Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

News and Views from the Global South

Updated: 1 day 23 hours ago

Political Will and Investment Will Score the Goal for Zero Hunger

Mon, 08/14/2023 - 12:10

IFAD says investing in smallholder farmers is key to tackling food insecurity or severe food and nutritional insecurity. CREDIT: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Aug 14 2023 (IPS)

A world free from hunger is possible, but it demands political will, investment, and effective policies to transform agriculture and rural development, says Alvaro Lario, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

More than 800 million people in the world went to bed hungry in 2022, and 3.1 billion others could not afford to eat a healthy diet in 2021, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)’s latest State of Food Insecurity and Nutrition in the World report.

IFAD described the startling SOFI report as “a wake-up call for the fight against hunger,” noting that massive investment in rural development and small-scale agriculture will win the war on hunger.

“Every year, the hunger and food insecurity numbers remind us of this dark reality: Not only are we not reaching our targets — we are moving farther away,” Lario told IPS in an interview via email.

Enough Food but Hunger for Decisive Action

According to the SOFI, hunger numbers stalled between 2021 and 2022, but there were 122 million more hungry people in 2022 than prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sustainable Development Goal #2 is the zero-hunger goal of the United Nations. It aims to end all forms of hunger and malnutrition by 2030 by ensuring all people — especially children and the more vulnerable — have access to sufficient and nutritious food all year round. But is the zero-hunger goal realistic, given that the number of hungry people globally is rising despite advances in technology to boost food production and productivity?

Alvaro Lario, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). CREDIT: IFAD

“In a world of plenty, where inequalities are increasing, zero hunger is the only objective to have,” Lario said. “Ending hunger is feasible. It is a matter of political will, adequate investments, and policies.”

Commenting on the SOFI report, Danielle Nierenberg, President of the Food Tank, said world leaders were failing to prioritize the needs of millions of people around the globe in creating better food and nutrition security.

“If we leave people behind because there is something going on in the world, whether there is conflict in Russia against Ukraine or inflation across the globe … If we do not protect and nourish those who are most in need, we are setting ourselves up for disaster,” Nierenberg told IPS in an interview.

“Hungry people tend to be angry people for obvious reasons … What we need is better political will and active policymakers to really solve this with the help of communities, nonprofits and research institutions who have been leading the charge against hunger.”

Reacting to the SOFI report, Oxfam, a global charity focusing on the alleviation of global poverty, said it was unforgivable for governments to watch billions of people going hungry in a world of plenty.

“Solutions to end world hunger exist, but they require bold and united political action,” said Hanna Saarinen, Oxfam International Food Policy Lead, in a statement, calling on governments to support small-scale food producers and promote especially the rights of women farmers, who are key in the fight against global hunger.

Lario said in Africa, conflicts, poverty, lack of infrastructure and access to energy, and poor access to education and vocational training, combined with high population growth, were converging to worsen the challenge of food and nutrition insecurity.

However, this did not mean that hunger cannot be overcome as the African continent had many assets to boost food security, including land, natural resources, and the dynamism of its youth, said Lario.

Invest in Rural Development and Small-Scale Agriculture

Danielle Nierenberg, President of the Food Tank. CREDIT: Food Tank

Asked what needs to be done to win the war against hunger and undernutrition on the back of many countries which put more money into funding war than food security.

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia as well as the tension in East Asia, have driven increased global military spending by 3.7 percent in real terms in 2022, to a record high of USD 2 240 billion, according to new data on global military spending published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

“Governments need to understand that hunger and poverty fuel conflicts, migration and ultimately instability,” Lario told IPS, noting that the Ukraine war and the dependency of many countries on food imports has led to the recognition of the importance of food sovereignty and food security for national security.

“To win the war on hunger, we need to massively scale up our investments in rural development and small-scale agriculture,” said Lario.

Lario is convinced that investing in agriculture is three times more effective at reducing poverty than investing in any other sector. Agriculture remains the backbone of many African economies.

Financial support for agriculture has been stagnant at just 4-6 percent of total Overseas Development Aid (ODA) for at least two decades. IFAD notes that agriculture ODA fell to USD 9.9 billion in 2021, far below what is needed.

Very few African governments have invested 10 percent of their budget in agriculture as per the Malabo Declaration of 2014. Besides, small-scale farmers receive less than 2 percent of global climate finance despite being major food providers, Lario said.

IFAD estimates that up to USD 400 billion would be needed annually until 2030 to build sustainable, equitable and resilient food systems.

“We need to tackle the root causes of hunger and rural poverty,” he said, adding that “Inaction will be expensive. Every USD 1 spent on resilience now saves up to USD 10 in emergency aid in the future.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs'); Related Articles

Categories: Africa

Nigeria to Expand Education Access Through a Student Loan Scheme

Mon, 08/14/2023 - 09:19

Senior Secondary School students in Abuja, Nigeria. Credit: Africa Renewal

The new initiative will help address school dropouts and suicidal tendencies among financially disadvantaged students

By Leon Usigbe
ABUJA, Nigeria, Aug 14 2023 (IPS)

Wisdom Ajah, an 18-year-old senior secondary school graduate living in Karshi, a satellite town in Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory, dreams of a university education that will secure him a good job after graduation and help support his family. But it is a distant dream considering how many obstacles he has faced trying to acquire a secondary school certificate.

Born into a poor family that can barely afford the necessities of life, Wisdom was forced to shoulder responsibilities far beyond his tender age, combining his studies with taking on manual labour at construction sites to pay his way through high school and supplement his family’s meagre income.

Now engaged in menial house painting jobs, a skill he acquired at the construction sites, saving enough money to fund his university education remains a significant hurdle.

But this may be about to change, as Nigeria’s federal government has recently passed a law establishing a student loan scheme aimed at providing financial assistance to individuals from poor backgrounds. Under the scheme, eligible applicants will receive up to N500,000 (approximately $650) per academic session.

Signed into law by President Bola Tinubu on 12 June, the Access to Tertiary Education Act, also known as the Student Loan Act, is expected to provide easy access to higher education for poor students through interest-free loans.

Government officials believe that the initiative will enable indigent students to access federal government loans to fund their university education, much like what happens in the United States and other developed countries.

The scheme ensures equal rights to eligible applicants to access the loan without discrimination based on gender, religion, tribe, social position, or disability.

“The student loan scheme is a boon to our youths, to our students nationwide,” said Dele Alake, the president’s spokesperson.

The government is confident that students facing financial hardships, including individuals like Wisdom, who meet the set criteria, will be able to access the loan and repay over a period of 20 years interest-free.

“A typical public university student can survive effectively on a tuition fee of N250,000 ($325) per session, and an all-in-one annual loan of N500,000 ($650) can take a student through each academic year,” affirmed Dr. Dasuki Arabi, the Director-General of the Bureau for Public Sector Reform.

“With what we have now, nobody should say it was a lack of money that did not allow them to go to school. The opportunity will be there. It will be inclusive, and it will be equitable,” said David Adejoh, Permanent Secretary in the federal Ministry of Education, in an interview with Africa Renewal.

The Nigerian Education Bank will supervise and co-manage the loan scheme starting September 2023.

The law stipulates two years imprisonment or a fine of N500,000 ($650) or both for students who default in repayment, or anyone found aiding defaulters.

Nigeria has up to 18 per cent annual school dropouts attributed to financial constraints.

The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has welcomed the scheme as necessary to address the dropout challenge, as well as help combat suicidal tendencies and deter desperate poor students from engaging in vices.

“The rate at which students commit suicide due to depression when they drop out of school and the prevalent of vices among female students carried in order to pay their fees will decrease or cease because there will be no more financial pressure to warrant such acts,” said Akinteye Afeez, a spokesperson of the student association.

However, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), an organisation that represents Nigerian public university lecturers, has doubts about the practicability of the new scheme due to the country’s high rate of graduate unemployment

Nigeria’s Punch newspaper reports that approximately 40 per cent of those holding a Bachelor’s degree and 59 per cent of those with Higher National Diplomas are currently unemployed.

Also, the renowned global tax and audit services firm, KPMG, projects that Nigeria’s unemployment figure will rise to 40.6% in 2023, from 37.7% in 2022.

With the current economic conditions in Nigeria, a student loan scheme will create more problems than the ones it is attempting to solve, said Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, the President of ASUU.

“ASUU will never support the issue of education banks because the poor will not benefit from it,” he insisted.

The union maintains that the best solution to the problems of Nigerian universities is adequate funding.

Anticipating an increase in access to tertiary education, the government plans to put in place supportive structures and implement economic reforms that will absorb more graduates into the work force.

Source: Africa Renewal, United Nations

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa

Social Activists Demand Real Equality for Chilean Women

Mon, 08/14/2023 - 07:45

Aida Moreno, founder of the Huamachuco Women's House in the municipality of Renca in northern Santiago, Chile, walks past a large burlap embroidery that represents one of the community soup kitchens organized during the 1973-1990 military dictatorship to provide food for children and adults in this low-income neighborhood. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

By Orlando Milesi
SANTIAGO, Aug 14 2023 (IPS)

Women social activists recognize that gender equality is gaining ground in Chile, but maintain that there is still a long way to go to turn into reality the promises to “level the playing field” between women and men, while they highlight the importance of addressing the issue of care work.

“We push feminism for the people, because we are looking at everything, not just women but the whole family, from a gender perspective,” social activist Aída Moreno, a veteran weaver who founded the Huamachuco Women’s House in 1989 in the municipality of Renca, northeast of Santiago, told IPS."In many cases the person has been born with some type of disability or dependency. Their situation is precarious, they are vulnerable. And the State and society punish you for being in care. You are left without health care, unemployed, often without support or family co-responsibility" -- Carolina Cartagena

She argued that gender inequality is still “an open wound in Chile.”

“The issue of care work, for example, is on the table, but nothing has been resolved yet. All we have is hope,” said the 77-year-old campaigner for women’s rights at her organization’s offices.

Carolina Cartagena, 42, is the national secretary of the Asociación Yo Cuido – an association of caregivers – based in the municipality of Villa Alemana, in the Valparaíso region, 131 kilometers north of the Chilean capital.

In an interview with IPS at the association’s headquarters, she said, “There are many women caregivers whose mental health is already overwhelmed. We have extreme cases…and where does that leave the person being cared for, if his or her caregiver is not well mentally, economically and emotionally?” she asked.

The rights of caregivers emerged as a much more visible issue after left-wing President Gabriel Boric included them among the priorities of his social policy and instructed the respective ministries to mainstream the issue.

A celebration held by instructors and participants at the welcome day of the launch of the Cycle of Workshops for caregivers organized by the Asociación Yo Cuido, at its headquarters in the municipality of Villa Alemana, in the Chilean region of Valparaíso. The workshops include dance therapy, home gardens, music therapy and yoga, among other activities. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

The first step was to open a registry of caregivers within the Social Registry of Households. Since 2022, the State has been providing accredited caregivers with a credential that for the time being provides them with facilities to speed up procedures in public services.

The Ministry of Social Development and Family estimates that in a first stage some 25,800 people will be registered in the national registry of caregivers. Their estimate is that there are 470,000 informal live-in caregivers, as they define people who live in the same household and take care of family members on an unpaid basis.

There are also 1.12 million Chileans who require a caregiver and a survey by the ministry found that 85 percent of caregivers are women.

Cartagena sees the registry as a step forward but said that “much remains to be done” for caregivers.

The activist believes that “the most urgent thing is a system of care that is ongoing and permanent. In many cases there are government programs, but they last three months and what do you do for the rest of the year?”

Cartagena was referring to a pilot project implemented so far only in a few municipalities such as Villa Alemana, which lasts three months and provides caregivers with medical assistance, therapies and rehabilitation. Her demand is for it to be made permanent and nationwide.

Yo Cuido brings together 800 families from five regions of this long narrow country wedged between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean: Metropolitan Santiago, in the center; O’Higgins and Valdivia, in the south; and Valparaíso and Coquimbo, in the north.

The association argues that caregiving is a responsibility that should be shared by the government and not just a responsibility of a family or a couple, as the State saves funds thanks to the work of caregivers.

Aida Moreno (R) poses with three other participants in the Huamachuco Women’s House in front of a series of burlap embroideries that will be exhibited at the Cultural Center of the presidential palace of La Moneda on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet on Sept. 11, 1973. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

Changing conditions

The overall living conditions of women in this South American country of 19.5 million people have changed over the last two or three generations, with advances in economic participation and educational levels.

The extension of pre- and post-natal leave and an increase in day care centers were followed by stiffer laws against femicides – gender-based killings – and the decriminalization of therapeutic abortion under three circumstances: fetal malformation, danger to the mother’s life or rape.

But this last achievement is threatened today by the far-right Republican Party, which holds a majority in the council that aims to propose the text of a new constitution that voters will approve or reject in a plebiscite in December.

Sociologist Teresa Valdés, of the Gender and Equity Observatory, told IPS that “gender gaps remain, as do conditions of discrimination, mainly related to machismo (sexism), harassment and the difficulty of getting ahead in the workplace.”

She added that the experience of inequality varies greatly, depending on where the women live.

In Chile, 47.7 percent of households are headed by women, according to the government’s 2022 National Socioeconomic Characterization Survey, and 58.7 percent of these live in poverty.

The latest National Time Use Survey, from 2015, showed that the hours dedicated to unpaid work in a typical day average 2.74 for Chilean men and 5.89 for Chilean women.

Valdes also warned about the high rates of violence against women in the country, despite policies to promote gender parity.

“The latest prevalence survey says that two out of five women have experienced situations of intimate partner violence and these are higher numbers than before. We do not know if this is because there are more cases than before or because there is more sensitivity and recognition of the violence,” said the sociologist.

And she complained that there is a lack of capacity in public programs to attend to these victims in the healthcare or judicial systems.

“That is a huge debt owed to women, and we continue to see a significant number of femicides per year,” Valdes said. In 2022 there were 43 gender-based murders of women in the country, according to the Ministry of Women and Gender Equity.

Carolina Cartagena, national secretary of the Asociación Yo Cuido in Chile, wears the purple sweatshirt that identifies the members of this movement of women caregivers. The central headquarters, which carries the same color, is where they hold meetings, workshops and sessions for training, education and forging ties among caregivers. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

Huamachuco, a pillar of training and community services

The Huamachuco Women’s House is a center for training and combating poverty and discrimination against women.

It began in 1989 as a soup kitchen for children and families. Then it became a center for training, especially traditional embroidery on burlap made from jute or hemp, whose handcrafted works are about to be exhibited in the presidential palace of La Moneda. Later it became a place to learn trades such as hairdressing or sewing.

It currently offers a wide range of workshops and courses including baking, jewelry making, therapeutic massage and a digital skills course provided by Mujeres Emplea, a United Nations employment training program led by UN Women.

But above all, it is a place of support for women who suffer various types of violence and who feel protected by their peers.

Moreno said that women used to work the same amount or more than today and their work was not recognized. She added that now their work is more highly valued, but still “very insufficiently.”

“There are many gaps we have in terms of men who go out to work and come back home just to rest. He never lays awake at night thinking about what he is going to cook the next day, which is double work when there is no money,” she said.

“Today we are placing value on women’s work. I don’t say price, although I could say it because if a man on his own had to pay for laundry services, food, etc., he wouldn’t be able to afford it with what he earns,” she said.

Moreno is also concerned about children and stressed that “preventing violence against them is a job that has no price.”

The Huamachuco Women’s House is now promoting a very important project: getting kids who have dropped out of basic education back into school, with follow-up.

“We work with children and families and aim to reinsert them in another school. We look for schools and provide them with support. In general, they are critical cases, of parents who are in prison or similar circumstances,” she said.

Two young nursery school teachers pose for a photo in a room of the day care center that serves 30 children a day in the low-income neighborhood of Huamachuco. The day care center is an initiative of local residents themselves and was awarded a prize by UN Women, which provided all the equipment needed to open a similar center in the same municipality of Renca, part of the Metropolitan Region of Santiago de Chile. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

Women caregivers plead for time off

“Recognition of caregiving is urgently needed because we women become poorer by staying at home and not being able to go out and work to improve our quality of life,” Moreno said.

It is also a central demand of the Asociación Yo Cuido.

“My daughter, age five, has cerebral palsy,” Cartagena said. “There are many moms with children on the autism spectrum. There are caregivers caring for two or three people. The problem is cross-cutting and includes Alzheimer’s. There are women who take care of their 90-year-old mothers.”

And she regretted that there is no legislation to protect caregivers.

“We are fighting for a support and care system that is being promoted with participatory dialogues in different municipalities to learn about the needs of caregivers,” she said.

“Never again alone” is the motto of the association, created in 2018, which defines itself as national, non-profit, social action and non-welfare oriented in character.

“In many cases the person has been born with some type of disability or dependency. Their situation is precarious, they are vulnerable. And the State and society punish you for being in care. You are left without health care, unemployed, often without support or family co-responsibility,” said Cartagena.

She added that many caregivers suffer from psychological and emotional deterioration, as well as poverty.

“A main objective of our association is to ensure the mental health rights of caregivers,” she underlined.

She pointed out that caregiving work involves mainly women: 90 percent of the members of the association are women.

“We want centers to be opened where they can drop off the person they take care of, so they can have just a few hours off a day,” she said.

This is the role of the day care center in Huamachuco that serves women who suffer physical, psychological or economic violence.

“Most of the mothers in these projects are single women who have no networks. And they have to go out to work leaving their children with other people,” said Moreno.

UN Women rewarded the work of this day care center by donating another similar one, fully equipped, to be installed in another part of Renca.

The elderly activist said with pride that “the fruits are there for us to see because there are young people who are now professionals and who say well…if it hadn’t been for this day care center I don’t know what would have become of us.”

Categories: Africa

POWER TO THE YOUTH: With Quality Education, Youth are Empowered with the Green Skills to Save Our Planet

Sat, 08/12/2023 - 18:35

By Yasmine Sherif
NEW YORK, Aug 12 2023 (IPS)

To save our people and our planet from the life-threatening risks of the climate crisis, we must invest in the education of today’s youth. They will be the climate activists, climate scientists, climate innovators, game-changers and leaders of the 21st century green economy.

On International Youth Day, ECW and our global partners urge world leaders in the public and private sectors to ensure today’s youth have the green skills they need to save our planet. The climate-change challenges and the detrimental impact are enormous – severely affecting the planet, as well as basic services and our very survival.

According to the recent position paper by the United Kingdom Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO): “Addressing the climate, environment, and biodiversity crises in and through girls’ education”, the climate crisis is impacting the education of 40 million children every year. “Education is an assumed, but hugely undervalued, component of responses to climate change impacts, and efforts to mitigate and adapt to them. It is essential for reducing vulnerability, improving communities’ resilience and adaptive capacity, identifying innovations, and for empowering individuals to be part of the solution to climate and environmental change,” states the position paper.

Recent global estimates from Education Cannot Wait (ECW) – the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies & protracted crises – indicate that the number of crisis-impacted children who urgently need education support has spiked by as much as 25 million over the past year.

According to the new ECW Global Estimate Study: “Climate change interacts with underlying crisis drivers to increase crisis severity and worsen education outcomes. For example, droughts in East Africa deplete livelihoods, boost displacement, and undermine food security, worsening access to education and learning and accelerating protection needs.”

As we ramp up efforts to deliver on the Paris Agreement, Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and Sustainable Development Goals at this year’s SDG Summit and Climate Talks (COP28), we must ensure that quality education, as a critical response to climate change adaptation, mitigation and resilience – especially for children and adolescents caught in emergencies – is inserted into the climate agenda, funding decisions and global policy. Because, climate change is not a stand-alone sector. It impedes and prevents the education of 224 million children and youth today, and their ability to survive and protect our planet tomorrow.

As we build toward COP28, ECW will work closely with the Green Climate Fund, Global Environment Facility, Adaptation Fund and other multilateral and bilateral funds – along with the private sector – to develop solution-oriented and actionable commitments to ensure that education in emergencies both responds to immediate crises, while also equipping communities with the knowledge and skills they need to adapt, mitigate, and build resilience in the face of an uncertain future.

For today’s youth, this means ensuring they receive a quality education in some of the highest-risk climate disaster areas on the globe. It also means to empower them with the knowledge and skills they need to develop, access and advance the green economy, and have the capacity to lead and make sustainable decisions for their communities and countries.

Youth are the human power of a green economy and of climate action and climate resilience. Financial investments in climate change mean financial investments in the education of 224 million children and adolescents. Empowered with an education, they will save their communities, their countries and our planet. If not them, who? Without them, how?

IPS UN Bureau

Excerpt:

International Youth Day Statement by ECW Executive Director Yasmine Sherif

Categories: Africa

International Youth Day 2023

Sat, 08/12/2023 - 09:23

By External Source
Aug 12 2023 (IPS-Partners)

Today, the world is embarking on a green transition.

A shift towards an environmentally sustainable and climate-friendly world is critical.

This transition depends on the development of green skills in the population.

Especially amongst today’s youth.

These skills include changing and moulding knowledge, values and attitudes.

And they will form abilities needed to develop and support a sustainable and resource-efficient society.

Green skills are relevant for people of all ages.

But they have heightened importance for younger people.

As those who will inherit our current progress, they will contribute to humanity for longer.

But their journey won’t be easy.

They will endure severe climate events for longer.

They will endure prolonged heatwaves, crop failures, droughts and flooding.

They will experience significant changes in economic opportunities due to climate change.

They will lose 40% of the jobs and trades reliant on a healthy planet.

They will also need to mitigate an accelerating technological divide.

67% of youth do not have digital skills due to a lack of basic resources.

This year’s International Youth Day is our opportunity to set a new course:

“Green Skills For Youth: Towards A Sustainable World”.

Categories: Africa

Time to Ensure Equity in Global Research Vocabulary

Fri, 08/11/2023 - 17:24

Categorizing countries into “low- and middle-income countries” and “high income countries” is not appropriate for studying healthcare systems and population health. It is misleading to categorize countries for convenience of data analysis and interpretation. Credit: Charles Mpaka/IPS

By Ifeanyi Nsofor and Sowmya R Rao
ABUJA, Aug 11 2023 (IPS)

A recent publication in the journal PLOS Medicine reviewed the relationship between COVID-19 and mental health in eight low- and middle-income countries, collectively referred to as LMICs. As important as this publication is, we are appalled by the widespread use of the term “low- and middle-income countries” utilized in this article, and indeed in the majority of the global health literature and discourse.

This term vastly oversimplifies the relationship both between individual LMICs, and between LMICs and High-income countries (HICs). It isn’t an exaggeration to say that the term is colonial and racist. It divides rather than unites. It is time to change the narrative and use an equitable term to describe countries in the Global South.

Terms such as “low- and middle-income countries” perpetuate these inequities and use the same brush to paint 85% of the world’s population as the same. The Global South has almost six times the population of the Global North, is incredibly diverse, and has pockets of high-, middle- and low-income communities. Even within a single LMIC there is incredible diversity

We are both from the Global South and now work in the Global North. Sowmya is from India while Ifeanyi is from Nigeria. We both live in the U.S. Indeed, Sowmya has lived there for more than 30 years. In our global health careers, we have experienced inequities meted to us and people like us simply because of where we are from.

Without a doubt, categorizing countries into “low- and middle-income countries” and “high income countries” is not appropriate for studying healthcare systems and population health. It is misleading to categorize countries for convenience of data analysis and interpretation.

According to Google Scholar, so far in 2023, over 12,100 publications have used “low-and-middle income countries ” in their titles or in the text. A couple of editorials calling for a change in the classification were published in 2022 and yet, the same journal has over 15,000 publications since 2022 (more than 6000 in 2023) using these terms. Is this classification appropriate for healthcare-related research? We also do not believe that World Bank classification of countries using the gross national income (GNI) is appropriate in this scenario.

Furthermore, funding agencies and peer-reviewed journals perpetuate this problem by requiring the investigators to generalize studies conducted in one country (even one city/town/village) to not only the entire country but beyond that to other “low- and middle-income countries”.

Countries vary in their population sizes, demography, cultures, type of governments, education systems, health care policies, health care access, diseases, and socio-economic problems. Summarizing data across these countries and studying them as a unit to find a one-size-fits-all solution undermines the problems.

For instance, Nigeria has an estimated population of more than 200 million, more than 250 ethnicities that speak over 500 languages. On the other hand, India is the most populous country in the world, with a population of over 1.4 billion. It has more than 2000 ethnic groups that speak over 19,000 languages or dialects.

First, begin to rectify this issue by ensuring that studies are customized to each country so appropriate policies can be implemented to improve healthcare in the country being studied. Most problems and solutions are local and must be studied in this context.

Second, funding institutions and peer-reviewed journals should not insist on generalizability of the results beyond the targeted populations but focus on the possibility of the solutions being adaptable to different populations and situations.

Studies that can positively impact these populations even if small are worth being conducted and published. It may then be further researched and adapted as necessary in different settings but that should not be a condition for funding or publishing.

Third, knowledge transfer should be bi-directional and not unidirectional as is currently done. Therefore, countries in the Global North should be open to learning from solutions found in the Global South (what are also termed as “resource-limited or resource-poor” countries).

There are many lessons in this regard: African Union’s coordination of country COVID-19 responses through the Africa Centre for Disease Control, and diverse experiences on managing epidemics in the Global South.

Finally, researchers must tap into the power of local knowledge. This means including Ministries of Health and local investigators to identify the main problems that need studying and finding solutions to mitigate them – another step towards creating equity.

Having countries from the Global South involved with setting study priorities and also funding portions of studies will ensure that they are vested in the process and are equal partners in studies that impact their own populations. Indeed, no country has infinite resources as was seen during the recent COVID-19 pandemic and any solution that uses the available resources efficiently should be welcomed.

LMICs and HICs are vestiges of colonialism. They divide instead of unite by making the most populous parts of the global community inferior to the least populous. Most importantly, they perpetuate inequities which pose serious consequences for global solidarity.

Using ‘Global South’ versus ‘Global North’ to refer to LMICs and HICs respectively in global research vocabulary is the most equitable thing to do.

Dr. Ifeanyi M. Nsofor, MBBS, MCommH (Liverpool) is Senior New Voices Fellow at the Aspen Institute, Senior Atlantic Fellow for Health Equity at George Washington University, 2006 Ford Foundation International Fellow.

Dr. Sowmya R Rao is a Senior Research Scientist with the Department of Global Health at Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH), a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and a biostatistician primarily interested in global health disparities.

Categories: Africa

Let’s Shape Tech to be Transformative & Meet Every Child’s Learning Needs

Fri, 08/11/2023 - 07:46

Credit: UNICEF Sujan

By Robert Jenkins, Lauren Rumble and Verena Knaus
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 11 2023 (IPS)

Did you know that the power of computers has been doubling roughly every two years since the 1960s? Every day it seems there’s a new app or piece of tech that unlocks new and efficient ways to do things; to better engage with the world, or with learning.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the longstanding gender digital divide. Even though digital tech can be used to continue education at scale and is rapidly becoming core to the educational enterprise, it only benefits those who can access it.

And millions of girls often don’t have access to digital technology for many reasons: because communities, schools or families think that technology is a male-only domain, because of online safety risks, because they have been uprooted from their homes or forced to leave school before they learn to use computers, or because they never go to school in the first place.

Even when girls can access digital learning, the content may be rife with harmful gender norms – just as it often is in textbooks. Stereotypes are perpetuated and girls’ education suffers.

Providing access to the tech hardware can make an enormous difference, but it is not a silver bullet. Digital learning isn’t just putting existing materials on a screen instead of on a chalkboard or in a textbook.

It is about taking the opportunity to make education systems better and more responsive to the gender-specific needs of children and young people and equipping teachers with the skills to do so. It can only do that if we’re intentional about how we want to use it.

Recently, the Transforming Education Summit (TES) has committed to doing just that: to “harness the power of the digital revolution to ensure quality education is provided as a public good and a human right, with a particular focus on the most marginalized.”

Unlocking the power of digital learning for these children and young people, especially girls, relies on three keys:

connect every school to the Internet

Gateways to Public Digital Learning

Learning Passport

One way UNICEF is forging this third key is through the new Gender Responsive Digital Pedagogies guide for educators. The Guide uses practical exercises to help teachers produce gender-responsive lesson plans, learning materials, and instruction, as well as guidance on protecting girls and boys from online bullying, violence, and sexual violence – critical skills in the digital age.

It also outlines strategies to engage parents and caregivers in their child’s learning using digital tools. In Lebanon, UNICEF has worked closely with the Center for Educational Research and Development (CERD) – a national organization charged with modernization and development of education, based on educational planning – to integrate part of the guide into their teachers’ training curricula.

This national uptake reflects our commitment:

We want to ensure that, as the world accelerates the use of digital technologies for education, we don’t simply carry over existing biases and harmful gender norms into teaching and learning.

With digital tech, learning tools can easily be replaced or updated – unlike printed materials. Educators can thus hone materials to be context-specific and, critically, remove harmful gender references and stereotypes from curricula.

How teachers interact with girls and boys can model more equal and gender-transformative expectations of themselves and each other.

Digital learning has the advantage of being mobile, opening doors for alternative learning pathways for children and adolescents who are excluded or need flexible arrangements.

It can make quality learning accessible to children who speak minority languages and children and young people on the move – especially important for girls on the move, some of the most vulnerable people in the world.

In situations that are otherwise hostile and uncertain, digital learning can be a way to help children to feel included and prepare them to succeed in school, work, and life.

Ensuring that girls’ access to digital technology is keeping pace with its proliferation and technological changes is and will not be easy. But it is essential.

The new Guide is a global public good – a critical building block for action on the TES commitments. Furthermore, as the 67th Conference on the Status of Women focuses on how innovation and education in the digital can promote gender equality, policymakers can be catalyst for digital learning.

To keep pace, our learning tools, practices, and policies need to stay up to date to match the technology – and champion the rights of all children, in all their diversity.

Robert Jenkins is the Global Director of Education and Adolescent Development at UNICEF; Lauren Rumble is the Associate Director of Gender Equality at UNICEF; Verena Knaus is the Global Chief of Migration and Displacement at UNICEF.

Source: UNICEF

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa

Russia Upstages Neo-Colonialist France in West Africa

Fri, 08/11/2023 - 07:26

Peacekeepers from the Nigerien contingent of MINUSMA provide security in eastern Mali. In June 2023, the Security Council unanimously approved the complete withdrawal of UN peacekeeping forces in Mali, although it will take six months for the final “blue helmets” to depart. Credit: MINUSMA/Harandane Dicko

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 11 2023 (IPS)

Going back to the 16th century and continuing through the late 1960s, France was described as the world’s second largest colonial power—just behind the British Empire.

As the old saying goes: The sun would never set over the British Empire because God wouldn’t trust an Englishman in the dark. But would that also apply to the French colonial empire?

The military coups in three former French colonies — Burkina Faso, Mali and more recently Niger – are perhaps an indication of the beginning of the end of French post-colonial and neo-colonial ties to West Africa.

The three military leaders are turning towards Russia and the Russian mercenary group Wagner for new political, economic and military alliances.

The headline in a New York Times article last week read: “Waning Influence for France, the Colonizer that Stayed in West Africa “

The coup in Niger, a landlocked country of about 25 million people, is likely to result in the departure of more than 2,500 Western troops, including 1,100 Americans, who were stationed in the West African country to battle anti-US and anti-Western militant groups.

In Niger, there was also strong public support for the Russians, with demonstrators waving Russian flags.

Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco, told IPS many Africans harbor understandable resentment towards French neocolonialism and their local collaborators.

“Unfortunately, despite the lack of a colonial legacy, the Russian influence is even worse. They are backing some of the region’s worst warlords, reactionary military leaders, and criminal elements,” he said.

Vijay Prashad, Director, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, told IPS: “Yes, there is a definite turn in the mood in the Sahel. I saw this about four years ago. People had soured over the arrival of French troops supposedly to stem the al-Qaeda advance, but unable to do so, and yet, civilian casualties abounded.”

Then, the feeling that the West is plundering resources and preventing migrants from going through the region. The sentiment was all over the place.

Absent a promising political path, it is clear that the military was going to act, this military that is run by young men from rural areas and from lower middle class urban families. They know the price paid by their countries and they no longer wish to pay it, he added.

Asked for his comments, US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters: “I have heard questions about these protests, sometimes in this briefing room, and sometimes you see people assume that because you see people on the streets it is an expression of actual support rather than people who might have been paid to show up at protests”.

Playing down the pro-Russian demonstrators, he said: “It does seem odd to me that if your country is suffering an attempted military takeover, the idea that the first thing anyone would do is run to a store and buy a Russian flag. That strikes me as somewhat an unlikely scenario.”

Miller also said that Yevgeniy Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group, was publicly celebrating the events in Niger and “we certainly see Wagner take advantage of this type of situation whenever it occurs in Africa”.

“We, as I’ve stated before, did not see any role by Wagner in the instigation of this attempted takeover, and we have not seen any Wagner military presence as of yet in Niger. I don’t have any specific Wagner activities to – that I can make public at this point, but we saw Yevgeniy Prigozhin publicly celebrating what’s happened. And as I said, it did seem a very odd event that we had a bunch of Russian flags show up at so-called protests – in support of the junta leaders,” he added..

Perhaps the longest and bitterest battles against French colonialism took place in North Africa during the Algerian war of independence.

That battle was a major armed conflict between France and the Algerian National Liberation Front (NLF) from 1954 to 1962, which led to Algeria winning its independence from France and represented “the most recent and bloodiest example of France’s colonial history on the African continent”, with approximately 1.5 million Algerians killed and millions more displaced in the eight-year struggle for independence.

A posting on the Foreign Policy website August 8 said Niger’s coup leaders had one week to relinquish power and reinstate ousted President Mohamed Bazoum or else face military intervention by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

At midnight on Sunday, that deadline expired without Bazoum being reinstated. Now, Niger and its neighbors are preparing for possible war—and ECOWAS, which plans to hold a second emergency summit is questioning whether issuing its unprecedented threat was a smart idea to begin with.

On Sunday, Niger’s junta government sent troop reinforcements to the capital, Niamey, and closed Niger’s airspace to brace for ECOWAS’s potential invasion. A senior U.S. diplomat held “frank and at times quite difficult” talks on Monday with junta leaders, who rejected calls to restore democracy, according to Foreign Policy.

Asked about the Russian influence in Niger, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters August 7 “for sure we have concerns when we see something like the Wagner Group possibly manifesting itself in different parts of the Sahel, and here’s why we’re concerned: because every single place that this group, Wagner Group, has gone, death, destruction, and exploitation have followed.”

He said insecurity has gone up, not down. It hasn’t been a response to the needs of the countries in question for greater security.

“I think what happened and what continues to happen in Niger was not instigated by Russia or by Wagner, but to the extent that they try to take advantage of it – and we see a repeat of what’s happened in other countries, where they’ve brought nothing but bad things in their wake – that wouldn’t be good,” Blinken declared.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa

Disappearing Fish Spell Hard Times for Women in Zimbabwe

Thu, 08/10/2023 - 10:28

Overfishing is harming the informal traders who rely on it for income. CREDIT: Marko Phiri/IPS

By Marko Phiri
BULAWAYO, ZIMBABWE, Aug 10 2023 (IPS)

Zimbabwe’s ballooning informal sector has, in recent years, spawned the over-exploitation of the country’s natural resources, with the fisheries taking some of the most felt battering.

Amidst challenges brought by economic hardships, fisheries—for long imagined to be an infinite resource by hawkers and fishermen—are providing women with livelihoods against odds brought by climate change and competition from male fishmongers who go into the water.

Selling fish has for years been a source of income for women, but with current unemployment levels, more and more women are trying their hand at anything that will provide income.

According to the International Labour Organisation, out of more than five million informal traders in Zimbabwe, 65 percent are women, throwing more women into sectors such as fisheries that offer hope for steady incomes.

However, comes with its own downside.

Demand for aquaculture produce has not slowed amid dwindling fish stocks in the country’s dams, according to the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water, Climate, and Rural Development.

Officials say because consumers have no idea about underwater resource sustainability and management, the more nets are cast into the country’s waters, the less efforts are done to conserve the country’s fisheries.

Long touted as a cheap source of nutrition, with the price of fish bought directly from dams cheaper than that sold in supermarkets and butcheries, this has resulted in unintended consequences.

Janet Dube is a frustrated single breadwinner in Bulawayo.

She makes a living visiting dams surrounding the city of Bulawayo and used to travel as far as the Zambezi to purchase fish stock but now says she has watched as a growing number of people, especially women try their luck buying and selling fish.

And with huge numbers entering the fish trade, it has meant diminishing returns as fish in the country’s waterways are not being repopulated fast enough.

“I don’t get as many fish I used from my suppliers even in dams around the city where you do not have to travel to faraway places such as Binga to buy fish for resale in Bulawayo,” Dube said.

Sitting on the pavement of Bulawayo’s central business district, in the country’s second city, Dube hawks fresh bream fish and laments that although her stock is low, she still must worry about the fish going bad because of electricity power cuts.

Zimbabwe is in the midst of a long-running energy deficit that has not spared anyone, with the fisheries sector feeling the strain.

“I only come to sell fish in the central business district late afternoon to avoid losses as fish goes bad pretty fast,” Dube told IPS.

However, for other fishmongers, selling dried bream and kapenta has become the answer to these challenges.

At another bustling city pavement, Gracious Maruziva sells dried kapenta sourced in the Zambezi Valley.

“I don’t go there myself but buy from some people who travel to Binga regularly, but they don’t supply as regularly as they used to,” Maruziva said.

The reason: Her suppliers are struggling to bring in the once-abundant delicacy.

“It’s increasingly becoming tough selling fish as they say they are also not getting enough from their suppliers in the Zambezi,” she added.

Local researchers and agencies such as the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) have raised concerns about the lack of sustainability efforts in the country’s fisheries sector, that in recent years has experienced its own gold rush of sorts.

For years women in Bulawayo have travelled long distances to buy fish in bulk, creating long value chains along the way, but it is the current challenges that include low fish stocks in the dams and power outages that interrupt refrigeration that is exposing the risks that come with the fish business.

And with those challenges has been little success in sustainability and conservation of natural resources, experts say.

“We have seen it in the resource-rich communities through our trade justice work communities carry what is known as the ‘resource curse’,” said John Maketo, programmes manager at the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development.

“Instead of adequately benefiting from the availability of a natural resource around them, communities become overburdened with the negative consequences of having it,” Maketo said at a time artisanal fishermen and miners are blamed for anything stripping dams of fish and illegally exploiting gold claims across the country.

However, there are concerns that in the absence of robust conservation efforts, the country’s fisheries could adversely affect rural communities relying on natural resources.

The Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZimParks) is on record lamenting the unregulated new entrants into the fisheries sector, a development that has further threatened already low fish stocks in the country’s dams.

According to FAO’s FISH4ACP, an initiative that seeks the economic and sustainability of fisheries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, Zimbabwe has over 12,000 dams, noting that despite this abundance, the sector continues to struggle.

To address this, FAO is “supporting an economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable fish farming sector” amid weak regulatory mechanisms and sound implementation of existing fishing quotas.

For women who find themselves hawking fish in the streets of Bulawayo, the consequence of that struggle is being felt in their daily takings.

“Fish is profitable, provided I get constant supplies. For now, I’m making do with what I can get,” said Dube.

Note: This story was supported by the Pulitzer Centre.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa

Requiem for the UN Security Council: Towards a UN Charter Review Conference

Thu, 08/10/2023 - 07:59

A Security Council meeting in progress. Credit: United Nations

By Tim Murithi
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Aug 10 2023 (IPS)

The world’s institutions are ill-prepared and poorly designed to effectively address global challenges such as major power conflicts, pandemics, the climate catastrophe, refugee crises, violent extremism, illicit profiteering from natural resources, and the regulation of artificial intelligence systems.

In particular, the United Nations, which was created to address the problems of the world in 1945, is no longer fit for purpose. The multilateral organization has outlived its usefulness; there is an urgent need to design a global institution that is reflective of the twenty-first century.

The UN was created with a recognition of the limitations of the League of Nations in mind. In particular, the League was unable to prevent the conquest of Europe by Nazi Germany and the Japanese invasion of China.

History is repeating itself in the form of the powerful Permanent Five (P5) members of the UN Security Council (UNSC) repeatedly ignoring the legal provisions of the UN Charter and weakening the legitimacy of this international institution, by invading countries in contravention of international law.

The dysfunctionality of the UNSC was exposed once more on February 24, 2022, when Russia was simultaneously chairing the Presidency of the Council and launching an illegal invasion of Ukraine. This war is impeding global stability. Ukrainians suffer the most from this conflict, which also inflicts great damage to Global South countries’ economies and human security.

Yet, other major conflicts are also looming, for example between the United States and China over Taiwan, and it is unlikely that the planet can endure another full-blown major-power war.

A confrontation between two nuclear weapons-bearing permanent members of the UNSC would leave us all in an extremely precarious state of affairs, but there are currently no effective mechanisms to constrain the UNSC’s permanent members’ actions.

The founders of the UN recognized that the moment would arrive when it became imperative to transform the organization, and they included a practical mechanism to review the body’s Charter.

According to Article 109 (1), a UN Charter Review Conference should have been convened 10 years after the signing of the document. Today, it could be initiated by a majority vote of the members of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) and by a vote of any seven members of the UNSC, according to Article 109 (3).

This provision means that the P5 members cannot veto any proposed UN Charter Review Conference. In practice, a dozen or more UN member states drawn from different continents would need to create a “Coalition of the Willing” within the UNGA, which would have to draft a Resolution to trigger and launch a UN Charter Review Conference.

Such a Review Conference could, through the collective decision of the members of the UNGA, identify the key issues that need to be addressed, including reform of the UNSC. The Review Conference could also adopt a recommendation to substantially alter the UN Charter and introduce completely new provisions, including even a change in the name of the institution.

More than 60 percent of the issues discussed by the UNSC are focused on Africa, yet the continent does not have any representation among the P5 members of the Council.

Given the fact that the P5 can veto all manner of decisions before the Council, it is a travesty of justice at its most basic level that African countries can only participate in key deliberations and decision-making processes as non-permanent members of the Council.

UNSC negotiations and decision-making processes are, in effect, the highest manifestation of unfairness in the international system. If achieving fairness in negotiations among states is the preferred route to global legitimacy, then a fundamental transformation of the UNSC and the elimination of the veto for the P5 is a necessary pre-requisite action.

Tim Murithi is Head of the Peacebuilding Interventions Programme, Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, and Professor of African Studies, University of Free State and Stellenbosch University, South Africa, @tmurithi12

Source Stimson Center Washington DC

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa

Taking Stock of Two Decades of Trailblazing Protocol on Women’s Rights in Africa

Wed, 08/09/2023 - 13:23

Women and girls in Kenya's West Pokot celebrate as the government cracks down on those practising harmful Female Genital Mutilation in the area. CREDIT: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI, Aug 9 2023 (IPS)

It promised to be the most defining, groundbreaking, and transformative protocol on African women’s rights. Specific in its approach, broad in its reach, and unique in its all-encompassing nature, covering issues such as HIV/Aids, widow inheritance and property disinheritance in a most unprecedented manner.

To halt and reverse the systemic and persistent gender inequality and discriminatory practices against women in Africa, the African Union Assembly adopted the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa 2003 in Maputo, Mozambique.

The Maputo Protocol was designed in line with the realities of the plight of women on the continent. Providing tailor-made solutions to lift women from beneath the crushing weight of a cultural system that disadvantages women from birth. Twenty years on, it is time to take stock.

“The 20th Anniversary of the Maputo Protocol is a historical advocacy moment for women’s rights advocates. It offers an opportunity to demand from African Governments real and tangible change for women and girls in their countries,” Faiza Mohamed, Africa Regional Director of Equality Now, tells IPS.

“By acceding to the Maputo Protocol, lifting reservations, fully domesticating, and implementing the Protocol, and ensuring their compliance with accountability processes. Beyond this, it signifies the generational changes over two decades and points to the need to reflect on future generations and to future-proof the Maputo Protocol and the SOAWR Coalition.”

The Solidarity for African Women’s Rights (SOAWR) is a coalition of over 80 civil society organizations, a pan-African women’s movement that pushes for accelerated ratification of the protocol in non-ratifying states while holding governments accountable to deliver for women in line with the Protocol.

Youth delegates at Maputo Protocol 20th anniversary celebrations, July 11, 2023. CREDIT: Equality Now

Mohamed stresses that the SOAWR Coalition is a remarkable testament to the power of women’s organized movements and their capacity to influence transformative policy agendas, leaving a lasting impact.

“Through its persistent efforts, SOAWR has successfully kept the protocol on the agenda of AU member states, leading to significant influence as 44 out of 55 African states have ratified or acceded to the Maputo Protocol. This achievement has turned the Protocol into a potent public education tool for women’s rights, both at the national and grassroots levels,” she explains.

“Notably, there has been substantial progress in the advancement of national jurisprudence on women’s rights, as well as in the empowerment of women themselves. Thanks to the coalition’s effective public sensitization campaigns, formerly taboo subjects like sexual and reproductive health rights, female genital mutilation, and polygamy have become open and advanced topics in various countries.”

The coalition has demonstrated how much women and like-minded partners can achieve working in solidarity. Additionally, each organization continues to push the women’s agenda forward – pushing and pulling in the same direction, to realize the dream of a society where women are fully represented in every corner of the spaces they call home.

“The Maputo Protocol comes out of the African feminist fire, and we need to keep it burning. That it is one of the most progressive legal instruments that came out of Africa. That it represents our diversity and our strength because we are not a monolith. It also represents the power of collective action and also the dream of the Africa we want,” says Nigerian-born Becky Williams, a young woman who now lives in Uganda and works for Akina Mama wa Africa.

Equality Now is currently advocating for adopting the Multi-Sectoral Approach in implementing the Maputo Protocol. The Multi-Sectoral Approach (MSA) provides a framework for convening different sectors within governments and actors outside of government in a joint effort to implement women’s rights as provided for in the Protocol.

Mohamed emphasizes that if recognized and embraced by governments and civil societies, the Maputo Protocol can be a powerful tool for change as it offers women a tool for transforming the unequal power relations between men and women that lie at the heart of gender inequality and women’s oppression.

To coincide with the Maputo Protocol’s 20th anniversary, SOAWR, Make Every Woman Count (MEWC), and Equality Now released a report titled, “Twenty years of the Maputo Protocol: Where are we now?” Providing a detailed account of progress made thus far, successes, challenges and recommendations.

Regarding rights related to marriage and child marriage, the report finds that several countries have adopted constitutional reforms related to the prohibition of forced marriage. For example, the constitution of Burundi guarantees marriage equality. The constitutions of Guinea, Malawi, Uganda, and Zimbabwe set the legal age of marriage at 18 years. AU Member States have enacted legislation on rights related to marriage.

On economic and social welfare rights, half of the African states maintain constitutional provisions guaranteeing equal remuneration for work of equal value or the right to fair or just pay. More than half of African states have laws mandating equal remuneration for work of equal value.

Regarding health and reproductive rights, almost all African states maintain constitutional provisions related to health and/or health care, and many enshrine the principle of non-discrimination based on health. Notably, six countries, including Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, enshrine rights related to reproductive health care, such as access to family planning education or reproductive/maternity care.

Group photo of the delegates at the Maputo Protocol 20th anniversary celebrations held in Nairobi, Kenya. CREDIT: Equality Now

While women’s rights have come a long way, the report stresses that there is a long way to go and makes specific key recommendations, such as the need to address the right to abortion and treat each case as espoused in the Protocol. It also suggests that the Maputo Protocol should be used to protect women and girls’ reproductive health rights and advocates that Member states remove laws that fail to protect reproductive health rights.

It advocates for the passing of family laws to protect women’s rights before, during, and after marriage and establish special courts to deal with complex marriage issues. In addition, it suggests that Governments implement regional and international treaties such as the Maputo Protocol and educate women and girls on these.

It would like to see programmes that allow young women to return to school after giving birth promoted and demands that early marriage be criminalized, and customary law is adapted so that it no longer defines what happens to women in marriage.

It asks governments to provide universal health services and insurance access, especially for pregnant, vulnerable, and/or specially protected women. It requires member states to improve infrastructure, training, and equipment for health services in rural areas.

Equally important, the protocol includes the empowerment of women and girls to realize their sexual and reproductive health rights through awareness campaigns delivered in communities and schools and wishes to see menstrual hygiene management incorporated into national legal frameworks through awareness-raising activities from more actors, especially parliamentarians.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa

SDG Data Insights: Beyond Our Assumptions

Wed, 08/09/2023 - 07:56

By Patricia Wong Bi Yi and Arman Bidarbakht-Nia
BANGKOK, Thailand, Aug 9 2023 (IPS)

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are relevant to all countries, whether high, middle or low income. With increasing attention to the SDGs, countries are progressively turning to data as a source to assess and validate the progress that they have made towards achieving them.

Through many iterations of the Asia and the Pacific SDG Progress Report and through ESCAP’s work with individual countries, it is clear that (i) no single country is achieving all the SDGs, (ii) all countries can benefit from assessing progress on the SDGs, and (iii) if countries use a mix of assessment approaches this will provide a more accurate picture of progress.

To simplify things, we can divide progress measures into two clusters, (i) those measuring the level of achievement and (ii) those measuring trends and rates of progress.

No single country is achieving all the SDGs

A common assumption may be that the countries with highest gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in the region should be among the best performers in terms of SDG progress, given that they have better capacities and resources available to advance the sustainable development agenda.

However, data shows that it is not necessarily so. The countries with the highest GDP per capita in the region – Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, Singapore – are lagging behind on many of the seventeen SDGs. Indeed the National SDG trends at the target and indicator level also show that some goals in these countries are not faring any better than the region’s average.

The fairy tale of a single country is shattered. In its place, we see that each country can be a champion for some of the SDG targets whilst simultaneously lagging behind on others.

Lessons from the tortoise and the hare

For zero hunger (Goal 2), high-income countries such as Australia and Japan are indeed closer to achieving the 2030 target than the rest of the region. However, data also shows that these countries have largely remained stagnant in their progress toward this goal. Trend data shows that despite better than regional average status of food insecurity in Australia, this indicator is regressing.

In Japan, despite being lower than the regional average, moderate or severe food insecurity in the population has increased by almost 50 per cent since 2015. Even where countries show initial achievements or advantages, there is a need to continuously monitor and look at current trends to ensure that emerging negative trends are detected early on for appropriate actions to be taken.

For quality education (Goal 4), we see that Bangladesh started with a lower level of achievement but was listed as one of the well-performing countries in the Asia and the Pacific SDG Progress Report 2023.

At the target level, Bangladesh is a top performer in the region in terms of improving effective learning outcomes as well as adult literacy and numeracy. Such countries which are making good strides in their rate of progress need to ensure that such progress is maintained so they can move above the regional average and so they can meet the targets.

The ugly duckling: Unleashing the true potential

There are instances when the level of achievement is low, and the trends show a country is making little or no progress in achieving the targets. What happens then? Firstly, let’s recall that there is no one country achieving all the SDGs.

Similarly, there is no one country making no progress on any of the SDGs. But for those countries which are off-track they will need to prioritize the targets which are most off-track and will need to work at speed to bring about a change in direction. An ugly duckling could flourish into a beautiful swan.

Regardless of a country’s level of achievement on a single goal, target or indicator, a combination of progress measures is required to take the right action. There are different ways to look at SDG progress, but whichever methods are used we need to be honest in our assessment. ESCAP offers complementary tools and products that could be used by countries to better assess SDG progress.

Data Explorer

National SDG Trends

National SDG Tracker

We look forward to embarking on this voyage together to tell your country’s SDG data story!

Patricia Wong Bi Yi is Associate Statistician ESCAP, Arman Bidarbakht-Nia is Statistician ESCAP.

Source: ESCAP

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa

Mining Revenues Undermined

Wed, 08/09/2023 - 07:38

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Aug 9 2023 (IPS)

The primary commodity price boom early this century has often been attributed to a commodity ‘super-cycle’, i.e., a price upsurge greater than what might be expected in ‘normal’ booms. This was largely due to some minerals as most agricultural commodity price increases were more modest.

This minerals boom improved many developing country growth records, not least in Africa. With growing pressures to act urgently in response to accelerating global warming, mitigation efforts have been stepped up, promising energy transitions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

These require major shifts from fossil fuel combustion to renewable energy and complementary (e.g., transport) technologies. This energy transition requires more of specific minerals like lithium, copper and cobalt. This increased demand for minerals offers resource-rich economies more opportunities for greater domestic resource mobilization for development.

The Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals and Sustainable Development (IGF) and the African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF) report, The Future of Resource Taxation: 10 policy ideas to mobilize mining revenues, reviews major problems faced by African and other governments trying to greatly increase revenue from mining.

Great expectations, little taxation
Colonial and neo-colonial mining arrangements have rarely delivered the revenue needed by post-colonial governments. Weak governance, overly generous tax incentives, poor fiscal policies, bad contracts, as well as tax avoidance and evasion have all eroded mineral revenues for developing countries.

Resource-rich countries have been rethinking how to benefit more from mining in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, worsening developing country debt crises, and increasingly uncertain government revenues and expenditures.

Mining royalties and taxation have remained largely unchanged for decades, while corporate income tax is hard to collect, vulnerable to profit shifting and often minimized with the aid of tax professionals and corrupt officials.

Improving taxation
Taxing transnational corporations has long posed major challenges. Poor laws and enforcement as well as limited funding and staff mean most developing countries are poorly equipped to apply complex international tax norms, such as the ‘arm’s-length principle’ and ‘double taxation treaties’.

Developing nations are especially vulnerable to tax base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS). International Monetary Fund staff estimate African countries have lost annual mining revenue up to $730 million annually due to BEPS.

Many developing countries identified ‘transfer pricing’ as the greatest challenge to taxing mining. The problem has been made worse by mining tax regimes and investment agreements favouring investors, especially from abroad.

Such agreements often contain fiscal incentives making mining revenue collection difficult. Worse, many governments believe generous tax incentives are necessary to attract mining investment. But these typically undermine effective tax administration, causing significant revenue losses.

Also, policy conditionalities typically ‘lock in’ poorly designed fiscal conditions and mining contracts, often required or recommended by the IMF or World Bank. These tend to benefit investors, potentially resulting in costly disputes for host governments.

Generating substantial government revenue from artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) is difficult. As ASM induces more local spending, rather than extraction or export taxes, indirect taxes and wealth taxes are probably better for such incomes.

Governments of resource-rich developing countries require finance and reliable personnel for successful implementation, to ensure accountability and curb corruption. Sufficient financial and technical assistance can greatly improve mining revenue collection, ensuring companies pay all royalties and taxes due.

Effective implementation needs to be well supported by international agreements and organizations, development partners, and civil society. Tax incentives undermining government policy objectives and legal systems should be avoided.

Taxing better not easy
More access to information and expertise can greatly improve mining tax administration. Information, particularly from other jurisdictions, is critical for tax administrations to better collect taxes due. Sadly, progress has been painfully slow in many developing countries.

Instruments designed to improve information exchange include bilateral investment and tax treaties, tax information exchange agreements, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters, and the ATAF Multilateral Agreement on Assistance in Tax Matters.

Mining revenue collection needs to be able to verify the quantity and quality of mineral reserves and extracts. Key challenges include enhancing tax audit capacity and getting up-to-date knowledge of mining, including implications of changes in mining techniques.

Better inter-agency cooperation is often necessary for better regulation and to avoid an incoherent, fragmented approach. Many mining revenue BEPS problems are due to capacity constraints, e.g., whether governments can effectively verify the costs of goods and services and mineral prices.

Many transactions also require tax auditors to have detailed knowledge of the mining value chain. Many aspects of mining operations allow inflating actual costs to evade taxes. Valuing intangibles, such as intellectual property, is also difficult. Many countries also lack regulations to tax the sale of offshore indirect mining assets, often losing much revenue as a consequence.

Too little too late?
Mineral-rich developing countries hope for more ‘resource rents’ from mining to significantly enhance government revenue. They hope mining taxation will collect much more revenue, subject to other policy goals. However, in most cases, mining has failed to deliver the expected revenues.

Inappropriate laws and investment agreements, overly generous tax incentives, as well as tax evasion and avoidance have contributed to this failure. Some authorities lack the expertise, information and means to more effectively tax mining. Corruption and poor revenue management also remain challenges.

Thankfully, mining revenue collection has improved, albeit modestly. Many countries are improving their mining tax regulations and strengthening their tax audit capacity.

Better international cooperation can address many problems, including information asymmetries. All countries implementing the Extractives Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) are now required to disclose mining, oil, and gas contracts. This can significantly improve transparency.

Although welcome, such improvements are still far from enough to meet the considerable domestic revenue mobilization needs of developing countries soon enough to adequately accelerate sustainable development after dismal progress for almost a decade.

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa

Blockade in Nagorno-Karabakh: When Bread and Sanitary Pads Become Luxury Items

Tue, 08/08/2023 - 17:41

Tatev Azizyan, a 28-year-old journalist from Nagorno-Karabakh, says she has explained to her child that they both have to switch to “energy save mode” to survive. “Some bread and slices of tomato and cucumber, that’s all I can give my seven-year-old daughter for breakfast. Dairy products like sugar or eggs are long gone from our […]

Categories: Africa

Empowering Women in Assam: Livestock Farming Brings Economic Relief Post-COVID

Tue, 08/08/2023 - 09:22

Goat rearing is contributing to economic independence and improved livelihoods of women thanks to a post-COVID-19 empowerment project. CREDIT: Umar Manzoor Shah/IPS

By Umar Manzoor Shah
MILONPUR, INDIA, Aug 8 2023 (IPS)

Seema Devi is a 39-year-old woman hailing from India’s northeastern state of Assam. She lives in a village called Milonpur, a small hamlet with no more than 1 000 inhabitants. While most men from the village, including Devi’s husband, move to cities and towns in search of work, women are left behind to take care of the house and kids.

Devi says that after the COVID-19 lockdown in India in the year 2020, the family income drastically plummeted. As most of the factories were shut for months, the workers, including Devi’s husband, were jobless. Even after the lockdown ended and workers were called back to the factories, the wages dipped.

“Earlier my husband would earn no less than Rs 10 000 a month (125 USD), and after the lockdown, it wasn’t more than a mere 6 000 rupees (70 USD). My children and I would suffer for the want of basic needs like medicine and clothing, but at the same time, I was considerate of the situation and helplessness of my husband,” Devi told IPS.

However, there were few alternatives available at home that could have mitigated Devi’s predicament. With the small area of ancestral land used for cultivation, the change in weather patterns caused her family and several households in the village to reap losses.

However, in 2021, a non-government organization visited the hamlet to assess the situation in the post-COVID scenario. The villagers told the team about how most of the men in the village go out to cities and towns in search of livelihood and work as labourers in factories and that their wages have come down due to economic distress in the country.

After hectic deliberations, about ten self-help groups of women were created. They trained in livestock farming and how this venture could be turned into a profitable business.

The women were initially reluctant because they were unaware of how to make livestock farming profitable. They would ask the members of the charitable organisation questions like, “What if it fails to yield desired results? What if some terrible disease affects the animals, and what if the livestock wouldn’t generate any income for them?”

Wilson Kandulna, who was the senior member of the team, told IPS that experts were called in to train the women about cattle rearing and how timely vaccinations, proper feed, and care could make livestock farming profitable and mitigate their basic living costs. “At first, we provided ten goat kids to each women’s group and made them aware of the dos and don’ts of this kind of farming. They were quick to learn and grasped easily whatever was taught to them,” Wilson said.

He added that these women were living in economic distress due to the limited income of their husbands and were desperately anxious about the scarcity of proper education for children and other daily needs.

Devi says that as soon as she got the goat kids, she acquired basic training in feeding them properly and taking them for vaccinations to the nearby government veterinary hospital.

“Two years have passed, and now we have hundreds of goats as they reproduce quickly, and we are now able to earn a good income. During the first few months, there were issues like feeding problems, proper shelter during monsoons and summers, and how and when we should take them out for grazing. As time passed and we learned the skills, we have become very trained goat rearers,” Devi said.

Renuka, another woman in the self-help group, told IPS that for the past year, they have been continuously getting demands for goat milk from the main towns. “People know about the health benefits of goat milk. They know it is organic without any preservatives, and that is the reason we have a very high demand for it. We sell it at a good price, and at times, demand surpasses the supply,” Renuka said.

For Devi, livestock farming has been no less than a blessing. She says she earns more than five thousand rupees a month (about 60 USD) and has been able to cover daily household expenses all by herself. “I no longer rely on my husband for household expenses. I take care of it all by myself. My husband, too, is relieved, and things are getting back on track,” Devi said, smiling.

Kalpana, a 32-year-old member of the group, says the goats have increased in number, and last year, several of them were sold in the market at a good price.

“The profits were shared by the group members. Earlier, women in this village were entirely dependent on their husbands for covering their basic expenses. Now, they are economically self-reliant. They take good care of the house and of themselves,” Kalpana told IPS News.

Note: Names of some of the women have been changed on their request.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa

A Flawed GDP Bypasses Women’s Unpaid Care Work

Tue, 08/08/2023 - 06:31

From street vendors and domestic workers to subsistence farmers and seasonal agriculture workers, women make up a disproportionate percentage of workers in the informal sector. In South Asia, over 80 per cent of women in non-agricultural jobs are in informal employment; in sub-Saharan Africa, 74 per cent; and in Latin America and the Caribbean, 54 percent. Credit: UN Women

By Naila Kabeer
LONDON, Aug 8 2023 (IPS)

Last week the IMF offered a cautious estimate of positive global economic growth for this year, warning ‘we are on track, but not out of the woods’. But with the IMF and governments continuing to use gross domestic product (GDP) as the dominant measure of economic progress, a more appropriate warning might be that ‘we’ are failing to see the wood for the trees.

As multiple crises wreak havoc across the world, as inequality continues to rise inexorably, as we approach near irreversible climate breakdown, it strains credulity that governments remain fixated on a metric that is incapable of capturing these momentous changes and their profound consequences for our lives.

GDP was developed to measure the monetary value of the marketed goods and services produced in an economy but it rapidly became the predominant measure of national welfare. As such it is flawed.

We should recall the warning issued by Simon Kuznets, founding father of GDP, back in 1934: the welfare of a nation could not, and should not, be inferred from the measurement of its GDP.

GDP is blind to the distribution of the marketed goods and services it measures; it equates progress with growing wealth, even if that wealth is concentrated among a small minority of the world’s population.

It fails to distinguish between market activities that harm people and planet and those that are beneficial. It ignores the value of unpaid care. And it only recognizes natural resources when they can be exploited for profit.

Credit: UN Women/Zhanarbek Amankulov

As the feminist economist Marilyn Waring put it, GDP embodies an economic system that counts oil spills and wars as positive contributions to growth but deems the unpaid care of children and families as valueless.

Take the example of unpaid care work, overwhelmingly carried out by women across the world. According to data cited in an Oxfam paper this week, almost two-thirds of women’s weekly working hours – and forty-five percent of the total for all adults – do not enter estimates of GDP because they do not enter the market.

That means nearly 90 billion hours of unpaid care work, without which economic growth would come to a grinding halt, do not count as part of that growth!

History has shown us that fixation on GDP-oriented growth has led to government policies that directly harm women, particularly those at the intersection of multiple inequalities, such as race, class, caste and disability.

This is evident in the consequences of repeated and sustained austerity cuts to public services, here in the UK and elsewhere, including many countries in the Global South. These showed up clearly in the UK during the pandemic.

Cuts in welfare services on which many women depended in order to take up paid work meant that they had to compensate with increased unpaid labour. Cuts to jobs and pay in the public sector where women workers made up most of the work force meant higher rates of female unemployment.

And where public services were retained, as in the health sector, women from poor and minority households made up the majority of frontline workers, were those most exposed to infection.

There are alternative measures of wellbeing to GDP. Some are based on indigenous conceptualizations that stress harmony between people and planet. Others seek to build on common values found across the world: values that stress care and capabilities, culture and leisure, connections with nature and community and, very importantly, democratic participation and social justice.

What these measures all have in common is that GDP is no longer considered the primary goal of national efforts but just one of the means by which shared goals can be achieved.

This proliferation of concepts is indicative of the deep dissatisfaction with GDP on the part of many and the need to go beyond it. They include international organizations like the UN, the OECD and the EU, governments like New Zealand, Canada, Bhutan, Peru, Ecuador as well as numerous networks of activists and academics.

The fact that they have not arrived at an agreed alternative to GDP reflects at least two major challenges. The first is methodological but one that can be resolved through debate and deliberation. Do we want a single, multidimensional index to track how we are doing, more complex than GDP but closer to shared values?

Or should we opt for a dashboard of indicators that allow us to track where we are doing well and where we are falling behind? Should the alternative be nationally determined or internationally?

One argument in favour of an internationalist consensus is the need to factor in ‘the wellbeing elsewhere’ dimension: what we do within one country can have positive or negative repercussions for people in other countries.

The second challenge is political and harder to resolve, as economic elites have been able to capture political power. The richest 1% are not just the wealthiest, they have greatest political clout. They also have strong vested interest in defending a measure of progress that ensures they can legitimately capture the bulk of the wealth generated by markets.

Conversely, those who have most to gain from alternative measures of progress are dispersed and divided – in no small way through the efforts of the 1%. The second challenge therefore is to find a bridge across these divisions and dispersions so that we can collectively engage in the task of revolutionizing the way we think about ourselves in relation to each other and to our planet.

Professor Naila Kabeer is a feminist economist, Department of International Development, London School of Economics (LSE).

https://www.lse.ac.uk/international-development/people/naila-kabeer

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa

G20: Cutting Food Loss and Waste is an Opportunity to Improve Food Security

Tue, 08/08/2023 - 06:10

Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India, December 15, 2021: Community members in Sowripalayam outside of Coimbatore stand in line to receive a nutritious meal from No Food Waste. Credit: The Global FoodBanking Network / Narayana Swamy Subbaraman

By Lisa Moon
CHICAGO, USA, Aug 8 2023 (IPS)

With the ongoing global food crisis—triggered by the COVID pandemic, disasters, supply chain disruptions, and conflict in Ukraine—food security should be at the top of the G20 agenda when countries gather in India in September 2023.

Food security and national security are closely intertwined. Throughout history, countries that have suffered from extreme hunger and malnutrition have been vulnerable to civil unrest, along with diminished economic productivity and exacerbated inequity.

Having a robust and resilient food system is critical for G20 countries, which together represent around 85 percent of global gross domestic product and are home to two-thirds of the world’s population. In addition, G20 countries produce as much as 80 percent of the world’s cereals and account for a similar proportion of global agricultural exports.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has recognized this imperative, recently saying in a message to G20 Agricultural Ministers: “I urge you to deliberate on how to undertake collective action to achieve global food security.”

Yet, with more than 735 million people facing food insecurity in 2022, about half of whom are in G20 countries, the food system clearly needs repair.

While a multi-dimensional approach is essential, there is a solution that brings immediate benefit to people, while reducing food waste and helping address climate change. That solution is food banking.

Food banks collect surplus food in large volumes, often donated or purchased from food manufacturers, retailers or farmers, and get it to those who need it most. Working in concert with other community-led organizations to reduce hunger and food insecurity, food banks help address the paradox at the heart of the global food system: the unconscionable amount of food that is lost or wasted that could – and should – instead be used to feed people.

Tiruppur, Tamil Nadu, India, December 17, 2021: No Food Waste (NFW) staff serve a nutritious meal to community members in Eswaran Koil Street. Credit: The Global FoodBanking Network / Narayana Swamy Subbaraman

Food banks are already present in every G20 market, providing nutritious meals to people who need them most. They often complement the work of governments to get food to people who are underfed or undernourished. And they can reach those who are often left out of other forms of social protection. Food bankers are embedded in their communities and can respond quickly when disasters strike.

Last year, members of The Global FoodBanking Network in nearly 50 countries helped feed 32 million people, distributing more than 650 million kilograms of food and groceries and mitigating 1.5 billion kilograms of CO2e through avoided food loss and waste. Many of these countries faced civil unrest and disasters caused by climate change and conflict.

India is already setting a strong example in mobilizing food banks as part of its efforts to address food waste. Having implemented Surplus Food Regulations in 2019 to ensure unused food could be donated, India saw a 250 percent increase in the volume of food distributed through food banks last year compared to pre-pandemic levels.

The food banks No Food Waste, India FoodBanking Network and Feeding India provided 13.5 million kilograms of food to 6.4 million people in 2022. These food banks provide nutrition to school children, migrant workers and other vulnerable populations. With supportive government policies and financing, these efforts have the potential to expand rapidly in the coming years.

A growing number of G20 countries, such as Brazil and Indonesia, are also adopting food banks to strengthen their food security and reduce hunger. Last year, Brazil’s national network of nearly 100 food banks served 2.5 million people in the country. And food banks in Indonesia provided food to about 1.2 million people in 2022, an increase of nearly 40 percent compared to 2021.

By working with food producers, retailers and farmers, food banks bridge public and private sectors, providing a vital service that complements social welfare programs and helps minimize food waste and the associated emissions, contributing to multiple human development goals.

When G20 leaders come to the table to discuss the urgency of food security, they will look for solutions that are already available and have proven track records. India has already made it clear that food security is a priority for its G20 presidency. The government now has the opportunity to leverage its experiences and insights to build effective collaboration among countries on this issue.

By developing comprehensive food security strategies, G20 countries can make a sound investment to create a stronger future.

IPS UN Bureau

Excerpt:

The writer is President & CEO, The Global Food Banking Network

Categories: Africa

France, Russia, ECOWAS in Battle for Soul of West Africa

Mon, 08/07/2023 - 11:03

Université Abdou Moumouni de Niamey students stage a protest in support of Russia and the coup plotters. Credit: Abdoulaye Hali Aboubacar

By Promise Eze
SOKOTO, NIGERIA, Aug 7 2023 (IPS)

On July 26 2023 a man named Colonel-Major Amadou Abdramane, flanked by soldiers with military fatigues, appeared on Niger’s national television to announce the execution of a coup. It was the country’s fourth coup since it gained independence from France in 1960.

“The defence and security forces have decided to put an end to the regime you are familiar with. This follows the continuous deterioration of the security situation, the bad social and economic management,” he said.

The country’s president Mohamed Bazoum, who came to power in 2021 through Niger’s first democratic elections, was removed, and his government, including the constitution, was suspended.

Before the announcement of the coup, President Bazoum had been held captive in the presidential palace. This was unexpected, as earlier in the year, Bazoum had dismissed the possibility of a military coup during an interview. However, he was ultimately overthrown by the very people who were supposed to protect him—the Presidential Guard.

Two days later, the Presidential Guard commander General Abdourahamane Tchiani was proclaimed as the new leader of the country following the army’s support of the sudden military takeover.

The recent military takeover in Niger has reverberated through the international community, shocking those who regarded the country as a bulwark against the encroachment of democratic backsliding in the region.

Niger faced widespread international condemnation following the military coup. The European Union, the United States, France, and the West African regional bloc, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), were among those who unequivocally condemned the coup. France issued a stern warning, threatening to respond firmly to any violence directed at its diplomatic mission in Niger or its citizens and interests.

While this may not be the first coup in Niger, and it certainly isn’t the first in the Sahel or West Africa. In recent years, the region has witnessed a series of coups where military officers have seized power from elected government officials, driven by their frustration with the increasing incidents of terrorism, corruption, and political instability in West Africa.

In January 2022, Burkina Faso witnessed two coups, which were triggered by the deteriorating security situation and the President’s perceived inability to effectively address challenges, notably the Islamist insurgency.

Similarly, Mali experienced coups in both 2020 and 2021, indicating the volatility of its political landscape. In 2021, President Alpha Condé of Guinea was overthrown in a coup d’état by the country’s armed forces following gunfire in the capital, Conakry.

These three nations share notable similarities: they are located in West Africa, have unstable political systems, face regular jihadist threats, and were once under French colonial rule.

Analysts argue that these coups represent direct threats to democracy in West Africa, undermining the principles of democratic governance in the region.

“The coup represents a significant setback for the small but crucial developmental strides made by West Africa and the entire African continent towards more people-oriented governance, even if not perfect. It’s disheartening to see these gains being nullified. This unsettling development raises concerns about the potential for more coups across Africa in the years to come, which is a distressing prospect. Moreover, it is likely to exacerbate insecurity, particularly terrorism, as violent non-state actors may seize the opportunity to emerge,” says Timothy Avele, a security expert, and Managing Director of Agent-X Security, based in Lagos, Nigeria.

Ibrahim Baba Shatambaya, a lecturer at the Department of Political Science, Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, holds the view that the army’s actions in Niger were motivated by a desire to break free from France’s long-standing control and exploitation of its former colonial territories.

“The coup stands as evidence that democracy is facing challenges in Africa, and it reflects the inability of ECOWAS to ensure that leaders in the West African sub-region meet the expectations of their people,” he adds.

For the Love of Uranium

In French West Africa, there has been a significant rise in anti-French sentiments, which is considered a key factor driving the military coups in the region.

Many people hold France responsible for contributing to the region’s instability through military interventions.

Despite maintaining military bases and promising to combat Jihadism, violence and attacks persist, leading to suspicions that France might have a hand in terrorist activities.

Critics also argue that France has taken advantage of the region’s resources while failing to break colonial ties. For instance, Niger, the world’s fifth-largest uranium producer, supplies nearly a quarter of the European Union’s uranium, used for electricity production. However, despite its resource wealth, Niger remains one of the world’s poorest countries, with a poorly diversified economy heavily reliant on agriculture. More than 41% of the population lives in extreme poverty, according to the World Bank’s data from 2021.

Furthermore, Orano (formerly Areva), a French state-controlled nuclear fuel producer, faces accusations of leaving behind large amounts of radioactive waste in Niger, posing health risks to local communities. There are also concerns about insufficient protection for workers against radiation. Orano has also been embroiled in bribery allegations in Southern Africa.

The French-backed CFA currency, used by 14 nations in West and Central Africa, including Niger, has faced criticism for enabling France to maintain control over the economies of its former colonies. This currency system requires member countries to deposit 50% of their currency reserves with the Banque de France and is pegged to the euro.

French President Emmanuel Macron has made efforts to distance himself from France’s colonial past in Africa and advocate for a new approach based on partnership. However, deep-rooted suspicions and grievances persist.

Long Live Russia, Goodbye France

About ten years ago, Mali sought military assistance from France when Islamic militants threatened the capital, Bamako. France’s arrival was initially hailed as heroic, but its presence in the West African nation did not yield long-term improvements. Instead, terrorist groups with ties to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and the Islamic State of the Greater Sahara carried out devastating attacks. Mali even blamed the French for arming terrorists.

Diplomatic relations between Paris and Bamako began to deteriorate following a coup in May 2021 and resistance against democratic elections in January 2022. Consequently, Mali expelled the French and embraced the Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary organisation, which has gained influence in Africa.

The Wagner Group has gained notoriety for its involvement in the internal affairs of multiple African nations, offering military and security assistance to advance Moscow’s influence across the continent. Disturbingly, it has faced accusations of perpetrating massacres and acts of rape. However, despite these alleged atrocities, many discontented young Africans harbour a sense of indifference towards Wagner’s actions, as their grievances with France and the West take precedence in their perspective.

Burkina Faso also expelled the French, with thousands of people rallying in the capital, Ouagadougou, in support of a military takeover that ousted President Roch Kabore. Russian flags were displayed in the streets, and some demonstrators urged Moscow to replace France in the fight against jihadists.

Even in Niger, celebrations backing the coup plotters have swept across the country, gaining momentum despite calls for a return to democracy. There are also reports of the Niger junta meeting with the Wagner Group in Mali to seek military support.

“Nigeriens harbour deep grievances against France for various reasons, primarily due to the exploitation of our resources, which disproportionately benefits France. An evident illustration of this disparity is the supply of French electricity sourced from our uranium, while we remain 80% dependent on another country (Nigeria) for our energy needs.

“Another major concern is the issue of terrorism. Despite the presence of over a thousand French soldiers in the country with the stated objective of combating terrorists, they seem unable to effectively confront the threat. Instead, our population and soldiers bear the brunt of the attacks, leaving us vulnerable and disheartened.

“As an alternative, many Nigeriens view Russia as a potential saviour in the face of their escalating tensions with France and the rest of the world. Russia’s involvement in the terrorist conflict in Mali, particularly through the actions of the Wagner Group, has further fueled this perception,’’ Abdoulaye Hali Aboubacar, a student at the Université Abdou Moumouni de Niamey, tells IPS.

ECOWAS Versus Niger

The growing presence of the Wagner group is clear evidence that ECOWAS has failed to do its homework. However, the new government of ECOWAS is poised to make a difference.

After taking over as the Chairman of ECOWAS on July 9, President Bola Tinubu made a firm statement, stating that the region would not accept any more successful coups, as it had experienced five of them since 2020.

A mere 15 days after Tinubu’s resolute speech, the government in Niger was overthrown by officers.

In response to the crisis, Tinubu took immediate action and presided over an emergency ECOWAS summit in Abuja. Several sanctions were implemented, and notably, for the first time in the bloc’s history, it demanded that the putschists restore constitutional order under the risk of facing the potential use of force.

However, there are apprehensions regarding ECOWAS, which has faced criticism for its limited ability to address coup regimes and its alleged neglect of crucial underlying issues like corruption and poverty. Some argue that ECOWAS’s response to the coup might be influenced by how the news of it was received in the Western world.

“It is advisable for Nigeria-led ECOWAS to introspect before escalating the already precarious situation in Niger. The current trajectory could turn Niger into a battleground for foreign powers to settle scores, leading to a dangerous quagmire if not handled carefully by the authorities, especially Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu and his advisers,” Avele cautions.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa

From Crisis to Resilience: We Need a New Recipe to Combat Hunger

Mon, 08/07/2023 - 07:20

World Food Programme food distribution in Sudan - Credit: UNAMID / Shangil Tobaya

By Olivier De Schutter
BRUSSELS, Belgium, Aug 7 2023 (IPS)

The fragile state of global food systems has reached a crossroads. Recent headlines underscore the profound challenges we now confront.

The United Nations released sobering statistics that 122 million more people are going hungry than in 2019, erasing years of progress. One week later, Russia announced it was ending the crucial deal that allowed Ukraine’s vast grain production to be shipped to the outside world.

This deal was an important factor in alleviating last year’s record high food prices. Russia then proceeded to bomb grain facilities in Ukraine, causing wheat and corn prices to surge. Simultaneously, soaring heat, blazing wildfires, and devastating floods are jeopardising harvests around the world. Meanwhile the food industry has recorded billions in profits.

These events tell us we are facing both acute shocks to food security, and chronic underlying food poverty. Even while the industrial globalised food system generates bountiful profits. These are all symptoms of the same disease – and highlight the urgent need for major changes in our food systems.

Two statistics from the UN’s hunger report are perhaps most concerning.

First, the projection that almost 600 million people could be chronically undernourished in 2030. This shows that the Sustainable Development Goals – in which governments committed to end hunger by that date – lie in tatters, unless urgent action is taken.

Second, the finding that a decent nutritious diet is now out of reach for nearly half the planet. The cost of a healthy diet has shot up just as people are seeing disposable incomes tumble. What an indictment of our failing food system.

Olivier De Schutter

This is not because the world does not produce enough food. Global agriculture has never produced so many calories – its growth outpacing population growth. The streamlined chains of the industrial food system are well tuned to deliver cheap and uniform biscuits, crisps and fizzy drinks across the planet, increasingly to even the most remote areas.

Rather, the industrial food system is simply not delivering. It prioritises market demand and profit, over meeting human needs. It is more profitable to produce mass commodities for animal feed, biofuels and processed foods, ultimately serving rich consumers with an ability to pay, rather than the needs of poor communities and hungry populations. The industrial food system is not built to ensure access to food and healthy diets for all.

Hence only about 55% of people around the globe live in countries with enough fresh fruits and vegetables available to meet the World Health Organization’s minimum recommended daily consumption target.

Our food system has had some unlucky shocks these last three years – from Covid-19, climate impacts and conflict. But it was also disastrously vulnerable. The industrial food system is built upon layers of concentration which are liable to disruption.

Half the calories consumed around the world come from just three staple crops (wheat, maize and rice), grown from a narrow range of seed varieties, exported from a small number of countries, shipped around the world by a handful of powerful trading firms. This is profitable, but it is not robust.

Record high debts in many Global South countries are also preventing them from investing to combat hunger, trapping them in a vicious cycle. Global South countries have been forced to specialise in growing and exporting cash crops like cocoa, coffee and cotton in order to pay down debts – at the expense of growing food for their own populations.

They are thus required to import food – food which is now much more expensive – and unable to invest in resilient local food production. Africa is today a net importer of food – with net food imports of $35 billion in 2015, expected to triple by 2025.

Governments will no doubt agree on the need to raise ambitions. But when we are so far off course, the time is up for small adjustments. We need a completely new recipe to address hunger and build resilience. Based on breaking dependence on the global market to provide adequate nutrition and feed the hungry, and rebuilding countries’ capacity to produce the food they require.

Social protection schemes must guarantee food access for the world’s poorest – with proven policies like the successful ‘Fome Zero’ programme deployed by Brazil in the 2000s that took the country off the hunger map. Urgent debt relief for heavily indebted low-income countries is also crucial to allow them to invest in anti-hunger schemes and domestic food production.

In a world of climate crisis in which more shocks are to come, resilience throughout the system must be the goal. More diverse agroecological food production, shorter food chains, and countries producing more nutritious food for their own people can unlock the food security that too many are denied. It’s time we admit the industrial food system is starving people.

Let these alarming headlines be a turning point to a different road, a route towards resilience.

Olivier De Schutter is co-chair of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) and UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa

Cambodia’s Election a Blatant Farce

Fri, 08/04/2023 - 17:08

Credit: Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP via Getty Images

By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Aug 4 2023 (IPS)

The title shouldn’t fool you: Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen is one of the world’s longest-ruling autocrats. A political survivor, this former military commander had been bolted to his chair since 1985, presiding over what he turned into a de facto one-party system – and now apparently a dynastic regime.

On 23 July, running virtually unopposed, Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) took 82 per cent of the vote, winning almost all seats. The only party that could have offered a challenge, the Candlelight Party, had been banned on a technicality in May.

Following the proclamation of his ‘landslide victory‘, Hun Sen finally announced his retirement, handing over his position to his eldest son, Hun Manet. Manet had already been endorsed by the CPP. Winning a parliamentary seat, which he just did, was all he had to do to become eligible. To ensure dynastic succession faced no obstacle, a constitutional amendment passed in August 2022 allows the ruling party to appoint the prime minister without parliamentary approval.

Hun Sen isn’t going away: he’ll remain CPP chair and a member of parliament, be appointed to other positions and stay at the helm of his family’s extensive business empire.

A slippery slope towards autocracy

Hun Sen came to power in a world that no longer exists. He managed to cling onto power as everything around him changed.

He fought as a soldier in the Cambodian Civil War before defecting to Vietnam, taking several government positions under the 1980s Vietnamese government of occupation. He was appointed prime minister in 1985, and when 1993 elections resulted in a hung parliament, Hun Sen refused to concede defeat. Negotiations resulted in a coalition government in which he served as joint prime minister, until he orchestrated a coup to take sole control in 1997. At the head of the CPP, he has won every election since.

In 2013 his power was threatened. A new opposition party, the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), offered a credible challenge. The CPP got its lowest share of votes and seats since 1998. Despite obvious fraud, the CNRP came dangerously close to defeating Hun Sen.

In the years that followed, Hun Sen made sure no one would challenge him again. In 2015, the CNRP’s leader Sam Rainsy was summarily ousted from the National Assembly and stripped of parliamentary immunity. A warrant was issued for his arrest, pushing him into exile. He was then barred from returning to Cambodia, and in 2017 convicted for ‘defaming’ Hun Sen. His successor at the head of the CNRP, Kem Sokha, soon faced persecution too.

In November 2017, the Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of the CNRP and imposed a five-year political ban on 118 opposition members.

As a result, the only parties that eventually ran on a supposedly opposition platform in 2018 were small parties manufactured by government allies to give the impression of competition. In the run-up to the vote, the CPP-dominated National Election Committee (NEC) threatened to prosecute anybody who urged a boycott and warned voters that criticising the CPP wasn’t allowed. What resulted was a parliament without a single dissenting voice.

There was no let off after the election, with mass arrests and mass trials of former CNRP members and civil society activists becoming commonplace. Rainsy was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment, and Sokha was given 27 years for ‘treason’. At least 39 opposition politicians are behind bars, and many more have left Cambodia.

But as the CNRP faded, the torch passed to the Candlelight Party. In June 2022 local elections, Candlelight proved that Hun Sen was right to be afraid: in an extremely repressive context, it still took over 20 per cent of the vote. And sure enough, in May 2023 the NEC disqualified Candlelight from the July election.

Civic space under assault

Political repression has been accompanied by tightening civic space restrictions.

The crackdown on independent media, underway since 2017, intensified in the run-up to the latest electoral farce. In March 2022, the government stripped three digital media outlets of their licences after they published stories on government corruption. In February 2023, Hun Sen ordered the closure of Voice of Democracy, one of the few remaining independent media outlets, after it published a story about Manet. Severe restrictions weigh on foreign media groups, some of which have been forced out of the country.

In contrast, government-owned and pro-government media organisations are able to operate freely. Major media groups are run by magnates close to the ruling family. One media conglomerate is headed by Hun Sen’s eldest daughter. As a result, most information available to Cambodians comes through the filter of power. Most media work to disseminate state-issued disinformation and discredit independent voices as agents of propaganda.

The right to protest is heavily restricted. Gatherings by banned opposition parties are prohibited and demonstrations by political groups, labour unions, social movements and essentially anyone mobilising on issues the government doesn’t want raised are routinely dispersed by security forces, often violently. Protesters are subjected to threats, intimidation, arbitrary arrests and detention, and further criminalisation.

As if leaving people with no choice wasn’t enough, Hun Sen also mounted a scare campaign to force them to vote, since a low turnout would undermine the credibility of the outcome. People were threatened with repercussions if they attempted to boycott the election or spoil ballot papers. The election law was hastily amended to make this a crime.

Experience gives little ground to hope that repression will let up rather than intensify following the election. There’s also no reason to expect that Manet, long groomed for succession, will take a different path from his still-powerful predecessor. The very least the international community should do is to call out the charade of an election for what it was and refuse to buy the Cambodian regime’s whitewashing attempt.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

Categories: Africa

Pages

THIS IS THE NEW BETA VERSION OF EUROPA VARIETAS NEWS CENTER - under construction
the old site is here
Copy & Drop - Can`t find your favourite site? Send us the RSS or URL to the following address: info(@)europavarietas(dot)org.

You are here

Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

Pages