Africa

BBC correspondent Mayeni Jones looks at conflicting desires for democracy and security in Chad following the death of President Idriss Déby.

Not only is Lindsey Harding the first ever coach of South Sudan women's basketball team she also works in the NBA.

Ameenah Gurib-Fakim is the first woman president of Mauritius and a renowned biodiversity scientist. Courtesy: International Labour Organisation/Crozet / Pouteau

By Stella Paul
HYDERABAD, India, May 20 2021 (IPS)

If we want to address the great challenges this world is facing, we have to factor in science into all our narratives, according to Dr. Ameenah Gurib-Fakim, the first woman president of Mauritius and renowned biodiversity scientist.

In an interview conducted over Zoom, Gurib-Fakim tells IPS the real cost of biodiversity loss.

“You know, human beings owe their existence to the byproducts of nature’s activities like oxygen, right? And we don’t value it. We depend on nature and unfortunately, for too long, humans have considered themselves to be outside of the ecosystem.

“We are very much part of this ecosystem, so let us stop destroying it because we’re not preserving nature, we are preserving our own livelihoods,” Gurib-Fakim, who is also a successful entrepreneur, says.

She also tells IPS about the importance of using science diplomacy to better international relations and the importance of investing in the youth. Excerpts follow:

IPS: World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report 2020 has just identified the loss of biodiversity as one of the two greatest risks to global economy. As a biodiversity scientist, what’s your take on this?

Ameenah Gurib-Fakim (AGF): You have raised a very important question. Nature gives us every year over a hundred trillion US dollars. If you can measure that, that is the input of nature to our livelihoods.

We have read the Word Economic Forum’s Global Risk report and I think by 2025, over 60 percent of the big, big animals, the mammals are really threatened with extinction.

Now, if you look at a country like India, if you look at a continent like Africa, just think of a big animal, like the elephant, how much does the elephant contribute to sustaining the ecosystem, which we thrive on?

A wild elephant takes bath in Moei River near the Myanmar-Thailand border. Elephants contribute to sustaining ecosystems. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

 IPS: We have often heard you speak about science diplomacy. How could science diplomacy help build better relations at an international level?

AGF: Science diplomacy for me is the soft power. For the past few years, there has been an anti-science sentiment voiced by major leaders on this planet. And this undesigned sentiment has weighed very heavily again when it comes to addressing issues like climate science, for example, climate change, biodiversity. They have weighed in as well in terms of handling of this pandemic that we are currently living in. So, I think if you want to address the great challenge that this world is facing, we have to factor in science into all our narratives.

We have also seen, at least in the beginning of this year, how we’re trying to revive the multilateral system. And that’s why we need to bring in science diplomacy because we have to rethink our multilateral system and we have to make it fit for purpose to address major challenges.

IPS:  How can the world help create wealth and jobs for youth across the world and how can tapping into youth power and youth talent help build a more sustainable Africa?

AGF:  If you look at the statistics, 60 percent of the jobs that young people will work in have not yet been created. How do we empower the youth, it’s investment in education, right? And, you know, the education that I received as a child is not fit for purpose for my daughter … So what are we doing in terms of investment in the education system for these kids to be ready for that job that has not yet been created?

If you look at Africa, by 2050 it will be the major provider of labour to the world. And the youth of Africa is considered to be a boon. But I worry because that boon can very quickly become a bane. Why are we seeing young Africans dying in the Mediterranean? Partly because they are climate refugees. Don’t forget that climate change has impacted a lot of the regions in Africa. It has impacted agriculture, for example, and this is a huge sector where the youth have been working in and climate change has impacted crops.

These are things that we have to really consider very, very quickly if we are going to consider the youth as being a boon, otherwise we are going to be in a similar situation as Tunisia 10 years ago, when one person, by setting himself aflame, actually brought the country down.

The Kakum National Park in Ghana is a semi-deciduous rainforest. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

IPS: Can you identify a few sectors where investing in youth is needed right now?

AGF:  The health sector needs capitalisation very, very fast, but I’m thinking of another sector, especially for Africa, the agricultural sector. In Africa, agriculture is estimated to be a $1 trillion business. Now every time there is a messaging on Africa, we see a woman working with a baby on her back with a hoe in her hand, digging a very arid land. And this is not what agriculture is. So, just think what drone technology has been able to do, just think what smart technologies have been able to do to empower youth and investment,…[and] how many jobs can be created.  But again, it calls for smart investment in the youth, in the ecosystem and in infrastructure.

IPS: Many women and young people are trying very hard to become successful entrepreneurs, but they don’t really have a lot of support to guide them or resources. What would be your advice to them?

AGF: To become an entrepreneur, you have to have the appetite to take risks. And it is perhaps easier for a man to take risks, because he would have been told from a very young age that he’s a breadwinner of the family.  In Africa, for example, you see that 12 million graduates are landing on the job market every year. I don’t think any country is going to be able to produce that many jobs. So you need to actually need them to become job creators as to being job seekers. But when it comes to a woman, again, all the odds are stacked against her. For a woman to start taking risks is already a big issue because we tend to be very conservative in our approach.

So this is where we need government to weigh in, to provide the ecosystem so that they become job creators and not just job seekers. So the responsibility comes back to us again, but we have to move fast because the world is changing. And over and above these pandemics, there are so many other factors which are going to deter young people. But one thing that we must not do is allow them to dream big and enact whatever ideas and be confident job creators and not just job seekers.

IPS: Finally, what would be your three key messages today?

AGF: I will summarise it in three words: dream, dare and do. Dream big, your dreams must frighten you. If it doesn’t frighten you, it’s not big. Take risk, go out there and do it yourself. There is no cutting corners when it comes to hard work, because everything that you actually will engage in will demand a huge investment on your side. And one thing that I’m happy to have been able to do is that I have been able to show girls growing up in my village, that it is possible to reach the highest position in the country through hard work and also by taking risks.

 

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Excerpt:

May 22 is the International Day for Biological Diversity. IPS senior correspondent Stella Paul interviews AMEENAH GURIB-FAKIM, the first woman president of Mauritius and renowned biodiversity scientist.

Oriel College initially backed the removal but has backtracked blaming costs and other issues.

Kathmandu’s main infectious diseases hospital in Teku is full, and patients are being cared for in open verandahs and parking lots – a scene repeated in government hospitals across the country. Credit: Nepali Times.

By Narayan Adhikari and Sanjeeta Pant
KATHMANDU, May 20 2021 (IPS)

If you live in Nepal, a quick survey of friends and family will quickly prove how rapidly Covid-19 infection rates have spiked. For instance, out of 50 people we called last week, more than half had been infected, with the rest reporting that their extended families or colleagues had tested positive.

Recently, the sister-in-law of one of the authors- just 58 years old- died from the virus. She would have survived COVID-19 but despite a frantic rush around the city, we could not find an ICU bed in any of the hospitals in Kathmandu.

These are the kinds of stories that are now dominating headlines- as our health system buckles under pressure. People are dying while waiting in line not just for treatment, but for COVID-19 tests.

Beyond vaccines, the cure for COVID-19 is citizen engagement. It is too easy- and also simply too slow during an emergency- to simply finger point at national political leaders, as culpable as they are

India has dominated the COVID-19 headlines recently, but Nepal is now the global epicenter of the pandemic. The virus is spreading uncontrollably– on a per capita basis we now have 211 infections per 100,000 people, compared to India’s 130 per 100,000. And once again it is becoming clear that both the causes and symptoms of this disaster are not related to healthcare, but are at their core, issues of corruption and lack of accountability.

While countries like New Zealand and South Korea are clear examples of how coherent leadership, transparency, creative public-private partnerships and ongoing citizen engagement can ensure effective COVID-19 responses, Nepal is the complete opposite.

Petty political infighting, opacity in decision-making, nepotistic contracting and complete disregard for citizens’ concerns have characterized the response. Just last week it became clear that a private company called Hukam Distribution and Logistics refused to deliver vaccines from India because they were not paid a 10% kick-back- venality of the highest order which will lead to hundreds of unnecessary deaths.

Our healthcare system has been undermined by corruption and a lack of integrity for as long as anyone can remember- we have never been prepared for a crisis of this kind. Healthcare has become a commodity only for those who can afford it.

It takes hunger strikes by well-known doctors to catalyze even the beginnings of any discussion about reforms. As a result, in early 2020 when COVID-19 emerged in Nepal, we had some of the worst public health outcomes in the world. You might think that our experience with the dual, devastating earthquakes of 2015 would have built some degree of crisis preparation and management capacity within government, but we are now making all the same mistakes as six years ago.

Beyond vaccines, the cure for COVID-19 is citizen engagement. It is too easy- and also simply too slow during an emergency- to simply finger point at national political leaders, as culpable as they are. Citizen engagement now means three things.

First, it entails an understanding that change needs to begin with all of us. We ourselves need to find ways to collectively organize together to hold the government accountable. There are emerging efforts to do this such as the “Enough is Enough” campaign which forced the government to disclose COVID-19 spending and expand testing facilities.

Other organizations such as Shaasan are finding ways to crowdsource citizen concerns and score the performances of public officials; and our own efforts through our Coronavirus Civic Action Campaign are countering misinformation and ensuring citizen voices are heard as part of decision-making at the local level around the pandemic. These ground-up initiatives can make a difference when citizens get involved on a large-scale.

Second, open data is key to ensure transparency and accountability of the response. Transparency is the bedrock of democracy and accountability and information in Nepal is scattered, incomplete and inconsistent. Organizations run by citizens like Open Data Nepal and Open Knowledge Nepal have tried to open-up government, and the health Ministry’s COVID-19 dashboard provides some information, but it is not updated in real-time and is not in a format that makes it easy to synthesize.

And in any case only just over a 1/3 of our population has access to the internet. We need to find new ways to engage citizens around information about the response and how they can get involved. In Nepalgunj, a city in western Nepal, the government uses digital billboards to disseminate information to the public that citizens are now using to monitor decision-making.

This leads us to the last point, which is that we as citizens need to support and amplify the work of local political leaders who are doing the right thing during the pandemic and demonstrating that citizens come first.

In Dhangadhi municipality in Western Nepal for instance, the local government set up women only quarantine centers during the first wave of COVID-19 after a 31-year old woman was gang-raped while in a shared quarantine space, which should become a model for other towns. In Karnali province recently, the local parliament worked with us to collect data from returnee migrants and is now working to prioritize their concerns.

And in Panauti municipality, local officials are creating a databank of citizen needs so they can decide government plans and programs accordingly. Nepal recently moved towards a federal structure through which more power was devolved to the sub-national level- and we have to use this to engage citizens where government is closest to them; and to maneuver around the central government where that is necessary.

There is a famous quote that “people get the government they deserve”. The implication is that citizens have the power to improve government themselves. As Nepal finds itself the world’s next COVID-19 hotspot, there has never been a better time for citizens to do so.

Narayan Adhikari is the co-founder and Country Director of Accountability Lab Nepal; and Sanjeeta Pant is Programs and Learning Manager at Accountability Lab. Follow the Lab on Twitter @accountlab.

By Manipadma Jena
BHUBANESWAR, India, May 20 2021 (IPS)

On the occasion of World Environment Day, 5 June 2021, drawing from IPS’s bank of features and opinion editorials published this year, we are re-publishing one article a day, for the next two weeks.

The original article was published on February 19 2021

A recent UN report lays out the gravity of Earth’s triple environmental emergencies of climate, biodiversity loss and pollution. Fishers on Kochi, Kerala operates the traditional lift-net method where catches have fallen drastically as a result of mechanised over-fishing. High fuel subsidies make it profitable for deep-sea fishing trawlers even when travelling large distances into sea. Safeguarding small fisher communities’ rights, expanding marine conservation area can allow biodiversity and fish growth to stabilise. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

BHUBANESWAR, India, Feb 19 2021 (IPS) – “Our war on nature has left the planet broken. This is senseless and suicidal. The consequences of our recklessness are already apparent in human suffering, towering economic losses and the accelerating erosion of life on Earth,” António Guterres Secretary-General of the United Nations said.

“By transforming how we view nature, we can recognise its true value. By reflecting this value in policies, plans and economic systems, we can channel investments into activities that restore nature and are rewarded for it,” the UN Chief told the media while releasing a UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) major new report.

‘Making Peace with Nature: A scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies’ lays out the gravity of Earth’s triple environmental emergencies of climate, biodiversity loss and pollution but provides detailed solutions too by drawing on global assessments, including those from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, as well as UNEP’s Global Environment Outlook report, the UNEP International Resource Panel, and new findings on the emergence of zoonotic diseases such as COVID-19.

Without nature’s help we will not thrive, not even survive

“Without nature’s help we will not thrive, not even survive,” Guterres cautioned.

The UN chief was, however, particularly hopeful climate and biodiversity commitment will see progress as he is set to welcome United States back to the Paris Agreement today, Feb. 19.

The “net-zero club” is growing, Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP said.

“Before the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 was emerging as a moment of truth for our commitment to steer Earth and for our commitment to steer Earth and its people toward sustainability. (But) loss of biodiversity and ecosystem integrity, together with climate change and pollution will undermine our efforts on 80 percent of assessed SDG targets particularly in poverty reduction, hunger, health, water, cities and climate,” Anderson said.

“Women represent 80 percent of those displaced by climate disruption; polluted water kills a further 1.8 million, predominantly children; and 1.3 billion people remain poor and some 700 million hungry,” Guterres said.

Christian Walzer, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Executive Director for Health Programs and one of the co-authors of the Making Peace with Nature report, told IPS via email: “Intact and functioning nature is the foundation on which we must build back better. Trying to separate economic recovery from healthy environments and climate change neglects the essential fact that the solutions to these crises are tightly interconnected and reinforce each other.”

He underlined how ecosystem degradation heightens the risk of pathogens making the jump from animals to humans, and the importance of a ‘One Health’ approach that considers human, animal and planetary health together. Walzer is a veterinarian who leads on One Health issues across the world.

Economic growth has brought uneven gains in prosperity to a fast-growing global population, leaving 1.3 billion people poor, while tripling the extraction of natural resources to damaging levels and creating a planetary emergency. Subsidies on fossil fuels, for instance, and prices that leave out environmental costs, are driving the wasteful production and consumption of energy and natural resources that are behind all three problems.

Guterres pointed out how governments are still paying more to exploit nature than to protect it, spending 4 to 6 trillion dollars on subsidies that damage environment. He said over-fishing and deforestation is still encouraged by countries globally because it helped GDP growth, despite drastically undermining livelihoods of local fishers and forest dwellers.

In the current growth trajectory despite a temporary decline in emissions due to the pandemic, the earth is heading for at least 3°C of global warming this century; more than 1 million of the estimated 8 million plant and animal species are at substantially increased risk of extinction; and diseases caused by pollution are currently killing some 9 million people prematurely every year.

A farmer in Kerala’s hinterlands applies chemical fertilisers to his rice paddies. Large areas under unsustainable agricultural methods world-over in a drive for higher food production has damaged the environment. Scientific climate friendly methods are available and are equally productive.
Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

The blueprint for solutions

The authors of Making Peace with Nature report assess the links between multiple environmental and development challenges, and explain how advances in science and bold policymaking can open a pathway towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 and a carbon neutral world by 2050 while bending the curve on biodiversity loss and curbing pollution and waste.

Taking that path means innovation and investment only in activities that protect both people and nature. Success will include restored ecosystems and healthier lives as well as a stable climate.

Amid a wave of investment to re-energise economies hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, the blueprint communicates the opportunity and urgency for ambitious and immediate action. It also lays out the roles that everyone – from governments and businesses to communities and individuals – can and must play.

“2021 is a make-it or break-it year, a mind-shift year,” said Guterres. 2021, with its upcoming climate and biodiversity convention meetings, is the year where governments must come up with synergistic and ambitious targets to safeguard the planet.

To turn the tide of current unsustainability, the UNEP blueprint has several recommendations some of which include that governments include natural capital while measuring economic performance of both countries and businesses, and putting a price on carbon and shift trillions of dollars in subsidies from fossil fuels, non-sustainable agriculture and transportation towards low-carbon and nature-friendly solutions.

It is high time, the report advises, to expand and improve protected area networks for ambitious international biodiversity targets. Further, non-government organisations can build networks of stakeholders to ensure their full participation in decisions about sustainable use of land and marine resources, the report recommends.

Financial organisations need to stop lending for fossil fuels, and boost renewable energy expansion. Developing innovative finance for biodiversity conservation and sustainable agriculture is of utmost importance now.

Businesses can adopt the principles of the circular economy to minimise resource use and waste and commit to maintaining transparent and deforestation-free supply chains.

Scientific organisations can pioneer technologies and policies to reduce carbon emissions, increase resource efficiency and lift the resilience of cities, industries, communities and ecosystems

Individuals can reconsider their relationship with nature, learn about sustainability and change their habits to reduce their use of resources, cut waste of food, water and energy, and adopt healthier diets. two-thirds of global CO2 emissions are linked to households. “People’s choices matter,” Guterres said.

 

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The Al-Aqsa mosque viewed from a house in Jerusalem’s Old City. Credit: Mya Guarnieri/IRIN

By Alon Ben-Meir
NEW YORK, May 20 2021 (IPS)

Regardless of how the current and future violent conflicts between Israel and the Palestinians in Jerusalem will end, there will be no Israeli-Palestinian peace unless East Jerusalem becomes the capital of a Palestinian state while the city remains united.

Righting the Wrong

The flareup that has engulfed East Jerusalem over the past few days should surprise no one. The status quo could never be sustained; the Palestinians’ resentment of the occupation was only deepening and any incident could have precipitated a violent outbreak.

This time it was the order to evict six families from the Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem. For the Palestinians, this became symptomatic of Israel’s much wider scheme of ethnic cleansing to make more room for Jewish settlers and thereby Judaize East Jerusalem, which Israel views as an integral part of its capital.

Israel may hold onto East Jerusalem for another 54 years, but the Palestinians, and for that matter the Arab states, will never give up on their claim to East Jerusalem.

While we can find temporary solutions for the current violence, then what? A long-term solution is necessary to ensure that Jerusalem does not continue on its path as a flashpoint city for violence. That said, there is a way whereby both sides can live in a united city and make it a microcosm for peaceful coexistence.

Jerusalem is unique in that both Israelis and Palestinians—and Jews, Muslims, and Christians around the world—have a special affinity to the city. There are four major factors that attest to the city’s uniqueness.

First, East Jerusalem houses the largest mixed Jewish-Arab community anywhere in the world, with roughly 215,000 Israelis and 328,000 Palestinians who move freely across the city, east and west, and throughout Israel.

Second, the city’s infrastructure and services—roads, electrical grid, communications, and maintenance—are all fully integrated, and there is simply no way that they can be divided. In fact, neither Israel nor the Palestinians want to physically divide the city, regardless of its final political status.

Third, Jerusalem is home to the Jews’ holiest shrine, the Western Wall, the third-holiest Muslim shrines, the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, and the holiest sites in Christianity within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The fact that the Jewish and Arab holy shrines are adjacent to one another requires them to fully collaborate on security, tourism, access to the holy sites, and improvements.

Fourth, the main contentious issue between the two sides is the political status of the city. Given however that under any circumstances the city will remain united physically, and the majority of the population in East Jerusalem are Palestinian, it is essential that the city’s administration reflects the reality on the ground.

To truly recreate Jerusalem as a microcosm of peace, East and West Jerusalem would be independent municipalities—East Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state and West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

In addition, a joint Israeli-Palestinian council must be established to handle any issues or services that impact the two parts of the city, including electricity, water, certain municipal services, cross-border crimes, and joint development projects, to name a few examples. The council should have a clear and well-defined mandate to ensure that neither side can infringe on the other’s separate municipal responsibilities.

In this regard, since Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan has and continues to maintain the custodianship and the administration over the Muslim holy shrines, Haram al-Sharif, and will continue to do so regardless of the final agreement; Israel will maintain its control over the Western Wall.

As a part of this, a religious council encompassing Judaism, Islam, and Christianity would be established to address various issues related to their holy shrines.

In the final analysis, Israel will have to accept that the Palestinians will establish their capital in East Jerusalem, while all Israeli Jews living on the east side of the city can remain where they are. In fact, the Trump administration’s official recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital clearly states that “We are not taking a position on any final status issues, including the specific boundaries of the Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem, or the resolution of contested borders. Those questions are up to the parties involved.”

The ongoing disturbances actually present an opportunity for Biden to be very decisive that this violence is not something that will go away once the immediate flareup subsides. Biden should declare definitively that while West Jerusalem belongs to Israel and the US recognizes it as such (given that the US Embassy is located there), East Jerusalem is not part of Israel’s capital.

There are many Israelis, perhaps a majority, who insist that the Palestinians’ future capital can be established in either Abu Dis or Silwan, which would be incorporated into Greater Jerusalem. The Palestinians will continue to reject that off-hand, especially because they have the backing of the international community and the Arab states and in particular Saudi Arabia. Indeed, the Saudis uphold the establishment of the Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem as sacrosanct to the Arab world as a whole.

Those Israelis who bask in the illusion that East Jerusalem will forever remain under Israeli control must realize that only through the use of force can Israel maintain control and even then, frequent flareups, such the current one, will happen and potentially escalate into a full-blown violent uprising.

The upcoming new Israeli government should view the unfolding events in Jerusalem as the catalyst for looking somberly at long-term Israeli-Palestinian relations. Moreover, every Israeli should remember that under any violent conflict, the Arab states will always land on the Palestinian side, and put an end to and possibly abrogate current diplomatic relations with Israel.

The Biden administration now has a golden opportunity to change the dynamic of the conflict over East Jerusalem. Biden should insist that given the history of the city, its religious symbolism and the reality on the ground, a solution to the future of East Jerusalem could become a microcosm of Israeli-Palestinian peaceful coexistence under the framework of a two-state solution. Only such an outcome will usher in a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace.

 

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Excerpt:

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University (NYU). He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.

The French retailer has expanded massively in Kenya but a tribunal has found it guilty of unfair practices.

Chinese companies have been gaining increasing access to the electricity grids of South American countries. Credit: Bigstock.

By Cecilia Joy-Pérez
WASHINGTON, May 19 2021 (IPS)

Over the past decade, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) from China have carved out a niche as owners and operators of electric utilities in South American countries through acquisitions of energy grids. As SOEs shift from their previous role as mostly builders to investors in large energy assets, policymakers in South America and in Washington should consider the implications of having these companies at the helm of such services.

Countries should assess the risk of Beijing directing its SOEs to use their positions as leverage in the event of a diplomatic conflict. Under these circumstances, SOEs could increase the cost of energy, and go as far as to disrupt services.

Although such measures might constitute an extreme response, China has been willing to exert commercial power in disputes with other countries, as a recent episode with Australia has shown.

Furthermore, energy grids are increasingly interwoven with the digital infrastructure of cities – providing an opening for China to introduce backdoors into critical infrastructure. As a result, South American leaders may be less willing to reject Beijing’s claims in international bodies on myriad issues, ranging from the origins of covid-19 to human rights, if basic services hang in the balance.

From Washington’s standpoint, China’s growing role as a service provider could improve perceptions of its economic engagement in the region, paving the way for stronger relationships with South American countries and edging out the US

From Washington’s standpoint, China’s growing role as a service provider could improve perceptions of its economic engagement in the region, paving the way for stronger relationships with South American countries and edging out the US.

This could generate more support for Beijing’s broader policy objectives. US policymakers should engage South American countries to safeguard their energy grids by communicating these potential risks and taking on more leadership in infrastructure development in the region.

 

China’s firms enter South America through non-competitive means

Despite occasional hype, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has largely refused to cut excess capacity in SOEs. One alternative has been to encourage them to pursue international contracting – first through the ‘Going Out’ policy and later with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Supported by cheap state financing, SOEs can participate in projects that for-profit firms cannot compete with. Beijing also supports SOEs efforts to capture market share, often irrespective of commercial gains, in sectors that it deems strategically important.

Firms such as State Grid have an impressive track record of building energy grids in developing countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and in West Asia, outcompeting other firms through Beijing’s subsidies.

Through this work, SOEs have amassed a wealth of experience working in tough environments, making them attractive partners for Latin American countries that may have unreliable energy grids. Today, SOEs own nearly US$24.4 billion in energy grids in South America, with US$8.9 billion in deals closing or reaching a sale agreement in 2020 alone.

SOE energy grid investments in South America do not yet include any greenfield projects. They are all acquisitions. For example, in June 2020 State Grid announced its acquisition of a 100% stake in Chilquinta Energía S.A., the Chilean arm of San Diego-based Sempra Energy, as well as two additional companies that provide electric construction and maintenance services for Chilquinta.

The acquisition strategy enables China’s firms to enter the market more easily, relying on existing systems and know-how. It also may provide State Grid – and by extension the state – insight into the operations of US energy companies such as Sempra.

 

China’s evolving interests in the region

China is taking on a new role in the region as a service provider through its recent investments in energy grids. Historically, economic engagement in South America fits with the China’s long-standing pursuit of commodities and export markets globally.

Beijing’s international engagement is shaped by its partner regions. Rich areas like the US and the EU generally draw larger amounts of investment, while developing regions like Sub-Saharan Africa and Western Asia draw greater construction activity.

Since 2005, however, South America has hosted US$54 billion in construction contracts and received US$129 billion in investment. The lion’s share of the investment has focused on the extraction of commodities, such as oil in Venezuela and copper in Peru. Yet, with the investment in energy grids a new trend is emerging.

China’s approach in the region to date has relied on carrots rather than sticks. However, the pandemic is shifting dynamics worldwide.

China’s trade retaliation for Australia’s endorsement of an investigation into the origins of Covid-19 demonstrates that Beijing is willing to leverage commercial tools in diplomatic conflicts. Australia is home to over US$100 billion in investment from China and, like South America, is a major supplier of commodities.

As Beijing’s global ambitions grow, cultivating allies in South America could prove beneficial. Already, the CPC has dangled economic engagement and used infrastructure cooperation to entice Latin American countries into severing ties with Taiwan.

 

Responding to China’s new presence in South America

Policymakers in Washington are grappling with how to respond to the BRI and China’s broader economic engagement in developing countries. An immediate step should be informing other countries of the risks of doing business with entities from China through diplomatic exchanges and open-source intelligence sharing.

Furthermore, the US, which has long viewed foreign involvement in strategic sectors in Latin America as a potential threat to its own national security, should determine which sectors and countries are of high priority to narrow the China’s gains in those markets.

Most countries treat electrical grids as key assets, limiting foreign investment in the sector. South American countries may welcome the investment from China now, but they would do well to better understand the specific risks that come with it. Subsequently, the US should lead in developing the region’s critical infrastructure, ultimately safeguarding stability in the Western Hemisphere.

 

Cecilia Joy-Pérez is an associate at Pointe Bello, specialising in business intelligence with a particular focus on China’s outward foreign investment

This article was originally published by ChinaDialogue

Health authorities burned thousands of expired AstraZeneca doses, hoping to boost public confidence.

Around half of the 8,000 migrants who reached a Spanish enclave in Morocco have been sent back.

Health officials hope the event will increase public confidence in getting the vaccination.

Farmers like Peris Wanjiku continue to battle climate-related risks at a more frequent and intense rate. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI, May 19 2021 (IPS)

Peris Wanjiku, a smallholder farmer in Othaya, Nyeri County, which lies approximately 152 kilometres from Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, has watched as her fellow farmers have slowly started to sell off their land in the face of increasingly erratic weather patterns.

“For the right price, more and more farmers are willing to give up their farms. We have seen it happen in Kiambu County and it is slowly happening right here in Nyeri,” she told IPS.

The survival of Kenya’s smallholder farmers, who predominantly rely on rainfed agricultural systems, is at stake as agricultural experts warn that farmers are increasingly battling floods, droughts and heat stress at more frequent, intense and unpredictable rates. It has led to severe crop and livestock losses.

Wanjiku said that in a good year, a commercial crop farmer makes between $2,000 to $3,000 per acre from crops such as maize, wheat, tea and coffee. At the same time the price of land was quite high.

“An acre of farm land in Kiambu generally goes for a minimum of $100,000, depending on the area. If I hold on to my acre, how many years will it take me to make that kind of money? We are at a crossroads,” Wanjiku said.

Government statistics show that the country’s average smallholder land size is approximately 1.2 acres.

At the same time the average price for an acre of land in Kiambu County is $323,000 — the third-highest land price across the county. According to the Hass Consult, a leading real estate company, the highest land prices are in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, followed by the coastal county of Mombasa. 

It is within this context that the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) has developed 45 Climate Risk Profiles for all agricultural counties in Kenya, with the exception of urban Counties of Nairobi and Mombasa.

All 45 profiles were developed in three phases. The first 15 profiles were completed in 2017, the second batch of 16 profiles in 2019 and the final batch of 14 profiles will be launched this year. 

“Kenya’s County Climate Risk Profiles are brief and comprehensive documents. They highlight priority value chains, farming systems and geographic areas that are highly sensitive and exposed to climate factors,” Dr. Caroline Mwongera, a scientist at the Alliance, told IPS. 

A value chain in agriculture is a set of actors and activities involved  right from the production level to consumption.

“Further, these profiles provide an assessment of the programmatic interventions and the level of institutional capacity needed to help farmers and pastoralists cope with climate related risks and vulnerabilities,” she said.

Mwongera explained that these profiles were developed in an effort to guide and prioritise climate-smart agricultural investments at county level. This is critical since Kenya has a devolved system of governance where power and resources are shared between the national government and all 47 county governments. 

“In every county, key value chain commodities were identified and the most problematic climatic hazards outlined. They therefore detail the vulnerabilities and risks posed by climate risks to people, their livelihoods, investments and the environment,” Mwongera said.

For example, one profile on Kakamega County noted the impact of drought and delayed onset of rains as well as higher temperatures during the hot season and lower temperatures during the cold season and this impact on farmers.

The report then listed adaptation strategies that farmers were using to cope with the changing climate and listed additional on-farm and off-farm adaptation practices. Off-farm activities refers to farming activities undertaken outside of a farm setting such as marketing of produce etc.

Overall, all 45 profiles provide an overview of climate risk issues and, historical and future climate trends in this East African nation.

Kenya’s Food Security report released in January predicted a 30 percent decrease in harvest due to below-average rainfall experienced from October to December 2020.

A similar report released in March forecast below-average long rains from March through May this year and a subsequent low harvest.

Against this backdrop, climate risk profiles give a synthesis of the policy, institutional and governance frameworks that can create an enabling environment for farmers to overcome climate related risks.

Mwongera also said that the latest batch of profiles made reference to the need for a women-responsive climate risk management plan.

For the right price more and more farmers are willing to sell their farms. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

Judy Matu, the chair of the Association of Women in Agriculture Kenya, explained to IPS: “Women play a very central role in agriculture. Building climate-resilient agricultural systems requires that women are involved, that they actively participate and are champions of climate smart agriculture.”

World Bank estimates show that women run at least three-quarters of Kenya’s farms. Meanwhile, women were allocated only 1.6 percent of approximately 10 million hectares of land that was registered between 2013 and 2017, according to the Kenya Land Alliance.

“We indeed have the issue of male-dominated land ownership and female-dominated land use. A majority of women farmers do not have the power to make decisions on how land is utilised,” Matu told IPS.

Matu said that at the same time, not only do women farm on land that they do not own, all commercial crops and bigger livestock belong to men.

“Women run farms on a day-to-day basis and they need knowledge on proper farming practices such as agroforestry, organic and conservation farming. But trees also belong to men who decide whether a tree can be planted or cut,” Matu said.

Matu said that initiatives are underway to overcome these challenges, including engaging both men and women in sensitisation sessions on the need to adapt more climate-resilient farming practices. This, she said, creates an enabling environment for women to put acquired knowledge into practice.

Meanwhile, farmers like Wanjiku continue to battle climate-related risks at a more frequent and intense rate. But Wanjiku said that if she could find solutions to overcome these challenges, she would not sell her land.

 

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Yunia Cancio and her husband and son stand next to the biodigester installed on their El Renacer farm, in the municipality of Cabaiguán, Sancti Spíritus province, thanks to the Biomass Cuba project financed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. CREDIT: Courtesy of Biomass Cuba

By Patricia Grogg
HAVANA, May 19 2021 (IPS)

Yunia Cancio cooked with firewood until a few years ago, when a biodigester was built on her family’s El Renacer farm in Cabaiguán, a municipality in the central Cuban province of Sancti Spíritus, under the Biomass Cuba project. That change meant a lot for her family’s quality of life, but it was not the only one.

“Life has improved a lot thanks to the biodigester, especially for me, because as the woman of the house I’m the one who cooks,” the 48-year-old farmer told IPS by phone from her family farm. “It’s a very clean fuel, more comfortable and safer, everything is more hygienic. Before I used to cook everything with firewood and my day-to-day workload was harder.”

She explained that using the biogas she normally cooks for 10 people a day and for 20 during the planting and harvest seasons, when the tobacco farm employs more workers.

Cancio and her family are among the residents of agricultural localities involved in Biomass Cuba, a project initiated in 2009 with funding from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), which is currently in its third stage and is to be completed in 2022.

According to Leidy Casimiro, a professor at the University of Sancti Spíritus and an expert with Biomass Cuba, in its different facets of renewable energy, training and agroecology, the initiative directly benefits more than 15,000 people, including 5,417 with biogas technologies.

The initiative is coordinated by the Indio Hatuey Experimental Station, a research centre attached to the University of Matanzas in western Cuba, and also involves related institutions in the eastern provinces of Guantánamo, Santiago de Cuba, Granma and Holguín, and the central provinces of Las Tunas and Sancti Spíritus.

The biodigester at the El Renacer farm began operating on Jul. 15, 2014. “It was built by my father-in-law and brother-in-law, with the help of my husband and children, who carried bricks and made the mixture. With a capacity of nine cubic metres, it was built under the supervision of Alexander López, an expert in biodigesters,” Cancio said.

She also explained that electricity savings have been significant on the 28-hectare farm where her family has long-term “usufruct rights” and where they raise pigs and a few head of cattle and grow tobacco, vegetables and fruit.

“Something really important was when we received a rice cooker that was powered by biogas, a wonderful thing that we hadn’t seen before; we enjoyed it very much,” she recalled when commenting on the changes brought by the biofuel.

The plant also created new routines. Since it is fed mainly by manure from the farm’s pigs, the biodigester is connected to the pigsties. From time to time, cow manure is added to make the biogas more potent, from the stables, which are farther away.

According to Giraldo Martín, national director of Biomass Cuba, “The results are very valuable because today we have farms that consume only 30-40 percent of the conventional energy they used before.”

Engineer Alexander López Savrán stands next to one of the standard fixed-dome biodigesters he has developed, installed on a farm in La Macuca, a village in the municipality of Cabaiguán, in the central province of Santi Spíritus, Cuba. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

In a telephone interview with IPS from the municipality of Perico, in the province of Matanzas, Martín explained that in all its stages, Biomass Cuba has provided technologies and created capacities so local residents could move towards the concept of agroenergy in rural areas.

He also mentioned the covered lagoon model, an industrial technology that treats large quantities of biological waste to provide high volumes of biogas on a daily basis, which may be used in the future to generate electricity for the national power grid.

“In social terms, Biomass has had a great impact in the communities where it has intervened, generating employment, producing food, and in Cabaiguán, receiving domestic fuel through the supply networks that conduct biogas from pig farming areas to homes, with social and environmental benefits,” Martín said.

“We have farms that use the solid and liquid waste from the biodigesters as an excellent fertiliser with abundant nutrients that also contributes to the recovery of degraded soils, which are widespread today in agricultural areas in Cuba,” he explained.

Cancio said these techniques are used on her family’s farm, where the effluent from the biodigester “is used to fertilise the farm’s organoponic crops, including varieties of vegetables, herbs and medicinal plants, and fruit trees.”

“We are diversifying and…we now have infrastructure to extract oils, add value to various products, obtain flour from our root vegetables (a staple of the Cuban diet), motivate us to improve consumption habits and create new recipes with things that we did not use before,” she said proudly.

However, the Biomass project has also had its setbacks.

Martín said that one of the barriers that Biomass has had to break down was the lack of understanding about the concept of treating animal waste and producing energy, something that has taken a great deal of explaining and “is still not completely worked out.”

Chavely Casimiro feeds a biodigester located at the Finca del Medio, a farm in the municipality of Taguasco, Sancti Spíritus province, central Cuba. CREDIT: Courtesy of Biomass Cuba

He also considered it a challenge to align the priorities in the bidding and purchasing system with the plans of companies and productive and service organisations, so that the equipment acquisition processes are efficient and allow the technologies and knowledge generated by the projects to be applied expeditiously.

The project director said the main impact of the initiative was the way it influenced public policies.

Biomass contributes to “understanding the importance of renewable energy sources in rural areas, the role of the contributions that farms can make with biodigesters, waste treatment systems on pig farms, the use of rice husks to produce electricity and steam to dry rice, as well as the use of residual wood from sawmills to generate energy,” Martín said.

Meanwhile, José Antonio Guardado, national coordinator of the Movement of Biogas Users (MUB), told IPS that there are between 4,500 and 5,000 biodigesters around the country. “A count is currently being carried out in order to have a more precise figure,” he said by e-mail from Santa Clara, capital of the province of Villa Clara.

The MUB, which brings together producers who use the technology of anaerobic digestion by the action of microorganisms, emerged in Cuba in 1983 and has 3,000 members throughout this Caribbean island nation.

Guardado said the most urgent task of this movement was the promotion of the closed cycle system.

“In our assessment, in less than five percent of the installed biodigesters, closed-loop criteria and concepts are used, which means that the surplus end products are used in the processes that are generated in the chain on the farm, such as fish farming, irrigation or fertilisation,” he said.

Guardado said the MUB and all other actors working on the issue at the local level should defend this technology until all existing biodigesters in the country are closed-loop, including the distribution of surpluses among neighbouring producers.

According to the Ministry of Energy and Mines, 95 percent of the national energy mix is made up of fossil fuels, while this year the generation of energy from renewable sources is expected to grow to 6.3 percent of the total energy produced in the country.

Cuba’s goal is for 24 percent of energy to come from renewable sources by 2030.

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By Martin Kropff and Nteranya Sanginga
IBADAN and MEXICO CITY, May 19 2021 (IPS)

On the occasion of World Environment Day, 5 June 2021, drawing from IPS’s bank of features and opinion editorials published this year, we are re-publishing one article a day, for the next two weeks.

The original article was published on February 17 2021

A woman farmer in Mozambique with DT maize harvest. Credit: CIMMYT

IBADAN and MEXICO CITY, Feb 17 2021 (IPS) – 17 February – African smallholder farmers have no choice but to adapt to climate change: 2020 was the second hottest year on record, while prolonged droughts and explosive floods are directly threatening the livelihoods of millions. By the 2030s, lack of rainfall and rising temperatures could render 40 percent of Africa’s maize-growing area unsuitable for climate-vulnerable varieties grown by farmers, while maize remains the preferred and affordable staple food for millions of Africans who survive on less than a few dollars of income a day.

Farmers across the continent understand that the climate crisis is affecting their harvests and their “daily bread”. In sub-Saharan Africa, growing numbers of people are chronically undernourished, with over 21 percent of the population suffering from severe food insecurity.

The global battle against climate change and all its interconnected impacts requires a multisectoral approach to formulate comprehensive responses. For farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, especially smallholders, this involves producing improved crop varieties that are not only high-yielding but also tolerant to drought and heat, resistant to diseases and insect pests, and can contribute to minimizing the risk of farming under rainfed conditions.

CGIAR, a global partnership involving numerous organizations engaged in food systems transformation, has been at the forefront of technological innovation and deployment for many decades. The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) are the two CGIAR research centers undertaking innovative maize research and development work in the stress-prone environments of Africa. Successful development of improved climate-adaptive maize varieties for sub-Saharan Africa has been spearheaded by these two CGIAR centers that implemented joint projects such as the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) and Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA) in partnership with an array of national and private sector partners in the major maize-producing countries in Eastern, Southern, and West Africa. Under the 10-year DTMA initiative, about 160 affordable and scalable maize varieties were released.

High-yielding, multiple stress-tolerant, maize varieties using CIMMYT/IITA maize germplasm released after 2007 (the year the DTMA project was started) are estimated to be grown on 5 million hectares in 2020 in sub-Saharan Africa. The adoption of drought-tolerant (DT) maize varieties helped lift millions of people above the poverty line across the continent. For example, in drought-prone southern Zimbabwe, farmers using DT varieties in dry years were able to harvest up to 600 kilograms more maize per hectare—enough for nine months for an average family of six—than farmers who sowed conventional varieties.

A smallholder woman farmer in northern Uganda with DT maize on her farm. Credit: CIMMYT

The STMA project that followed DTMA also operated in sub-Saharan Africa, where 176 million people depend on maize for nutrition and economic well-being. The project, which ended in 2020, and followed by a new project called Accelerating Genetic Gains for Maize and Wheat Improvement (AGG), developed new maize varieties that can be successfully grown under drought, sub-optimal soil fertility, heat stress, and diseases and pests. In 2020, CGIAR-related stress-tolerant maize varieties were estimated to be grown on over 5 million hectares, benefiting over 8.6 million smallholder farmers in 13 countries across sub-Saharan Africa.

In Kenya, farmers with the new maize varieties are harvesting 20 to 30 percent more grain than farmers without drought-tolerant seeds. Prasanna Boddupalli, Director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program and the CGIAR Research Program on maize, says this has a cascading effect on livelihoods—improving the nutritional intake of the community, helping children return to school, and reducing poverty.

Martin Kropff, Director General, CIMMYT

In an interview with Gates Notes, Kenyan farmer Veronica Nduku, who has been growing CIMMYT’s drought-tolerant maize for 10 years, had said that she always harvests even when there is no rainfall.

In Zambia, a study by CIMMYT and the Center for Development Research has shown that adopting drought-tolerant maize can increase yields by 38 percent and reduce the risks of crop failure by 36 percent, even though three-quarters of the farmers in the study had experienced drought during the survey.

Besides climate-adaptive improved maize varieties, both CIMMYT and IITA have developed maize varieties biofortified with provitamin A; vitamin A deficiency is highly prevalent in populations across sub-Saharan Africa. These biofortified maize varieties, developed in partnership with HarvestPlus, are being deployed in targeted countries in sub-Saharan Africa in partnership with national programs and seed company partners.

Celebrating the 50th anniversary of its founding this year, CGIAR unveiled its roadmap for a new 10-year strategy at the online 2021 Climate Adaptation Summit, hosted by the Netherlands in January.

The new sustainable research strategy puts climate change at the heart of its mission, with an emphasis on the realignment of food systems worldwide, targeting five impact areas: nutrition, poverty, inclusivity, climate adaptation and mitigation, and environmental health.

Nteranya Sanginga, Director General, IITA

Through food system transformation, resilient agri-food systems, and genetic innovations CGIAR’s ambition is to meet and go beyond the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for a concerted global effort to radically realign food systems to achieve the 17 SDGs by 2030.

CGIAR warns that without more science-based interventions to align agriculture with climate targets, the number of undernourished people around the world could exceed 840 million by 2030.

To shift its focus and investment into agricultural research that responds to the climate crisis, CGIAR is undergoing an institutional reform. Now named ‘One CGIAR’ the dynamic reformulation of CGIAR’s partnerships, knowledge, assets, and global presence, aims for greater integration and impact in the face of the interdependent challenges facing today’s world.

Scientific innovations in food, land, and water systems will be deployed faster, at a larger scale, and at reduced cost, having greater impact where they are needed the most.

Ground-breaking progress to date would not have been possible without the generous funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Yet Bill Gates, who recognizes the essential role of CGIAR in “feeding our future”, also acknowledges that current levels of investment do not even amount to half of what is needed.

Investments in maize breeding and seed system innovations must expand to keep up with the capacity to withstand climate variability in sub-Saharan Africa, the world’s most chronically undernourished region, and provide food and nutritional security to millions of maize-dependent and resource-constrained smallholders and consumers.

At CIMMYT and IITA, we have invested on long-term breeding to increase genetic gains using many new tools and technologies. These efforts need to be further intensified.

More funding is also needed to reach out to smallholders with quality seed of climate-resilient maize varieties. While 77 percent of Zambian households interviewed said they experienced drought in 2015, only 44 percent knew about drought-tolerant maize.

Mindful that adopting new technologies and practices can be risky for resource-poor farmers who do not enjoy the protection of social welfare safety nets in rich countries, CIMMYT encourages farmers, seed companies, and other end users to be involved in the development process.

It is not enough to lower carbon emissions. African farmers need to adapt quickly to rising temperatures, drawn-out droughts and sharp, devastating floods. With higher-yielding, multiple stress tolerant maize varieties, smallholder farmers have the opportunity to not only combat climatic variabilities, diseases and pests, but can also effectively diversify their farms. This will enable them in turn to have better adaptation to the changing climates and access to well-balanced and affordable diets. As climate change intensifies, so should agricultural innovations. It is time for a “business unusual” approach.

 

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Excerpt:

Martin Kropff, Director General, CIMMYT and Nteranya Sanginga, Director General, IITA

The COVID-19 vaccine administered through the COVAX Facility. Credit: PAHO/Karen González

By Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, May 19 2021 (IPS)

We went to the Kanatte cemetery, Sri Lanka’s largest, where most of us, residents of the capital city, would end up sooner or later. But it was deserted, and so we had time for a leisurely chat with some of the helpful staff there, albeit after admiring some of the grave sites and remaining beautiful trees.

As good social scientists and medical anthropologists, we were on a mission to do some qualitative research and cross-check Covid-19 quantitative data, to see if there was an increase in deaths, in the biggest city and population hub of the country.

Colombo’s cemetery was quiet, calm, green and monsoonal. It was a far cry from the overflowing cemeteries, floating bodies and weeping masses we have encountered on our television screens in narratives from New York, Sao Paulo or New Delhi, where the global Covid-19 media show has gone to town.

We were shown the red log books with the names of the deceased. We learned that over the last two weeks, there was less business, fewer funerals than in January and February this year, as there had been fewer bodies coming for burial and/or cremation during the current month of May 2021, although the country is in lockdown.

This was also corroborated by interviews at A.F Raymond Funeral Parlour, which also had less business and fewer funerals in the past couple of weeks – since May 1, 2021.

There had been a total of 35 Covid-19 positive bodies that came to Kanatte during recent weeks from May 1 to May 13 for cremation. But overall, there were fewer deaths and bodies in the current month of May than in January and February on an average day.

Yet the whole of Sri Lanka is in full blown Covid-19 lockdown at this time and arbitrary regulations are in play until the end of the month: People may go out of their homes based on their Identity Card numbers starting Monday next week.

Interviews with Senior Doctors

Although Colombo has the largest population in the country and urban areas get affected first in epidemics due to population density, a surgeon at the biggest hospital in the country – Colombo General Hospital – said in an interview they did not have a Covid-19 ward until relatively recently as PCR tested Covid-19 patients were sent to the IDH – Infectious Diseases Hospital.

In recent times PCR testing has been increased there are more people identified as Covid-19 positive in hospitals, but almost half are asymptomatic. However, PCR tests recommended by WHO deliver a high number of false positives and hence any ascription of positive results to a COVID-19 diagnosis should require the occurrence of clinical symptoms and further evaluation and confirmation by physicians, including the appraisal of distinct laboratory parameters.

About 45-50 % percent of those who test PCR positive and are kept in hospitals in Sri Lanka at this time are asymptomatic. That is, they may be hospitalized based on false positives and filling up the wards and hospitals — so what we have is a PCR pandemic?

Indeed, PCR tests for Covid-19 are now the subject of court action by a team of international lawyers challenging the test’s validity and the WHO ‘s Covid-19 ‘pandemic’ narrative, in courts in Germany and the USA.

The current much hyped “third wave” of Covid-19 in Sri Lanka at this time appears to be due to a couple of factors: 1) increased testing with PCR tests that deliver a high number of false positives and/ or asymptomatic patients. 2) the arrival of seasonal flu caused by monsoon and inter-monsoon rains which bring “flu season” in the Tropics.

PCR test positive folks who are asymptomatic are filling up hospital beds. At this time there are about 100 PCR positive patients with what are often termed co-morbidity factors or tertiary cases such as diabetes, heart disease, Kidney disease at the General Hospital of Colombo.

There are also many empty beds at the General hospital of Colombo because many people with serious illnesses do not want to go to hospital because of Covid-19 hype and fear psychosis.

What Sri Lanka has at this time appears to be a WHO recommended PCR test induced crisis and pandemic, as in other parts of the world even though PCR tests are known to be flawed and a team of international lawyers have challenged in court in Germany and the US, the WHO leader Tederos Adhanom, and the use of the PCR test to diagnose Covid-19.

No Doctors, nurses, PHIs, have died of the so called deadly Covid-19 in Sri Lanka en masse, unlike in India and some other countries. Yet, Sri Lanka is in lockdown and economy, livelihoods, and poor people’s access to wages and food and nutrition has been compromised based on dubious PCR tests.

At this time, a comparison of Sri Lanka country data, both qualitative and quantitative. show that Covid-19 is milder than seasonal flue. Over the past year there have been 850 Covid-19 deaths, ever since the World Health Organization (WHO), declared a so-called ‘pandemic’ in March 2020, after changing the definition of the word.

However, in an average year between 4,500- and 7000 die of seasonal flu in the island, according to National Data and WHO data. On an average year the highest number of deaths in the island are caused by heart attacks and the second highest number of deaths are due to Cancer in Sri Lanka. Upper respiratory tract infection due to influenza are the third highest cause of deaths in the island.

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, (IHME), at the University of Washington in Washington DC, has made projections designed to trigger a fear psychosis in Sri Lanka and predicted a daily death count over 200 by June and a total death toll of 20,000 by September 1, without any data to show how it came to such conclusions about Sri Lanka.
http://www.dailymirror.lk/news-features/Covid-number-crisis/131-211845Covid

The US Government’s Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has meanwhile issued a travel warning on Sri Lanka.

At this time, Sri Lanka has been shut down and citizens deprived of their collective right to assembly and education, while religious communities, Muslims and Buddhists are deprived their right to worship and celebrate Ramazan and Vesak in the month of May, based on epidemiology models devised in Washington DC at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME).

It bears repeating that a country’s policy should be made on analysis of national Data, rather than based on images and narratives and epidemiology models of another country- where the US or India.

Meanwhile, certain local and national medical associations, such as the GMOA and Sri Lanka Medical Association (SLMA) and an outfit called the Institute for Health Policy, have echoed the IHEM’s fear psychosis inducing narrative by calling for island wide shut downs., although national data and the Covid-19 IFR and CFR reveals a different story – that over the last year since WHO declared a global “panicdemic” – Covid 19 is milder than flu in Sri Lanka.

It is increasingly apparent that that there is NO Covid-19 Health Emergency in Sri Lanka at this time, but there is a livelihood, poverty and inequality emergency as a result of unscientific and wrongful policies based on Covid-19 hype and misinformation by Health Authorities influenced by the WHO and Center for Disease control (CDC) and IHME in Washington which has effectively locked down large parts of the country.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka’s economy shrank 3.5 last year due to Covid-19 lock downs.

At this time the question arises: Why is the Sri Lanka government (GoSL) following mysterious epidemiology models generated by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) of the University of Washington?

Why is the GoSL, MOH and Covid-19 Task Force, headed by two Sri Lankan-US citizens making policy that is NOT based on national and local data and evidence, but epidemiology models developed in the US?

These so called Covid-19 policies and WHO recommended PCR testing policies and lockdowns that are also causing a plastic pandemic, medical garbage and environmental crisis are gravely detrimental to the livelihoods, economy, society and well-being of Sri Lankans, particularly poor and vulnerable communities and increasing economic inequality.

There is also the related phenomenon of LAWFARE – where law and justice systems and institutions are weaponized against core principles of justice and equality and democratic rights to assembly and free speech curtailed in the name of emergency.

Finally, questions arise as to why are the so-called opposition political parties – the United National Party, Samagi Janabla and Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (UNP, SJB and JVP), which love to attack the Government policy so incapable of national data analysis and evidence -based Covid-19 policy recommendations? Are they also reading from Washington’s playbook?

 

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Excerpt:

The writer is a social and medical anthropologist.

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