Africa

Quechua indigenous farmers from the town of Huasao, in the Andes highlands of Peru, cut insect repellent plants in front of Juana Gallegos' house, while others prepare the biol mixture, a liquid organic fertiliser that they use on their vegetable crops. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

By Mariela Jara
HUASAO, Peru, May 6 2020 (IPS)

It’s eight o’clock in the morning and Pascuala Ninantay is carrying two large containers of water in her wheelbarrow to prepare with neighbouring women farmers 200 litres of organic fertiliser, which will then be distributed to fertilise their crops, in this town in the Andes highlands of Peru.

“We grow healthy, nutritious food without chemicals,” she tells IPS, describing the sustainable agriculture she practices in Huasao, a town of about 1,500 people in Quispicanchi province, 3,300 metres above sea level, in the department of Cuzco in south-central Peru.

It will take them four hours to prepare the “biol”, a liquid fertiliser composed of natural inputs contributed by the local farmers as part of a collective work tradition of the Quechua indigenous people, to which most of the inhabitants of Huasao and neighbouring highlands villages in the area belong.

“Between all of us we bring the different ingredients, but we were short on water so I went to the spring to fill my ‘galoneras’ (multi-gallon containers),” explains Ninantay.

The women, gathered at the home of Juana Gallegos, work in community. While some gather insect repellent plants like nettles and muña (Minthostachys mollis, an Andes highlands plant), others prepare the huge plastic drum where they will make the mixture that includes ash and fresh cattle dung.

They keep working until the container is filled with 200 litres of the fertiliser which, after two months of fermentation in the sealed drum, will be distributed among them equally.

Making organic fertiliser is one of the agro-ecological practices that Ninantay and 15 of her neighbours have adopted to produce food that is both beneficial to health and adapted to climate change.

They are just a few of the almost 700,000 women who, according to official figures, are engaged in agricultural activities in Peru, and who play a key role in the food security and sovereignty of their communities, despite the fact that they do so under unequal conditions because they have less access to land, water management and credit than men.

That is the view of Elena Villanueva, a sociologist with the Flora Tristán Centre for Peruvian Women, a non-governmental organisation that for the past two years has been promoting women’s rights and technical training among small-scale women farmers in Huasao and six other areas of the region, with support from two institutions in Spain’s Basque Country: the Basque Development Cooperation agency and the non-governmental Mugen Gainetik.

“During this time we have seen how much power the 80 women we have supported have gained as a result of their awareness of their rights and their use of agro-ecological techniques. In a context of marked machismo (sexism), they are gaining recognition for their work, which was previously invisible,” she told IPS.

A group of women farmers are ready to head out to the plots they farm on the community lands outside of Huasao, a rural town in Peru’s Andes highlands department of Cuzco. They are wearing masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19, because they depend on their production for food and income from the sale of the surplus, to cover their household expenses. CREDIT: Nayda Quispe/IPS

This group of women farmers is convinced of the need for nutritious food that does not harm people’s health or nature, and they are happy to do their small part to make that happen.

“We want to have a variety of food constantly available, but taking care of our soil, water, plants, trees and air,” says Ninantay.

“We no longer use chemicals,” says Gallegos. “Thanks to the training we have received, we understood how the soil and our crops had become so dependent on those substances, we thought that only by using them would we have a good yield. But no, with our own fertilisers we grow lettuce, tomatoes, chard, artichokes, radishes and all our big, beautiful, tasty vegetables. Everything is organic.”

Once they were producing their fresh produce using agro-ecological techniques, the women decided to also begin growing their staple crops of potatoes and corn organically. “I see that the plants are happier and the leaves are greener now that I fertilise them naturally,” says Ninantay.

Villanueva says these decisions on what to plant and how to do it contribute to new forms of agricultural production that meet the food needs of the women and their families while also contributing to the sustainable development of their communities.

“With agro-ecology they enrich their knowledge about the resistance of crops to climate change, they carry out integrated management of pests and diseases, and they have tools to improve their production planning,” she explains.

And even more important, “this process raises their self-esteem and strengthens their sense of being productive citizens because they are aware that they are taking care of biodiversity, diversifying their crops and increasing their yields,” she adds.

Thanks to this, these peasant women are obtaining surpluses that they now market.

Three times a week, Ninantay and the other women set up their stall in Huasao’s main square where they sell their products to the local population and to tourists who come in search of local healers, famous for their fortune telling and cures, which draw on traditional rituals and ceremonies.

The agro-ecological women farmers set up their stall three times a week in the main square of the rural municipality of Huasao to sell lettuce, tomatoes, Chinese onions, radish and other fresh produce. They are now marketing their wares in compliance with the health regulations put in place in response to the coronavirus pandemic, for which they have received training from the municipal authorities. CREDIT: Nayda Quispe/IPS

Coronavirus alters local dynamics

However, the measures implemented by the central government on Mar. 15 to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic have reduced trade, by not allowing outsiders to visit Huasao, known locally as “the village of the witchdoctors” because of its healers.

But the work in the fields has not stopped; on the contrary, the women are working harder than ever.

“We used to have the income of my husband who worked in the city, but because of the state of emergency he can no longer leave,” says Ninantay. “My fellow women farmers are in the same boat, so we continue to harvest and sell in the square and what we earn goes to buying medicines, masks, bleach and other things for the home.”

Initially, she says, the husbands didn’t want their wives to participate in the project and stay overnight away from home to attend the training workshops. But after they saw the money they were saving on food and the income the women were earning, “they now recognise that our work is important.”

Their husbands, like most Huasao men, do not work in the fields. They work in construction or services in the city of Cuzco, about 20 km away, or migrate seasonally to mining regions in search of a better income.

So the community lands, where each family has usufruct rights on three-hectare plots, were left in the hands of women, even though the title is usually held by the men. With the opportunity offered by the Flora Tristán project, they have increased their harvests and are no longer merely subsistence farmers but earn an income as well.

Despite the pandemic, the women obtained permission from the authorities and received training on the care and prevention measures to be followed in order to market their products under conditions that are safe for them and their customers.

Their stall at the open-air market in the town’s main square is already known for offering healthy food, and on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays they run out of vegetables and other products they offer. They also sell their wares in other fairs and markets.

Their stall in the municipal market is also seen as an alternative to return to more natural foods in the face of the increasing change in eating patterns in rural areas.

“Many people don’t want to eat quinoa or ‘oca’ (Oxalis tuberosa, an Andean tuber), they prefer noodles or rice,” says Ninantay. “Children fill up on sweets and junk food and they are not getting good nutrition, and that’s not right. We have to educate people about healthy eating if we want strong new generations.”

She stresses the importance of people understanding that nature, “Mother Earth”, must be respected.

“We have to recover the wisdom of our ancestors, of our grandmothers, to take care of everything that we need to live,” she warns. “If we do not do this, our grandchildren and their children will not have water to drink, seeds to plant, or food to eat.”

Flora Tristán’s Villanueva announced that the 80 women farmers in the programme would participate in initiatives for the recovery of agricultural and water harvesting practices based on forestation and infiltration ditches, using native trees known as chachacomas (Escallonia resinosa) and queñuas (Polylepis).

The women hope that their experience and knowledge will be extended on a large scale, because although they share with their families, neighbours and relatives what they are learning, they believe that the authorities should help expand these practices.

“We would like not only Huasao, but all of Cuzco to be an agro-ecological region, so that we can help nature and guarantee healthy food for the families of the countryside and the city,” says Gallegos, convinced that if they could do it, everyone can.

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The post Coronavirus Hasn´t Slowed Down Ecological Women Farmers in Peru’s Andes Highlands appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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By External Source
May 6 2020 (IPS-Partners)

Denmark is Education Cannot Wait’s (ECW) third largest donor, with US$79.1 million in contributions to date. In this insightful interview with Denmark’s Minister for Development Cooperation, Rasmus Prehn, we explore the importance of girls’ education and gender equality, the humanitarian-development nexus, expanded engagement with the private sector, education in emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic and more. A former high school teacher, with a master’s degree in social science, Minister Prehn has been a member of Danish Parliament since 2005, and was named Minister for Development Cooperation on June 27, 2019. Minister Prehn is the former chairman of the Danish Research, Education and Further Education Committee, a tireless advocate for education in emergencies, and a true champion for achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, especially SDG4: inclusive and equitable, quality education for all.

Denmark is a strong political advocate of education and girls’ education in emergencies and crisis countries. How do you see investments in education in crisis countries bringing transformative change for the overall development agenda?

RP: Education holds a huge potential for transformation. Both in respect to giving children the tools they need for a sustainable future and in respect to transforming society as we know it into a place where girls and boys, women and men, have equal rights and opportunities. An educated girl can significantly increase her income as compared to girls with no education. Her future children will have a much higher chance of surviving the first five years of their lives.

Girls living in emergency contexts are of particular risk of being out of school. They are also at higher risk of sexual- and gender-based violence, including teenage pregnancies and child marriage. Their sexual and reproductive health and rights are often under pressure during times of crisis. Supporting education is also a way to address these risks, as education provides a foundation for increased gender equality and for the protection of the rights of women and girls.

Denmark’s investments in education in crises have a two-fold aim: 1) to ensure continuity of learning for children so that they have the tools for a better future 2) to re-define gender and social norms and raise girls and boys to be equal citizens with equal rights and opportunities.

Since Education Cannot Wait became operational in 2017, Denmark has also become one of Education Cannot Wait’s biggest strategic donor partners and has made major investments in Education Cannot Wait over the past years. What are the key incentives for investing in this relatively new global fund?

RP: Denmark is very committed to work more effectively across the humanitarian-development nexus to ensure more sustainable education outcomes in areas affected by conflict and protracted crisis. This was a key incentive for Danish support to ECW right from the start and for the large contributions that have placed Denmark among the largest donors to ECW.

For the same reason, a key priority for Denmark is that ECW focuses on its mandate to bridge the humanitarian-development nexus to secure long-term education impact. This is only more relevant in light of COVID-19, which has led to the close down of schools in more than 190 countries worldwide. When responding to the COVID-19 crisis, there was a need for immediate action to enable continued learning and address protection risks linked to children being out of school, while also supporting resilient education systems.

In response to COVID-19, and as the LEGO Foundation – the philanthropic arm of a Danish world class private sector company – increased its support to Education Cannot Wait – you also decided to frontload financing for Education Cannot Wait. This is a wonderful way for governments and private sector to provide matching support. How would you describe this model example of engaging private sector?

RP: Denmark firmly believes in partnerships and collaboration to solve the challenges faced in the world today. We need to work together at all levels to make sure we leave no one behind. Collaboration across the public and private sector is one important way of ensuring progress towards common goals. We recognize and much appreciate the role and support of the LEGO Foundation towards education in emergencies. The Danish Government and the LEGO Foundation are currently strengthening collaboration in the area of education. Through close strategic dialogue and coordinated actions such as the matching support, the aim of the collaboration is to ensure synergies towards common goals and the realization of SDG4. We hope that this can set an example for enhanced private and public sector collaboration also in other sectors.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a global impact upon all areas of virtually everyone’s life. What does Denmark see as the top three priorities moving forward to achieve SDG4 (quality, inclusive education), particularly for crisis-affected children and youth already impacted by armed conflicts, forced displacement and natural disasters – and now doubly hit by COVID-19?

RP: For Denmark, quality and inclusive education is key for learning outcomes. At the same time, both quality and inclusiveness in education are impacted by the context in which children are learning. When the surrounding world is unsafe and uncertain, a pre-condition for children to learn is to ensure a protective environment. Therefore one key priority is a holistic cross-sectoral response that includes access to health care, psychosocial support and protection measures as part of education efforts.

COVID-19 has indeed added a double concern to education in emergencies. A concern that only further stresses the need to develop resilient education systems that are able to deliver quality education in crisis contexts. Be it pandemics, natural disasters or wars. A significant element is to ensure that we reach those furthest behind by using innovative and context-specific methods for distance learning. It is also important that we consider that education quality is not only about the number of children accessing education or learning outcomes, but also about teaching methods, curriculum and the social environment in schools between students and teachers, and students and their peers.

A particular concern for Denmark are the consequences that the school closures caused by COVID-19 have for both girls’ and women’s rights. We know that education is one key element to prevent social and gender norms that drive harmful practices. Where pre-COVID-19 projections showed that a decline in harmful practices could be reached, post-COVID-19 projections show that more girls will be exposed to female genital mutilation and child marriage. Therefore, quality education and establishing inclusive conditions for girls in schools through addressing harmful social and gender norms is a key priority for Denmark and also is the reason why we are part of the ECW gender reference group. The classroom reflects the surrounding society and the reverse is also true. We must work at all levels to create inclusive conditions for girls’ access to school.

As a Member of Parliament, you have been the Chairman of the Committee on Research, Education and Further Education. What does education represent for you on a more personal level? How does this influence you in your work as a policymaker?

RP: I could not be a bigger champion of education and skills development: this is the key to create the hope for a better future. I have immense respect for the potential offered by education at all levels to change norms in a positive way. This is why I have been preoccupied with education since my early youth. I have myself worked as a high school teacher for 8 years. I have also been a teacher in the Danish folk high schools (“højskoler”), which is an education institution invented in the 1830s with the aim to help people qualify as active members of society with the means to change the political situation and meet across social borders.

###

About Education Cannot Wait: ECW is the first global fund dedicated to education in emergencies. It was launched by international humanitarian and development aid actors, along with public and private donors, to address the urgent education needs of 75 million children and youth in conflict and crisis settings. ECW’s investment modalities are designed to usher in a more collaborative approach among actors on the ground, ensuring relief and development organizations join forces to achieve education outcomes. Education Cannot Wait is hosted by UNICEF. The Fund is administered under UNICEF’s financial, human resources and administrative rules and regulations, while operations are run by the Fund’s own independent governance structure.

Please follow on Twitter: @EduCannotWait @YasmineSherif1 @KentPage
Additional information at: www.educationcannotwait.org

For press inquiries: Kent Page, kpage@unicef.org, +1-917-302-1735
For press inquiries: Anouk Desgroseilliers, adesgroseilliers@un-ecw.org, +1-917-640-6820
For any other inquiries: info@un-ecw.org

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The post The Power of Education in Emergencies: Interview with Denmark’s Minister of Development Cooperation Rasmus Prehn appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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Fatou Bensouda, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), briefs Security Council members during the open video conference in connection with the International Criminal Court and the situation in Libya. Courtesy: UN Photo/Evan Schneider

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, May 6 2020 (IPS)

The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Tuesday highlighted crimes against humanity and grave mismanagement of the law in Libya during a release of their latest report on the North African nation. 

Fatou Bensouda, Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, said enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, hate speech, and severe maltreatment of detainees remains a massive concern in the country that’s been caught in a civil war since 2014 with administrations in its capital Tripoli pitted against Benghazi. 

Bensouda warned of serious violence due to armed conflict in the region, resulting in a large volume of civilian casualties from air-strikes and shelling operations. She also called on “serious and urgent reforms” regarding the prison situation across the country.

“Arbitrary detention and serious mistreatment of detainees affects not only migrants and refugees but also thousands of other people detained in prisons and detention centres across Libya,” she said during the May 5 virtual briefing.

“Many people are detained without lawful basis or denied their fundamental procedural rights,” she said. 

Furthermore, those detained – many of whom are women and children – are put at risk for abuse such as murder, torture rape and other forms of sexual violence, she said. 

This is further strengthened by testimony from formal detainees who have claimed they were subject to “brutal methods of torture”.  

Many have died after being subject to torture and not being given access to timely medical care. 

She also noted that, “derogatory and dehumanising language” have permeated both traditional and social media. 

“This is cause for concern,” she said. “This type of language generates both hatred and fear in the community and deepens divisions within society. It sows the seeds of crimes against targeted groups of individuals and foments conditions in which mass atrocity crime can occur.”

“Leaders and prominent members of the community have a special responsibility to lead by example to refrain from hate speech,” she added. “Anyone who incites fear, hatred and division in the community causes harm not only to those targeted but also to society as a whole.”

Shortly following the ICC’s briefing on Tuesday, Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesman for United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, said the U.N. Support Mission for Libya (UNSMIL) “remains concerned at the continued fighting in the country and reiterates its call for a cessation of hostilities during the holy month of Ramadan”. 

Dujarric added that the UNSMIL’s acting special representative Stephanie Williams remains engaged in outreach efforts with mediators as well as other international partners, including those involved with the Berlin Conference, in order to ensure that Libya can return to proper political process. The main objectives of the Berlin Conference, held in January, was to find consensus among concerned member states on the Libyan crisis.  

“It’s important that all the parties involved, whether Libyan or those who have influence over those parties, move in the same direction, and that is towards political talks,” Dujarric told the Associated Press at the briefing. 

The report came a little after the first anniversary since the Libyan National Army (LNA), a rebel group led by defected general Khalifa Haftar, orchestrated an attack to seize the Libyan capital Tripoli from the U.N.-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA).  

Since the coronavirus pandemic has become a priority for governments around the world, experts fear this may be putting the crisis in Libya on the backseat of international diplomacy and in turn giving way for the crisis to continue, according to recent analysis by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED). 

“As European officials shy away from the Libyan dossier to tackle the pandemic at home, there are concerns that efforts to secure a political solution to the conflict will be severely weakened,” ACLED said in an analysis shared in April.  

At the end of March, the Secretary-General had appealed for a global ceasefire in all conflict areas as communities — especially those who are in transit or in conflict — are at graver, more complicated risks of the coronavirus. 

Over a month later, Haftar announced a “truce” as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan began. However, GNA forces reportedly said they would not adhere to this temporary ceasefire as they did not trust him to keep his word.

On Tuesday, as the report was being released, Al Jazeera reported an attack by the GNA on an airbase under the control of Haftar’s leadership, ensuing in heavy fire exchange between forces on both sides. The airbase was reportedly a key facility that was used to attack GNA forces, according to the report.

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The post Enforced Disappearances, Arbitrary Detentions, Hate Speech & Attacks on Civilians – ICC Report on Libya appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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A young boy in Pakistan receives an oral polio vaccine (OPV). Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

By Laura Mackenzie
May 6 2020 (IPS)

Interruptions to vaccination programmes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic could result in new waves of measles or polio outbreaks, health experts warn.

A growing number of one-off immunisation campaigns and national routine vaccine introductions are being delayed amid social distancing and other measures to curb the spread of SARS-CoV-2, leaving millions unprotected.

With both preventive campaigns and routine immunisations impacted, “we’ll have an increasing number of children who will become susceptible to vaccine-preventable diseases and that will definitely lead to outbreaks”,

Richard Mihigo
World Health Organization’s Africa office
Uptake of routine immunisations has dropped in many vulnerable countries, with people unable or unwilling to travel to sessions — something that was also observed during the 2013-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

With both preventive campaigns and routine immunisations impacted, “we’ll have an increasing number of children who will become susceptible to vaccine-preventable diseases and that will definitely lead to outbreaks”, says Richard Mihigo, programme manager for immunisation and vaccines development at the World Health Organization’s Africa office.

Coinciding with the COVID-19 pandemic, “such outbreaks will not receive the same attention as in normal times”, he adds.

“We saw this during the [2013-2016] Ebola outbreak in West Africa, where we had an outbreak of measles at the same time. And recently we’ve seen in the Democratic Republic of Congo that an ongoing outbreak of measles has killed more people than the ongoing outbreak of Ebola. But all attention was on Ebola.”

Following the WHO’s recommendation last month that all mass vaccination campaigns should be suspended in response to COVID-19, Mihigo says mass preventive campaigns — which help to fill in the gaps in places with weak routine immunisation — had been put on hold in almost all African countries, while campaigns to target existing outbreaks are being considered on a case-by-case basis.

Those halted include preventive measles campaigns in Chad, Nigeria, Ethiopia and South Sudan, as well as in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. More than 6000 people have died since last year in the DRC in what is currently the world’s largest measles outbreak. These campaigns alone had aimed to reach 21.2 million children under the age of five, Mihigo says.

Meanwhile Gavi, the global Vaccine Alliance, which vaccinates almost half of the world’s children, announced earlier this month that 14 major immunisation campaigns supported by the alliance had been postponed, along with four national routine vaccine introductions.

These delays, which impact campaigns against polio, measles, cholera, human papillomavirus (HPV), yellow fever and meningitis, have affected at least 13.5 million people in 13 of the world’s least-developed countries, the alliance says, cautioning that many more delays are expected. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative, which partners with Gavi and the WHO, has also recommended that all polio vaccination campaigns be paused worldwide.

Countries with fragile health systems and ongoing conflicts — many of which are yet to feel the full impact of the novel coronavirus — are most at risk, says Charlie Weller, head of vaccines programme at the Wellcome Trust.

She too highlights the DRC, where Ebola has struck in areas of active conflict, as a country particularly at risk: “The impact to their health system and how they will be able to manage through and beyond COVID-19 is a very big concern.”

Gavi chief executive, Seth Berkley, warns that the international community needs to act to prevent potentially devastating outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases.

“The legacy of COVID-19 must not include the global resurgence of other killers like measles and polio,” he says.

However, some experts believe that a rise in cases of vaccine-preventable diseases are inevitable.

When vaccination coverage goes down, inevitably more outbreaks will occur, including of life-threatening diseases like measles and polio, WHO deputy director-general Zsuzsanna Jakab says.

WHO spokesperson for polio eradication Oliver Rosenbauer says that although temporarily halting polio vaccination campaigns was the “only recommendation to make under this new reality”, the organisation was anticipating an increase in polio cases as a result — including a possible spread of the virus to new areas.

Echoing Mihigo’s warning about COVID-19 distracting from other disease outbreaks, Rosenbauer stresses the need for continued polio surveillance and a return to vaccination campaigns “as rapidly as is safely feasible”.

“We must not forget that as long as children in Pakistan are at risk of polio paralysis … then all children in the world, wherever they live, could one day be affected by polio,” Rosenbauer adds. Pakistan and Afghanistan are currently the only countries in the world still affected by the wild poliovirus, WPV1.

Once the immediate COVID-19 crisis is over, experts agree that the speedy and effective implementation of catch-up vaccination campaigns will be vital — a matter that could be complicated by US President Donald Trump’s recent threats to cut hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to the WHO.

But Weller stresses that although investment in catch-up campaigns is vital, there will be no quick fixes.

“It’s not just about putting a band-aid or plaster over a dip in vaccine coverage,” she says. “It’s about helping those countries to strengthen their health systems for the long term.”

 

This story was originally published by SciDev.Net

The post Polio, Measles Outbreaks ‘Inevitable’, Say Vaccine Experts appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Richard Cupitt
WASHINGTON DC, May 6 2020 (IPS)

Even during this pandemic, perhaps especially during this pandemic, the global institutions to help prevent the spread of biological and chemical weapons to proliferators or terrorists must continue their work.

As UN Secretary-General António Guterres noted in a recent address to the UN Security Council, the focus on the pandemic has created new opportunities for terrorists to exploit.

In the realm of biological and chemical weapons proliferation, three important instruments and their related institutions must meet the challenge of doing their important work under widespread travel bans, social distancing and misinformation campaigns: the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW); the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) and the BWC Implementation Support Unit (BWC-ISU); and United Nations Security Council resolution 1540 (2004) and the 1540 Committee.

COVID-19, the CWC and the OPCW

Although much smaller than the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in staff and budget, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) must facilitate the implementation of arguably a more extensive verification regime under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), with tens of thousands of potentially inspectable facilities located in almost every country in the world, a challenge that a pandemic only magnifies.

The OPCW Director-General Fernando Arias set up an internal task force to monitor COVID-19 and its potential impact on the organization in late January and then responded swiftly to March guidance issued by the Netherlands (which hosts the headquarters of the OPCW) and by the World Health Organization (WHO) to have approximately 90% of the OPCW’s 500 plus staff work remotely, while cancelling all non-essential travel, including for training, through May 1.

More importantly, the OPCW postponed for rescheduling as circumstances warrant, capacity building events, inspections of facilities with scheduled chemicals and former chemical weapons facilities, inspections related to abandoned or old chemical weapons, and deployments and missions to Syria.

Director-General Arias pointedly noted that this meant that the OPCW would be unlikely to meet its schedule of 241 inspections for facilities with scheduled chemicals this year. On April 17, the Director-General extended the ban until June 1.

Credit: United Nations / Giovanni Diffidenti

As the OPCW adjusts to working remotely, other work of the OPCW has continued, from enhancing its online presence, to working on its new ChemTech Centre, to releasing a new report on the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

The OPCW has also welcomed the annual national declarations required under the CWC. However, national authorities in many countries are also coping with the impact of COVID-19, with differing degrees of success.

Moreover, the OPCW will likely face increased strain on its budget and contributions. This is likely to have already emerged as the OPCW has moved more toward seeking to prevent the re-emergence of chemical weapons with a new focus on attribution of chemical weapons use and chemical security.

A deep economic recession will likely mean cuts in the national budgets for implementing the CWC obligations of States parties – already a concern – and financial support for and attention to the OPCW. Even worse, the illness or even death of at least a few key national officials seems likely.

Only recently, moreover, have States Parties decided to take on several important new tasks, such as adding chemicals to its Schedules for the first time, expanding its efforts on chemical security, and creating new mechanisms for attribution, in no small part because of a resurgence in use of chemical weapons for warfare, terrorism and assassination.

Without significant financial and material support for their efforts, States Parties and the OPCW seem ill placed to implement these new tasks in the coming year.

COVID-19, the BWC and the BWC-ISU

For the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), the pandemic has made the possible consequences of a malicious release of a biological agent – mountains of death and debt – clearer than ever.

At the same time, State Parties have long recognized that efforts to implement biosecurity measures usually complemented and enhanced biosafety and public health, such as improving disease surveillance, improving secure diagnostic laboratory capacity, or building general capacity to respond to disease outbreaks.

Not surprisingly, many national governments have entertained the need to adopt and implement the BWC and contribute to its strengthening. And the requests for assistance have increased enormously according to several sources (although which requests, if any, that have gone to the BWC is confidential).

Although the BWC has no verification regime, its members do report on confidence building measures, assistance activities and advances in science among other implementation efforts.

BWC activities usually revolve around two short sessions, the Meeting of Experts (MXP) and the Meeting of States Parties (MSP), but States Parties must also prepare for a Review Conference in 2021.

Unfortunately, all of this work, including efforts to address assistance requests through an on-line database, must be serviced by a talented but pathetically small support staff, i.e., the BWC – Implementation Support Unit (BWC-ISU), which consists of three full-time staff members located at the United Nations offices in Geneva.

Moreover, even before the pandemic shortfalls in the budget for the BWC and the BWC-ISU have been significant enough to raise questions about even having a meaningful MSP.

While COVID-19 has surely emphasized the need for improving implementation of the BWC and of the roles of the BWC and the BWC-ISU, the pandemic seems likely to reduce government capacity and income, while paradoxically creating excessive expectations for what the BWC and the BWC-ISU can do in response to such global turmoil.

COVID-19, UNSCR 150, and the 1540 Committee

United Nations Security Council resolution 1540 (2004) is the international legal instrument that creates the binding obligations on all States to prohibit a range of illicit activities while controlling legitimate ones related to items, including dangerous pathogens like COVID-19.

As with the BWC-ISU, the UN Security Council subsidiary body that monitors and facilitates implementation of the resolution, informally known as the 1540 Committee, will also hear new calls to improve the low levels of implementation of the resolution’s biosecurity elements, which typically complement and support public health efforts to prevent and respond to pandemics.

Located in New York City, the 1540 Committee and its Group of Experts, continue some of their work remotely, such as reviewing reports and other materials on national implementation and receiving assistance requests, while facing limits on other aspects of its work, such as training and outreach efforts.

Most important, in early 2020 the 1540 Committee and some of its key supporters had launched a series of activities for the 3rd Comprehensive Review of the resolution, which it needs to complete before the mandate of the Committee expires in April 2021.

Most of these events now have been suspended and some will likely be abandoned. In most cases, these activities were meant to give voice to those not on the Committee, i.e., the other 178 UN Member States not on the 15-member Council, civil society organizations, and industry, all of whom have key roles in furthering implementation efforts.

Under a shortened schedule to hold these events, these voices will struggle to be heard. Although not working under quite as severe financial constraints as the BWC-ISU, the pandemic and its associated recession will likely reduce important extra-budgetary support for the work of the 1540 Committee and, more importantly, turn national attention away from closing other gaps in implementation.

Particularly in regions where States already struggle to meet their obligations, e.g., Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Asia, already scarce government resources will have to go towards fighting the pandemic.

The pandemic also will, moreover, put added pressure on some commercial enterprises to engage proliferators, terrorists, and other criminals to avoid financial ruin. To expand on the words of UN Secretary-General António Guterres, the COVID-19 pandemic has made an already vulnerable world even more vulnerable to exploitation by proliferators, terrorists, and criminals.

The post COVID-19 Pandemic Vulnerable to Exploitation by Proliferators, Terrorists & Criminals appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Richard Cupitt is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Partnerships in Proliferation Prevention program at Stimson. His areas of expertise include WMD nonproliferation, export controls, and foreign policy.

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By Lars Hein and Daud Khan
WAGENINGEN, Netherlands / ROME, May 5 2020 (IPS)

Globalization has been a driver for increased prosperity world-wide, but it has been in reverse in the last years due to the growth of populism in the USA and Europe. The COVID-19 pandemic may well provide further momentum to increasingly national-interest oriented policies in the west.

Nevertheless, a common response to COVID-19 is needed, where rich countries support developing countries in alleviating the impacts on the poor. COVID-19 offers an opportunity to revive collaboration world-wide, but the public and political leaders in North America and Europe need to broaden their perspective on mitigating the pandemic’s impacts.

The last decades have seen the emergence of a highly interlinked world. There has been a massive increase in global trade, travel and tourism and this has brought major benefits to most of the world’s population with incomes rising and poverty dropping.

However, as with all such major trends there have also been losers in the rapid process of globalization. In developed countries, income inequality which had been falling since the Second World War, started rising again. Combined with this was a growing resentment from workers who were unable to shift out of dying industries, such as steel and textiles, where imports from developing countries were better and cheaper.

The COVID-19 pandemic may well be the last nail in the coffin of globalization. Firms in USA and Europe will step away from the long supply chains and just-in-time deliveries that helped drive down costs. All countries will attempt to build up production of “essential goods” including medical supplies and possibly even food items

The globalized system has been increasingly under threat for the past several years, particularly from populist parties working on fears and resentment of those who feel left behind by globalization.

The COVID-19 pandemic may well be the last nail in the coffin of globalization. Firms in USA and Europe will step away from the long supply chains and just-in-time deliveries that helped drive down costs. All countries will attempt to build up production of “essential goods” including medical supplies and possibly even food items.

All this will impact trade, especially from developing countries. At the same time credit and investment flows will be largely focused to helping domestic enterprises in developed countries with little left for flows to developing countries.

This reversal of globalized production chains is bad news for developing countries, coming at a time when the medical emergency responses to COVID-19 are drawing heavily on public and private resources, and lockdowns are hitting output and employment, both in the formal and informal sectors.

While globalization has many faults, it is useful to understand it did allow both developed and developing countries to substantially raise living standards. But much was built on the backs on workers in developing countries.

Many workers, often women, worked for long hours in unhygienic and unsafe factories producing clothing and manufactured components; in Africa, thousands toiled in mines to extract minerals needed for production of laptops and smartphones.

These workers were the silent victims of globalization who only came to the news when there was a fire in a garments factory or the collapse of a mine shaft. They are better off – many above the poverty line – but it remains a grim existence with the risk that even a small shock will send them spiraling back into poverty and destitution.

With the pandemic likely to lead to severe recession in the USA and Europe, much Government attention will turn to supporting those affected in their own countries and within the EU. This will certainly be the case in the USA where the coming presidential election will find the Republicans beating the drum of America First.

But there is likely to be similar rhetoric across Europe. Many have learned from their handling of the refugee/immigration issue that solidarity does not win votes. The economic impacts of COVID-19 are particularly high in Southern European countries.

In the coming year, a lot of the political energy in the EU will be wasted on a debate on how to balance support for dealing with the impacts of COVID-19 and pointless transnational funding of outdated institutional and economic models. Despite this political turbulence, efforts to alleviate the economic impact of crisis in OECD countries will take off. These will include increasing credit to businesses and the self-employed, delaying tax collection and ensuring basic income support.

However, in the emergency, there is hardly any mention in the policy and public debate of the impacts of COVID-19 in developing countries, let alone the economic impacts on the poor in these countries. But turning the backs on developing countries will be an epochal mistake for the USA and Europe for moral, economic and political reasons.

It is quickly becoming clear that the economic and social impacts of COVID-19 in developing countries will stretch far beyond the immediate medical and social costs. Currently, the WHO is reporting some 255,000 deaths from COVID-19 globally, and more than 3.6 million confirmed cases.

These numbers are very likely to underreport cases and fatalities in developing countries, where COVID-19 is rapidly spreading, but medical and testing equipment are in short supply. However, the secondary impacts may well go far beyond these primary effects. Hundreds of millions of people, many of who work in the small scale services sector will suddenly find themselves without jobs.

Traditionally, many of these people relied on informal networks in time of stress and hardship. However, safety nets that work through family and friends are unlikely to be sufficient: many relatives that could otherwise provide support will also have lost their job.

Family relations may be under strain from the lock-down: a doubling of domestic violence has been reported as a consequence of people’s confinement to their houses and neighborhoods in combination with job losses – putting further strain on social networks. Many of the poor will lose an important part of their savings to cope with the current crisis, affecting all phases of life including schooling, marriage and pensions.

Throughout developing countries, government, NGOs and private charities are rapidly gearing up to meet the immediate food and medical needs of the poorest and vulnerable sections of the population. But what is needed goes beyond the life-saving relief and survival support that is currently being offered.

Governments in developing countries will soon need to start to think about what are the key next steps to minimize damage to their economies and societies. In spite of the current crisis, it is crucial that OECD countries reach out to these governments and offer their support: the challenges to rebuild institutions and economies will exceed the capacities of many developing countries.

The support needed is diverse. Clearly, in the short term there is a need for medical assistance and, in the poorest countries, food support. This is immediately to be followed by debt relief – government and companies need to be able to survive the crisis so that economies can be built up quickly when COVID-19 has started receding.

A main priority for the poor in developing countries relates to reentering the labor market. In the short term, increased competition for jobs can be expected, potentially affecting pay levels. In addition, there is a need to rebuild financial buffers for events such as funerals, weddings and sickness, and for old age; ensure the continuation of education opportunities; address domestic violence, and sustain the psychological health of those affected by COVID-19 or its indirect impacts.

These responses would need to involve a broad range of national and multinational bodies including the IMF and UN agencies, NGOs and development aid agencies. Given the complexity and scope of the task, substantial funding and careful planning and coordination would be required. Also the private sector should take its responsibility. Potentially debt relief for companies could be made conditional on assisting employees coping with COVID-19 impacts.

Unfortunately, there is as yet very little attention in the West for mitigating the impacts of COVID-19 in developing countries. There is very little if any debate on how developing countries can be assisted in dealing with the various impacts of COVID-19.

Nevertheless, a slow response will only exacerbate the economic and social aftermath of the crisis in these countries. We are at a turning point: poverty reduction, pandemics, climate change and other global challenges require immediate and coordinated responses.

The COVID-19 crisis offers a choice: rebuilding global collaboration based on shared interests, education, respect and support for those in need, or an increasing focus on own short-term interests that will only lead to building up the next crisis and reduce capacities to cope.

Hence, we call for an urgent start of the debate, in particular in the West, on the various efforts needed to deal with COVID-19 focusing on those that need this support the most, i.e. the poor in developing countries.

 

Lars Hein is professor in environmental systems analysis at Wageningen University, the Netherlands. He worked in over 30 developing countries as UN staff and while employed in the private sector.

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

 

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The African Express aircraft crashed in flames before it was due to land, killing all six on board.

Areas such as India, Australia and Africa are predicted to be among the worst affected.

Ethiopia voids its season, with no promotion or relegation, in response to coronavirus.

Ivorian sprinter Marie-Josée Ta Lou says she does not want to race again until the coronavirus situation is 'settled'.

The statement comes as Madagascar is promoting a product that has not gone through clinical trials.

Data is important in ensuring gender equality, and experts say as traditional means of data collection may no longer be possible under the current COVID-19 restrictions and lockdowns, this provides an opportunity to collect data in more innovative ways. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, May 5 2020 (IPS)

The current coronavirus pandemic can offer insight into how to shake-up traditional methods of data collection, and might provide an opportunity to do it in more innovative ways, in turn enhancing progress towards gender equality.

“Necessity is the mother of invention, and when you look at society’s crisis – whether that’s a health crisis or natural disaster or war – [they] really force us to think about the ways of working and whether or not they’re serving us well as a community,” Susan Papp, Managing Director of Policy and Advocacy at Women Deliver, an international organisation advocating around the world for gender equality and the health and rights of girls and women, tells IPS.

The global pandemic has highlighted loopholes and dangers in traditional systems across the world: healthcare access, the economy, tools to address gender violence.

“Because things are moving so rapidly with COVID-19, it shows how important and how reliant we are as a society on data systems. And that our old ways of interacting with data is not sufficient to be able to protect our people, to make sure they are healthy and they have opportunities,” she adds. 

Papp shared her thoughts just a few days after United Nations Women released a brief on how to collect data on violence against women and girls (VAWG) under the current circumstances, given heightened cases of domestic violence cases women and girls around the globe are facing. The brief also states that under the current circumstances, traditional means of data collection may no longer be possible.

Meanwhile, access is a huge issue for the collection of data since technology plays a key role in ensuring that information is communicated. In cases of VAWG, use of technology may exacerbate the situation with an abuser. 

These concerns highlight the need for accurate and important data, as well as the challenges posed in trying to attain them. IPS speaks with Papp on the importance of data in ensuring gender equality, as well as the challenges of the current methods being used — and how that can be changed in “innovative” ways. 

Inter Press Service (IPS): Why is accurate data collection important to ensure gender equality? 

Susan Papp (SP): A gender equal world is healthier, wealthier and more productive. We need to be able to have an understanding of the reality of women and girls in order to advance gender equality. We’ve seen that what gets measured has the best chance of getting done. And really reliable and timely gender specific data is crucial to that accountability. 

World leaders can make a lot of promises about creating a more gender equal world but without data you have no way of knowing whether those promises are part of reality. 

Furthermore, you need to be able to have that data to point where the gaps in services are and where the problems exist for girls and women. Because without that, policymakers are shooting in the dark. And you can’t have policies that are ill-informed and don’t portray the whole picture. 

Susan Papp is the Managing Director of Policy and Advocacy at Women Deliver.

IPS: According to Women Deliver, only 13 percent of countries have a gender statistics budget. How could such a budget hold governments accountable in ensuring gender equality?

SP: It’s critical in the treatment of the SDGs that gender statistics are invested in, that statistical offices and divisons are able to collect data disaggregated by sex, with an intersectional lens. So, ideally, they would be starting to think about gender data that would look at questions around sexual orientation and sexual identity as well. 

Right now, there is a tremendous lack of information for non-binary gender identities. So how are they counted and how are their needs and realities reflected? 

Too often, [for] girls women and non-binary individuals, their needs are completely not reflected and in order to understand those needs, you need to have better data system. 

IPS: How does that apply to the current situation?

SP: What we need to do as a community is maybe be a little bit less purist in our approach to data collection methods and use a moment like COVID-19 as an opportunity to really innovate about collecting data in real time. And [to] find ways to verify that data that may not necessarily be as rigorous and as time consuming as the past mechanisms for verifying the data.  

IPS: What would being more innovative entail? 

SP: It’s examples as documented by the World Bank, or Bloomberg’s initiative in New York for contact-tracing, using GPS, credit card data to be able to track where you’ve been, whether or not you may have been in contact with someone who has the virus: that is the future and I think COVID-19 has really been an eye opening moment for us to recognise that the way we’ve been collecting data and information in the past is no longer serving our world well. 

IPS: In that sense, data collection can be conflated with compromising privacy, with women and gender non-binary people being especially vulnerable to it. Is there any conversation on that conflict?    

SP: Absolutely. And you’re starting to see some really good principles being developed and come out around this. 

A lot of the data that’s been collected historically on VAWG had been collected face to face. And now, a lot of that data needs to be collected virtually and leveraged through things like mobile phone platforms, phone hotlines. Some real principles have been set that have been very useful around safety, privacy and confidentiality around women’s responses, doing no harm, making sure that the data collectors have some sensitivity training and that they understand the ethical and safety principles that they need to hold. 

IPS: In terms of collecting data, what would you say is the main factor that poses an obstacle for government and local leaders?

SP: Data can be expensive to collect, and it can be really expensive to analyse. And I think the lack of investment in data is one thing that needs to be resolved. Second, a lot of really amazing data do exist, but the problem may lie in understanding how to access and use that data in a way that’s ethically responsible, in a way that protects the identity of people, so that it’s still useful yet anonymised. 

A lot of the processes, though very brilliant and important work by the U.N., need to be reconsidered. The world is moving at a much more rapid pace than it was before and [we need to think about] how to reconcile the very puristical standard data collection and analysis methods and usability with some of the more emerging needs with open data.

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Thousands of youth gather in Rome on Friday, Mar. 15, 2019 to join the climate strike. Credit: Maged Srour/IPS

By Diana Gheorghiu
LONDON, May 5 2020 (IPS)

As social distancing, quarantines and lockdowns have spread across the globe to slow the spread of coronavirus, they have imposed some of the greatest worldwide restrictions on public gatherings in living memory. These restrictions may be necessary for public health, but they require the most anxious scrutiny to prevent them being misused to quash legitimate political expression and discriminate against protesters, including children and young people who mobilise.

And while large scale street protests may temporarily be on hold in much of the world, there is an opportunity to rethink how we can protest, expanding online forms of collective activism and developing the protections that must be afforded to children protesting online.

 

How does coronavirus affect protests?

Children have the same right to protest as adults and they have been exercising this right in the streets with dramatic impact across the world. The global school strike for climate movement, led by Fridays For Future and sparked by Greta Thunberg, has shaped modern climate activism; the social inequality protests in Chile were kickstarted by high school students; the mass demonstrations over the killing of schoolchildren at a rally in Sudan pressured the military regime for reform; the national school walkout to protest gun violence in the United States captured the national debate; and Indian children have been actively involved in protests against the new citizenship law which may render many people stateless.

Under-18s’ right to protest derives mainly from two human rights protected under international law: freedom of expression (the right to express ourselves freely) and freedom of peaceful assembly (the right to peacefully come together with others and express our collective opinions). However, assemblies in the streets have been dramatically curtailed by the emergency measures aimed at stopping the spread of coronavirus. According to the COVID-19 Civic Freedom Tracker, 94 countries currently have measures in place affecting assembly, for example the suspension of events and bans on non-essential movement.

A number of these restrictions are problematic. Some emergency measures expressly discriminate against under-18s. Multiple countries have imposed curfews, including some which apply only to children and young people, for instance in France, Russia, Turkey, Colombia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Other measures raise suspicions that they may be put in place to stifle political dissent. For example, El Salvador and Kyrgyzstan banned some mass rallies due to coronavirus, despite reporting no cases at the time. Iraq, which has seen the largest and bloodiest anti-government protests since 2003, also prohibited public gatherings.

In this context, some have rightly pointed out, from a language perspective, how the term ‘social distancing’ can be misread by citizens and misused by States as a ban on all public gatherings, including collective activism. However, coronavirus measures are in fact about physical distancing only; socially, people are still connected and politically active, with many exercising their right to protest off the streets, in various settings.

 

How can under-18s protest when the streets are empty?

Climate activists have suggested a variety of alternatives to street protests, such as cacerolazos (banging on pots and pans or making music) from windows, doors or balconies; webinars; teach-ins (educational forums on current issues); mass call-ins; online storytelling; and artivism workshops. Greta Thunberg encouraged student protesters to join strikes online. On 24 April, Fridays For Future groups in Germany staged the biggest digital demonstration yet, with over 230,000 livestream viewers and 40,000 tweets.

 

But is an online protest really a protest? Does the label matter?

Yes, it is. Yes, it matters.

We usually think of protests as occasions when people gather together to express their disagreement with something. In thinking this, we make three assumptions: that people gather for a common purpose, that they express their views at roughly the same time and that they come together in a common place. Our experience of protests also means that we readily situate them in public spaces, such as the street.

But in the case of the youth climate strikers, whether they skip (home)school to join a Fridays For Future webinar or share photos of themselves holding placards on social media, school students are still engaged in protests: they have a common purpose and act more or less simultaneously. The only thing that’s changed is the setting of their protest – and for good reason. Greta Thunberg explained that “In a crisis we change our behaviour and adapt to the new circumstances for the greater good of society”.

What the coronavirus pandemic shows us is that we need to question our assumptions. Recognising that protests are held not just in a common physical space, but also for example online, matters. It helps us understand that differing rights concerns arise in different protest settings. That protests allow us to help shape how societies are governed, even in times of crisis, makes this recognition all the more crucial.

 

What does this mean in practice?

Regarding online protests specifically, national laws need to account for potential risks against access to the internet, dissemination of information and protesters’ privacy and safety.

Perhaps most relevant to younger teenagers who want to protest online, the question of age-based access is significant. Popular social media platforms still impose a minimum age to join, including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, which all require users to be at least 13 years old. For this reason and more, author and activist Naomi Klein underlined in a recent Talks For Future webinar that young protesters may need to move away from corporate information platforms.

Once online, the question of protesters’ privacy is especially pertinent. In some countries, children are forbidden from taking part in unauthorised protests, including in Russia, so when mobilising online, encryption and anonymity tools are essential to concealing one’s identity in order to avoid government sanctions. Any ban on these tools, such as Iran’s prohibition on encryption technologies through its national legislation, could severely undermine children’s freedom of assembly online.

Meanwhile affecting entire country populations, including under-18s, are national internet shutdowns. Thirty-three countries shut down the internet in 2019, an increase from the 25 that did so in 2018. In most cases it was to curb protests, with governments spuriously citing public safety, fake news and national security concerns.

The worst offenders were India, Venezuela, Yemen, Iraq, Algeria and Ethiopia. Particular sources of information may also be targeted. In Myanmar, for example, the government blocked access specifically to some ethnic media outlets.

In practice under-18s have shown us that collective mobilisation can continue beyond the street, with youth climate protesters in many countries exercising their rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly online. But for this to happen in every country, peaceful activism must be protected across the board, no matter what setting it may take place in.

 

Diana Gheorghiu conducts legal and policy research and analysis at CRIN, the Child Rights International Network

The post How Coronavirus Makes us Rethink Youth Protests appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Osamu Kusumoto
TOKYO, May 5 2020 (IPS)

The new coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to wreak havoc across the world, as the number of infections and deaths rapidly rise. It has the potential to infect anybody regardless of age or gender. There are grave concerns that the economic fallout from COVID-19 may be comparable to that of the Great Depression. According to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, there are 2,064,668 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 137,124 deaths due to SARS-CoV-2 (the virus causing COVID-19). In Japan as of noon April 15, there were 8,100 cases of COVID-19 , 119 deaths, and 901 patients discharged from hospitals.

Osamu Kusumoto

Responding to cases showing acute symptoms caused by this virus requires an extremely high level of emergency medical care. Observance of basic preventive measures such as wearing masks, washing hands, gargling, and practicing physical distancing is proving to be effective. While rapid progress is being made in the development of a vaccine, our healthcare systems are on the brink of collapse as the number of patients increases.

This situation is related to population issues because the spread of infection increases exponentially relative to population density. The outbreak in Wuhan quickly spread because it is a mega city of 11 million people.

The Ebola hemorrhagic fever is another infectious disease that caused global fear because it gripped regions of Africa intermittently from 1976 to March 2019 with 30 regional outbreaks. Until the outbreak in West Africa in 2014, the majority occurred in rural areas with relatively small populations.

The current COVID-19 pandemic is far greater in scale. Globalization breaches physical gaps which means that whatever occurs elsewhere inevitably becomes our own problem. However, attendant challenges such as reproductive health (RH) and family planning attract little attention despite its enormous contribution to the spread of Covid-19.

Although it may not be possible to verify the following 1994 US data (since no results from other studies of a similar scale are available), it represents current world averages. It shows birthrates from planned and unplanned pregnancies and the rate of abortions, which were 50.4%, 23.0%, and 26.6%, respectively. This shows that about half of the number of lives born into the world were planned, the other half unplanned, and about the same number of lives as the number of all births were lost to abortion.

Using these ratios, a simple estimate can be made applying statistical data of the UN Population Division. If the annual average number of births is 139.53 million from 2020 to 2025, then 95.81 million of these births would be planned, 43.72 million unplanned, and 50.57 million will end up in abortion. Tragedies like this occur every year. It will have a cumulative impact which continues to affect the very foundations of society.

COVID-19 instills a genuine fear in society because we never know when we will fall victim to the disease. On the other hand, the cited issues evoke only a sense of indifference because of the notion that “it has nothing to do with me.” This fails to raise a sense of social concern.

After COVID-19, the world will appreciate more that when it comes to infectious diseases, there is no such thing as “someone else’s problem”. The principle should be the same for problems concerning the environment and the population. It may be difficult for people to realize this now but, from a long-term perspective, they will have a decisive impact on our world. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) clearly demonstrate keen awareness on inter-dependence in today’s world.

The singularity of AI is likely to accelerate separation in production and labor and precipitate changes that are more far-reaching than the capitalist revolution. In the free market, brought about by information revolution, an oligopoly of wealth represented by GAFA (Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon) has emerged, but consumers with purchasing power may disappear. If social norms that underpinned our society until recently are lost, despite the notion of “being able to have a rewarding life by working diligently”, social disorder may emerge.

COVID-19 is forcing our society to change. We must view this as an opportunity to rise to the occasion and build a new society to achieve the SDGs.

(The author is Secretary General and Executive Director, Asian Population and Development Association (APDA)

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