Africa

All sides are accused of planting landmines in a dangerous shift in the Central African Republic.

Climate finance can be channeled to sustainable agriculture at large through small-scale investments. Finance can help profitable businesses that promote biodiversity and conservation, improve productivity, nutrition, and resilience, while also benefiting farmers and their communities. Credit: Priscilla Negreiros/CPI - Climate Policy Initiative

By Barbara Buchner
SAN FRANCISCO, California, Sep 22 2021 (IPS)

September 23, 2021 is the first-ever UN Food Systems Summit, convened to mobilize the highest-priority transformations needed to end hunger through the sustainable production and distribution of food. Transforming food systems to ensure food security for all has never been so urgent.

Ongoing waves of Covid-19 and extreme weather events have exposed and multiplied the vulnerability of food systems across the globe, increasing food prices and food insecurity in every country, but especially in countries least equipped to handle multiple, ongoing crises. One-in-four people globally – 1.9 billion – are moderately or severely food insecure. A statistic that is sadly, and unnecessarily, increasing. And by 2050 the world will need to feed an estimated 9.7 billion people, all while protecting natural resources and biodiversity.

Ending hunger by 2030 is a core challenge set by the UN Sustainable Development Goals, but food system transformation is not always high on the list of public funders and private investors. We need to rethink this priority because the potential benefits—economic, social and environmental—are huge. Agriculture, while both a contributor to and a victim of climate change, must and can be part of the solution. Improved climate action in food systems can deliver 20 percent of the global total emissions reductions needed to meet the Paris Agreement targets by 2050, along with other sustainability and resilience benefits.

How does this translate in practical terms?

Barbara Buchner

This can range, for example, from increasing the efficiency of energy-consuming agricultural practices, reducing methane emissions, and using more renewable energy. Regenerative agriculture practices such as cover crops, tillage reduction, and improved grazing remove carbon from the atmosphere and put it back in the soil. Adaptation can mean converting to crops that are less resource intensive and more resilient. We must also support programs that reduce food waste and improve sustainability across the value chain, including changing consumer diet and purchasing patterns.

Climate finance can provide the means to accelerate this critical process, but the slow pace of climate finance is particularly true in the agricultural sector. Cumulative climate finance for agriculture, forestry, and land use represents only 3% of the total tracked global climate finance. This is a crisis, and a missed opportunity, but there are numerous next steps we can take to address these issues.

Use public finance wisely. Governments must make more effective use of public resources and policies targeting capacity building for climate-related finance and incentivizing conservation efforts, rather than on agriculture subsidies that support unsustainable crops and practices.

Channel climate finance to sustainable agriculture at large. We must enhance collaboration between the public and private sectors to mitigate the risk associated with investments in the agricultural sector. Blended finance mechanisms, including guarantees and first-loss tranches, can improve the risk-return profile of small-scale agriculture investments.

Invest with integrity. International and domestic climate flows should stimulate the transition of agri-businesses and its finance service providers towards low emission supply chains. Public, development, and private sectors must work together to further enhance their reporting of climate finance for sustainable foods systems under a common definition and set methodology.

By focusing on these priorities, we can finance profitable businesses that promote biodiversity and conservation, improve productivity, nutrition, and resilience, while also benefiting farmers and their communities.

The UN Food Systems Summit is a great opportunity to harness science, finance, and collaboration to make significant progress towards our 2030 food security goals.

Dr Barbara Buchner is an Austrian economist, with a doctorate in economics from the University of Graz. She specializes in climate finance, and is Global Managing Director of Climate Policy Initiative

 

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Francine Niyonsaba is lauded by a large crowd as the athlete returns to Burundi after her Diamond League title and world record.

The Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley and Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern. Credit: Pictures in montage ©United Nations

By Alison Kentish
DOMINICA, Sep 22 2021 (IPS)

On September 20, Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina accepted an award from the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network for her country’s ‘striking’ progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

That progress includes an adult literacy rate that jumped from 21 percent in 1981 to 75 percent in 2019 and a spike in access to electricity from 14 percent in 1991 to 92 percent today. The country has also drastically reduced the childhood mortality rate. Fifty years ago, 225 of every 1,000 children died before the age of five. By 2019, that figure was down to 31.

“Even though we are in the midst of a big crisis globally everywhere, we still want to celebrate Bangladesh’s achievements. When we analyze, as the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network does each year, countries’ progress toward the SDGs, Bangladesh came first in the world in most progress between 2015 and 2020,” said Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University and Network President.

Sheikh Hasina has led Bangladesh for most of the award period. The four-time Prime Minister (1996-2001, 2009-2013, 2014-2018, 2018 to present) was honored for her commitment to sweeping education, healthcare, and social reform and her tireless focus on gender equity.

She credited her success with SDG progress to a vow to ‘leave no one behind.’

And it is that drive, along with her firm, decisive and science-driven approach to issues of sustainable development that has marked her leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Known as dynamic and visionary, Prime Minister Hasina is among women leaders whose stewardship of their countries during COVID-19 has been instructive and inspiring for the world.

Her administration issued a strict ‘no mask, no service’ policy in 2020. An early intervention saw students transitioning to online learning. They returned to the classroom last week, after 18 months. The government disbursed 26 stimulus packages totaling $14.6 billion to keep the economy afloat and expanded its social safety net programs to include 11 million people, most of them women and children.

Bangladesh has rolled out a massive, free vaccination campaign.

In June, Hasina told the country’s parliament that it aims to have 80 percent of the population vaccinated and promised to procure the vaccines ‘no matter how much’ it costs.

To date, just over 11 percent of the eligible population is fully vaccinated.

This year, the leader who usually uses her time at the United Nations General Assembly to advocate for climate financing and gender equity is adding vaccine equity to her mission.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has upset the world. It has taken countless lives and upset livelihoods. Millions of people worldwide have been reduced to poverty and hunger. Education is facing huge disruptions, especially of children,” she said.

“We want vaccines for everyone everywhere. There are many poor countries that cannot buy vaccines. Vaccines should be made available to them. Developed and rich countries can come forward.”

One day after Prime Minister Hasina addressed the 9th Annual International Conference on Sustainable Development, a fellow revered female leader, the Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley, made her case for support for vulnerable states.

Prime Minister Mottley has been hailed across the Caribbean and internationally as a well-spoken, forthright, and no-nonsense leader, providing the decisive leadership needed in a pandemic.

She is the first woman to lead the Caribbean country, and like Hasina, Mottley carries the weight of steering a climate-vulnerable country through a protracted crisis.

The worst pandemic in over 100 years has dealt a blow to her country’s, economy with a 17 percent decline in GDP in the last year. In April this year, a volcanic eruption on nearby St. Vincent doused Barbados in ash. It was the worst ash fall in over a century. Then in July, Elsa became the first hurricane to hit Barbados in 66 years.

Through it all, Mottley, the Caribbean’s only female Prime Minister, has remained resolute in steering her country through its multiple crises. Caribbean nationals regularly tune in to her national addresses – talks to her people that are tough when necessary, interspersed with light-hearted moments, but always clear and consistent messaging that has led many to refer to her as Prime Minister of the Caribbean.’

“You really inspire us. Your leadership is absolutely wonderful, and the power of your vision is just what we need,” Professor Sachs told the Barbados leader.

Mottley’s goal now is to ramp up vaccination numbers. According to the Barbados Government Information Service, about 36 percent of the eligible population is fully vaccinated, with the country recording just under 6,500 vaccinations weekly.

Mottley is aiming for 10,000 vaccinations a week,

“If we can do that, and we can maintain that each week for the next five weeks, then we will have the majority of those persons fully vaccinated before the end of November… We may, as a country, consider then the options of significant review and removal of restrictions that we have in place,” she said this week.

On a different island, this time in the South Pacific, another popular female leader assured her country that 90 percent vaccination coverage or higher would bring significant ease in restrictions.

“High vaccination raters will undoubtedly be a game-changer for New Zealand, but the key there is high,” said Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

Ardern’s administration has launched an ‘elimination’ strategy for COVID-19. According to the country’s health ministry, it is a targeted means of ‘finding the virus and stamping it out. It is hinged on vaccination as protection.

The leader, now in her second term in office, was a popular figure pre-COVID – a young mother, the country’s youngest female Prime Minister who gained international admiration for her poise, empathy, and stoic leadership through crises such as the March 2019 terror attacks and a volcanic eruption nine months later.

During the pandemic, Arden again grabbed global attention for stewardship in crisis.

A former communications major, her regular press appearances show a world leader taking clear, tough decisions based on science, justice and equity.

Like Prime Ministers Hasina and Mottley, Arden is exhibiting the best of female leadership even in the worst of times.

She continues to take early action against potential COVID-19 case surges – even when her decisions raise eyebrows. In August, New Zealand dominated international headlines when Ardern announced a swift, national lockdown over a single case of the Delta virus.

This week, she said that decision saved her country from a potential explosion in cases.

“With Delta, we knew we couldn’t take chances, and the immediate move to Level Four, initially to understand the breadth of the outbreak and then to get it under control, was the right move and has worked,” she told a September 19 post-cabinet press briefing.

“Modelers tell us that, had we waited just one more week to act, we would be sitting at around 5,000 cases by now,” she said.

According to UN Women, women are heads of state and government in only 21 countries, but they continue to be applauded for their more efficient management of the COVID-19 health crisis.

“They are being recognized for the rapidity of the response they are leading, which has not only included measures to ‘flatten the curve’––such as confinement measures, social distancing, and widespread testing––but also the transparent and compassionate communication of fact-based public health information.”

The leaders face their fair share of challenges.

Prime Minister Hasina has stated that COVID-19 is threatening her country’s ambitious plans to further accelerate health, education, and climate initiative, on the journey of successfully achieving the SDGs. Prime Minister Mottley is leading a small island state in a stubbornly vaccine-hesitant region, and Prime Minister Arden’s lockdown and elimination strategies have earned her some caustic criticism.

What the three have shown, however, is that women leaders have the resolve and strength to make hard decisions – along with the compassion, sensitivity, and empathy to help their countries survive the toughest of times.

 

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Kenya's Mary Keitany, who holds the word record for a women-only marathon, retires from competing at the age of 39 because of a back injury.

Leaders from BRICS nations participate in the 13th annual summit despite diplomatic tensions within the group (image: Alamy)

By Flávia Milhorance
RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 22 2021 (IPS)

Amid scepticism and a lack of public interest, domestic crises and the backdrop of Covid-19, last week the BRICS countries delivered on their commitment to hold an annual summit without showing the signs of disunity that has beset the group in recent years.

So what still holds the bloc of so-called emerging nations together?

In a virtual event, the heads of state of host country India, Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa renewed the group’s pledge of cooperation for the thirteenth time, in an event that passed without incident, unlike the barbs of last year. It also failed to attract much public interest.

Internet searches for BRICS-related news during the summit fell to one of their lowest points levels in the group’s history, according to Google Trends. Online searches usually peak in popularity during the event but have rarely sparked as much interest as the 2014 summit, when the bloc launched the New Development Bank (NDB).

Today, not even one of the BRICS’ most enthusiastic supporters, the economist Jim O'Neill, who coined the group’s acronym two decades ago, seems impressed with the latest developments

Scepticism towards the progress of the bloc pervades. It launched in 2009 with industrialised nations in the grip of the financial crisis with great – perhaps too great – expectations over its potential to redefine global governance. Today, not even one of the BRICS’ most enthusiastic supporters, the economist Jim O’Neill, who coined the group’s acronym two decades ago, seems impressed with the latest developments.

“The bloc’s ongoing failure to develop substantive policies through its annual summitry has become increasingly glaring,” O’Neill wrote after the event.

 

BRICS’ first decade of success

O’Neill’s frustration derives from what he recalls the “roaring success” of the four founding BRICS nations first decade. South Africa joined the group in 2010.

In 2009, Russia hosted the first summit, seeking a more active voice on global economic affairs in response to the devastating financial crisis.

In its early years, “countries pushed for reforms of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and offered an alternative to the international financial order by creating the NDB,” said Karin Costa Vazquez, of the Center for BRICS Studies at Fudan University.

At that time, and excluding Russia, countries formed the BASIC group, offering an alternative voice in international climate negotiations after the “failure of developed countries to define a climate agenda” and the collapse [of COP15] in Copenhagen”, said Izabella Teixeira, who was Brazil’s environment minister from 2010 to 2016.

“The BRICS were an environment of important political dialogue,” Teixeira told Diálogo Chino. “It was a super interesting moment of confidence building. There was an informality in the conversation among the ministers.” The group’s diplomatic role, Teixeira added, “was absolutely important” in the negotiations that would later culminate in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

From then on, however, experts chart the emptying of the BRICS as a group, as economic and political crises burdened member countries. It witnessed recession in Russia, South Africa and Brazil, tensions between China and India and the belligerent anti-China rhetoric of Jair Bolsonaro, who became president in 2018 and began to deconstruct environmental policies and isolate himself diplomatically.

“The country has gone against the world,” Teixeira said.

 

BRICS retains relevance

Although the heyday may be behind it, BRICS is still relevant today, according to Costa Vazquez. “The BRICS is the only space that the largest emerging economies in the world have to coordinate positions and propose initiatives of common interest to the five members. This is no small thing when we are talking about more than 30% of world GDP,” she said.

Vazquez argues that in order to keep functioning, the multilateralism of the bloc has given way to more bilateral agreements. As such, it is more flexible, limiting cooperation when interests diverge and resuming and expanding it when they converge.

Since BRICS doesn’t function as an economic bloc, it does not have a formal statute of rules that dictate its behaviour. The cost of membership is low, and the diplomatic benefits are still significant, according to Oliver Stuenkel, from the Getulio Vargas Foundation.

Stronger diplomatic relations can also reflect booming bilateral trade. For example, trade between Brazil and China should hit a new record in 2021. Last year, bilateral trade topped US$100 billion for the first time and as of last month, it had already surpassed US$93 billion.

Unsurprisingly, Bolsonaro adopted a milder tone on China at the recent BRICS summit. Meanwhile, China’s President Xi Jinping said that, regardless of the difficulties, the BRICS will maintain solid and constant cooperation.

 

NDB offers hope

Despite few new articulations on historic areas of cooperation such as climate, the main product of the BRICS, the NDB, is gaining momentum. Paulo Nogueira Batista Júnior, and economist who was vice-president of the bank between 2015 and 2017, criticised the slowness of the NDB to produce results and fulfil its aspirations of becoming a global development bank.

Today, however, Batista Junior sees advances. “In the last two years, the bank seems to have moved a little more and achieved some results,” he said. “For example, it has approved projects, including support programs to combat Covid-19, continues to hire employees, built its headquarters, developed technically and opened the process of inaugurating new members.”

In early September, the NDB announced the addition of Uruguay, the United Arab Emirates and Bangladesh to its membership. In its six years of operation, the bank has approved some 80 projects, with investments totalling US$30 billion. The bank has also made US$10 billion available to BRICS member countries to combat Covid-19.

“The bank is already part of the landscape,” said Batista Junior. Can the same still be said of the BRICS bloc?

This article was originally published by ChinaDialogue

Processed, canned food lines the shelves at a Canadian supermarket. Credit: Trevor Page

By Trevor Page
LETHBRIDGE, Canada, Sep 22 2021 (IPS)

Food processing extends shelf-life and can transforms raw food into attractive, marketable products. It can also prevent contamination. The transformation can involve numerous physical and chemical processes such as mincing, cooking, canning, liquefaction, pickling, macerating, emulsification, irradiation and lyophilization. Frozen processed and raw food changes transport and storage requirements radically; while the packaging of food, both raw and processed, is an industry unto itself.

Adulteration is a serious problem, particularly in developing countries where regulatory bodies are weak. Food is considered adulterated when a substance is added that degrades its quality or turns it hazardous. That could be changing its colour to make it look better, or adding chemical preservatives. Adding sand particles, pebbles and other extraneous matter to grain and pulses to make up weight is also considered adulteration. So is mixing water with milk and oil with chemical derivatives or cheaper oils.

Many countries in the global South would benefit from assistance to help develop their food safety regulations as well as inspection measures and enforcement. Many of the food processing industries are small scale, cottage in size, and often start in backyards or dingy premises. They are reluctant to engage food technologists because that involves extra cost and they tend to be skeptical of regulating institutions.

Codex Alimentarius was established in the early 1960s by FAO and WHO. It is a collection of internationally recognized standards, codes of practice and guidelines relating to food and its production, labeling and safety. Although 189 countries were members of the Codex Alimentarius Commission in 2021, the body does not have regulatory authority. As with many UN endeavours and standards, Codex Alimentarius is a reference guide, not an enforceable standard on its own. Several countries, however, have adopted it as part of their own regulations. More need to do so. But not all are happy with Codex Alimentarius. Some respected critics, including Vandana Shiva, claim its codified policies are simply designed to serve the interests global agribusiness and undermine the rights of farmers and consumers.

CONSUMPTION

We eat when we’re hungry. Food is the fuel that gives us energy and keeps us fit and healthy. (Sadly, almost 1 billion of us don’t get enough food to eat and need food aid. Commentary on that will be in the next article in this series.)

Fast food, the diet of increasing numbers around the world. Credit: Trevor Page

Globally, food consumption has been rising for over 50 years. Richer countries consume most calories, but encouragingly, the biggest increase in calorie intake has been in low income countries. The two main reasons for increasing food consumption are economic development and our growing population. As people become wealthier, they can afford to eat more food. People in Belgium and the USA consume around 3800 calories a day, whereas those in Ethiopia and Haiti survive on around 2000 calories a day. A high level of food wastage occurs in rich countries because people buy more food than they need. Fast food and food advertising also increase food consumption in rich countries. As the global population continues to grow, there are more mouths to feed. By 2050, the UN expects the global population to be around 10 billion.

SUPPLY CHAIN

A food supply chain is the process between production on farms and our dining table. The food we eat reaches us in domino-like fashion from producer to consumer, while the money consumers pay for food goes to those who work at various stages along the chain in the reverse direction. When one part of the supply chain is affected, the whole chain is affected and can collapse like dominos. Covid-19 has disrupted supply chains around the world, both in terms of food availability and price. Extreme and erratic weather, as a result of climate change, will pose a major threat to food supply chains in future.

Supply chain. Container ship at Valparaiso, Chile. Credit Trevor Page

LOSS AND WASTE

Around one-third of all food produced globally for human consumption is lost or wasted. According to FAO, this amounts to about 1.3 billion metric tons per year. In addition to pre-harvest losses, 14% of all food produced is lost between harvest and retail and significant quantities are also wasted in retail and at the consumption level. In the case of fruit and vegetables, over 20% is estimated to be lost every year. The water used to grow the food that is lost represents 6% of total water withdrawals. According to the World Bank, without urgent action, global waste will increase by 70% on current levels by 2050. The East Asia and the Pacific region is responsible for generating close to a quarter of all waste. And by 2050, waste generation in Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to more than triple, while in South Asia waste will more than double. Plastics, say the World Bank, are especially problematic. “If not collected and managed properly, they will contaminate and affect waterways and ecosystems for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.”

Clearly, there’s a lot to be done to make this part of our food system more efficient and less harmful to human health, as well as to reducing loss and waste.

Trevor Page, resident in Lethbridge, Canada, is a former Emergencies Director of the World Food Programme. He also served with the UN Food & Agriculture Organization, FAO, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR and what is now the UN Department of Political and Peace Building Affairs.

 

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Food security experts have raised an alarm that with as many as 811 million people the world over or 10 percent of the global population going hungry, the world is off-track to ending hunger and malnutrition. More so, after a decade of steadily declining, the number of malnourished people grew by 161 million from 2019 […]

“Our Common Agenda” report looks ahead to the next 25 years and represents the Secretary-General’s vision on the future of global cooperation and reinvigorating inclusive, networked, and effective multilateralism. The Secretary-General presented his report to the General Assembly in September 2021 before the end of the 75th session of the General Assembly.

By Mandeep Tiwana
NEW YORK, Sep 22 2021 (IPS)

When the UN Charter was being drafted in the closing days of the Second World War in 1945, a debate ensued on what its opening words should be. Jan Smuts, representative of colonial South Africa, had originally suggested that the UN Charter begin with the words, ‘The High Contracting Parties.’

This would have clearly placed the very the people the UN was set up to serve out of the picture. Ultimately, an elegant and notably democratic solution was arrived at, to begin the UN Charter with the words, ‘We the Peoples of the United Nations’. The UN has never wavered from this aspiration in principle despite the political ebbs and flows.

In practice, however, it’s arguably another matter.

Although, people around the world generally hold positive opinions about the UN, its ability to respond to global crises remains constrained by state-centric bureaucratic impulses and the assertion of narrow interests by powerful countries.

This has worked to the detriment of people who seek the assistance of the international community to alleviate their suffering, including recently in Burundi, Libya, Myanmar, Palestine, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen and elsewhere.

The UN’s refugee agency estimates that there are at least 82.4 million forcibly displaced persons globally. Concerned citizens and civil society organisations have long argued that they need to have a greater stake in the UN’s functioning to enable it to better respond to violent conflict and human-induced disasters.

In 2020, the imperative to make the UN more inclusive in its engagement with relevant stakeholders was recognised in a rare show of unity by the UN General Assembly through the landmark Declaration to commemorate the UN’s 75th anniversary.

All heads of state and government affirmed that contemporary challenges require cooperation not only across borders but across the whole of society. They committed to upgrading the UN and tasked the UN’s Secretary-General to produce a report on how to respond to current and future challenges.

This 10 September, following extensive global consultations, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres did just that, releasing the much-awaited Our Common Agenda report, with substantial hope riding on it.

For thousands of civil society activists and organisations in all corners of the globe who dedicated significant time and effort in providing inputs, Our Common Agenda offers a critical pathway for increasing participation in the UN, with the aim of enhancing its effectiveness and getting it closer to its founding values.

Notably, the report emphasises the indivisibility of human rights even as personality cult-driven leaders and authoritarian regimes are undermining the universality of internationally agreed human rights norms and development principles by disingenuously urging accommodation for cultural values and national characteristics.

The report also highlights what it calls a global “infodemic” plaguing the world, in a veiled reference to state-run propaganda and manufacture of politically expedient ‘facts’ by polarising figures. It calls for a global code of conduct to promote integrity in public information.

Significantly, a new social contract between governments and their people is proposed to rebuild trust, foster gender equal participation and social protection.

A multitude of challenges facing the world, from the ravages of climate change to vaccine nationalism to dysfunctional multilateralism, are identified. In the light of these, the report calls for a fresh embrace of global solidarity and renewed focus on boosting partnerships.

The report rightly urges greater political voice for the world’s many young people in decisions that affect them and commits to upgrading the position of the UN Youth Envoy to a UN Office for Youth.

The role of civil society as an integral part of the UN ecosystem is recognised. To foster inclusion, all UN entities are urged to set up civil society focal points if they haven’t done so already.

But somewhat disappointingly, the key demand by scores of civil society organisations and over 50 states for a people’s champion or civil society envoy to drive participation across the UN is simply acknowledged and parked for future consideration.

This is a lost opportunity as there are far too many inconsistencies in how the UN’s sprawling infrastructure engages with active citizens and civil society organisations. A civil society envoy at the UN headquarters would play a vital role in supporting all UN forums, agencies and offices to develop good practices on participation and also act as liaison between civil society focal points across the UN.

With an eye on upgrading the UN, the report exercises remarkable foresight in proposing an Envoy for Future Generations. A ‘Summit for the Future’ is envisaged in two years’ time to forge global consensus. People’s involvement – beyond high level panels and speeches by powerful politicians and celebrated technocrats – will be crucial if this summit is to be meaningful.

To help the UN evolve and face the future, the Secretary-General could explore the establishment of a UN World Citizens’ Initiative. It’s an innovative idea whereby a critical mass of people could bring a petition for action on a matter of vital public importance by the UN General Assembly and the Security Council.

Significantly, the report makes a compelling case for ‘networked, inclusive and effective multilateralism,’ key components of which are described as cross-pillar coordination at the regional and international levels, space for all voices, including civil society as well as global south states, local governments, parliaments, international institutions and the private sector, and delivery of results through resource prioritisation and accountability for commitments.

These are ambitious objectives, and it is hard to see how they can be achieved without a serious rethink about how deliberations are carried out and decisions are made at the UN. Current processes are bureaucratic and heavily state centric, often screening the UN from the everyday struggles and demands of people, including victims of abuses.

There’s an acute need for more imaginative modes of direct people’s representation to make the UN fit for purpose for the 21st century and beyond. Innovative ideas to set up citizens’ panels and a UN parliamentary assembly exist but are still erroneously seen as being too ambitious.

The ambition of Our Common Agenda must now be followed by ambitious transformative actions. We mustn’t forget that the formation of the UN in 1945 was a revolutionary achievement. Since then, the UN has always been a work in progress. But with perseverance and foresight, we can put ‘We the Peoples’ at its heart.

Mandeep Tiwana is chief programmes officer at CIVICUS. He is based at CIVICUS’s UN liaison office in New York.

 

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Former Cameroon international Samuel Eto'o is to stand as a candidate in the race for the presidency of his country's football federation (Fecafoot).

The World Food Programme distributing food in El Salvador. The second of the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals is to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture. Credit: WFP/David Fernandez

By Trish Cotter
MELBOURNE, Sep 21 2021 (IPS)

COVID-19 has exposed serious vulnerabilities in how people around the world access and consume food.

One of the more alarming trends is the significant increase in the consumption of foods that may be tasty and convenient, but harm our heath. These ultra-processed products include sugary drinks, snack foods, frozen meals, packaged breads and frozen desserts.

In the half century or so since they have been available, ultra-processed products have largely displaced traditional diets, pushing healthy food options off of store shelves. Ultra-processed products comprise more than half of diets in the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom, and between one-fifth and one-third in Brazil, Mexico and Chile.

These low-nutrient foods, which are ready to eat or ready to heat, have become a dominant player in our food system and are now among the most aggressively promoted and marketed products in the world.

Ultra-processed products are booming globally. While sales are highest in Australia, the United States and Canada, they are increasing rapidly in middle-income countries including China, South Africa and Brazil. And worryingly, children and low-income people in communities with fewer healthy food choices, are often the primary targets of ultra-processed product marketing.

As public health and world leaders gather at the United Nations Food Systems Summit on September 23 to discuss how to make food systems healthy and sustainable, they must take a stand against profit-driven commercial influence, to help countries and consumers decrease their reliance on ultra-processed products.

During the U.N. Food Systems Pre-Summit in July, the food and beverage industry’s considerable resources were on full display. One of their tactics was to position themselves as part of the process to create a healthier food system.

Let’s be clear: The food and beverage industry is part of the food system, and while they need to be part of the solution, policymaking focused on a healthy food system cannot by muddied by commercial interests.

To attain healthier food systems, we must urgently address the proliferation of ultra-processed products. Their pervasive and growing accessibility has worried public health experts for years. Today, these ultra-processed products are a majority of what’s available in most people’s neighborhood at an affordable price.

But these foods and beverages—which are chemically or physically transformed using industrial processes that make the product hyper-palatable, more appealing and potentially addictive—come at a cost to consumers: they are known to drive obesity rates up and increase noncommunicable diseases including Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and even some cancers.

Powerful food corporations such as The Coca-Cola Co., Nestlé, Unilever and McDonald’s, invest many millions each year in formulating and marketing these products to be highly desirable.

While sales in high-income countries are beginning to level out, middle- and low-income countries are where “Big Food” sees its future and where sales are expected to significantly grow over the next decade.

COVID-19 exposed the vulnerabilities in our food system and added urgency for more effective global policies to combat food insecurity and promote access to safe and nutritious food.

The good news: decades of lessons learned and global best practices from countries leading the way can guide other governments in turning the tide against ultra-processed foods and beverages.

In many cases, this work is being led by countries across Africa and Latin America. Here are some key results from their efforts:

The gold standard: taxes on sugary drinks and junk food

Over 40 countries have now implemented taxes on sugary drinks. In the 12 months following the roll out of Mexico’s 10% soda tax in 2014, the country saw a decline in the purchases of taxed beverages and an increase in the purchase of water. Taxes work and do double duty—the revenue collected can support health programs.

Warnings about unhealthy food via clear front-of-package nutrient labeling

Several countries including Colombia, Ecuador, Iran and Peru have already implemented or have proposed to implement front-of-package labels on unhealthy foods to reduce the unsustainable burden of poor diets on individuals, government and society.

Chile’s comprehensive health regulations, which included the adoption of front-of-package labels, reduced purchases of sugar-sweetened beverages by nearly 25% in just 18 months. When warning label regulations were first rolled out, Chile was the world’s number one consumer of sugar-sweetened beverages per capita.

Restrictions on marketing and promoting healthy food polices in the public sector

Protecting future generations from the lifelong consequences of unhealthy eating habits is paramount. Children are extremely vulnerable to food marketing, which makes partial or voluntary regulations to restrict marketing ineffective.

In 2016, Chile implemented a ban on advertising ultra-processed products during child-targeted television programs. Following this regulation, preschoolers’ exposure to junk food advertising that featured child-directed appeals, such as cartoon characters, dropped by 35%.

The percentage of TV ads promoting unhealthy foods and drinks (i.e., products that failed to meet the policies’ nutrition criteria) decreased significantly from 42% pre-regulation to 15% post-regulation.

Governments must work alongside the public health community to transform the image of ultra-processed food and beverage products from glossy packaged, alluringly marketed, ready-to-eat, convenient and tasty products, to be seen as what they are: the vector for obesity and a risk factor for serious disease alongside tobacco, alcohol, and other unhealthy commodities.

Taxes, smart labeling, and marketing regulations work. At Vital Strategies, we believe everybody, everywhere has a right to healthy foods. When people are provided with the tools to understand the products that are harmful to their health, they are able to make better decisions.

With unhealthy diets responsible for an estimated 11 million preventable deaths each year, we cannot let the industry stand in the way or even set the rules.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated barriers to accessing affordable healthy foods, forcing many to rely on ultra-processed food and drink products and low-nutrient foods, which has resulted in poorer-quality diets.

Governments have the power to regulate these products and prevent the food industry from controlling our diets. The tools are out there. If we want to stave off the devastation to our food system—and our health—we can’t afford to wait.

Trish Cotter is the Senior Advisor, Global Lead, Food Policy Program at global health organization, Vital Strategies.

Footnote: The UN Food Systems Summit, scheduled to take place on Thursday, 23 September, will be a completely virtual event during the UN General Assembly High-level Week.

According to the UN, the Summit “will serve as a historic opportunity to empower all people to leverage the power of food systems to drive our recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and get us back on track to achieve all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.”

 

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Oxen have been used to plough in agriculture for at least 3,000 years. They are still used today. Painting from the burial chamber of Sennudjem c, 1200 BC, Egypt. Credit: Trevor Page

By Trevor Page
LETHBRIDGE, Canada, Sep 21 2021 (IPS)

Why is the UN holding a Food Systems Summit? Two issues that need discussion at the international leadership level are: Long before the Covid crisis was upon us, the number of hungry people in the world was increasing. Why ? What is the cause of this disturbing trend? And, can a country really claim to be food secure, unless it produces or can buy enough food to feed its population and its people can access sufficient quantities to keep themselves fit and healthy? Disquietening questions as extreme weather begins to show the destructive power that climate change will have on the planet and its people.

A whole range of food system issues will be discussed at the summit, among them: production, processing, supply chain, consumption, nutrition, malnutrition, food aid and waste.

Food Production

Food, or the nutrients it contains, is fuel for the body. Agriculture and the production of food in an organized way is one of the earliest human endeavors. It started in the fertile crescent of the Middle East, some 10,000 BCE. While mechanization dominates the way food is produced today in the major food producing countries, animal traction is still important in many parts of the world.

Million dollar combines handle reaping, threshing, gathering and winnowing in a single operation on North American and European cereal fields today. GPS programmed, they are set to become driverless within a decade. Fruit and vegetables grown in vertical farms in cities using aquaponics are already springing up around the world. Aquaculture too can be moved to vertical farms, making fish much cheaper for urban dwellers. Vertical farms will greatly reduce labour costs and transportation requirements. Mechanization hugely reduces the number of people engaged in farming and consequently, the cost. Robotics and digital agriculture are already with us in some parts of the world. But where most people live in the world, traditional manual methods and animal traction are set to continue until the high investment needed for cutting-edge technology becomes doable.

Combines harvesting barley for the 2021 annual Canadian Food Grains Bank (CFGB) food drive, Alberta, Canada. The grain is auctioned and the proceeds matched 4:1 by the Canadian government and used by CFGB to promote agriculture in developing countries. Credit: Trevor Page

Wrestling with nature

Despite the advances in technology, drought can badly affect a crop. Cereal crops in western Canada and the United States have been seriously affected by drought this year. Climate change presents the greatest challenge yet to agriculture, and to the human species, generally.

Agriculture is the largest emitter of greenhouse gasses contributing to climate change. According to FAO, the rearing of livestock accounts for the highest proportion because of the methane produced from enteric fermentation as well as manure left on pastures. Also according to FAO, 44% of GHGs are emitted from Asia, 25% from the Americas, 15% from Africa, 12% from Europe and 4% from Oceania.

Is organic agriculture the answer to healthier food and also the way to go because it’s kinder to the planet? Studies have found that there are higher antioxidant levels in organically grown plant-based foods. There is also evidence that organic food has lower toxic, heavy metal levels and less pesticide residue, for instance organic eggs, meat and dairy products. Organic farms use less energy and have lower GHG emissions. They also reduce the pollution caused by the widespread use of nitrogen fertilizer on industrial farms, with the runoff causing the eutrophication of water bodies. Organic agriculture is based on nourishing the soil with composts, manure and regular rotations, keeping it covered with different crops throughout the year. That sequesters carbon, building healthier soil.

The problem is that organically grown food is more expensive that industrially produced food. On average, it retails around 25% more than food sold in supermarkets. Also, most organic farmers need to supplement their income from an additional occupation in order to make ends meet. So, despite the benefits to human health and to the planet, does organic farming have a future? The answer is a resounding “yes!”, both from producers and consumers. Although globally, only 1.5% of farmland is organic, in 16 countries 10% or more of all agricultural land is organic, and the proportions are growing. The countries with the largest organic share of their total farmland are Liechtenstein at 38.5 %, Samoa at 34.5% and Austria 24.7%, according to IFOAM Organics International. Today, organic food is more of a lifestyle choice, both by the producer and the consumer. But if its growth is an indicator of concern for our health and for that of the planet, and more and more people are willing and able to pay the extra cost involved, then organics can be seen as an indicator of wellbeing and a reduction of inequality, which is a major cause of conflict in the world today.

Healthy root formation on Mozart red potatoes on The Perry Farm in Taber, Canada. Regenerative agriculture is practiced on this farm. Credit: Trevor Page

Although humankind has grown up largely on a diet of just three cereals: wheat, corn and rice, potatoes are actually more nutritious. Furthermore, potatoes can be grown on marginal land and they require only one-third of the water needed to grow the world’s three main cereals. Five years ago, China moved to double its potato production and to add them to the diet of its growing population. Should Africa be following suit?

Conclusion

The Food Systems Summit kicks off in New York on September 23 during the UN General Assembly High-Level Week. World leaders will come together to find common ground and form alliances that accelerate our way to realizing the SDGs in this remaining decade of action before 2030 is upon us. Will we succeed in making Zero hunger a reality? If we are serious about this goal, the answer includes rethinking and redesigning our food systems to make them more sustainable.

Trevor Page, resident in Lethbridge, Canada, is a former Emergencies Director of the World Food Programme. He also served with the UN Food & Agriculture Organization, FAO, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR and what is now the UN Department of Political and Peace Building Affairs.

 

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Rwanda's Volleyball Federation vice-president is arrested over the team's use of ineligible players at the Women's African Championship.

Jamaica is increasingly cited as a model of meaningful youth engagement. Here Environment and Climate Change Minister Pearnel Charles Jr plants trees with a young environmentalist. Credit: NDC Partnership

By Alison Kentish
DOMINICA, Sep 21 2021 (IPS)

When the NDC Partnership, the alliance which helps governments to determine and achieve their climate goals, held its first-ever Global Youth Engagement Forum in July, several segments were underpinned by Jamaica’s model of engaging young people and sustaining youth interest in climate initiatives.

The Caribbean country, a co-chair of the NDC Partnership, has committed to ensuring that youth have a say on national climate programs, through representation on boards such as the Climate Advisory Body and the NDC Partnership.

Environment and Climate Change Minister Pearnel Charles Jr told IPS that policymakers are committed to a well-defined and permanent space for young people in climate change decision-making.

He spoke to IPS on Jamaica’s blueprint for youth engagement, how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted plans for an on-the-ground campaign to meet youth at primary, secondary, and tertiary education institutions and why engagement must be universal and equitable.

Excerpts of the interview follow:

Inter Press Service (IPS): Why is it so important for you that space at the center of climate discussion and action is dedicated to young people?

Pearnel Charles Jr (PC): The best use of our time and energy and the best investment that we can make is in building the capacity of our young people. It’s a sensible, strategic decision based on the fact that they will very soon control the policy, legislation, and decisions of the country.

It is also the right decision as young people can have a wider impact than most because of their energy, creativity, innovation, and interest. We don’t have issues with having to inform the youth as much as we think. That is not the issue. They are informed and in large part involved, but they do not get enough avenues to shine or platforms to perform and be engaged. My responsibility is to create platforms for them to simply express themselves, learn more, and become more aware of how they can play a greater role and influence others around them.

Environment and Climate Change Minister Pearnel Charles Jr believes it’s important to create platforms for young people to interact with environmental issues. Credit: NDC Partnership

I have found in the several roles that I have had that whenever I have targeted the young, it has not been just because they are young. Once you get youth on board, they will not only influence the younger generation, but they become soldiers in their homes and communities. They speak to the elders, urge them to conserve, and suggest new methods for sustainable action.

It is also easier to change behavior at an early stage. Those of us who are over 35 are set in our ways, in a pattern of life. Science teaches that it is more difficult to change behavior after a certain time. So again, I think it is a sensible and sustainable decision and why I always get young people involved, engaged, and energized.

IPS: Jamaica is often highlighted for its youth engagement in climate change. How do you ensure that young people are part of decision-making?

PC: As it relates to the climate change portfolio, I have a climate change advisory board. It is led by a distinguished professor, the principal of the University of West Indies, but what I have ensured is that on that high-level board, we have strong youth representation. It is not one person, not token youth representation. I have about three or four young leaders on the board. I have also ensured that there is gender equity in addition to strong youth representation.

We also have youth who are always engaged in consultations taking place in our ministry. We keep connected and ask for their views on policy decisions and how best to execute in communities.

We have two representatives on the NDC Partnership Youth Taskforce, which is significant. They play a role in how that global partnership impacts the world and how we create an arena where young people can feel safe to speak up.

We make sure to include young people in everything. Sometimes they host events, other times they moderate panel discussions. They are leading the conversation, as opposed to being attached to the conversation.

We have the Jamaica Climate Change Youth Council, which is an affiliate of my advisory board. The Council raises awareness about climate change and its effects on young Jamaicans aged 15 to 35. The members drive advocacy in that regard.

We also have the Caribbean Youth Environment Council and we have environment and climate change clubs in schools which help to coordinate and get the message out to students.

Environment and Climate Change Minister Pearnel Charles Jr interacts with the Climate Change Youth Council. Credit: NDC Partnership

IPS: How has COVID-19 impacted your activities?

PC: COVID has handicapped the capacity to have in-person meetings and initially, I intended to go from school to school and university to university, to create forums and opportunities for the youth to be able to not just be engaged, but exposed to cutting edge climate change issues and also to share their solutions, whether they have invented something or researched an issue and have a hypothesis, but I have not been able to do that.

I do intend to once the circumstances change and if I am still in this position, to drive a robust campaign across all of our tertiary, secondary, and even primary institutions, to raise awareness and directly allow our youth and children to learn and be involved in climate action.

IPS:  In terms of success stories, are you buoyed by the climate discussions and initiatives of young people in Jamaica?

PC: You know, young people are bold. They are not afraid to be offensive in telling you what they think. It may not always be correct, but they will give you the truth, as opposed to saying, “yes, Minister,” so even outside of the public space where everybody’s watching, I always rely on the interrogation of young minds. I appreciate the criticism that they have.

We have created platforms where young people get an opportunity to not just speak, but to create solutions and that is one of the things that I am very happy for, that from the public or private sector, we have initiatives that allow them to display their skills in creating solutions, whether it is to reduce the carbon footprint or through entrepreneurship by cultivating some type of plant or whatever sustainable practice that we are trying to advance.

When we create an opportunity for them to do that, it not only raises awareness, but it provides them with a long-term avenue for participation and it is the best type of participation, as they are gaining profit from promoting sustainability.

I still stand as a youth representative for UNESCO although I am not in the youth category anymore. Recently, I had a meeting with one or two of my representatives on the UNESCO Ambassador Programme, an initiative I created where young people can become representatives of the sustainable development movement. We intend to use that group as an avenue to carry out online engagements, educate youth on climate change and environment issues and give them an opportunity to ask questions, share their thoughts and recommendations.

IPS:  The recently held Global Youth Engagement Forum was a landmark event for the NDC Partnership’s Steering Committee and its Youth Task Force. What do you think it achieved?

PC: It was a genuinely safe and open space for youth to participate, strengthen their commitment to being ambassadors for climate action, share best practices, and ultimately, build capacity.

What we have done with this engagement is build the ability of our youth to take charge of their actions and drive the participation of others around them in the policies that we have designed to advance sustainable development.

We have failed over the years to truly advance sustainable practices. It is the youth who will do it, they are doing it.

I do not have to call. I get calls from young people saying, “minister, we want to do a beach cleanup,” and I have to remind them that this is not possible during COVID. But it shows that they are not wasting time. They have organized beach cleanups, recycling drives, they are picking up plastics, they are designing climate-smart communities and we don’t have to beg them, we only need to provide a platform for them.

So, I think that the youth you know that engagement for all is critical. It is a critical roadmap of participation on a wide level for our youth and for them now to drive implementation of the policies and practices that we need across the country and region.

Also, it speaks to the level of consultation and dialogue that has to continue. It is not about having one engagement and feeling comfortable. The need for consistency in our communication to ensure that we continue to have meaningful youth engagement. The meaningful must come before the youth engagement it has to be designed to really know the youth inclusive approach, where you’re speaking to them, getting them involved, you have an opportunity to bend and shape policy.

 

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Intense military activity is reported in Khartoum and Omdurman and bridges across the River Nile close.

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Sep 21 2021 (IPS)

As developing countries struggle to cope with the pandemic, they risk being set back further by restrictive fiscal policies. These were imposed by rich countries who no longer practice them if they ever did. Instead, the global South urgently needs bold policies to ensure adequate relief, recovery and reform.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Bold fiscal responses needed
Governments must mobilise and deploy resources sustainably and fairly, consistent with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With rich countries’ refusal to help more, adequate government financing is crucial.

Taxation is typically a more sustainable, effective and accountable way of raising government fiscal resources. But the pandemic has imposed extraordinary demands requiring massive urgent spending.

National authorities can generate fiscal resources in two main ways, by collecting revenue or borrowing. Government borrowing is generally needed as revenue has been hit by the slowdown.

Massive fiscal resource mobilization and appropriate spending are needed to contain the contagion and prevent temporary recessions – e.g., due to lockdowns – from becoming debilitating protracted depressions.

Fiscal policy involves both government resource generation and spending. But developing countries have been far more conservative in spending compared to the rich. The latter have introduced much bolder relief and recovery packages.

In the short, medium and long term, both government spending and taxation must be progressive. Much depends on how revenue is raised and spent. Hence, both taxation and expenditure need to be considered.

Taxes less progressive now
Governments must quickly develop progressive ways to finance massive spending needed to protect both lives and livelihoods. Over the last four decades, many governments reduced progressive direct taxation, instead embracing regressive indirect taxes.

Higher tax rates on the wealthy made direct taxation progressive. The regression was mainly due to lobbying by powerful elites, including foreign investors. The influential Washington-based Bretton Woods international financial institutions led such advocacy.

Incomes of the wealthy are mainly from assets, rather than wages, salaries or payments for goods or services. But tax rates on the highly paid, as well as property, inheritance and corporate incomes have declined in most countries.

Wealth is often untaxed, or only lightly taxed at lower rates. New rules now allow assets to be moved and hidden abroad. Depending on how one estimates, between US$8–35 trillion is held offshore, obscuring wealth concentration and inequality.

Taxation can reduce existing inequalities, but rarely does so despite the widespread presumption that taxes are progressive overall. Worse, most state spending is regressive, little mitigated by highly publicised social spending.

Difficult to measure, pandemic impacts on various inequalities vary considerably. Nevertheless, the vicious cycle connecting economic disadvantage with vulnerability has worsened disparities.

Ensure progressive taxation
To be equitable, taxation must be progressive. More equitable tax systems should get more revenue from those most able to pay while reducing the burden on the needy. Wealth taxes are the most progressive way to raise revenue while also reducing inequalities.

Direct taxes on wealth and incomes are potentially progressive. Progressively higher rates and exemptions for the poor can ensure this. Low rates on investment income and assets – such as property, wealth and inheritance – can be increased. Besides reducing inequalities, these can finance progressive spending.

Taxing windfall and excess profits is not only publicly acceptable, but can also raise considerable funds. Some corporations and individuals have benefited greatly during the pandemic, e.g., US billionaires have reportedly become over a trillion dollars richer over the last year and a half.

In the longer term, progressive taxation means less reliance on indirect taxes – such as sales or consumption taxes, including value-added, or goods and services tax – which burden those with lower incomes much more.

Tax evasion by the wealthy must also be deterred. Companies using tax havens to pay less can be penalised, e.g., by disqualifying them from all government and state-owned enterprise contracts. Tax systems can thus be made more progressive by improving design and with strict, equitable enforcement.

Equitable recovery?
Ensuring equitable recovery requires urgent systemic reforms. Although unlikely to yield much more revenue in the near term due to the economic slowdown, introducing such reforms now will be politically much easier.

Taxation can transfer fiscal resources from the wealthy to the needy. Those living precariously, including those now at risk due to the pandemic and its broad impacts, urgently need help. But financing relief and recovery provides liquidity, averting protracted economic contraction and stagnation.

Some pandemic relief spending in many countries has been ‘captured’ by the politically well-connected, as political elites and their cronies seize the lucrative new opportunities. These compromise not only relief and recovery, but also reform efforts.

When relief and recovery are treated as temporary ‘one-off’ measures, they are unlikely to address pre-pandemic problems, including inequities. Governments should instead use the crisis to advance SDG solutions for both the medium and long-term.

Multilateral cooperation needed
International cooperation can help, but the rich countries’ Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has long focused on addressing offshore tax evasion to secure more revenue for themselves.

A decade ago, it broadened its attention, but continued to insist on its own leadership at the expense of developing countries. It has thus effectively blocked multilateral tax cooperation for decades, ignoring the UN’s strong mandate from various Financing for Development and other summits.

Equitable international tax reforms remain urgent. But these have been undermined by earlier reforms encouraging cross-border flows of funds, enabling illicit financial flows from developing countries.

Although unlikely to yield much revenue for some time, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s global minimum corporate income tax proposal deserves strong qualified support.

Developing countries need to ensure that transnational companies are better taxed, instead of the current G7 proposal for a low rate. Revenue should be distributed according to where both production and consumption take place instead of just where sales occur.

Effectively checking tax abuses also requires access to financial information and common, equitable and transparent rules, not those imposed by the rich. But such outcomes can only be achieved through UN-led multilateralism with developing country governments participating as equals.

 

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The French president is heckled as he promises reparations for Algerians who fought for France.

By Sania Farooqui
NEW DELHI, India, Sep 20 2021 (IPS)

Last year, as the world grappled to survive the Covid-19 Pandemic, Megan Fernandas an accountant living in Toronto, was trying to face her biggest fear, not the COVID-19 virus, but missing her doctor’s appointment after surviving a rigorous fight against stage 2 breast cancer.

Meagan had just gotten back to her normal life when the news of the pandemic hit the world. “I live with my family here in the city and we were all at home, even now we barely go out, so we knew we could ensure not getting infected, but god forbid if I had a health escalation or a reaction to any medication, this was a very stressful time for me.

Dr. Monsura Haque

“We all know how difficult it is to get a doctor’s appointment, sometimes even if it’s an emergency, the wait period can take weeks, and only the lucky ones are able to find a personal physician. My fear was missing my monthly check-ups. This pandemic could ruin it all, just because we can’t get to a doctor on time. I just wish meeting a doctor was a simple and easy process,” says Fernandas.

Fast forward to September 2021, as Canada continues to fight the pandemic, come snap elections, parties have made several pledges to make sure Canada is prepared for the next pandemic – though experts warn “this could be trickier than politicians make it out to be”.

Earlier this month, Toronto-based research group ICES said that between August 29 and September 4, Peel, a region which has cases steadily rising, had the sixth highest positivity rate – 4.46 percent out of 34 public health regions in Ontario, which is Canada’s most populous province. The region has reported more than 114,000 cases since the pandemic began, with over 960 deaths.

The COVID-19 pandemic generated uneven experiences for millions of healthcare workers and physicians across the world. In Canada, with a health system battered by the pandemic, the country has reported more than 1.45 million cases and more than 26, 000 deaths since the pandemic began, according to John Hopkins University data.

What makes this worse is a report in 2019 stated that only 241 physicians per 100,ooo population were available in the country, indicating the sheer overburden on Canada’s health system through this global health crisis.

Dr. Joel Parungao

While there are a lot of discussion on making the integration of Internationally Trained Medical Doctors (ITMD) easier in Canada, Joel Parungao a trained physician from the Philippines with more than 5 years of experience in public health and hospital medicine managed to contribute his bit during the pandemic last year.

Despite experience and qualifications, Parungao joined the Ontario Ministry of Health as a Covid Case Manager.

“This job gave me an opportunity to “be in the frontline,” Parungao says. “A remote work-from-home job and we were deployed to a specific Public Health Unit conducting COVID case investigations and helping them deal with outbreaks. I was able to help the province and the country in fighting the pandemic,” Parungao says in an interview given to IPS News.

Parungao being amongst the very few who played a role in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic is amongst the 13,000 ITMDs in Canada who despite qualifications and experience are yet to become licensed doctors in the country.

“I am still pursuing my dream to be a licensed doctor here in Canada. It’s difficult, given the amount of time and money you have to invest in just credentials verification, qualifying exams, and other required medical residency training,” says Parungao. “You have to be ready to work in ‘survival jobs’ that are completely out of the medical field at first and then find a way to move to an alternative health profession afterwards,” Parangao says.

One of the key challenges as reported here for ITMDs in Canada remains cost associated with licensing examinations, the CaRMS application process is often a barrier for newcomers. A report states that 47 % of foreign-educated health professionals are either unemployed or employed in non-health related positions that require only a high school diploma.

Dr. Monsura Haque, an international Medical Graduate from Bangladesh with almost 16 years of experience in medical practise says, “there is no doubt that Canada needs more doctors for all types of work, either clinical or alternative pathways. This pandemic reveals that need and the crisis in the healthcare system.”

While Dr. Monsura has no practical experience in clinical settings, with her speciality in Public Health, she volunteered in hospitals and University to gain more experience, while they were excellent opportunities for her, “those settings were really just using volunteers without any remuneration,” Haque says.

Health care systems across the world are undergoing massive challenges, strains and are not without faults. During the pandemic, access concerns, quality of care and the high costs of services which are not covered by insurance or by those who can’t afford it are few common traits across borders. For healthcare professionals the challenge has been access to PPE kits, long exhaustive hours, mental and physical trauma and these issues are further complicated in Canada by just the lack of the number of doctors available per person for COVID and non-COVID related cases.

The cost of healthcare is increasing, and Canada cannot afford to say it is going to focus on health care without including or evening mentioning the pool of ITMDs available and under utilized.

“Integration of ITMDs into the Canadian healthcare system requires a national strategy and approach by government policymakers and other regulatory bodies,” says Dr. Shafi Bhuiyan, ITMDs Canada Network (iCAN) Char and Global Health Expert.

“Canada has the opportunity to make these changes right now, I always say it will be a win-win situation for all. We have a pool of talented ITMDs who are under utilized or leaving their professionals due to such roadblocks. If these changes can be made, and we find a way to include ITMDs into our healthcare system, a lot can be achieved.” says Bhuiyan.

 

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