Africa

Qatari sprinter Abdalelah Haroun, who won bronze in the 400m at the 2017 World Championships, dies in a car crash aged 24.

How Kenya's union leader Francis Atwoli is dividing opinion after a street was named after him.

The Ethiopian government denies targeting civilians but many died when a missile hit a crowded marketplace.

Investors accuse South African firm of absconding with Bitcoin valued at billions of dollars.

Children in Douma, East Ghouta. The siege on East Ghouta lasted almost seven years. Douma is home to more than 250,000 people living amidst large scale urban destruction, wide contamination with explosive remnants of war and limited access to essential services. Credit: UNICEF/UN0264239/Syrian Arab Republic/Sanadiki

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 25 2021 (IPS)

When the UN’s annual report on Children and Armed Conflict was released last week, it was expected to “name and shame” some of the world’s worst human rights violators – particularly the abusers of children.

But these violators were protected– and never stigmatized—despite the hundreds of children killed by warring parties in ongoing conflicts, particularly in Yemen, Syria and Myanmar, involving the US, Russia and China as arms suppliers, triggering criticism from UN watchers and human rights organizations.

Jo Becker, Children’s Rights Advocacy Director at Human Rights Watch, told IPS: “We continue to be disappointed that the Secretary-General (SG) is not using the “list of shame” to hold all parties accountable for their grave violations against children”.

The message he is sending to the Saudi-led coalition regarding their operations in Yemen is that “as long as they kill and maim fewer children than they did the year before, they can stay off the list”.

“We also saw in the case of Myanmar how disastrous it was to remove the Tatmadaw (the country’s armed forces) from the list while they were still recruiting and using children; the number the following year tripled”.

The SG should not make listing decisions based on his hopes for future improvement, but based on the facts on the ground, said Becker.

His repeated failure to base his list, on the UN’s own evidence, betrays children and fuels impunity. ”Now that his second term as Secretary-General is assured, he should abandon that approach and ensure his list reflects the facts. And the UN Security Council should insist that he list all violators, without exception,” declared Becker.

The oil-blessed Saudi Arabia, which is leading a coalition in the military conflict in Yemen, is a longstanding political and military ally of the US– which along with the UK, China, Russia and France– is armed with veto powers in the Security Council.

Russia provides political and military support to war-ravaged Syria while China, one of the largest arms suppliers to Myanmar, has undermined Security Council attempts to impose an arms embargo in the conflict-ridden country.

Ian Williams, President of the New York-based Foreign Press Association (FPA) and author of ‘UNtold: The Real Story of the United Nations in Peace and War’, told IPS Guterres has adopted a human rights profile that is low enough to be subterranean.

History suggests that one of the few weapons open to the SG and the UN collectively is “naming and shaming”, he said, pointing out, it is also true that many member states — like the 57-member Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) that refuses to support the Uighurs, are also shamelessly unprincipled in the face of power — but an ethical and forthright SG, as the tribune for the UN Charter, could turn the tide.

“If Guterres is more concerned about posterity than his pension—and if he wants to make the history books rather than the footnotes– he should take his cue from Dag Hammarskjold, speak truth to power. And avoid chartered aircraft,” said Williams, a former President of the UN Correspondents’ Association (UNCA).

Various models of SG-ship have been tried, he pointed out, but none of them are entirely successful.

“Kofi Annan was tried the nice approach. Ban Ki-moon tried being nice in public, firm in meetings with heads of state, and furious in private with the gratuitous insults they heaped upon him”, said Williams.

Perhaps the most hard-hitting comments came from Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch (HRW): “Guterres’s first term was defined by public silence regarding human rights abuses by China, Russia, and the United States and their allies,” he said, referring to the three veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security Council.

“With his re-election behind him, Guterres should use the next five years to become a strong vocal advocate for rights. His recent willingness to denounce abuses in Myanmar and Belarus should expand to include all governments deserving condemnation, including those that are powerful and protected.”

Since taking office in January 2017, Guterres has rarely criticized or called for accountability by specific governments or their leaders, said Roth.

Guterres “adopted a non-confrontational approach toward former US President Donald Trump’s efforts to sideline human rights by undermining multilateral organizations like the UN and embracing authoritarian leaders.”

He adopted a similar approach to crimes against humanity in Xinjiang by China’s government, now the UN’s second biggest financial contributor, after the US, and to war crimes by Saudi Arabia in Yemen, complained Roth.

HRW also said Guterres has been reluctant to criticize abuses by Russia’s government, which has frequently used its veto power in the Security Council to block human rights-related resolutions on Syria and elsewhere. Guterres should also exercise stronger leadership against the global pushback on women’s rights, it added.

According to Watch List on Children and Armed Conflict, the Secretary-General removed the Saudi and Emirati-led coalition from his annual list of child rights abusers last year, despite the UN finding that it was responsible for killing and maiming 222 children in Yemen in 2019.

At the time, he had vowed to re-list the coalition if it failed to sustainably decrease violations.

“As the UN’s latest report shows, the Secretary-General’s decision to remove the Saudi and Emirati-led coalition from his shame list last year sent a clear message that parties can get away with killing children,” said Adrianne Lapar, director of Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict.

“If the Secretary-General does not immediately reconsider his decision and return the coalition to his list, he seriously undermines international efforts to protect children in war and emboldens warring parties to be more abusive against children.”

Meanwhile, Save the Children, a leading humanitarian organization for children, pointed out that 194 Yemeni children were killed and maimed in 2020, but the UN Report on Children and Armed Conflict again fails to hold perpetrators to account.

But despite the killings in Yemen in 2020, according to UN verified data, the Saudi and Emirati led coalition gets a green light to continue destroying children’s lives in Yemen, the organization said.

“In a disheartening decision, the UN Secretary General António Guterres again failed to include the coalition in this year’s ‘list of shame’.”

It was taken off the list last year, with a commitment by the Secretary General to relist them unless there was a ‘sustained significant decrease in killing and maiming’. By not relisting the coalition, Guterres sends the message that reducing the number of child casualties to about two hundred is ‘good enough’ progress, Save the Children said.

Matthew Wells, Deputy Director of Thematics for Amnesty International’s Crisis Response Programme said Guterres, “who has just been given another five-year term; must become bolder and more courageous in prioritizing human rights and calling out perpetrators, including on children and armed conflict.”

Together with the Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, he should commit publicly to applying the same standard irrespective of perpetrator or context – producing a complete list based on evidence and objective criteria, something he has failed to do again this year.

Next year, he must follow the criteria laid out in 2010; the Saudi Arabia-led coalition and Israeli military, among others, will again prove a key test.

For their part, UN member states must demand a credible list. Why have teams on the ground put themselves in danger to document violations that get ignored?, asked Wells.

 

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Patricia Scotland

By Patricia Scotland
LONDON, Jun 25 2021 (IPS)

Over the past 18 months, the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic have transformed our lives and prompted a period of deep reflection as a global community. In some sense, we are only now starting to understand our vulnerabilities, and in particular, how deeply exposed and interconnected we are as people, communities and as countries.

At the same time, the pandemic has been a stark eye opener on our capacity to deal with the risks and shocks, at both individual and country level. The experience has shown us our vulnerability, and comparatively, our resilience is only partly determined by our income or economic status.

For small states in particular, the focus on Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a figure which sums up the economic strength or income of a country, can never fully reflect the potential impact of external shocks outside the control of any government. A country’s high income, for example, does not negate its vulnerability to climate disasters, which can reverse years of development gains overnight.

In other words, measures such as GDP, or other equally narrowly focused economic statistics only provide us part of the picture. We need much more nuanced and comprehensive measurements and indicators to assess our full risk factors, and more precisely, our susceptibility to harm.

This has been regrettably demonstrated by the ongoing pandemic, during which as someone recently noted, ‘while we are all in the same storm, we’re not all in the same boat.’

GDP was settled upon as the simple and translatable measure of economic progress over 75 years ago, with the establishment of the Bretton Woods institutions.

It has certainly been a useful measure, yet most economists and experts today would agree that it is not the best measure of a nation, whether in terms of its economic progress, its sustainability or its potential. Put frankly GDP is too blunt a tool to serve as the only measure of success and progress, especially in these times of rapidly accelerating economic, social and environmental change.

We face a much more complex world than we did decades ago, a world which is also much better understood, and more thoroughly analysed any point in our history. And we need to update the tools we use to tackle this new world in a way that is fit for purpose. Big data, analytics, and Artificial Intelligence permeate every aspect of many of our lives. And yet, when it comes to development finance, we still rely singularly on an incomplete GDP figure to assess what type of funding countries should get, and how much.

This is why the debate has been building around new ways to assess less-developed and at-risk countries, and how they can be best supported by international financial institutions. It is also why the Commonwealth alongside many organisations, including the UN, has started to consider other more nuanced and constructive ways of assessing nation states and vulnerabilities.

The Commonwealth has approached this debate objectively, not to be swayed by one interest or group but to use rigorous analysis to lead an open discussion about how best to target support the poorest and most vulnerable nations in the world.

With over a third of the world’s sovereign nations as members, including 32 small states, and approximately 2.4 billion people living in the Commonwealth, we have a duty to address and advise on these issues, and to find consensus on a way forward.

In this vein, I am immensely proud of the work done by my team to produce the Commonwealth’s Universal Vulnerability Index for consideration by Commonwealth member countries. This Index, which weights country’s vulnerability against their built up and policy-related resilience, will give policymakers and financial institutions a sound tool by which to assess who is most in need of support.

And if adopted, we are convinced that the Index will transform the way we invest and deliver finance to developing countries.

One thing is clear. As we emerge from this crisis, we cannot return the business as usual. In order to respond effectively as an international community to the interlinked global crises confronting us today, we must overhaul the way we think about development finance, particularly in the post COVID world. We need to move beyond the thin analysis that GDP and per capita income provides us and to come up with a new way of determining the type of support vulnerable countries could receive. It is crucial that we do better, and we indeed can, through a tool such as the Universal Vulnerability Index.

 

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Excerpt:

The author is Commonwealth Secretary General

The Extreme E motorsport series recently staged a race in Senegal 'to show the effect of climate change'.

By Maywa Montenegro, Matthew Canfield, and Alastair Iles
SANTA CRUZ, California, Jun 25 2021 (IPS)

In July, the United Nations will convene “Science Days”, a high-profile event in preparation for the UN Food Systems Summit later this year. Over the course of two days, the world will be treated to a parade of Zoom sessions aimed at “highlighting the centrality of science, technology and innovation for food systems transformation.”

Maywa Montenegro

Nobody disputes the need for urgent action to transform the food system. But the UNFSS has been criticized by human rights experts for its top-down and non-transparent organization. Indigenous peoples, peasants, and civil society groups around the world know their hard-won rights are under attack. Many are protesting the summit’s legitimacy and organizing counter-mobilizations.

Scientists are also contesting a summit because of its selective embrace of science, as seen in a boycott letter signed by nearly 300 academics, from Brazil to Italy to Japan.

Through the Summit, “science” has been weaponized by powerful actors not only to promote a technology-driven approach to food systems, but also to fragment global food security governance and create institutions more amenable to the demands of agribusiness.

Recipe for Elite Global Governance

The UNFSS was announced in 2019 by the UN Secretary General as part of the Decade of Action to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. The announcement came just after the UN signed a strategic partnership with the World Economic Forum. It also elicited outcry from social movements when Agnes Kalibata, President of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, was chosen to lead the forum — a powerful signal of UNFSS allegiances.

The “multi-stakeholder” structure of the summit has raised concerns from observers who recognize the privatization of multilateral public governance it presages. While Kalibata describes the UNFSS as an inclusive “peoples’ summit,” more than 500 smallholder and peasant organizations signed a letter criticizing the summit’s multi-stakeholder platforms: “Instead of drawing from the innovative governance experiences that the UN system has to offer, the UN-WEF partnership is helping to establishing “stakeholder capitalism” as a governance model for the entire planet.”

Matthew Canfield

Through one lens, multistakeholderism looks like a set of “inclusive” practices: the summit has five Action Tracks (e.g. “Ensuring Access to Safe and Nutritious Food for All” and “Boosting Nature Positive Production at Sufficient Scale”), an endless number of “dialogues,” and an elaborate online forum where anyone can participate.

However, this profusion of spaces obscures the fact that the UNFSS has no built-in structures of accountability. This is particularly troublesome because, as UN special rapporteurs have observed, the summit’s process was pre-determined by a small set of actors: “The private sector, organizations serving the private sector (notably the World Economic Forum), scientists, and economists initiated the process. The table was set with their perspectives, knowledge, interests and biases.”

The scientific ideas shaping those parameters, then, should invite our curiosity and concern. What kinds of science are included — and excluded? What are the implications for the future of global food system governance?

Defining Science as Investment-Friendly Innovation

A new Scientific Group of the UNFSS, created to support a “science- and evidence-based summit,” provides some clues. In theory, the Scientific Group works to “ensure the robustness, breadth and independence of the science that underpins the summit and its outcomes.” In practice, the Group’s practices impoverish the scientific base on which the summit is meant to make policies.

Unlike existing global science advisory panels where experts are nominated through an inclusive and democratic process, the Scientific Group is handpicking experts amenable to “game-changing” solutions — access to gene-edited seeds, digital and data-driven technologies, and global commodity markets.

Alastair Iles

As a result, key areas of expertise, such as agroecology, Indigenous knowledge, and human rights are being excluded while industry and investor-friendly viewpoints are promoted as visionary.

While the Scientific Group appears at first to be diverse in terms of disciplines and geographies, it in fact reflects a set of overlapping, elite networks. Partners include well-worn institutional champions of the Green Revolution (the CGIAR), the central nervous system for “free trade” policy globally (the World Trade Organization), and a powerful consortium of wealthy nation-states (the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), among others.

By drawing on these networks, the Scientific Group is serving as a gatekeeper for determining the meaning and boundaries of “science.” An analysis of its publications reveals critical flaws stemming from the Scientific Group’s narrow approach to scientific expertise. These include:

• Science, technology, and innovation are uprooted from their political-economic and social conditions. As a result, structural drivers that produce hunger even as they generate wealth (e.g. for Bill Gates) are eclipsed in favor of boosting productivity with a twist of sustainability.
• Biotechnology, Big Data, and global value chains are offered as the solution to all agronomic problems and the crisis of overfishing.
• Multicultural “digital” inclusion is redeployed to promote Black, Brown, and Indigenous incorporation into an imperial model of Science, Technology, and Innovation. This ignores the rich knowledge these communities already hold — and obscures that Indigenous and agroecological knowledge cannot survive without land.

Science can and should play a role in global food governance. But far from the current UNFSS model, science can support in all its complexity and breadth, alongside many other expertises with equal rights to shape the future of food.

Maywa Montenegro works as an assistant professor of Environmental Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, specializing in politics of knowledge, biotechnology, and agroecology.

Matthew Canfield is an assistant professor of Law and Society & Law and Development at Leiden Law School specializing in human rights and global food governance.

Alastair Iles works as an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley, researching agroecology policies and sustainability transitions.

 

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A building damaged by an Israeli air strike amid a flare-up of Israeli-Palestinian violence in Gaza City. Only a political solution will end the “senseless and costly cycles of violence” between Israelis and Palestinians, UN Middle East envoy Tor Wennesland said in a briefing to the UN Security Council in May. Credit: UNRWA/Mohamed Hinnawi

By Alon Ben-Meir
NEW YORK, Jun 25 2021 (IPS)

Every Israeli will sooner than later realize that the creation of a Palestinian state is the only way by which Israel can protect its democracy, independence, national security and national Jewish identity. Denying Palestinian statehood defies Israel’s existence as we know it.

Righting the Wrong

The continuing international consensus that supports the establishment of a Palestinian state only strengthens the Palestinians’ resolve to never abandon their quest for a state of their own.

Having held on to this position for more than seven decades, they still have no reason to accept anything less, regardless of the vast changes on the ground. They will continue to wait and engage in sporadic violence and mini wars, as we have seen time and again, regardless of the heavy toll in human lives and destruction.

However, besides the consistent international consensus in support of a Palestinian state, Israel also has a moral and practical obligation for its own sake to resolve its conflict with the Palestinians based on a two-state solution.

Israel’s very existence is based in morality—the West felt the moral responsibility to support the creation of the state because of what happened to the Jews of Europe during the Holocaust—and its continuing existence as a free and independent country depends on its moral standing both as a democratic state and as a Jewish nation.

Discrimination of the Jews

The Jews were discriminated against, persecuted, and segregated, and millions perished during World War II simply because of their religious identity.

Their horrifying historic experience makes it morally unacceptable to subjugate other people, especially the Palestinians with whom they coexist and will have to continue to coexist indefinitely, and yet Israelis treat them with derision and contempt the way the Jews were treated for centuries in foreign lands.

Thus, maintaining the occupation in any form defies what the Jews worldwide stood for and sacrificed for millennia. True, the Palestinians have made many mistakes and to this day some Palestinians groups remain vociferous in their threats against Israel.

These threats, however, have never amounted to being existential, and right-wing Israeli parties have over the years deliberately exaggerated the potency of such threats to justify the occupation and the often-draconian policies against the Palestinians.

Given the fact, however, that since 1967 new irreversible developments (such as the building of new and expansion of existing settlements and intermixing of populations) occurred, the two-state solution appears now to many Israeli and Palestinian observers as either unrealistic or undesirable, or both.

They no longer believe that a two-state solution is possible, especially given the inter-dispersement of Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank and in Jerusalem, and Israel’s unwillingness to relinquish much of the occupied territories.

These facts are leading the believers of the one-state solution to argue that it is the only practical alternative.

One state is not an option

Such an alternative will never be accepted by the Israelis at large, as that would compromise the state’s Jewish national identity and its democracy by virtue of the fact that the nearly 3.1 million Palestinians in the West Bank and the 1.6 million Israeli Arabs will constitute roughly 45 percent of the total combined population of Jewish and Arab Israelis and Palestinians.

If we were to include the Palestinians in Gaza, the total number of Palestinians and Israeli Arabs will be near that of Israeli Jews.

Although the Jewish fertility rate has now surpassed that of the Arabs for the first time, with an average of 3.1 per Jewish woman versus 3 per Israeli-Arab woman, that does not change by much the demographic time bomb.

In fact, even without the Palestinians in Gaza, a minority of nearly 50 percent makes it impossible to maintain the Jewish national character of Israel without violating the Palestinians’ human and political rights.

Under such circumstances, if free and fair elections are held, it is unlikely that an Israeli coalition government could be formed without the participation of the Arab parties, as we have already seen.

To prevent that from happening, Israel would have to apply military laws to govern the Palestinians, along the line of what is in place today in the West Bank.

This would make Israel an apartheid state, which would be unacceptable not only to the international community but to many Israelis who believe that Israel has a moral obligation to treat all citizens equally before the law.

For these reasons, no Israeli government has considered the creation of one state by annexing the entire West Bank with its Palestinian population to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Occupation defies Israel’s existence

Instead, Israel chose continued occupation with creeping annexation of land, and in so doing it maintained control over the territories and built settlements, governing the Palestinians under military law yet applying Israeli laws to the settlers.

Although many Israelis maintain that the current status of Israeli occupation of the West Bank is sustainable and may well be a way of life for decades to come, over three-quarters of the Israeli Jewish population (76.7 percent) supports the Abraham Accords, which required Israel to stop further annexation of any Palestinian territory.

Most Israelis recognize that further annexation will damage any chances at making peace with the Palestinians and freeze further normalization of relations with other Arab states.

Every Israeli who opposes the establishment of an independent Palestinian state should ask themselves if there would be a circumstance under which the Palestinians would abandon their aspiration for statehood.

The answer is clear—that simply would not happen.

Why on earth would they give up their right to a state of their own? What force—Israeli or foreign—could compel them to do so? What kind of political or economic pressure will coerce them to submit to the harsh Israeli occupation and resign themselves to unending humiliation and despair?

After 72 years of Palestinian resistance and the extent of suffering they have endured, nothing will dissolve the Palestinians’ determination to realize what they aspire for, to govern themselves in a free and independent state.

In fact, continued occupation defies the very reasons behind the establishment of Israel, which was intended to be a haven for the Jews where they could live in peace and security.

The notion that occupying the West Bank will make Israel more secure has been shown after 53 years to be nothing but an illusion, as Israel has never felt completely secure yet has also never faced a legitimate existential threat that it could not meet with ease.

However, as the Palestinians, moderate and extremists alike, continue to challenge the occupation, they ensure that Israel will always feel insecure and spend billions of dollars on its security.

Some Israelis find comfort in the fact that several Arab states have normalized relations with Israel before the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has ended, which was a precondition to normalization of relations between Israel and the Arab state under the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002.

Since then, however, many Arab states have grown weary of the Palestinians’ repeated missed opportunities to reach an agreement with Israel and no longer want to be held hostage to their intransigence.

Pressure through normalization

There are already clear signs that this normalization process has put some pressure on the Palestinians to moderate their position and be more realistic about the concessions they need to make to reach an agreement with Israel.

This kind of pressure, however, will not alter their principal demand for statehood, and every Arab state that normalized relations with Israel—the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan—made it clear that they are against the occupation and view the two-state solution as the only practical option.

In the final analysis, both sides know that there is no way out of coexistence by virtue of their proximity, the inter-dispersement of their respective populations, the significance of Jerusalem for both sides, national security, the widespread of the settlements, and extensive common interests.

This leaves us with one conclusion: the only realistic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one that can ensure the democratic integrity, independence, and Jewish national identity of Israel and the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state.

The new Israeli government must remember that the establishment of a Palestinian state is inescapable. Israel must accept this inevitability, or become ever more a pariah state rejected by its friends and reviled and constantly threatened by its enemies.

 

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A selection of the week's best photos of Africans from across the continent and elsewhere.

When all Uganda's schools closed due to the pandemic, nine-year-old Teddy joined her mother mining for gold.

Across the world, climate change and Covid-19 disruptions have led to rising food prices in the past year. Southeast Asian countries, which have not been immune to such challenges, need to build resilience in their food security policies.

By Paul Teng
Jun 24 2021 (IPS)

In 2020, Southeast Asian countries were already facing varied challenges that affected the region’s food supplies and prices. The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic later in the year exacerbated the region’s food insecurity and poverty. Southeast Asian countries need to take a hard look at food security, even as the double challenges — climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic — continue to fester.

Paul Teng

Southeast Asia is not alone when it comes to the challenges posed to food security. Indeed, most of the world has been grappling with increased food prices in the past year. The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)’s latest report of the benchmark Food Price Index — which tracks the prices of meat, dairy, cereals, vegetable oils and sugar — rose for the 12th consecutive month in May 2021 to 127.1, its highest level in nearly ten years.

One of the drivers for the price increases is vegetable oil, notably palm oil, whose prices have been increasing since the fourth quarter of 2020. But global cereal prices also shown a significant rise in the past months. Dry weather and production disruptions due to Covid-19 coupled with high global demand led to the depletion of palm oil inventories, resulting in a classical demand surge-supply slump situation. This has inevitably driven up up prices. Biodiesel demand also increased the demand for soybean oil.

Southeast Asian countries were only just recovering in 2020 from the effects of the African swine fever which killed millions of hogs, and from large areas of crops devastated by the Fall Army Worm (which started in the Americas and proceeded to afflict sub-Saharan Africa, the Indian sub-continent, China and Southeast Asia). In the same period, countries across Southeast Asia implemented measures to curb the Covid-19 pandemic. Movement controls disrupted food supply chains, increased losses of agricultural produce on farms, and increased food waste. The net result is that food insecurity and poverty have increased in many Southeast Asian countries in the past year.

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Source: UN Food and Agriculture Organization

Beyond the impact of the pandemic, climate-related phenomena have affected agriculture in food producing economies of Southeast Asia and in the countries which conduct food trade with the region. The ongoing drought in parts of western and mid-western United States, important agricultural areas, have impacted harvestable crop areas and potentially will lower crop yields. As the US is an important exporter of wheat, soybeans and maize to Southeast Asia, there is real danger that price inflation of basic food commodities will increase further.

According to the FAO, 10 per cent of Southeast Asia‘s population of 650 million suffers from food insecurity. So any increase in food prices will drive more people to hunger and reduced food intake. But the situation in Southeast Asia cannot be viewed in isolation from countries that are large food importers. Demand in China, one of the world’s biggest food importers, has been strong as the country has recovered from the pandemic earlier and faster than the rest of the world. Different parts of China have suffered from drought in the south and floods in the east. Much agricultural production occurs in the vicinity of the rivers and their flood plains, and even a small decline in production could inevitably lead to a large absolute increase in food demand due to China’s large population size. In past years, when China had gone shopping for food in the international markets, Southeast Asian countries have had to compete for the limited amounts available, especially in staples like rice.

Southeast Asia’s growing middle class has concurrently increased demands for wheat products and animal protein, both of which cannot be met by the production of animal feed crops like soybean and maize in the region or Asia as a whole. The FAO, in its analyses, has attributed part of the food price increases to supply-side issues such as harvest delays and reduced crop yields in exporting countries like Brazil.

It would appear that the Covid-19 pandemic is far from over in Southeast Asia, with the resurgences of 2nd and 3rd waves of infection. Natural calamities linked to climate change are further anticipated to negatively affect food production in many of the food exporting countries. For the region, the typhoon (cyclone) season of 2021 is only just beginning. This will put a strain on the ability of the region to grow enough food. Furthermore, reductions and disruptions in food supply chains leading to price spikes appear likely to continue in 2021 and beyond. Asian countries are also likely to implement tighter biosecurity measures such as improved animal health requirements and increased surveillance as part of strategies to prevent the spread of zoonotic diseases. To avoid the chaos created during the 2007-2008 food crisis, openness in reporting outbreaks and transparency in data sharing will be key to avoid panic buying.

In the near future, the effects of climate change are likely to increase rather than decrease, and together with the disruptions caused by the pandemic, will potentially create a ‘perfect storm’ for food supplies and prices. So ‘preparedness’ as a policy will be important for ASEAN to build resilience in its food security.

This article was first published by ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute as a commentary in Fulcrum.” With a link back to the original article — https://fulcrum.sg/southeast-asia-and-food-price-inflation-double-whammy/

Professor Paul Teng is an Associate Senior Fellow in the Climate Change in Southeast Asia Programme of ISEAS-Yusof Ishak institute. He is also Dean and Managing Director of NIE International, Nanyang Technological University Singapore.

 

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Excerpt:

Across the world, climate change and Covid-19 disruptions have led to rising food prices in the past year. Southeast Asian countries, which have not been immune to such challenges, need to build resilience in their food security policies.

By External Source
Jun 24 2021 (IPS-Partners)

The Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland has spoken today urging the international community to make crucial changes to how it delivers finance to developing nations, proposing a new system that moves beyond the use of GDP as the sole criteria for receiving certain types of support.

At a virtual media briefing, the Commonwealth Secretariat presented a ground-breaking study that assesses how vulnerable or resilient developing countries are to economic, socio-political and environmental shocks, such as climate change, which could influence how much international finance they can access.

The proposed Universal Vulnerability Index (UVI) has been shared with Commonwealth member countries for their review in ongoing consultations. If endorsed globally, the Index could transform the way development finance is delivered to developing nations.

Speaking ahead of the event the Secretary-General said:

“We must do better and act smarter when it comes to the support the international community gives to more vulnerable countries. If we are to rise above the current interlinked global crises we face, we need to muster all our resources in the most effective way.

“In an age of big data, complex analysis and artificial intelligence we cannot rely on decades-old systems and 18th century concepts to guide us but must fundamentally overhaul the way we think about development finance.

“We need to move beyond the thin analysis that GDP and per capita income provide us in determining of the type of support vulnerable countries should receive, towards a more realistic, nuanced and comprehensive understanding of what drives vulnerability and resilience. We cannot return to business as usual.”

‘Realistic’ multidimensional approach

Developed by experts at the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Foundation for Studies and Research on International Development, the UVI uses widely available data to generate single composite scores for vulnerability for 138 developing countries. The Index takes into account factors such as climate change, exposure to natural disasters or economic shocks, internal violence as well as governance.

Key to the study is the distinction it makes between ‘structural’ factors that are beyond the control of the state, such as a country’s geographic location and size, and ‘non-structural’ ones that are more dependent on the will of governments, such as policy performance.

According to these indicators the poorest nations in the world – those classified as Least Developed Countries – are the most vulnerable group, along with Small Island Developing States at the frontline of the climate crisis. Specifically, the report finds that the highest levels of vulnerability occur in Africa, closely followed by the Pacific and Caribbean regions.

The study has been presented to the Commonwealth’s governing board and is undergoing further consultation with member states. It will feed into international discussions around vulnerability, resilience and the efforts of small states to make a “green recovery” from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Notes to Editors

• The Commonwealth is a voluntary association of 54 independent and equal sovereign states. Our combined population is 2.4 billion, of which more than 60 per cent is aged 29 or under.
• The Commonwealth spans the globe and includes both advanced economies and developing countries. Thirty-two of our members are small states, many of which are island nations.
• The Commonwealth Secretariat supports member countries to build democratic and inclusive institutions, strengthen governance and promote justice and human rights. Our work helps to grow economies and boost trade, deliver national resilience, empower young people, and address threats such as climate change, debt and inequality.
• Member countries are supported by a network of more than 80 intergovernmental, civil society, cultural and professional organisations.

Media Contacts

Rena Gashumba
Communications Adviser, Commonwealth Secretariat
+447483919968, r.gashumba@commonwealth.int

Josephine Latu-Sanft
Senior Communications Officer, Commonwealth Secretariat
+44 7587657269, j.latu-sanft@commonwealth.int

Website thecommonwealth.org
Join the conversation Tweets by @commonwealthsec

By External Source
SUVA, Fiji, Jun 24 2021 (IPS-Partners)

In April 2021, the Pacific Community (SPC) coordinated the 14th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women and the 7th Meeting of the Pacific Ministers for Women, hosted by the Government of French Polynesia. The conference brought together decision-makers, development partners, research institutions and civil society organisations. Following this landmark event, SPC will continue to publish portraits of inspiring gender champions who are at the heart of Pacific development programmes.

One woman who isn’t afraid to engage herself in these ocean spaces is Ivanancy Vunikura, an ocean defender and sailor.

Ivanancy is one of the few women in the world who can claim that she has sailed the vast Pacific ocean on a traditional Vaka.

She started her sailing career with the Uto Ni Yalo, a Fiji-based association whose role is to promote sustainable, reciprocal relationship with nature by encouraging solutions for a healthy ocean – and gathering trash on the remote islands it visits. In 2011, traditional boats from Uto Ni Yalo sailed from the South Pacific to the USA, creating history and reclaiming the ocean.

This sail led her to work for the Okeanos Foundation where she currently advocates for sustainable sea transportation and the revival of traditional sailing in the Pacific.

Her sailing journey hasn’t always been smooth. Ivanancy had to fight storms, rough seas, and sometimes adverse cultural beliefs.

“I remember visiting a community where it was a taboo for women to sail with men, so we had to ask for permission from the chief upon arrival’, she recalls.

“We were granted permission, but it was hard to work with men from the community who joined our sailing cruise, since they were not used to share the Vaka with women. However, this didn’t deter me, and eventually, we all managed to work together.”

Ivanancy said that, because of their education, many women in the Pacific think they are not worthy enough, and not brave enough to stand up and have their voices heard. But winds are now changing, and Ivanancy believes that “Women also have a place at the helm of the Pacific Vaka”.

Source: The Pacific Community (SPC)

Two drill rigs at the Vaca Muerta oil field in Loma Campana, in southern Argentina. Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS

By Fermín Koop
BUENOS AIRES, Jun 24 2021 (IPS)

Latin America is investing too little in a green recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, with only 2.2% of the region’s stimulus funds spent on environmentally sustainable projects last year, according to a new platform developed by Oxford University and the UN.

Last year, the 33 countries of the region allocated US$318 billion to fiscal and stimulus measures to alleviate the economic impacts of the pandemic, of which only $46 billion qualifies as green, according to the platform. The percentage is significantly lower than the 19% it calculates as the global average.

“The region has reached an economic crossroads. Either governments continue to support the old, dying industries of the past or invest in sustainable industries that can drive future prosperity,” said Brian O’Callaghan of Oxford University. “The new economic opportunities for the region are monumental.”

The region has reached an economic crossroads. Either governments continue to support the old, dying industries of the past or invest in sustainable industries that can drive future prosperity,
Brian O'Callaghan, Oxford University

Analysis of more than 1,100 policies shows that 77% of Latin America’s pandemic recovery budget was allocated to short-term rescue measures to address urgent needs and save lives. Only 16.1% went towards long-term recovery plans.

On average, the region allocated US$490 per capita to pandemic recovery, while in other developing economies the figure averages $650. Only six countries spent more than 0.1% of their GDP on recovery plans. They were Chile (14.9%), Bolivia (10.5%) and Brazil (9.26%).

Guy Edwards, a researcher on the geopolitics of climate change and Latin America, said the region is at risk of being left behind if it doesn’t change direction. He called for a review of spending plans and the careful elimination of fossil fuel subsidies to reduce the negative impact on fiscal accounts, emissions and deadly air pollution.

“Working with countries to align their recovery plans with the Paris Agreement will be a vital first step,” he said, adding; “This requires supporting countries to prioritise investments and policies to protect nature and boost renewable energy and clean public transport, which can create jobs, reduce inequality and tackle the root causes of migration.”

 

Latin America: An economy in recession

Latin America’s GDP fell by 7.7% last year and will not return to pre-pandemic levels until 2024, according to the UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). As elsewhere in the world, countries have been urged to seize the crisis as an opportunity to initiate a green recovery.

However, achieving this has proven difficult for Latin America. In addition to responding to the demands of the pandemic, governments in the region have to cope with high levels of sovereign debt to private creditors, multilateral agencies and, in some cases, China.

“The response to the pandemic is leading to increased debt, which limits our ability to direct investments towards environmental sustainability. However, putting climate action as a driver of recovery has never been more important,” said Andrea Meza, Costa Rica’s environment and energy minister.

The region has accounted for nearly a third of all global deaths from Covid-19, despite being home to 8% of the world’s population, UNEP said. The situation has pushed environmental and climate policies down the list of government priorities in most countries.

The new Oxford University platform, which for now uses preliminary data, revealed that most pandemic recovery funds have been spent on infrastructure for fossil energy sources and unsustainable port and airport infrastructure, leading to increased carbon emissions.

Argentina, Mexico and Brazil focused their post-pandemic spending on these polluting sectors, providing increased subsidies to fossil fuel companies and boosting new projects. Chile, Jamaica and Colombia, meanwhile, stood out for their efforts in electric transport and renewable energy.

“We seek to develop short-term measures but with a long-term vision, promoting the circular economy and new businesses associated with natural capital,” said Daniel Gómez Gaviria, deputy director of Colombia’s National Planning Department. “Government revenues are concentrated in fossil fuels and minerals, so we need to diversify.”

 

A green recovery

Boosting a green recovery in Latin America not only makes sense in environmental terms but also in economic terms, thanks to the numerous benefits and jobs that could be generated.

The 2015 Paris Agreement aims to limit global warming to 2°C by the end of the century. To achieve this, greenhouse gas emissions must peak as soon as possible and then fall to zero by 2050.

The transition to net emissions is technically possible in Latin America, according to a report by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), through carbon-free electricity production, electrification of industry and transport, and enhanced energy efficiency.

“There is still an opportunity for governments in the region to pursue smart and environmentally sustainable investments. The benefits of that kind of spending are really very good,” O’Callaghan said. “A green recovery can reduce inequality and lead to sustainable economies.”

The region would save up to US$621 billion annually if the energy and transport sectors achieved emissions neutrality by 2050, while generating 7.7 million new jobs, according to a report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Most countries’ climate commitments submitted so far fall short of meeting Paris Agreement targets. Latin America is no exception, according to ECLAC. To reverse this, new, more ambitious commitments are expected in the run-up to the COP26 climate summit in November.

Latin America accounts for 5% of global emissions, mostly from the energy sector, agriculture and land-use change. But the proportion is increasing as countries continue to develop fossil fuels and fail to embark on an energy transition.

Costa Rica remains the only country in Latin America to have officially presented, and started to implement, a long-term decarbonisation strategy, which includes the energy sector. Other countries such as Chile and Argentina are working on it and could present their respective plans this year.

Edwards said: “The design of long-term decarbonisation plans, working closely with all stakeholders, can help to guide the recovery and support governments to select sustainable infrastructure projects to help people and get economies aligned with the Paris goals and the Sustainable Development Goals.”

This article was originally published by ChinaDialogue

Women in Nigeria collect food vouchers as part of a programme to support families struggling under the COVID-19 lockdown. Credit: WFP/Damilola Onafuwa

By External Source
WASHINGTON DC, Jun 24 2021 (IPS)

In the race between infection and injection, injection has lost. Public health experts estimate that approximately 70% of the world’s 7.9 billion people must be fully vaccinated to end the COVID-19 pandemic. As of June 21, 2021, 10.04% of the global population had been fully vaccinated, nearly all of them in rich countries.

Only 0.9% of people in low-income countries have received at least one dose.

I am a scholar of global health who specializes in health care inequities. Using a data set on vaccine distribution compiled by the Global Health Innovation Center’s Launch and Scale Speedometer at Duke University in the United States, I analyzed what the global vaccine access gap means for the world.

 

A global health crisis

Supply is not the main reason some countries are able to vaccinate their populations while others experience severe disease outbreaks – distribution is.

Overall, countries representing just one-seventh of the world’s population had reserved more than half of all vaccines available by June 2021. That has made it very difficult for the remaining countries to procure doses

Many rich countries pursued a strategy of overbuying COVID-19 vaccine doses in advance. My analyses demonstrate that the U.S., for example, has procured 1.2 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses, or 3.7 doses per person. Canada has ordered 381 million doses; every Canadian could be vaccinated five times over with the two doses needed.

Overall, countries representing just one-seventh of the world’s population had reserved more than half of all vaccines available by June 2021. That has made it very difficult for the remaining countries to procure doses, either directly or through COVAX, the global initiative created to enable low- to middle-income countries equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines.

Benin, for example, has obtained about 203,000 doses of China’s Sinovac vaccine – enough to fully vaccinate 1% of its population. Honduras, relying mainly on AstraZeneca, has procured approximately 1.4 million doses. That will fully vaccinate 7% of its population. In these “vaccine deserts,” even front-line health workers aren’t yet inoculated.

Haiti has received about 461,500 COVID-19 vaccine doses by donations and is grappling with a serious outbreak.

Even COVAX’s goal – for lower-income countries to “receive enough doses to vaccinate up to 20% of their population” – would not get COVID-19 transmission under control in those places.

 

The cost of not cooperating

Last year, researchers at Northeastern University modeled two vaccine rollout strategies. Their numerical simulations found that 61% of deaths worldwide would have been averted if countries cooperated to implement an equitable global vaccine distribution plan, compared with only 33% if high-income countries got the vaccines first.

Put briefly, when countries cooperate, COVID-19 deaths drop by approximately in half.

Vaccine access is inequitable within countries, too – especially in countries where severe inequality already exists.

In Latin America, for example, a disproportionate number of the tiny minority of people who’ve been vaccinated are elites: political leaders, business tycoons and those with the means to travel abroad to get vaccinated. This entrenches wider health and social inequities.

The result, for now, is two separate and unequal societies in which only the wealthy are protected from a devastating disease that continues to ravage those who are not able to access the vaccine.

 

A repeat of AIDS missteps?

This is a familiar story from the HIV era.

In the 1990s, the development of effective antiretroviral drugs for HIV/AIDS saved millions of lives in high-income countries. However, about 90% of the global poor who were living with HIV had no access to these lifesaving drugs.

Concerned about undercutting their markets in high-income countries, the pharmaceutical companies that produced antiretrovirals, such as Burroughs Wellcome, adopted internationally consistent prices. Azidothymidine, the first drug to fight HIV, cost about US$8,000 a year – over $19,000 in today’s dollars.

That effectively placed effective HIV/AIDS drugs out of reach for people in poor nations – including countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the epidemic’s epicenter. By the year 2000, 22 million people in sub-Saharan Africa were living with HIV, and AIDS was the region’s leading cause of death.

The crisis over inequitable access to AIDS treatment began dominating international news headlines, and the rich world’s obligation to respond became too great to ignore.

“History will surely judge us harshly if we do not respond with all the energy and resources that we can bring to bear in the fight against HIV/AIDS,” said South African President Nelson Mandela in 2004.

Pharmaceutical companies began donating antiretrovirals to countries in need and allowing local businesses to manufacture generic versions, providing bulk, low-cost access for highly affected poor countries. New global institutions like the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria were created to finance health programs in poor countries.

Pressured by grassroots activism, the United States and other high-income countries also spent billions of dollars to research, develop and distribute affordable HIV treatments worldwide.

 

A dose of global cooperation

It took over a decade after the development of antiretrovirals, and millions of unnecessary deaths, for rich countries to make those lifesaving medicines universally available.

Fifteen months into the current pandemic, wealthy, highly vaccinated countries are starting to assume some responsibility for boosting global vaccination rates.

Leaders of the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, European Union and Japan recently pledged to donate a total of 1 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses to poorer countries.

It is not yet clear how their plan to “vaccinate the world” by the end of 2022 will be implemented and whether recipient countries will receive enough doses to fully vaccinate enough people to control viral spread. And the late 2022 goal will not save people in the developing world who are dying of COVID-19 in record numbers now, from Brazil to India.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic shows that ending the coronavirus pandemic will require, first, prioritizing access to COVID-19 vaccines on the global political agenda. Then wealthy nations will need to work with other countries to build their vaccine manufacturing infrastructure, scaling up production worldwide.

Finally, poorer countries need more money to fund their public health systems and purchase vaccines. Wealthy countries and groups like the G-7 can provide that funding.

These actions benefit rich countries, too. As long as the world has unvaccinated populations, COVID-19 will continue to spread and mutate. Additional variants will emerge.

As a May 2021 UNICEF statement put it: “In our interdependent world no one is safe until everyone is safe.”

Maria De Jesus, Associate Professor and Research Fellow at the Center on Health, Risk, and Society, American University School of International Service

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

Antoine-Jean Gros: Napoleon Bonaparte Visits the Plague Stricken in Jaffa.

By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM / ROME, Jun 24 2021 (IPS)

By the end of April 2019, a government campaign to vaccinate more than 40 million children under five against polio in Pakistan was suspended after a series of attacks on health workers and police. On 23 April, a police officer protecting polio workers was gunned down in Bannu, the same day a polio worker was in Lahore seriously wounded by a father “protecting his child from vaccination”, these incidents were followed by the murder of another police and a health worker under his protection. Health workers were also seriously wounded in the districts of Sindh, Balochistan and Punjab. Afghanistan and Pakistan are the only countries where polio remains, in all other nations of the world vaccination campaigns have eliminated the disease. In April this year, three female polio vaccine providers were killed in Afghanistan.

It is Islamist militants, urged on by fanatic preachers, who oppose polio vaccination, claiming it is part of a “Western conspiracy” to sterilise Muslim children. As in all religions, we find in Islam fanatics who erroneously claim that their holy scriptures demand them to carry out odd and even abominable acts, like killing health workers trying to protect their human fellow beings.

Since it does not explicitly mention medical treatment, the Quran cannot be used for anti-vaccination propaganda. However, several hadiths (collections of words and actions by Prophet Muhammad) mention the Prophet’s views on healthcare and none of them can be interpreted as being opposed to vaccination. The most commonly quoted utterance of the Prophet concerning medicine comes from hadiths collected by Sunan Abī Dāwūd (d. 889 CE): “Make use of medical treatment, for God has not made a disease without appointing a remedy for it, with the exception of one disease, namely death.”

Contemporary Muslim scholars, like the members of The International Islamic Fiqh Seminar have established that “the use of the current vaccines against COVID-19 is permissible in Islam, and their use becomes obligatory upon everyone, if the authorities oblige to do so, thus Muslims are obliged to be respectful and obedient to the instructions of their authorities, especially with regard to issues related to the public interest, particularly the protection of life.”

The senseless murders of health workers indicate an unfortunate connection between healthcare, religion and politics, which create absurd convictions that bring misery and death to others. A tragic development also evidenced by misguided, populist politics connected with COVID-19, which instead of “believers and infidels” have emphasized a concept that may be described as “the West and the rest”. A view that certainly is different from the one of religious fanatics killing vaccinators, but which nevertheless indicate how beliefs may distort reality

Even a wealthy and fairly well organized country like Sweden has been affected by chauvinism connected with COVID-19. Measures to mitigate COVID-19 have been connected with nationalism when homage was paid to a “uniquely Swedish” approach to COVID-contagion. Public veneration of the influential State Epidemiologist Anders Tegnell went during the heights of the pandemic far beyond common trust and for many he became an idol, widely admired for his recommendations to keep schools, restaurants and shops open, while assuring his fellow citizens that wearing of face masks was unnecessary. Journalists and trendsetters, who otherwise would cringe at any sign of nationalism, praised Tegnell as an incarnation of Sweden’s soul and stamina and his office was flooded with flowers sent in from grateful citizens. All this played into the hands of chauvinist politicians who exploited nationalistic feelings to convey their xenophobic messages.

Signs of similar trends are appearing all over the world. The United Kingdom and the U.S. have, at least initially, applied different strategic responses than most of their European allies and it was not uncommon to hear references to these measures as being based on a conception that Anglo-Saxon cultures are “exceptional” and even superior. In Japan, Bushido, the Way of the Warrior, is used as an overarching term for codes, practices, philosophies and principles of the samurai culture and has by Japanese nationalists been referred to as an admirable aspect of their “unique” society. Self-congratulating media declared that the “bushido spirit” contributed to Japan’s resilience to COVID-19, just as South Korea’s successful efforts to combat the disease has been referred to a more recent, but similar national trait – Ssauarbi.

In Italy the rapidly growing political party The Brothers of Italy, as well as The Northern League, are repeatedly associating the COVID-19 crisis with immigration, accusing the Italian government of applying a double standard in favour of immigrants, while penalizing Italian businesses and freedom of movement. The Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has hailed the Brothers of Italy’s leader Giorgia Meloni as a role model for European Conservatives, expressing hopes for a future collaboration to “defend Italians against migration flows and protect traditional family and Christian culture.”

Among his compatriots Orbán has, like many other populist leaders, depicted himself as the sole leader capable of battling COVID-19, enticing public opinion to support him in his efforts to defend “Hungarian values”. On the 30th of March 2020, the Hungarian Parliament voted in favour of creating a state of emergency granting Orbán to rule by decree, implementing prison sentences “for spreading fake news” and sanctions for leaving quarantine. Two and a half months later the state of emergency ended. However, the same day a new law was passed removing the requirement of parliamentary approval for future “medical” states of emergencies, allowing Orbán’s government to declare them by decree.

Orbán, and other populist leaders, like Brazil’s Jair Bolsanero and India’s Narendra Modi, trust that their charisma and popularity among certain sections of society allow them to appear as role models and champions while confronting COVID-19. An illusion that might prove to be dangerous, both for them and their fervent supporters.

Lulled into complacency by declining infection rates, Modi acted as if he had won the battle against COVID-19. A delusion which combined with hopes for winning the next general elections gave rise to a series of critical mistakes. Instead of focusing on concerted measures to vaccinate all citizens and provide sufficient supplies to the health care system, Modi turned his attention to winning state elections and permitted massive political rallies without ensuring any COVID protocols. At the same time he continued trying to satisfy his Hindu base, for example by allowing the Kumbh Mela to take place. This is a Hindu major pilgrimage and festival celebrated in a cycle of approximately 12 years, when millions gather at the four main river-bank sacred sites; Allahabad (Prayagraj), Hardiwar, Nashik and Ujjain. This year, most pilgrims defied protective masks and social distancing. Furthermore, religious leanings have induced Modi to concentrate his messages to Hindu believers and his party has not shied away from blaming Muslims for spreading COVID-19.

Modi exposes a tendency to disregard science and advice from experts, while surrounding himself with religiously motivated people. The Indian Prime Minister has approved of the creation of a Ministry of Ayush to promote alternative medicines, such as ayurveda, naturopathy and homeopathy and his government has called for more research into the medicinal properties of milk, dung, and urine from indigenous Indian cows. Several members of Modi’s government have in their official capacities been promoting false, and even harmful remedies. One example among many is Surendra Sing, member of Uttar Pradesh’s Legislative Assembly and Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. Last month, Surendra claimed that consuming gaumutra (cow urine) every morning on an empty stomach would “guarantee” protection from the novel variant of the coronavirus, which now is spreading fast across the subcontinent.

The reckless behaviour of leaders like Orbán, Bolsanero and Modi is appalling, in particular since it is combined with extreme narcissism and assurances that the unique values of their nations will save the lives of their inhabitants.

A leader’s task cannot be to stir up animosities and foment political objectives that benefit him/herself. Instead they ought to use their powers to support those who need help, mitigate catastrophes, and assure that forward-looking measures are in place to avoid them. For the well-being of all citizens, political leaders cannot be allowed to disregard the responsibilities imposed upon them and which they have sworn to accomplish. True leadership is a commitment that means putting the best interests of everyone first and forget about personal benefits.

The International Islamic Fiqh Seminar https://www.iifa-aifi.org/en/11120.html

Jan Lundius holds a PhD. on History of Religion from Lund University and has served as a development expert, researcher and advisor at SIDA, UNESCO, FAO and other international organisations.

 

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Excerpt:

A confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished.
                                                Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A woman in the Dominican Republic receives food from a government soup kitchen set up to help fight hunger triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, UN agencies warn against rising hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Credit: WFP/Karolyn Ureña

By Luis Felipe López-Calva
NEW YORK, Jun 24 2021 (IPS)

The first wave of COVID-19 never ended in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Since the region became a hotspot for the pandemic in June 2020, successive waves have continued to build upon the first.

Despite being home to just 8% of the world’s population, the region has suffered 20% of total confirmed COVID-19 cases and 32% of total confirmed COVID-19 deaths. The relentless spread of the virus has brought with it not only the tragic loss of so many lives, but also devastating economic and social damages.

Poverty and hunger are once again on the rise in the region and growth prospects are bleak. With limited access to vaccines in many countries, hopes for a return to “normal” remain distant.

Luis Felipe López-Calva

What went so wrong? With adequate warning of the spreading virus, many countries in the region responded swiftly at the onset with strict containment measures.

Unfortunately, in LAC it was not only the response to the pandemic that mattered – but fundamentally, the “pre-existing conditions” that characterized the region prior to the pandemic’s arrival.

These pre-existing conditions, or structural weaknesses, made countries in the region more vulnerable to the multiple and interconnected crises associated with COVID-19.

UNDP’s recently launched Regional Human Development Report, “Trapped: High Inequality and Low Growth in Latin America and the Caribbean”, looks at two of these conditions: high-inequality and low-productivity.

It explores how underlying factors related to ineffective governance work to propel these outcomes in a mutually reinforcing vicious cycle (a “trap”). In particular, it highlights how the concentration of power in the hands of “the few” works to distort public policies in ways that both perpetuate existing patterns of inequality and hold back productivity growth in the region.

Exiting this trap will only happen if countries take bold action to embrace systemic solutions that consider the complexity of the dynamics between governance, inequality, and productivity. For years, countries in the region have invested in various solutions to address these challenges.

Community kitchen serves hot lunches for Peruvians. Credit: WFP/Guillermo Galdos

However, many of these responses were short-term, designed to separately address different symptoms of a much deeper problem. This has left countries with a large set of fragmented and costly policies that segment the labor market, provide erratic risk protection to households, do not redistribute income sufficiently towards lower-income groups, and bias the allocation of resources in ways that punish productivity and stable growth.

The region cannot afford to stay stuck on this path.

While the pandemic has accelerated the urgency of this challenge, citizens were already demanding change before we knew what COVID-19 was. As citizens poured onto the streets of LAC in late 2019, it became eminently clear that “business as usual” was not working for “the many.”

LAC countries made important development progress over the past thirty years, but the events of more recent years have revealed just how fragile that progress was. We celebrated a temporary reduction of inequality in the 1990s and early 2000s, but it was both insufficient and unsustainable—largely propelled by a commodity boom, targeted cash transfers, and a compression of the wage gap between skilled and unskilled workers.

While many countries achieved middle-income status, they have been unable to consolidate themselves as middle-class societies. Millions have been left behind as opportunities have fallen short of people’s aspirations for their own lives and their expectations of their governments.

What we have learned is that there is no single “silver bullet” policy that can change this. The region already has many “good” policies in place. The challenge we face now is a structural one.

It requires rethinking the foundations of our systems from a longer-term perspective and considering the interconnected ways in which these issues work to reinforce one another in positive or negative directions.

While there are many potential entry points, the potential for universal social protection systems that ensure that everybody is protected, that income is redistributed towards those in need, that the policies deployed to achieve these aims provide incentives to firms and workers to increase productivity, and that the sources of revenue are sustainable, is particularly important.

This requires a principle of universality understood in three complementary dimensions: (i) All the population exposed to a given risk needs to be covered through the same program; (ii) The source of financing should be the same for each program, based on the type of risk covered; and (iii) When programs provide in kind benefits, quality should be the same for all.

A social protection system built around these universal principles offers the region a route to increasing spending in social protection while strengthening the foundations of long-term growth, and a path to enhance social inclusion.

Moving in this direction could represent “a third moment” in the history of social protection in the region. The first moment occurred over 75 years ago, when countries began the construction of their social protection systems; and the second moment occurred in the early 1990s, as countries emerged from the “lost-decade” of the 1980s.

It is possible that the current moment of crisis associated with COVID-19 may open the required political space for this third moment to take place, as countries contemplate substantial changes to their social protection and taxation systems in their efforts to contain social damage, restore fiscal balances, and resume growth.

 

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Excerpt:

The writer is Assistant Administrator and Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, UN Development Program (UNDP)

Recent years have seen a dramatic re-engagement with Africa, especially the Nile Basin countries.

Kidnappers have seized more than 1,000 students and staff in raids on schools in northern Nigeria since December.