Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

By Arul Louis
NEW YORK, Feb 21 2019 (IPS)

Maldives Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid has reiterated his nation’s commitment to a “free and open” Indo-Pacific region and to democracy.

During his meeting with Secretary of State Michael Pompeo in Washington Feb 20, Shahid “underscored the importance of his government’s reform efforts to (ensure) the vitality of Maldives’ democracy,” the department’s Deputy Spokesperson Robert Palladino said.

Maldivian Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid

The two leaders spoke of their “common interest in deepening bilateral ties between the United States and Maldives, and their shared commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific region,” his statement added.

Pompeo appreciated the Maldives’ commitment to judicial reform, transparency, and rule of law, Palladino said.

Their statements on democracy and rule of law were a boost to the Indian Ocean nation’s fragile democracy.

Maldives had fought back a challenge to its democracy in September when the opposition candidate Ibrahim Mohamed Solih assumed the presidency after defeating President Abdulla Yameen, who had declared a state of emergency and arrested Chief Justice Abdulla Saeed and Justice Ali Hameed when the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of nine opposition leaders, including former president Mohamed Nasheed.

The US-Maldives declaration of commitment to free and open Indo-Pacific region has added significance because of the China factor

Yameen, who had moved closer to China and Pakistan, sent emissaries seeking support from them after the emergency declaration that India and the US criticised.

China sent warships to the Indian Ocean region near the Maldives after the emergency was proclaimed in February last year. Beijing is also major investor and aid-giver to the Maldives.

Palladino said that Pompeo undertook to work with Congress to provide $9.75 million in additional aid to Maldives.

David J. Ranz, the deputy assistant secretary for Central and South Asian affairs, announced in December an aid package for Maldives comprising $7 million in military aid for maritime security and $3 million for supporting civil society and environmental programmes.

According to Maldives Finance Minister Ibrahim Ameer, the country owes $1.4 billion to China.

The State Department said that the Treasury Department would help the Maldives government with developing a debt strategy and with domestic debt management.

Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in and followed on Twitter @arulouis

The post Maldives Reiterates Commitment to ‘Free, Open Indo-Pacific Region’ & Democracy appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Suriname’s First Lady Ingrid Bouterse-Waldring says the Caribbean nation has been affected by climate change as it has experienced many destructive floods. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
PARAMARIBO, Feb 21 2019 (IPS)

Two of the most prominent women in the Caribbean nation of Suriname are speaking out about developed countries that release large volumes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

First Lady Ingrid Bouterse-Waldring and Speaker of the National Assembly Jennifer Geerlings-Simons say Suriname and other countries in the region are feeling the brunt of the effects of climate change.

“If we go to the interior of our country, then we see that we have had a lot of floods in those areas. These floods are destructive for the people who are living there. The effects are clearly noticeable especially to the women and the children,” Bouterse-Waldring told IPS.

“In the coastal area . . . we have had a lot of very strong winds. These winds, actually we never had them before, so it’s also new to us. These are all things that we are facing now with climate change.”

In the aftermath of Hurricanes Maria and Irma that devastated Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and others in 2017, many countries are still struggling to recover.

Geerlings-Simons told IPS: “Some of our countries have seen devastation and we have seen examples in 2017 and 2018 of what will happen to our countries if at any point in time, a hurricane or any other type of disaster happens.”

“You can start rebuilding your economy . . . but next year another hurricane might come and wipe you out again. Did you contribute to clime change? No, you just get hit by it. How would Suriname recover from one hurricane? Seventy-five percent of our people live on the coast and 75 percent or more of our economy is right here. How will we recover? Our homes are not built for hurricanes,” Geerlings-Simons said, adding that

The Speaker of Suriname’s National Assembly said that more than 1,000 homes lost their roofs in extreme weather conditions over the last 10 years. Previously, this sort of destruction to homes due to the weather was unheard of.

“So, we’re feeling the effects right now,” she said.

Jennifer Geerlings-Simons Suriname’s Speaker of the National Assembly says poor and even highly forested countries have no way to defend themselves against this onslaught of climate change which is already happening. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

Geerlings-Simons said countries like Suriname, whose forests are actually aiding many other parts of the world, should get something in return. Not only do forests provide oxygen to the world, but according to the World Wide Fund For Nature two billion people either directly or indirectly rely on them for food, shelter and food security etc.

“We have no way as poor countries or even a highly forested countries to defend ourselves against this onslaught of climate change which is already happening, and which is actually threatening our future in the relatively short term of a few decades,” Geerlings-Simons told IPS.

“We as highly forested countries should . . . have an international fund in which we put some money if we push carbon into the air, and we get some money if we take it out of the air.”

Geerlings-Simons said this has already been tried and proven in Costa Rica. Twenty-two years ago, Costa Rica was the first in the world to start a nationwide scheme for compensating landowners for preserving their forests when it embarked on its national programme of payment for environmental services (PES).

“If you pay someone to keep the forest standing, they will keep it standing because they don’t have to give it to someone to cut it down to get something to eat,” Geerlings-Simons said.

“I am sure that if Europe, the United States or China would develop some kind of mechanism, some kind of machine, everybody would gladly be paying for it because it would strengthen their economy.

“But now, finally after a few hundred years, some money has to come to this part of the world, at this moment where we are facing a very dire situation. The [International Panel on Climate Change] IPCC is not some kind of scaremongering organisation and they really gave us a stern warning. You do something, you get paid for it. Why is this an exception?” she added.

Last year, the IPCC released a report assessing the impacts of global warming of 1.5 degrees C.

But as global emissions continue to rise, hopes of containing the planet’s warming well below 2 degrees C–the headline target of the Paris Agreement–are fading.

“Why do we have to beg for money while delivering a service that put carbon into the air? The only way that some people will start reducing their carbon is when they have to pay. This is the way this world works,” Geerlings-Simons said.

High Forest Cover and Low Deforestation (HFLD) nations hosted a major conference in Suriname earlier this month.

The conference ended with the Krutu of Paramaribo Joint Declaration on HFLD Climate Mobilisation. Krutu—an indigenous Surinamese word—means a gathering of significance or a gathering of high dignitaries, resulting in something that is workable.

Related Articles

• Q&A: Suriname’s President Champions Preserving the World’s Forests
• ‘Today, We Declare Our Love to Our Forests and Ecosystems’
• Q&A: What of the Carbon Neutral Countries?

The post ‘No Way to Defend Ourselves Against the Onslaught of Climate Change’ appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Justine Masika Bihamba at the UN Security Council in 2018.

By Justine Masika Bihamba
GOMA, DR Congo, Feb 21 2019 (IPS)

When Felix Tshisekedi, the 55 year old son of the former opposition leader, won the recent presidential election in the Democratic Republic of Congo, it should have felt like a new dawn for many of us living here.

This was nothing less than a monumental event – the first time since our country’s independence that a peaceful transition of power took place between an outgoing and an incoming president.

I was born in the city of Goma in the Eastern DRC, close to the border with Rwanda. I set up Synergie des Femmes, an organization that gives a lifeline to Congolese victims of sexual violence.

I have spent over 30 years doing my best to improve the lives of women in extremely challenging circumstances and to ensure that women can be part of a fair and transparent political process.

In the last couple of years, I have also co-ordinated the Congolese Women’s Forum, a network of 65 women from across the country, who are calling for women to be part of politics and peace-building in this country.

Despite its relatively peaceful passing, I have many concerns surrounding the recent elections. Tshisekedi’s political experience appears to be limited to being the son of a politician from a party that has languished in opposition for several decades.

Rumors are that the previous president, Joseph Kabila, made some sort of unofficial back room deal with him, which would ensure political benefits for both. It would not surprise me if this turned out to be true.

This is the type of political wrangling that Congolese people have become all too familiar with. Kabila has always played the political game – including when it causes harm to our citizens – and women in particular.

Informal political agreements by a small circle of men behind closed doors have tended to not only exclude women from the political process, but also perpetuate harm against us. This time again, when political capital was at stake, women were sacrificed.

We have demanded to be part of the political process – to have our voices heard and included – but we have nowhere near equal representation. Out of 535 parliamentarians in the National Assembly there are only 50 women.

Considering the obstacles we have had to face to even take part, this could have been even worse. The discriminatory electoral law meant that anyone proposing themselves as a candidate needs to come up with a deposit of $1,000.

This is simply impossible in our country where men can use their political networks to raise funding and trade “favors”, where women do not have the same political capital. They do not tend to have much control over their own finances either.

This December, the voting process was fraught with difficulty. The Electoral Commission ignored the fact that many people in the DRC – women in particular – are illiterate and had no idea how to use the electronic voting machines that were shipped in for the event.

These machines were sometimes moved at the last minute and breakdowns were common. No funding was given towards educating voters in advance.

Electoral lists also posed a problem on voting day. Even some of those who could read were not able to find their names, which were sometimes categorized in a confusing way – and regularly included people from the wrong constituencies, so some voters simply did not know where to go.

Delays in opening certain polling stations affected things too. In a handful of areas it was not possible to vote at all. Voter turnout was directly affected by this and many chose to stay at home, after hearing about the challenges. From what I have seen, once again, this disproportionately affected women.

Congolese women have faced decades of being victims of sexual violence in conflict, where rape was regularly used as a weapon of war. What has happened to women here has often caused outrage for a few moments and is then quickly forgotten about.

The best solution to this is ensuring that women – the most negatively affected by the status quo – are active decision makers in government.

Those of us who speak out publicly about this live with constant worry. My own home and office have been attacked because I spoke out. I am forced to continue doing so even though I am at risk every single day. I have had dozens of threats to my life, but I am not giving up.

Women have been left out of this latest political transition, but there is a lot that we have learned too. The first peaceful transition in politics in our country has shown the Congolese Women’s Forum that maybe one day we can peacefully achieve equal representation, where we are finally listened to, and where we are able to make decisions on our own futures.

The post DRC’s First Peaceful Transition of Power Was At Expense of Women appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Justine Masika Bihamba is founder of Synergie des Femmes, a front line women’s organization based in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and local partner of Donor Direct Action.

The post DRC’s First Peaceful Transition of Power Was At Expense of Women appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Roberto Savio is founder of IPS Inter Press Service and President Emeritus

By Roberto Savio
ROME, Feb 21 2019 (IPS)

I have been a member of the first international party: the Transnational Radical Party, founded in 1956 by Marco Pannella and Emma Bonino. Then in 1988, I was a wetness of the large protest, in Berlin West, against the meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, a precursor of the “Battle of Seattle” in 1988, where 40.000 protesters disrupted the annual meeting of the two world’s financial institutions. I was even detained for a day by the police, even if was just a witness: my condition of foreigner made me automatically suspect.

Roberto Savio

And I was a witness of the Nobel prize Joseph Stigliz address to the protesters of “Occupy Wall Street”, in 2011. In the same year, I was part of the creation of the Word Social Forum, in Porto Alegre. And I have been carefully following the arrival of the new International nationalist and populist wave, since Orban’s arrival in Hungary in 2019, Kaczynski in Poland in 2015, Brexit in 2016, Trump in 2016, and totally different movements like now the Yellow Jackets in France.

Therefore, I have decided that I can be more useful as a practitioner than as a theoretician in the cultured an interesting debate that Paul Raskin has opened on a world political party. But I still remember that during the debate on the New International Information Order in the seventies, at a very important conference in Berlin of academicians, I spoke as practitioner (I was the founder of Inter Press Service, the fourth international news agency), and when I finished, the German chairman of the conference observed: “what Roberto had said works in practice. But the question is: would it work in theory”?

The Transnational Radical Party choose a human rights agenda, as Pannella did in Italy with the Italian radical party. The abolition of the death’s sentence, the depenalization of light drugs, the freedom of medical choice, including euthanasia, the end of female mutilation in Africa and Arab countries, the importance of scientific research free of religious dogma as part of bioethics, the creation of the United States of Europe, a multicultural, inclusive and environmentally concerned Europe. It called for the inclusion of Israel in the European Community, and made public campaigns on Tibet, the Uighurs, the Montagnard (a Vietnamese Christian minority), and the Chechens. This agenda of Human Rights was able to link intellectuals and activists from many countries (especially Europe and Latin America). But it never became a mass movement, and it dissolved itself in 1989. It was highly affected by the May 68, which fought against centralizing structures, and indicated that the fights should become individual, and free from any command.

The World Social Forum was the closest thing to a world movement. It was based on a much broader agenda, which was the build up an alternative to what the World Economic Forum, Davos, represented. Global finance, unchecked capitalism, economic agenda over the social agenda, the alliance of corporations to control politics and governance: a Forum where unelected people met to take decisions over the course of the world. It come out from a visit in 1999 in Paris by two Brazilian activists, Oded Grajew who was working in the field of social responsibility of companies, and Chico Whittaker, who was in the Social Network of Justice and Human Rights, an initiative of the Brazilian catholic Church. They were incensed by the tv coverage of Davos, and the following day the went to meet Bernard Cassen, coordinator of of Le Monde Diplomatique, who encouraged them to organize a Counterdavos, but not in Europe, but in the South. They came back, organized a committee of eight Brazilian organizations, in February if 2.000, got the support of the government of Rio Grande do Sul, and in the 2001 the first Forum was held in Porto Alegre, at the same time of Davos. We were thinking that 3.000 people would come (the equivalent of Davos), instead there were 20.000 participants.

The impact was so great, that the Brazilian committee organized a consultative meeting the following year in Sao Paolo, about the continuation of the WSF. They invited a number of international organizations, and at the second day they appointed all of us as the International Council. The Council was born, therefore, not out of a planning to organize a really representative structure. The efforts done to rebalance the composition, never went far. Lot of organizations wanted to be member of the Council, without any criteria of representative and strength, and the Council become soon a large list of names, with few participating, and changing at every council, which left to the Brazilians (Chico Wittaker especially), the de facto ability to have a heavy weight in the process.

The WSF had a large number of meetings. There was the yearly WSF itself, who always had close to 100.000 participants (the one of 2005 150.000), The WSF moved out of Latin America, first in Mumbai, with the participation of 20.000 Dalits (the untouchables). Then in Africa and so on. The march against the American invasion in Iraq, saw a march of 15 million people all over the world.

George Bush dismissed that as a focus group, and the war went on. In addition to the yearly WSF, two other main events were created. The regional WSF, and the thematic Wsf, where under this umbrella people could meet beside the central one Then, local WSF could be held in any country, as part of the general WSF process. A most probable estimate is that the WSF, from 2001. Has joined together over 1 million people, who paid their travel and lodging costs, to share experiences and dream together for a better world.

Some points of this enormous process (that I do not see now replicable to the idea of a party), must be kept into account for our debate.

Civil society is made by many threads. We have no time to go over this, but Boaventura de Sousa Santos, the Portuguese sociologist and anthropologist who has more studied the WSF (and he is also departing in disagreement with the inability of updating from Chico Wittaker and others) has written an interesting study on the “translation” which was necessary to put together those threads.

Woman organizations, for instant, are concerned about the patriarchal society. But indigenous organizations are worried about the exploitation by white colons. Human rights organizations, have different agenda from those dealing with environment. To understand each other, and share and work together, a process of translation of those priorities, to think holistically, went on. It is what is called now identity. Any world party has to answer this question, because there are no indigenous organizations in Europe, and there are no activists on the impact of infrastructures in Asia or Africa. In other worlds, while it is easier to build a mass participation against a common enemy, it requires a lot of dialogue for building up a movement. Certainly, the WSF was fundamental for creating the awareness that a holistic approach is necessary to fight injustice, climate change, an uncontrolled finance, the growing social injustice, etc. And that is an important point in the creation of a world party.

All over those 63 years, from the creation of the Transnational Radical Party, in all movements which have been created, and now in the Yellow jackets, there is a common.

Fact. For the immense majority of the participants, the notion of a party is linked to power, corruption and lack of legitimacy. In the WSF it was its final irrelevance. As the Talmudist, led by Chico Wittaker have opposed: any political declaration from the WSF, because it could divide the movement; any creation of spokesman on behalf of the WSF; the idea of horizontality as the main basis for the governance of the WSF, the WSF as a space for meeting, not for organizing actions. Actions could be done by those participating making up alliances, but the WSF could not make declarations or plans of action. The International Council was not a governing body, but just a facilitating structure. The lack of organizations made that media did not come any longer, as they had no interlocutors, as spokesman were forbidden. Even a declaration on something which could not create any scission, like condemnation of wars, or appeals on climate action were forbidden. The result is that the WSF become like spiritual exercises: useful for those who participates, they come out with more individual strength, but without any impact on the world.

This is an extremely important handicap for a world party. Those who would be in principle its largest constituency, reject the notion of a part, which automatically creates structures of power, opens to corruption od ideals, and leave Individuals without participation and representation. The Yellow Jacket Is a sobering lesson of this. The political world has lost legitimacy, participation, and young people. It is totally separated from culture, research, and intellectualism. A world party, to be real, cannot be based on a few people. It must address and solve those issues.

For these among many, three considerations are important.

The first, Internet has changed the participations in politics. Space and time ae not the same. Tine has become fluid and short. Tweets, Facebook, etc. are much more important than media. Bolsonaro was elected through social media. This is a general phenomenon, from Salvini in Italy, to the Arab Spring, to Brexit. All American media have 62 million copies. Of these, quality papers (WSJ, NYT, WP,etc.), have just ten million copies. Trump tweets have 49 million followers. We know that only 4% buy newspapers, and they look only Fox news, which is an extension of his tweeters. So, when Trump makes absurd claims, like that when he visited Queen Elizabeth, he could not go to the center of London, because there were so many people waiting for him, that this was the advice of the Police, when in fact there were 200.000 people in the streets protesting his visit, those 49 million believed him blindly. The quality media publish a fact checker, which has dramatic figures about his lies and misguided truth. His followers will never read those, and if they see it they will not believe them. We need to be able to get into this kind of mobilization. I, for one, I am not able to use efficiently Twitter. And Aldo Moro the Italian PM assassinated by the Red Brigades (which were used by a stronger force), would not be able either. And politics jump from a short period on an item, to another one. Gone is the ability to follow process. We only follow events. And the same is happening with media.

The second, as a consequence of this, Internet went the wrong way, as far as politics are concerned. Instead of becoming an element of participation, has become an element of atomization. A whopping 73% of its users declare that they carve their own world, a virtual world, that they can build on their wishes. As a result, debate among people (especially young people), has waned. Users go into Internet, dialogue with like-minded people, and insult others. The result is that young people vote less and less, with results like Brexit, where 88% of adults voted, against 23% of young people, who demonstrated against the result of the referendum the day after, with onlookers shouting them: you did not vote and now you protest?

The third, there is now a divide between towns and country side, which is just the point of the iceberg of a much significant divide: between those who feel left out by globalization, and think it went in favor of those living in towns, the elites (intellectuals are considered a part), and those who were not victims. It is just enough to look where Trump got his voters in 2018, and no significant support in the towns. He lost the popular vote by two million. But the peculiar American voting system, a heritage of the process of unification of American states, gives today a disproportionate representation to the smaller and least developed American States. But the same was behind Brexit, and it is happening worldwide.

This has brought an unprecedented situation. Those who feel left behind, are now legitimized to mistrust elites. Ignorance has been for a long time a reality in every country.

But now there is the arrogance of ignorance. Yellow jackets revolt against elites, with Macron as a symbol, is shared by the followers of Trump, Salvini, Le Pen, Bolsonero, etc.

And is ironic that the political system, considered everywhere the main enemy, is in fact the most ignorant in modern times. Once, if Nelson Mandela, Adlai Stevenson, Olaf Palme, Allende and Aldo Moro would meet, they would have some books on which to talk. It would be highly improbable among even parliamentarians, let alone Trump, May and Merkel…

This bring us to a consideration, and the conclusion. The consideration is to reflect what happened to degrade politics and policy. My own reading: there were a sum of factors, all at the same time. The Berlin’s wall fall, brought to the Tatcher’s Tina (there is no alternative). It was the end of ideologies (the end of history), those cages that brought us to wars. The cry was to be pragmatist. But when politics become just the solution of a single problem, without a long term and organic vision of the step you are taking, you are being utilitarian, which is a different perspective. At the same time, we had the Washington Consensus, among the IMF, the WB, and the American Treasury, of how to run the world. The benefits of globalization would lift all boats. Anything which was not productive, was to be curbed: social costs, education (Reagan even wanted to abolish the Ministry), health, which were unmovable and should be privatized. The public system, the state, all what was movable (trade, finance, industry) was to be globalized. Microeconomies were out. It took 20 years for the IMF and the WB, to belatedly restore the role of the state as a regulator, beyond the market. But by now the genie is out of the bottle. Finance has taken its own life, is over the economic production. And the unprecedented concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands is just a symbol, which adds the exasperation of the losers.

But very important was the Third Way theory of Tony Blair, who decided that as globalization was inevitable, the left could ride it, and give to it a human face. The result is that the left lost his constituency, and workers now vote for the new populist parties, which are growing everywhere. The debate left-right, which was largely an ideological debate, has disappeared. Why people should feel passionate about a politic which has become basically an administrative matter?

And this brings us to the conclusion. To create a world party, we must find a banner under which people would come. I think that, in today world, the right does not need to structure Bannon attempt to join all populist and xenophobe parties, is valid as long they have a common enemy: Europe, the multilateralism. But if you push people to nationalism and competition, it will go the way of the much proclaimed unity between the Austrian Prime Minister, Sebastian Kurz, and Salvini, who declared themselves brothers, united against the common enemy, the European Union. But as soon they come across a concrete theme, how to deal with immigrants, their competing interests was the of their brotherhood. I have no doubt that next European elections in May, will see a strengthening of the anti-European forces. But from that to the end of Europe…

Therefore, this growing tide will exhaust itself, when it will be clear that their program of making the national past the future, will last until they take the power, and will become visible that they have no answers: this is what the Italian government is proving now.

Echoing Gramsci, a party should be able to rally masses, for a common goal. This goal, according the reality, should be able to interpret and rally the majority of people. Today, the common denominator has been globalization. Many historians think that the engines for change in history have been greed and fear. Since 1989, we have been educated to greed, which has become a virtue: and since the crisis of 2008 (a direct result of greed), fear has become a strong reality. Immigrants are now the scapegoats, when they have always been a resource. When, in American history, a wall with Mexico could have justified the longest government’s shutdown?

What bonded people together, until 1989, were values it is enough to read any constitutions to find those values: justice, solidarity, ethics, equality, law as the basis of society, and so on. Today we live in a world where nobody speaks of values (unless you take market as a value), and less of all the political world. It would be a long walk, but a world party should be based on values, the defense of international cooperation as a warrant for peace, and on the fact that competition and greed make few winners, and many losers.

We must think that there are millions of people in the world engaged at grassroot level, hundreds of times more than the WSF. Our challenge is to connect with them. This, I am afraid, is a long walk. But unless se connect with those who are working to change the present trend, and we must simply made clear that we are not the elites, but we consider us equally victims, and we share the same enemy. Finally, those are people who read and reflect..And we share the same values…But can we find the language to do that? Communication is the basis for participation…

The post A World Party appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Roberto Savio is founder of IPS Inter Press Service and President Emeritus

The post A World Party appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Rose Delaney
MIAMI, Feb 20 2019 (IPS)

Inaccessible justice and socio-economic inequality act as core components of the United States criminal justice system.

Thousands of individuals are denied their basic human rights and treated as a criminal “underclass” in what appears to be a perfectly “legal” and “just” system.

Jean-Claude Nöel

The United States currently carries the world’s highest prison population with a staggering 2.3 million individuals behind bars. In other words, 1 out of every 99 North American adults are confined to a prison cell at present.

The state of Florida has the third largest prison population in the country. Over $2.7 billion per year is spent to house criminals for predominantly petty crimes.

U.S. prisoners have no political rights, no say in how they are treated, and almost no groups or organizations to advocate on their behalf.

Once released, they cannot avail of social housing or financial aid. In addition, they must state that they were a convicted felon on every job application they apply for.

According to the Bureau of Justice Studies due to poor rehabilitation and access to services in the public domain, 76% of prisoners will be re-arrested within 5 years of release.

I spoke to Jean-Claude Nöel, a former convict, on his experience within Florida’s criminal justice system.

Jean-Claude is well-poised and notably articulate. His family back in Haiti come from a long line of educators and influencers.

One could scarcely imagine such a man having spent close to 10 years behind bars.

Among other convictions, Jean-Claude was charged with conspiracy based on “hearsay evidence” related to racketeering, with no tangible evidence to prove his crime.

Jean-Claude claims that this is wrongful under the eyes of the law and cannot be used to convict an individual.

In 1998, Jean-Claude embarked on a 10-year battle with the state of Florida. He is still in the throes of a heated debate to revise legislation for statute 777.04 on “Attempts, Solicitation and Conspiracy.”

As the recount of Jean-Claude’s conviction progressed, a gross injustice was made apparent. After three and a half years behind bars, he went to trial.

He was offered a bond of over $1million. His requests for a reduction fell on deaf ears, and were denied by the court. His lawyer charged a hefty fee of $15,000 and did little to resolve his case.

Evidently, telling your side of the story proves exceedingly costly in the U.S. criminal justice system. It is not a right granted to low and middle socio-economic classes.

Jean-Claude’s case is distinct as 85% of prisoners in North America’s criminal justice system never go to trial.

From staggeringly high attorney’s fees and extortionate bonds, for many, it’s advised and encouraged to just plead guilty to crimes they may not have committed.

Jean-Claude explained, “the state and lawyers discourage one from going to trial, it is far too costly and time-consuming.”

As a Haitian immigrant, conditions within the U.S. prison system were exceptionally unjust, just two days before his release date, he was transported to a detention center for deportation.

In the detention center, was placed in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, which is considered to be a form of torture by prominent human rights groups such as Amnesty International.

He narrowly evaded deportation by pleading his case to a judge, highlighting the fact that his wife and kids, located in the United States were eagerly waiting for him on the outside after 9 years.

As echoed in Michelle Alexander’s work, The New Jim Crow, Jean-Claude shares the notion that prisoners are treated as a marginalized caste within North American society.

Both within and outside of prison walls, prisoners are stripped of their basic rights to reform and rehabilitation. “the majority leave the prison worse off than when they came in.” Jean-Claude stated.

To overcome such demoralizing setbacks, he decided to put his background in entrepreneurship to use.

A high percentage of male prisoners’ education in the state of Florida do not surpass students aged 11-12, or the U.S. schooling equivalent of the sixth grade.

Therefore, Jean-Claude’s introduction of an “Entrepreneurship and Innovation” program in his assigned prison proved impactful.

Over 150 students went through Jean-Claude’s program which focused on technological literacy and innovation. Although he’s now released, he continues to provide educational and job creation services to prisoners and ex-convicts.

Jean-Claude’s organization, Riemerge, focused on rehabilitating men who have been trapped in the U.S. criminal justice system through classes on technological innovation and advocacy for the employment of prisoners in major coporations.

As the children of inmates are six times more likely to end up incarcerated themselves, Jean-Claude also places a key focus on the sharing of ideas between parents and children.

Parents share their learnings and achievements with children and encourage them to think innovatively about technology and entrepreneurship as well.

Just where does the future lie for wrongfully convicted young men?

Jean-Claude highlights the importance of artificial intelligence in the criminal justice system.

“I am hopeful for reform because of technology, the criminal justice system is adopting new technologies at a brisk pace. I believe these technologies will remove bias out of the courts and out of policing.”

That saying, new technologies come with their own challenges. Jean-Claude offered the example of Brian Brackeen, an African-American entrepreneur, the founder of Kairos, who has developed a successful “face recognition” technology.

Brackeen openly refuses to sell his product to law enforcement, as bias can be passed on to computers.

“I’ve been pretty clear about the potential dangers associated with current racial biases in face recognition, and open in my opposition to the use of the technology in law enforcement.” Brackeen stated.

All in all, with enhanced awareness and dedication, ex-convicts like Jean-Claude are optimistic in their ability to eradicate the gross injustices imposed by the North American criminal justice system.

Jean-Claude’s story is one of many.

He will do everything in his power to advance access to justice and ignite change for inmates who are wrongfully silenced.

The post Intricacies of a Broken System: A Convict’s Tale appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Dr. Kakoli Ghosh, Strategic Program on Sustainable Agriculture Management Team, FAO Ms. Loreta Zdanovaite, Partnerships Officer, Division of Partnerships, FAO

By Kakoli Ghosh and Loreta Zdanovaite
ROME, Feb 20 2019 (IPS)

When young people from small towns and villages seek higher education they have to usually migrate to big cities leaving their local communities behind. On completion of their degree from the Universities, they generally prefer staying in cities, in search of a good job and a successful career. Though this is a standard practice, it is also a case of lost opportunities, especially for students who pursue higher education in agriculture. Here is why.

Mobilizing local farmers in for sustainable practices for common bean production, Uganda

Agriculture covers a range of subjects from agronomy and dairy science to plant and animal health–and for many small -holder farmers and producers, there is a tremendous need for infusion of new knowledge and innovations to upgrade farming practices to improve income and livelihoods. However, there is usually a lack of availability of such support for them in a timely manner. At the same time, all Master’s level students studying agricultural sciences have to conduct research and prepare their dissertations on topical issues as part of their courses. Could it be possible to incentivise students to return to their communities for some time to look at local agriculture problems with fresh eyes and share their new knowledge? Can such reverse engineering accelerate problem solving at a local level and spur innovations? What would entice young people and their local community to create such knowledge linkages?

An small initiative was carried-out with the partner RUFORUM1 to try this out to strengthen linkages between academic knowledge and its ground-based applications. The goal was to promote youth support for SDG2- End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture. Graduate students from African agriculture universities were offered a six-month Community-Based Field Attachment2 to share their knowledge and research experience with rural communities and receive feedback from communities on their specific research areas. The expectation was that such an interaction would provide graduate students an opportunity to a) link academic work with experience of rural community, b) increase practical skills to apply research findings in development-related field projects as well as c) provide local agencies, farmers groups and organizations with the specialized knowledge that can generate innovative solutions to improve rural livelihoods.

Demonstrating vaccination of New Castle Disease vaccine for chickens, Uganda

There was a high response from students, however, based on available resources five each of male and female graduate students from RUFORUM member universities from Benin, Uganda, Kenya and Lesotho were selected for implementing their field projects (Table 1). During their stay with the rural communities, those students interacted with local farmers, village institutions and community elders to discuss and share their knowledge and work together to develop locally- based solutions. With the guidance of their professors as mentors, they reached out to a range of local stakeholders including farmers, agricultural traders, farmer associations, community health institutions, veterinary and extension services and rural community leaders to disseminate their research and also learn from them. They organized interactive workshops and trainings, made open-air presentations and hosted radio shows to increase outreach and share experiences. (Box 1). All participants provided regular reports of their progress to the RUFORUM Secretariat, who provided the necessary monitoring of the project.

This limited exercise has provided us with some interesting insights. It is clear that there is a genuine interest among youth to contribute to their local communities. The various topics of their projects on child nutrition, crop production and animal health among others, addressed a pertinent need in that community. The interactions allowed them to link their theoretical knowledge with practice on the ground. Both local communities and academic institutions expressed willingness to undertake more of such knowledge-exchange partnerships as it was a win-win. In future, perhaps such experiences could help universities to design short-term courses to address local issues and nurture innovations. If such initiatives were at scale and sponsored by local institutions, they might also encourage return of educated youth to agriculture in Africa and beyond. That would surely accelerate the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals.

Table 1. Student projects for Community-Based Field Attachments in Africa

1 The Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) is a network of 105 universities in 37 countries in Africa, www.ruforum.org.
2 Special Call for Applications: Ten RUFORUM Community-Based Field Attachment Programme Awards

The post Reverse Engineering for SDGs appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Dr. Kakoli Ghosh, Strategic Program on Sustainable Agriculture Management Team, FAO
Ms. Loreta Zdanovaite, Partnerships Officer, Division of Partnerships, FAO

The post Reverse Engineering for SDGs appeared first on Inter Press Service.

SIPRI Director on Armament and Disarmament Dr Sibylle Bauer discusses the future of arms control at the Munich Security Conference.

By Dan Smith
MUNICH, Germany, Feb 20 2019 (IPS)

This year’s Munich Security Conference (the MSC), held on 15-17 February raised many questions but didn’t have the answer. It was not a happy and certainly not a self-confident gathering. Yet a couple of moments suggested the first new blooms of new ways to think about security might soon poke through the soil.

The MSC is the annual meeting of makers, shakers and influence-makers on the Euro-Atlantic security scene. Its recent editions have all been full of doubt and query. In 2015 the conference theme was ‘Collapsing Order, Reluctant Guardians?’

That was followed the next year by ‘Boundless Crises, Reckless Spoilers, Helpless Guardians’ – no question-mark this time but not any better or more confident because of that.

In February 2017, with the impact of the newly inaugurated Trump administration as yet unclear, it was ‘Post-Truth, Post-West, Post-Order?’. And last year it was ‘To the brink—and back?’, which, if you look hard, at least has a drop of optimism hidden behind the query.

This year the theme was ‘The Great Puzzle: Who Will Pick Up the Pieces?’ To make sure everybody got the point, there was a little jigsaw puzzle in the conference packs. But by the end of the gathering, not to anybody’s surprise, there was no real answer.

The components of anxiety and uncertainty are not new or surprising for anybody who follows international politics. In the last several years there has been a general deterioration in geopolitical stability.

A key dark moment was the Russian takeover in Crimea during February and March 2014 but the problem goes back further than that. In 2009, as Secretary of State in the new Obama administration, Hillary Clinton aimed for a major “reset” in US-Russia relations because of the negative turn they had taken in the previous years.

US-Russian relations remain at a low ebb, especially over arms control. The expression “INF Treaty” seemed to be used every other sentence that was uttered at the MSC.

It was not like that last year when the prospects for the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty of 1987 was a matter of interest only for the specialists among the specialists.

Now people were discussing whether there is any hope at all for nuclear arms control between the US and Russia and what happens if there is none – a new arms race? Or is a more likely prospect perhaps something new, more of an asymmetric nuclear arms competition in which each is spurred by the other’s new systems but not to match them?

Along with this, tensions are growing between the rest of NATO and Russia, punctuated by further dark moments such as last year’s novichok poisonings in the UK.

There is the trade dispute between the US and China, and close military encounters in the South China Sea where, late last year, US and Chinese warships passed within 40 metres of each other.

Beyond the great power rivalries, there is widespread violent conflict and a re-ordering of power in the Middle East. Worldwide, the incidence of armed conflict is much greater than ten years ago.

Military spending and arms transfers are at their highest levels since the end of the Cold. Regional rivalries, as between Iran and Saudi Arabia and between India and Pakistan remain heated.

There are also rifts and significantly divergent perspectives within NATO. At the MSC, it was instructive to compare the quiet politeness that greeted US Vice-President Pence’s speech with the enthusiastic applause that greeted a single mention of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s name.

As represented here, the European part of the Euro-Atlantic security community, yearning always for a strong western alliance, seriously does not like the Trump administration.

Presumably because they recognised this in their separate ways, those consummate opportunists of the annual MSC platform, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his Iranian counterpart Javad Zarid, both devoted their time to attacking America, not Europe.

A big part of the problem about is that there is not much appetite for a thoroughgoing rethink. For most MSC participants, the answer to the question – “Who will pick up the pieces?” – is, despite Trump, “America, please!” And into what shape should the picked-up pieces be assembled?

Few addressed the question directly but a fair inference is that, for most, the new shape should be as much like the old one as possible. According to one sharp observer of the scene, Carnegie’s Judy Dempsey in her post-MSC wash-up, what was on display at MSC was “a bickering West reluctant to address the new geostrategic realities.”

There were just a couple of moments that suggested something different. One was the first session on climate change and security that the MSC has ever staged in the main conference hall. It is about time.

We have got beyond asking whether climate change causes conflict – a dumb question because no conflict has a single cause; the discussion now is about the circumstances in which climate change contributes to insecurity.

What starts out as growing human insecurity because of, for example, over-use and inefficient management of water, can translate over time into the open warfare and human catastrophe that is Yemen today. Looking ahead, the discussion needs to address the impact of sea-level rise on low-lying coastal areas.

One billion people live less than five metres above current sea-level. What happens to the security agenda ten to fifteen years from now as these areas start to be endangered, if their governments and city authorities cannot help citizens ride out the impact of the change?

If nobody else was prepared to confront the bigger picture, Angela Merkel was. The German Chancellor opened her speech by noting that in 2016 geologists confirmed the view that we now live in the Anthropocene Epoch, when human action is the biggest influence upon nature.

And this, she said, formed the context in which all discussions of security should be held henceforth.

In sum, then: many questions, no satisfying answers, but a couple of glimmers of light showing where to look.

The post Munich Security Conference – Old Question Marks in the Shadow of the Anthropocene appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

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

The post Munich Security Conference – Old Question Marks in the Shadow of the Anthropocene appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Geneva Centre
GENEVA, Feb 20 2019 (IPS-Partners)

(Geneva Centre) – On the occasion of the 2019 World Day of Social Justice observed on 20 February, the Executive Director of the Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue Ambassador Idriss Jazairy stated that the promotion of international solidarity and social justice are vital to the building of peaceful and inclusive societies.

Idriss Jazairy

The Geneva Centre’s Executive Director observed that “social inequality gives rise to social tensions that destabilize societies. Lack of employment opportunities stifle economic growth and result in poverty, social exclusion and discrimination.”

The rise of protest movements in developed societies – he said – is a telling testimony that economic growth can often generate deep inequalities and marginalize the lower middle class and the working class and in particular vulnerable groups such as female-headed households.

“In view of the fact that the value-chain of wealth creation knows no borders, such policies will be self-defeating and may end up in violent confrontation,” suggested the Geneva Centre’s Executive Director. The recent social tensions in Europe is a telling testimony that freewheeling globalization has translated into rising inequality of income and social exclusion.

“Indeed, while the acceleration of globalization and advances in information technology did have some upsides contributing to economic growth and material well-being, it triggered a whole range of complex problems. These include, in particular, growing inequality, increasing poverty, mismatch between qualification and employment opportunities, social disintegration and environmental degradation. The effects of materialism has adversely affected compassion, solidarity and spirituality,” Ambassador Jazairy underlined.

To address this ominous situation, the Geneva Centre Executive Director stressed the importance of identifying a more sustainable and inclusive model of globalization. Domestic and international solidarity – he said – need to be reinvented as reaffirmed in the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda of the United Nations.

In this connection, Ambassador Jazairy said: “We need to seize the opportunity to address the causes of social instability and economic backsliding. People must be empowered so as to enable them to realize their potential and take ownership of their destinies. The gap between the growing elites and ordinary people must be bridged.

“Identifying, addressing and eradicating the root-causes of social injustice will enable us to promote a more equitable development that puts the human being at the centre, and creates synergies between societal development, human security and peaceful societies. There can be no social justice without promoting peace and enhancing equal citizenship rights,” concluded the Geneva Centre’s Executive Director in his statement.

The post “There can be no social justice without promoting peace and enhancing equality,” says Executive Director of the Geneva Centre appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Dorianne Rowan-Campbell is an organic coffee farmer in Jamaica. Taking over her father’s farm in 1992 and turning it into an organic one was a huge risk at the time. However, she sustainably grows 1,800 coffee trees and harnesses nature to deal with pests, rather than using pesticides. Courtesy: Dorienne Rowan-Campbell

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Feb 20 2019 (IPS)

In 1992, the idea of replanting her father’s ruined coffee farm seemed foolhardy at the time. But in retrospect it was the best business decision that Dorienne Rowan-Campbell, an international development consultant and broadcast journalist, could have made.

Nearly three decades later, Rowan-Campbell grows organic coffee on her two hectare, Rowan’s Royale farm. The nearly 60-year-old farm is situated on a steep slope western Portland, a parish northeast of Jamaica overlooking the famous Blue Mountains, known for their coffee plantations.

Rowan-Campbell is a select grower of the famous Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee, one of the most rare and expensive coffees, favoured for making delectable espresso.

“I was foolhardy I just wanted to get up in the mountains and try farming,” Rowan-Campbell tells IPS about her foray into growing coffee, an energy-boosting beverage loved the world over, which may well become scarce, thanks to climate change.

Freshly picked coffee beans. Credit: Will Boase/IPS

Shifting to organic farming a big risk but not for nature

Growing organic coffee was a major shift from conventional coffee farming but it was a big bet. Her father grew coffee the conventional way using polluting pesticides, herbicides and industrial fertilisers to manage pests and diseases while maintaining soil nutrition. She cultivates over half a hectare of the farm with more than 1,800 coffee trees.

“Organic came [about] because everyone said ‘You need a big 50-60 gallon drum to mix pesticides’ and I thought not me,” says Rowan-Campbell, a former Commonwealth Director of the Women and Development Programme at the Commonwealth Secretariat in London.

She beat the odds of having initially a poor knowledge about organic farming. Her husband and small staff were trained in organic farming techniques. And the organic farming experiment worked. In 2002, BCS OEKO-GARANTIE in Germany—which certifies some 35 percent of all organic products in the country— certified the farm organic.

Since 2004, it has been inspected and certified annually by the Certification of Environmental Standards (CERES), an organic certification agency that uses the presence of birds as one indication of environmental balance.

A 2006 study, by Humbolt University and the University of the West Indies, into birds as vectors of pest control found that although Rowan’s Royale was the smallest farm in the sample, it had the most birds, the greatest variety of birds and the least coffee berry borer (a beetle harmful to coffee crops).

“As an organic farmer, I have to harness nature and work with it because we do not use any chemicals on my farm. I have insects and birds and they eat more than 50 percent of any pests that would attack my coffee so the quality of the coffee is naturally protected,” she says, explaining that she mulches and prepares natural compost for the coffee trees and manages pests and diseases with natural chemicals.

“We have coffee rust disease right now, decimating the coffee industry in Central, South America and the Caribbean. Some people are using extremely strong chemicals to deal with it. I use a mixture of garlic and water. It works, and I share it with all the farmers.”

An estimated 4,000 farmers are growing Blue Mountain Coffee in Jamaica. This year Rowan-Campbell expects to harvest up to four tonnes of coffee beans and is marketing the coffee in America, Europe and Asia.

Dorianne Rowan-Campbell’s farm is a select producer of the famous Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee, one of the most rare and expensive of coffees, favoured for making delectable espresso. Courtesy: Dorienne Rowan-Campbell

Beating climate change

Once Rowan-Campbell packed a packaged, a box with various coffee roasts and sent it to Prince Charles, the future king of England via a courier. But he never got it.

“He had asked about organic coffee and was told there was none,” she remembers. “Organic farming is an adaptation strategy against climate change and I try to teach others.”

Coffee is vulnerable to temperature change as it only grows at specific temperatures around the tropics.

Scientific research is showing that climate change will reduce coffee growing areas around the world by up to 88 percent by 2050. It has become necessary for more than 25 million coffee farmers in more than 60 tropical countries to adapt to climate change using a blend of techniques such as shade improvement and crop rotation.

“Our results suggest that coffee-suitable areas will be reduced 73–88 percent by 2050 across warming scenarios, a decline 46–76 percent greater than estimated by global assessments,” says a study by the PNAS journal.

Coffee is the second most commonly traded commodity in the world, trailing only as a source of foreign exchange to developing countries, according to the International Coffee Organisation.

Bouyed by global demand for organic produce, Rowan-Campbell—an active member of the Jamaica Organic Agriculture movement—is also growing root vegetables and makes organic jams and marmalade.

“For me organic farming it is the most important thing in farming because it says you are building a sustainable future for your great [grand] children,” she said.

However, what has made organic farming work? “Probably love and passion,” she says.

“I think it is important that in Jamaica we have this wonderful flavour of coffee. It is a gift because coffee is grown at a certain elevation and the soil is good.

“When I started, I did not know I was taking such a major step in Jamaica. I have many women who come to me and say they want to grow organic.”

Since 2004, the farm purchased by her father in 1960 has weathered four hurricanes with Hurricane Dean in 2007 damaging close to 70 of the coffee trees. Despite this, Rowan-Campbell says organic methods have prevented landslides and soil erosion on the farm.

Rowan-Campbell is a certified inspector and trains other famers in organic farming and promoting certification. Last year she was part of an initiative to develop a Caribbean Community (CARICOM) standard for organic coffee production.

Organic coffee farmers in Jamaica have had to overcome the challenges of poor regulations for organic coffee, high license fees and local certification.

Rowan-Campbell says she has no plans of expanding the business. She wants to keep it small, efficient, profitable and delivering high quality export coffee.

“I am meticulous. I want only well ripened cherries and I reap a little at a time. No big pay-out at end of the day, but sustainable production and high quality coffee.”

Related Articles

• Q&A: Jamaica Pushes Climate Smart Policies to Secure the Future of its Food Supply
• Q&A: Suriname’s President Champions Preserving the World’s Forests
• The Role Technology Can Play in Fighting Climate Change and Deforestation
• Youth Bridge the Gap Between Climate Change and Climate Awareness in Guyana

The post Wake Up and Smell the Organic Coffee appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Some 50 human rights defenders from Latin America held a meeting at the Journalists Club in Mexico City to exchange strategies and analyse the challenges they face in the most lethal region for activists. Special rapporteurs on indigenous peoples, displaced persons and freedom of expression attended the meeting. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Feb 20 2019 (IPS)

“We’re in a very difficult situation. There is militarisation at a regional level, and gender-based violence. We are at risk, we cannot silence that,” Aura Lolita Chávez, an indigenous woman from Guatemala, complained at a meeting of human rights defenders from Latin America held in the Mexican capital.

The Quiché indigenous activist and leader of the K’iche’s People’s Council for the Defence of Life, Mother Nature, Land and Territory, told IPS that the Guatemalan government “has said that we are violent trouble-makers, but we defend our territory and we say no to the mining companies.”

Chávez, who was a finalist for the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 2017, and winner of the Ignacio Ellacuría Prize of the Basque Agency for Development Cooperation that same year, is an organiser of the opposition by native communities in western Guatemala against mining companies, hydroelectric dams and African oil palm producers.

She has received death threats and attacks that forced her to seek refuge in Spain in 2017.

But her case is far from an exception, in Guatemala and in the rest of Latin America, the most lethal region for human rights defenders according to different reports, especially activists involved in defending land rights and the environment.

In this increasingly alarming context, Chávez and some 50 activists from Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, the United States and Uruguay participated in the International Meeting of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists in Mexico City from Feb. 15-18, under the slogan “Defending does not mean forgetting.”

Guests at the meeting were United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz from the Philippines; UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons, Cecilia Jiménez-Damary from the Philippines; and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, Edison Lanza from Uruguay.

The human rights defenders identified common threats such as interference by mining and oil companies in indigenous territories, government campaigns against activists, judicial persecution, gender-based violence, and polarised societies that often fail to recognise the defence of human rights.

Evelia Bahena, an activist from the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, told IPS about “the suffering and destruction” at the hands of “companies that make profits at the cost of the lives of others.”

In the municipality of Cocula, Bahena has fought against mining projects, which drew threats and lawsuits against her, forcing her to flee her community – a common fate for activists struggling against mega-projects that harm the social fabric and natural resources of the villages and towns where they are built, and the rights of local residents.

Award-winning Guatemalan indigenous activist Aura Lolita Chávez, leader of the K’iche’s Council of Peoples, has been forced to seek refuge in Spain because of death threats and attacks, due to her struggle against the activities of companies that affect the environment and indigenous territories in her country. Credit: Courtesy of ETB

A number of reports have focused on the plight of human rights defenders in the region. In the report “At what cost? Irresponsible Business and the Murder of Land and Environment Defenders 2017”, published in July 2018, the international organisation Global Witness stated that of the total of 201 murders of human rights defenders in the world in 2017, 60 percent happened in Latin America.

Brazil recorded the highest number of homicides of activists of any country, 57. In Mexico, the number was 15, five times more than the year before, while Nicaragua recorded the highest murder rate of activists relative to its population, with four killings, according to the British-based organisation.

The “Global Analysis 2018”, produced by the international organisation Front Line Defenders, also depicts a grim outlook, counting 321 human rights defenders killed in 27 countries, nine more than in 2017. Of that total, 77 percent involved defenders of the land, the environment and indigenous people.

In the Americas, the most common violations consisted of threats and smear campaigns, according to the Irish-based organisation. In Colombia, 126 activists were murdered; in Mexico, 48; in Guatemala, 26; in Brazil, 23; and in Honduras, eight.

For Ana María Rodríguez, a representative of the Colombian Commission of Jurists, difficult conditions persist in her country, where 20 human rights activists have been murdered so far in 2019.

“We still don’t have an effective response from the state” to guarantee the safety of human rights defenders, Rodríguez told IPS.

The most numerous victims are social organisers from areas once controlled by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a guerrilla group that is now a political party with representation in parliament, after signing a peace agreement with the government in 2016, ending half a century of armed conflict.

Special rapporteurs on different aspects of human rights take part in the Feb. 18 closing ceremony of the Latin American meeting of human rights defenders and journalists in Mexico City. Credit: Courtesy of CMDPDH

“There are delays and non-compliance with the peace agreement,” which have contributed to the defencelessness of human rights activists, according to the lawyer.

In Mexico, this year has already claimed a deadly quota, with at least six human rights defenders and three journalists killed.

Added to this record number are the ongoing crises in Nicaragua and Venezuela, the arrival in January of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, who has issued open threats against civil society, and statements by leftist President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in office in Mexico since December, against civil society organisations and journalists who take a critical stance.

The rapporteurs present at the meeting, on unofficial visits to Mexico, listened to the accounts given by activists and recalled that governments in the region have international obligations to respect, such as guaranteeing the rights of indigenous people, displaced persons and journalists, as well as protecting human rights defenders.

“One of the basic rights is to prior consultation and obtaining free, prior and informed consent,” especially with respect to megaprojects, Tauli-Corpuz, UN special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, who belongs to the native Kankanaey Igorot people of the Philippines, told IPS.

In her October report on Mexico, the special rapporteur criticised the violation of rights of indigenous people, especially the right to prior consulation on energy, land or tourism projects in their territories.

López Obrador’s government plans to build a railway running through five states in the south and southeast of the country and to create an overland route linking the Pacific and Atlantic coasts that runs across native lands – projects that are opposed by affected communities.

For his part, Lanza, the IACHR special rapporteur, said the recommendations of the joint report released in June 2018 with David Kaye, UN special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, should be the starting point for the measures to be adopted by the Mexican government.

“The important thing is for the State to comply with the recommendations. We are following that up,” he told IPS. In March, his office will present its annual regional report on freedom of expression.

Jiménez-Damary highlighted that Colombia is the most critical case of forced internal displacement, with some 6.5 million victims as of 2017, while in Mexico some 345,000 people have had to leave their homes and in El Salvador, 296,000.

“One displaced person is already one too many. The state has the main responsibility” in such cases, the UN special rapporteur on the rights of internally displaced persons told IPS.

Related Articles

• A “Crisis Point” for Human Rights Defenders
• Protection of Journalists Fails in Latin America

The post Attacks on Human Rights Defenders: A Daily Occurrence in Latin America appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Feb 19 2019 (IPS)

For two centuries, all too many discussions about hunger and resource scarcity has been haunted by the ghost of Parson Thomas Malthus. Malthus warned that rising populations would exhaust resources, especially those needed for food production. Exponential population growth would outstrip food output.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Humanity now faces a major challenge as global warming is expected to frustrate the production of enough food as the world population rises to 9.7 billion by 2050. Timothy Wise’s new book [Eating Tomorrow: Agribusiness, Family Farmers, and the Battle for the Future of Food. New Press, New York, 2019] argues that most solutions currently put forward by government, philanthropic and private sector luminaries are misleading.

Malthus’ ghost returns
The early 2008 food price crisis has often been wrongly associated with the 2008-2009 global financial crisis. The number of hungry in the world was said to have risen to over a billion, feeding a resurgence of neo-Malthusianism.

Agribusiness advocates fed such fears, insisting that food production must double by 2050, and high-yielding industrial agriculture, under the auspices of agribusiness, is the only solution. In fact, the world is mainly fed by hundreds of millions of small-scale, often called family farmers who produce over two-thirds of developing countries’ food.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, neither food scarcity nor poor physical access are the main causes of food insecurity and hunger. Instead, Reuters has observed a ‘global grain glut’, with surplus cereal stocks piling up.

Meanwhile, poor production, processing and storage facilities cause food losses of an average of about a third of developing countries’ output. A similar share is believed lost in rich countries due to wasteful food storage, marketing and consumption behaviour.

Nevertheless, despite grain abundance, the 2018 State of Food Insecurity report — by the Rome-based United Nations food agencies led by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) — reported rising chronic and severe hunger or undernourishment involving more than 800 million.

Political, philanthropic and corporate leaders have promised to help struggling African and other countries grow more food, by offering to improve farming practices. New seed and other technologies would modernize those left behind.

But producing more food, by itself, does not enable the hungry to eat. Thus, agribusiness and its philanthropic promoters are often the problem, not the solution, in feeding the world.

Eating Tomorrow addresses related questions such as: Why doesn’t rising global food production feed the hungry? How can we “feed the world” of rising populations and unsustainable pressure on land, water and other natural resources that farmers need to grow food?

Family farmers lack power
Drawing on five years of extensive fieldwork in Southern Africa, Mexico, India and the US Mid-West, Wise concludes that the problem is essentially one of power. He shows how powerful business interests influence government food and agricultural policies to favour large farms.

This is typically at the expense of ‘family’ farmers, who grow most of the world’s food, but also involves putting consumers and others at risk, e.g., due to agrochemical use. His many examples not only detail and explain the many problems small-scale farmers face, but also their typically constructive responses despite lack of support, if not worse, from most governments:

• In Mexico, trade liberalization following the 1993 North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) agreement swamped the country with cheap, subsidized US maize and pork, accelerating migration from the countryside. Apparently, this was actively encouraged by transnational pork producers employing ‘undocumented’ and un-unionised Mexican workers willing to accept low wages and poor working conditions.
• In Malawi, large government subsidies encouraged farmers to buy commercial fertilizers and seeds from US agribusinesses such as now Bayer-owned Monsanto, but to little effect, as their productivity and food security stagnated or even deteriorated. Meanwhile, Monsanto took over the government seed company, favouring its own patented seeds at the expense of productive local varieties, while a former senior Monsanto official co-authored the national seed policy that threatens to criminalize farmers who save, exchange and sell seeds instead!
• In Zambia, greater use of seeds and fertilizers from agribusiness tripled maize production without reducing the country’s very high rates of poverty and malnutrition. Meanwhile, as the government provides 250,000-acre ‘farm blocks’ to foreign investors, family farmers struggle for title to farm land.
• In Mozambique too, the government gives away vast tracts of farm land to foreign investors. Meanwhile, women-led cooperatives successfully run their own native maize seed banks.
• Meanwhile, Iowa promotes vast monocultures of maize and soybean to feed hogs and bioethanol rather than ‘feed the world’.
• A large Mexican farmer cooperative launched an ‘agro-ecological revolution’, while the old government kept trying to legalize Monsanto’s controversial genetically modified maize. Farmers have thus far halted the Monsanto plan, arguing that GM corn threatens the rich diversity of native Mexican varieties.

Much of the research for the book was done in 2014-15, when Obama was US president, although the narrative begins with developments and policies following the 2008 food price crisis, during Bush’s last year in the White House. The book tells a story of US big business’ influence on policies enabling more aggressive transnational expansion.

Yet, Wise remains optimistic, emphasizing that the world can feed the hungry, many of whom are family farmers. Despite the challenges they face, many family farmers are finding innovative and effective ways to grow more and better food. He advocates support for farmers’ efforts to improve their soil, output and wellbeing.

Eating better
Hungry farmers are nourishing their life-giving soils using more ecologically sound practices to plant a diversity of native crops, instead of using costly chemicals for export-oriented monocultures. According to Wise, they are growing more and better food, and are capable of feeding the hungry.

Unfortunately, most national governments and international institutions still favour large-scale, high-input, industrial agriculture, neglecting more sustainable solutions offered by family farmers, and the need to improve the wellbeing of poor farmers.

Undoubtedly, many new agricultural techniques offer the prospect of improving the welfare of farmers, not only by increasing productivity and output, but also by limiting costs, using scarce resources more effectively, and reducing the drudgery of farm work.

But the world must recognize that farming may no longer be viable for many who face land, water and other resource constraints, unless they get better access to such resources. Meanwhile, malnutrition of various types affects well over two billion people in the world, and industrial agriculture contributes about 30% of greenhouse gas emissions.

Going forward, it will be important to ensure affordable, healthy and nutritious food supplies for all, mindful not only of food and water safety, but also of various pollution threats. A related challenge will be to enhance dietary diversity affordably to overcome micronutrient deficiencies and diet-related non-communicable diseases for all.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram, a former economics professor, was United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development, and received the Wassily Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought.

The post Agribusiness Is the Problem, Not the Solution appeared first on Inter Press Service.

At global fashion brand Ganni's 2019 runway show, models glided down the runway against the backdrop of girls from developing countries. Credit: Instagram / @oursecondskin

By Zafirah Zein
SINGAPORE, Feb 19 2019 (IPS)

Scandinavian fashion label and global It-brand Ganni hardly caused a stir recently when it closed Copenhagen Fashion Week with a sustainability-themed showcase titled “Life on Earth.”

Considering that sustainability is now a consumer trend, it is no surprise that a luxury brand touted as “a magnet for cool girls all over the planet” aimed to boost its street cred with a show that put sustainability at its core.

The problem? Photographs of brown, underprivileged women in developing countries served as the backdrop for a runway of mostly white, European models decked in designer clothing, with no mention of their stories, and how these connected in relation to the brand, or sustainability for that matter.

Zafirah Zein

Decades after the end of colonialism, Western domination in the areas of sustainable development and environmental protection threaten to undermine our efforts towards a more equal, sustainable future.

Anna Nadim Saber, a New York-based fashion blogger, criticised the brand online for being “problematic,” sharing in a long Instagram post: “This is a larger pattern of exploitation in the fashion industry. It is exactly women like those in these pictures who are worst affected by our industry: poor wages and terrible working conditions in sweatshops that manufacture clothing for many Western brands.”

To the fashion industry, she said: “Stop being tone deaf and blind to your own internalised, colonial mentality.”

Saber appeared to be the only voice from the fashion business who called out Ganni’s misstep, but her view picked at a discomfort that I’ve been harbouring a few months into writing about sustainable development.

Ganni’s efforts to promote sustainability were not just misplaced; they perpetuated notions of inequality and Western superiority through the misrepresentation of other communities and the lack of real engagement with global problems.

These “tone deaf” practices by Western brands also reaffirmed the unsettling perception that the global narrative on sustainability deflects blame from and even applauds the actors that have long been the driver of global ills.

This is rooted in colonial attitudes and cultural imperialism—issues that stem from the historical relationship between once colonised-states and their ex-colonisers, and unequal power structures between the Global North and South.

Eco-colonialism?
The term eco-colonialism is practically unheard of in the mainstream conversation on sustainability. However, government agencies and civil groups worldwide have recently used it to refer to the behaviour and policies of developed, Western nations who currently serve as the loudest voices on environmental protection today.

Earlier this year, Malaysia’s Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA) accused the European Union (EU) of “economic colonisation” for its move to ban palm oil in biofuels by 2020, in a bid to halt deforestation. The country has also claimed the ban to be “discriminatory” as it favours European-grown oils such as rapeseed and sunflower, while diverting attention away from domestic environmental issues.

In an interview, a spokesperson for FELDA said: “It’s the same colonial attitudes, the white man imposing their rule on us from afar.”

Palm oil contributes significantly to the economies of Asian palm-oil exporting countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia, where poor, smallholder farmers in these countries account for almost half of palm oil output and thus depend on the commodity for economic survival.

Europe, in this case, is only considering their own priorities and not those of people in Malaysia and Indonesia, while still using palm oil in everything else from soap and cosmetics to crackers and ice cream.

Putting a freeze on a crop that is most significant in accelerating social and economic development of many countries across Africa and Southeast Asia carries the shadow of neocolonialism, which includes a powerful state exercising control over another through economic or monetary means.

Another issue that stinks of green imperialism is the plastic waste trade, which gained attention after China banned foreign waste imports in January last year to protect its environment.

Forced to deal with their own rubbish, China’s move was met with backlash from British and American companies, even prompting a senior director at the Institute for Scrap Recycling Industries in Washington to say: “Do they (China) care about the global environment or only their own environment because we are land-filling perfectly good materials now because of the actions that they’re taking.”

Some also took the easier route, by redirecting their waste to Southeast Asia and swamping local ports and recycling plants across the region in the process. This led to a backlash from several countries such as Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand, who subsequently banned plastic waste imports.

Thailand and Vietnam are among the five countries that were ranked as the most marine polluting countries in the world, making Asia the target of international criticism over their waste management practices and unsustainable consumer lifestyles, despite the fact they are usually at the receiving end of rich nations’ waste.

This has created an unequal picture of global waste, in which developed nations, who are more likely to engage in overconsumption, are deflected from blame.

However, most media attention has focused on plastic-choked oceans in Asia while spotlighting environmental movements in the West that want to wipe out plastic straws and switch to more durable, dearer items—lifestyle practices that are out of reach for many in the developing world.

As this opinion piece by geography experts at the University of Guelph, Canada, puts well: “If we understand waste, not as something produced by the actions of a group of individuals, but rather a product of socioeconomic systems that contribute to making waste and encourages wasting, problems with these dominant explanations arise. We start to see that Western consumers are part of the problem and cannot be absolved of their responsibility.”

Moving away from Western-led sustainability
Chandran Nair, Malaysian founder of Hong Kong-based think tank Global Institute for Tomorrow, writes in his book The Sustainable State that the problem with today’s sustainable development narrative is that it is understood from the perspective of advanced economies rather than developing ones.

He notes that discussions are often led by Western experts who rarely confronted the unsustainable means by which their own economies had grown.

Speaking with Nair at Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week, he weighed in on our shared view that the Western-dominated sustainability space often rang hypocritical and is reminiscent of colonial habits such as paternalism, victim-blaming and exporting problems.

Furthermore, most sustainability events and panel discussions lacked the diversity that could better represent the issues faced by the majority of the world’s population and were instead populated with white men in suits. This also extends to civil society, where green movements in Asia are often led by Western expatriates.

This always seemed strangely ironic to me, that the West was leading the world into a sustainable future, after almost worldwide adoption of a Western economic model that thrives on overconsumption has resulted in the pillaging of the earth.

“The most unsustainable societies are Western societies, but they make it an Asian problem,” said Nair. “Now these societies are also providing us with solutions from their thought leaders. There’s something wrong with this picture.”

That conversation with Nair drove home the flaw in our current narrative: sustainability often focuses on the demands and desires of the developed, and largely Western world, while failing to address the more complex barriers that the majority of the world has towards achieving a sustainable way of life.

Real solutions lie in radically shifting the global conversation to one rooted in local needs and contexts, and coming up with knowledge-based ideas and polices that are independent of Western models.

Sustainability has to furthermore be more inclusive of other voices outside of the Western mainstream—especially communites long marginalised by it—by striving for true representation that does not perpetuate damaging colonial mentalities.

Not doing so runs the risk of supporting a global structure of inequality that will do no good to our quest for sustainability.

*This story was originally published on Eco-Business and reproduced with permission.

The link to the original article follows: https://www.eco-business.com/opinion/in-the-world-of-sustainability-colonialism-is-not-dead/

The post In the World of Sustainability, Colonialism is Not Dead appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Zafirah Zein is a correspondent for Eco-Business*, a sustainability media organisation covering responsible business and sustainable development in Asia Pacific.

The post In the World of Sustainability, Colonialism is Not Dead appeared first on Inter Press Service.

“There’s been very little accountability in South Sudan for what is chronic, endemic problem of sexual violence against women and girls,” the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights says. Credit: Jared Ferrie/IPS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 19 2019 (IPS)

Women and girls continue to face the brunt of violence in the northern region of South Sudan with persistently high and brutal levels of sexual violence, a new report found.

Despite the signing of a peace deal nearly five months ago, United Nations investigators have found an “endemic” rise in cases of sexual violence in South Sudan’s Unity State.

“There’s been very little accountability in South Sudan for what is chronic, endemic problem of sexual violence against women and girls,” said the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights’ (OHCHR) spokesperson Rupert Colville.

“Virtually complete impunity over the years, as a result, very little disincentive for these men not to do what they’re doing,” he added at the launch of the report.

U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet also expressed concern over the widespread issue, stating: “The volatility of the situation in South Sudan combined with the lack of accountability for violations and abuses committed throughout Unity, likely leads armed actors to believe that they can get away with rape and other horrific forms of sexual violence.”

Between September and December 2018 alone, at least 175 women and girls experienced sexual and physical violence. Of these cases, 64 were girls, some as young as eight years old.

U.N. Missions in South Sudan (UNMISS) and OHCHR researchers found that most of the victims were attacked on roads as they traveled in search of firewood, food or water, commodities which have been limited since the start of the conflict in 2013.

One woman recounted her experience, stating: “We women do not have a choice…if we go by the main road, we are raped. If we go by the bush, we are raped…we avoided the road because we heard horrible stories that women and girls are grabbed while passing through and are raped, but the same happened to us. There is no escape—we are all raped.”

The 30-year-old survivor was raped on three separate occasions, each time around the same location to or from food distribution sites in Bentiu.

Almost 90 percent of the women and girls were raped by more than one perpetrator and often over several hours, the report found.

The report also observed that many of the attacks were premeditated and organised, stating: “The ruthlessness of the attackers appears to be a consistent feature of sexual violence documented during this investigation.”

In another incident in November, a woman who was two months pregnant suffered a miscarriage after being gang-raped.

Survivors also described being beaten with rifle butts, sticks, and cable wires if they attempted to resist or after they were raped.

A 50-year-old survivor told investigators she was beaten after trying to keep armed men from taking her 25-year-old daughter.

“Some of them threw punches and kicks on me for not allowing them to take my daughter. Those armed men were just like my sons, but they were so cruel. They do not have mercy,” she said.

Among the factors that have contributed to the rise in attacks against women and girls is the large number of fighters on “standby” mode awaiting disengagement and withdrawal.

Though a peace agreement was signed in September 2018, the new transitional government will not be put into effect until May, leaving members of numerous armed forces in limbo.

“A lot of these young men who are heavily armed, are just waiting around…This is a very toxic mix, and there are also youth militia which some of these official groups ally with and you don’t know exactly who they are; they’ve been heavily involved as well,” Colville said.

President Salva Kirr of South Sudan. The United Nations has urged Kirr to carry out investigations and seek justice for survivors of sexual violence in the northern region of the country. Credit: Elias Asmare/IPS

Impunity and the lack of accountability have also led to the normalisation of violence against women and girls, and both UNMISS and OHCHR have urged President Salva Kiir to carry out investigations and seek justice for survivors.

Upon hearing about reports of mass report, an investigation was carried out by a South Sudanese committee. However, they denied the allegations and declared that the rapes were “not a true story.”

While the current peace deal seems volatile, it is increasingly urgent for the new South Sudan to act and protect women and girls.

“Sadly, we have continued to receive reports of rape and gang rape in northern Unity since the beginning of this year,” Bachelet said.

“I urge the Government of South Sudan to take adequate measures – including those laid out in the peace agreement – to protect women and girls, to promptly and thoroughly investigate all allegations of sexual violence and to hold the perpetrators accountable through fair trials,” she added.

Related Articles

• South Sudanese Girls Given Away As ‘Blood Money’
• War-ravaged South Sudan Struggles to Contain AIDS
• OP-ED: Violence Leaves Women, Girls, and Young People on the Edge in South Sudan

The post Sexual Violence Surging in South Sudan appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The post Mining Grabs Up Land, Deals Blow to Agriculture in Central America appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Geneva Centre
GENEVA, Feb 19 2019 (IPS-Partners)

(Geneva Centre) – Two new publications entitled “The Unprecedented Rise of People on the Move” and “Veiling/ Unveiling: The Headscarf in Christianity, Islam and Judaism” have been published by the Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue.

The purpose of the first publication is two-fold: it is first to assess the causes and consequences of forced displacement of people on the move in Europe and in the Arab region. The first volume entitled “Migration and human solidarity, a challenge and an opportunity for Europe and the MENA region” explores the adverse impact of cross-border movement resulting from war-related insecurity and from economic push factors such as the detrimental impact of climate change.

Secondly, it aims to demonstrate that the migrant and refugee crisis is not a “number-crisis” as many of the European countries most hostile to the arrival of people on the move are those that have hosted the smallest numbers of migrants. Upon examination of these issues, it becomes clear that the closed border policies of advanced societies and the rise of xenophobic populism further aggravate the migrant and refugee crisis.

The publication also includes a part entitled “Protecting people on the move: IDPs in the context of the refugee and migrant crisis” examines the causes and consequences of internal displacement in the context of the migrant and refugee crisis. It demonstrates that the push and pull factors of forced displacement of IDPs in the Arab region exacerbate migrant and refugee inflows to Europe. Upon examination of the predicaments of IDPs in Syria, Iraq and Azerbaijan, the study demonstrates that prolonged internal displacement results in long-term adverse impact on societies from economic, social and political standpoints.

In conclusion, the publication suggests that the long-term solution to enhance the protection of IDPs in conflict- and disaster-settings rests on the ability of stakeholders to develop efficient policies to prevent and reduce internal displacement.

The aim of the second publication is to counter misconceptions, deconstruct stereotypes and to show the role of the headscarf as a bridge between cultures and religions. Against the background of a heightened fear of the Other, with societies turning inwards and moving away from tolerance, the headscarf has become outrageously politicised. Politicians are waging a relentless war against this religious symbol, either by advocating its prohibition and thus trampling on article 18 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, or by legislating to impose it on women, thus violating women’s freedom to choose what to wear.

The Geneva Centre partnered with the Permanent Mission of Algeria to organize a panel discussion and an exhibition on 23 February 2018, at the UN Offices in Geneva, entitled “Veiling/ Unveiling: The Headscarf in Christianity, Islam and Judaism.” In the first part of the publication, the reader is provided with the summary of the debate, whilst a full chapter is dedicated to the lessons learned, offering an analysis of the topic from the standpoint of each religion discussed. The second part of the publication provides a graphic illustration of the catalogue of the eponymous exhibition.

The post The Geneva Centre issues a publication on the unprecedented rise of people on the move and one other on the role of the headscarf as a bridge between cultures and religions appeared first on Inter Press Service.

At the 8th Meeting of the South Commission, Havana , Cuba , July 1990. Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, Chairman of the South Commission, President Fidel Castro of Cuba, Manmohan Singh, Secretary-General of the Commission, Carlos Fortin (right) and Branislav Gosovic (left), of the Commission staff.

By Branislav Gosovic
GENEVA, Feb 18 2019 (IPS)

The BAPA+40 Zero Draft Outcome Document—to be adopted at the upcoming conference on the Buenos Aires Plan of Action (BAPA+40) in Argentina March 20-22– is much like a conference report intended to accommodate different points of view.

It is neither a visionary policy nor substantive action-oriented agenda needed to bolster South-South cooperation (SSC) and give it greater importance in the United Nations system, which would normally be expected from a once-in-a-decade high-level UN conference.

Having been drafted carefully to take into account views and sensitivities of the developed countries, which have not been overly enthusiastic about South-South cooperation, the document could not give adequate prominence to preferences and position of developing countries, the major interested party and leading force of that cooperation.

Initial comments on and reactions to the Zero Draft reflect continuing disagreements and underlying policy differences between the South and the North regarding the nature and objectives of South-South cooperation.

Given – (a). the contents and policy limitations of the Draft Outcome Document, which largely delimit the final outcome of the Conference; (b). the traditional misgivings of the developed countries about SSC and their efforts to constrain its development; (c). the political and institutional obstacles that limit the UN role and engagement of its staff in promoting SSC; and (d). the absence of a comprehensive, up-to-date South platform for SSC and the differences that exist among the South’s large and diverse constituency – the Group of 77 would do well already now to begin preparing for the period following BAPA+40.

Initially, in its BAPA+40 follow-up, the G77 should address – in its own circle and in a comprehensive manner – the challenges and opportunities facing South-South cooperation.

Taking into account the outcome of the 2019 Buenos Aires Conference and the lessons learned during its preparatory process, proceedings and negotiations, a new effort should be undertaken to elaborate a G77 South-South cooperation policy platform and agenda for action.

In this context, it is important to recall the G77 1981 Caracas Conference on Economic Cooperation among Developing Countries (ECDC), which followed the 1978 Buenos Aires Conference on Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries (TCDC).

Both Conferences were part and parcel of the Global South’s New International Economic Order (NIEO) initiatives during that period. The Caracas event had to be organized outside the UN, but it relied on logistical and substantive support of the UNCTAD Secretariat.

The goal was to carry on with the process beyond what had been possible to achieve in Buenos Aires and in the framework of the UN itself. The Caracas Programme of Action on Economic Cooperation among Developing Countries (A/36/333) was adopted.

It broadened the concept to incorporate “economic cooperation among developing countries” beyond the politically and substantively restricted “technical assistance”, projects-centred approach dealt with in Buenos Aires (A/CONF.79/13/Rev.1).

However, the concept of ECDC could not properly be institutionalized in the UN framework due to the opposition of the developed countries. Indeed, in the institutional-reform sweep in the 1990s, driven and inspired by these countries, even the UNCTAD Unit on ECDC was closed.

As part of its continuing initiative in the UN, the Group of 77 began to champion a broader concept, namely “South-South cooperation”, elaborated in the 1990 Report of the South Commission, The Challenge to the South. In 1994, G77, in its Ministerial Declaration, urged the UN to convene an international conference on South-South cooperation in 1996.

The resolution on South-South cooperation adopted subsequently by the UN General Assembly, inter alia called on the UN Secretary-General, in preparing his report on the state of South-South cooperation, to keep “in view the proposal to convene an international conference on South-South cooperation”.

This non-committal wording reflected the lack of developed countries’ support for the idea. And, in fact, it took nearly 15 years before such a conference could be held in the UN – the 2009 Nairobi High-level Conference on South-South Cooperation – and before the concept of South-South cooperation was anointed in this Organization.

One can argue that the suspicion harboured by key actors in the North vis-à-vis SSC has not basically changed, even though these countries now exhibit a greater tactical flexibility due to the changing realities, including the emergence of and the challenge posed by “the rising South”.

Given the differences of outlook between the North and the South, and political and administrative constraints that UN organizations and staff experience in their work to advance the process of South-South cooperation and to assist the developing countries in this domain, a satisfactory outcome of the three-day BAPA+40 North-South encounter does not seem likely from the point of view of the Group of 77.

It would, thus, be propitious for the Group to begin considering a similar approach to the one it had adopted after the 1978 Buenos Aires TCDC Conference, when it decided to hold its own ECDC conference in 1981 in Caracas.

In view of the existing situation, possibly in the final stage of the 2019 Buenos Aires Conference, the Group of 77 should highlight the coming 40th anniversary of the 1981 Caracas Conference by announcing the launching of its own South-South follow-up, as a sequel to BAPA+40.

In this way, G77 and its member states would commit themselves to review and formally consider the nature of South-South cooperation and its role in development and in the evolving geopolitical setting.

This would be a collective undertaking, pursued within one’s own circle and policy space, with the goal being to elaborate a Global South’s policy and action-oriented agenda for South-South cooperation, without the developed countries present to influence the parameters of that cooperation.

While centred on SSC actions and needs within the Global South, the proposed follow-up would also need to address, as a separate issue, the role of the UN and UN system in actively supporting South-South cooperation, as an important dimension of international development cooperation and, indeed, of democratic global governance.

Two events already on the agenda could contribute to the follow-up process in the initial stage. The Group of 77 ministerial conference, planned to mark the 55th anniversary of the Group’s establishment, could consider SSC issues and follow-up to BAPA+40, including the re-launching of some ideas and projects agreed on in the past but not implemented.

Also, as suggested by the G77 Geneva Chapter in its comment on the Zero Draft, the next quadrennial UNCTAD conference, UNCTAD XV in 2020, will be an opportunity to pave the way for a far more active policy and substantive and action-oriented role of the UN by entrusting UNCTAD with some key domains of SSC.

These include ECDC, trade, finance, investment, technology, services, and regional and sub-regional integration, in which it had played an important and pioneering role in the past.

UNCTAD XV would also be an appropriate forum where to consider the larger institutional issue, namely of a leading role that UNCTAD, in partnership with and the support of the UN regional economic commissions and the South-South economic groupings, could play in spearheading and energizing the role of the UN and UN system in support of SSC.

When considering a possible G77 follow-up process to BAPA+40 and how to deal with shortcomings and weaknesses that have affected SSC and how to reinvigorate it in the coming period and beyond, the issue that merits priority attention is the need for institutional self-empowerment of the Global South, which is seriously handicapped by not having its own global institution, one similar to the North’s OECD.

A strong organization of the South is a sine qua non of the necessary drive and long-term institutional leadership and focus for the evolving process of South-South cooperation.

This institutional deficiency cannot be overcome by relying solely on the UN, especially in its present vulnerable situation when it is under the pressure of the key developed countries. Nor can one expect this function to be undertaken by individual developing countries.

A collective self-organization at the global level is of utmost priority and importance, including for a common review of the problems and challenges faced, for distilling common views and positions, and for the participation of all countries of the Global South.

BAPA+40 and its follow-up process in the fold of the Group of 77 would provide a political impulse to inaugurating a vital action for establishing an organization that would serve as the Global South’s own lead mechanism in the promising and all-important domain of South-South, as well as international and multilateral cooperation, an organization that would work in parallel with, complement and stimulate the efforts of the UN family as a whole.

A decision to establish a major, significant global organization of the Global South for South-South cooperation would represent a landmark event on the world scene.

In conclusion, it can be argued that, despite problems and political tensions within the South, between and within its countries, often with the involvement of actors from the North, and also despite crises in the global economy and turbulences in the multilateral system of international cooperation, the overall context today is favourable for South-South cooperation.

On the geopolitical front, the spread of right-wing populism and the migrant crisis, as well as major political and economic changes in the North, are reflected in the mounting global interventionism, the negative attitude towards the developing countries’ aspirations, and the disregard for multilateralism and values on which the United Nations is founded.

This will require of the developing countries actively to seek solutions through South-South cooperation, collective self-reliance, solidarity, an overarching political stance and initiatives regarding global concerns and issues.

The post The Challenges & Opportunities Facing South-South Cooperation appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Branislav Gosovic worked in UNCTAD, UNEP, UNECLAC, World Commission on Environment and Development, South Commission, and South Centre (1991-2005), and is the author of the recently-published book ‘The South Shaping the Global Future, 6 Decades of the South-North Development Struggle in the UN.’

The post The Challenges & Opportunities Facing South-South Cooperation appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM / ROME, Feb 18 2019 (IPS)

Roma, a 2018 Mexican film written and directed by Alfonso Cuarón, is currently on a triumphal journey through the world. It won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, the best director and best foreign language film at the Golden Globe Awards, best director and best picture at the Critics´ Choice Awards, best film, best direction and best cinematography at the British Academy Film Awards. Furthermore, Roma has a record high ten nominations for the upcoming Academy Awards (The Oscars). Not at all bad for a black-and-white movie, which appears to have been directed by a sophisticated cineaste and custom-made for an art-house audience. Moreover, Roma deals with a highly controversial and seldom treated theme – the plight of poor, women domestic workers.

Of course, it was with high expectations that I sat down to watch this highly acclaimed movie, but it produced more disappointment than admiration. Let me begin with the aesthetics. I got an uncanny feeling that I had seen cinematography like this before. I was reminded of movies that Michelangelo Antonioni directed during the 1960s. He did not build his movies around traditional plots or intrinsic, character analysis. He rather used visuals as a tool for his message, which nevertheless was quite radical, critical of social ills and the feeling of alienation they created. Antonioni’s films were characterized by scant action and dialogue, complex and detailed composition and extremely long and well-planned shots. His characters were submerged in their inner life, unable to communicate their feelings, while Antonioni made their surroundings reflect their feelings. His persons moved around in simple, but at the same time visually stunning environments, saturated with moods and atmospheres.

Alfonso Cuarón´s movie is made like that and apart from Antonioni it reminded me of another skilled director, Luis Buñuel. Watching the wealthy people in Roma carousing on a hacienda during New Year´s Eve I came to think about Buñuel´s devastating criticism of the emptiness of higher class life in his The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and when a fire starts in the woods I was back in a surreal scene from Miloš Forman´s The Firemen´s Ball. I spite of these impressive models Cuarón´s movie lacks the desperation, the shocking condemnation of inner-city poverty of Buñuel´s Los Olvidados, which he in 1950 filmed in the slums not far from Colonia Roma, the wealthy middle class district in Mexico City, where Cuarón´s film takes place twenty years later. Roma has the refinement and aesthetics of Italian neo-realistic movies, but lacks the heart-braking compassion of films like Umberto D. and Bicycle Thieves, in which the desperate and poor protagonist in the end cries out: “I curse the day I was born!”

Like in the movies mentioned above, the setting of Cuarón´s characters is depicted with cinematographic splendour, but they do not advance the strong compassion you feel for a person like da Sica´s poor pensioner or bicycle thief. Cuarón´s “Cleo” Gutiérrez is an indigenous live-in maid in a wealthy middle-class household. Unfortunately, she remains a stereotype, as if she had been cast and solidified in the same mold as so many other working people imagined by upper middle-class moviemakers. A strong, silent, all-enduring and all-tolerating heroine, depraved of a voice of her own.

Cleo appears to speak the language of the Zapotecs of the valleys of Oaxca in southern Mexico, but we learn nothing about her roots among a people who uphold their strong traditions and who gave birth to Mexico´s president Benito Juárez (1806 – 1872), who from poor, rural, indigenous origins rose to become a well-educated, urban professional and a worldwide symbol of Latin American nationalism and resistance to foreign intervention.

Quiet and patient Cleo is dating Fermín, equally poor but a ruthless egocentric, who in an absurd scene naked is displaying his martial art skills, confessing to the usually silent Cleo: “I owe my life to martial arts. I grew up with nothing, you know.” Cleo becomes pregnant and Fermín avoids all responsibilities, insulting Cleo by calling her gata, cat, a common slur for maids “unable to take care of themselves”. Her employers sympathize with her and Cleo continues to work for them, receiving good medical care, thanks to the family’s connection to a major urban hospital.

The general background to Cleo´s drama is that the family father is leaving his wife and their four children, as well as the politically motivated Corpus Christi Massacre of June the 10th 1971, when 120 unarmed protesters were killed. Fermín happens to be part of the paramilitary Halcones, Falcons, who were guilty of the slaughter. The weakest moment of the movie is when this Fermín suddenly appears with a gun in the store where Cleo is looking for a crib for their expected child and he kills a man in front of her, at the same time as she goes into labour and is brought to the hospital by the mother of her employer. In spite of excellent care her baby is born dead. In connection with this comes the film´s most revealing scene: When Cleo is taken to the delivery room, the grandmother Teresa is asked by a nurse about Cleo’s last name, her date of birth and if she has insurance. Teresa cannot answer any of those questions.

Here the movie, as well as the reality, reveal themselves – poor women who work as maids are not considered as close friends and family members. Their employers often declare that “they are part of the family”, but this may serve as a means to deny them decent wages and social security. In spite of its shallowness, its lack of social, psychological and political sting Roma makes us aware of the plight of female, domestic workers; their poverty, defencelessness and marginalisation. Nevertheless, the soft, apolitical approach of Cuarón may just as well be a whitewash of inequality and discrimination and result in what I heard a Mexican woman state on TV: “Roma constitutes a homage to all the brave women who make it possible for us other women to make our contribution to society.”

As of June 2018, there were 2.2 million domestic workers in Mexico. Around 95 per cent of them were women and more than half of them had an indigenous background. The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that there are at least 67 million domestic workers worldwide, not including child domestic workers, and that this number is increasing steadily in both developed and developing countries. Approximately 83 percent are women and many are migrant workers.1 For the most part, domestic work is demanding and undervalued. Even if legislation protecting domestic workers exists in many countries, it is seldom enforced. Domestic work is generally poorly paid and regulated. It is also common that domestic workers are subject to serious and various forms of abuse. Maybe a change is on its way. In July 2011 an ILO Convention on Domestic Workers was adopted.2 It recognized domestic workers as workers with the same rights as other labourers and it was entered into force on 5th September 2013. However, the Convention is still far from being implemented everywhere. In spite of its shortcomings a popular film like Roma might constitute a small step in the right direction.

1 https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/domestic-workers/WCMS_209773/lang–en/index.htm
2 https://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CMW.aspx

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

The post Roma the Movie: The Hidden Drama of Domestic Workers appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Una May Gordon, Principal Director, Climate Change Division, in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, Jamaica. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Feb 18 2019 (IPS)

The island state of Jamaica is vulnerable to climate change which has in turn threatened both its economy and food production. But the Caribbean nation is taking the threat seriously and it has constructed a robust policy framework to support national climate action, particularly when it comes to promoting climate-smart agriculture (CSA).

“Climate change is a threat to Jamaica,” Una May Gordon, Principal Director, Climate Change Division, in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, told IPS. “We have pulled all the stops to deal with it in a smart way. Developing and implementing effective policies has been our weapon to fight climate change especially to protecting agriculture, a key economic sector.”

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), CSA pursues the triple objectives of sustainably increasing productivity and incomes, adapting to climate change, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions where possible. Though this does not imply that every practice applied in every location should produce ‘triple wins’. 

Over the last 30 years Jamaica has experienced increased floods, landslides, shoreline erosion, tropical storms, hurricanes, sea level rise and prolonged drought.

The Climate Change Division was created in 2013 in a deliberate attempt to place specific emphasis on the climate agenda. Jamaica recognised that climate change was affecting the country’s different sectors and instituted measures such as better management of water resources, adopting sustainable farming practices and planting crops that can withstand erratic weather conditions.

Adopting climate smart agriculture approaches has informed the country’s development agenda, said Gordon.

As the focal point for climate change in Jamaica, the Climate Change Division has facilitated the streamlining of climate change throughout the government structures. Gordon explains how Jamaica, which signed and ratified the 2015 Paris Agreement, has implemented resilience-building measures in the agriculture sector as part of climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Excerpts of the interview follow:

Inter Press Service (IPS): How has climate change affected Jamaica specifically with regards to agriculture?

Una May Gordon (UG): Agriculture is one of the major sectors and major drivers of the Jamaican economy and it is probably the largest employer of labour within the economy. Agriculture is grounded on the rural economy and therefore affects the lives of small farmers and farm families. Drought, the [low] rainfall, the disparity in the cycles, increasing pests and disease and all these are climate related and we have seen the impacts on the production and the livelihood of the farmers.

On the other hand, there is the sea level rise; the large part of the Jamaican coastline is being impacted. Most of our critical infrastructure is within 5 kilometres of the coast and therefore many coastal communities [are also based along the coast]. We are seeing the impacts on the coastal communities and with the warming waters, we have seen less fish catches.

IPS: How do these policies work?

UG: The climate change policy has actions and activities to implement to make agriculture resilient and sustainable by adopting mitigation measures such as water management, better cropping to reduce agriculture’s environment impacts.

The agriculture ministry has a climate change focal point. This focal point belongs to a network of focal points. One of the structures that were created out of the policy framework is the climate change focal point network, which integrates and coordinates climate actions in the country. We recognise that a number of rural women are impacted by climate change. Therefore, the gender disparity between male and female is a gap we are working to close as we promote CSA initiatives.

IPS: How is CSA working?

UG: CSA, for us, is agriculture that is sustainable, that speaks to farmers and adapts to climate change. From a mitigation point of view, we talk about efficiency and reduction of waste and support for forest development.

Many farmers are on the borderline with the forests. In Jamaica, the preservation of the forest is about the sustainability of the production system and the adaptation and mitigation efforts of the farmers.

IPS: How do we get farmers to change their behaviour and recognise this?

UG: If farmers are not aware of the weather-related impacts, then they will be not be able to take action. And so the Met Service is a full partner in this project and we are using ICTs to provide farmers with real time weather data through their mobile phones. 

If a farmer knows that today or next week there will have more rain, then they will plan better as opposed not knowing what the weather will be like. If a farmer knows he will have no soil moisture then he probably takes steps to mulch. Farmers need to have a mind set change and become more proactive and prepare more to meet the challenges and we are arming them with information and skills to adapt.

IPS: How effective has this been?

UG: The project is in its early days but we have seen some results. We have farmers working together. By bringing them together, we are getting a change in minds sets because individually each farmer is doing their part and collectively they do better over time. Jamaica is divided into 14 parishes and this project is in three parishes. Eventually if we can scale up to another three parishes this year, we will be able to cover all.

IPS: What have you learnt from this that can be replicated?

UG: We underestimate the power of ICTs as a solution to addressing climate change. Cellphones are more powerful instruments than we take them to be. They can be a tool of trade for the farmers not only to make calls and so forth, but also to become part of the solutions to advance adaptation efforts because farmers can access value added information timely. Farmers are amenable to change and want to adapt. We are targeting 5,000 farmers across the three parishes. This project, though small in the scheme of things, will have a large impact.

IPS: As a government institution, what have you done to get the buy in of the private sector?

UG: Jamaica is very fortunate because the private sector is involved with us as partner in climate action … Some are retooling their own operations and there are huge investments in climate change now in Jamaica. This makes it easy for the government to scale up their ambition. Recently our Prime Minister announced that we would move from a target we had set on our own NDC of 30 percent renewables by 2025 – 2030 to 50 percent.

We also have invested significantly in clean energy. We have a solar farm and wind farms going up and these are private actions. From an agriculture point of view, the private sector is investing in sustainable agriculture practices where they are using solar energy.

The dialogue with the private sector and the government is at an advanced stage. We are supporting the rest of the Caribbean Region in conducting a scoping study to look at barriers to private sector engagement in climate action.

Related Articles

• Grenada to Launch USD42m Water Resiliency Project
• The Caribbean Reiterates “1.5 Degrees Celsius to Stay Alive”
• Countries On the Frontline of Climate Change Impact Call for Stronger Mitigation Commitments

The post Q&A: Jamaica Pushes Climate Smart Policies to Secure the Future of its Food Supply appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

IPS correspondent Busani Bafana interviews UNA MAY GORDON, Principal Director, Climate Change Division, in Jamaica's Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation

The post Q&A: Jamaica Pushes Climate Smart Policies to Secure the Future of its Food Supply appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Men and women from Kalawa ward in Kenya’s Makueni County attended a forum on the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Many said that development projects implemented for them didn’t include their views and input. Credit: Justus Wanzala/IPS

By Justus Wanzala
MAKUENI, Kenya, Feb 18 2019 (IPS)

Julia Mutua is a resident of Kalawa ward in the semi-arid Makueni County in Eastern Kenya and a member of a women’s farmers group that runs a poultry project.

“Women are increasingly playing a key role in economically uplifting of their households, unlike before, but they need access to affordable loans from financial institutions and requisite skills to run own enterprise,” Mutua told IPS.

When she looks around she sees the issues of poverty, and access to essential services like running water and healthcare that many in the county grapple with. She notes too that poverty has affected access to education as many parents are unable to pay their children’s school fees.

Mutua is also concerned about ensuring that people living with disabilities are included in development. “People living with disabilities have been marginalised  for long, alongside poor women and girls. To bring everybody on board in the journey to achieve SDGs, they need tailor-made interventions to address their unique challenges,” she told IPS.

But she understands the need for partnership and collaboration in attaining these development goals.
In the early morning at the end of January, she is one of a group of about 100 women and men in Kalawa Township who attended a forum on the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

While the dialogue concentrated on effective and local participation in implementing the SDGs, the one-day forum’s main theme was ‘Leave no one behind’. Apart from local participants, also in attendance were representatives from Kenya’s National Treasury State Planning SDGs Unit, Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO), Islamic Relief and Caritas International.

The initiative is part of the International Civil Society Centre’s programme that involves working with governments, ordinary citizens and civil society to obtain community-driven data on marginalised communities.

The project is still in its pilot phase and is taking place in Bangladesh, India, Kenya, Nepal and Vietnam.

Back in Makueni County, the dialogue is the third in a series of five that are taking place across the country. The forums began in December, with the first one taking place Kibera Slums in the country’s capital, Nairobi. A national forum will be held later this February.

But in Makueni the issues discussed included; understanding the conditions that promote the exclusion and marginalisation of various groups in society, categories of marginalised groups, and ways of ensuring their participation in decision making when it comes to the SDGs. Deliberations also included the impact of policy intervention on development outcomes for marginalised groups.

The 100 participants, most of whom are members of community-based organisation tackling development challenges, where in agreement that the dialogue provided a great opportunity to discuss issues affecting marginalised groups.

“Water scarcity affects women and children most,” Patricia Mutuku, an official of a local Water Users Association (WRUA ) called Thwake Kalawa, said. Her association undertakes projects such as creating sand dams, managing water springs, planting trees and reclaiming degraded land.

“We’ve a plan to plant trees specifically for ground water recharge. One of our members visited Ethiopia and learnt how trees can be used to enhance ground water recharge, an initiative we’re keen to replicate,” she said.

Fred Odinga, from VSO, said the dialogue offered his organisation an opportunity to understand how different groups and communities perceive the SDGs.

“We’ve observed in forums across the country that the most marginalised segments of society, like women who have never been heard before in the development process, get a chance to be heard by government officials during such events,” Odinga told IPS.

Odinga, however, said that public participation in undertaking of SDGs projects, although highly appreciated, had flaws that required addressing.

Indeed, participants expressed their frustrations saying views collected at grassroots level for county projects were rarely used in the final plans. Participants lamented that by the time decisions were made, what was aired at the grassroots level was rarely reflected because the process involved many levels of input.

They also said that many people failed to provide this input in the first place because in many cases this was only collected from city centres, which are not easily accessible for many.

“This means that their ideas are never considered in the development process,” Odinga said.

Odinga said as convenors, they were able to demystify the SDGs, “when we started [this morning] not many appeared to comprehend SDGs. Quite a number have had heard about it but couldn’t link it to the challenges they face.”

“Unfortunately, this is just a discussion with 100 people in a county with over a million. We need many similar forums to grasp the issues facing counties as they pursue the attainment of the SDGs,”  Odinga said. He added that everyone had to be part and parcel of the journey, and that nobody should be left behind.

Charles Nyakundi of VSO, who chaired a session on citizen participation when implementing the SDGs, observed that key shortcomings for this are monitoring, evaluation and accountability.

“To ensure positive change we need to let communities [financially] own projects for sustainability instead of initiating, implementing and moving away,” he explained.

Nyakundi said in earlier SDG dialogue forums in other counties they noted that most marginalised groups include the elderly, persons with disabilities and women.

“In some cultures men are the decision makers, women don’t [contribute] ideas,” Nyakundi explained.

His views were reiterated by Fredrick Musau, a resident of Kalawa who said that a bottom up approach in terms of identification and execution of community projects is preferred by residents. Musau is an opinion leader in Kalawa ward—a former teacher who sits in most local county committees that deal with development.

Despite being a drought-prone area, Makueni County is noted to have made huge strides in improving the lives of its people since Kenya adopted devolution six years ago. Devolution is a constitutional arrangement where decision making is vested in local administrative units or counties, with national government allocating resources. The counties are run by governors.

Stephen Odhiambo from the SDG Unit of the National Treasury in the Government of Kenya called for enhanced collaboration and partnership between all levels of government and non state actors.
He explained that an intergovernmental technical working group has been constituted to oversee the implementation of SDGs at national and county services.

Noting that the dialogue forum was successful, Odhiambo said, “Citizens should not cow from demanding for services.”

Odhiambo explained that currently no useable data was available on attaining the SDGs amongst Kenya’s communities and what was mostly used to evaluate this was proxy data.

“We are working on collecting community data. The National Treasury, National Bureau of Statistics, civil society organisations in collaboration with the Germany agency, GIZ, among others, are supporting the initiative. A lot of citizen-generated data is gathered at county level, but is rarely harnessed,” he said.

Odiambo said that there is need for a multi-sectoral approach of mapping and reaching marginalised groups where they are in order to engage them.

Crispus Mwanzoya, a national government sub county administrator was, however, concerned with the sustainability of SDG projects. But he added that contributing to the SDGs could be as simple as enhancing and redirecting a gutter on a house in order to collect rain water.

“We need to change our mindsets to attain SDGs for we’re not poor in resources but poor in mind. The government can’t do everything, we have a central role.”

Related Articles

• Expectations High for First Global Blue Economy Conference
• Leave No One Behind: The Right to Development
• The Adolescent Girl Holds the Key to Kenya’s Economic Transformation and Prosperity
• Kenyan Women Turning the Tables on Traditional Banking and Land Ownership

The post Kenya’s Marginalised Say Nothing For Us, Without Us appeared first on Inter Press Service.

"Humanitarian aid now. We need it," read a banner during a massive demonstration in Caracas on Feb. 12, demanding that international aid blocked at the border of neighboring countries be allowed into the country. The demonstrations were held in 50 towns and cities around the country, in support of Juan Guaidó as acting president and demanding that President Nicolás Maduro step down. Credit: Humberto Márquez/IPS

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Feb 16 2019 (IPS)

The international food and medical aid awaiting entry into Venezuela from neighboring Colombia, Brazil and Curacao is at the crux of the struggle for power between President Nicolás Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaidó, recognised as “legitimate president” by 50 governments.

The current situation “offers advantages to Guaidó. It is trying to break the ties between Maduro and the armed forces through the pressure to receive humanitarian aid,” Argentine analyst Andrei Serbin Pont, director of the Regional Coordinator of Economic and Social Research, a Latin American academic network, told IPS.

Serbin said Guaidó should secure the so-far reluctant participation of the Red Cross and the United Nations with respect to getting the aid into the country because “by definition humanitarian aid cannot have political objectives,” which are clearly present in the cooperation offered by governments of the Americas and Europe that refuse to recognise Maduro as the legitimately re-elected president."The struggle over the aid makes many local residents here see that there is hope that this time the opposition will bring about change; people now see light at the end of the tunnel." -- Nadine Cubas

President Maduro said: “It is not humanitarian aid but a rotten gift, which carries within the poison of humiliation of our people and serves as a prelude to military intervention. If the United States wants to help us, the blockade, the financial persecution and the economic sanctions against Venezuela should cease.”

U.S. President Donald Trump and several of his Latin America policy advisers repeat the mantra that “Maduro must go,” and that Washington “does not rule out any option, including the military option” with respect to Venezuela.

The Venezuelan armed forces, which have reiterated their loyalty to Maduro, have been deployed in territorial defence exercises since late January, have blocked road access from Colombia, and are ready to prevent any attempt to bring in the controversial aid shipments.

In the midst of one of the multitudinous street demonstrations that the opposition has held in recent weeks, Guaidó announced that “humanitarian aid is going to come in, no ifs ands or buts. I have given the order to the armed forces to allow it to enter” on Feb. 23.

The unprecedented situation in which Venezuela finds itself, with two supposed presidents, is due to the fact that the opposition and many governments consider invalid the May 2018 elections in which Maduro, 56, was elected for a second six-year term on Jan. 10, and refuse to recognise him as president.

In response, the opposition-dominated National Assembly, considered to be in a state of rebellion by the other branches of government, decided that its president, the 35-year-old Guaidó, would be acting president of Venezuela, starting on Jan. 23.

The border city of Cúcuta in northeastern Colombia has already received 500 tons of medicines and nutritional supplements, while Guaidó announced new collection centers in the state of Roraima in northern Brazil and on the neighboring Dutch island of Curacao, where 90 tons are expected from France, opposition deputy Stalin González told the media.

The aid accumulated so far “consists of emergency medicines and supplements for children under three years of age with severe malnutrition, pregnant or nursing mothers, and the elderly,” Julio Castro, leader of the non-governmental organisation Doctors for Health, told IPS.

The medical aid, according to Castro, “10 percent of what is urgently needed,” for some 300,000 patients, will go to public hospitals and will be distributed by NGOs and religious organisations, with the support of thousands of volunteers responding to the opposition’s call.

Gonzalez said there are already 250,000 volunteers mobilised around the country, including 10,000 health professionals.

Young people from the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela gathered in downtown Caracas on Feb. 12 to express support for President Nicolás Maduro. Credit: AVN

An immediate effect of the bid for aid has been that the government has increased in recent days the delivery of apparently stockpiled medicines and supplies to several public hospitals, according to workers at several hospitals in Caracas and other cities.

People like Natalia Vargas, 39, a bank clerk and diabetes patient, hope that “if emergency help arrives, then other medicines that are scarce because they are imported can come. And when you get them, they’re too expensive.”

“I hope that the politicians and the military will reach an agreement to bring in the aid,” she told IPS at her home in La Candelaria, a traditional lower-middle-class neighourhood in central Caracas.

The international aid initiatives are in response to the social and economic collapse that has occurred in Venezuela since Maduro firste came to power in 2013, unprecedented due to the fact that it happened in an oil-rich country and because of the speed of the collapse, without no natural catastrophe or war.

During the last five years and while some three million people left the country, more than 80 percent of Venezuela’s 31 million inhabitants were left in poverty and unable to acquire enough food and the medicines they need, in addition to hyperinflation since 2017, according to the Study on Living Conditions conducted by three of the country’s leading universities.

In the same period, the economy shrunk to half its size, GDP plunged 56 percent, 210,000 of the 490,000 companies in the country closed, half of the industrial park has been operating at 20 percent of capacity, and local agriculture can barely provide 25 percent of the necessary food, according to the 2018 year-end report of the Fedecámaras central business chamber.

The deficit of medicines in pharmacies remains has stood at 85 percent since last year, the president of the Federation of Pharmacists, Freddy Ceballos, said on Feb. 13.

From the town of Cúa, near the east of the capital, Nadine Cubas, 71, who suffers from hypertension and glaucoma, told IPS that “we are far from the border, that aid may not reach the valleys of the Tuy River, where we are, but if it supplies the people in the west then there is a better chance of getting medicines here.”

Cubas added that “the struggle over the aid makes many local residents here see that there is hope that this time the opposition will bring about change; people now see light at the end of the tunnel.”

What the opposition is counting on is this: if the government lets the aid in, it will show weakness and a division in the support of the military, with an unpredictable domino effect, and if it does not allow it in, it will look like an inhumane clique of leaders whose only concern is to hold onto power, opposition deputies Julio Borges and Juan Miguel Matheus told reporters.

This position is in line with the demand that the entry of aid be a first step for the Venezuelan crisis to lead to elections for a new government, as demanded by the United States, the Lima Group of 12 countries from the hemisphere and the majority of the European Union, against opposition by other governments, such as those of China, Cuba, Iran, Russia and Turkey, or calls for a search for a middle path, issued by Mexico and Uruguay.

Borges and Gonzalez said the humanitarian aid that has accumulated will be followed by more aid as the political game unfolds in Venezuela.

Governments such as those of Argentina, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Puerto Rico and the United States, plus the Organisation of American States, have offered more than 200 million dollars in assistance.

Related Articles

• Bullets Against Pots and Pans in the Crackdown on Venezuela’s Protests
• In Venezuela, Two Presidents Vie for Power

The post International Aid Feeds Hope and Fuels Confrontation in Venezuela appeared first on Inter Press Service.