Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

In August Grenada expereinced heavy rainfall which resulted in “wide and extensive” flooding that once again highlighted the vulnerability of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) to climate change. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
KINGSTON, Oct 5 2018 (IPS)

In the face of the many challenges posed by climate change, Panos Caribbean, a global network of institutes working to give a voice to poor and marginalised communities, says the Caribbean must raise its voice to demand and support the global temperature target of 1.5 °C.

Ahead of the United Nations climate summit in December, Yves Renard, interim coordinator of Panos Caribbean, said advocacy, diplomacy and commitments must be both firm and ambitious.

He said this is necessary to ensure that the transition to renewable energy and a sharp reduction in emissions are not only implemented but accelerated.

“This is a mission that should not be left only to climate change negotiators. Caribbean leaders and diplomats, the private sector and civil society must also be vocal on the international scene and at home,” Renard told IPS.

“The global response to climate change must not be reduced to a mechanical concept. It needs to be accompanied by a renewed approach to economic development and by a change in mentality, so that it is included in the broader context of people’s livelihoods, social values and development priorities.”

The Panos official said artists, civil society leaders and other actors in the Caribbean should emphasise the need to challenge the dominant approaches to development and to help shape new relationships between people, businesses, institutions and the natural world.

Meanwhile, the Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI) said community-based and ecosystem-based approaches are critical to build resilience to climate change, especially in Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

“Investing in conserving, sustainably managing and restoring ecosystems,” CANARI states, “provides multiple benefits in terms of building ecological, economic and social resilience, as well as mitigation co-benefits through carbon sequestration by forests and mangroves.”

Renard said as evidenced all over the Caribbean in recent years, it is the poorest, marginalised and most vulnerable who are the most affected by climate change.

These include small farmers suffering from severe drought, households without insurance unable to recover from devastating hurricanes, and people living with disabilities unable to cope with the impacts of disasters.

“Climate change exacerbates inequalities, and adaptation measures must provide the necessary buffers and support to poor and vulnerable groups,” Renard told IPS.

“All sectorial, national and international legal and policy frameworks must recognise the benefits that can be gained from participation and partnerships, including the empowerment of communities, businesses, trade unions and civil society organisations to enable them to play a direct role in the identification and implementation of solutions, particularly in reference to adaptation.”

Yves Renard, interim coordinator of Panos Caribbean, says artists, civil society leaders and other actors in the Caribbean should emphasise the need to challenge the dominant approaches to development and to help shape new relationships between people, businesses, institutions and the natural world. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

Additionally, he said the architecture and operations of climate finance institutions must be improved to facilitate direct access by national and regional actors; and to consider the financing of adaptation actions on the basis of full cost, especially in small countries where there is limited potential to secure co-financing.

He said that climate finance institutions also needed to facilitate civil society and private sector involvement in project design and execution; and, increase SIDS representation in the governance of financing institutions.

Renard said that in light of the critical importance of decentralised and community-based approaches to adaptation and resilience building, financing institutions and mechanisms should design and implement facilities that make technical assistance and financing available to local actors, as is being done, with significant success, by the Small Grants Programme of the Global Environment Facility.

He said that even in some of the poorest countries in the region, local actors have been taking the initiative in responding to the impacts of climate change.

“For the Caribbean, a regional coalition of civil society actors is necessary so as to build solidarity, and to share experiences and expertise on climate action in local contexts. These civil society networks must reinforce and build on actions taken by regional governments, and more international support is required for this work to be undertaken,” he said.

“Increased resources and capacities in communications and advocacy are required in order to disseminate the scientific evidence on climate change, to deepen understanding within the region on climate change and its impacts, and to push for more ambitious action on climate change at the global level.”

In addressing the 73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly debate, Grenada’s foreign affairs minister Peter David called on other Caribbean nations and SIDS to serve as “test cases” for nationwide implementation of climate-related technologies and advances.

David said the Caribbean also represents some of the most globally compelling business cases for sustainable renewable energy investment.

“Being climate smart goes beyond policies,” he said. “It goes beyond resilient housing, resilient infrastructure and resilient agriculture. It means that the region can also serve as a global beacon for renewable energy and energy efficiency.”

“We aim to not only be resilient, but with our region’s tremendous potential in hydro-electricity and geothermal energy, we could also be climate smart.”

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Toronto, Barcelona and New York have offered themselves up as sanctuary cities. Many others must follow suit. Credit: Reuters/Mark Blinch

By International Organization for Migration
Oct 4 2018 (IOM)

Migration is largely an urban phenomenon. According to the 2018 World Migration Report, “nearly all migrants, whether international or internal, are destined for cities”.

Cities respond very differently to migration. Many cities are supportive, boost the rights of migrants and reap the benefits of migration. The mayors of these municipalities are frequent panelists and speakers, extolling the virtues of migration, and proudly proclaiming that the future of migration is local. Other cities, however, seek to restrict migration and actively exclude migrants from social, economic and political participation.

This dual role poses a challenge to the implementation of the United Nations’ ambitious agenda, presented in the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. The Global Compact for Migration, as it’s also known, is an intergovernmental agreement on multiple dimensions of international migration; this agreement is expected to be adopted by the vast majority of UN member states in December 2018.

Image: 2018 World Migration Report

In support of migration, the mayors of major migrant destination cities, such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, are standing up against national policies that treat migrants unfairly and deny them rights and services. In January of 2017, New York’s Mayor Bill de Blasio proclaimed that “we’re going to defend our people regardless of where they come from, regardless of their immigration status”. With this proclamation, De Blasio reaffirmed New York’s status as a sanctuary city that protects the city’s most vulnerable inhabitants.

Cities in other countries pursue a similar approach. In 2013, the Canadian city of Toronto declared itself a sanctuary city, inspiring other Canadian cities to follow suit. Cities like Barcelona in Spain or Quilicura in Chile pursue a similar approach, although they don’t call themselves sanctuary cities but a “Refuge City” and “Commune of Reception” respectively.

Although African cities have been notably missing in many of the global debates on refugee support or migrant integration, they too are stepping tentatively on to the stage. Although often constrained by highly centralised financial and political authorities, they are exploring options for building services that can accommodate mobility in all its forms. Arua in northern Uganda, for example, has embraced its role as a destination for migrants and refugees from South Sudan. The Cities Alliance is now working with “secondary cities” across Asia, Africa and Latin America to find ways to incentivize similar responses.

Middle Eastern refugees beg border police to allow passage into Macedonia, 2015. Image: Reuters/Yannis Behrakis

These cities are assuming responsibility in addressing and reducing the vulnerabilities in migration, which is one of the key goals of the Global Compact for Migration. They commit to providing basic services for migrants, and seek to ensure that migrants receive access to these services free of discrimination, based on race, gender, religion, national or social origin, disability or migrant status.

However, cities can also play a darker role in the migration process. As a set of institutions closely connected to a local political constituency, cities are often more responsive to popular attitudes than more distant national administrations are. Where there are strong pro-migrant business, religious or civic bodies, cities may embrace mobility. But this is not always the case. Indeed, some migrant-receiving cities are enacting restrictive local policies in an effort to repel newcomers and drive out migrants already living within their municipal borders. In 2006, the Pennsylvania town of Hazelton pioneered – albeit ultimately unsuccessfully – this type of local policy by making it more difficult for irregular migrants to rent housing or get employment in the municipality. In Canada, the Quebec town of Hérouxville took a swipe at Muslim migrants by introducing a “code of conduct” in 2007 that, among other measures, prohibited the stoning of women. Other cities simply passively comply with or support national immigration raids and exclusions.

African cities are not immune to creating hostile environments for migrants. The mayor of Johannesburg, Herman Mashaba, has been accused of anti-migrant tactics and announced earlier this year that he will actively cooperate with national authorities in conducting immigration raids. In Nairobi, authorities have cooperated with national police in rounding up Somali refugees, even while turning a blind eye to a range of other international migrants living in the city. Other municipal or sub-municipal authorities across Africa have also actively and sometimes violently moved to exclude outsiders. Sometimes these are refugees and international migrants. Sometimes they are migrants from within their own countries.

These cities are, in fact, increasing the risks and vulnerabilities migrants face, counteracting the intentions of the Global Compact for Migration.

Cities around the world encounter diverse situations as migrant destinations, transit hubs or places of departure; they have different histories and find themselves in different geopolitical situations; some cities are richer and others are poorer; and cities in different countries possess different levels of autonomy from national and regional governments.

What is clear, however, is that the successfully implementation of the Global Compact for Migration requires the cooperation of cities.

Cities that lack a strong local pro-migration constituency will require incentives to be inclusive of migrants. Such incentives might involve financial support and access to resources and programmes from national and international bodies. Enhancing local authority and participation can ironically make it more difficult for local authorities to fight for unpopular refugees and migrants. Global norm-setting can help counter such moves, but advocates and authorities also need to operate more quietly, stealthily incorporating refugees and migrants into their programmes across sectors. Indeed, migration policy per se is likely to offer few protections if local policies for housing, employment, education, commerce, trade and planning do not consider mobility.

As recent as 2015, William Lacy Swing, the director-general of the International Organization of Migration (IOM), lamented at the Conference on Migrants and Cities that “city and local government authorities have so far not had a prominent voice in the global debates on human mobility”. This situation is changing. Cities increasingly assert their voices and are recognizing that they are key partners in tackling the challenges of migration.

Written by

Harald Bauder, Professor of Geography and the Director of the Graduate Program in Immigration and Settlement Studies, Ryerson University, Toronto

Loren Landau, South African Research Chair for Mobility & the Politics of Difference, African Centre for Migration & Society, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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By Human Rights Watch
CONAKRY, Guinea, Oct 4 2018 (Human Rights Watch)

Guinea’s fast-growing bauxite mining industry is threatening the livelihoods of thousands of Guineans, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Mining has destroyed ancestral farmlands, damaged water sources, and coated homes and trees in dust.

The 146-page report, “What Do We Get Out of It?: The Human Rights Impact of Bauxite Mining in Guinea,” focuses on two mining projects that were Guinea’s two largest bauxite producers in 2017: La Société Minière de Boké (SMB), a joint venture linked to the world’s largest aluminum producer, China Hongqiao Group, that has expanded extremely rapidly since it began in 2015; and la Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée (CBG), a decades-old company co-owned by multinationals Alcoa and Rio Tinto. Guinea’s government, which has transformed Guinea into the world’s third-largest exporter, should take immediate steps to better regulate companies and protect communities.

“Bauxite mining, unless properly regulated, threatens to destroy the way of life and livelihoods of dozens of communities at the front line of mining operations,” said Jim Wormington, West Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The Guinean government’s focus on growing the bauxite sector has too often taken precedence over the protection of the environment and human rights.”

Guinea has an abundance of natural resources, including the world’s largest bauxite reserves, but remains one of the world’s poorest countries. The demand for Guinean bauxite in global markets has increased in recent years as other countries, notably Indonesia and Malaysia, banned exports, in the latter case partly due to the industry’s environmental impact. Guinea is already the biggest exporter of bauxite to China, the world’s largest aluminum producer. And with several new mining projects preparing to begin exports, Guinea’s bauxite boom shows no sign of slowing down.

Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 300 people in 30 mining-affected villages in the Boké region, the center of the bauxite boom, and conducted dozens of interviews with government officials, mining companies, civil society groups, environmental scientists, and public health experts.

A woman in Lansanayah, a village 750 meters from a bauxite mine owned by La Société Minière de Boké consortium. Credit: 2018 Ricci Shryock for Human Rights Watch

Dozens of farmers described how mining companies take advantage of the government’s failure to protect rural land rights to exploit ancestral farmlands without compensation to address the long-term value of land to the community. Since the passage of a 2011 mining code, the government has failed to pass regulations, required by the code, establishing compensation standards for land acquisition that could better protect farmers’ rights.

“They’ve expanded into our fields, the areas we depended on for food,” said a community leader from Boundou Waadé, a village surrounded by five CBG mines. “And now much of our fertile land has been taken from us.”

While the compensation companies do pay can be a short-term windfall, farmers rarely receive training from the government or mining companies on how to reinvest it. “I used the compensation money I got to send my two sons to Europe [via the North African migration route],” a father said. “But after they arrived in Libya I didn’t hear from them. I’m worried they are in prison or dead.”

Although women participate in farming, the bulk of compensation is paid to men in family or community leadership roles. “Our husbands just give us whatever they want, even if the products that came from this land were used by all of us,” said one woman. While at least some men get employment with mining companies to replace lost land, few jobs are open to women. Of the more than 7,600 people employed by SMB in September 2018, only 274 were women.

Scores of residents said that mining had reduced water levels and quality in local rivers, streams and wells, threatening the right to water of thousands of people. In several communities adjacent to SMB mines, damage to natural water sources meant villagers were forced to rely on SMB for long periods to bring them water in tankers. “Some days the water in the tankers is dirty,” said one community leader. “So we have to conserve the clean water we have and wait for the next delivery.”

Dozens of residents also said that the dust produced by the mining and transport of bauxite had blighted their lives, with red dust entering villages and homes and covering crops. And villagers, many of whom said they believe mining is already contributing to respiratory illnesses, worry about longer-term health impacts.

Guinea’s government told Human Rights Watch in a May 2018 letter that it only approves mining projects that demonstrate compliance with environmental and social standards and that the government, “utilizes fully its state power to ensure Guinean laws [relating to the mining sector] are respected and to oversee the activities of mining companies.”

But while the capacity of government institutions to oversee mining has improved in recent years, government institutions do not have the personnel, resources, and the political will to effectively oversee an ever-expanding list of projects. “We are a poor country, and so we need jobs for our young people, schools for our children,” said Seydou Barry Sidibé, secretary general of Guinea’s Environment Ministry. “So while some mining companies do not respect environmental and social norms, it’s not easy for us to suddenly close these companies down.”

In meetings with and letters to Human Rights Watch, mining companies pointed to their efforts to stimulate local development and mitigate the negative impacts of mining. SMB, in a September 2018 letter to Human Rights Watch, said that, “the respect of human rights forms the pillar of our values,” and provided a detailed response to the report’s factual findings. CBG also responded in detail to the report’s findings, underscoring that, since receiving a World Bank-linked loan in 2016, the company has done much to improve its environmental and social management.

As Guinea’s bauxite boom continues, the government’s capacity to oversee the mining industry and protect community members’ rights needs to keep pace, Human Rights Watch said. While the government wants to attract investment, it should also fine, suspend, or stop mining projects if companies egregiously or persistently flout the environmental, social and human protections enshrined in Guinean and international human rights law.

“Guinea’s bauxite sector is poised to expand even further in the coming years,” Wormington said. “If that is to be a blessing, and not a curse, the government needs to ensure that ordinary Guineans, particularly those living closest to mining operations, are the beneficiaries of mining’s rapid growth rather than its victims.”

“What Do We Get Out of It? The Human Rights Impact of Bauxite Mining in Guinea” is available at:
https://www.hrw.org/node/322822

A special feature, “’This is our land’” How Guinea’s Bauxite Boom Affects Human Rights is available at:
https://www.hrw.org/node/322921

For more Human Rights Watch reporting on Guinea, please visit:
https://www.hrw.org/africa/guinea

For more information, please contact:
In Conakry, Jim Wormington (English, French): +1-917-592-8738 or +224-620-45-12-12 (mobile); or worminj@hrw.org. Twitter: @jwormington

The post Guinea: Bauxite Mining Boom Threatens Rights appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Drive for Revenue Shouldn’t Come at Local Residents’ Expense

The post Guinea: Bauxite Mining Boom Threatens Rights appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By GGGI
Oct 4 2018 (GGGI)

Rwanda population increasing rate in 2018 is 2.40% according to UN estimation report 2018, the population is estimated at 12.50 million in area of 26,338 km², there are still a multitude of challenges relating to poverty reduction, as almost 80% of the rural population is still subsistence farmers with an average landholding estimated at less than 0.59 hectares. So, need to enhance the food security and nutrition aspects is important for understanding (http://www.fao.org/3/a-bp633e.pdf P5).

Agriculture in Rwanda accounts for a third of Rwanda’s GDP; constitutes the main economic activity for the rural households (especially women) and remains their main source of income. Today, the agricultural population is estimated to be a little less than 80% of the total population. (MINAGRI REPORT, 2016).

The sector meets 90% of the national food needs and generates more than 50% of the country’s export revenues. While the population increase and the food need increase the farming land never increase contrary it decrease and it production decrease leading to the need of fertilizer to keep agriculture land fertile which is now over cultivated. Agriculture is supposed to grow from 5.8% to 8.5% by 2018, exports to increase in average from 19.2% to 28% and imports to be maintained at 17% average growth (MINAGRI STRATEGIC PLAN, 2016/2017).

With small land for cultuvation, farmers apply huge chemical fertilisers to increase the crop production which lead to soil unfertility, environmental toxicity and production of unsafe food from accumulation of harmful chemicals due to lack of alternative.

 

Our innovation at Rwanda Biosolution Ltd is production of organic composts from grasses and domestic wastes using EM technology (Effective Microorganism Technology), which is environment friendly. This is linked to SDG15. While traditional ways give composts in 8 to above months, modern techniques in 6 months, so they are not able to satisfy our two agriculture seasons per year in Rwandan farmers which lead farmers to apply huge amount of chemicals fertilisers; our EM composting technology gives composts in only two months and our vision in two years is to produce composts in only one month after buying composting machines.

This is linked with SDG 2 With our technology we can satisfy Rwandan and surrounding farmers in supplying them with quality and quantity organic composts in all farming season which will contribute in quality and quantity crop production. This is linked with SDG1 of ending hunger as Rwanda biosolution main objective.

Our vision is to become the first Rwandan industries to produce organic compost which fulfil all standards. Supply all Rwanda farmers and Easter African farmers in general. Our objectives are; in years to come we forecast the increase of our customers and production, after one year we want to be able to supply at least 5 of 30 Rwandan districts, in two years we want to at least to be in the first 3 preferred brand in fertilizer domain we all wish that in also wish to have fulfil standards certification need so that we can also export our products out of country in the regions.Our main competitors are wholesalers who import and sell chemical fertilizers, and their products are expensive and are not trusted by many farmers.

 

The Value Proposition:

Our fertilizer is unique:

1. Efficient: the organic fertilizers ore all around the word known for its capacity to boost agriculture production quickly and efficiently.
2. Of low and affordable price: because they will be made raw materials  that are locally found, like grass and domestic waste that many people consider useless the final price will be low.
3. Clean without harming the environment: many people including farmers are accusing chemical fertilizer to harm their lands, but if the use our products which are organic they will be neither harm nor danger to environment.

Greenpreneurs programme has become a good platform for networking, collaborating and learning from other young entrepreneurs and provide us mentorship to speed up our business process from planning to action. It offers an opportunity for sharing problems, solutions and experiences from a wide spectrum. We are very motivated to learn best environmental practices for sustainable development. This opportunity develop our leadership abilities and management skills and bring us in tandem with competitive global management styles. Consequently, our productivity and services will increase to satisfy the need of our community.

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Amit Prakash is a Singapore-based journalist and founder of FINAL WORD, a content and communications consultancy.

By Amit Prakash
SINGAPORE, Oct 4 2018 (IPS)

The Blue Dragon, a small riverfront eatery in Hoi An, Vietnam, serves morsels of local trivia to tourists along with $2 plates of crisp spring rolls and succulent noodles.

On its damp-stained walls, the Blue Dragon’s owner, Nam, marks the level of annual floods that submerge this popular UNESCO World Heritage town renowned for its bright-yellow-painted buildings.

Last November, days before presidents and prime ministers arrived in nearby Da Nang for a meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, the water level at the Blue Dragon rose to 1.6 meters (5.25 feet) when typhoon-driven rains lashed the city. Patrons scurried to safety as pots and pans floated by.

“Every time we get big rains or typhoons, it floods and everything shuts down for three to four days,” says Nam, 65, who goes by one name. “Last year people had to escape in boats because the water was too high.”

Typhoons and floods are becoming more intense and frequent as Vietnam and the rest of Southeast Asia bear the brunt of climate change. Long coastlines and heavily populated low-lying areas make the region of more than 640 million people one of the world’s most vulnerable to weather extremes and rising sea levels associated with global warming. Governments are under pressure to act quickly or risk giving up improvements in living standards achieved through decades of export-driven growth.

Southeast Asia faces a dual challenge. It not only must adapt to climate change caused largely by greenhouse gases emitted over decades by advanced economies—and more recently by developing economies such as China and India—it also must alter development strategies that are increasingly contributing to global warming.

The region’s growing reliance on coal and oil, along with deforestation, are undermining national pledges to curb emissions and embrace cleaner energy sources.

Average temperatures in Southeast Asia have risen every decade since 1960. Vietnam, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Thailand are among 10 countries in the world most affected by climate change in the past 20 years, according to the Global Climate Risk Index (pdf) compiled by Germanwatch, an environmental group. The World Bank counts Vietnam among five countries most likely to be affected by global warming in the future. The economic impact could be devastating.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) estimates Southeast Asia could suffer bigger losses than most regions in the world. Unchecked, climate change could shave 11 percent off the region’s GDP by the end of the century as it takes a toll on key sectors such as agriculture, tourism, and fishing—along with human health and labor productivity—the ADB estimated in a 2015 report (pdf). That’s far more than its 2009 estimate of a 6.7 percent reduction.

The region could shift to a “new climate regime” by the end of the century, when the coolest summer months would be warmer than the hottest summer months in the period from 1951 to 1980, says a 2017 study (pdf) by the ADB and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

In the absence of technical breakthroughs, rice yields in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam could drop by as much as 50 percent by 2100 from 1990 levels. Hotter weather is also pushing tropical diseases such as malaria and dengue fever northward to countries like Lao P.D.R., where they were formerly less prevalent.

While the region’s greenhouse gas emissions have been low relative to those of advanced economies in per capita terms, that is starting to change, largely because of its increasing reliance on coal and other fossil fuels. Between 1990 and 2010, emissions of carbon dioxide increased faster in Southeast Asia than anywhere else.

Energy mix

Energy demand will grow as much as 66 percent by 2040, predicts (pdf) the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA). Coal alone will account for almost 40 percent of the increase as it overtakes cleaner-burning natural gas in the energy mix.

That poses a risk to the Paris Climate Agreement’s goal of limiting the average global temperature gain to 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. All 10 countries that make up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) signed the Paris Agreement.

“At the present rate, Southeast Asia, coupled with India and China, could wipe out gains from energy efficiency and emissions reductions elsewhere in the world,” says Srinivasan Ancha, the ADB’s principal climate change specialist.

Demand for coal is partly driven by the fuel’s relative abundance and its low cost compared with oil, gas, and renewable energy. Coal-fired power plants are also easier to finance than renewable energy projects. Indonesia is the world’s fifth-largest coal producer and its second-largest net exporter, while Malaysia and Thailand are the eighth- and ninth-largest net importers, IEA data (pdf) show.

Reliance on coal is projected to grow: Vietnam’s coal-power capacity under active development is the third largest in the world after China’s and India’s, according to a March 2018 report (pdf) by environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and Greenpeace. Indonesia and the Philippines rank fifth and tenth, respectively.

Deforestation is another major source of greenhouse gases. In Indonesia and Malaysia, home to the world’s largest forestlands, trees are cut down to make way for farms to feed growing populations and for the production of pulp and paper and palm oil, which are big sources of export revenue. Deforestation accounts for almost half of Indonesia’s emissions—more than fossil fuels, though these are fast catching up.

Clearing forests in peatlands and peat swamps poses additional problems. Draining peat swamps releases thousands of tons of carbon dioxide trapped in each hectare of soil. The problem is compounded when farmers burn the dry peat, releasing the gas more quickly.

Smoke from such fires has repeatedly choked neighboring Singapore and Malaysia since 1997; emissions from the most recent incident in 2015 exceeded those of the entire European Union, according to Reuters.

Rapid economic growth and urbanization are contributing to climate change while also magnifying its impact. Migrants from rural areas flock to cities, which emit more heat. New construction in floodplains blocks waterways, leaving cities more vulnerable to floods. And the more cities grow, the greater the damage from increasingly frequent floods and storms.

“You have to unravel the impact of climate change, which is certainly there, and economic development and population growth,” says Marcel Marchand, a Hanoi-based expert in flood risk management. “The impact of a flood or storm is now generally more than in the past. That is not only because there are more hazards, or because hazards are more severe, but also because there are more people, and cities are becoming bigger.”

Marchand is advising on a $70 million internationally funded project that will provide more timely warning of floods to the residents of Hoi An. He attributes flooding, in part, to the construction of reservoirs in catchment areas upstream, which has changed river flows. The reservoirs become overwhelmed by extreme rainfall events, and excess water released downstream floods Hoi An and nearby Da Nang.

Both cities are growing fast as a tourism boom attracts migrants seeking work. A decade ago, Da Nang, Vietnam’s fourth-largest city, had just one luxury resort. Now it boasts almost 90 four- and five-star hotels, many of them dotting the 30-kilometer coastal road to Hoi An. The flow of workers is swelling Da Nang’s population, which is forecast to surge to 1.65 million by 2020 from 1 million today, according to World Bank estimates.

While tourism creates jobs, related infrastructure development also indirectly contributes to coastal erosion that makes the area more vulnerable to storm surges and rising sea levels. The shoreline along Hoi An’s popular Cua Dai Beach receded by 150 meters in the years from 2004 to 2012, according to a report prepared by the Quang Nam provincial People’s Committee. Floodwalls and sandbags have become eyesores for vacationers.

“In the last two decades the rainfall pattern has changed and increased significantly,” says Phong Tran, a technical expert at the Institute for Social and Environmental Transition-International (ISET-International), which works with several Vietnamese cities to develop climate resilience.

Phong worries that rising sea levels, along with prolonged dry spells, will cause salinity intrusion and hurt agriculture in the fertile Mekong Delta, one of the world’s most densely populated areas. The delta is Vietnam’s food bowl, producing more than half of its rice and other staples and over 60 percent of its shrimp, according to the Manila-based ADB.

Some 70 percent of Vietnam’s population lives along its 3,200-kilometer coastline and in the low-lying delta. Other Southeast Asian nations are similarly vulnerable.

Indonesia has one of the world’s longest coastlines at 54,700 kilometers. In the Philippines, which has 36,300 kilometers of coastline, 20 typhoons on average make landfall yearly, with increasing destructiveness. Cambodia, Lao P.D.R., and Thailand are also affected by storms and excessive rain, as well as by heat extremes that take a toll on agriculture and human health.

Southeast Asian governments, acutely aware of the magnitude of the threat, have pledged to reduce emissions. They also recognize the need to move toward low-carbon developmental strategies. ASEAN leaders approved a plan that targets a 23 percent share of renewables in the region’s energy mix by 2025, up from 10 percent in 2015. The need to curb deforestation also figures prominently in national and regional policy agendas.

Yet, promised emission cuts are partly or wholly conditional on international funding. Indonesia has pledged to reduce emissions by 29 percent by 2030 and said it could increase that to 41 percent with outside support. Vietnam’s analogous targets are 8 percent and 25 percent.

The Philippines has made only a conditional pledge, of a 70 percent reduction. Even these conditional pledges will result in higher global warming than envisaged under the Paris Agreement, highlighting the need for more ambitious goals.

While the region has seen increases in renewable energy sources, particularly solar and wind, their limited generation capacity means countries remain reliant on fossil fuels. Consumption of all types of fuels is rising as governments strive to provide universal access to electricity and petroleum-based fuels for cooking and transport. The IEA estimates that 65 million Southeast Asians lack electricity and 250 million use biomass, such as firewood and animal manure, for cooking fuel.

National goals for reducing fossil fuel use often conflict with policies to subsidize the cost of petroleum products and electricity for the benefit of the poorest sections of society.

Such subsidies not only boost fuel demand and render cleaner-burning fuels and renewable energy less competitive, they are also estimated to cost governments more than what it would take to meet the region’s Paris Agreement goals, according to the ADB-Potsdam Institute study.

Given the political and practical difficulties of cutting subsidies and encouraging the adoption of low-carbon technology, preventing deforestation may be the most effective way to cut emissions. Indonesia and Malaysia stand to earn billions of dollars in carbon credits; preserving forests would also cost less than radically cutting fossil fuel emissions and buying carbon credits.

According to analysts at the World Resources Institute, just enforcing Indonesia’s 2011 moratorium, which prohibits clearing certain primary forests and peatlands, could eliminate 188 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year, or about 60 percent of France’s total output in 2016. Increasing agricultural productivity could eliminate the need to clear forests, the institute said in a 2017 working paper.

The IEA sees the emergence of affordable low- carbon technologies as a path toward greater energy efficiency as declining costs of solar and wind energy boost investment in local manufacturing. Malaysia and Thailand, for example, are fast becoming global players in the manufacture of solar panels, with the help of Chinese investors seeking to circumvent antidumping duties imposed by the European Union and the United States.

Both countries may need to seek new markets after the United States this year announced plans for new tariffs on solar-panel imports as part of its crackdown on alleged unfair trade practices by Chinese companies. But with a significant increase in investment in renewable energy generation witnessed in Southeast Asia since the start of this century, the region is potentially a huge market for such products.

Even so, incentives such as tax breaks, duty-free imports, and preferential loans, along with easier access to financing, will be needed to increase investment in renewables and encourage adoption of more energy-efficient technologies.

“Policies and recommendations alone are not enough,” says Phong, from ISET-International in Vietnam. “Businesses need incentives to embrace renewable energy or environmentally friendly technologies, as well as for encouraging reforestation.”

*The article first appeared in Finance & Development published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The link follows:

https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2018/09/southeast-asia-climate-change-and-greenhouse-gas-emissions-prakash.htm?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

The post Boiling Point: The World’s Biggest Jump in Greenhouse Gas Emissions appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Amit Prakash is a Singapore-based journalist and founder of FINAL WORD, a content and communications consultancy.

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By WAM
ABU DHABI, Oct 4 2018 (WAM)

The UAE today signed an agreement with the Jordanian government to extend an economic aid package worth AED3 billion (US$833 million) to stimulate and support economic growth in Jordan. The allocation will be managed by Abu Dhabi Fund for Development, ADFD.

The AED3 billion economic aid package from the UAE falls within the framework of the Makkah Summit held in June 2018, where the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait agreed to support Jordan with a cash injection of US$2.5 billion to ensure that its economic development efforts are on track.

The bilateral agreement was signed by Obaid bin Humaid Al Tayer, UAE Minister of State for Financial Affairs, and Dr. Mary Kamel Kawar, Jordanian Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, in the presence of Dr. Omar Razzaz, Prime Minister of Jordan, Matar Saif Sulaiman Al Shamsi, UAE Ambassador to Jordan, Adel Al Hosani, Director of Operations Department at ADFD, as well as senior officials from both countries.

The economic assistance package provided by the UAE is to be distributed as follows: A deposit of US$333.3 million in the Central Bank of Jordan to support the bank’s fiscal and monetary policy and achieve economic stability in the country; US$250 million to support the Jordanian government budget, dispensed over five years (yearly increments of US$50 million); A US$50 million development loan to finance development projects in Jordan, and US$200 million in guarantees to the World Bank to benefit the Jordanian government.

Al Tayer said that the economic assistance package provided by the Government of the UAE to the Government of Jordan is based on the strong historic bonds of friendship that exist between the two countries and in line with the directives of the President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, and His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces.

Al Tayer reiterated that via the economic aid package, the UAE will seek to stimulate the economic and financial landscape in Jordan and contribute to supporting the country’s development plans. More specifically, it will facilitate the Jordanian government in implementing its priority infrastructure projects in key sectors.

For her part, Dr. Mary Kamel Kawar expressed her appreciation for the UAE’s sustained support and efforts in enabling Jordan to overcome its development challenges. She commended the fraternal relations that exist between the two countries and applauded the continued interest of the UAE President in providing her government with all forms of economic and developmental assistance in line with Jordan’s development priorities.

She also praised ADFD’s vital role in supporting the Jordanian government’s socio-economic development efforts since 1974 through the provision of concessionary loans and management of government grants on behalf of the Abu Dhabi government.

Speaking on the occasion, Mohammed Saif Al Suwaidi, Director General of ADFD, said, “The UAE’s economic and development assistance package to Jordan through the Fund aims to bolster the overall development of Jordan. The financial allocation will aid the establishment of new development projects, boost infrastructure and eventually achieving sustainable development.”

Al Suwaidi added, “Honouring the time-tested ties of friendship between our countries, ADFD has to date enabled the financing of several major development projects in Jordan. In doing so, the Fund has helped Jordan achieve several key development milestones and ensured a positive impact on the lives of thousands of Jordanians.”

The ADFD in 2012 managed the UAE government grant allocation of AED4.6 billion (US$1.25 billion) to the Gulf Development Fund, a five-year grant programme from the GCC member countries to finance development projects in line with the Jordanian government’s strategic goals.

Through government grants and concessionary loans, ADFD has financed 31 development projects amounting to AED5.6 billion in Jordan to date. These projects spanned several lifeline sectors, such as mining, water and irrigation, transport, housing, agriculture, energy, education and healthcare

WAM/MOHD AAMIR/Hassan Bashir

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By Gordon Radley
Oct 4 2018 (IPS)

Dr Sylvia Earle, an eminent marine biologist and explorer has strong views on how nations needs to work together to save what the United Nations calls the lungs of our planet.

When asked how well the U.N.’s call to action for balance and respect of the oceans will work Earle says: “It will work or not depending on the response of people who understand the importance and the fact that there was a conference by the United Nations about the ocean is cause for hope.”

Her remarks come ahead of the Sustainable Blue Economy Conference being co-hosted by Canadian and Kenyan governments in Nairobi Nov. 26 to 28.
The theme of the conference is ‘Blue Economy and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’. It is the first global conference on a sustainable blue economy.

 

 

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By Gordon Radley
MAYAN RIVIERA, Mexico, Oct 4 2018 (IPS)

Every winter dozens of bull sharks come to Mexico’s Mayan Riviera to breed.
A single bull shark can give birth to up to 15 young. They are the only species of shark that can live in both fresh and salt water.

Saving Our Sharks has called for a strict no fishing sanctuary along the Mexican Caribbean to help protect the fish at this very vulnerable time in their lives.

Ahead of the Sustainable Blue Economy Conference being co-hosted by Canadian and Kenyan governments in Nairobi Nov. 26 to 28, the protection of marine life and oceans, seas, lakes and rivers is in the forefront of the development agenda.

The theme of the conference is Blue Economy and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

 

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Poor dietary intake and lack of food varieties affect huge numbers of children, who mostly hail from large, impoverished families in Nepal. Malnutrition is a significant concern in Nepal as around one million children under 5 years suffer from chronic malnutrition and 10 percent suffer from acute malnutrition. Credit: Naresh Newar/IPS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 4 2018 (IPS)

A dramatic shift in the way we eat and think about food is more urgent than ever to prevent further environmental degradation and an even larger health epidemic.   

A diverse group of experts from academia, civil society, and United Nations agencies convened at the sidelines of the General Assembly to discuss the pervasive issue of food insecurity and malnutrition and potential solutions to overhaul the system.“Sustainable food choices is starting to both look good and taste good which hasn’t been the story of the past.” -- founder of EAT Gunhild Stordalen

“It’s striking that we are still, despite all the advances we have seen in science and technology, we still have this big gap between those who eat too much and those who don’t have enough food to eat,” Barilla Centre for Food and Nutrition Foundation’s head of media relations Luca Di Leo told IPS.

According to the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2018, the number of hungry people increased to over 820 million in 2017 from approximately 804 million in 2016, levels unseen for almost a decade.

At the same time, and perhaps paradoxically, obesity rates have rapidly increased over the last decade from 11.7 percent in 2012 to 13.2 percent in 2016. This means that in 2017, more than one in eight adults, or over 670 million people, in the world were obese.

Adult obesity and the rate of its increase is highest in North America, and increasing trends can now also be seen across Africa and Asia.

Participants at the International Forum on Food and Nutrition stressed the need to deal with both forms of malnutrition, and pointed to the lack of access to healthy food as the culprit.

“It’s not just what’s in the food, it’s what’s in the discourse about food…there is more than one way to eat badly,” said director of Yale University’s Prevention Research Centre David Katz.

However, many noted that there is a lack of a unified, factual consensus on what constitutes a healthy diet from a sustainable food system.

“Without goals to mobilise collective action, and also no mechanisms to either coordinate nor monitor progress, it is really hard to achieve large-scale system change,” said founder of EAT Foundation, a science-based global platform for food system transformation, Gunhild Stordalen.

Katz echoed similar sentiments, stating: “You will never get there if you can’t agree where there is…we must rally around a set of fundamental truths.”

Fighting the System

Among these truths is the need to overhaul the entire food and agricultural system.

Despite the notorious and shocking findings from the 2004 ‘Supersize Me’ documentary, the consumption of unhealthy processed foods and sugar has only increased.

According to the Barilla Centre for Food and Nutrition’s Food Sustainability Index (FSI) 2017, the United States had the highest sugar consumption out of 34 countries in 2017.

The average person in the U.S. consumes more than 126 grams of sugar per day, twice the amount that the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends for daily intake.

This not only leads to increasing obesity rates, but it has also contributed to a rise in levels of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.

“The number of lost years to nutritional deficiencies and cardiovascular diseases has been going up very sharply in the United States,” said Leo Abruzzese from the Economist Intelligence Unit, which develops the index.

“One of the U.S.’ less impressive exports has been bad nutrition…people aren’t necessarily dying but they are living pretty miserable lives. Under those circumstances, wouldn’t you think there has to be something done?” he told IPS.

The FSI also found that the U.S.’ consumption of meat and saturated fat is among the highest in the world, contributing to unhealthy diets and even climate change.

According to U.N. University, emissions from livestock account for almost 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Beef and dairy alone make up 65 percent of all livestock emissions.

In fact, meat and dairy companies are on track to become the world’s biggest contributors to climate change, surpassing the fossil fuel industry.

However, Stordalen noted that delivering healthy and sustainable diets is within our reach.

Alternatives to meat have taken many countries by storm, and could slowly transform the fast food and meat industries. Consumers can now find the ‘impossible burger,’ a meatless plant-based burger, in many restaurants and fast food chains such as White Castle.

Recently, the U.S.-based vegan meat companies Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods was recently honoured by U.N. Environment with the Champions of the Earth award.

“Sustainable food choices is starting to both look good and taste good which hasn’t been the story of the past,” Stordalen said.

“Once people get the taste of better solutions, they not only start craving but even demanding  a better future. They come together to make it happen,” she added.

The FSI is also a crucial tool to guide governments and policymakers to pay attention to progress and weaknesses in their own country’s food systems.

“By collecting all of these [indicators] together, we essentially have a framework for what we think a good food system would look like,” Abruzzese said.

In some African countries even though there is enough food, it is the type of food that is available that counts. In Malawi, for instance, even though families had increased access to maize, nearly half the children are malnourished. In this dated picture, these children from south Madagascar are malnourished. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

A Problem of Power

The lack of access to healthy food and its consequences can also be seen at the other end of the food value chain: producers.

Women account for up to 60 percent of agricultural labour across Africa, yet still have poor access to quality seeds, fertiliser, and mechanical equipment. At the same time, they often look after the household, taking care of children and cooking meals.

Such gender inequality has been found to contribute to poorer household nutrition, including increases in stunting among children.

Forum participants highlighted the need to empower women farmers and address the gender inequalities in agriculture in order to advance food and nutrition security as well as establish sustainable societies.

“The opposite of hunger is power,” said University of Texas’ research professor Raj Patel, pointing to the case of Malawi.

In Malawi, more than half of children suffer from chronic malnutrition. The harvesting of corn, which is the southeastern African country’s main staple, is designated to women who are also tasked with care work.

“Even when there was more food, there was more malnutrition,” said Patel.

One northern Malawian village tackled the issue through the Soils, Food, and Healthy Communities Project and achieved extraordinary results.

Alongside actions to diversify crop, the project brought men and women together to share the workload such as cooking together and involving men in care work.

Not only did they achieve gender equality in agriculture, the village also saw dramatic decreases in infant malnutrition.

“We need to value women’s work,” Patel said.

Future of Food

Fixing the food and agricultural system is no easy task, but it has to be done, attendees said.

“We know what the problems are, we’ve also identified the potential solutions…and the main solution is each and every one of us,” Di Leo told IPS.

One of the key solutions is education and empowering people to be agents of change.

“Healthy production will come if the consumer ask for the healthy eating. And healthy eating will come if the consumer has the right education and information,” Di Leo said.

For instance, many do not see or know the link between food and climate change, he added.

In fact, a 2016 study found that there was a lack of awareness of the association between meat consumption and climate change and a resistance to the idea of reducing personal meat consumption.

“It’s a kind of change that needs a bottom-up approach,” Di Leo said.

Stordalen echoed Di Leo’s comments, calling for a global ‘dugnad’—a Norwegian word describing the act of a community uniting and working together to achieve a goal that will serve them all.

“The state of the global food system calls for new collaborative action,” she said.

“It’s time to officially ditch the saying that ‘the more cooks, the worse soup’ because we need everybody involved to serve our people and planet the right future.”

Related Articles

• Local Communities in Mexico Show Ways to Fight Obesity
• India Uses Tech to Power its New Battle Against Malnutrition
• How the Lack of Affordable Vegetables is Creating a Billion-Dollar Obesity Epidemic in South Africa

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By GGGI
Oct 3 2018 (GGGI)

Plight of farmers in Pakistan is aggravated through the loss/wastage of fruit and vegetables which otherwise could have earned an income for the farmers, like Ali Baksh.

The Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency found that thirty percent of the fruits and vegetables produced in Pakistan are wasted in harvest. For an agrarian economy like Pakistan, wastage of fruits and vegetables in post-harvest periods could bereft the nation of the economic benefits. Almost 9.3 million of farming families earn their livelihood through fruits and vegetable produces. However, these families do not necessarily own agriculture land. Despite this, their three generations work on the same acres of land trying to make ends meet. Ali Baksh belongs to one of these families.

Our business, Mewa, stands to assist such farmers. Mewa is focused on helping farmers like Ali Baksh by limiting the fruits and vegetables wastage using the simple solution- solar dehydrators. Pakistan lacks behind the implementation of solar dehydrators technology, which has the potential to supersede the challenges faced by Ali. Given the success and potential fit with the conditions of our agriculture sector, we aim to implement Hohenheim solar dehydrator.

Firstly, Mewa will provide Ali with an incremental income by purchasing a share of his produce at market competitive rates. This will overcome the challenge of loss of income. Secondly, prolonging the shelf life will improve the salability of fruits and vegetables. Solar dehydrators will help in reducing the wastage by converting the fruits and vegetables to dehydrated form. Finally, through proper quality checks we will ensure the dehydrated products’ quality is up to the mark. Whereas the currently in place sun drying methods used by Ali and other farmers alike compromises the quality.

Beginning with crops indigenous to the region of Nawabshah, Sindh in Pakistan, we will process Dates, Chillis, Mangoes and Bananas. According to our estimate, we will earn a daily profit of US$4.5 per dehydrator and providing Ali and other farmers with a daily income of US$2.0.

Strength of our business model is dependent upon our partners. We have identified and consulted with our potential business partners. Pakistan Farmer’s Association will be our relationship partner helping us reach the farmers. Agility Logistics has widespread networks and will be transporting the produce to and from our facilities, SGS Pakistan will be our quality controllers ensuring that our products are up to consumption and export standards. The Sindh Enterprise Development Fund will be our consultants and advisers in this endeavor and as our customers we have identified food industries such as National Foods and Shan Foods as well as the Pakistan Army, all of whom accept SGS quality checks.

Our most vital stakeholders are the farmers from whom we will be buying our produce. We plan and hope to build lasting relationships with them, train members of farming communities to work at our facilities and have an impact on twelve million lives by 2025. We know that our idea that can truly make a difference, and I hope you can see it too.

The experience of participating in Greenpreneurs has been an incredible eye-opening experience for us. We have not only bonded better as business partners but gotten to see what a professional start up looks like. We have been able to delve deeper into the minds of our customers, break down our financials to the level that we can realistically gauge our costs and revenue streams and also see the over arching impact implementation of our idea can have.

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The ‘Non-Violence’ (or ‘Knotted Gun’) sculpture by Swedish artist Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd on display at the UN Visitors’ Plaza. Credit: UN Photo

By International Organization for Migration
Oct 3 2018 (IOM)

Mobs chasing migrants through towns; migrant street vendors getting shot at by people passing by on scooters; and migrant-owned shops being attacked on a regular basis. These are just a few samples of the incidents against migrant communities reported around the world.

Yesterday (2 October) we celebrated the International Day of Non-violence; today we would like draw attention to the issue of xenophobic violence.

An increase in violent attacks and hate crimes against migrants has been reported in several countries the last few years.[1] Coupled with a political atmosphere that has become more influenced by anti-migrant rhetoric, it is important to highlight the obligations surrounding the protection of migrants from this sort of violence in international law.

International human rights law prohibit any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence[2].

Xenophobia against migrants has been recognized as one of the main sources of contemporary racism and human rights violations.[3] In order to respect migrants’ right to security, States are obliged to protect them against all forms violence and bodily harm — whether the perpetrators are officials or private individuals, groups or institutions.[4]

States must adopt and implement legislation prohibiting xenophobic acts. Then, the acts need to be duly investigated and the perpetrators prosecuted and punished with sufficiently severe penalties reflecting the gravity of the act.[5] No one, including public officials, should enjoy impunity for targeting migrants, therefore States should also monitor the conduct of State agents such as border and coast guards, etc.

To effectively fight all manifestations of racism, xenophobia or related intolerance against migrants in society (such as hate crimes, incitement to hatred and hate speech) States should take positive measures with respect to both politicians and the media to raise awareness about the criminal nature of xenophobic acts as well as the rights of migrants.[6]

Another issue to consider is that by taking repressive measures and criminalizing migrants in irregular situations, States risk fuelling negative attitudes towards migrants which often leads to xenophobia and violence.

Moreover, this can create major obstacles for irregular migrants’ access to justice as they will be reluctant to report acts of violence or abuse to the authorities for fear of detention and/or deportation. Violence against irregular migrants therefore often goes under-reported and the perpetrators go unpunished.

Violence and attacks against migrants, simply because they are not nationals of a given country, need to be labelled as per the correct terminology — xenophobic and racist.

In a harsher and more anti-migrant political climate, the international community needs to continue to advocate for a clear stance against these phenomena. Instead of focusing on controlling and criminalizing migrants, it is time to foster inclusiveness and protect their rights, while ensuring effective access to justice for the benefit of migrants and communities.

________________________________________
[1] See for example, The Report of the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance (2018) A/HRC/38/52 (2018); EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) (2018) Periodic data collection on the migration situation in the EU; FRA (2016) Current migration situation in the EU: hate crime.

[2] Art. 20 (2) International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).

[3] The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), General Recommendation no. 30 on discrimination against non-citizens (2005), p. 1; See also Durban Declaration and Plan of Action, Adopted at the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Violence, 8 September 2001,

[4] Art. 16 (2) International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families; art. 5 (b) International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

[5] The Committee on Migrant Workers (CMW), General Recommendation, no. 2 on the rights of migrant workers in an irregular situation and members of their families (2013), para. 22; CERD, General Recommendation no. 30, supra. para. 11; CERD, General Recommendation no. 35 on combatting racist hate speech (2013), para. 13 ©, 17.

[6] CMW, General Recommendation no. 2, supra. para. 22.

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A view of the ravaged village of Vilufushi, on the southeastern Kolhumadulu Atoll, where 17 have died and 28 are still missing after the tsunami swept across their island. Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider

By Arul Louis
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 3 2018 (IPS)

Maldives is currently going through a peaceful transfer of power to opposition leader Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, who was elected president last month, the nation’s Permanent Representative Ali Naseer Mohamed assured the UN General Assembly (UNGA).

Speaking at the high-level General Debate of the UNGA Oct 1, he said that September 23, the day the presidential election took place, was an “extraordinary day for the country and it “was a moment that makes every Maldivian proud of how far we have come and the excellent progress the country has achieved.”

“Following the election, the Maldives is currently going through the process of transfer of power from one elected government to the other,” he said.

On Saturday, September 29, the country’s Election Commission declared Maldivian Democratic Party candidate Solih the winner of the presidential election, overruling the defeated President Abdulla Yameen’s efforts to delay the announcement of the results.

“The accelerated process of democracy in the Maldives is going in tandem with faster growth in social and economic development,” Mohamed said.

The elections came after a tumultuous period during which Yameen had imposed a state of emergency earlier this year and had arrested former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, as well as Supreme Court Chief Justice Abdulla Saeed and Judge Ali Hameed and charged them with treason.

Solih was also arrested along with scores of opposition leaders.

Maldives Foreign Minister Mohamed Asim was scheduled to address UNGA last Saturday, September 29, but after the president’s defeat he did not show up and Mohamed, who spoke in his stead, was the last speaker at the concluding session of the high-level General Debate.

Without naming any countries, Mohamed said “the principle of international law that governs the friendly relations and cooperation among states are being challenged at a fundamental level.”

“There is therefore a need for countries big and small to return to the right side of law,” he said.

During the country’s turmoil, the tug of war over the Maldives between the Asian giants, India and China came to the fore. As New Delhi insisted on Maldives adhering to democracy, Yameen began a drift towards Beijing and also reached out to Islamabad.

Unlike last year’s speech by Mohamed at the General Debate, Soli’s address this year hardly gave any importance to climate change, which the archipelago nation has presented to the world as a mortal danger to its very existence because of rising sea levels.

He mentioned in the passing that the UN should be the place where the “combined power of many ideas, many solutions, and many voices thrive to address challenges of climate change, ocean degradation, poverty, exclusion, and discrimination.”

Another mention of climate change came when he spoke of the construction of a bridge connecting the capital with its airport and the suburb of Hulhumalé and said it helped “better adaptation to climate change.”

The Maldivian envoy also gave a lot of importance to the value of the UN as “the engine room of multilateralism” and its role in helping the smaller nations.

“For the small islands developing States, such as the Maldives, the United Nations will always remain the indispensable partner in building our national resilience. We see the UN as the key in determining our place, and our voice, in the global discourse,” he said.

“Ensuring the relevance of the UN, must mean ensuring that everyone, from the biggest to the smallest, play their part,” he added. “It must mean, offering everyone a place, in finding shared solutions for our shared future.”

Mohamed spoke proudly of the nation’s strides in development and in ending poverty.

“From the humble beginning, as one of the poorest countries in the world at independence in 1965, to an upper middle-income country today, is a success story by any measure,” he said.

The per capita gross domestic product shot up from $1,470 in 1980 to $19,120 last, the International Monetary Fund data show, putting it firmly in the middle income countries category.

In per capita terms, Maldives is the richest nation in South Asia.

Mohamed gave his country’s scorecard: “The Maldives has one of the highest human development indicators in our region, with nearly universal literacy rates, universal immunization, and the lowest infant-mortality, and maternal-mortality rates. The country has eradicated diseases, such as polio, measles, malaria, and lymphatic filariasis, although various types of non-communicable diseases, are emerging as new challenges.”

He praised Yameen for what he said was the progress recorded by the Indian Ocean archipelago nation during the last five years under his rule.

He made an appeal for support to small island developing states like his for capacity building, through transfer of technology, and access to finance in order to achieve the UN’s sustainable development goals.

“The United Nations can assume a greater level of leadership in fostering such support,” he said.

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We are already witnessing the horrific consequences of decades and decades of encroachment upon wetlands, destruction of rivers and filling up of low-lying areas in the capital. Photo: Amran Hossain

By Nahela Nowshin
Oct 3 2018 (The Daily Star, Bangladesh)

A recent World Bank report—an environmental analysis of Bangladesh—should erase any remaining doubts about the critical level that environmental pollution has reached in the country.

The report titled “Enhancing Opportunities for Clean and Resilient Growth in Urban Bangladesh” should be an eye-opener for policymakers who seem to have had their eyes set on boosting economic growth alone without paying attention to the concomitant environmental costs. The data shows that deaths caused by pollution in 2015 in Bangladesh stand at 28 percent—the highest in South Asia. In the same year, there were around 234,000 deaths due to environmental pollution and related health risks, including 80,000 in urban areas. This is more than ten times the number of deaths resulting from road accidents in 2015.

That the environmental situation has come to this is hardly surprising. The filthy outside air that the average Dhaka dweller has become so accustomed to breathing is just one of the daily manifestations of the city’s worsening environmental conditions. This is a major reason behind Dhaka slipping down in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s liveability index. It went from being the fourth least liveable city in 2017 to being the second worst this year—now ranked only one notch above war-torn Damascus.

Despite there being more than 25 environment-related laws, policies and guidelines, pollution in the country has increased dramatically in the last few decades. While the list of factors responsible for the exponential rise in pollution is a long one, the underlying problems are a culture of non-implementation of existing laws and a general mindset of total disregard for the environment. In the absence of implementation of relevant laws, the effects of the dual threat of urbanisation and industrialisation to the environment have been far-reaching, particularly for the capital Dhaka. For urban planners and city engineers, modern-day Dhaka serves as a microcosm of urbanisation gone haywire.

As people from all over the country throng to the capital, Dhaka seems to have reached its saturation point in terms of provision of basic infrastructure and services. And the impact on the living conditions of Dhaka as a result has been devastating. Although urbanisation and increase in income levels are thought to be accompanied by a remarkable improvement in the standard of living—and this has been the case for a sizeable population of the country—the resulting environmental impact has now reached an unbearable level that threatens to undo much of what we have achieved.

It is the lower strata of society that is bearing the brunt of the consequences of the environmental havoc being wreaked by unplanned urbanisation. For instance, in Dhaka, heavy metal-contaminated sites are mostly located in poorer neighbourhoods—making the poor extremely vulnerable to lead contamination. This can lead to IQ loss in children and increases the risk of miscarriages and stillbirths for pregnant women. The fact that low-income groups are disproportionately faced with many such deadly health risks has repeatedly been highlighted by researchers over the years but sadly very little has been done to address these concerns. Urban slums—a modern-day paradox of cities’ growth—are mushrooming and so is their population. According to World Bank, the latter is growing at double the average urban rate, which means that the situation will only get worse if the myriad issues affecting slum dwellers’ living conditions continue to be neglected. Lack of basic hygiene and sanitation and clean drinking water, for instance, are some of the most pressing issues in Dhaka’s slums. A study conducted early last year came up with this startling finding: water samples collected by slum dwellers from the last delivery point had 99 percent faecal contamination. There are many reasons for this including a network of ageing damaged underground pipelines, lack of waste disposal mechanisms and a poorly managed sewerage system. This is perhaps what you’d call unplanned urbanisation at its worst.

The current trend of urbanisation in Bangladesh, if allowed to continue in the years to come, would spell death for its cities’ liveability. Estimates already show that the national urban population rate is expected to increase from 28 percent of the country’s entire population today to 40 percent by 2025 (World Bank, 2015). This means that almost half of Bangladesh’s population will be living in cities only seven years from now. We are already witnessing the horrific consequences of decades and decades of encroachment upon wetlands, destruction of rivers and filling up of low-lying areas in the capital—the worsening waterlogging situation every year after only minutes of rain being one of them.

Whereas countries around the world are increasingly prioritising proper urban planning—including green infrastructure and low-carbon solutions to urban mobility—urbanisation in Bangladesh is being led by thoughtless development. On paper, good plans do exist—but they are just not being properly implemented. For instance, most of the conservable flood flow zones earmarked in the detailed area plan (DAP) published in an official gazette in 2010 were filled up giving into demands of real estate developers. Not much progress has been made either with regard to making greater Dhaka pedestrian-friendly despite this being one of the focal points of the Strategic Transport Plan.

Environmental degradation is one of the unfortunate by-products of 21st-century urbanisation and industrialisation. And so aspirations of higher economic growth must be based on a smart urban development model that takes into account environmental concerns. In the context of Bangladesh, this would require empowering and reforming institutions at the national level. One of the many recommendations made in the World Bank report is reforming the Department of Environment and equipping it with adequate resources and skilled staff in order to respond effectively to environmental issues. Another oft-repeated point made in regard to urban planning and environmental management in Bangladesh is the need to decentralise. This cannot be highlighted enough. Decentralising to division and district levels is the need of the hour so that the areas with the highest levels of pollution can be prioritised. Similarly, a lack of local-level urban planning partially explains why unplanned urbanisation in the country has spiralled out of control. Departmental and ministerial coordination is yet another longstanding problem that just can’t seem to be solved. This not only hampers implementation of existing plans but also leads to confusion and gives leeway to departments and agencies to play the blame game and evade accountability—as is the case every time the city becomes inundated after minutes of rainfall and Wasa and Dhaka city corporations keep passing the buck to one another.

The severe environmental impact on Dhaka and other cities cannot simply be passed off as a result of rural-to-urban migration—it’s a direct consequence of thoughtless urbanisation. It is a result of the lack of an urban development model that puts people, their wellbeing and the environment first. The lack of accountability and transparency in the way many of the existing plans are being implemented—if at all—continues to be a major thorn in our side. It’s time policymakers understood that urbanisation and growth and the liveability of a city are not mutually exclusive, and thus environmental degradation cannot simply be swept aside or justified as an “inevitable” by-product of growth. The slow environmental destruction we are witnessing today is the consequence of a failure to plan for and execute a vision of a liveable city.

Nahela Nowshin is a member of the editorial team at The Daily Star.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

The post Killing the environment appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Ignoring environmental woes will have irreversible consequences for Bangladesh

The post Killing the environment appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Phumeza Tisile is a student at the University of Cape Town and an advocate working to help eradicate TB

By Phumeza Tisile
CAPE TOWN, Oct 3 2018 (IPS)

Like death, hearing loss is irreversible. I never imagined that I would have to choose between the two until seven years ago when I became infected with tuberculosis (TB), a contagious disease caused by an airborne bacterium.

TB is curable, but some strains are resistant to first line treatment, which can be the beginning of a nightmare for the infected person, as I found out in 2010. I was in the first year of undergraduate studies at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in South Africa. Life was normal. I had normal conversations with people. I listened to music and watched TV shows with no subtitles. I could hear.

Things changed when I began losing weight, rapidly enough to raise questions in my mind, I went to a doctor. After several rounds of testing, all of which came up negative for any serious ailments, the doctor recommended a chest X-ray. It showed that I had TB.

I took the prescribed medications but over time, the doctors were concerned that I was getting worse instead of improving. Another test showed that I had MDR-TB. The doctors said I would need to take up to 25 tablets a day for two years, including an injection called Kanamycin. That I would take once a day for at least six months. My normal life turned into distant memories.

I was a willing patient immediately, taking the treatment exactly as the doctors instructed. Kanamycin is a powder, to which water is added before it is injected into the muscle through a syringe. The sharp pain when the needle makes contact is nothing compared to the fiery feel of the drug entering the body. I endured it every day for four months until they were stopped for the worst possible reason.

I woke up one morning and something felt different but I could not immediately put my finger on what it was. Then I went to the bathroom; there was no sound of flushing toilet or water running from the tap. I reported this to the nurse and, as she talked back to me, I realized I could not hear her. My confusion deepened as I could not hear what I was saying either – could not hear my own voice!

The nurses took me to the audiology department at Brooklyn Chest Hospital for a hearing test—the first one I had ever had. I talked; the audiologist wrote down everything. They put headphones over my ears and played sounds. I heard buzzing. In large letters, the audiologist wrote “DEAF” on my folder.

I subsequently learned that I had extensively drug-resistant (XDR) TB and that the kanamycin that had made me deaf did not work against the strain I had. I learned to lip read. I deleted the music on my phone. I found TV shows that had subtitles. This was my world for five years after I my TB was cured. When I became deaf my TB worsened. I was told I had Pre-XDR TB.

After an extended hospital stay and surgery, during which time I had suffered a broken rib and collapsed lung, I was discharged with directives to take my Pre-XDR tablets at home. Few months later I was told the medication was ineffective and that my chance of surviving was only 20 Percent.

I contemplated learning sign language but could not make myself do it. I was not ready to confront my deafness then. Research convinced me that my hear loss was permanent and irreversible and I discovered cochlear implants. I despaired at the expense at first but succeeded at fundraising to cover the cost- over US$42,000 with help from the TB advocacy community.

It is a tragedy to me that although TB is preventable and treatable, it is also the leading cause of death in South Africa, and often life altering condition for those who survive.

TB made nearly half a million South Africans sick in 2016 and caused more than 33,000 deaths. More attention from the government is needed to reduce ongoing transmission, ensure rapid testing for drug resistance in all patients being evaluated for TB, expand access to new drugs and identify and treat those infected with the TB bacteria before they become sick.

Although we can and must do more with the tools we have, investing in research for better drugs and diagnostic tools is essential to defeat TB.

I hope for these changes in 2018 and I am counting on our leaders to make them happen following their presence and their strong commitments at the United Nations High-Level meeting on TB, alongside the General Assembly in New York on September 26.

I am now back at the University of Cape Town. I can socialize, watch TV shows with no subtitles and listen to music again.

In a world of difficult choices, taking bold steps to end a preventable and curable disease like TB should be an easy one by far. Worldwide, it would prevent extreme suffering and financial ruin for hundreds of thousands like me.

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Excerpt:

Phumeza Tisile is a student at the University of Cape Town and an advocate working to help eradicate TB

The post Deaf or Dead? The Unbearable Choice for some TB Patients appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Graziano da Silva with a group of women who are participating in a vegetable-growing project in Borno State, north-eastern Nigeria. Credit: FAO/Carlos Laorden

By José Graziano da Silva
ROME, Oct 3 2018 (IPS)

Everybody wants to end hunger. That is what all UN-member countries stated when signing the 2030 Agenda for a better world: the second of its 17 goals aims at eradicating all forms of malnutrition (which include overweight, obesity or micronutrient deficiencies) and ensuring that everybody has access to nutritious and healthy foods.

Along with these good intentions, we have in recent decades seen real efforts and concrete commitments that have led to steady progress in this battle. Recent reports produced by FAO and other UN agencies, however, give us little cause for celebration. In 2017, the world was home to 821 million hungry people, almost 2.2 billion overweight people and 670 million obese adults (and this number is rising). On top of that, at least 1.5 billion people suffer from micronutrient deficiencies that undermine their health and lives.

What do we really need to do to eradicate all forms of malnutrition?

Governments can’t do it on their own, nor can those with deep pockets acting alone. The same applies to international agencies, NGOs, civil society and/or the private sector working. We really need to combine and align our efforts.

In the first place, we need to acknowledge that this battle should receive high priority. The fight against hunger should not slip down in the list of global priorities such as climate change, migrations or population growth.

Addressing those challenges must in no way mean that we put aside our efforts to guarantee every human’s fundamental right to food, especially as the latter has a strong impact on the other challenges.

Secondly, we need more funds. It takes money to make things happen and Governments —the real game-changers— need resources to pave the way towards environmentally, economically and socially sustainable food systems. With so many priorities arising, though, funding is not enough. (Some $24.7 billion were needed to address humanitarian emergencies in 2017 alone, according to UN estimates.)

Nevertheless, just as it’s not enough to buy seeds to assure a good harvest, allocating funds will not suffice to eradicate all forms of malnutrition. Achieving that goal lies in making sure that the public policies and actions we take are truly effective.

Investment effectiveness requires several preconditions: reliable and strong data that allow policymakers to make informed decisions and assess if things are really going in the right direction; qualified staff to put plans in practice; technical assistance and expertise…

In short, what’s needed is an enabling environment where funds can flourish and lead to significant progress. In other words, we do not just need to buy seeds, but to find fertile soil, prepare the ground, water the fields and take good care of them so that we gather big returns.

In this interconnected world, that is no task for anyone to do alone. Governments can’t do it on their own, nor can those with deep pockets acting alone. The same applies to international agencies, NGOs, civil society and/or the private sector working. We really need to combine and align our efforts. That is the aim, for example, of the FIRST Programme, which assists Governments to design policies and create environments where food and nutrition security can flourish.

In FIRST, an important partner like the European Union and FAO, join forces side by side with Government officials in around 30 countries (from Cambodia to Chad and from Honduras to Afghanistan).

Food production should be done in a way that is sustainable and generates dividends in other areas. Policies towards eradicating hunger need to address every element of the food system. For example, boosting Nile perch production and exports in Lake Victoria will have little positive effect on food security if the benefits of those activities do not reach local communities.

Likewise, giving Guatemalan family farmers technical and financial support will not contribute to alleviate undernourishment if it does not include a gender perspective and considers the challenges that female rural farmers face and their key role in their households’ nourishment. Similarly, focusing too much on producing staple foods like rice or forgetting to promote the availability of diverse and nutritious fresh foods will unlikely result in a better nutritional status.

Even when priorities pile up on our agendas, we must not leave aside food and nutrition, which lie at the heart of life, health and development. To be sure, we are equally obliged to make the most out of every euro we spend on this front, and ensure that it leads to sustainable and long-term positive effects that reach everybody, especially the most vulnerable. There is no time —nor money— to be wasted.

The post Making Every Euro Count in the Fight Against Malnutrition appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

More money, and better spent, is what we need to end hunger and malnutrition

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By GGGI
Oct 3 2018 (GGGI)

Plastic waste has become a major global problem, and one that must be addressed in order to solve the world’s resource and energy challenges. Millions of plastic items are improperly disposed of on a daily basis, creating piles of plastic waste everywhere. This has brought serious damages to local environments around the world in terms of water, air and soil pollution. It blocks drains, pollutes rivers and wreaks havoc on the environment.

I was watching a TV show, where Moroccan former interior minister, announced that Morocco has decided to take action to eliminate plastic bags through its campaign “Zero Plastic Bag”. “Zéro Plastic Bag” came into effect on July 1, 2016, to ban the manufacture, commercialization, and importation of plastic bags. Then I realized that the best solution for disposing of plastic waste is recycling it to produce new materials that are sustainable and recyclable. Which mean a product that can be recycled after being using to create added value and a real Circular Economy.

As social entrepreneur and change maker it was for us the right time to start doing an acting to address this issue and have a real impact on our community and worldwide. After 8 month of brainstorming, ideation and prototyping, we came up our idea.

 

 

As a first step we have developed, a new material based on 80% of plastic waste and 20% other additives that can be used such as cement in construction product and more.

Then we launched our first products are PAVECO eco-friendly paving stones and floor tiles made from our formula. They can be used in all the same ways as regular products in gardens, sidewalks, parking and more, but:

• use less energy and water in production,
• are cheaper to produce
• offer better insulation and are more durable than most alternatives.

Everybody wins! Zelij aims to eliminate more than 3000 tons of plastic waste every year, while reducing resources used in manufacture and energy use for customers.

Our engineers have developed an innovative and easy process we collect plastic wastes from NGO’s and suppliers, we put it in special machines with the additives and we have our final product in different shapes and colors.

We joined the Greenpreneurs program in order to scale up and get the tools to develop what we are doing. The first challenge was that in 10 weeks we have to move from a prototype to the real market. Each week we had exercises and courses, it was so challenging that in a very short time we have to do a big steps, starting from searching in internet moving to having real discussions with costumers and going out to market. And YES we did it!

Thanks to the Greenpreneurs program, we discovered several tools and we explored several new ways. We have also done a real big rotation on our branding and marketing strategy.

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Old taxi Park in Uganda's Capital Kampala. The Green Growth Strategy in Uganda seeks to introduce rapid bus transport and light railways to avoid this type of congestion. Credit Wambi Michael/IPS

By Wambi Michael
KAMPALA, Oct 3 2018 (IPS)

Locals in Kampala, Uganda’s capital, always have two or three things to say in a conversation about how the city is developing. Some say it is filthy because of the growing waste; others say it is a slum because of its unplanned settlements; and then there are those who say it is just plain inconvenient because of the traffic congestion created by the boda boda (motorcycle taxis) and commuter taxis that honk incessantly as they make their way along the streets.

But Juliana (not real name), a student from Seven Hills International School, has a solution to the capital’s urbanisation crisis.

“I’m praying that a hurricane hits Kampala so that we would have no choice but to re-organise it,” she says. She is part of a class team working on a project to turn Kampala into modern city.

“What would be the name of that hurricane? This was a big statement. Have our children given up?” asks Amanda Ngabirano, an Urban Planning lecturer from Makerere University.

Ngabirano, has been working in partnership with the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) on plans for a downtown car-free zone. She disagrees with Juliana on the suggestion that the entire city should be razed and says it can transition to a low carbon future based on the Global Green Growth Institute’s green cities model.

A green city is an urban area that moves toward long-term environmental protection, social inclusion, and economic sustainability. A green city, according to GGGI, is understood as an urban area that moves toward long-term environmental protection, social inclusion, and economic sustainability. GGGI is a treaty-based international organisation that promotes green growth.

Ngabirano tells IPS that there is still an opportunity to green Uganda’s urban settlements.

A city impacted by growth

Uganda is slowly urbanising with about 19 percent of its population living in urban centres. It is projected that 30 percent of Uganda’s almost 42 million people  will be urban dwellers by 2035.

Kampala, the country’s biggest city, is faced with a number of problems–which include the growth of informal settlements, encroachment on wetlands, and inadequate sewage and water treatment plants to service the city’s population of 1.5 million–all of which are exerting pressure on the natural environment.

Urban planners and environmentalists have concluded that Uganda’s current “grow dirty now, clean up later” style of urbanisation is not sustainable.

However, the government has embarked on reversing the damage to its natural resources. With support from development partners, the government is looking towards a green growth strategy that emphasises the need for a more harmonious relationship between development and the environment.

In partnership with GGGI, the government recently developed the Uganda Green Growth Development Strategy 2017/18 – 2030/31.

Launched last November, it will be implemented over the next 14 years and is estimated to cost USD11 billion.

Urban green growth model

The strategy suggests a new urban growth model that encourages a more compact, connected national transition by 2040. It projects to increase access to basic services by over 33 percent, reduce the aggregate infrastructure investment requirement by 11 percent, and reduce greenhouse gases by 27 percent.

Peter Okubal, the GGGI country representative to Uganda, tells IPS that his organisation has already embarked on policy changes and formulations to enable this East African nation to follow a green path to its development.

“Our analysis suggests that improved urban policy is not enough – correcting ongoing issues in the economy will be just as important for a successful urban transition,” Okubal says.

Uganda’s Vision 2040 suggests eight priority interventions to catalyse better urban growth. If implemented, they could boost GDP by USD4.3 billion by 2040, as well as provide new jobs and positive environmental benefits.

Okubal says that there is indeed an opportunity for Kampala and other cities in Africa to change the trajectory that they are on by adopting the green cities model of urbanisation.

“The population living in green cities is rapidly growing. So if the governments took advantage and developed cities that are competitive, then they are likely to reap the urban dividend rather than getting the confusion associated with urbanisation,” explains Okubal.

GGGI has supported Uganda’s ministry of lands and urban development complete the national urban policy through its green cites programme. It has also supported the process of development of a strategy to implement the green cities road map.

The road map provides a step-by-step process through which a city can be transitioned from an ordinary one to one that is competitive, compact and coordinated.

“That is the model that we promote. [For] cities in Uganda should be able to connect to each other, they must be competitive. That means that they should be able to generate businesses, they must be livable at the same time but also productive in nature,” Okubal says.

The Uganda Vision 2040 proposes four regional cities and five strategic cities in the course of Uganda’s urbanisation. These are the capital city Kampala, the regional cities of Gulu in Northern Uganda, Mbale in Eastern Uganda, Mbarara in Western Uganda, and Arua in West Nile region.

“Uganda is endowed with rich natural diversity that necessitates incorporation of sustainable and consumption practices into the economy to ensure the sustainability of natural resource capital,” Paul Mafabi, director for environment at Uganda’s ministry of water and environment, tells IPS.

He says well-planned urban settlements based on a green cities model could save the country’s natural resources.

“Most of these resources are non-renewable or in case of degradation, [result in] loss or extinction, their restoration demands a lot of financial, moral and physical input,” says Mafabi.

Chebet Maikut, Uganda’s commissioner for climate change, tells IPS that GGGI’s efforts towards a green growth model, especially in urban areas, cannot be underestimated.  “GGGI is currently helping government to work on the monitoring, verification framework for Uganda, which is quite essential under the transparency framework of the Paris Agreement which emphasises the need to track progress and report on the country’s progress on tackling climate change.”

Waste Management

In a related development, GGGI is taking steps towards addressing the increasing solid waste management crisis in the country. It recently completed the national urban solid waste policy. The document provides a framework in which the government of Uganda can manage solid waste nationally.

“The current waste management approach that the government has been using in Kampala is what we call pick and dump. Pick the waste from the household and dump it into land fill. Now GGGi proposes an alternative to that,” says Okubal.

“If we treated waste as a resource, and indeed waste is a resource, then we can leverage on the amount of waste generated to create 4 million jobs over the next 15 years,” he further explains.

According to Okubal, there are plans to develop a bankable project estimated at USD15 million to address the waste challenge in Uganda’s cities and urban authorities.

Financing Options For Green Growth in Uganda

Uganda’s government needs to mobilise USD11 billion over the next 15 years. It also needs USD2 billion dollars to be spent over the next five years. Some development actors have doubted whether the government can raise that funding from its budget or through development partners. But Okubal is of a different opinion.

“There is quite a lot of money out there. The money is out there but the governments are failing to tap the money,” he argues.

He explains that it is possible for governments to access those funds in different forms, either through routine budget cycle or through major players within the green economy.

“The EU [European Union] has, for example, allocated 60 million euro to be spent over the next two years to support the government of Uganda to implement the green growth strategy,” he explains.

Sweden, Norway and other individual EU countries are, according to Okubal, considering funding green growth efforts in Uganda.

“We have the Green Climate Fund, the Global Environment Facility and there are other international windows for funding for a green economy. All these are opportunities which the government of Uganda can tap into,” Okubal says.

The government plans to introduce the bus rapid transit and light rail which will either be run through a private/public partnership arrangement or by the a private sector led financing model.

The United Nations Development Programme country office in Uganda recently mobilised USD 24.1 million from the Green Climate Fund to implement the Presidential Initiative to restore the country’s degraded wetlands.

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Rev. Gabriel Odima is President & Director of Political Affairs- Africa Center for Peace & Democracy

By Rev. Gabriel Odima
MINNESOTA, USA, Oct 3 2018 (IPS)

Many scholars argue that democracy is not the answer to Africa’s problems. To certain degree, I agree with such statements that democracy alone cannot guarantee African nations’ happiness, prosperity, health, peace and stability. In fact, modern democracies also suffer greatly from many defects.

Uganda Police Force manhandle a journalist covering a demonstration in Kampala, Uganda. Courtesy: Wambi Michael

But in spite of the flaws, we must never lose sight of the benefits that make democracy more desirable than undemocratic regimes. The direct benefit of democracy is that it helps to prevent government from violating the rights of their people like the case of Uganda.

After observing the political development in Uganda for the last 33 years, I have come to the conclusion that human rights abuses, the lack of political freedom, corruption, poor leadership, greed and thirsty for power are the leading pillars of President Museveni ‘s rule in Uganda.

On becoming President in 1986, Museveni confirmed the massacres and the decapitations dramatically in two ways. The first was the exhibition of the male child soldiers. Museveni claimed that these soldiers found the children abandoned in villages and adopted them. The lie could not hide how only male children who were made child soldiers were found in villages allegedly abandoned by their inhabitants.

The second mocking order by Museveni that the remains of the dead be collected and exhibited on roadsides. In the collection, Museveni’s soldiers took journalists to scattered graves where only skulls were unearthed.

No one who had not participated in the burial of these skulls could have known of the sites of the graves. Despite this glaring evidence, the propaganda was that all the remains and skulls were of civilians killed by government troops of the late former President Milton Obote.

The message of the propaganda war that there had been no war in Luwero lunched by Museveni, in which his and government combatants died and were buried in Luwero, and that his army never killed anybody during that war and none of his men were killed or even died of other causes and was buried in Luwero.

This insult to human intelligence, knowledge and experience of war, any war, is still being preached 35 years later. The devastating war which Uganda’s present regime launched in February 1981 was not inevitable nor was it necessary. What many people in Uganda and the International community did not realize is that this kind of war was launched with one objective: to remove from Africa’s body politic the power of the citizen’s freedom of assembly and association.

This removal creates conflicts and suffering to millions of Africans whose lives are under constant fear. From Uganda, the same war spread to Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan.

By turning a blind eye not only to the deepening of dictatorship in Uganda, to the extent of even rejecting its very existence but also by ignoring the very extensive gruesome and widespread massacres and devastation committed in the process, governments, media, and human rights organizations in developed countries have cleansed, rewarded, and licensed Museveni to entrench the dictatorship in Uganda.

The International community should emphasize respect of territorial integrity of each nation. No country in Africa should have the power to invade another country for selfish interests. A civilized nation cannot engage in political assassinations and massive human rights violations.

The international community needs to come to terms with reality and help address the crucial crisis facing Uganda today.

1. The International community should encourage President Museveni to step down at the end of his current term in office.

2. Open up political space and call for Uganda national conference to deliberate on the political future of Uganda.

3. Formation of a transitional government to review the current constitution of Uganda and prepare for free and fair elections in Uganda.

The post The Growing Need for Democracy in Africa appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Rev. Gabriel Odima is President & Director of Political Affairs- Africa Center for Peace & Democracy

The post The Growing Need for Democracy in Africa appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By WAM
VIENNA, Oct 3 2018 (WAM)

A high level delegation from the OPEC Fund for International Development, OFID, on Tuesday, attended the 11th Arab Energy Conference in Marrakech, Morocco, under the theme ‘Energy and Arab Cooperation’.

Suleiman J Al-Herbish, OFID Director-General, attended the conference on an invitation of Abbas Al-Naqi, Secretary-General of the Organisation of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries, OAPEC, who was a panellist on the session ‘Energy security as a global partnership’.

OFID’s delegation also included Faris Hasan, Director of Strategic Planning and Economic Services; Dr. Namat Alsoof, Consultant; and Iman Alshammari, Senior Officer.

Al-Herbish said that energy is the engine of economic growth and social progress and noted that the priority given by OFID to eradicating energy poverty in developing countries was inspired by OFID member countries themselves. That priority, he said, stems from the Riyadh Declaration – issued at the conclusion of the 3rd OPEC Summit in November 2007 – which established the eradication of energy poverty as an objective. “Our Ministerial Council has approved the allocation of a renewed US$1 billion to this end,” Al-Herbish added.

Since 2007, OFID has advocated tirelessly for energy poverty to be given the priority it deserves in the post-2015 Development Agenda. These efforts – alongside those of OFID’s friends in the international development arena – have culminated in access to energy for all being recognised as Sustainable Development Goal 7, SDG 7, a stand-alone goal in the United Nations Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development.

Al-Herbish noted that supporting development operations in the energy sector lies at the heart of OFID’s strategic plan to 2025. He stressed, however, that energy poverty remains a challenge that can only be overcome through strategic partnerships, highlighting that OFID has built strong and diverse partnership networks to expand geographic coverage and operational activities.

Al-Herbish reaffirmed OFID’s commitment to supporting sustainable development plans in Arab countries, particularly energy projects, and outlined various operation supported by OFID in the region, which include US$1.6 billion to finance 14 traditional and 15 renewable energy projects in a number of Arab countries.

Chaired by Aziz Rabah, Minister of Energy, Minerals and Sustainable Development of Morocco, the 11th Arab Energy Conference, which concludes tomorrow, brings together experts from the energy industry, led by ministers of Arab countries, as well as directors of Arab and other organisations.

 

WAM/Rola Alghoul/Rasha Abubaker

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Mexico, mother keeps a portrait of murdered daughter in a locket. 2014. Credit: UN Women/Ina Riaskov

By Antonio Molpeceres and Klaus Rudischhauser
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 2 2018 (IPS)

Violence against women and girls is one of the most serious, globally widespread, deep-rooted and normalized human rights violations. The statistics are shocking: at least one in three women worldwide has suffered physical or sexual violence, usually by a family member or an intimate partner.

The diverse types of violence levelled against women and girls are rooted in gender inequality. Violence against women and girls is regular and systematic, occurring in every context of their lives, both in private and out in the open. One such form of daily, systematic and public violence against women and girls is femicide.

Globally, 14 of the 25 countries with the highest rates of femicide are in Latin America. Ninety-eight per cent of the femicides in Latin America are not prosecuted. According to the World Bank, this problem is not only destructive for the victims, but it also carries important social and economic costs.

Violence against women and girls in Latin America consumes 3.7% of countries GDPs, more than twice their education budgets. Several studies have shown that boys and girls that witness or experience violence as children are more likely to become victims or perpetrators as adults.

In 2016, more than 2,700 female deaths with “homicide presumption” were registered in Mexico. An average of 7.5 women murdered every day . According to the Mexican Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System, from January to July 2018, there have been 484 femicides, not counting the ‟black figure″ (crimes that are not reported).

Tragically, this kind of violence is very common. Recent registered incidents in Mexico have placed femicides in the public agenda, creating and encouraging social movements calling for more and better prevention, investigation, prosecution, punishment and reparation actions against violence. This social and public context has also been useful to push forward the definition and criminalization of femicide and to develop relevant tools and guidelines to sensitively prosecute these crimes.

It is time to break the cycle. As mentioned in the General Assembly Resolution ‟Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda of Sustainable Development″, it is impossible to achieve the full realization of human potential if half of humanity continues to be denied its full human rights.

We are aware that a world free of violence against women and girls can only be reached through meaningful political and social commitments, supported by appropriate resources. Actions are required at multiple levels to effect change, including to: 1) close political and legislative gaps: 2) strengthen institutions; 3) promote equal gender attitudes; 4) provide high quality services to survivors and reparation for victims and their families; 5) produce and provide disaggregated data; and 6) empower women´s movements, leaving no one behind.

On 27 September 2018, the European Union and the United Nations launched the Spotlight Initiative that will be implemented in Mexico, Argentina, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. It is a multi-year partnership that will substantively contribute to eradicating femicide and other forms of violence against women and girls.

Focused on the six pillars noted above, the Initiative positions the elimination of all forms of violence at the core of the efforts to achieve gender equality and empower women, in line with the 2030 Agenda of Sustainable Development.

Violence against women and girls is a complex phenomenon, deeply rooted in unequal power relationships between women and men and in ingrained social standards, practices and behaviors that promote discrimination at home, in the workplace and in society in general. Action is imperative, not only to ensure respect for human rights, but also to transform the lives of women and girls to attain sustainable development.

The Spotlight Initiative in Mexico will seek to address the problem of femicide from a holistic perspective. Thus, adding to ongoing efforts in the country, the Initiative will underscore the strengthening of the prevention strategies that will accomplish the reduction of risk margins, modify the social patriarchal structures, strengthen equality between women and men, and decrease impunity, all from the life cycle perspective. Sustainable solutions require that we work on a multi-level approach and bring diverse actors on board.

In collaboration with the Mexican authorities and the different branches of the state, civil society, women´s organizations, women, girls, men, young people, private sector and the media, we will join forces to end this pandemic.

(1)Female Deaths with Presumption of Homicide (DFPH, for its acronym in Spanish) are obtained from the vital statistics published by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI, for its acronym in Spanish) and have been used as a proxy for feminicide. See UN Women, SEGOB, INMUJERES. Feminicide violence in Mexico: approaches and trends 1985-2016, December 2017, in: http://bit.ly/2xGjNeC
(2)Because of the typification of feminicide as a crime in the states, the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System began to systematize information from the relevant justice authorities at state level. See http://bit.ly/2xBzZ0N

The post EU & UN Join Mexico to Eradicate Violence against Women & Girls appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Antonio Molpeceres is the UN Resident Coordinator in Mexico and Klaus Rudischhauser is the EU Ambassador to Mexico.

The post EU & UN Join Mexico to Eradicate Violence against Women & Girls appeared first on Inter Press Service.