Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

Ephraim Walters in his fishing shed. The father of nine has been a fisherman for 59 years. Credit: Zadie Neufville/IPS

By Zadie Neufville
ROCKY POINT, Jamaica , Jun 2 2023 (IPS)

Long before the COVID-19 Pandemic, fishers at the Rocky Point fishing beach in Clarendon were forced to venture farther out to sea to make a living or find alternatives to make ends meet.

This once-prime fishing village attracted fishers from up and down the coast. Men like Ephraim Walters, travelled from his hometown in Belmont, 100 or so kilometres (62 miles), up the coast, to Rocky Point, some 30 years ago, and never left.

Rocky Point is Jamaica’s largest fishing community and was once a destination for south coast fishers. But decades of environmental neglect, mismanagement, and poor fishing practices are taking their toll, pushing fishermen into destitution.

In the old days, Walters recalls, fishermen went to sea every day and made enough to build homes, support their families, and school their children. Back then, one needn’t go too far because the 24-kilometre sea shelf at Rocky was the place to be: “We could drop the net in the bay, and we would pull it together with a whole lot of fish, but these days we have to go further out to sea for far less”.

“Sometimes you go out, and you don’t catch a thing, and you can’t buy back the gas you use to go out,” he says.

With too many fishers chasing too few fish, he now travels the 96.5 kilometres (60 miles) to the offshore fishing station at Pedro Banks, using hundreds of gallons of fuel and spending between three and five days to get a good catch. But even then, he says, the value of the catch may not cover the cost of the trip.

The challenges in Rocky Point are a snapshot of the Jamaican fisheries sector, where too many fishers chase too few fish. Former University of the West Indies lecturer Karl Aitken says Rocky’s problem began as many as 30 years ago. As a master’s student in the 1980s, he says he had been recording declining catch numbers even then.

Data from the National Fisheries Authority (NFA) show that only 26,000 of the estimated 40,000 fishermen on the island are registered. Marine catch data between 1986 and 1995 shows a downturn in catch rates from 9,100 metric tonnes to 4,200 metric tonnes per year. There are expansions of the commercial conch fishery that began in 1991 and the lobster fishery.

The consensus is that Jamaica’s fishing problems began with a series of natural and man-made events in the 1980s and 1990s, which resulted in the death of 85 per cent of the island’s reefs and a drastic decline in fish catches. As inshore areas became less productive, pressure mounted on the offshore resources at Pedro Cays.

The 2017 State of the  Environment report points to the growing numbers of fishers as a threat to the  environment, noting that the island’s nearshore artisanal fin-fish and lobster fisheries are potentially environmentally deleterious and associated with overfishing and harvesting.

“The greatest potential for environmental impact is in the fisheries sub-sector is associated with the marine fin-fish sector which continues to grow to supply domestic markets,” the report says.

Walters long for the promised fish sanctuary which he believes will minimise destructive behaviours and save the livelihoods of Rocky Point’s fishermen. Not only are fish stocks collapsing, but the high-value fisheries like conch and lobster are also vulnerable as more people go after the resource. Since 2000, the government has shuttered the conch fishery twice first, when a row over quota resulted in a lawsuit and again in 2018 after a collapse of the resource.

Former director of Fisheries Andre Kong explains that in both cases stocks were low. But in 2018, the fishery was on the verge of collapse. There are those who believe that the conch and lobster fisheries should remain closed for another few years, but fishermen believe that without proper protection, the resources would be plundered by poachers as happened during the Pandemic.

Fishing beaches around Rocky Point have already established sanctuaries which local fishers say have helped to boost their catch rates and the size of the fish they catch. In the neighbouring Portland Bight, three marine protected areas have been established across the parishes of St Catherine and Clarendon.

In the 73-year-old Walker’s birth parish of Westmoreland, the Bluefields Fisherman’s Friendly Society led by Wolde Christos, established one of the largest of the island’s 18 fish sanctuaries in 2009 to boost the falling catch rates, protect local marine life such as the hawksbill sea turtles that nest there, and reduce high levels of poaching.

The sanctuary covers more than 1,300 hectares (3,200 acres). It is working, Christos explains, noting that a government grant helps the fishermen who have been licensed as fish and or game wardens run a tight ship, keeping illegal fishers out.

The pandemic made things worse for many fishers due to the loss of markets. In a report to parliament last year, Minister Pearnel Charles Jr. said that the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has caused disruption in fish production and value chains with the losses of markets locally and overseas, and higher input costs, resulting in significant increases in operational expenses. An estimated USD23 million in losses was sustained in the fisheries sector during 2020 alone.

On the beach, some fishers are doing anything they can to survive. Some are part-time boat builders/ repairmen, electricians, or even mechanics; others now clean fish for buyers to make ends meet. And if the whispers are correct, many have turned to illegal fishing.

Complicating the issue is the fact that aside from regulated fisheries of conch and lobsters, Jamaica has no limit on the amount or size of fish that can be taken. There is almost no data available for analysis, and mesh and net sizes have more or less no effect on the reaping of juvenile fish.

In keeping with commitments and international agreements, in 2018, the government unveiled a new Fisheries Act. It established the National Fisheries Authority to replace the Fisheries Division of the Ministry of Agriculture to strengthen the management and legislative framework of the sector. The act is expected to increase compliance in registration, increase opportunities for aquaculture and increase fines and prison terms for breaches.

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

• Drones To Help Fishers Avoid Border Conflicts on Lake Victoria
• Small-Scale Fishers in Central America Demand Social Security Policies
• CARIBBEAN CLIMATE WIRE Anguilla’s Fishers Share their First-Hand Knowledge About Climate Change and its Impact

Fake or substandard antimalarial medicines kill as many as 267,000 sub-Saharan Africans every year. Credit: Mercedes Sayagues/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Jun 2 2023 (IPS)

There is a tangled trafficking web that has been woven across the Sahel, which spans almost 6.000 kilometres from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, and is home to more than 300 million people in 10 countries: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, The Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal.

This is how several international specialised bodies, mainly the United Nations, depict the aggravated situation in this already highly fragile African region, which the UN describes as a region in crisis, as those living there are prey to “chronic insecurity, climate shocks, conflict, coups, and the rise of criminal and terrorist networks.”

The Sahel criminal web deals with an unimaginable range of ‘commodities’, from chilli peppers and fake medicine, to fuel, gold, and guns, through humans and more which are being trafficked via millennia-old trade routes crisscrossing the Sahel, according to a 20 May 2023 report.

 

The US-led military intervention

Security has long been an issue in the region, “but the situation markedly degraded in 2011, following the NATO-led military intervention in Libya, which led to the ongoing destabilisation of the country,” explains the United Nations.

On 19 March 2011, a US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization coalition (31 Western member-countries) launched a military intervention in Libya, with coordinated naval and air forces attacks mainly by the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Canada, among others.

Substandard or fake medicines, like contraband baby cough syrup, are killing almost half a million sub-Saharan Africans every year, according to a threat assessment report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)

Since then the big oil producer Libya has been the stage of growing instability and chaos, let alone a hub of human trafficking, smuggling and slavery.

 

Humans, weapons, oil…

Such “ensuing chaos, and porous borders stymied efforts to stem illicit flows, and traffickers transporting looted Libyan firearms rode into the Sahel on the coattails of insurgency and the spread of terrorism,” reports the UN.

Fuel is another commodity trafficked by the main players – terrorist groups, criminal networks, and local militias.

“Armed groups now control swathes of Libya, which has become a trafficking hub.”

In fact, in addition to massive human trafficking and migrant smuggling, markets across the Sahel can be found openly selling a wide range of contraband goods, from fake medicines to AK-style assault rifles.

 

… And medicines that kill

A UN News series exploring the fight against trafficking in the Sahel, on 27 May 2023 focussed on the illegal trade in substandard and fake medicines.

“From ineffective hand sanitiser to fake antimalarial pills, an illicit trade that grew during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 is being meticulously dismantled by the UN and partner countries in Africa’s Sahel region.”

Substandard or fake medicines, like contraband baby cough syrup, are killing almost half a million sub-Saharan Africans every year, according to a threat assessment report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Trafficking medication is often deadly; in just one case, 70 Gambian children died in 2022 after ingesting smuggled cough syrup.

 

Desperate demand

According to the UN, health care is scarce in the region, which has among the world’s highest incidences of malaria and where infectious diseases are one of the leading causes of death.

“This disparity between the supply of and demand for medical care is at least partly filled by medicines supplied from the illegal market to treat self-diagnosed diseases or symptoms,” the report says.

It further explains that street markets and unauthorised sellers, especially in rural or conflict-affected areas, are sometimes the only sources of medicines and pharmaceutical products.

 

Fatal results

The study shows that the cost of the illegal medicine trade is high, in terms of health care and human lives.

“Fake or substandard antimalarial medicines kill as many as 267,000 sub-Saharan Africans every year. Nearly 170,000 sub-Saharan African children die every year from unauthorised antibiotics used to treat severe pneumonia.”

In the summer of 2022, 70 Gambian babies and young children died from kidney failure after ingesting cough syrup spooned out by their caregivers.

The World Health Organization (WHO) issued a global alert that four tainted paediatric products had originated in India, as local health authorities continue to investigate how this tragedy unfolded.

Caring for people who have used falsified or substandard medical products for malaria treatment in sub-Saharan Africa costs up to 44.7 million US dollars every year, according to World Health Organization (WHO) estimates.

 

Corruption

Corruption is one of the main reasons the trade is allowed to flourish.

About 40% of substandard and falsified medical products reported in Sahelian countries between 2013 and 2021 land in the regulated supply chain, the report showed.

“Products diverted from the legal supply chain typically come from such exporting nations as Belgium, China, France, and India. Some end up on pharmacy shelves.”

 

The perpetrators

“The perpetrators are employees of pharmaceutical companies, public officials, law enforcement officers, health agency workers and street vendors, all motivated by potential financial gain,” the report found.

Traffickers are finding ever more sophisticated routes, from working with pharmacists to taking their crimes online, according to a UNODC research brief on the issue.

While terrorist groups and non-State armed groups are commonly associated with trafficking in medical products in the Sahel, this mainly revolves around consuming medicines or levying “taxes” on shipments in areas under their control.

 

Far beyond the Sahel and Africa

Fighting organised crime is a central pillar in the wider battle to deal with the security crisis in the region, which UN Secretary-General, António Guterres says, poses a global threat.

“If nothing is done, the effects of terrorism, violent extremism, and organised crime will be felt far beyond the [Sahel] region and the African continent,” Guterres already warned in 2022.

Apart from repeated proposals for action and solution, evidence shows that very little has been done, if anything, to halt those merchants of death. Who benefits from such a horrid destabilisation of 10 African countries which already rank among the poorest ones on Earth?

While poor maternal outcomes among Black women in the U.S. is not new, improving it is imperative. U.S. policymakers can look to sub-Saharan Africa for guidance on reversing this trend. Credit: Ernest Ankomah/IPS

By Ifeanyi Nsofor
ABUJA, Jun 2 2023 (IPS)

New research shows that Black mothers in the United States disproportionately live in counties with higher maternal vulnerability and face greater risk of preterm death for the fetus, greater risk of low birth weight for a baby, and a higher number of maternal deaths.

While poor maternal outcomes among Black women in the U.S. is not new, improving it is imperative. U.S. policymakers can look to sub-Saharan Africa for guidance on reversing this trend.

The problem of poor maternal health for Black women in the U.S. is dire. Too many Black women die during pregnancy and childbirth due to preventable causes. For instance, the 2020 maternal mortality data rates released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control showed overwhelming maternal deaths among Black women compared to other women over a 3-year period (2018 – 2020).

The 2020 maternal mortality data rates released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control showed overwhelming maternal deaths among Black women compared to other women over a 3-year period (2018 - 2020). To put it in context, maternal deaths among Black women in the U.S. is worse than African countries like Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, Libya, Tunisia and Egypt.

To put it in context, maternal deaths among Black women in the U.S. is worse than African countries like Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, Libya, Tunisia and Egypt.

Further, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, maternal and infant health disparities are symptoms of broader underlying social and economic inequities that are rooted in racism and discrimination.

In a previous piece, I wrote about the way that institutionalized racism is keeping Black Americans sick. Therefore, healthcare providers and policymakers across the U.S. must ensure respectful maternity care for all women during pregnancy, childbirth and afterwards.

The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights says respectful maternity care“encompasses respect for women’s basic human rights, including recognition of and support for women’s autonomy, dignity, feelings, choices, and preferences, such as choice of companionship wherever possible”.

Unfortunately, there is overwhelming evidence that Black American women face disrespect and profound indignity during pregnancy and childbirth. Tennis player and businesswoman Serena Williams almost died due to blood clots after giving birth because her nurse refused to listen to her cry for help. That clot could have led to a stroke. Her doctor eventually listened to her, and this saved her. If one of the most influential and most powerful women can have such a near-death experience, what is the fate of other Black American women who are not as privileged? Respectful maternity care is a way to ensure equity irrespective of class and race.

These are three lessons American policymakers can learn from successful maternal health projects across countries in sub-Saharan Africa as they try to save Black American lives.

First, is the continuum of care – prevention of postpartum hemorrhage project, implemented by Pathfinder International in Nigeria. It was a novel project that deployed several evidence-based interventions to prevent excessive bleeding after childbirth across the country.

These included the use of misoprostol to ensure adequate uterine contraction after the delivery of the baby; use of a plastic sheet with a pouch for blood loss estimation and active management of the third stage of labor to ensure the placenta is properly separated after the baby is delivered. These interventions led to a reduction in women who bled excessively after childbirth and improved the overall survival of women in participating health facilities.

For example, a new study on the efficacy of the plastic sheet carried out in 80 hospitals across 4 African countries, showed a reduction in the number of women experiencing severe bleeding by 60%.

A second example is the maternal nutrition program, implemented by Garden Health International in Rwanda. Adequate nutrition during pregnancy is imperative for the wellbeing of the unborn child.

The first 1000 days of life are even more crucial. Through the Maternal Nutrition curriculum, pregnant women are encouraged to attend antenatal classes at least four times in health facilities where they are educated on how to address the factors that can contribute to malnutrition. Women are taught how to prepare a balanced meal, the importance of hygiene and food safety in preventing malnutrition, the importance of the timely introduction of breastfeeding and complementary feeding, and postnatal care.

For instance, through the “one pot, one hour” cooking initiative, families are taught to use readily available foods to prepare nutritious meals is a core component of this program. Its success led to its adoption by the Rwandan Ministry of Health and it was implemented by 44,000 community health workers across the country.

A last example is the Kangaroo Mother Care for very low birth weight infants in South Africa. Very low birth weight infants are prone to hypothermia – a significant and potentially dangerous drop in body temperature.

According to the WHO, Kangaroo Mother Care involves infants being carried, usually by the mother, with skin-to-skin contact. If the mother is unable to fulfill the role, the father or other members of the family can take on the responsibility of skin-to-skin contact and provide warmth for the infant. A study of Kangaroo mother care of 981 very low birth weight infants admitted at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital over a six-year period showed increased weight gain, lower rates of complications of prematurity and low overall mortality.

A multi-country study by the World Health Organization showed that in Ethiopia, government leadership; an understanding by health workers that kangaroo mother care is the standard of care; and acceptance of the practice from women and families helped improve the implementation of kangaroo mother care.

Institutionalized racism over many decades has put Black Americans in the most vulnerable counties in the U.S. Health policymakers, healthcare providers, donors, non-profit organisations and all stakeholders involved in maternal healthcare in the U.S. must implement interventions that are shown to save lives. The African continent is a great place to look.

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

On May 25, Hayashi Yoshimasa, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan, paid a courtesy call on Ranil Wickremesinghe, President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, who was visiting Japan to attend the Nikkei Forum May 28 on the “Future of Asia.” Credit: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan

By Neville de Silva
LONDON, Jun 2 2023 (IPS)

On May 24, Sri Lanka President Ranil Wickremesinghe arrived on a three-day official visit to Japan, his second visit to the country, having attended the State funeral of former prime minister Shinzo Abe last September.

This would also be President Wickremesinghe’s second summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, the first having been on the side lines of the Shinzo Abe funeral, signalling the importance of Japan in Sri Lanka’s foreign policy rethinking and a move away from over reliance on China.

President Wickremesinghe’s visit has more significance than economic persuasion– trying to encourage Japanese investors to return to Sri Lanka after a couple or more bad experiences in recent years.

Under the Gotabaya Rajapaksa presidency, Colombo reneged on major projects agreed to, including a major Light Rail Transit (LRT) in Colombo for which the basic work had already begun.

Colombo dropped it without any prior notice to Japan and also went back on a tripartite agreement with Japan and India (and Sri Lanka) on the development of the Colombo port’s east terminal.

At his meeting with Prime Minister Kishida, Wickremesinghe expressed regret over his country’s past relations with Japan and said Colombo was ready to restart the dropped projects.

Wickremesinghe’s visit however is more than to revive economic cooperation at a time when Sri Lanka is passing through hard times having declared itself bankrupt in April last year. It had to turn to the IMF for a rescue package that would help pull the country out of the economic morass into which it had fallen- or been pushed into it– by mediocre governance and incompetent advisers.

His new relationship with Japan covers a broader canvas that surpasses bilateral relations though to a struggling Sri Lankan people burdened right now by high taxes, increasing tariffs on utilities and unbearably steep prices on domestic commodities, day to day existence presents the immediate priority.

Meanwhile small industries and businesses are shutting up unable to bear operating costs such as huge electricity rates-and higher water rates to come- throwing people out of jobs.

At the same time, professionals such as doctors, engineers, surveyors and IT and technically qualified personnel are quitting the country having found employment abroad or in search of fresh opportunities both in the developed and developing world.

Japan has been particularly helpful in advocating Sri Lanka’s case at the Paris Club on debt restructuring as called for in the IMF programme and has not joined hands with the west in castigating Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva as the US, UK, Canada and some European nations have done. Japan’s approach has been more sober and benign

Furthermore, Colombo, embroiled as it is in delicate diplomacy at a time when Indian Ocean politics is becoming more complicated and confrontational, sees Japan along with India and the west as a countervailing force to China’s expanding naval activity and presence in the region.

But there are two other reasons that drive President Wickremesinghe’s interest in establishing closer relations with Tokyo. One is national. The other personal though some might not see it that way.

The national motive is to create more distance in Sri Lanka’s relations with China which had become too close for comfort under the Rajapaksas (both presidents Mahinda and Gotabaya) for a country that could find itself caught in a gathering geopolitical storm given its geostrategic location and China’s continuing interest in widening its footprints and influence in Sri Lanka.

Xi Jinping and his ruling clan would rather see the Rajapaksas back in the seats of power than Wickremesinghe who they consider pro-western in his thinking, especially pro-Washington.

Moreover, one may conclude that Wickremesinghe sees Japan as a more reliable friend and one without super power ambitions.

The other is the strong bond Japanese leaders have developed for and with Sri Lanka dating back to the 1951 San Francisco Conference when some 48 countries met to draft a post-war peace treaty for defeated Japan.

One wonders whether many modern-day observers realise the important role that Ceylon, as it was called then, played at that conference, largely due to the performance of Ceylon’s then Finance Minister Junius Richard Jayewardene, popularly known as “JR”.

Jayewardene, who earned the sobriquet “Yankee Dicky” at home for his pro-US proclivities and in 1978 was Sri Lanka’s first executive president, was Ranil Wickremesinghe’s uncle.

In an article former Sri Lanka Ambassador Bandu de Silva wrote some 8 years ago, he recalls the critical role Ceylon played at the time and an earlier meeting of the Commonwealth Foreign Ministers in Colombo that for the first time proposed that Japan be declared an independent nation.

Ambassador de Silva states that Wikipedia’s account of the conference states Minister Jayewardene’s speech was received with resounding applause. Later, the New York Times wrote that “The voice of free Asia, eloquent, melancholy and still strong with the tilt of an Oxford accent, dominated the Japanese peace treaty conference today.”

What is it that Minister Jayewardene said when the very future of Japan was being debated and discussed that has endured Japan’s leaders and its people to a tiny Indian Ocean-island that itself suffered from Japanese air raids on Colombo in April 1942 and the British naval base in north eastern Trincomalee and had gained independence only three years earlier in 1948?

While some other nations called for curbs on Japan and demanded compensation for war-time damage Ceylon not only urged an independent Japan free to build its future and renounced its right to reparations from Japan.

“Hatred does not cease by hatred but by love”, Jayewardene told the conference quoting the words of The Buddha. Interestingly Sri Lanka and Japan are both Buddhist countries though following two different schools.

Records show that when Japan offered to construct a new building for the Ceylon Embassy in Tokyo the Colombo government politely turned it down.

Perhaps the foundation of the friendship between the two nations is best set out by the Japanese ambassador at the 50th Anniversary Commemoration of diplomatic relations held in Colombo in 2002.

Recalling JR Jayewardene’s speech at the San Francisco Conference, Ambassador Seiichiro Otsuka said: “In the grim aftermath of the war, as Japan began to rise from the ashes and rebuild its nation, it was the government and people of Sri Lanka, then Ceylon, who extended their genuine hand of friendship to the Japanese people.”

“Japan and the Japanese people have been indeed grateful to Sri Lanka for the friendship and magnanimity extended to us at the time of our difficulties by the government and people of Sri Lanka. It is in this spirit that Japan has stood firmly and steadfastly side by side with Sri Lanka as a true friend and a constructive partner for Sri Lanka’s development. Indeed, 50 years of our cooperative bilateral relations has been guided, on our part, by this spirit which Mr Jayewardene spoke of at San Francisco on September 8,1951….friendship and trust.”

However, Minister Jayewardene’s strong and clear support for Japan’s independence might have had a setback for Ceylon elsewhere.

With the East-West Cold War beginning to get warmer, the Soviet Union proposed amendments to the Japan peace treaty that would have restricted Japan’s freedom of action.

Ceylon’s representative took upon himself to counter Soviet Union objections. At one point Jayewardene turned sarcastic saying the amendments with which the Soviet Union sought to “insure to the people of Japan the fundamental freedoms of expression, of press and publication, of religious worship, of political opinion and of public meeting – freedoms, which the people of the Soviet Union themselves would dearly love to possess and enjoy.”

Some might well argue that Moscow took its revenge on Ceylon for Jayewardene’s public rebuke by blocking Ceylon’s admission as a member to the United Nations for some years, arguing that Ceylon was not an independent country as it had a defence treaty with the UK.

How Ceylon gained admission to the UN in 1956 is the result of a quid pro quo with Moscow. But that is another story.

Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who held senior roles in Hong Kong at The Standard and worked in London for Gemini News Service. He has been a correspondent for the foreign media including the New York Times and Le Monde. More recently he was Sri Lanka’s Deputy High Commissioner in London.

Source: Asian Affairs, London

IPS UN Bureau

 

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');  

Credit: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Jun 1 2023 (IPS)

Turkey’s election hasn’t produced the change many thought was on the cards. Now women’s groups, LGBTQI+ people and independent journalists are among those fearing the worse.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has led the country for two decades, first as prime minister and then as president, prevailed in the 28 May runoff poll, taking around 52.2 per cent of the vote, with his opponent, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, on 47.8 per cent.

The election represented Erdoğan’s biggest-ever electoral test. The run-up was dominated by a cost-of-living crisis. Many pointed the finger at highly unorthodox economic policies insisted on by Erdoğan – of lowering rather than raising interest rates in response to inflation – for making them worse off.

Anger was also sparked by devastating earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria in February, leaving over 50,000 people dead and an estimated 1.5 million people homeless in Turkey. The government was accused of being slow to respond and of overlooking building regulations.

Erdoğan has overcome these hurdles, albeit with a narrow victory. The close vote shows that many Turks wanted change. But after a deeply polarised election, there’s no hint Erdoğan plans to moderate the way he governs.

 
Media dominance tells

Erdoğan prevailed despite facing a united opposition in which six parties put aside their differences. Their aim was to bring to an end Erdoğan’s hyper-presidential form of government and turn Turkey back into a pluralist democracy where parliament can act as a check on excessive presidential power.

A similar approach was tried in Hungary last year, when parties came together to try to oust authoritarian hardman Viktor Orbán, and also failed. Some of their challenges were similar. Both were forced to work in a severely unequal media landscape where media – state media and private media owned by business leaders closely connected to the government – focused almost entirely on the incumbent and starved the challenger of airtime. Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe observers concluded that while the election was competitive, the playing field wasn’t level, with freedom of expression restrictions and media bias giving Erdoğan ‘an unjustified advantage’.

Over his 20 years, Erdoğan has concentrated power on himself and moved to suppress dissent. In 2017, Erdoğan pushed through changes that turned a parliamentary system into an intensely presidential one, placing virtually unlimited powers in his hands.

And he’s used those powers. Turkey is now the world’s fourth-largest jailer of journalists, with terrorism charges commonly applied, and the number of trials and length of sentences increasing.

The deteriorating climate for dissent could be seen in the wake of the earthquakes, when people were detained for criticising the government’s response. There were several reports of attacks on and obstruction of journalists during the election campaign.

A race to the bottom

In past elections, Erdoğan campaigned on his economic record. But this time, with the economic crisis and earthquake destruction leaving him unable to press those points, he fell back on another weapon, deploying a tactic nationalists and populists are using the world over: culture war rhetoric.

The opposition was consistently smeared for allegedly supporting LGBTQI+ rights, with Erdoğan positioning himself as the staunch defender of the traditional family. This messaging persisted even though the opposition had little to say on reversing Erdoğan’s attacks on women’s and LGBTQI+ people’s rights.

The culture war strategy was blended with a strongly nationalist appeal. Political opponents were portrayed as extremists and allies of terrorists. This was reinforced by fake campaign videos – one of many examples of campaign disinformation – that claimed to show members of a banned terrorist organisation supporting Kılıçdaroğlu.

Syrian refugees were also targeted. There are 3.6 million Syrian refugees in Turkey. They’ve crossed the border to escape the brutal, 12-year civil war and grotesque human rights abuses. But Turkey’s economic decline has seen growing xenophobia, which has fuelled violence, inflamed by political rhetoric.

Whoever won the election promised to be bad news for refugees. The opposition reacted to Erdoğan’s attacks by pledging to be even tougher in returning refugees. In the last leg of the campaign, both sides hurled discriminatory and inflammatory language at each other.

Erdoğan’s more authentic appeal to nationalism and socially conservative values ultimately won the day. Erdoğan seems to have convinced enough people he’s the only person who can navigate the current crisis. As in several other countries, including Hungary and El Salvador, a majority of voters embraced authoritarianism.

What next?

Undoubtedly Turkey’s heavily restricted civic space and deeply skewed media landscape played a major role. But even acknowledging these barriers, the opposition will need to do some soul searching ahead of municipal elections next year if they hope to keep control of major city governments. The strategy of imitating Erdoğan’s rhetoric on migrants and terrorism having failed, they must find a way to connect with voters with a more positive message.

There are immediate challenges ahead for Erdoğan too, not least the state of the economy. Erdoğan was able to offer some pre-election enticements such as a minimum wage increases and temporary free gas supplies, buttressed by support from non-democratic states including Russia, with which he has developed warmer relations. The government has significantly depleted its foreign currency and gold reserves to try to prop up the Turkish lira – which still hit a record low after Erdoğan’s victory was confirmed.

Erdoğan can be expected to react to further economic difficulty by deepening his authoritarianism to try to silence critics. Those already targeted – refugees, LGBTQI+ people, women, Kurdish activists and the civil society that defends their rights and independent journalists who report their stories – will remain in the firing line.

But the 25.5 million people who voted against Erdoğan deserve a voice. Erdoğan needs to change the habits of a lifetime, show some willingness to listen and build consensus. Turkey’s democratic allies must encourage him to see it’s in his best interest to do so.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society 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');  

Grow Food, not Tobacco. Credit: PAHO
 
On May 31, the World Health Organization (WHO) and public health institutions celebrated “World No Tobacco Day” (WNTD). This year’s theme was: “We need food, not tobacco”. WNTD was created by WHO Member States in 1987 to raise awareness about the harmful effects of tobacco use and exposure to tobacco smoke

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 1 2023 (IPS)

The US has some of the strictest laws against smoking in public, including a 1997 executive order which bans smoking in all government federal buildings.

But still, the tobacco industry and its allies do not rest, says Dr. Jarbas Barbosa, Director of the Washington-based Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).

Currently, they “spread a lot of misleading information that promotes, especially among young people, the use of e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products”, he said, on the eve of World No Tobacco Day May 31.

According to PAHO, while the percentage of the population using tobacco in the Americas declined from 28% to 16.3% between 2000 and 2020, novel products and misleading information from the tobacco industry, especially targeting young people, threaten to undo those gains.

“Although eight countries in the region have banned the marketing of e-cigarettes and four of heated tobacco products, we are concerned that 14 countries have not yet taken any regulatory action in this regard,” he pointed out.

According to the latest statistics from PAHO, tobacco-use kills one million people per year in the Americas, one every 34 seconds.

In addition, 15% of cardiovascular disease deaths, 24% deaths from cancer and 45% of deaths from chronic respiratory diseases are attributable to tobacco use. In the region, 11% of young people use tobacco.

E-cigarettes are the most common form of electronic nicotine delivery. Their emissions contain nicotine and other toxic substances that are harmful to both users and those exposed to them.

To address the growing health threat posed by these products, the PAHO Director has called on countries to implement policies to prevent their use, especially among young people, as they can become the gateway to regular tobacco consumption.

Mary Assunta, Senior Policy Advisor, Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance, told IPS about 40 countries in the world have banned e-cigarettes while 70 countries which allow them have instituted restrictions on sales. For example, 36 countries regulate the amount (concentration/volume) of nicotine in e-liquids.

She said New Zealand, the Philippines and England, where e-cigarettes are sold more as recreational products, are facing a big problem with teenage vapers.

The Australian government has just announced a slew of strong measures to strictly regulate e-cigarettes after misinformation on the health effects of vaping helped hook children and young people.

E-cigarettes are meant to be sold by prescription only in Australia, said Assunta.

Yolonda Richardson, Executive Vice President of the Washington-based, Global Programs of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said this World No Tobacco Day, the WHO is calling for action against the tobacco industry’s human and environmental toll.

“Harming human and environmental health is pivotal to the business model of multinational tobacco companies like Philip Morris International and British American Tobacco. Millions of people die every year due to Big Tobacco’s profit-over-people model”.

She said low- and middle-income countries increasingly feel this burden, with 80 percent of tobacco-related deaths from diseases such as cancer, lung disease and heart disease projected to be in such countries by 2030. And the tobacco industry traps farmers with unsustainable crops and appropriates arable land to grow tobacco used for deadly products.

On this year’s World No Tobacco Day, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids joins the WHO in calling on governments to stand up to the tobacco industry’s exploitative practices and the devastating impacts of its deadly products.

One in 10 adult deaths around the globe are due to tobacco use. By holding the industry accountable and through the implementation of proven tobacco control measures, we have the power to protect future generations from tobacco-related death and disease, she noted.

“It is critical that governments act with urgency to address tobacco’s burden by passing the proven tobacco control interventions contained in the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control,” said Richardson.

Without urgent action, tobacco use will kill one billion people this century, lock tobacco farmers into a lifetime of poverty, and cause continued harm to the environment, she declared.

The United Nations which banned smoking in its 38-storyed Secretariat building in New York, back in 2016, says smoking is one of the biggest public health threats in the world today, killing millions of people from lung cancer, heart disease and other diseases.

All delegates, staffers and visitors to UN Headquarters are reminded of the strict no smoking policy mandated by the General Assembly in its resolution A/RES/63/8 and stipulated in ST/SGB/2003/9.　

A designated exterior smoking area is available in the South Garden and signs showing the shortest route from the Secretariat lobby and the General Assembly and Conference Building main areas have been posted.　

Since the entry into force of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in 2005, says PAHO, the region has made great strides in tobacco prevention and control. Currently, 96% of the population in 35 countries in the region is protected by at least one of the six recommended tobacco control measures.

In 2020, South America became the first 100% smoke-free sub-region – where there is a total ban on smoking in enclosed public places and workplaces, and on public transport.

Mexico also adopted the 100% smoke-free environment policy by the end of 2021 and banned all forms of tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship. As a result, 63% of the population of the Americas – or more than 600 million people – are now protected from exposure to tobacco smoke.

In addition, in 2022, Paraguay ratified the Protocol to Eliminate the Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products, which will boost regional efforts in this area.

“These achievements allow us to be confident that the region of the Americas will reach the target of a 30% reduction in the prevalence of tobacco use in those over 15 years of age by 2025, established in the WHO’s Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases,” Dr. Barbosa said.

But to expedite progress, the PAHO Director considered it “urgent to accelerate efforts to implement key measures that have fallen behind, including tax increases, a total ban on the advertising, promotion and sponsorship of tobacco-products, and the adoption of mechanisms to manage conflicts of interest.”

LINKS:
• World No Tobacco Day – May 31, 2023
• WHO urges governments to stop subsidizing life-threatening tobacco crops
• Tobacco Control – PAHO
• Tobacco: E-cigarettes
• WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control
• Report on Tobacco Control in the Region of the Americas 2022 (In Spanish)

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');  

Her hands loaded with crates, Susan Quintanilla, a union leader of agro-export workers in the department of Ica in southwestern Peru, gets ready to collect different vegetables and fruits for foreign markets. She has witnessed many injustices, saying the companies “made you feel like they were doing you a favor by giving you work, they wanted you to keep your head down." CREDIT: Courtesy of Susan Quintanilla

By Mariela Jara
LIMA, May 31 2023 (IPS)

Peru’s agro-export industry is growing steadily and reached record levels in 2022. But this has not had a favorable impact on human development in this South American country, where high levels of inequality, poverty, childhood anemia and malnutrition persist, as well as complaints about the poor quality of employment in the sector.

Exports of agricultural products such as blueberries, grapes, tangerines, artichokes and asparagus generated 9.8 billion dollars in revenue in 2022 – 12 percent higher than the 2021 total, as reported in February by the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism.“The increase in revenue from agricultural exports has not brought human development: anemia and tuberculosis are at worrying levels and now dengue fever is skyrocketing.” -- Rosario Huallanca

Agricultural exports represent four percent of GDP in this Andean nation, where mining and fishing are the main economic activities.

“The increase in revenue from agricultural exports has not brought human development: anemia and tuberculosis are at worrying levels and now dengue fever is skyrocketing,” Rosario Huallanca, a representative of the non-governmental Ica Human Rights Commission (Codeh Ica), which has worked for 41 years in that department of southwestern Peru, told IPS.

Ica and two other departments along the country’s Pacific coast, La Libertad and Piura, are leaders in the sector, accounting for nearly 50 percent of agricultural exports in this country of 33 million people, which despite this boom remains plagued by inequality, reflected by high levels of poverty and informality and precariousness in employment.

Monetary poverty affected 27.5 percent of the country’s 33 million inhabitants in 2022, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics. This is a seven percentage point increase over the pre-pandemic period. The number of poor people was estimated at 9,184,000 last year, 600,000 more than in 2021.

Ica, which has a total of 850,765 inhabitants, is one of the departments with the lowest monetary poverty rates, five percent, because it has full employment, largely due to the agro-export boom of the last two decades.

Huallanca said the number of agro-export companies is estimated at 320, with a total of 120,000 employees, who come from different parts of the country.

What stands out, she said, is that 70 percent of the total number of workers in the sector are women, who are valued for their fine motor skills in handling fruits and vegetables.

Although a portion of the workers of some companies are in the informal sector, there are no clear numbers, the expert pointed out.

But there are alarming figures available: more than six percent of children under five suffer from chronic malnutrition, and anemia affects 33 percent of children between six and 35 months of age.

“With the type of job we have, we cannot take our children to their growth checkups, we can’t miss work because they don’t pay you if you don’t show up, we cry in silence because of our anxiety,” 42-year-old Yanina Huamán, who has worked in the agro-export sector for 20 years to support her three children, told IPS.

The two oldest are in middle and higher education and her youngest is still in primary school. “I am both mother and father to my children. With my work I am giving them an education and I have manged to secure a home of my own, but it’s precarious, the bedrooms don’t have roofs yet, for example,” she said.

Huamán is secretary for women’s affairs in the union of the company where she works, a position she was appointed to in November 2022. From that post, she hopes to help bring about improvements in access to healthcare for female workers, who either postpone going to the doctor when they need to, or receive poor medical attention in the social security health system “where they only give us pills.”

Ica currently has the highest number of deaths from dengue fever, a viral disease that led the government of Dina Boluarte to declare a 90-day health emergency in 13 of the country’s 24 departments a couple of weeks ago.

Not only that, it has the history of being the department with the highest level of deaths from Covid-19: 901 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, exceeding the national average of 630 per 100,000. “The health system here does not work,” trade unionist Huamán said bluntly.

Yanina Huamán, a worker in the agro-export sector in the department of Ica in southwestern Peru, explains at a meeting in Lima the problems that affect labor rights in the sector, particularly for women who make up 70 percent of the workers. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

 

Working conditions more difficult for women

The lack of quality employment and the deficient recognition of labor rights, exacerbated by the pandemic, prompted a strike in November 2020 that began in Ica and spread to the northern coastal area of ​​La Libertad and Piura.

Their demands included a minimum living wage of 70 soles (19 dollars) a day, social benefits such as compensation and raises for length of service, and recognition of the right to form unions.

Grouped together in the recently created Ica Workers’ Union Agro-exports Struggle Committee, which represents casual and seasonal workers, they went to Congress in Lima to demand changes in the current legislation.

Susan Quintanilla, 39, originally from the central Andean department of Ayacucho, is the general secretary of the union. She arrived in Ica in 2014 after separating from her husband. She came with her two children, a girl and a boy, for whom she hoped for a future with better opportunities.

After working as a harvester in the fields, and cleaning and packing fruit at the plant, she decided to work on a piecework basis, because that way she could earn more and save up for times when the companies needed less labor.

“It was incredibly hard,” she told IPS. “I would leave home at 10 in the morning and leave work at three or four in the wee hours of the next morning to be there to get my kids ready for school. I was 29 or 30 years old, I was young, but I saw older women with pain in their bodies, their arms and their feet due to the postures we had at work, but they continued because they had no other option.

“I saw many injustices in the agro-export companies,” she added. “They made you feel that they were doing you a favor by giving you work, they wanted you to keep your head down, they shouted at and humiliated people, they made them feel miserable. I protested, raised my voice, and they didn’t fire me because I was a high performance worker and they needed me. The situation has changed a little because of our struggles, but it hasn’t come for free.”

The late 2020 protests led to the approval on Dec. 31 of that year of Law No. 31110 on agricultural labor and incentives for the agricultural and irrigation sector, aimed at guaranteeing the rights of workers in the agro-export and agroindustrial sectors.

But in Quintanilla’s view, the law discriminates against non-permanent workers who make up the largest part of the workforce in the sector, since the preferential right to hiring established in the fourth article of the law is not respected.

“Nor have they recognized the differentiated payment of our social benefits and they include them in the daily wage that is calculated at 54 soles (a little more than 14 dollars): it’s not fair,” she complained.

At the same time, she stressed that the agro-export work is harder on women because they are the ones responsible for raising their children. “We live in a sexist society that burdens us with all of the care work,” Quintanilla said.

She also explained that because several of the companies are so far away, it takes workers longer to get to work, which means they are away from home for up to twelve hours a day. “We go to work with the anxiety that we are leaving our children at risk of the dangers of life, we cannot be with them as we would like, which damages us emotionally.”

Added to this, she said, are the terrible working conditions, such as the fact that the toilets are far from the areas where they work, as much as three blocks away, or in unsanitary conditions, which leads women to avoid using them, to the detriment of their health.

 

Workers sort avocados for export in Peru. Agro-exports account for four percent of the country’s GDP, but the prosperity of the sector has not translated into better human development for its workers, and diseases such as anemia and tuberculosis are alarmingly prevalent in agroindustrial areas. CREDIT: Comexperu

 

Agro-export companies and human rights

Huallanca said that Codeh Ica was promoting the creation of a space of diverse stakeholders so that the National Business and Human Rights Plan, a public policy aimed at ensuring that economic activities improve people’s quality of life, is fulfilled in the department. Five unions from Ica and the Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Tourism participate in this initiative.

“We have made an enormous effort and we hope that on Jun. 16 it will be formally created by the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, the governing body for this policy,” she said.

In the meantime, she added, “we have helped bring together women involved in the agro-export sector, who have developed a rights agenda that has been given shape in this multi-stakeholder space and we hope it will be taken into account.”

By Greg Hanna
May 31 2023 (IPS)

More than 80 researchers and scientists gathered in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador last week for the Ocean Frontier Institute’s (OFI) Researchers’ Conference.

With a theme of Putting Research into Action, the event was an opportunity to explore activities funded under the Safe and Sustainable Development of the Ocean Frontier – a Canada First Research Excellence Fund (CFREF) program. Led by Dalhousie University and administered by OFI, the program was launched in 2016 in partnership with Memorial University and the University of Prince Edward Island.

“Your work is already helping to inform policy, engage communities and shape industry efforts towards a sustainable future, but we are still only at the beginning,” said Dr. Neil Bose, president and vice-chancellor of Memorial in his opening remarks to OFI researchers. Noting the diversity of scientific and research disciplines that were represented at the conference, Dr. Bose stressed the increasing urgency and importance of working together on ocean science.

Since 2016, the $94 million research initiative has established an important legacy, supporting 24 Large Research Projects, seven Opportunities Fund projects, and 127 Seed Fund projects.

Updates delivered from research projects

Over the two days of the conference, delegates delivered presentations on the outputs of their large research projects, covering critical areas such as:

• ocean mapping
• Indigenous engagement
• health and green infrastructure
• offshore freshwater sources
• the ocean’s biological carbon pump system
• sustainable ocean stewardship practices.

The presentations were complemented by moderated breakout discussions that went further in-depth on common challenges and opportunities of working with communities, industry, and government policy makers.

Sean Leet, managing director and chief executive officer of World Energy GH2 and board chair at Horizon Maritime delivered a guest presentation on sustainable energy.

“OFI has made remarkable progress and is carrying out valuable work in support of ocean health, Indigenous inclusion and the ocean economy,” said Leet. “I was pleased to share the origin story and progress of World Energy GH2’s Project Nujio’qonik, and to make a call-to-action for industry, and institutions such as OFI, to be bold and ambitious as we work toward hitting net-zero targets and slowing climate change.”

Students engaging in discussion during the OFI Researchers’ Conference

Need for engagement a key takeaway

Researchers highlighted enhanced engagement with local communities from the early stages of each project as key to creating local ownership and acceptance. Participants emphasized the need for better community level communication strategies.

Participants identified working with industry as a valuable way to access data and expertise not normally available, but the need for clarity in timelines, priorities, and the ownership of intellectual property outputs with this group is critical to ensure successful partnerships.

All groups highlighted the complexity of establishing a strong connection between science and policymakers, and identified the difficulty of navigating between federal, provincial, and local structures as a major challenge. Similar to working with communities, they identified an essential need to connect early with policymakers and identify clear lines of communication.

In all cases, balancing the timelines, expectations and priorities of these distinct groups requires further focus. OFI was challenged to provide greater support to help facilitate communications, training, and collaboration across all these areas.

Peter Wickwire Foster, OFI Director of Government and Public Relations presenting during the Researchers’ Workshop

Promoting ocean science

Ocean School’s Jacques Gautreau, director of business development, distribution, and production at the National Film Board of Canada and Ocean School’s Executive Director presented new Ocean School activities, a key highlight of the week.

Ocean School, an OFI program, has produced an impressive collection of educational material to help promote ocean science, inspire, and encourage students of all ages, and engage communities across Canada and internationally. Ocean School is collaborating with several of the OFI Large Research Projects to develop new material to mobilize the research project outcomes and co-create new educational material based on the work.

Gautreau highlighted the impact that public education efforts can have on future generations and our ocean, A Love Letter to the Ocean.

Looking to the future

The conference closed with summary remarks from Dr. Waite and Dr. Paul Snelgrove, associate scientific director at OFI and a professor at Memorial University, who praised the breadth and depth of the research projects highlighted throughout the conference.

In her keynote remarks, Dr. Anya Waite, OFI’s scientific director and chief executive officer, updated participants on OFI’s evolving structure. She explained how the institution has grown in the years following the CFREF funding, and how the new Transforming Climate Action CFREF program will add to the capabilities and impact of OFI-supported research. “Together we are creating the foundation for a global alliance on ocean research,” said Dr. Waite.

Dr. Anya Waite, OFI CEO and Scientific Director delivering her keynote address

“We will increasingly will look outward as these projects finish up, and harness the wisdom we have learned about over the last few days to ensure our engagement is even more impactful in 2024 and beyond,” said Dr. Paul Snelgrove. “I look forward to continuing that journey with all of you.”

Learn more about OFI-supported ocean research.

Big consumer goods companies, in league with the fossil fuel industry, produce more and more plastic, reaping the profits while disregarding the cost and damages to the climate, environment and people. Credit: Albert Oppong-Ansah/IPS.

By Juressa Lee
AUCKLAND, New Zealand, May 31 2023 (IPS)

Climate-crisis-fuelled storms have hit New Zealand hard this year. In January, we suffered unprecedented extreme weather and flooding, followed by Cyclone Gabrielle in February – the worst storm in 55 years—which triggered a national state of emergency. In total, we had 5.5 times more rain than Auckland summers typically receive.

In the aftermath, we saw first-hand one of the causes of the climate crisis: single-use plastic. Te Wai Ōrea, a popular Auckland park, was covered with single-use plastic pollution.

Each stage in the lifecycle of plastic, from production to disposal, fuels the climate crisis – 99% of plastics are made from fossil fuels, and corporations keep making more. According to the Minderoo Foundation, annual greenhouse gas emissions from single-use plastics in 2021 exceeded the total annual emissions of the United Kingdom.

Each stage in the lifecycle of plastic, from production to disposal, fuels the climate crisis - 99% of plastics are made from fossil fuels, and corporations keep making more. According to the Minderoo Foundation, annual greenhouse gas emissions from single-use plastics in 2021 exceeded the total annual emissions of the United Kingdom

I am tangata whenua (indigenous to Aotearoa New Zealand) and tangata Moana (indigenous to the Pacific). What I call home is more ocean than it is land, and this ocean is our livelihood. It provides our traditional diet and is a rich source of the stories of our existence. Each Pacific island nation ties to the next through our ancestors’ great migration across the ocean by their navigational skills.

On the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island, heavy rainfall floods the waterways and plastic waste hits the beaches and the waters where locals spend a good chunk of their lives, where they fish and gather food. And every time, they clean up that trash. No one wants to see pollution in places that they have held sacred for many generations.

Communities on the frontlines of any part of the plastic lifecycle, from oil extraction to trash dumps and everywhere in between, are hit with a trifecta of injustice: plastic pollution, social injustice, and the climate crisis. The plastic deluge that is left after every climate-crisis-fuelled storm only reinforces this point.

Right now, nothing is being done ‘upstream’ to stem the flow of plastic so ‘downstream’ action – as effective as an ambulance at the bottom of a cliff – is all that local communities can do.

In Paris this month, governments from all over the world will meet to continue negotiating a Global Plastics Treaty—a once-in-a generation opportunity. An effective treaty must reduce plastic production and prioritize protecting biodiversity, safeguarding the climate and ensuring a just transition to a low-carbon, reuse-based economy.

Instead, big consumer goods companies, in league with the fossil fuel industry, produce more and more plastic, reaping the profits while disregarding the cost and damages to the climate, environment and people.

This is where we draw a line in the sand – a treaty that does not stop runaway plastic production and use is bound to fail.

Consider the Cook Islands, where my mother’s parents were raised and married. The way of life has been transformed from a traditional one of circularity and living gently with the land, to one where consumer products – much of it in plastic packaging – have been pushed upon our people since colonisation.

The islands, surrounded by the Pacific Ocean, are now filling up with so much plastic that some might reluctantly feel there are just two options, burn it or bury it. Burning would accelerate the climate crisis and rising sea levels, and there is no land on the islands for bottomless landfills.

Coca-Cola, the world’s worst plastic polluter for five years now according to the Break Free from Plastic brand audits, sells their products in plastic bottles in small island nations without any recycling infrastructure or product stewardship. Coke sells over 100 billion bottles each year and is one of the wealthiest fast-moving consumer goods brands in the world, yet its single-use plastic packaging wreaks havoc on the environment.

In the Global South, single-use sachets that contain only enough product for one serving from consumer goods conglomerates like Unilever and Nestle, flood some regions, especially during the regular typhoon season. In 2020, the CEO of Unilever expressed his interest stop selling sachets, yet, since then, Unilever has lobbied against sachet bans in India, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka.

The treaty negotiations so far have seen New Zealand push for an ambitious position that will keep oil and gas in the ground, stop the relentless production and use of plastic, and ensure a just transition to a low-carbon, zero-waste economy with leadership and expertise from indigenous and most affected communities. In the next round of talks, we need to lift the ambitions of other member states.

My ancestors shared a deep connection with Papatūānuku (our Earth mother) and our well-being is interdependent. We don’t see ourselves as being separate from nature. This indigenous worldview can lead treaty negotiations, creating systems that are less demanding of our planet and value nature over profit.

A Global Plastics Treaty can stop plastic production at the source and deliver a cleaner, safer planet for us and future generations. Governments need to step up to this moment and not let it go to waste.

Juressa Lee (Te Rarawa, Ngāpuhi, Rarotonga) is a Plastics campaigner at Greenpeace Aotearoa and a delegate to the second Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop a Global Plastics Treaty, to be held on May 29 to June 2, 2023 in Paris, France.

 

Thailand’s local newspaper Bangkok Post uses the vow of not launching a coup, promised by the Thai military days before the May 14 election, as the front story. Thailand has had periods of anti-coup protests and brutal crackdowns. Credit: Thompson Chau/IPS

By Thompson Chau
BANGKOK, May 31 2023 (IPS)

Thailand is heading to the edge of the precipice as conservative and military forces could possibly refuse to recognise the will of the people, as expressed in one of the country’s biggest election upsets.

Move Forward, a progressive reformist party mostly supported by younger Thais, and opposition heavyweight Pheu Thai, associated with exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his family, dominated the May 14 ballot in a heavy blow to army-backed rivals that have controlled the government for nearly a decade.

But the Thai establishment, which has levers over electoral, legislative and judicial bodies, may move to block the winning parties from forming a government, leading to fears of a political showdown and massive protests. Thailand has had periodic outbreaks of protests and brutal military crackdowns, but the backlash this time “will probably make the resistance to the 2019 and earlier elections look like child’s play”, veteran diplomat Laetitia van den Assum warned.

In a surprise upset, Move Forward won 152 of the 500 seats in the lower house, while Pheu Thai won 141. Prayuth and his allies suffered a humiliating defeat: Prayuth’s new United Thai Nation won just 36, and Palang Pracharat – led by former general Prawit Wongsuwan – bagged 40 seats.

However, the military junta-appointed senate, totalling 250, might prevent the elected lawmakers from forming a government. The pro-establishment parties can likely count on the support of the senators, according to thinktank CSIS.

In 2019, for example, the unelected Senate voted for coup leader Prayuth Chan-ocha as prime minister even though his Palang Pracharath Party only won 116 seats compared to Pheu Thai’s 136.

In addition, the military-controlled authorities have a record of disqualifying MPs and dissolving their parties, including dissolving Move Forward’s predecessor Future Forward and barring party leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit from taking his seat in 2019.

On May 30, eight political parties led by Move Forward started coalition talks and the establishment of a “transition team” in a bid to form the new administration.

Prayuth, now a caretaker PM, has branded the transition team’s call on the bureaucracy to cooperate “inappropriate”.

“I’m not starting any conflict with anyone. As I have told you, I adhere to democratic rules,” the outgoing leader told journalists in Bangkok.

Thailand has been ruled by its military leaders since 2014, when Prayuth Chan-ocha, then-army chief, overthrew Yingluck Shinawatra’s government in a coup. But analysts and diplomats warn that this time the risk of massive repercussions is high.

“Pita Limjaroenrat was fast on his feet to give a rough outline of his foreign policy plans almost immediately after the results were announced, followed by the news of his plan for a coalition. This put the military and other parties on the back foot. As Pita has consolidated his popularity, they have to respond to Pita’s announcements,” Laetitia van den Assum told IPS. She was previously the Dutch ambassador to Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia.

“Thailand’s ruling establishment will have a lot to worry about if it seriously undermines the outcome of the elections,” van den Assum said.

Thailand should already have a new administration in office by now with Pita as prime minister, said prominent Thai academic Thitinan Pongsudhirak, referring to how Move Forward and Pheu Thai collectively secured more than 58 percent of the elected seats and therefore enjoy a clear mandate.

“However, their government-in-waiting, with eight parties and 313 elected representatives, is facing multiple roadblocks, including the military-appointed senate and Election Commission,” commented Pongsudhirak, a professor and senior fellow of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University.

Senator Wanchai Sornsiri said he and others would have to take the party’s politics and other factors into consideration when voting for the prime minister, according to Thai news site Khaosod English, in a sign that some senators may not back Pita.

His opponents have also petitioned the Election Commission to go after Pita based on accusations that he owns media shares. Thanathorn was disqualified from being a lawmaker for the same reason after the last election.

The Commission has until mid-July to certify the poll results.

“There needs to be public pressure to be piled on these powerful but biased bodies that were appointed during the coup-dominated years. Pita is being targeted because he and his party represent an existential threat to the traditional centres of power,” Pongsudhirak said.

Young voter Sukontip Pinso, a Move Forward supporter, said she felt pleasantly surprised by the election upset.

“The result means that Thai people really want big changes in Thailand, including how political power is structured. Move forward also got a lot of votes in the south, which was crazy because people there still worship the monarchy,” she told IPS.

Sukontip, a 24-year-old working in the trade industry from Phuket, said she’s anxious about a coup and about the risk of Pheu Thai betraying the people. Pheu Thai has made multiple statements saying they would not seek to compete against Move Forward in forming a government.

“In previous coups, the Thai military made plans ahead and made a large number of people believe that it was acceptable for the military to seize power. But this time, it’s different,” Sukontip said. “If the pro-military establishment knocks Pita out of the government, we expect that will trigger the biggest protests in Thailand. The backlash will dwarf previous rallies.”

A coalition has emerged between Move Forward, Pheu Thai, and a number of other smaller parties.

However, it isn’t yet clear how this coalition will earn the votes needed to appoint Pita Limjaroenrat as prime minister if appointed senators refuse to vote for him, said Ken Mathis Lohatepanont, a Thai PhD candidate at the Department of Political Science, University of Michigan.

“What comes next is still murky,” Lohatepanont told IPS.

He also warned that backlash against Pita being disqualified or the Senate preventing a Move Forward coalition from taking power will “likely be high”, pointing to Move Forward’s broad and enthusiastic base of support across the country.

For now, Pita remains confident about getting appointed as prime minister amid worries that the conservative forces will intervene.

The unity of the senators is not the same as it was four years ago when they unanimously voted to elect Prayut as prime minister, the Move Forward leader said. They must also take into account the “significant shift in public opinion” that has developed since 2019, he added.

The outcome of this impending crisis will have a significant bearing beyond Thailand. Both China and the United States see Thailand as strategically important as a potential bulwark against each other’s efforts to sway Southeast Asia, a battleground between the two big powers.

“A top priority for the next Thai foreign minister will be to reinvigorate Thailand’s diplomacy, which historically has been very influential in Southeast Asia but which lately has been less active and influential,” retired State Department official Scot Marciel told IPS.

“The new Thai government will hopefully effectively facilitate humanitarian aid into Myanmar and withdraw its support for the Burmese military. In dealing with China and other big powers, Thailand can help ASEAN by resuming its traditional role of bolstering ASEAN’s standing,” Marciel, who was the US ambassador to ASEAN, Indonesia and Myanmar, said.

“I would expect the U.S. is hoping the coalition-building process will be allowed to proceed without interference and will respect the views of the voters,” he added.

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

• UN Hobbled by Junta and Under Pressure Over Myanmar Aid Crisis
• Myanmar’s ‘Forgotten War’ Lurches Deeper into Horror
• Africa Fights Back Against Wildlife Poachers, but Drought is Devastating

Credit: UNDP South Sudan

By Diana Gutierrez
UNITED NATIONS, May 31 2023 (IPS)

A few weeks ago we celebrated the Girls in ICT Day and I am wondering how can we keep moving the digital equality needle so that more women out of the 259 million that are disconnected today can log in and become creators and not only beneficiaries in the digital economy?

Digital technologies have permeated virtually every essential aspect of our lives. From the news we hear first thing in the morning, to school homework and connecting with our friends and family.

In just a matter of days after its launch Chat GPT had more than one million visitors and now is attracting close to 100 million users monthly. A few weeks ago, a group of industry leaders wrote an open letter to put a temporary halt to AI development for at least six months. They argue that AI technologies should be deployed under strict regulatory frameworks, be public and verifiable, just as medicines and vaccines are developed and released.

Undoubtedly AI and machine learning are a double edged-sword.

On the one hand, these technologies can help combat climate change. Agronovate in Nigeria designed a smart storage device which keeps fruits and vegetables fresh. In Morocco, Atlan Space is using AI to pilot drones collecting data and conducting surveillance missions to track environmental crimes. While in the Sahel region herders are using AI and satellite data to feed livestock with a pastoral surveillance system.

AI is also fighting the backlash against gender equality.

UNDP is using AI-based algorithms in Uruguay, the Philippines, Uganda and Colombia, to track social media, monitor gender hate speech and send signals to governments and civil society organizations.

It’s to protect women’s rights defenders, women politicians and women journalists who are increasingly experiencing cyberbullying and other forms of digital violence including doxing, trolling and flaming.

But AI has also a dark side that can deepen inequalities and cause harm, most notably for women. Women are increasingly exposed and entrapped by AI that produces deep fakes or digital images and audio that are artificially altered or manipulated by AI and deep learning to make someone do or say something they did not actually do or say.

Consequences can be devastating. In early March hundreds of sexual deepfake ads flooded Facebook and Instagram using Emma Watson’s face, a British actor and women’s rights advocate.

It is undeniable that gender biases are reproduced by AI technologies whose algorithms are trained by biased programmers shaped by discriminatory social norms, and this can have adverse results for example when women apply to credits that are awarded with AI-based credit scoring applications, or when they apply to a job that is typically done by men.

For better or for worse AI will shape the future of our world and we have not only to harness its power, but also to make sure we protect the furthest behind from potential adverse effects.

Here are some clues to achieve it.

First, we need robust legislative and regulatory frameworks capable of holding big tech companies accountable.

Second, tech companies need to further commit to addressing hate speech and gendered violence and keeping their platforms safe for everyone. Globally, 38 percent of women – that is close to one in four – have experienced online violence. The statistics are appalling and big tech companies, including Google, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft, need to be more responsible and accountable.

Third, the design of digital products including AI-based algorithms and the way they are trained must be gender equal by design and be guided by digital ethics principles. Technologies should be designed with users and address privacy and security, ensuring all people, but especially women and gender-based marginalized populations to be protected in digital spaces.

And fourth, we need more diversity in the tech industry. Big technology companies are making slow, but steady progress in increasing women’s participation not only across the career ladder, but also in technical roles. Large global technology firms, on average, reached nearly 33 percent overall female representation in their workforces and 25 percent in technical roles in 2022. Still a long way to go.

Digital innovation can be truly a game changer in our modern world and there’s so much female potential and talent out there to flip the script. Young innovators are already helping to redraw the future of AI with solutions that are addressing today’s most pressing problems.

UNDP firmly believes that women tech founders’ tailored support, dedicated acceleration programmes and increased access to capital is needed now more than ever. So we’re supporting thousands of women across the globe with flagship programmes such as the Arab Women Innovators Programme or the BOOST Women Innovators Programme in Europe and Central Asia.

Look at some of the most amazing stories of young women innovators supported by UNDP that are spearheading the field of AI for good.

Samar Hamdy (Egypt), co-founder of DevisionX and developer of Tuba.ai, a platform to label, train data and deploy AI-based applications with zero code; Mariam Torosyan (Armenia), CEO and founder of SafeYou, a mobile application designed to reduce gender-based violence through safety and community functions; Sara Saeed (Pakistan) CEO and co-founder of Sehat Kahani, a telehealth platform that connects a network of predominantly female health professionals to patients using a telemedicine application that allows real time and instant chat/audio/video doctor consultation, e-diagnostics, e-pharmacy, and health counselling; or Salua García (Colombia), co-founder of Symplifica, a tech startup with a mobile app that facilitates the formalization of domestic workers.

Let’s keep supporting girls in ICT, those young innovators that are redrawing the future of AI and bringing digital equality closer.

Diana Gutierrez is Manager UNDP Global Programme on Business for Gender Equality and Global Lead of Gender & Digital.

Source UNDP

IPS UN Bureau

 

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');  

Student evacuees from Sudan wait to return to Nigeria. Credit: Handout

By Abdullahi Jimoh
ABUJA, May 30 2023 (IPS)

Seven weeks after the bloody conflict in Khartoum, Sudan started, and 41 days after the Nigerian government began the evacuation of residents studying there, students are still waiting to be airlifted back to their home country.

“Today is exactly one week after we left Khartoum for Port Sudan. Our living conditions are not favourable, but the biggest problem is the lack of communication from the (Nigerian) embassy,” said Abdul-Hammid Alhassan, a student who was evacuating war-torn Khartoum and travelling to Port Sudan. This was the first time IPS interviewed him. The distance between the cities was 825 kilometres, and he and his colleagues felt abandoned. Now weeks later, he is still waiting.

“Our food supply isn’t constant; we don’t have enough water and good medical care, although there are people with poor health among us,” he told IPS on May 9, 2023. His voice trembles with fear and rage.

Now he has a greater problem; while most of his fellow students have been evacuated, he remains behind.

One and a half weeks into the bloody confrontation between the Sudanese Arms Force (SAF) and the Rapid Support Force (RSF) in Sudan, the Nigerian government started to evacuate the students—after other countries like Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States who quickly to evacuated their nationals from the warzone.

In preparation for the evacuation, the government paid USD 1.2 million through the Central Bank of Nigeria via the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) for 40 buses to convey the students to Aswan in Egypt.

On April 26, Nigerians in Diaspora Commission’s chair Abike Dabiri Erewa said that 5,500 students were ready for evacuation to the Egyptian border to return to Nigeria. An evacuee told IPS that the buses arrived around 2 pm Central Africa Time (CAT), but the evacuation didn’t go as planned, with a media outlet HumanAngle saying the fleeing students were left in the desert by the drivers who complained about non-payment of the balance. After the payment was settled, the evacuees continued on their route.

On May 4, 376 students arrived in Abuja, and they were each given N100 thousand (about USD 216) as a stipend so they could travel back to their families. By May 11, a further 2,246 had been evacuated, according to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) – but Alhassan was not among them.

He is convinced something “fishy” is behind the delays. Weeks later, he is still awaiting transport home.

“They are selecting our names at random. We don’t know when we will leave here, but I’m convinced there is a kind of ploy and corruption going on to keep us staying as long as possible to keep the cash flowing from the federal government,” he said hopelessly.

On May 30, Alhassan says he and what he estimates to be about 300 fellow students (both women and men) still hadn’t been evacuated.

An official from Nigerian Embassy in Khartoum said they were working to return the remaining students to Nigeria.

“The embassy is available, and officials were there for screening exercise while waiting for the federal government to schedule the flight,” the official told IPS.

The Director General of the National Emergency Management Agency, Mustapha Ahmed, told IPS that NEMA had been trying to evacuate all the students and follow Embassy recommendations and advice.

“We only wait for Embassy’s recommendations, they advise, and we follow,” Ahmed said.

Sani Bala Sheu, a Kano-based current affairs analyst and former Civil Liberties Organization (CLO) activist speculated there was something untoward at play.

“In a situation like this, there will certainly be corruption,” he said. “Why can’t the Nigerian government deploy the methods of Dubai or Turkey and other advanced countries in evacuating their citizens? The federal government should ensure that all the students returned home safely.”

Mukhtar Saeed, one of the Nigerian student refugees in Port Sudan and among 265 that were airlifted to Nigeria in mid-May, said he was anxious because Alhassan is not among those who have returned.

“He wasn’t allowed to pass by the embassy officials because he had been very vocal since the war started, so they marked him and decided to punish him for absolutely no reason,” Saeed told IPS.

Why Do Nigerian Students Study Abroad?

The budget for education falls short of the 15-20 percent recommended by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization UNESCO for developing countries, with 8.2 percent of the budget allocation.

A long-term disagreement between the government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in an eight-month strike and closure of higher education facilities.

As a result, middle-class Nigerians seek education from abroad. Data from Campus France shows that Nigeria tops among the migrating sub-Saharan students in Africa, with 71,700 Nigerian students representing 17 percent studying abroad, according to its 2020 study.

Middle-class northerners from Nigeria who are predominantly Muslim sought higher education in Sudan.

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

• Nigeria’s Unbanked, Poor Get Reprieve After Court Rules Naira Deadline Unconstitutional
• Nigeria’s Post-Election Reset Needs Youth-Centred Accountable Leaders
• Academics’ Strike Puts Spotlight on Nigeria’s Brain Drain

By Eric Siegel
May 30 2023 (IPS)

Ocean innovators, investors, scientists, and the Canadian government are aligning to position Canada as the global leader in ocean-climate solutions.

Earlier this year, the department of Innovation, Science, and Economic Development Canada (ISED) committed $125 million for Canada’s Ocean Supercluster (OSC) to grow Canada’s ocean economy.

More recently, ISED announced $154 million in funding to the Transforming Climate Action (TCA) research initiative through the Canada First Research Excellent Fund. Led by Dalhousie University in collaboration with Université du Québec à Rimouski, Université Laval and Memorial University of Newfoundland, the research will be the most intensive investigation into the ocean’s role in climate change and ocean-based climate mitigation ever undertaken.

Additional investments from national and international industry, research, and government partners bring the full project value to $400 million. This represents a globally significant investment to position Canada as a leader in ocean-climate science, innovation, climate solutions, and equitable adaption.

TCA is much more than a university science project. In addition to driving global research and innovation leadership from Canada, the initiative has a mandate to facilitate commercialization of the research to support economic growth and social innovation.

Driven by a robust innovation and commercialization strategy, and in collaboration with our many industry partners, TCA will advance the ocean science, technology, and innovations to start new ocean ventures and grow the existing cadre of excellent Canadian companies. TCA will deliver value to the OSC members and the other industry partners by co-funding world-class industrial postdoctoral fellows to work in partner companies, spur innovation through co-funded Seed Fund projects, and appraise the OSC and other industry associations with updates from frontline research.

And this is just the beginning of partnerships and innovation – TCA welcomes new relevant, strategic partnerships.

The time is right to make these strategic investments in Canada because the economic and climate mitigation opportunities are epic. The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) asserted that all pathways to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C require carbon dioxide removal (CDR).

The amount of CDR required, depending on how quickly emissions are reduced, ranges from 5-16 gigaton CO2 per year by mid-century. With a forecast future value of $100/ton of CO2 removal, this would create an annual market value of between $500 billion to $1.6 trillion USD. Because the ocean stores 20 times more carbon than all forests and soils combined, and 50 times more carbon than the atmosphere, the ocean holds great promise of providing safe, responsible and durable carbon sequestration.

Canada has the potential to become the global leader for ocean-climate solution industries in the same way we have seen other regions transform into international hotspots. Think of how Austin, Texas became a tech hub, how Ontario become global leader in automotive manufacturing, or Aberdeen, Scotland’s transition into a global leader in offshore oil and gas technology.

Canada is already advancing towards this goal with world-class ocean industries working across most of the relevant sectors. Substantial Canadian non-dilutive funding and tax incentives are available from the likes of the Industrial Research Assistance Program, Sustainable Development Technology Canada, and Scientific Research and Experimental Development to support early and growing companies.

There is a well-aligned ocean innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem in Canada, including Novarium, The Launch, COAST, COVE, Ocean Startup Project, and Creative Destruction Lab Oceans, and the OSC is continuing to support strategic innovations and collaborations to grow Canadian ocean companies. The TCA project will further advance science, technologies, and regulatory innovation to enable scalable ocean-climate ventures.

An identified gap in Canada is the dearth of risk capital focused on investing in massively scalable Canadian ocean-climate technologies and services. The U.S. has Propeller, a $100M venture capital fund focused on ocean-climate solutions, and Norway has Katapult Ocean, a $50 million USD venture capital fund focused on ocean-climate and ocean-energy solutions. There is not an equivalent private venture fund in Canada with the right people in the right places to identify, support and scale early-stage ocean-climate ventures.

Based on Canada’s strengths and momentum in ocean-climate innovation, a private fund would attract additional private money into the ocean sector and substantial foreign direct investments into the country, thereby growing investment resources across Canada.

The time for climate mitigation is short and the economic and impact rewards are enormous. Advances through OSC, TCA, and the many other people, programs, and companies working in Canada are aligned to be successful. This is the decade to advance science, innovate technologies, take risks, and make calculated and informed investments. Now is our time to put Canada on the map as the global-leader in innovative ocean-climate solutions.

Excerpt:

This story was originally published by Canada's Ocean Supercluster.

By Simone Galimberti
KATHMANDU, Nepal, May 30 2023 (IPS)

There have been an array of proposals to sustain journalism around the world– from tax incentives and subsidies to the idea of allocating 1% of governments’ GDP to a drastically increased ODA for independent journalism in the global South.

The debate has been intense and rightly so.

What is needed is a long-term project that would put together a global architecture supporting serious and reliable journalism regardless of the size and business model of the outlets producing it. Amid such calls for governments and philanthropies to do more, something finally is moving.

Yet the needs require real ambition and farsightedness that in practice means a coherent global governance to safeguard trustworthy media worldwide. The International Fund for Public Interest Media, initially announced by France during the Paris Peace Forum in 2022, is taking shape and an initial pilot cohort of media outlets already got selected.

Because of its hybrid form of governance, independent but backed by governments and major philanthropies alike, the IFPIM could become the biggest source of funds for media around the world.

As per the information provided on its website, it has already raised $50 million USD from more than 15 governments, philanthropies, and corporate entities but the ambition is much bigger.

The Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA), an initiative of the bipartisan National Endowment for Democracy, an entity funded by the American Congress, estimates that global spending to support independent media globally should be $1 billion a year.

The reality on the ground– considering also how many legacy media houses are struggling with revenues and a declining readership– might require a much bigger figure.

If the situation was already dire before the pandemic, COVID was the knockdown blow for many media around the world that were already assaulted by the damaging impacts of big tech companies and their social media platforms. And now we also have to deal with an even more threatening and disruptive use of artificial intelligence.

While AI-based technologies can offer some positive elements on how media engage with public, the risks are enormous. “AI-based technologies also have an enormous potential to harm our information ecosystems and threaten the fundamental human rights on which robust, independent media systems, and free societies” reads a resolution recently passed at the International Press Institute General Assembly just held in Vienna.

With this gloomy scenario, the public interest media landscape is rapidly turning into what experts define as “news desert. We should be all very weary of the perils associated with its consequences. After all, as explained by the World Trends Report published by UNESCO, it is a vital issue because journalism is a public good that must be protected at any costs.

In such a scenario the fact that the IFPIM aims to reach $500 million USD, itself a milestone in this quest, is a relief. Still, it is not enough.

An issue to be taken into account is the fact that we are dealing with a fragmented landscape in this line of sector. There are already a small but increasingly more visible and impactful ecosystem, still in construction that is made up of blended agencies supporting independent media around the world.

Some of the most significant among them are the Media Development Investment Fund, MDIF that takes a more investor like approach then what seems the still in construction approach of IFPIM, has been already able to provide a variety of funding options.

With also a mixed lineup of investors, MDIF has already invested $300 million USD in 148 media outlets from 47 different countries. In addition, there is an increasing number of “intermediary” organizations.

Some of them like Pluralis acts more like investors (among its own backers there is MDIF). Others offer a blended package, financial and capacity building like Free Press Unlimited IMS, International Media Support while United for News takes a market approach of linking ads with local online news outlets.

BBC Media Action and Internews, on other hand, are intermediary closer to the field.

Though each of these represent a different model of support, are different from each other, they are all aimed at enhancing the viability of robust, independent media.

Interestingly we are seeing a crosspollination of such initiatives because their backers are often interlinked to each other with a major philanthropic foundation or bilateral donor supporting multiple initiatives at the same time.

And we are not mentioning the mechanisms that several bilateral institutions in the West are putting together only exclusively to safeguard and protect journalists in danger.

For example, the recently announced Reporters Shield, an undertaking of USAID, is particularly designed on tackling SLAPPs, the strategic lawsuits against public participation.

Undoubtedly the IFPIM is going to be a standout catalyst but it is rightly showing commitment to partner with other key stakeholders.

The recent MoU signed with Reporters without Frontiers, RSF and the Forum on Information and Democracy, the latter itself a global initiative leading the debate on safeguarding journalism that is housed at RSF, is promising but it is not enough.

If the ambitions of IFPIM is to become a global fund for media and journalism support akin to the funding mechanisms being used to fight HIV and Tuberculosis, all the actors investing in independent media must truly come together.

The fact that some of the major philanthropic organizations are putting resources in different baskets could be a positive element in a yet to establish globally coordinated multilayered approach promoting journalism and media houses.

Such common intent would enable a truly global ecosystem allowing media to return to prominence they used to command and becoming, once again, a central pillar of public debate.

First governments with adequate fiscal capacity should do whatever it takes to support their own media industry. Some of them in Europe are already doing so and also in the USA there are discussions for a new legislation and other financial tools, including cash vouchers for the citizens to buy subscriptions.

Yet if we want to safeguard journalism and media around the world, it is essential to boost public and private media working with integrity in the North, including legacy newsrooms.

It is not just about providing incentives, rebates or other financial support or ensuring that big tech owned platforms pay what is due to the newsrooms like it is slowly starting to happen.

It is also about re-persuading people, including the youths, to read news, on and off line.
Massive awareness initiatives involving schools and universities should also be prioritized in a way that a common user of news, can also turn into a citizen journalist or opinion writer.

Second, a truly global and truly massive funding for media and journalism should be established even by merging existing entities. The result could become mega funder or donor of donors, a true Global Fund for Media and Journalism.

All major governments and philanthropic organizations would inject financial resources and know-how that would then trickle to other smaller actors in the supply chain.

In a potential ecosystem protecting media and journalism, there would be enough spaces for intermediary organizations like the ones already operating close to media houses on the ground, especially in the global South.

It might be that entities like IFPIM and MDIF, each with its unique identity and features but united in their intents, one day might come together or might themselves act as at the upper level of a pyramid sustaining journalism and media, just a step below what would be a Global Fund for Media and Journalism.

Journalism and the thriving of media should also become a central area of focus of the United Nations. Despite the obvious resistance that might come from certain camps, the United Nations Secretary General António Guterres should include it in its ambitious Our Common Agenda.

Two of its twelve strategic pillars, “promote peace and prevent conflict” together with “build trust” should be strengthened with initiatives focused on media. A global code of conduct that promotes integrity in public information, one of the milestones under “build trust” should be accompanied by other bolder actions.

Let’s not forget that UNESCO has been already involved in the promotion of media with two programs, like the International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC) on the top of the narrower, journalist focused protection tool Global Media Defense Fund.

Positively, at the present, the momentum to save the media is gaining strength.
Yet it is indispensable to ensure that the focus is going to be on medium and long term measures rather than on a short term fixes.

Without a global design and ambition, it’s certain that the situation is only going to be worse. All global actors, together with the professionals and activists on the ground, must come together. The level and speed of discussions around the future of media must step up.

It is only with profound changes in the funding mechanisms of journalism that serious and reliable news outlets both in North and South, either legacy or startups thriving on internet, will be able to continue to operate and thrive.

There is no firewall to stop the journalism’s decadency. Only urgency and bold actions offer the best chance to ensure a “New Deal” for global media and journalism.

Simone Galimberti is the co-founder of ENGAGE and The Good Leadership. He writes mostly about youths’ involvement in the UN, social development and human rights.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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');  

The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction has now reported on the “Staggering’ rise in climate emergencies in the last 20 years.’ Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

By Baher Kamal
ROME, May 29 2023 (IPS)

Please stop repeating all this softened wording, such as climate change, climate-related hazards, climate crisis, or extreme weather events… And just call it what it really is: climate carnage.

Indeed, several scientific findings, released ahead of the 2023 World Environment Day (5 June), staggeringly indicate that the world-spread climate carnage is predicted to hit all-time records.

See: global temperatures are set to break records during the next five years, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on 17 May 2023 alerted.

 

Warmest year ever

“There is a 98% likelihood that at least one of the next five years, and the five-year period, will be the warmest on record.”

It was baffling that nations were continuing knowingly to sow the seeds of our own destruction, despite the science and evidence that we are turning our only home into an uninhabitable hell for millions of people

Mami Mizutori, UNDRR chief

The world-leading meteorological body then informs that such a rise is fuelled by heat-trapping greenhouse gases and a naturally occurring El Niño weather pattern.

El Niño is a naturally occurring climate pattern associated with the warming of the ocean surface temperatures in the Central and Eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. It occurs on average every two to seven years, and episodes usually last nine to 12 months.

El Niño steers weather patterns around the world, WMO further explains, “can aggravate extreme weather events,” and its events are typically associated with increased rainfall in parts of southern South America, the Southern United States, the Horn of Africa and Central Asia.

“This year is already predicted to be hotter than 2022 and the fifth or sixth hottest year on record. 2024 could be even hotter as the impact of the weather phenomenon sets in.”

 

‘Staggering rise…’

Mind you: This WMO report is just an update that would be logically expected. Indeed, it actually adds to earlier reiterated findings about the worse to come.

For instance, the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) has now reported on the “Staggering’ rise in climate emergencies in the last 20 years.’

According to its report, there has already been an 80% increase in the number of people affected by disasters since 2015.

 

Out of control

“However, many of the lessons from past disasters have been ignored.”

The consequences are that now a steadily increasing number of people are being affected by larger, ever more complex and more expensive disasters because decision-makers are failing to put people first and prevent risks from becoming disasters.

“Many of these disasters are climate-related, and in light of the latest warnings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), countries are likely to face even worse disasters if global temperatures continue to rise.”

 

“Brutally unequal”

The impacts are “brutally unequal,” with developing countries hit the hardest, as highlighted by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR).

Its report multi-country review points to the rapid accumulation of risk that is building up, intersecting with the risks of breaching planetary boundaries, biodiversity and ecosystem limits – which is spiralling out of control.

Not so new, anyway. Indeed the UNDRR chief, Mami Mizutori, reminded already at the end of 2020 that the international community pledged in Paris in 2015 to reduce global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

 

‘Uninhabitable hell…’

However, she added, “It was “baffling” that nations were continuing knowingly “to sow the seeds of our own destruction, despite the science and evidence that we are turning our only home into an uninhabitable hell for millions of people”.

One doesn’t have to look hard to find examples of how disasters are becoming worse, said Mami Mizutori. “The sad fact is that many of these disasters are preventable because they are caused by human decisions.”

The point is that already a year ago, the UNDRR warned that “by deliberately ignoring risk, the World is bankrolling its own destruction.”

But this should not be surprising: many fingers have been pointing to the responsibility of the short-sighted politicians, who are too often influenced by the powerful money-making business, that they end up turning a blind eye on such mass destruction.

 

Drought, heat “100 times more likely”

On 5 May 2023, the World Meteorological Organization reported that climate ‘change’ made both the devastating drought in the Horn of Africa and the record April temperatures in the Western Mediterranean at least 100 times more likely.

Regarding the Horn of Africa, it said that the drought was made much more severe because of the low rainfall and increased evaporation caused by higher temperatures in a world which is now nearly 1.2°C warmer than pre-industrial times.

 

Mediterranean heatwave

In late April, parts of Southwestern Europe and North Africa experienced a massive heatwave that brought extremely high temperatures never previously recorded in the region at this time of the year, with temperatures reaching 36.9 – 41 °C in the four countries.

“The event broke temperature records by a large margin, against the backdrop of an intense drought.”

“The intense heat wave came on top of a preexisting multi-year drought, exacerbating the lack of water in Western Mediterranean regions and threatening the 2023 crop yield.”

 

Spreading everywhere

Across the world, climate change has made heat waves more common, longer and hotter, reports WMO based on researchers’ analysis that looked at the average of the maximum temperature for three consecutive days in April across southern Spain and Portugal, most of Morocco and the northwest part of Algeria.

 

Crops under threat

As other analyses of extreme heat in Europe have found, “extreme temperatures are increasing faster in the region than climate models have predicted,” said the researchers.

Until overall greenhouse gas emissions are halted, global temperatures will continue to increase and events like these will become more frequent and severe.

“The intense heat wave came on top of a preexisting multi-year drought, exacerbating the lack of water in Western Mediterranean regions and threatening the 2023 crop yield.”

 

And the carnage goes on

In short, the ongoing climate carnage is expected to move from the worst to the worst.

And anyway, the term ‘carnage’ should not sound at all new.

Indeed, it was already spelt out by the United Nations’ top chief, António Guterres, in September 2022, following his field visit to the vast Pakistan’s regions impacted by unprecedented devastating floods.

The people of Pakistan are the victims of “a grim calculus of climate injustice”, said Guterres, reminding that while the country was responsible for less than 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions, it is paying a “supersized price for man-made climate change”.

The UN chief stated that he saw in those regions “a level of climate carnage beyond imagination.”

By the way, do you expect that the coming COP28 in Dubai (November 30th-December 12th, 2023) will come out with anything different from the usual ‘politically correct,” “radical chic” statements?

Dr Paul Kinoti at the JKUAT snail farm, where he is researching the potential of snail slime cough syrup. Credit: Wilson Odhiambo/IPS

By Wilson Odhiambo
NAIROBI, May 29 2023 (IPS)

Snails and slime are usually followed by the thought ‘EEW!’ from most people … some might even scream at seeing a snail near them.

For Dr Paul Kinoti, however, these slimy creatures could earn him international recognition because his research on snails landed his institution, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), a Ksh. 127 million (USD 1 million) grant.

The grant, awarded by the Cherasco Institute of Snail Breeding, Italy, is expected to fund a two-phase research project to produce cough syrup meant for children under five.

As a lecturer at JKUAT’s Horticulture and Food Security department, Kinoti has specialized in non-conventional farming systems for over a decade.

Non-conventional farming is a system that employs modified/unique farming methods in crop and animal production. Kinoti has been researching insects and worms (vermiculture), concentrating on how they add value to supplement crop and livestock production.

According to Kinoti, snails are already associated with a wide variety of products, including animal feeds, skin care products, pharmaceuticals, and fertilizer.

“My research focuses on unique farming methods that farmers are not used to, including rearing insects and worms as a source of livestock feed and fertilizer for plants. I keep black soldier flies and worms which are a major source of proteins for livestock, especially for poultry and fish,” Kinoti explained to IPS.

And as a food security specialist, one of his goals is to encourage people to include snails in their diet, given that it is rich in proteins and iron.

“Lack of awareness is the main reason why Kenyans do not see snails as a source of food for themselves, and getting them to accept it will be a difficult task. This is why we are using a simpler approach by encouraging farmers to take up snail farming to get used to the idea of having snails around them,” he told IPS.

Across the globe, majorly in Asia, parts of Europe, and West Africa, snails are a known delicacy.

The snail products are currently being manufactured within JKUAT, where, through training, they have engaged local farmers to supply them with snail slime (mucin). The institution offers these farmers short, three-day courses on how to rear snails and extract their slime, which they later sell to the institution for profit.

“We are grateful to the institution for opening our minds to an opportunity that has become quite lucrative. Most of the people in Kiambu County are either full-time farmers or have a piece of land somewhere that they have put aside for farming activities, making this a good source of extra income. Snail farming is new to us. Most would never even have considered practicing it due to the culture that we have grown up with,” said Antony Njoroge, one of the local farmers who now farms snails.

During his PhD studies in Austria, Kinoti was introduced to snail farming by his host, a snail farmer.

“When I came back, I realized that snail farming was still alien to Kenya, and rather than just focus on rearing the snails, I decided to research their value addition for farming. It is from this that I was able to come up with different products such as fertilizer, animal feeds, and skin care products,” Kinoti told IPS. The products have been certified by the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) and are already in the market.

The idea for the cough syrup did not come about until 2019, when Kinoti conducted field research on snails in Kumasi, Ghana. His visit happened to be during the flu season, where he was surprised at the strange concoctions that parents were using as remedy for their children who were coughing.

“I noticed that rather than being given ginger or lemon tea that most of us are used to when someone gets the flu, their parents were collecting snail slime and mixing it with some bit of honey which they gave the children as a remedy,” Kinoti explained to IPS. This idea stuck in my mind, and when I came back, I decided to do more research on it.

The project’s first phase, which is meant to take two years, will involve identifying the best snail species for production and research on snail slime while encouraging farmers to breed them. The second phase will be manufacturing and producing the cough syrup once it has been approved by the Kenya Food and Drug Authority (KFDA).

The snail species commonly used for slime production is the African giant land snail (Achatina Fulica), which produces up to 4 milliliters of slime per snail. It takes about 250 of these giant snails to make a liter of slime, extracted once weekly.

The Achatina Fulica is native to East Africa, where its origin can be traced to Kenya and Tanzania. Across the globe, it is regarded as an invasive species due to its ability to produce colonies from a single female. It feeds in large quantities and is a carrier for plant pathogens, making it a pest to farmers when it invades their farms. It has spread across the globe through exportation to Europe and Asia as a delicacy, being bought into those areas as a pet or by accidental transportation when it latches on to something.

The project involves a number of experts (mainly within the university) from different departments to help oversee its success. These experts include animal scientists, food scientists, health scientists, and other technical staff who help run the snail farm.

It also works in conjunction with other major institutions such as the Kenya National Museum, whose work is to help them identify the best type of snails for slime production, and the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), which is the main stakeholder and body that provides them with the license they need to carry out snail farming in Kenya.

As a conservation measure, the snails are not supposed to be harmed during the slime extraction, which makes it a delicate process that involves using citric acid, and the extraction is only done once a week.

Once successful, the cough syrup is expected to help lower the cost of importation since everything will be manufactured locally, thus helping save a lot of money. The farmers are also excited that they no longer have to rely on expensive fertilizer and animal feeds from the government, which has always made their input expensive while giving them little returns.

As a delicacy, snails are primarily spotted in high-end hotels that are mostly visited by foreigners and tourists.

“Growing up, the one memory I had about snails from my biology lessons was that they caused bilharzia, which made me dislike them. Today, I am one of the suppliers of snail meat to some big hotels in Nairobi and Mombasa,” says Brian Wandera, a local businessman from Nairobi. “It is amazing what knowledge can do.”

“I buy the snails from the farmers in Kiambu and sell them to the hotels at a profit. Locally, Kenyans are yet to adopt snail meat as a source of food,” he added.

The grant is also expected to help empower women and the youth by providing them with employment opportunities through training on snail farming, according to Kinoti, an investment of Ksh. 20,000 (USD 190) can earn a snail farmer between Ksh. 50,000 (USD 450) and 100,000 (USD 950) monthly once the snails start to produce their slime, usually at four months. The slime is categorized into three grades which are sold at different prices.

“We buy the slime from the farmers at a fee of Ksh. 1200 (USD 11) per liter for grade A slime, Ksh. 850 (USD 8) per liter for grade B slime and Ksh. 650 (USD 6) for grade C slime,” Kinoti concluded.

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

• New Mosquito Species Could Derail Fight Against Malaria
• Africa, Development & Aid, Featured, Headlines, Health, TerraViva United Nations HEALTH Bringing Specialist Telemedicine to Children of Rural Kenya
• Drones To Help Fishers Avoid Border Conflicts on Lake Victoria

Carbon taxes can incorporate the environmental cost of doing business to a product’s final price. Credit: Bigstock

By Tatiana Falcão
May 29 2023 (IPS)

Reducing carbon emissions is critical for combating climate change. And one effective way to do this is through the use of carbon taxes.

Carbon taxes are among some of the most efficient policies in pricing carbon, particularly if employed at “choke points” – specific points in the production or supply chain where carbon taxes can be applied – at the upstream level. This is because it allows the process to reach the whole of the economy, without the need to focus on certain industries or sectors.

The lack of a robust tax policy framework that accounts for the environmental damage resulting from private investment means that companies have ultimately been free riding on the environment and society has been paying for that price by now being confronted with the adverse effects of climate change

An upstream carbon tax is simple to administer and can impact both the formal and the informal economies, a point which is particularly relevant for Africa where most countries are either middle- and low-income countries.

Carbon taxes can incorporate the environmental cost of doing business to a product’s final price. The environmental cost of doing business ultimately translates into the cost of the emissions released and waste produced because of a manufacturing process. That cost has been largely avoided or undervalued by corporates.

The lack of a robust tax policy framework that accounts for the environmental damage resulting from private investment means that companies have ultimately been free riding on the environment and society has been paying for that price by now being confronted with the adverse effects of climate change.

Failure to account for the environmental cost of doing business through a carbon tax also provides for the indirect subsidization of carbon intensive products. These products are at a competitive advantage because they have been using “standard” technologies and are part of the routine industrial functions.

A shift in the way society consumes and relies on energy products will require also a change in the valuation of energy forms. By internalizing the carbon equivalent externality via a carbon tax, a government is capable of equalizing consumption patterns by using cardon laden fuel sources as the pricing benchmark.

As a result, every additional ton of carbon in a particular fuel source is accounted for in the final price. Green and brown energy sources can hence compete in parity of conditions, in an environment where the least carbon intensive product receives the lowest price.

Consumers sensitive to the price difference, will seek to consume more of the low carbon fuels and products, fostering the green transition process. The mechanics are more pronounced in Africa where the proportion of low-income consumers is highest and therefore even a small price difference can cause a change to a consumption pattern.

The Africa Tax Administration Forum (ATAF) has recently released a carbon tax policy brief to guide African governments on how to best apply a carbon tax policy that is capable of conferring a whole of government approach. By this we mean how governments can act to establish a carbon price that equally burdens all segments of the economy.

The policy brief explores the key features in the design of a carbon tax that can meet the dual objective of raising revenues while conferring a positive effect on the environment. Beyond carbon tax, the brief also discusses the role of supplementary policies in achieving climate goals. For example, there is ample discussion concerning the need for countries to assess and eventually eliminate harmful fossil fuel subsidies, in line with the commitments assumed by African countries under the Glasgow Pact, the role of implicit carbon pricing in complementing explicit pricing approaches, and general remarks on measures to alleviate concerns around potential competitive disadvantages triggered from the implementation of a carbon tax.

African countries are also facing the increasing use of Border Carbon Adjustment (BCA) measures, like the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). These measures add a carbon price to products imported into a country if the carbon price has not been added in the country of origin or production. This means that, if there is no carbon price in the country of origin, the destination country will add a carbon fee at the border upon import.

The EU is still establishing the CBAM but its price is expected to be around EUR 100 t/CO2e, based on the price set by the European Emissions Trading Scheme. African countries that do not have a carbon fee and export these products to the EU may lose money because of the price difference. Other countries, like the United States, Canada, Korea, and Taiwan, are also considering similar fees to account for the environmental cost of doing business.

The world is changing, and we need to consider the environmental costs of producing and transporting goods. This new normal means that the price of products will include the environmental costs. African governments can lead the way by introducing policies that include carbon taxes to promote sustainable development and reduce our impact on the environment.

It’s time to act!

Tatiana Falcão is a Ph.D in environmental taxation and a consultant to African Tax Authorities Forum (ATAF). ATAF’s carbon policy brief can be found here: https://bit.ly/3OH1CyH

 

Young women from the Brazilian state of Bahia attend an informational campaign which also hands out menstrual hygiene products. Poverty and the lack of adequate information on this subject affect millions of girls, adolescents and adult women. CREDIT: Government of Bahia

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, May 26 2023 (IPS)

Menstrual hygiene management is elusive for millions of poor women and girls in Latin America, who suffer because their living conditions make it difficult or impossible for them to access resources and services that could make menstruation a simple normal part of life.

“When my period comes, I miss class for three or four days. My family can’t afford to buy the sanitary napkins that my sister and I need. We use cloths for the blood, although they give me an uncomfortable rash,” says Omaira*, a 15-year-old high school student.

From her low-income neighborhood of Brisas del Sur, in Ciudad Guayana, 500 kilometers southeast of Caracas, she speaks to IPS by phone: “We can’t buy pills to relieve our pain either. And my period is irregular, it doesn’t come every month, but there are no medical services here for me to go and treat that.”

In Venezuela, “one in four women does not have menstrual hygiene products and they improvise unhygienic alternatives, such as old clothes, cloths, cardboard or toilet paper to make pads that function as sanitary napkins,” activist Natasha Saturno, with the Solidarity Action NGO, tells IPS.

“The big problem with these improvised products is that they can cause, at best, discomfort and embarrassment, and at worst, infections that compromise their health,” says Saturno, director of enforceability of rights at the NGO that conducts health assistance and documentation programs and surveys.

Campaigns that adult and young women have carried out in Mexico and Colombia demanding the right to menstrual health managed to get the authorities to eliminate the value added tax on essential feminine hygiene products. CREDIT: Nora Hinojo/UN Mexico

Universal problem, comprehensive approach

Is this a local, focalized problem? Not at all: “On any given day, more than 300 million women worldwide are menstruating.  In total, an estimated 500 million lack access to menstrual products and adequate facilities for menstrual hygiene management (MHM),” states a World Bank study.

“Today more than ever we need to bring visibility to the situation of women and girls who do not have access to and education about menstrual hygiene. Communication makes the difference,” said Hugo González, representative of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Peru.

UNFPA says there is broad agreement on what girls and women need for good menstrual health, and argues that comprehensive approaches that combine education with infrastructure and with products and efforts to combat stigma are most successful in achieving good menstrual health and hygiene.

The essential elements are: safe, acceptable, and reliable supplies to manage menstruation; privacy for changing the materials; safe and private washing facilities; and information to make appropriate decisions.

UNFPA’s theme this year for international Menstrual Hygiene Day, which is celebrated every May 28, is “Making menstruation a normal fact of life by 2030”, the target date for compliance with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the international community at the United Nations.

United Nations Population Fund workers prepare packages of menstrual hygiene items for women from poor communities in Central America. The cost of some of these products makes them unaffordable for many families. CREDIT: UNFPA

The pink tax

Nine out of 31 countries in the region consider menstrual hygiene products essential, which makes them exempt from value added tax or reduced VAT, according to the study “Sexist Taxes in Latin America” ​​by Germany’s Friedrich Ebert Foundation.

After a “Tax-free Menstruation” campaign, in 2018 Colombia became the first country in the Americas to eliminate VAT – 16 percent – on menstrual hygiene products. Its neighbor Venezuela still charges 16 percent VAT, and Argentina, Chile, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay charge VAT between 18 and 22 percent on such products.

Colombia was joined by Ecuador, Guyana, Jamaica, Mexico – where street demonstrations were held against charging VAT on menstrual products – Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago. Other countries have reduced VAT, such as Costa Rica, Panama, Paraguay and Peru, while in Brazil VAT differs between states and averages 7 percent.

The so-called “pink tax” obviously affects the price of menstrual hygiene products such as disposable and reusable sanitary pads and menstrual cups, which becomes especially burdensome in countries with high inflation and depreciated currencies, such as Argentina and Venezuela.

According to the average price of the cheapest brands, ten disposable sanitary pads can cost just under a dollar in Mexico, 1.50 dollar in Argentina or Brazil, 1.60 dollar in Colombia, Peru or Venezuela, and almost two dollars in Costa Rica.

“It’s an important problem,” Saturno points out, “in a country like Venezuela, where the majority of the population lives in poverty and the minimum wage – although it has been increased with some stipends – is still just five dollars a month.”

Adult women, young women and girls participate in a session to share information and experiences organized by the Colombian association Menstruating Princesses, which emphasizes the importance of education to combat taboos and make menstruation a normal, stress-free experience. CREDIT: Menstruating Princesses

Hostile environment, scarce education

“If you often can’t buy sanitary pads, that’s the smallest problem. The worst thing is the shame you feel if you go to work and the cloth fails to keep your clothes free of blood, or if you catch an infection,” Nancy *, who at the age of 45 has been an informal sector worker in numerous occupations and trades in Caracas, told IPS.“Poverty causes women and adolescent girls to miss days of secondary school or work because they do not have the supplies they need when they menstruate. It becomes a vicious circle, because their academic or work performance is affected, hindering their chances of developing their full potential and earning a better income.” -- Natasha Saturno

The mother of four young people lives in Gramoven, a poor neighborhood in the northwest of the capital. Her two unmarried daughters, ages 18 and 22, have had experiences similar to Nancy’s on their way to school, in the neighborhood, on the bus, and on the subway.

“The thing is, the period is not seen as something natural, boys and men see it as something dirty, at work they sometimes do not understand that if you are in pain you have to stay at home,” said Nancy. “And when you work for yourself, you have to go out no matter what, because if you don’t go out, no money comes in.”

Saturno says that “poverty causes women and adolescent girls to miss days of secondary school or work because they do not have the supplies they need when they menstruate.”

“It becomes a vicious circle, because their academic or work performance is affected, hindering their chances of developing their full potential and earning a better income,” she adds.

But the problem “goes far beyond materials, it does not end just because someone obtains the products; it includes education and decent working conditions for women,” psychologist Carolina Ramírez, who runs the educational NGO Menstruating Princesses in the Colombian city of Medellín, tells IPS.

For this reason, “we do not use the term ‘menstrual poverty’ and speak instead of menstrual dignity, vindicating the need for society, schools, workplaces and States to promote education about menstruation and combat illiteracy in that area,” says Ramírez.

To illustrate, she mentions the widespread rejection of using tampons and cups “because of the old taboo that the vulva shouldn’t be touched, that the vagina shouldn’t be looked at,” in addition to the fact that many areas and communities in Latin American countries not only lack spaces or tools to sterilize products but often do not have clean water.

A concern raised by both Saturno and Ramírez is the great vulnerability of migrant women in the region – which has received a flood of six million people from Venezuela over the last 10 years, for example – in terms of menstrual and general health, as well as safety.

Another worrying issue is women in most Latin American prisons, which are unable to provide adequate menstrual hygiene, since they do not have access to disposable products or the possibility to sterilize reusable supplies.

Throughout the region, “greater efforts are required to break down taboos that violate fundamental rights to health, education, work, and freedom of movement, so that menstruation can be a stress-free human experience,” Ramírez says.

*Names have been changed to protect the privacy of the interviewees.

Excerpt:

This article is part of IPS coverage of Menstrual Hygiene Day celebrated on May 28.

Jaggery making on a sugarcane farm in Mandla. Small-scale farmers in India are benefitting from a scheme where they are able to diversify their farms and get support through Farmer Producer Organisations. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

By Rina Mukherji
MANDLA, JHARGRAM & AHMEDNAGAR, INDIA, May 26 2023 (IPS)

Until a decade ago, marginal farmers Gangotri Chandrol and Sunitabai lacked livelihood options in the post-monsoon season.

With farm holdings of just 2-6 acres in Katangatola village in the tribal-majority Mandla district of Madhya Pradesh, they could only grow wheat, paddy, and sugarcane in the wet season for a living.

“Our earnings depended on price fluctuations in the market and the little paddy and wheat procured by the government.”

But now, they can sell their produce at higher than the prevailing market price to their farmers’ collective set up by Ekgaon Technologies, using existing women’s microfinance self-help groups (SHGs).

Furthermore, value-added products like flavoured jaggery obtained from sugarcane ensure a good income.  Farmers like Gangotri and Sunitabai, who were organised into clusters, and trained to form collective bargaining as buyers of agricultural inputs and suppliers of produce, are better off as a result.

While agriculture is India’s primary employment source, agricultural productivity has remained low. This is because the average size of an agricultural plot is less than 2 hectares (4.942 acres) (as per 2001 figures), with a quarter of rural holdings as low as 0.4 hectares (0.988 acres).

Furthermore, poverty and illiteracy make it difficult for most farmers to apply modern scientific inputs to enhance yield. Climate change has further added to the problem, with erratic weather, unseasonal rains, and frequent storms taking their toll on standing crops.

Realising this, India’s National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) developed its Producer Organisation Promoting Institution (POPI) scheme in 2015. This saw several Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) flourish around 2015, and farmers were inducted into registered companies, holding a certain number of shares, each priced at a nominal sum.

Women farmers in West Bengal buying inputs for their Farmer Producer Organisation. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

Ekgaon and its mission in Mandla

Once a single crop with migration-prone villages, Mandla district has seen a facelift ever since Ekgaon Technologies brought together its rural women and organised them into a Farmer Producers Organisation (FPO). Encouraged to buy seeds and fertilizer to distribute within their organisation, the women emerged as small-time entrepreneurs.

Traditionally, paddy cultivators, the farmers here, were trained to move to multi-cropping using natural organic farming methods. Local farmers now grow a mix of paddy, wheat, lentils (Masur), pigeon pea (arhar/tur), green gram (mung), and sugarcane on their marginal farms, using improved techniques and inexpensive homemade organic fertilizers.

Vidhi Patel, a widow and marginal farmer with a one-acre farm, tells IPS, “We were using 40 kg of seeds on our one-acre farm to grow paddy, besides spending on urea, which cost us upwards of Rs 1000. Under the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) method, we now use only 25 kg of seeds, which has halved costs.”

Gangotri Chandrol, Sunitabai Chandrol, and Devki Uikey have not just learned to make optimum use of their marginal 2-6 acre farms to grow a variety of traditional crops such as wheat, paddy, sugarcane pigeon pea, masur (lentils), mung (green legumes), and millets, but have now ventured into cash crops like arrowroot, flaxseed, nigerseed, and marigold, which fetch them good returns.

Similarly, Laxmibai and Devki Uikey of the neighbouring Khari village grow sugarcane on one acre of their 3-acre farm and paddy, wheat, marigold and beetroot on the rest.  Besides operating as a small-time entrepreneur, selling agricultural inputs to other members of her FPO, Devki Uikey made organic yellow and maroon colours for the Holi (spring) festival out of beetroot and marigold with some other members of her collective.

“We procured 25 kg of marigold at Rs 40 per 250 g and 10 kg of beetroot at Rs 160 per kg. After making and selling the colours, we earned Rs 2300-Rs 2500 per member,” Devki Uikey told IPS

Besides selling premium varieties of rice such as Chindi Kapur and Jeera Shankar that are native to Mandla but not available elsewhere, Ekgaon has developed value-added products such as millet-ginger-raisin nutribars, millet noodles, amla ( gooseberry) candy, which it markets alongside ( collected) forest products like medicinal herbs, beeswax, and honey, on its e-commerce platform.

Since sugarcane is a major crop in the district and jaggery-making is an important enterprise, Ekgaon has developed ginger and tulsi (basil) flavoured jaggery cubes to brew flavoured tea.  Being part of the FPO has other benefits too. Farmers can access government funds for rainwater harvesters and borewells easily.

A tie-up with Rajdhani Besan, which markets gram flour, helped farmers who cultivate gram, while a tie-up with Lays saw the entire produce of white peas bought over in bulk for (Lays) chips and wafers. The FPO is also grading and procuring wheat for the government, earning the women farmers a small sum.

Consequently, marginal farmers who earned around Rs 50,000 (USD 608) per acre in the past are easily making Rs 3,00,000  (USD 3647) per acre now. Migration has stopped in most villages, and the literacy level has improved.

PRADAN’s initiatives in Jhargram and Bankura

Professional Assistance for Development Action (PRADAN) has also converted existing women’s microfinance self-help groups (SHGs) into FPOs in the resource-poor, tribal-majority Bankura and Jhargram districts of West Bengal.

Despite good monsoon rains, water scarcity is the norm in these paddy-growing districts, owing to rocky terrain. Of late, erratic rains have made matters worse, spurring out migration. To withstand the vagaries of the weather, the women farmer-shareholders of the Amon Mahila Chashi Producers Company Limited (Amon Women Farmers Producers Company Limited) and other FPOs now grow hardy, traditional paddy varieties using homemade organic fertilizers.

Sumita Mahato, whose family lives off a one-bigha (0.625 acres) farm, and  Swarnaprabha Mahato, whose three-bigha (1.875 acres) farm must provide for an eight-member family, told IPS: “Chemical fertilizers cost Rs 5000 per 0.625 acres, while homemade organic fertilizer costs us only Rs 80-90 for the same per bigha.”

It has helped them get organic certification for their produce, comprising traditional rice varieties like Malliphul, Satthiya  (red rice), and Kalabhat (black rice), earning them Rs 35 per kg (as against  Rs 12 per kg that rice grown with chemical inputs).  Rainwater harvesters accessed as members of the FPO, under the state government’s scheme for the region, have helped, too, increasing productivity from 25-30 quintals per acre to 40-45 quintals per acre.

As multi-cropping is impossible here owing to limited moisture in the rocky soil, the farmers grow turmeric as a cash crop on the village commons. In Jhargram, Sonajhuri (Acacia auriculiformis) and Cashew are grown for timber and nuts, while in Bankura, farms along the Kankabati River grow watermelons for collective profit.

Traditionally, women in these regions made plates from sal (Shorea robusta) leaves collected from the jungles. They now process and mould plates for urban markets using moulding machines, selling them with their other products online on IndiaMart, earning ample profits to lead well-settled lives.

Watermelon crop in Bankura. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

WOTR’s Efforts in Maharashtra

In Parner taluka (sub-division) of Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra, the community-led Ankur Farmer Producers Organisation (FPO), facilitated by the Watershed Trust (WOTR), comprises 762 farmer-shareholders from the villages of Hiwrekorda, Bhangadevadi, and Dawalpuri, with farm holdings of 3-15 acres range, who supplement their incomes through dairy farming.

Being a rain-shadow, the drought-prone region with limited water resources, farming was always rainfed here, with large tracts of land lying barren.

Once Ankur was formed, the farmers could avail of Rs 80 lakh from the State Government (of Maharashtra) contributing the rest to lay a 7.5 km pipeline to bring water from the Kalu river and fill up a lined farm pond, and set up a pump-house for collective benefit.

This enabled them to bring 100 acres of farmland under cultivation to grow onions, marigolds, chrysanthemums, and other crops for the market. Their rainfed single-crop lands also grow two crops with the additional moisture available.

The farmers have opted for organic inputs like vermicompost, which they prepare and sell, both within and outside their FPO, although, as farmers Somnath Palwe and Chandrakant Gawde say, “Our members use both organic and improved seeds, as per preference.”

From growing a single crop of bajra (pearl millet), jowar (sorghum), and pulses, the farmers now grow maize, green gram, marigold, chrysanthemum, and onions, besides cauliflower and tomato. Incomes have grown from as low as Rs 50,000 ( USD 61) for an acre of cultivable land to as high as Rs 5 00,000 (USD 731).

Ankur sells its products online to Ninjacart and offline-in wholesale markets. In both cases, the sale is direct and without middlemen. Farmer Ashok Phalke, tells me. “Onions used to fetch us Rs 10 per kg, while the market price was Rs 12 per kg. We would lose Rs 2 per kg. Now that we sell directly in markets as a group, we earn more. The same goes for tomatoes and flowers.”

Besides promoting organic farming, the FPOs stress natural multi-cropping methods to control pests, such as growing horse gram in combination with maize or sorghum. This attracts birds, which, in turn, help control harmful pests naturally. Kitchen gardens are encouraged as they counter nutritional deficiencies in farming families.

Government Encouragement of FPOs

The Indian government intends to set up 10,000 FPOs all over India for Rs 6865 crore. Under this scheme, FPOs are to receive financial assistance of up to Rs 18 lakh for three years, with each farmer-member being eligible for an equity grant and credit guarantee facility. However, not all existing FPOs have been co-opted into the government scheme.

Since millets are hardy and impervious to erratic weather patterns, the government has been pushing for their cultivation in regions where they were traditionally grown. But the government’s dictum of “one District, one Product” has invited criticism, especially from grassroots organisations, who see multi-cropping as the only guarantor against natural disasters such as hailstorms and cyclones.

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

• How Covid-19 Proved an Opportunity for Youth in Small-Town India
• Government Indifference Deprives the Trafficked of Compensation
• Empowering India’s Poor so They Don’t Return to Bonded Labour – Part 2

The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action was adopted 30 years ago at the UN Human Rights Conference in the Austrian capital in June 1993. The Declaration was a strong and clear endorsement -- by consensus of all UN Member States -– of the rights contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

By Volker Turk
GENEVA, May 26 2023 (IPS)

In December last year, I launched our year-long commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We have since issued a series of initiatives calling on States and all others to make pledges, and to take clear steps to fulfil the promises of the Universal Declaration.

The Human Rights 75 programme will culminate in a high-level event on 11 and 12 December – convened by my Office here in Geneva, linked up with Bangkok, Nairobi and Panama City.

This year, we also celebrate 30 years since the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna created the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. That is an important milestone for us.

It was in June 1993 at this conference that – after a difficult process fraught with geopolitical divisions – the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action was adopted. The Declaration was a strong and clear endorsement – by consensus of all UN Member States – of all the rights contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Over the past 30 years, the work of this Office has contributed to greater recognition of the centrality of human rights in making and sustaining peace, in preventing and halting violations, in fostering accountability, in sustainable development, in humanitarian response and, of late, in economic policy and the work of international financial institutions.

We have been at the forefront of addressing issues of global importance as they emerge, including the human rights impacts of climate change, artificial intelligence, and digital technology.

My Office is now present in more places than ever. We have gone from just two field presences when we started to 94 presences around the world today.

And I would like to see this expanded further – there should be a UN Human Rights Office everywhere. For all States can and should do better on human rights. I have been advocating for this in my meetings with all UN Member States and in my missions.

I have also been speaking about how underfunded and under-resourced my Office remains. We need to double our budget. I call on donors – State, corporate and private – to help us make this happen. A strong UN Human Rights Office and a healthy, well-resourced human rights ecosystem are of global interest.

Our work and the human rights mechanisms that we support have helped advance the human rights cause, identify drivers of conflict and crisis and barriers to development, and offer solutions as well as pathways to remedy and accountability.

We work with State institutions, national human rights bodies and civil society on the ground, to help reform laws, to train officials. We also help open the space for civil society organisations and journalists to do their work, and we are often serving as a bridge between civil society and institutions of the State.

We call out violations and set off alarm bells when attacks on, neglect of, or disdain for human rights could set off crises.

Our work on accountability and transitional justice has helped ensure that perpetrators of serious human rights violations end up in prison, and our work on protection of civic space and human rights defenders has secured the release of people who are detained in violation of their rights.

We provide a reality check. We help set the facts straight, we ground our analysis in human rights laws and standards, we dig into the root causes of human suffering, and we offer systemic, sustainable solutions.

Nowhere is the devastating impact of human rights violations more stark than in the midst of armed conflict and in the aftermath of natural disasters. Cyclone Mocha, which cut a swathe of destruction through Rakhine, Chin and Kachin States, as well as Sagaing and Magway, in Myanmar on 14 May is the latest, deeply painful manifestation of a man-made disaster resulting from a climate event.

For decades, the authorities in Myanmar have deprived the Rohingya of their rights and freedoms and relentlessly attacked other ethnic groups, eroding their capacity to survive. Displaced communities have subsisted in temporary bamboo structures, some since 2012, with Myanmar’s military repeatedly denying requests of humanitarian agencies to build more sustainable living conditions in areas less prone to flooding. I saw this myself on my many trips to Myanmar, especially to the east. They have also consistently prevented the Rohingya from moving freely, including in the days before the cyclone.

The damage and loss of life was both foreseeable and avoidable – and is clearly linked with the systematic denial of human rights. It is imperative that the military lift the blockages on travel, allow for needs assessments to happen, and ensure access to and delivery of lifesaving aid and services.

The desperate situation of the people of Sudan – who fought so courageously against repression of their rights – is heartbreaking. In spite of successive ceasefires, civilians continue to be exposed to serious risk of death and injury – overnight we have had reports of fighter jets across Khartoum and clashes in some areas of the city, as well as gunfire heard in Khartoum-North and Omdurman.

My Designated Expert on Sudan, Radhouane Nouicer, has been meeting remotely with civil society still in the country and with those who have fled – and the testimony is terrifying. Many civilians are virtually besieged in areas where fighting has been relentless.

With State institutions not functioning in Khartoum, civil society actors are risking their lives to fill the gaps. Many human rights defenders, particularly women, have reported receiving threats – but they are undeterred; they continue their crucial work.

Several reports are emerging of sexual violence in Khartoum and Darfur – we are aware of at least 25 cases, but such violations are often the most difficult to document, so I fear the real number of cases to be much higher.

General al-Burhan, General Dagalo, you must issue clear instructions – in no uncertain terms – to all those under your command, that there is zero tolerance for sexual violence, and that perpetrators of all violations will be held accountable. Civilians must be spared. And you must stop this senseless violence now.

It is the near-total impunity for gross violations that is at the root of this new, brazen grab for power in Sudan. Efforts to bring this conflict to an end must have human rights and accountability at their core – for any peace to be sustained.

Elsewhere, I am deeply troubled by the growing phenomenon of anti-rights movements that have been active against migrants and refugees, against women, against people belonging to certain faiths, religious and racial groups, as well as against LGBTIQ people, among others.

We need to push back on such anti-rights movements that are fed and stoked by peddlers of lies and disinformation – including by so-called political and religious leaders and “influencers”. These are people who use populism, repression and even vilification of segments of society – to the detriment of society as a whole – as a short-cut to power and influence.

Following such hateful, discredited narratives, we are seeing a further worsening of laws criminalizing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, including in Uganda. These laws violate a host of human rights, they lead to violence, and they drive people against one another.

They leave people behind and undermine development. Many of these laws are actually colonial relics that have imported 200-year-old stigma and discrimination into the 21st Century.

Hate speech and harmful narratives against migrants and refugees also continue to proliferate; they are accompanied, worryingly, by laws and policies that are anti-migrant, and they risk undermining the basic foundations of international human rights law and refugee law.

Developments that are unfolding in various countries, including the UK, the US, Italy, Greece, and Lebanon are particularly concerning as some of them appear designed to hinder people’s ability to seek asylum and other forms of protection, to penalise those who seek to help them – or to return them in unlawful, undignified, unsustainable ways.

Article 14 of the Universal Declaration is clear on everyone’s right to seek and enjoy asylum from persecution. We need solidarity – to ensure that all people in vulnerable situations are treated with humanity and respect for their rights.

In a number of situations, we see the consequences when different groups incite and stoke hatred and division between communities. The recent violence in Manipur, Northeast India, revealed the underlying tensions between different ethnic and indigenous groups.

I urge the authorities to respond to the situation quickly, including by investigating and addressing root causes of the violence in line with their international human rights obligations.

It will be three years to the day that George Floyd was murdered by a police officer in the US. The small measure of justice achieved in this case remains exceptional – in the US and globally. I remain deeply concerned by regular reports of deaths and injuries of people of African descent during or after interactions with law enforcement in a number of countries. There needs to be firm and prompt action by authorities to ensure justice in each case.

It is clear that we won’t solve the problem of police brutality against people of African descent until we deal with the broader manifestations of systemic racism that permeate every aspect of their lives.

The racial abuse faced – once again – by Real Madrid football player Vinícius Júnior in Spain just this past Sunday is a stark reminder of the prevalence of racism in sport. I call on those who organise sporting events to have strategies in place to prevent and counter racism.

Much more needs to be done to eradicate racial discrimination – and it needs to start with listening to people of African descent, meaningfully involving them and taking genuine steps to act upon their concerns.

I also continue to be concerned about the shrinking of civic space, including in China, where there has been a spate of sentences against human rights defenders based on laws that are at variance with international human rights law.

Also deeply worrying are crackdowns on women’s rights – a tool for men in power to exercise dominance over and enfeeble entire societies. Misogyny is a disease. In combination with violence, it is cancerous.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban continue, aggressively, to seek to erase half of the population from everyday life. Such a system of gender apartheid ruins the development potential of the country.

I will never understand how anyone can trample so cruelly upon the spirit of girls and women, chipping away at their potential and driving one’s country deeper and deeper into abject poverty and despair. It is crucial – for the sake of the people of Afghanistan, the future of the country and the wider region – that repressive policies against women and girls are immediately overturned.

In Iran, while the street protests have diminished, the harassment of women – including for what they do or don’t wear, appears to have actually intensified. Women and girls face increasingly stringent legal, social, and economic measures in the authorities’ enforcement of discriminatory compulsory veiling laws.

I urge the Government to heed Iranians’ calls for reform, and to begin by repealing regulations that criminalise non-compliance with mandatory dress codes. The onus is on the State to introduce laws and policies to protect the human rights of women and girls, including their right to participate in public life without fear of retribution or discrimination.

I am also appalled by the continued use of the death penalty in significant numbers. I urge them to halt executions immediately.

One more situation that is of deep concern to me is that in Pakistan – where hard-earned gains and the rule of law are at serious risk. I am alarmed by the recent escalation of violence, and by reports of mass arrests carried out under problematic laws – arrests that may amount to arbitrary detention.

Particularly disturbing are reports that Pakistan intends to revive the use of military courts to try civilians – which would contravene its international human rights law obligations.

I call on the authorities to ensure prompt, impartial, transparent investigations into deaths and injuries that occurred during the 9 May protests. The only path to a safe, secure, prosperous Pakistan is one that is paved with respect for human rights, democratic processes, and the rule of law, with the meaningful and free participation of all sectors of society.

Beyond individual country situations, of broader concern for me are recent rapid advances in the development of artificial intelligence – particularly generative AI. The opportunities are immense – but so are the risks. Human rights need to be baked into AI throughout its entire lifecycle and both governments and companies need to do more to ensure that guardrails are in place. My Office is carefully following and studying these issues.

Allow me to end with an appeal to all of you to help push back against the disinformation and manipulation that feeds anti-rights movements, and to help protect the space for people to defend their rights. Human rights are universal. The dignity and worth of every human being should not be – cannot be – a questionable, sensitive concept.

It is my fervent hope that this 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will provide the space and inspiration for all of us to go back to the basics – to find the roots of human rights values in each of our cultures, histories, and faiths, uniting us in pushing back against the instrumentalization and politicization of human rights within and between countries.

This article is based on the opening remarks by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk at his press conference in Geneva on May 24.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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');