Africa

As statues are toppled and defaced, a light is being shone on countries' colonial history.

Burundi President Pierre Nkurunziza died suddenly after being admitted to a hospital on Saturday.

Pierre Nkurunziza was admitted to hospital on Saturday after feeling unwell, the government says.

The politicians caused a stir for having on scarves of African design as they knelt for George Floyd.

Tshegofatso Pule had been missing for four days before her body was discovered.

By Dr. Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury
SINGAPORE, Jun 9 2020 (IPS-Partners)

Politics have exacerbated the already severe pains that the raging COVID Pandemic have been inflicting on the global population. The spread of Coronavirus coincided with three major developments in the global arena. First was the end of what Charles Krauthammer, the American neo-conservative guru had called, as the title of his book on that subject suggested, America’s “Unipolar Moment”. This was the period, since the implosion of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, when the United states was the only pre-dominant superpower that ruled the roost in the global arena. Though China was rising in the meantime, politically, economically and militarily, it was still coy about it, conforming to the Deng Xia0ping counsel to “hide its capabilities and bide its time”.

Dr. Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury

The second, major development was the assessment of China’s current leader Xi Jinping was that that demure posture was no longer necessary, China was strong and confident enough to assert itself, and seek the position of a peer to the US. So, the US’ “Unipolar Moment” was pretty much over, and a new era of bipolarity was ushered into the international arena.

The third was technically a domestic development, the up-coming US elections, which, however, always have wide enough implications of a global nature. Donald Trump needed an issue to mobilize his support-base, and a conflict with China could be a useful rallying point. A war was too dangerous, with uncertain consequences. At the same time the coronavirus was wreaking havoc in the US, and the Administration’s delayed response was subject to considerable criticism. So a distraction, rendered all the more convenient because many Americans believed it, was created by blaming China for initially concealing the origin and lethality of the disease, and also the world Health Organization (WHO)for kowtowing to China’s directions, endeavouring to exonerate Beijing from the responsibilities. The last point appeared to have a modicum of credibility as the Director General of that international body, an Ethiopian, Tedros Gereyesus, had some reasons to be beholden to Beijing as a source of support to him. But he himself was quick to deny it, claiming that no action of the WHO, in reaction to COVID, was taken at the behest of any member, meaning China.

That was the backdrop against which the key decision making organ of the WHO, the World Health Assembly, which has 194 State-members, met, virtually ,due to the global Corona-induced lock-down, centred in the WHO headquarters in Geneva ,for two days in the third week of May. Weeks prior to the session, the US and China, along with their supporters, locked horns, first through the preparatory process, and thereafter during the session itself. The differences surfaced mainly with regard to two issues: first was the participation of Taiwan, and the second was a resolution pertaining to the reforms of the WHO.

The question of the participation of Taiwan in United Nations and other international conferences where membership constitutes States, has been a perennial bone of contention. An overwhelming membership of the UN, including the US. Conform to the one-china policy, which, by definition, excluded Taiwan’s presence. However, in the WTO, after the SARS pandemic at the turn of the century, Taiwan was invited to sit in as observer at WHA sessions, though under the status deprecating banner of “Chinese Taipeh”. But that was with the approval of China as Taiwan had a pro-unification (with China) government. But currently the government in Taiwan is seen as pro-independence, which has raised Chinese ire, an, consequently China was disinclined to extend invitation to Taipeh. So, despite US insistence that the success of Taipeh’s COVID containment (0nly 440 infections and seven deaths), which would enable it to contribute positively to discussions, the door was closed to Taiwan. An angry Trump, who had already cancelled the current years assessed contribution to WTO budget, criticizing the WHO, calling it to “demonstrate independence from China’ and urging reforms, threatening that if these were not initiated , further US action would follow.

The other major western bloc, the European Union, disassociated itself from the US position, and put out a statement supporting the WHO. Its foreign policy spokesman said: ‘This is the time for solidarity, not the time for finger-pointing or for undermining multilateral cooperation”. Even within the US there were apprehensions that Trump’s posture could lessen the US clout in the global fight against the pandemic, and in fact, cede the leadership in combatting it to China. The head of the prestigious American think-tank the Council on Foreign Relations, said that the US needed to consult others on reforming the WHO if it wanted to do more than just posturing. He observed that “there is no unilateral US answer to global health challenges”.

As to the issue of reforms, it was akin to motherhood, in the sense that everyone was supportive of reform, and no one opposing it; the question was what were the necessary reforms and when were they to be implemented. Australia, a key US ally initially led the charge, beginning with a call for an inquiry into the origin of the virus. But the spirit was somewhat dampened as once again politics came to the fore with China swiftly proposing massive tariffs on Australian barley and blocking meat imports from it (China is Australia’s largest market , lifting nearly 38 percent of its total exports , greater than those of the US, Japan and South Korea combined.) China also wanted reforms, but only those , as Xi Jinping said, “based on science and professionalism, led by the WHO, and conducted in an objective and impartial manner”.

Finally, it was the resolution initiated by the European Union, which eventually attracted a large number of other cosponsors, that was adopted. It had three main components. It called for: First, an impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation of the international response to the pandemic; second, a probe on the actions of the WTO and their timelines pertaining to COVID-19; and three, requiring the WHO to examine the ‘zoonotic’ (spread from animal to human, thus dismissing some western accusation of a man-made virus) and the route of introduction to human population.

The resolution was adopted by consensus (‘Consensus’ agreement is distinct from ‘unanimous’ agreement -the which though subtle is also significant- in that in the former case no one disagrees, and in the latter case, everyone agrees), which was face-saving for all, since members did not have to publicly state or demonstrate their actual positions. So, the S did not disassociate itself from the consensus as some had feared, but remained content, for the time being, with Trump describing WHO as “puppet of China”. But the US President struck hard on 30 May by ending his country’s relationship with the WHO, accusing it of being “Under the total control of China”.

Despite the fact that by now such announcement was expected, there was world- wide expression of regret. Immediately Germany’s Health Minister, Jens Spah, called it “a disappointing backlash for international health”. A leading British oncologist said there was no “logic” to the decision. However, the WHO is likely to survive the American withdrawal. The contributions will be made up from other sources. China has already committed $ 2 billion over two years to help other countries respond to the virus,

This would help fill the gap. Even US and other western billionaires might step in with their support. But the point is, the development does not augur well for multilateralism broadly, and global cooperation in the health sector specifically. The point to note is that given the fact that we are poised to enter a new era where the world is no longer unipolar, that after three decades the US now has a rival peer, could once again dichotomize the world. In particular, the entire developing world, including Bangladesh, must need take heed and shape behaviour patterns appropriately.

Dr. Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury is Principal Research Fellow at ISAS, National University of Singapore, former Foreign Advisor and President of Cosmos Foundation Bangladesh.

This article was first published in DHAKA COURIER

The post Politics of the Pandemic Pains: WHO is to Blame? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Coronavirus pandemic threatens crises-ravaged communities as UN appeals for global support. Credit: United Nations

By Charlotte Petri Gornitzka, Robert Piper and Ulrika Modéer
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 9 2020 (IPS)

The COVID-19 pandemic upended almost every aspects of life as we know it. Even those countries that are supposed to have the means to manage the spread and mitigate the effects are struggling.

Besides the $5 trillion stimulus package that the G20 economies agreed to deal with the pandemic, individual countries are also devising various measures to shore up their health care systems, stabilize their economies, and assist affected workers and businesses.

Even before the full brunt of the coronavirus outbreak reached some of the poorest countries, the economic impacts are already being felt. With declining global demand for raw materials, breakdown of global supply chain, and mounting debt burden, the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is estimated to exceed $220 billion.

The urgent shouldn’t crowd out the important

With greater uncertainty and fear of global recession looming large, governments are looking for resources needed to lessen the socio-economic pains of the crisis. In this process, official development assistance (ODA) won’t be spared and could come under increased scrutiny.

Decisions made now will have potentially devastating – or transformative – impact for years to come. Despite the economic and political pressure, we must protect ODA, which is needed more than ever.

The spread of COVID-19, especially in places with weak governance and health infrastructures, is expected to be overwhelming if the international community does not act now.

For example, in Sub-Saharan Africa, many countries have the lowest number of physicians per capita in the world while some experience ongoing conflicts, making it difficult to fight the virus.

Credit: UNFPA

The collateral impact of COVID-19 on health, education and nutrition systems will be extremely damaging, and in many cases irreversible, for children and society at large. And when the world opens up again, the resilience of the weakest health systems will dictate how well we do against future threats.

The UN Secretary General argued that “this human crisis demands coordinated, decisive, inclusive and innovative policy action—and maximum financial and technical support for the poorest and most vulnerable people and countries.”

It is critical for the international community to fulfil the humanitarian appeal for COVID-19 response while protecting existing commitments to long-term development and other ‘silent’ emergencies.

Doing so will help protect the most vulnerable people from being exposed to the effects of COVID-19 and preserve hard-earned development gains in fighting global poverty and expanding basic services.

Left to their own devises, fragile nations may risk the breakdown of socio-political order, civil unrest and state collapse, further exacerbating the dire situation.

Flexible funding key to tackling COVID-19

COVID-19 is not only a humanitarian crisis, but also a development crisis. Development agencies are supporting countries to prepare for, respond to, and recover from the crisis.

The effectiveness of their response to certain degree depends on the flexibility afforded to them in funding and operational procedures.

To tackle this uniquely complex health and development crisis, the adequacy and flexibility of funding to development agencies are pivotal. Flexible “core” funding is already making a difference in the COVID-19 response to reach people in need faster, empower local actors, deploy essential supplies to the frontline, and protect the most vulnerable – children, refugees, women.

This enabled the affected communities to practice due diligence and self-driven discretion to immediately respond to threats of the pandemic, while waiting for the pledged assistance to arrive. For instance, in Nigeria, funding flexibility allowed UNICEF to come up with an innovative solution to fight misinformation around COVID-19 while UNDP was able to support the government double the ventilator capacity in the country.

Collaboration, not competition

The COVID-19 pandemic is a devastating crisis in history. But it also posits an opportunity to remind the global community why multilateralism is vital to securing the world’s peace, security, and prosperity.

We witness how the health crisis of today’s globalized world interlinks global economy, geopolitics, and social values. Our effective response to the public health crisis should be seen as key to resolving the ensuing economic, humanitarian, and development challenges.

Understanding this interlinked and complex reality of COVID-19, governments need to work together closely to take coordinated actions and share scientific information, resources and expertise.

It is this strong motion for collaboration that underpins the UN agencies commitment to reinforce the humanitarian-development nexus to jointly respond to the COVID-19 crisis, working closely through the UN Crisis team, humanitarian response plan, UN Response and Recovery Fund for COVID-19.

For example, in Guinea-Bissau, WHO, UNICEF, UNDP, and IOM joined hands to help build isolation facilities and triage space, and procure necessary equipment for COVID-19, both for the national hospital as well as for the re-modelling of the UN clinic.

With strong solidarity and effective cooperation, the international community will not only arrest COVID-19, but also use the emergency to build back better health systems and a more inclusive and sustainable economy.

 

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 post Global Solidarity & Effective Cooperation in the Face of COVID-19 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Charlotte Petri Gornitzka is Assistant Secretary-General and UNICEF Deputy Executive Director, Partnerships; Robert Piper is Assistant Secretary-General, Director of Development Coordination Office; and Ulrika Modéer is Assistant Administrator of UNDP & Director of Bureau of External Relations and Advocacy.

The post Global Solidarity & Effective Cooperation in the Face of COVID-19 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Protests in cities across the United States including in New York city. Credit: UN News/Shirin Yaseen

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 9 2020 (IPS)

The massive protests in more than 120 US cities over racial injustice and police brutality went global last week– amidst presidential threats of military force on demonstrators in Washington DC.

At the same time, there were continued political demonstrations against the imposition of authoritarianism in Hong Kong by the current dominating military power there: China.

According to Cable News Network (CNN), “sickened,” “shocked and appalled,” “horror and consternation” – “are words we’re used to hearing from US presidents and diplomats to condemn despotic regimes”.

“But these are from leaders in the UK, the European Union and Canada, respectively”, to describe the brutal killing of an unarmed African-American in the streets of Minneapolis which triggered protests worldwide.

But will any UN Secretary-General – past or present – have plucked up courage to condemn the political leadership either in the United States or China, two veto-wielding permanent members in the Security Council, in such harsh terms?

”Never,” says a former Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UN, “particularly, if a Secretary-General is planning to run for a second term —where the threat of a veto hangs over his head”?

Still, will a limit on his tenure be an answer to the problem, as laid out in a 1996 study, which recommended that the General Assembly adopt a comprehensive new policy, including a single, seven-year term, to free the Secretary-General from re-election stresses and pressures.?

Stephen Lewis, a former Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations and Deputy Executive Director of the UN children’s agency UNICEF, told IPS: “I don’t think it much matters whether it’s two five-year terms or one seven-year term”.

That’s not the problem with the Secretary-General’s tenure, he pointed out.

The problem is that both Ban Ki-moon and Antonio Guterres have paid no attention to the three most important words that open the Charter of the UN: “We the peoples”…

“They both pay homage only to governments; it’s as if ‘the peoples’ of the world don’t exist. As a result, there is neither transparency nor accountability”, said Lewis, who was a UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, and later co-founder and co-director of AIDS-Free World.

Guterres, he said, hides behind the Convention on Privileges and Immunities, or with willful arrogance refuses to answer questions put to him.

“Thus, when asked why he’s silent on the turbulence in the United States, and in particular the excessive use of force, he defers to his spokesperson who provides fatuous nonsense in response.”

It was exactly the way Ban never felt the obligation to tell the truth about cholera in Haiti, nor to feel it necessary to explain why the $400 million fund was effectively abandoned, he noted.

Perhaps one of the few exceptions in the 75-year history of the UN was former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt who paid the supreme penalty of being vetoed out of a second term —even though he garnered an overwhelming 14 of the 15 votes in the UN Security Council. But the US ingloriously vetoed his claims for a second term.

As he recounted his running battle with the US in his book titled “Unvanquished: a US UN Saga,” Boutros-Ghali had the singular distinction of being the only UN chief who never received a second term in office because he paid a heavy price for the courage of his convictions—even though he admits he was forced to occasionally cave in to the dictates of the US.

The 1996 study sponsored by two major think tanks implicitly accused some of the world’s big powers of manipulating the election of the Secretary-General so as to ensure that U.N. heads are political creatures with no minds of their own.

“It is impossible to escape the impression, that many governments, including some of the most powerful, do not want a strong, independent leader as Secretary-General,” said the study published under the auspices of the New York-based Ford Foundation and the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation of Stockholm.

The authors of the study – Brian Urquhart and Erskine Childers, both senior UN officials – said the selection of the Secretary-General is quite literally part of “an old-boy network.” “The United Nations is an intergovernmental organisation, and governments have no intentions of giving up control of it.”

Thomas G. Weiss, a Distinguished Fellow, Global Governance at The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, told IPS the same proposal was part of the “1-for-7-billion campaign” (of which Weiss was a sponsor). http://www.1for7billion.org/

“Boutros Boutros-Ghali would have been a perfect candidate, “enfant terrible” for 7 years instead of modestly behaved for 5 years. It made sense in 1990 and in 2016 for the reasons that you cite”.

“Guterres has been running for a second term since January 2017” (ever since he took office), he noted.

“He has disappointed many of us by being so invisible. We should recall former Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon who prided himself being the “invisible man.” He got two terms. Guterres is using the same strategy,” declared Weiss, Presidential Professor of Political Science, Director Emeritus, Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, The CUNY Graduate Center.

Lewis argued there is no freedom of information in the UN, and that’s what gets governments like Sweden frustrated and thinking of shortening the SG’s term.

“The Secretary-General should be required to hold an open press conference at least once, preferably twice a week, with a critical media corps to ask questions. If that were the case, the entire culture of his office would change.”

“It’s his behaviour rather than his longevity that needs reform,” declared Lewis, who also launched the Code Blue campaign to end impunity for sexual abuse by UN personnel.

In a hard-hitting article titled “As Protests Sweep the US, the UN Tweets Platitudes”, Dulcie Leimbach, a former editor at the New York Times and founder of PassBlue, a widely-read web publication covering the United Nations, wrote: “Amid curfews in New York City, constant marches and protests, sirens from the streets and helicopters whirring above, the United Nations top leader, António Guterres, has not appeared before the media to say anything directly about the convulsions exploding across the five boroughs and far beyond. Instead, he has relied on his spokespeople to provide responses.”
https://www.passblue.com/2020/06/03/as-protests-sweep-the-us-the-un-tweets-platitudes/

Leimbach also wrote that the lack of direct reference to the killing of George Floyd, and the turn of events here in the city and elsewhere, extends to the UN Security Council, the General Assembly, the US mission to the UN and other national delegations. Only the UN high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, a Chilean who is based in Geneva, has directly addressed Floyd’s murder.

“But when it comes to criticizing the US or other great powers who control the UN, Guterres has built a reputation of making vague statements or letting other UN experts, from human-rights chiefs to refugee bosses — not a new reaction — to comment on the latest problem or conflict violating international law or overriding universal rights”.

Asked to comment further on UN leadership, Leimbach told IPS: “For the UN to remain relevant in our ever-increasing polarized world, it needs to have a woman running the organization for a change”

That would show it is flexible and accountable to half the world’s population as women need to be running global organizations to ensure their equal rights.

The symbol of having the UN led by a woman — the right woman — would be profound, she declared.

Asked for the Secretary-General’s views– on whether the attacks on journalists and innocent civilians at US demonstrations last week were violations of human rights– UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters June 5: “Look, we have already spoken on that.”

“ The Secretary-General, I think, has mentioned that in his tweets, and … our position really is the same globally, is that people have a fundamental right to demonstrate peacefully, that the law enforcement should use restraint, and… but there is a fundamental right of peaceful demonstration that needs to be respected all over the world and that… it’s not … this is something we say whenever we get asked about demonstrations and violence.”

Asked about a proposal by a group of parliamentarians from Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand for a Special Envoy on Hong Kong, he said; “Look, we haven’t received anything, as far as I’m aware, officially. There are procedures and precedents on the appointment of… and I speak here in very general terms, on the appointment of special envoys, special representatives and I will… and, obviously, involves all the parties involved in that issue, but I will leave it at that.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

The post UN Chiefs Silenced by Big Powers with Vetoes appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jun 9 2020 (IPS)

As governments the world over struggle to revive their economies after the debilitating lockdowns they imposed following their failure to undertake adequate precautionary containment measures to curb Covid-19 contagion, neoliberal naysayers are already warning against needed deficit financing for relief and recovery.

Deficit financing options
The range of deficit financing options has changed little since first legitimized by Roosevelt and Keynes in the 1930s and used extensively to finance wartime government spending.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

First, debt financing has typically involved government borrowing. More recent understandings of sovereign debt stress the implications of the source of borrowing, domestic or external, e.g., Japan’s total government debt now greatly exceeds double its annual national income, but this is not considered problematic as most of it is domestically held by Japanese.

Second, price controls, general or selective, can cut both ways, and may require subsidies. Price controls on extracted natural resources can also enable governments to capture resource rents to augment revenue.

Third, the widespread use of unconventional monetary measures since the 2008 global financial crisis has forced economists to reconsider earlier monetarist articles of faith about deficit financing by ‘taxing’ everyone via inflation, also giving an unexpected boost to modern monetary theory.

Exchange rate policy
Finally, an overvalued exchange rate has been favoured by elites who travel and purchase abroad wanting strong currencies, which they often portray as cause for national pride. After all, governments collect taxes in domestic currency, but pay for international debt and imports with foreign exchange.

However, a strong exchange rate only provides a temporary solution, worsening balance of payments’ difficulties in the longer term, favouring consumers over producers, and importers over exporters, besides encouraging consumption at the expense of savings. Increasing imports for consumption either deplete foreign exchange reserves or require external borrowing.

Overvalued exchange rates’ potential for fighting inflation is risky as balance of payments deficits cannot be sustained indefinitely. Exchange rate-based currency board and stabilization arrangements in transition and developing economies are similarly problematic. Economies maintaining overvalued exchange rates have often later experienced severe currency crises.

Quasi-nationalist development ideologies and weak elite opposition enabled many East Asian economies to use undervalued exchange rates to discourage imports and promote exports, with effective protection for import-substituting industries conditional on successful exports.

Macroeconomic populism?
Deficit spending supposedly responded to ‘populist’ demands by ‘distributional coalitions’ of interest groups demanding higher wages, cheap housing, public healthcare and free schooling. Undoubtedly, their political support was sought by regimes, elected or otherwise, who were typically unwilling or unable to collect enough revenue to sustain such expenditure.

In recent decades, macroeconomic populism has become a catch-all explanation for deficit financing, ostensibly to finance redistributive government spending, regardless of actual expenditure patterns. But rather than populist redistribution, deficit spending was often for ‘security’ (i.e., the military and police) or physical infrastructure, rather than social expenditure, or corruption.

The narrative implies that regimes could not resist demands for redistribution, presumably the price of retaining political authority and influence. Undoubtedly, government capacities to directly tax incomes and assets have been constrained, with the influential generally better able to evade taxes.

Sovereign debt and fiscal crises, due to borrowing to spend beyond budgetary means, were rarely due to ‘excessive’ populist demands. The actual reasons for budgetary deficits were often multiple as well as historically and politically specific, rather than simply due to regimes succumbing to redistributive claims.

US presidential endorsement of Arthur Laffer’s ‘supply side’ economics’ claim of greater growth due to more investments with lower taxes on the rich fuelled the counter-revolution against progressive taxation. Nevertheless, ‘macroeconomic populism’ became the default explanation for all manner of deficit financing, including ‘soft budget constraints’ in ‘communist’ ‘command economies’.

Latin American populist fables
Although there have been few truly ‘populist’ regimes in Latin America, most famously Peronist Argentina, ‘macroeconomic populism’ has become a catch-all term, used to explain why governments increase spending and run budgetary deficits.

Undoubtedly, many Latin American regimes pursued import-substituting industrialization using high tariffs to protect ‘infant industries’ from the 1930s. But high import tariffs augmented, rather than diminished government revenues, in contrast to the tax breaks and subsidies for export growth.

Although precipitated by then US Federal Reserve Bank chairman Paul Volcker raising bank interest rates from 1980 to kill inflation, the Latin American debt crises from 1982 were again misleadingly primarily attributed to preceding populist macroeconomic policies.

Similarly, the significant improvements in popular wellbeing earlier this century in Brazil under the PT, Uruguay under the Frente Amplio, Ecuador under Correa and Bolivia under Morales primarily involved massive employment generation and secondarily, ‘productive’ social protection, rather than the unsustainable transfers depicted by macroeconomic populism.

Neoliberal ghosts return
Macroeconomic populism thus became the default formulaic Washington Consensus ‘explanation’ for deficit financing from the 1980s to explain away all manner of fiscal deficits, and to justify policies imposed by the Bretton Woods institutions, precipitating the region’s ‘lost decade’.

The International Monetary Fund required short-term macroeconomic (price) stabilization policies to counter often runaway inflation. The World Bank’s typically medium-term ‘neoliberal’ structural adjustment policies sought to liberalize not only goods and services markets, but also those for finance, labour and social services, previously provided by governments and state enterprises.

Reviving ideological ghosts from the past, neoliberal commentators are once again warning against deficit financing. Instead of recognizing the need for consistently counter-cyclical fiscal policies over the duration of business cycles, they dogmatically insist on minimal annual budget shortfalls in the short-term, and on balancing budgets by next year, regardless of the recession’s nature and duration.

The stagnation of the last decade was due to the failure to reform adequately after the global financial crisis. Covid-19 recessions are undoubtedly different from recent financial crises, and will need bolder monetary, supply-side and industrial policy measures to catalyse and sustain economic relief, recovery and restructuring measures to address previous maladies and the post-lockdown malaise.

The crisis presents us with an opportunity to do better, to move forward. There is much to learn and do to progress, including abandoning the very modes of thinking which have led to the mess we are in. Exorcising ghosts from the past will be imperative.

 

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 post Economic Ghosts Block Post-Lockdown Recovery appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The continent is increasingly becoming a part of Washington and Beijing's new cold war battlefield.

Ernesto Yeboah's lawyer says that charges that he breached lockdown rules were "baseless".

By Stuart Minchin
Jun 8 2020 (IPS)

COVID19 has brought the world to a halt. The devastating impact of the global pandemic on people’s lives and the world’s economy is a jarring and historic turning point for all of us but it is also an opportunity to re-think many of our practices.

As we mark World Oceans Day, the current global slowdown may be the reset our Ocean needs and the Pacific region is asking the world to reflect on our past to inform innovation for our future.

COVID has disrupted the global transport sector massively, and the increasing reliance on global shipping as flights are grounded presents both challenges and opportunities for the safety and livelihoods of the Pacific region.

More than 16,000 Pacific people work in the Maritime sector, many of whom remain stranded in foreign countries or on vessels as a result of COVID19. Across the Pacific, local restrictions have severely curtailed access to supplies like fuel for local fishing boats, bringing to the fore the issue of food security and the need for longer term, sustainable solutions.

As we mark World Oceans Day this year, we should challenge ourselves to find the opportunities inherent in this crisis to improve our ocean management and stewardship. This can only be accomplished by shifting the status quo and the current global slowdown may be just the reset our Ocean needs.

Our Blue Pacific region is 98 per cent ocean and Pacific Islanders are custodians of 20 per cent of the world’s exclusive economic zones with the healthiest tuna stocks globally. This is not by coincidence, as thousands of years of wise and careful stewardship has contributed to the Pacific’s current status as one of the healthiest regions of our global ocean. The world has much to learn from the traditional knowledge developed over time in the Pacific.

Reef fish are a critical protein for many Pacific communities and populations. Fish such as parrotfish, snappers and emperors shown here for sale in Suva markets in Fiji.

As we grapple with the slow degradation of our oceans globally, and recognise the critical importance the ocean plays in driving global weather patterns, addressing climate change and supplying food and protein to the world’s population, we should reflect on how combining traditional knowledge and science can lead us to find effective solutions.

Now more than ever, we need to harness the opportunities within our ocean, not only for economic benefit, but for the sustainable future of our Blue Continent.

Innovation for Sustainable & Safe Maritime Transport

The majority of islands across the Pacific are remote, accessible only by ships or boats. As I write, 75 per cent of all the bulk fuel imported across the Pacific is used for either road or maritime transport. Finding effective ways to transition from the reliance on fossil fuels to cleaner and more effective technology is critical for the development of the region’s blue economy. There are innovative approaches, both in terms of technologies and using aspects of traditional practices, which are already being implemented by countries and partners working towards the protection of our ocean.

In Vanuatu for example, a cargo ferry was fitted with a solar marine system last year (2019). The instalment of this system is now projected to save the ship operator AU$62,000 per year in fuel costs, and results in a 32 per cent reduction in emissions at anchorage. The year before, the Solomon Islands transitioned lighting systems through a ‘Green Ports’ initiative saving the Solomon Islands Ports Authority AU$180,000 annually with a 160-tonne reduction in emissions and a 13% reduction on overall energy consumption. This example increased the safety of ships docking at night, led to the reduction of operational costs and resulted in increased productivity with a significant reduction in carbon emissions and reliance on fossil fuel.

Camakau or outrigger traditional canoe in Moturiki thanks to a partnership with the Uto Ni Yalo Trust.

In Fiji, traditional boatbuilding is making a resurgence as some communities are discovering the benefits of wind-powered canoes over outboard engines for inter-island transport over short distances. Due to COVID19 the communities of Moturiki relied on wind-powered transport to provide food and to access the local health centre as they were unable to access fuel supplies during the lockdown period.

The agreement by the governments of Fiji, the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and Tuvalu to be part of the Pacific Blue Shipping Partnership should be commended. They are setting themselves a target of a 40 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030, and full decarbonisation by 2050.

At SPC, our Pacific Community Centre for Ocean Science (PCCOS) is one arm of the broader effort driving evidence and science-based understanding of our ocean. A better understanding informs targeted and effective decision-making around our oceans and all that lies within it. It is an opportunity to ensure that the action we take contributes directly to the low carbon transition that is so vital for the health of our ocean, our climate and a new, sustainable relationship between humankind and the natural world.

This Oceans Day is a time for us to reflect on the mix of science, innovation and traditional practices we need for stewardship of the Ocean we want. The Pacific region is not just made up of small islands, rather we are large ocean states and we have much to contribute to the global efforts for sustainable management of our Oceans.

 

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 post We Need to Slow down and Reconnect with Our Ocean for the Future of the Planet appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Stuart Minchin, is Director-General Pacific Community (SPC)

The post We Need to Slow down and Reconnect with Our Ocean for the Future of the Planet appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Dr Renata Clarke
ROME, Jun 8 2020 (IPS)

Few things are as natural and as necessary as eating food. However, if food producers, food processors, food handlers and consumers do not follow good food safety practices, food can become contaminated and rather than nourishing us and bringing us pleasure it can make us sick or even kill us.

According to World Health Organization (WHO) Statistics, the public health burden of unsafe food is very high: in 2015 they estimated that over 600 million people fall ill and 420 000 die every year from foodborne diseases. It was at the launching of the WHO 2015 Report on the Burden of Foodborne disease that Awilo Ochieng Pernet, the then Chairperson of the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the global body responsible for developing food safety and food quality standards, made a call for the establishment of a World Food Safety Day (WFSD). She recognized the need for broader ownership of food safety responsibilities and a regular reminder throughout society that “food safety is everyone’s business”. That call was heeded and here we are…

This year, the second annual celebration of WFSD, in the midst of the COVID, the message of WFSD takes on a particular resonance in the Caribbean.

Firstly, the vulnerability of several Caribbean countries to disruptions in global supply chains has led to re-energized calls for attention to resilient food systems and a regional approach to food security. We will not have efficient regional trade of food if countries do not have confidence in the each other’s ability to reliably produce and market food safely. No government wants to be bring sub-standard food into its country. Facilitating intra-regional trade requires that CARICOM countries have transparent, robust and science-based systems of food control. There is considerable work that Caribbean countries still need to do to achieve this: it requires careful planning and appropriate investment. Many countries have weak legal frameworks for assuring food safety, weak and poorly coordinated institutions and under-equipped food safety laboratories. These are the basic elements of national food safety systems.

Several CARICOM countries have launched COVID-19 response and recovery plans to mitigate impacts on food security and agriculture. These plans involve the introduction of new techniques and technologies that enable more competitive and sustainable production systems. Innovations in food production necessarily requires vigilance and proactivity in terms of identifying new patterns of food safety risk and controlling them to ensure that the public’s health is protected. This celebration of WFSD should serve as an instigation for a reflection on the adequacy of current food safety monitoring and surveillance.

Finally, a word about markets. For this year’s WFSD, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and WHO, have put a focus on the theme “Safe food in markets”. I would like to state out front, that there have been no cases of COVID-19 being transmitted by food. It is not a foodborne disease. However, in the context of COVID-19, food businesses and food markets need to re-inforce hygiene practices and enable safe physical distances during all operations. Traditional markets and farmers markets play an important social function both in terms of providing food and in terms of providing income. With loss of jobs in the tourism and service sectors, in some Caribbean countries we have seen upsurge in street vending of food. Very often the management and the infrastructure of the markets do not allow adequate bio-safety and food safety. Repeated incidents of the emergence of zoonotic diseases (caused by germs spread between humans and animals) that are linked to poor sanitation and hygiene in markets demonstrate clearly that we cannot be complacent about hygiene management in markets. Another very visible change in food marketing in the Caribbean during the COVID-19 Pandemic has been the expansion of various forms of on-line food sales. E-commerce has long been considered a potential growth area, particularly in many developing countries. However, it is important for food safety regulators to consider whether legislative frameworks need to be updated to ensure that food chain actors involved in e-commerce have the same responsibilities for food safety as do food businesses operating ”traditionally”.

Dynamism of food systems is going to increase. Caribbean countries must invest in their capacities for effective food control as an essential contribution to building resilience in effort to reduce food insecurity.

 

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 post 2nd World Food Safety Day appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Dr Renata Clarke is Sub-regional Coordinator Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

The post 2nd World Food Safety Day appeared first on Inter Press Service.

President John Magufuli says prayers have helped eliminate the deadly virus from the country.

A trawler in Johnstone Strait, BC, Canada. Human activities such as pollution, overfishing, mining, geo-engineering and climate change have made an international agreement to protect the high seas more critical than ever. Credit: Winky/cc by 2.0

By External Source
Jun 8 2020 (IPS)

Oceans cover 70 per cent of the Earth’s surface. But, because many of us spend most of our lives on land, the 362 million square kilometres of blue out there aren’t always top of mind.

While vast, oceans are not empty. They are teeming with life and connected to society through history and culture, shipping and economic activity, geopolitics and recreation.

But oceans — along with coastal people and marine species — are vulnerable, and good ocean governance is critical to protect these expanses from pollution, overfishing and climate change, to name just some of the threats.

The laws, institutions and regulations in place for the oceans are a multi-layered patchwork and always a work in progress.

 

Common heritage of humankind

Some characterize oceans as the “common heritage of humankind.” As such, the United Nations plays a critical role in ocean governance, and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is a key international agreement. The agreement grants coastal and island states authority over swaths of ocean extending 200 nautical miles (360 kilometres) from the shore. These are called exclusive economic zones (EEZ).

EEZs are domestic spaces. Countries enshrine law and delegate authority to state agencies that lead monitoring, management and enforcement in these zones.

Indigenous peoples also assert jurisdictional authority and coastal peoples hold critical insight about coastal and marine ecosystems. Governance is improved when state agencies share power and collaborate.

For example, during the Newfoundland cod collapse, inshore fishermen had local ecological knowledge about changing cod stock dynamics that might have helped avoid the disaster.

 

A turtle swims in a Marine Protected Area. Credit: Foreign and Commonwealth Office

 

Areas beyond national jurisdiction

A vast portion of the ocean lies beyond EEZs: 64 per cent by area and 95 per cent by volume. These regions are often referred to as the high seas. The high seas are important for international trade, fishing fleets, undersea telecommunications cables and are of commercial interest to mining companies. The high seas also host a wide array of ecosystems and species. Many of these are understudied or altogether unrecorded.

UN agreements identify high seas using a technical term “areas beyond national jurisdiction” that refers to the water column. The sea floor is identified separately and called “the area.” UNCLOS and other pieces of international law regulate activity in these spaces and are responsible for ensuring that no single country or company dominates or benefits unfairly.

Other multilateral, sector-based arrangements manage particularly complex resources. For example, regional fisheries management organizations bring nation states together to collaborate on monitoring and managing fish stocks, like tuna, that have large ranges and cross multiple borders and boundaries.

 

The biodiversity governance gap

Currently, international law does not meaningfully address biodiversity monitoring and conservation in the high seas. This “biodiversity governance gap” has been of concern for the past two decades.

Without a binding mechanism under international law, countries are not obligated to co-operate on developing and implementing conservation measures in the high seas. In addition, monitoring the impacts of various economic activities, such as fishing and mining, on biodiversity is piecemeal and inadequate. Marine species or even entire ecosystems could be lost before we have had a chance to identify and understand them.

On Dec. 24, 2017, the UN General Assembly voted to convene a multi-year process to develop a treaty on “the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction.”

Three of the scheduled negotiation sessions have taken place, while the fourth and final one, scheduled for March 2020, was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Some progress has been made. Notably, the draft treaty addresses four key areas: marine genetic resources; area-based management tools, including marine protected areas; environmental impact assessments and capacity building and the transfer of marine technology.

Yet, many disagreements remain.

For example, countries diverge on the extent to which governance should prioritize the principle of oceans as the “common heritage of humankind.” Very pragmatic questions underlie this tension: should marine genetic sequences be commercialized? If so, how would this work and will it be possible to agree on a way to share benefits fairly? These are critical and how they are addressed will determine if persistent inequities between the Global North and Global South are lessened or exacerbated.

Another challenge relates to marine protected areas (MPAs), especially how they are defined and implemented. What levels of protection are needed for an area to count as an MPA? How much should the treaty predetermine processes used to establish new MPAs and how will MPA rules be enforced?

 

Credit: Christopher Pala/IPS

COVID-19: Negotiations cut adrift?

Has postponing the final round of negotiations cut high seas biodiversity negotiations adrift? A European research team is surveying participants and experts to learn what impact the disruption may have. However, it is unlikely that the treaty will fall completely by the wayside. Delegates and negotiators may well continue to informally discuss options with one another and refine positions with an eye towards reaching consensus when rescheduling is possible.

A ratified treaty covering biodiversity in the high seas would be an exciting layer to add to the ocean governance patchwork.

But, delegates and negotiators always have to make concessions during talks, and disagreements often persist after the treaty has been signed. Implementation can be as challenging and contentious as negotiation itself. Various human dimensions and economic challenges will also continue to need attention, including human trafficking, perverse fishing subsidies and our collective responsibility to small island states that may be submerged as sea levels rise.

These challenges point to other international forums — the World Trade Organization, International Labour Organization and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change — and serve to remind us of the myriad ways that we are all connected to, and by, oceans.

 

Jennifer Silver, Associate Professor, Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics, University of Guelph; Leslie Acton, Assistant Professor, The University of Southern Mississippi; Lisa Campbell, Professor of Marine Affairs and Policy, Duke University, and Noella Gray, Associate Professor of Geography, University of Guelph

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post How a Global Ocean Treaty Could Protect Biodiversity in the High Seas appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Daud Khan and Leila Yasmine Khan
AMSTERDAM/ROME, Jun 8 2020 (IPS)

As the COVID-19 virus spread rapidly around the globe, so did various theories about what caused the pandemic. According to the standard scientific theory, the virus originated in bats; crossed over to humans, probably via another intermediate host; and then spread rapidly across the globe.

While the mainstream scientific theory sufficed for some, a large number of people saw the pandemic as the work of cold-hearted military or industrial strategists. An equally large number of people saw it as some kind of divine or natural retribution for an increasingly recalcrinant human race. It’s interesting to look at these various alternative theories and to speculate why they have such a strong hold among the public.

In the first of this two part article we looked at the main conspiracy theories – the CIA, the Chinese, Big Pharma, Big Finance, Bill Gates. We suggested that a major factor underlying the popularity of conspiracy theories were primordial fears – fear of illness, of death but, above all, of the unknown.

Given the extent of this fear, which was fanned by the mainstream and social media, many people felt reassured having someone to blame. It meant that someone was in control; that there was a plan; and that once the pandemic had served its purpose, those in control would bring it to an end.

It may take a few cycles while the virus retreats, mutates and returns, but in few years or at most in a decade, we humans will be extinct and the planet will flourish again. The Gaia theory is well captured by some beautiful videos on social media showing how plants and animals are taking over urban areas

In this second part, we turn to look at a second set of theories that we call the apocalyptic theories.  Those who subscribe to these theories see the COVID-19 outbreak as the revenge of God or nature, or both, against the arrogance of humans.

The most radical of these theories is that Gaia – the primordial mother earth of Greek mythology and the self-equilibrating super organism, postulated by James Lovelock in his seminal book – is rebelling against humans.

Rebelling against the pollution and the poisoning of soils, waters and the air; against the plundering of forests and minerals; and against the tens of thousands of aircrafts buzzing around her day and night, and the hundreds of millions of cars constantly crawling all over her. According to this theory, the virus is Gaia’s revenge and marks the end of the age of humans.

It may take a few cycles while the virus retreats, mutates and returns, but in few years or at most in a decade, we humans will be extinct and the planet will flourish again. The Gaia theory is well captured by some beautiful videos on social media showing how plants and animals are taking over urban areas.

Other apocalyptic theorists feel that the pandemic is not a punishment from an ephemeral mother goddess. But rather it is a punishment from an angry and vengeful deity who is seeing his divine project going off track.  Mankind is progressively turning away from religion, from morals and traditions, and from family values.

The pandemic is God’s admonition to us to return to the righteous path.  And, for this reason, it has focused more on the godless and materialistic west, where among other misdeeds, old people are sent to nursing homes rather than being kept in the family.  In these theories, humankind may survive, but in order to do so, they must rediscover their moral compass and return to righteous way of life – whatever that means.

For those who subscribe to these theories, it is anathema to suggest social distancing and the closing of places of worship. In order for humans to survive, we must do exactly the opposite – gather together, preferably in temples, mosques and churches to seeking collective forgiveness from an angry god.  This is despite the fact that mainstream religious leaders, from the Pope to the Grand Mufti of Al-Azhar, have not said a word about Divine Will playing any role in the pandemic.

A more modest version of apocalyptic theories is that humans have overstepped a few boundaries and all we need to do is make some tweaks to our lifestyle to get back on track. One such theory relates to the waves emanating from the 5G telephone systems.

Proponents suggest that these waves facilitate the spread of the virus while also weakening human immune systems.  The fact that Wuhan, where the virus originated, is one of the places with the highest densities of 5G networks, apparently provides clear proof of the link between COVID and telephone waves.  So all we need to do is take a step back and decommission all the 5G towers.  And since the telecom companies will not do this, activists in some countries have taken it on themselves to set them alight.

So why are apocalyptic theories, even the most bizarre ones, so common?  If primordial fear drives conspiracy theorists, what drives the apocalyptic theorists? In our view it is collective guilt.  We have been warned, and warned again, and warned yet again about continued misuse of resources and lack of attention to planetary health.

We have been admonished time and time again about superfluous consumption, about waste of food and other essentials, and of the over use of fossil fuels and plastics.  We all know that our lifestyle is unsustainable and that that we are causing irreversible climate change. But despite this knowledge, and despite thousands of words written, documentaries screened, learned scientific conferences convened,  and hours of speeches by political leaders, we have failed to take the clear and drastic actions needed to make our lifestyles more sustainable. Knowing that we have been collectively misbehaving, it is almost a logical conclusion that a global disaster is a consequence of our bad actions.

Conspiracy and apocalyptic theories are widespread. And if they are related to fear and guilt, then such fear and guilt must also perforce be widespread.  Is this a cause for concern? Very much so. At an individual level, negative thoughts have clear negative effects on our mental and physical wellbeing.

Similarly, collective negative sentiments have quick and direct effect on our collective wellbeing and actions. Conspiracy theories or apocalyptic views of the world create anxiety, fear and depression among millions of people and cause immense harm and pain. More worryingly, this fear, anxiety and depression does not seem to go down as the pandemic abates. It seems it’s here to stay and poison our life for several years, if not decades.

Equally worrying is that there are plenty of local situations where such fears and worries can be easily manipulated as is happening in the USA, where President Trump continues to stroke these fears and uses this to apportion blame; or in India, where Prime Minister Modi is blaming Muslims for deliberately spreading the virus to damage the Hindu nation.

 

Daud Khan is a former United Nations official who lives between Italy and Pakistan. He holds degrees in Economics from the London School of Economics and Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar; and a degree in Environmental Management from the Imperial College of Science and Technology.

Leila Yasmine Khan is an independent writer and editor based in the Netherlands. She has Master’s degrees in Philosophy and in Argumentation Theory and Rhetoric from the University of Amsterdam, as well as a Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy from the University of Rome (Roma Tre).

 

Related Articles

• COVID 19 – Conspiracy or Apocalypse? – Part I

The post COVID 19 – Conspiracy or Apocalypse? – Part II appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Zekiya Louis (R) and Manuela Ramirez (L) handing out free water to protesters in Times Square, New York during a protest over the death of George Floyd. Credit: James Reinl/IPS

By Ignatius Banda
BULAWAYO, ZImbabwe, Jun 8 2020 (IPS)

“As tall as he is, if he continues to do that I will kick him out of the country,” thundered Zimbabwe’s former President Robert Mugabe in 2008, his anger aimed at the then United States ambassador James McGee after the diplomat questioned the results of Zimbabwe’s 2008 general elections.

It was not the first time the late president had threatened a U.S. diplomat. In 2005, Mugabe had threatened to throw out then U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe, Christopher Dell, telling him “he could go to hell” after Washington’s top man in Harare had criticised the Mugabe administration.

But now, with a new president and administration at the helm, it appears as if the long-running frosty relations between the countries continues.

The recent diplomatic spat between Zimbabwe and the U.S. began after a senior U.S. official accused the southern African country of fomenting unrests across America in the wake of the killing of an unarmed African American man, George Floyd, on May 25.

• Floyd died after a white Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for almost nine minutes. His death resulted in nationwide protests across the U.S. and a nationwide movement against police violence and racism. People across the world have joined in solidarity to the #BlackLivesMatter protests.

Last week, the Zimbabwean government summoned the U.S. ambassador Brian Nichols to “discuss” comments made by the Trump administration’s national security advisor Robert O’Brien that described Zimbabwe as a “foreign adversary.” 

While the current administration under President Emmerson Mnangagwa has shied away from Mugabe’s bellicose tone, the country’s foreign affairs minister Sibusiso Moyo said in a statement released after his meeting with Nichols that comments made by O’Brien were “false and deeply damaging to deeply damaging to a relationship already complicated due to years of prescriptive megaphone diplomacy and punitive economic sanctions”.

• In 2003 the U.S. first imposed travel and financial restrictions on Mugabe, his inner circle and various state companies linked to human rights abuses. They were extended for another year in March.

Moyo added that Zimbabwe had taken note of “the measures deployed by the U.S. authorities to deal with the challenges currently confronting them. At the same time, we recall the harsh U.S. criticism and condemnation of our own response to multiple instances of illegal, violent civil unrest”.

These comments also came days after the U.S. and the European Union had released a joint statement criticising a spate of human rights violations in Zimbabwe where members of the police and the military were accused of assaulting and kidnapping citizens.

However, analysts note that the frosty diplomatic relations between the two countries have come a long way, and it will take time to restore mutual trust and respect.

“Even in the Obama Administration, Zimbabwe was an ‘easy hit’. There were far more authoritarian regimes than Robert Mugabe’s but, with the ending of Apartheid, Zimbabwe in its land nationalisations presented itself as a ‘black/white’ issue, an Apartheid in reverse. So it became an easy country to criticise because what were complex issues could be presented so starkly and simply,” Stephen Chan, Professor of World Politics at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, told IPS.

“Two of America’s recent ambassadors, Johnnie Carson and, currently, Brian Nichols, are black – so there are presentational issues in being too critical. In Zambia, the ‘offending’ U.S. Ambassador who was white was recalled at the demand of the Zambian Government,” Chan told IPS by email.

Despite these concerns and ongoing rift with the U.S. and EU, the Zimbabwean government  has turned to public relations lobbyists to reboot its battered imagine.

“The Zimbabwe regime is propped up by human rights abuses, by repression, by silencing the masses, this is why they continue with abuses while hoping that propaganda and public relations will clean their soiled image internationally,” Dewa Mavhinga, Human Rights Watch’s southern Africa director, told IPS.

“As a result, the Zimbabwe government spends huge amounts paying PR companies in Washington DC in the hope that those companies will help with image issues, but the truth is simply that the Zimbabwe government must stop abuses and start respecting human rights. No-one in the international community will respect a country that allows abductions, torture and rampant rape of women,” Dewa told IPS.

Government spokesperson Nick Mangwana would later tell local media that Zimbabwe was not seeking to be enemies with the U.S., something Chan, the international politics professor, said Zimbabwe cannot afford.

“Zimbabwe desperately needs to retain as good a set of relations as possible with the U.S. as part of the West. The country is basically bankrupt. It almost begs for help. Even in moments of argument, it cannot afford to alienate a country like the U.S.,” Chan said.

While Zimbabwe has in the past threatened to expel “meddlesome” U.S. ambassadors, the current government has resisted the temptation.

“Removing an ambassador would be a major diplomatic step. If the Zimbabwean government were to remove him (ambassador Nichols), the U.S. would likely react by suspending, temporarily at least, Zimbabwean diplomats in the U.S. or reduce its diplomatic presence in Zimbabwean until the government made some meaningful progress on political and economic reforms,” Nathan Hayes, an analyst with the United Kingdom-based Economist Intelligence Unit, told IPS.

“Ultimately, it would not be a game Zimbabwe would win,” he said.

After he was summoned by Zimbabwe’s foreign affairs minister, U.S. ambassador Nichols issued his own statement, looking beyond the ongoing row which served as a reminder of the U.S. continuing humanitarian support of Zimbabwe.

“The American people’s unwavering commitment to the welfare of Zimbabwe’s people has kept us the largest assistance donor,” Nichols said.

In January this year, the U.S. reported that it had provided $318 million to Zimbabwe in 2019, adding “notwithstanding ongoing anti-democratic and repressive practices by the Government of Zimbabwe which continue to affect the bilateral relationship, the United States remains the ‎largest provider of health and humanitarian assistance”.

According to the U.S. Agency for International Aid (USAID), the U.S. has provided “more than $3.2 billion in development assistance to Zimbabwe since its independence in 1980”.

“Zimbabwe must be careful about biting the hand that feeds it,” Piers Pigou, Crisis Group’s Senior Consultant for Southern Africa, told IPS.

“The colourful posturing and allegations from the government that are levelled at successive U.S. Ambassadors, invariably reflect a clumsy ideological posturing that seeks to avoid an empirically rooted engagement on the substantive issues of contestation,” Pigou told IPS.  

“Zimbabwe’s credibility as a commentator and protector of human rights will only develop once it puts in place, develops and invests in the institutional capacity, competencies and independence of its democracy supporting institutions and builds an identifiable culture of accountability,” he said.

As anger against the U.S. swelled across the globe in condemnation of Floyd’s death, in Zimbabwe ruling Zanu PF supporters had planned to hold a demonstration on Jun. 4 outside the U.S. embassy in Harare in what could have done nothing to promote entente between the two countries.

Police denied the ruling party supporters permission to stage the protest, citing COVID-19 restrictions. 

“The U.S. and Zimbabwe have open antagonism. There is a clash of pretentious political ideologies,” William Mpofu, a political analyst and researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, told IPS.

“Under Mugabe the ideology was pretentious pan-Africanist radicalism. The U.S. has pretended to democracy and liberalism. These two rhetorics have a natural antagonism but they are both fake and fundamentalist. The U.S. can do without Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe cannot survive without U.S.,” Mpofu said.

With coronavirus lockdown restrictions that have seen countrywide state sanctioned human rights abuses in Zimbabwe in place indefinitely, and with general elections coming in 2023, elections historically marred by state sponsored repression, analysts are watching whether this will further sour relations between the two countries.

Related Articles

• George Floyd: US’ Week of Broken Glass and Broken Dreams
• As Minneapolis Burns, Trump’s Presidency is Sinking Deeper into Crisis. And yet, he may still be Re-elected

The post Zimbabwe and US Diplomacy – this Time the Fight is About George Floyd appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

A recent diplomatic spat between Zimbabwe and the U.S. began after a senior U.S. official accused Zimbabwe of fomenting unrests across America in the wake of the killing of the unarmed African American, George Floyd.

The post Zimbabwe and US Diplomacy – this Time the Fight is About George Floyd appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: DegreesOfLatitude

By Elena L. Pasquini
ROME, Jun 8 2020 (IPS-Partners)

The COVID-19 outbreak has brought the world back to the essentials: health and food. Fighting the spread of the virus while ensuring access to food has proven to be a challenge in many countries. The loss of income is reducing families’ ability to feed themselves; movement restrictions and lack of labour for planting and harvesting are a strain on the chain that brings food from field to fork. Hundreds of millions of the most vulnerable people are on the brink of acute hunger, and food insecurity is likely to increase globally.

The fragility of the food chain and the role played by agriculture in the multiple, unfolding crises—including climate change, diminishing biodiversity, and nutritional crises in the forms of undernutrition and overnutrition—are not new issues. But the current emergency is adding a sense of urgency to the need of rethinking the way in which food is produced, distributed and consumed.

COVID-19 “is exacerbating a lot of weaknesses in our current food systems,” Emile Frison, member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems, told Degrees of Latitude. “The vulnerability of … large industrial production systems has been clearly shown through this pandemic …,” he stressed.

What strategies exist to build food systems that are resilient to shocks? What alternatives are there to industrial agriculture?

Agroecology is one of those models. No longer niche, it is at the core of global and national legislations, and is increasingly being implemented on farms. Is it economically feasible? Can it feed a growing world population? What are the constraints for the transition to agroecological food systems?

That is what we are going to investigate in our series of articles devoted to the future of food.

This article was first published by Degrees of Latitude

The post Agroecology. The Challenge of Farming for the Future appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Padma River Basin, Bangladesh Credit: Nidhi Nagabhatla

By Nidhi Nagabhatla
HAMILTON, Canada, Jun 8 2020 (IPS)

Do migrants willingly choose to flee their homes, or is migration the only option available?

There is no clear, one-size-fits-all explanation for a decision to migrate — a choice that will be made today by many people worldwide, and by an ever-rising number in years to come because of a lack of access to water, climate disasters, a health crisis and other problems.

Data are scarce on the multiple causes, or “push factors,” limiting our understanding of migration. What we can say, though, is that context is everything.

UN University researchers and others far beyond have been looking for direct and indirect links between migration and the water crisis, which has different faces — unsafe water in many places, chronic flooding or drought in others.

The challenge is separating those push factors from the social, economic, and political conditions that contribute to the multi-dimensional realities of vulnerable migrant populations, all of them simply striving for dignity, safety, stability, and sustainably in their lives.

A new report, ‘Water and Migration: A Global Overview,’ (https://bit.ly/3gxDgE7) from UNU’s Institute for Water, Environment and Health, offers insights into water and migration interlinkages, and suggests how to tackle existing gaps and needs.

Its information can be understood easily by stakeholders and proposes ideas for better informed migration-related policymaking, including a three-dimensional framework applicable by scholars and planners at multiple scales and in various settings.

The Report also describes some discomforting patterns and trends, among them:

• • By 2050, a combination of water and climate-driven problems and conflicts will force 1 billion people to migrate, not by choice but as their only option;

 

• • Links to the climate change and water crises are becoming more evident in a dominant trend: rural-urban migration;

 

• • That said, there is a severe lack of quantitative information and understanding re. direct and indirect water and climate-related drivers of migration, limiting effective management options at local, national, regional, and global scales

 

• • Global agreements, institutions, and policies on migration are concerned mostly with response mechanisms. Needed is a balanced approach that addresses water, climate, and other environmental drivers of migration

 

• • Unregulated migration can lead to rapid, unplanned, and unsustainable settlements and urbanization, causing pressure on water demand and increasing the health risks and burdens for migrants as well as hosting states and communities

 

• • Migration should be formally recognized as an adaptation strategy for water and climate crises. While it is viewed as a ‘problem,’ in fact it forms part of a ‘solution’

 

• Migration reflects the systemic inequalities and social justice issues pertaining to water rights and climate change adaptation. Lack of access to water, bad water quality, and a lack of support for those impacted by extreme water-related situations constitute barriers to a sustainable future for humankind.

Case studies in the report provide concrete examples of the migration consequences in water and climate troubled situations:

• • The shrinking of Lake Chad in Africa and the Aral Sea in Central Asia

 

• • The saga of Honduran refugees

 

• • The rapid urbanization of the Nile delta, and

 

• The plight of island nations facing both rising seas and more frequent, more intense extreme weather events.

In addition, the added health burdens imposed on people and communities by water pollution and contamination create vicious cycles of poverty, inequality and forced mobility.

While the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agenda does not include an explicit migration target, its mitigation should be considered in the context of SDGs that aim to strengthen capacities related to water, gender, climate, and institutions. These issues resonate even as the world deals with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Recent news stories have chronicled the plight of desperate migrant workers trapped in the COVID-19 crisis in India, and of displaced people in refugee camps where social distancing is unachievable, as is access to soap and water, the most basic preventive measure against the disease.

Add to that the stigma, discrimination, and xenophobia endured by migrants that continue to rise during the pandemic.

Even at this moment, with the world fixated on the pandemic crisis, we cannot afford to put migration’s long-term causes on the back burner.

While the cost of responses may cause concerns, the cost of no decisions will certainly surpass that. There may be no clear, simple solution but having up-to-date evidence and data will surely help.

On World Environment Day ( https://bit.ly/3dnKkks) last week (June 5), we were all encouraged to consider human interdependencies with nature.

Let us also acknowledge that water and climate-related disasters, ecological degradation and other environmental burdens causes economic, health and wellbeing disparities for migrants and populations living in vulnerable settings.

The post Water, Climate, Conflict & Migration: Coping with 1 Billion People on the Move by 2050 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Nidhi Nagabhatla is Principal Researcher, Water Security at the UN University’s Institute for Water, Environment and Health, funded by the Government of Canada and hosted by McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada

The post Water, Climate, Conflict & Migration: Coping with 1 Billion People on the Move by 2050 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

PRESS RELEASE
 

By External Source
Jun 8 2020 (IPS-Partners)

The Commonwealth Secretary-General is urging governments to ensure their countries’ post-COVID economic recoveries are environmentally sustainable and safe for the ocean.

Forty-seven of the Commonwealth’s 54 member countries have a coastline while 25 are either small island developing states or ‘big ocean states’ relying heavily on the ocean for food and income.

On World Oceans Day (8 June), Secretary-General Patricia Scotland calls on countries to reform development strategies in a way that supports vibrant and sustainable blue and green economies.

Patricia Scotland

She said: “The ocean is the life blood of so many Commonwealth countries and our environment should be the cornerstone as we put plans in place to recover our economies. The Commonwealth covers more than a third of coastal oceans in the world, contributing to a global ocean-based economy valued at US$3 to 6 trillion per year.

“COVID-19 impact has radically altered some of our key economic sectors and transformed the way we live, communicate and do business. While the fallout from the pandemic has had a huge impact on our blue economies, it also presents a crucial opportunity to strategise on how to accelerate the transition towards more sustainable economic practices built on climate resilience and ocean sustainability.

“The Commonwealth Blue Charter is one of the most effective platforms for global ocean action in the international landscape today. I commend the work of our member countries through the action groups and welcome the support we have received from national, regional and global partners, enabling us to mobilise together for ocean health.”

The Blue Charter is the Commonwealth’s commitment to work together to protect the ocean and meet global ocean commitments. Ten action groups, led by 13 champion countries, are driving the flagship initiative. More than 40 countries have signed up to one or more of these action groups, and counting.

Commonwealth Blue Charter action groups include: Sustainable Aquaculture (led by Cyprus), Sustainable Blue Economy (Kenya), Coral Reef Protection and Restoration (Australia, Belize, Mauritius), Mangrove Ecosystems and Livelihoods (Sri Lanka), Ocean Acidification (New Zealand), Ocean and Climate Change (Fiji), Ocean Observations (Canada), Commonwealth Clean Ocean Alliance (marine plastic pollution – United Kingdom, Vanuatu), Marine Protected Areas (Seychelles) and Sustainable Coastal Fisheries (Kiribati) .

Members of the private sector, academia and civil society – including Vulcan Inc, Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Association of Commonwealth Universities, Nekton Foundation and many others – are also engaged as Blue Charter partners.

To find out more about the Commonwealth Blue Charter, visit the website.

Notes to Editor

For interviews with the Commonwealth Secretary-General on this issue, please contact Josephine Latu-Sanft via email or WhatsApp +44 7587657269

Media Contact

Josephine Latu-Sanft
Communications Division
Commonwealth Secretariat
T. +44 (0)20 7747 6476
Email: j.latu-sanft@commonwealth.int

Website thecommonwealth.org
Join the conversation Tweets by @commonwealthsec

The post Post-COVID recovery should lock in ocean sustainability, says Commonwealth Secretary-General appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

PRESS RELEASE

 

The post Post-COVID recovery should lock in ocean sustainability, says Commonwealth Secretary-General appeared first on Inter Press Service.