama and drop the charges against them.”

Abdallah was arrested on February 9 at the supreme court in Moroni, where he had gone to report on a court decision that barred several opposition politicians from running in the presidential elections, according to Abdoulbastoi and FCBK FM.

Oubeidillah was arrested on the morning of February 11 at the entrance of the Moroni court where he was investigating Abdallah’s arrest, according to Abdoulbastoi.

CPJ reached out to FCBK FM via its Facebook page and did not receive a response.

Abdoulbastoi appealed the charges against the journalists on February 25 on the grounds that the original order for their detention was unlawful, but the presiding judge dismissed his case as “unfounded,” the lawyer told CPJ.

Protests have been staged in Moroni calling for the journalists’ release, according to news reports by French news agency RFI. The agency reported that the organizers of the protests feared that the journalists might be detained until after the presidential inauguration in May.

CPJ tried to reach Comorian Interior Minister Mohamed Daoudou via multiple calls and text messages but did not receive a response. Emails from CPJ to the ministry of foreign affairs and to the Comorian mission at the United Nations went unanswered.

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With approximately 90 percent of Guyana’s population living below sea level, the country says it needs to adapt and build resilience. But Janelle Christian, head of the Office of Climate Change in Guyana says unlocking needed financial support is a major challenge. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
GEORGETOWN, Mar 26 2019 (IPS)

In 2008, the then president of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo, established within the Ministry of the Presidency the Office of Climate Change. Guyana became the first country in the region to do so. A year later, Jagdeo set out a vision to forge a new low carbon economy in the Caribbean nation.

Jagdeo’s vision was translated into a national strategy as outlined in Guyana’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) after more than a year of review and consultation within Guyana, coupled with input from climate change negotiations at the United Nations.

The aim of the LCDS was the achievement of two goals: transforming Guyana’s economy to deliver greater economic and social development for the population by following a low carbon development path; and providing a model for the world of how climate change can be addressed through low carbon development in developing countries, if the international community takes the necessary collective actions, especially relating to REDD+.

Head of the Office of Climate Change Janelle Christian told IPS that the office continues to fulfil its mandate even though there has been a change of administration.

“We have started the process for preparation of our national climate change policy,” Christian said.

“We have concluded work on the Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action for Greening of Towns.”

Excerpts of the interview follow:

Janelle Christian, head of the Office of Climate Change in Guyana. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

Inter Press Service (IPS): What is the government doing to develop national climate change strategies?

Janelle Christian (JC): When the government changed, back in 2015, the new government advocated the vision for Guyana to become a green state and so the Department of Environment has been working over the last two years to elaborate the Green State Development Strategy. That strategy is looking at low carbon development across all sectors. When compared to the LCDS, which is looking at our mitigation contribution through sound management of our forest resources, the Green State Development Strategy is looking at advancing what we have started under the LCDS but also looking to maximise our renewable energy potential through the full mix of the opportunities available in that field, and also to ensure that our future development as we proceed as a country would ensure that we pursue that development on a low carbon path.

IPS: How different are the strategies and plans being developed on the President David Granger administration compared with those under the Jagdeo administration?

JC: We have been, and continue to work in crafting and in some instances revising some of our existing strategies so that they’re aligned with the new vision. So, what we have been working on, specifically with support from many of our multilateral partners – we have started the process for preparation of our national climate change policy. We are in the process of revising our climate resilience strategy and action plan and the output will be our National Adaptation Plan (NAP) aligned with the Green State Development Strategy main pillars. We have concluded work on the Nationally Appropriately Mitigation Action for Greening of Towns. We’ve also completed our Technology Needs Assessment.

IPS: Who are some of the development partners you’ve been working with to get projects off the ground?

JC: We have largely been working with existing global facilities for the mobilisation of climate finance to not only address some of the gaps and strengthen some of our existing programmes, but mobilise resources for sector-specific initiatives. We have been engaging very closely with the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and have successfully been able to mobilise what is called readiness support. The first one that we would have implemented was what is called the NDA [National Designated Authorities] strengthening through the GCF and that was with the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre and that work has concluded. That really set the tone for further engagement and how we engage with the GCF.

Since then we would have successfully worked with the FAO [Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations] and we would have been able to mobilise some resources specifically through the GCF, again focusing on getting the agriculture sector ready and also working with the sector to develop a concept proposal for submission to the GCF for investment-type support to the sector given its priority. We received notice of approval from the GCF for readiness support for our energy sector – largely renewable energy and also some private sector support. Because, we know, for climate solution it requires both public and private sector investment.

IPS: What else do you have going on in terms of climate change adaptation and mitigation?

JC: We have advanced work for support of the president’s vision for Bartica, which was identified as a model green town. We have just concluded all of the baseline data-type studies that were required for Bartica as we get ready to plan and identify specific type investments for that community.

IPS: Going forward, what would you say are the main challenges facing Guyana and other developing countries in fighting climate change?

JC: Support…They talk about the developed providing support to developing. And when we talk about that support, we’re talking about financing, which is the top challenge because these interventions for adaptation to increase our resilience require lots of investments. So, financing. While they will tell you that there are lots of established climate financing mechanism, to unlock those resources is really a challenge in itself. So, then the capacity of the country to be able to understand the systems, the modalities; to be able to elaborate the proposals that would then be successful and allow for their approval – those allow you to implement.

So, the financing and then the capacity in-country to unlock the financing, or the capacity in-country to have the right skill set in specialised areas, and of course we need technology also. Of course, technology requires money again. But even when you have technical support for the deployment of technology, again you have to be able to use the technology correctly. Then as a country you have to ensure that you have the sustainability component incorporated into your national systems so that those can be successfully infused as part of your operation over the long term. Those are the main things I would say for countries such as ours. How do you make a decision when you have limited finance to address the realities of what is before you?

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The Paris’ Musée de l’histoire d’immigration has launched a thought-provoking exhibition about music and migration. Courtesy: Paris’ Musée de l’histoire d’immigration

By A. D. McKenzie
PARIS, Mar 26 2019 (IPS)

Amid the morass of Brexit and continuous debates on immigration, a French museum has launched a thought-provoking exhibition about music and migration.
The massive show at Paris’ Musée de l’histoire d’immigration (National Museum of the History of Immigration) “explores the close and complex relationship between migration, music, anti-racism and political activism”, according to the curators.

It comes at a time when “many European nations are turning inwards and succumbing to the temptations of closed borders,” they add.

The exhibition “Paris-Londres: Music Migrations (1962-1989)” runs until Jan. 5, 2020, and was inaugurated ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, observed annually on Mar. 21. The launch also preceded the fourth edition of a one-week “Grand Festival” in Paris against racism, antisemitism and anti-LGBT prejudice.

The show breaks new ground by linking artistic movements in England and France that demonstrate how “successive generations of immigrants in these two colonial powers used music to stake their claim to equal rights, affirm their presence in the public space, and contribute to the urban, economic and cultural transformations reshaping” both countries, the curators say.

Most music lovers are already aware of the influence that genres such as ska, reggae and rai have had on popular music, and the exhibition details this impact through an array of documents, videos and recordings. But it goes further by highlighting how immigrant musicians played a crucial role in fighting racism, with movements such as “Rock Against Racism” in Britain and “Rock Against Police” in France.

“These two stories have not previously been put together side by side in a postcolonial way,” says Martin Evans, a professor of modern European history at the University of Sussex, and one of the three international curators of the exhibition.
“We really wanted to look at how London and Paris reinvented themselves with the influence of the new arrivals from the Sixties to the Eighties,” he told IPS.

A “wealth of musical styles linked with successive waves of immigration transformed Paris and London into multicultural capitals” between the early 1960s and the 1980s. Courtesy: A. D. McKenzie

As the exhibition puts it, a “wealth of musical styles linked with successive waves of immigration transformed Paris and London into multicultural capitals” between the early 1960s and the 1980s.
A significant aspect of this immigration has been the global impact of Jamaican history and culture, Evans said, particularly through the contributions of dub poets such as Linton Kwesi Johnson, who was himself influenced by Martiniquais writer and statesman Aimé Césaire.

“In doing this exhibition, we discovered a lot of stories about links between artists and activists in France and Britain,” Evans said. “So, a very important aspect is uncovering these hidden stories”.
The curators showcase more than 600 documents and artworks “connected with music”, including instruments, photographs, concert posters, videos, costumes and other items – many of which are on loan from institutions such as London’s Victoria and Albert Museum and from the personal collections of well-known musicians.

Visitors to the exhibition are greeted by black-and-white footage of people exuberantly dancing, while a narrator explains the origins of the music that’s driving them into paroxysm of delight. “This is ska”, taking Britain by storm in the 1960s after its emergence “from the Jamaican sound systems of the late 1950s”.

Following this introduction, and the familiar lyrics of “Sammy Dead”, the show moves into the activist nature of music by London-based groups such as The Equals (the first major “interracial” UK band, formed by Guyana-born Eddy Grant), who used their song “Police on My Back” to highlight police harassment of immigrants.

Meanwhile, history lessons about the arrival and settlement of immigrants are included in the captions to memorable photographs, detailing how immigrants to England settled in the inner cities while those to France inhabited the outskirts or banlieues.

The Windrush generation (referring to Caribbean passengers on the HMT Empire Windrush in 1948 and their descendants) also feature prominently, with information about recent scandals regarding the British government’s treatment of individuals and historical documents.

In addition to the visual displays, the exhibition boasts a “killer playlist” that features ska, reggae, punk, makossa, rai, rumba, rock and other genres, and visitors will be seen dancing as they listen to music through headphones or stand in front of video clips of Millie Small singing “My Boy Lollipop” or Jimmy Cliff belting out “The Harder They Come” from the iconic 1972 film of the same name.

On the French side, one learns about African and North African musicians who changed the sound of French music: Manu Dibango, Salif Keïta, Noura and Khaled, among others. Meanwhile, the cross-border links can be seen in Serge Gainsbourg’s reggae version of France’s national anthem La Marseillaise – a recording that sparked outrage in certain quarters and earned the singer death threats.

“Gainsbourg used this music as a political vector,” says Stéphane Malfettes, the lead curator, who’s in charge of the museum’s cultural programming. “He went to Jamaica to record and was a big fan of reggae. In fact, France has always had a link with this music.”

According to Malfettes, concerts by reggae star Bob Marley and other artists drew thousands of fans in France in the 1970s and early 1980s and provided a spur for the later creation of France-grown reggae groups such as Danakil who perform political music.

Some visitors will find the political aspect of the music to be the most interesting part of the exhibition, which gives the background to Rock Against Racism – an activist movement sparked by the “rise of the far right and the spread of racism in political discourse”.

English musicians Red Saunders and Roger Huddle launched Rock Against Racism in 1976, following “murky racist proclamations from the likes of Eric Clapton and David Bowie,” the curators state. The first concert was held in Victoria Park in the spring of 1978 and attracted some 100,000 people, with groups including Steel Pulse, The Clash and the Tom Robinson Band performing – “revealing the often-overlooked solidarity between” rock, punk and reggae.

The movement influenced activists in France, where Rock Against Police grew out of a “proliferation of racist incidents and violence” in the late 1970s and early 1980s, “compounded by the success” of the far-right Front National in the municipal elections of 1984, according to the curators. The exhibition highlights the personalities and musicians involved, through footage, music, photos and articles.

As the exhibition nears its cut-off point (1989), visitors also learn about other landmark happenings that emphasised the “multicultural identity” of Paris and London. Two such events were the huge SOS Racisme concert held in June 1985 on the Place de la Concorde and the massive anti-apartheid show held at Wembley stadium to mark the 70th birthday of South African icon Nelson Mandela, in June 1988.

“All these stories push us to look at things differently,” says Malfettes. “We hope to reach people interested in the music, interested in the movements and those who may not know this background, especially young people.”

If there’s one drawback to the exhibition, it is in the sheer range of objects and information, which makes it difficult to absorb everything during a single visit; many visitors will feel the need to return for a second look, especially regarding the musical connections – the punk and dub-reggae productions of

John Letts, and the “Asian underground sounds” of Asian Dub Foundation, for instance.
An irony, too, is that this exhibition is taking place at the imposing Palais de la Porte Dorée – which houses the history museum. The building, with its ornately decorated façade, was constructed to host the Paris Colonial Exposition of 1931 and was used for many decades to showcase the “civilising influence” of French colonialism. It has now changed its focus.

(This article is published by permission of Southern World Arts News – SWAN. You can follow the writer on Twitter: @mckenzie_ale)

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