Africa

The fire in Niamey engulfed straw classrooms and those in the nursery could not escape.

Former Leicester City forward Ahmed Musa completes a short-term deal to play for Nigerian league side Kano Pillars.

South Africa's Busiswa Gqulu is using her songs and poetry to overcome gender barriers in the music industry.

This family in Tuvalu* is at the frontline of the effects of climate change. The water is only 10 metres from their house at high tide. Tuvalu rarely exceeds 3 metres above sea level, and at its widest point it spans about 200 meters. Tuvalu is extremely vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change. Rising sea levels combined with extreme weather events is contributing to the inundation of low-lying areas. Coastal erosion is also a major problem in Tuvalu, particularly on the western side of the islands. Credit: Mark Garten/UN Photo

By Liu Zhenmin
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 14 2021 (IPS)

Millions of lives lost. Trillions of dollars in economic damage. Over 120 million more people pushed into extreme poverty. The human and economic toll of the COVID-19 pandemic is almost unimaginable – a once-in-a-century catastrophe.

But in fact, the pandemic heralds a new normal – a world of systemic risks, where disasters and shocks do not remain local, but can have unpredictable and escalating global consequences. Humankind must come to terms with our fragility and heed the harsh lessons COVID-19 has taught us.

Our economies and societies are ever more interconnected. This is a source of prosperity and efficiency, but also makes us vulnerable to contagion and cascading crises. Global risks – pandemics, financial crises, climate change – increasingly undermine the progress we have made in the fight against poverty.

Unless we adjust, the Sustainable Development Goals will almost certainly be out of reach.

What are COVID-19’s lessons for us? What investments are needed to reduce systemic risks and better prepare for the next crisis? The United Nations’ 2021 Financing for Sustainable Development Report sets out recommendations for long-term investments in prevention and risk reduction. It also identifies measures to make development finance more resilient to shocks – and prevent disasters from derailing development progress.

Managing risks should be a routine aspect of all financial management. But COVID-19 has demonstrated that this is often not the case. The pandemic has exposed vulnerabilities in both public budgets and corporate balance sheets which have been growing over the last decade, leaving countries ill-prepared for the current crisis. More than half of the poorest countries are now either in or at risk of debt distress.

Countries will need a multi-instrument approach. For example, debt management needs to better account for growing risks.

UN Under Secretary-General for Economic & Social Affairs Liu Zhenmin. Credit: UNDESA/Predrag Vasić

Official lenders can help. Going forward, they should routinely include state-contingent clauses in their loans to vulnerable countries, to have automatic standstills in debt service in case of disasters and shocks.

Lenders can also support the poorest countries with risk-transfer and insurance mechanisms for low-frequency high impact events such as climate-related disasters, as well as budgetary instruments such as contingency funds for more frequent but less costly shocks.

Much of the corporate world was also caught flat-footed when COVID-19 hit, due to high leverage and just-in-time supply chains without built-in redundancies to accommodate shocks. Massive public support packages have prevented a systemic financial crisis and helped many companies weather the storm. But such support may be less forthcoming next time.

Private investors must take into account all material risks in their investment decisions – including longer-term social and environmental risks — just as they now increasingly account for climate risks. This will require, as a critical first step, mandatory disclosure of environmental, social and development impacts of corporate behaviour.

But it’s not enough just to manage material balance sheet risks more effectively. We have to break the cycle of spending large sums on post-disaster support while neglecting new risks we create along the way.

We must focus on investments in prevention, in risk reduction and in resilience. As these are a public good, the public sector must take the lead in ensuring they are provided and funded.

Policy makers must make sure that incentives to private investors are fully aligned with sustainable development. That can include measures such as adequate pricing of carbon emissions and other externalities, bans of single-use plastics, or requirements to conduct due diligence from suppliers on social risks.

Political cycles often make investments in prevention – with uncertain or long-term pay-offs – seem unattractive to governments. Yet public finance can be a powerful tool to reduce risks, through investments in climate mitigation, and in structural and societal resilience.

Structural resilience includes investments in resilient infrastructure or early warning systems; societal in strengthened social protection mechanisms that can deliver rapid and scaled up support in times of crisis.

Many developing countries will need additional financial and technical support. For example, aid programmes have so far not sufficiently prioritized health system strengthening, which is crucial to survive the next pandemic.

No country can do it alone. Systemic risks tend not to respect national borders. Both climate mitigation and the COVID-19 pandemic underline the need to work together. It is not only that developing countries with limited resources need international support to address the fallout from crises not of their making, but these crises cannot be solved without a global approach. Just as it is in everyone’s interest to have vaccinations for all; it’s equally true for carbon-neutral development pathways.

The world needs new forms of international cooperation that amplify the voices of the most vulnerable countries in global decision-making processes. Only when their priorities are fully reflected, will the risks to their sustainable development be adequately addressed.

*Secretary-General António Guterres visited Tuvalu as part of a trip to the South Pacific to spotlight the issue of climate change ahead of the Climate Action Summit in September in New York. In addition to Tuvalu, the trip took him to New Zealand, Fiji and Vanuatu. In each country, the Secretary-General met with government leaders, civil society representatives and youth groups, to hear from those already impacted by climate change and who are also successfully engaging in meaningful climate action.

 

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The post COVID-19 Teaches Us to Better Manage Global Systemic Risks appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The writer is UN Under Secretary-General for Economic & Social Affairs

The post COVID-19 Teaches Us to Better Manage Global Systemic Risks appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The 2014 student abductions led to a plan backed by the UK but little has come of it seven years on.

Credit: United Nations

By Saber Azam
GENEVA, Apr 13 2021 (IPS)

Three recent developments bring about again the reasoning on the dire need to immediately reform the United Nations (UN) and avoid its predictable slide to redundancy.

First, the tragic killing near Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) of Italian Ambassador Mr. Luca Attanasio on 22 February 2021 engendered a shock within the diplomatic community. Unfortunately, the assassination of top envoys and diplomats has regularly occurred for a long time.

The emissaries of Xerxes the Great, the fourth Achaemenid Emperor of Persia, were killed by Leonidas I, the King of Sparta, in 481 BC. More recently, Mr. Richard Sykes, Ambassador of the United Kingdom in the Netherlands, was gunned down by a terrorist organization on 22 March 1979.

Mr. Philippe Bernard, Ambassador of France, was killed on 28 January 1993 in Kinshasa in Zaire (now the DRC). A terrorist organization assassinated Mr. Christopher Stevens, Ambassador of the United States in Libya, and three of his colleagues on 11 September 2012 in Benghazi. These are a few among countless diplomats who lost their lives in the exercise of their functions.

UN senior officials have also been targets of thugs and extremist groups. Most notably, Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, seven members of his delegation, six Swedish aircrew, and two Swedish soldiers lost their lives on 18 September 1961 in a plane crash near Ndola, Northern Rhodesia (currently Zambia).

The aircraft was apparently shot at by a ground-air missile. Mr. Folke Bernadotte, the UN mediator in Palestine, was killed by a terrorist organization on 17 September 1948 in Jerusalem.

Mr. Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN Special Representative for Iraq, fourteen of his colleagues, and seven other people were murdered by a terrorist attack in Baghdad on 19 August 2003. Numerous other distinguished staff, police, and military personnel serving under the UN flag have, too, lost their lives in the line of duty.

Fateful missions have been part of the UN field staff reality in recent years. Peacekeeping and humanitarian operations in conflict-affected areas of the world are particularly hazardous and vulnerable.

However, the murder of Ambassador Attanasio, representing an influential member state, within the framework of a UN humanitarian mission is indeed a development that crosses a new line in some’s barbaric behavior. Does it signify that increasingly the UN becomes an instrument for political or financial haggles?

With the number of terrorist and other proscribed organizations swelling in Africa and Asia, there is a growing fear that humanitarian missions will routinely become targets of unlawful armed individuals or groups, hence preventing help to reach the neediest, averting monitoring of the programs by donors, and increasing further the tragic possibility of hostage-taking and loss of lives.

Unfortunately, Afghanistan is a perfect example of a situation where neither the diplomatic missions nor the UN can effectively have access to their funding beneficiaries. This allows an increased level of corruption by gangs who initiate insecurity for their unlawful gains, making humanitarian efforts questionable. A profound reflection on how the UN should do business in conflict-affected areas must be undertaken.

Second and as stipulated recently [http://www.ipsnews.net/2021/03/high-ranking-un-jobs-political-birthright-big-powers/], a significant number of senior UN positions are attributed through political understandings to the citizens of the five permanent members of the Security Council or Western and industrialized countries.

It has so far been a sad reality, and the UN culture does not seem to have evolved in a positive direction. While the organization needs desperately funding and political support to accomplish its noble tasks, it can only better flourish by having competent leaders, fair shares of responsibilities among “all nations, big or small,” and apply diversity in its real sense effectively.

Political pressure and games of influence play an essential role when senior positions, including that of the Secretary-General’s, are attributed. The so-called “transparent, inclusive, and merit-based appointment process” to headhunt the ablest candidates from all countries has always been a mirage.

As a result, many leadership positions are either rotating among citizens of the most powerful countries or occupied by individuals for a very long period, causing sclerosis that has already triggered brain and spinal damage to the system.

Besides, a sizeable number of senior staff rotates from one position to another, preventing the organization from the much-needed new blood. Such a practice renders innovation, transparency, competency, fairness, and diversity illusive. The majority of Member States increasingly believe that their concerns are not taken into account and voices not heard!

Third, the candidacy of Ms. Arora Akanksha, a young UN audit coordinator, to challenge the incumbent Mr. António Guterres is refreshing and audacious. In the past, only senior staff presented their candidacies – one of them, Mr. Kofi Annan, succeeded to be endorsed by the Security Council and elected – but only when a superpower vetoed the incumbent.

In principle, a staff never runs against the occupant of the position who is a candidate for a second term. Ms. Arora declared that “we are not living up to our purpose or our promise. We are failing those we are here to serve.” Does it imply that frustration grows among dozens of thousands of devoted staff members who justifiably realize that their leadership’s rhetoric becomes increasingly moot?

Most people idealize the actions and ethics of international entities. They seem puzzled by the quiet acquiescence of certain senior leaders of multilateral bodies to those who propel them to the supreme functions for fear of not being re-elected.

Defending human values and rights, mainly when issues are politically sensitive, must constitute the guiding principles for deeds! Reaction to the Black Lives Matter civil rights movement in the United States was a serious test for UN leadership as a whole and the Secretary-General in particular.

Indications that some preferred silence, endeavoring to get into Mr. Trump’s inner circle instead of denouncing police brutality, judicial discrimination, and unfair treatment of people of color was appalling. Now, their muzzled tweeter accounts loudly advocate for equal rights and social justice!

Ms. Arora’s candidacy should not be considered an accidental occurrence, though her chances are very slim. It may undoubtedly demonstrate an accumulation of ordinary staff members’ long-standing deep annoyance. The conclusion that some have given “away the store as part of [their earlier] campaign [and their] re-election effort will follow the same path” must be considered a matter of great concern by decision-making states.

In conclusion, the UN is at a very crucial crossroads. Inefficient and complaisant leadership is to blame. It must be underlined that authority, responsibility, and accountability are inseparable.

Unequivocal implementation of international standards, and rise against those who infringe them, be it states, big or small, institutions or individuals should be the prime concern of any leader. Moreover, fulfilling the indispensable requirements stipulated in articles 100.1 and 101.3 of the UN Charter must not be jeopardized for any given personal, political, or other reasons.

It is not too late to make the UN a credible international body again and avoid its looming redundancy. However, it has to be reformed profoundly. The Biden administration can be the precursor of such a change. The following aspects of the comprehensive suggestions about the necessity to preserve its integrity and efficiency [http://www.ipsnews.net/2020/08/reform-united-nations-organization/] require immediate actions:

A – The mandate of political positions, i.e., Assistant Secretaries-General, Under Secretaries-General, and Secretary-General, must be brought to one term of only five years at the end of their current terms. This will significantly reduce political pressure and fear for re-election on incumbents and allow faster rotation, increasing the chances of talented individuals from within the system and developing countries to compete.

In addition, the post of Secretary-General will alter quicker, hence making it possible for all continents to claim leadership of the organization more equitably. It is inconceivable that Latin America, with no permanent seat in the Security Council, an area of over 20 million square kilometers, and a population of over 650 million persons, had only one Secretary-General.

In contrast, Europe with three permanent members in the Security Council, an area of about 5.4 million square kilometers, and a population of 485 million individuals (UK, France, and the European part of the Russian Federation excluded as they are permanent members of the Security Council) had four!

It is high time that continental inequalities be addressed equitably through the proposed measure so that even Australia and New Zealand could achieve their justified desire of leading the organization. Besides, the last sentence of article 97 of the UN Charter should be legally interpreted in such a way to allow gender equity. A Security Council or General Assembly resolution would be enough to enact such a fair measure.

B – The confusion over mandates of different entities must be clarified immediately. With the idea of delivering as one, every organization claims to have a role in responding to a challenge. Useless, and on some occasions harmful, competition for relevance and funding adds to the delayed or inadequate response, tarnishing the image of the UN.

A conclusive interagency discussion under the guidance of the Security Council or General Assembly can quickly draw a framework to prevent mandate overlapping while a more profound reform would be needed to streamline charters/statutes of different bodies (see point C below).

C – Other proposed reforms (mandates, UN actions in conflict-affected areas, structures, management, culture/ethics, and delivering as one) would be time-consuming. As specified in the proposed reform of the UN referenced above, external experts of some ten world-class personalities with critical views about the organization must come together with a resolution and, under the supervision of the Security Council to elaborate an implementable strategy, time-bound action plan, and budgetary requirements.

[*] Saber Azam is the author of SORAYA: The Other Princess, a historical fiction overflying the latest seven decades of Afghan history through the eyes of a bright woman and Hell’s Mouth, depicting the excellent work of humanitarian workers in Ivory Coast during the First Liberian Civil War between 1994 and 1997.

 

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The post Profound Reform or Redundancy – United Nations’ Quandary? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The writer* is a former United Nations official who served in Europe, Africa, and Asia

The post Profound Reform or Redundancy – United Nations’ Quandary? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Sprinter Ferdinand Omanyala is considering racing as a neutral athlete at the Olympics if he is not named in the Kenyan team for Tokyo.

Tunisia football boss Wadie Jary has knowingly misled sport's highest legal body, suspended club Chebba FC complains.

Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition Foundation (BCFN) has pioneered the food pyramid, which recommends both nutritious and good food for the planet. In its latest report, it makes recommendations for Africa. Credit: Anaya Katlego / Unsplash

By Ignatius Banda
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Apr 13 2021 (IPS)

With the two extremes of global hunger and obesity on the increase, a new report suggests a radical reset for food and nutrition to ensure the long-term sustainability of livelihoods and the environment.

According to a new Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition Foundation (BCFN) report, 690 million people globally lack sufficient food. COVID-19 has worsened these conditions, and it’s projected that between 83 and 132 million more people will join the ranks of the undernourished because of interrupted livelihoods caused by the pandemic.

A BCFN report, “A one health approach to food – The Double Pyramid connecting food culture, health and climate”, raises concerns that in some African countries, the consumption of cheap sources of high-quality protein, vitamins, and minerals – such as eggs – remains low. The report will be launched on Wednesday, April 14, 2021.

The Double Pyramid combines a health and climate pyramid that “serves as a guideline for daily food choices in enhancing people’s awareness and enriching their knowledge about the impacts of food choices to encourage dietary patterns that are healthy for humans and more sustainable for the planet.”

According to aid agencies, the model will resonate with the needs of perennially food stressed countries in the Global South, where climate change and food security have affected the livelihoods of millions who have only one meal a day.

“The African Double Pyramid attempts to illustrate that it is possible to respect local traditions and preferences while recommending a frequency with which foods should be consumed to promote improved health and a low impact on the environment,” says the report.

The experimental African Double Pyramid covered five countries – Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa, Tanzania, and Ethiopia. Researchers noted that while the African continent was diverse, “generally, some common traits can also be found, such as the single-course meal based on a starchy ingredient.”

But as Marta Antonelli, the Barilla Foundation’s head of research, told IPS, food politics have become a matter of different strokes for different folks.

“Different areas of the world have different priorities to look at. The principles of a sustainable and healthy diet can be applied in all contexts and inform a new approach towards food,” she said.

“Today, food systems fail to provide adequate and equitable food for all and pose an unsustainable burden on the environment. Health and the environment need to be considered together when addressing food systems, which are an extremely powerful leverage to improve both,” Antonelli.

The report comes when the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says more than 3 billion people worldwide cannot afford a healthy diet. This is a paradox the Barilla Foundation has tackled in its past reports where it showed malnutrition in all of its forms – undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies and overweight/obesity was increasing. Its Global Nutrition Report showed that 88% of countries face a serious burden of either two or three forms of malnutrition, namely undernutrition, micronutrient deficiency or overweight or obesity. Recent findings include that child and adult obesity have increased in almost all countries, burdening already struggling global health care systems.

Still, some African countries present immediate challenges to meeting the Double Pyramid model.

In a news release dated March 29, the World Food Programme’s Zimbabwe country director Francesca Erdelmann said more than 2.4 million people in urban areas struggled to meet their basic food needs.

“Reduced access to nutritious food has resulted in negative impacts for many. Families will find it difficult to put food on the table. The fortunate ones will skip meals while those without will have to go to bed with an empty stomach,” Erdelmann said, adding that “for the most vulnerable people, hunger will have a lasting effect on their lives.”

The Barilla report notes that healthy diets’ affordability is “compromised especially in low- and middle-income countries” while also calling for the reduction in the cost of nutritious foods. It also calls for a reorientation of agriculture priorities towards more nutrition-sensitive food and agricultural production.

The call could prove difficult for African countries that include Zimbabwe, where agriculture remains underfunded. The government has long struggled to convince smaller holders to plant more nutritious and drought-resistant crop varieties.

“Our children do not like food prepared with small grains. They are used to maize meal. That is why we continue growing maize,” Fanyana Jamela, a smallholder in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second-largest city, told IPS.

Nathan Hayes, a senior Africa analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, says more needs to be done if countries, such as Zimbabwe, are to meet the recommendations of international agencies regarding food and nutrition.

“Over the long-term, Zimbabwe must increase the volumes of domestic food production and improve the distribution of food to improve food availability and to allow Zimbabweans to meet their nutritional needs,” Hayes told IPS.

“Even with a good harvest this year, food insecurity will remain significant in Zimbabwe, and the country is a long way from achieving agricultural self-sufficiency,” he said.

Among other policy recommendations to promote the Double Pyramid’s success, the Barilla report says there is a need to “promote training and education programs to support smallholder farmers to grow sustainably and access markets for nutritious food,” which was found lacking in many countries surveyed for the report.

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The post New Report Calls for Improved Eating Habits in a World of Extremes appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Apr 13 2021 (IPS)

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has urged all governments to support a global minimum corporate tax rate of at least 21%. The US is working with other G20 nations to get other countries to end the “thirty-year race to the bottom on corporate tax rates”.

Anis Chowdhury

Corporate tax vital
For Yellen, “governments [should] have stable tax systems that raise sufficient revenue to invest in essential public goods and respond to crises, and that all citizens fairly share the burden of financing government”.

The Biden administration has unveiled a plan to reverse Trump’s tax cuts and raise US corporate tax rates from 21% to 28%. Crucially, it wants to increase tax rates on US firms’ overseas profits – global intangible low-tax income (GILTI) – from 10.5% to at least 21%. This should be calculated on a country-by-country basis including all tax havens, i.e., low- or no-tax locations, to minimise evasion.

The US Treasury is also keen to reach international agreement over a digital tax for online giants such as Amazon and Facebook. This sharply contrasts with Trump’s threat of retaliation against countries attempting to tax US-based tech giants.

The Economist estimates that in the past decade, the ‘big five’ – Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Google – paid only 16% of their profits in tax.

Race to the bottom
The Bretton Woods institutions (BWIs) – the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank – promoted Reaganite ‘supply side economics’ from the 1980s, claiming excessive tax rates discourage labour supply and entrepreneurship.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

However, contrary to proponents’ claims, most tax cuts have resulted in net revenue losses, with Trump’s cuts resulting in a shortfall of US$275 billion, or 7.6% of previously expected revenue.

As countries raced to the bottom, offering increasingly generous tax incentives to attract investments by transnational corporations (TNCs), the average worldwide statutory corporate tax rate fell from 40% in 1980 to 24% in 2020.

Countries also lose revenue as TNCs use legal loopholes to minimise tax payments, e.g., by abusing differences between national tax rules and bilateral double taxation agreements. They strive for ‘double non-taxation’ to avoid paying tax in all jurisdictions.

Thus, US$500–600bn, or around 10–15% of annual global corporate tax revenue, is lost yearly to TNCs shifting profits to tax havens, using base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) book-keeping.

Harming developing countries
Corporate income taxation is much more important for developing countries, e.g., comprising 18.6% of tax revenue in Africa, 15.5% in Latin America and Caribbean, and 9.3% in OECD countries in 2017. Clearly, tax competition and TNC tax avoidance hurt developing countries more. As share of GDP, Sub‐Saharan Africa has lost most, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean, and South Asia.

Tax reforms
Developing country governments undertook reforms reducing often progressive direct income tax systems in favour of supposedly neutral, but actually regressive indirect taxation on consumption.

Senior IMF Fiscal Affairs Department staff recommended taxing labour instead of capital, considered too mobile to tax. An IMF paper even endorsed complete abolition of corporate income tax!

Encouraged by the World Bank’s now discredited Doing Business Report, developing countries competed to cut corporate tax rates, falling by a fifth from 1980. Consequently, low and middle-income countries have lost US$167–200bn annually, around 1–1.5% of GDP.

The Economist observed weak links between tax rates and investment as well as growth rates. OECD research showed that tax incentives hardly attracted foreign direct investment, while IMF research found ‘beggar-thy-neighbour’ tax competition cost unnecessary revenue losses to many developing countries.

A G20 report found the fiscal cost of tax incentives in low-income countries “can be high, reducing opportunities for much-needed public spending …, or requiring higher taxes on other activities”.

Tax avoidance
Estimated annual revenue losses to rich OECD countries due to tax havens range from 0.15% to 0.7% of GDP. Low-income countries (LICs) and even lower middle-income countries lose relatively more corporate tax revenue than high-income countries (HICs).

LICs account for some US$200bn of such lost revenue, typically a higher GDP share than for HICs. This is much more than the US$150bn or so that LICs receive annually in official development assistance.

Digitisation
Digitisation and changing business models are making it more difficult to determine the actual location of economic activities. Thus, digitisation enables BEPS, reducing revenue due to under-reported taxable income.

Consequently, in 2017, developing countries lost US$10bn in revenue from e-commerce compared to HICs’ US$289 million loss. Least developed countries lost US$1.5bn while sub-Saharan African countries lost US$2.6bn.

UNCTAD’s Trade and Development Report 2019 noted, “Foregone fiscal revenues from digitisation are particularly high for developing countries because they are less likely to host digital businesses but tend to be net importers of digital goods and services”.

Developing countries’ voice
Supported by the G20, the OECD has been working on BEPS since 2013. The OECD BEPS initiative seeks to check tax base erosion by setting a global minimum corporate income tax rate and taxing TNCs selling cross-border digital services. OECD and G20 countries now aim to reach consensus on both by mid-2021.

However, despite being hurt more, developing countries have long been shut out from discussions of international tax norms, policy and regulatory design. The OECD BEPS Inclusive Framework (IF) now includes developing countries which agree to enforce it despite being excluded from its design.

Thus, while IF developing country associates supposedly participate on an ‘equal footing’, they have no decision-making role, reminiscent of their earlier colonial status! Apparently, ‘equal footing’ only refers to BEPS 4 Minimum Standards enforcement.

Unsurprisingly, although raised during IF consultations, developing country concerns – such as allocating tax rights between ‘source’ and ‘residence’ states, taxing the informal economy and taking account of their different needs and circumstances – remain largely unaddressed and unresolved.

With such failures implying legitimacy deficits, BEPS measures are unlikely to benefit developing countries very much. It is increasingly clear that the BEPS project and IF were never intended to help developing countries.

UN must act now
So far, the European Commission (EC) and other powerful countries have responded positively to Yellen. Her proposal has also been endorsed by the IMF and the UN High-Level Panel for International Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity for Achieving the 2030 Agenda (FACTI).

Corporate tax rules currently favour rich countries where most TNCs are based, regardless of domicile for tax purposes. Countries must work together to accelerate more inclusive, equitable and progressive multilateral tax coordination.

The OECD’s tenuous monopoly on international tax cooperation discussions has so far failed the world. Creating fairer international tax arrangements requires inclusive multilateral consultations well beyond current processes. These should be led by the UN, the only forum where all countries are represented fairly.

A UN Tax Convention, with universal participation and IMF technical support, can help countries come together to find lasting comprehensive solutions. This must happen soon to pre-empt the OECD from further abusing its exclusive approach, inadvertently jeopardising lasting progress.

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The post Only Multilateral Cooperation Can Stop Harmful Tax Competition appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Taiwan and Somaliland are basically fully functioning territories but neither is recognised internationally.

The makers of the Bafta-winning documentary want to preserve the underwater ecosystem it features.

The Barilla Foundation New Double Pyramid includes seven cultural pyramids including ones for specific regions like South Asia where these rice workers come from. Other cultural regions include Latin America, East Asia, Nordic and Canada, USA, Mediterranean and Africa. Credit: Deepak Kumar / Unsplash

By Alison Kentish
NEW YORK, Apr 12 2021 (IPS)

Following an extensive scientific review, the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition Foundation (BCFN) is preparing to launch a new food systems model which incorporates nutrition and climate.

Researchers from the Foundation teamed up with counterparts from the Frederico II University of Naples to produce the New Double Pyramid, to be unveiled at a virtual event on April 14. It builds on the Foundation’s previous model, which consisted of the traditional food pyramid, promoting the nutritional value of food and an environmental pyramid, exploring the impact of food production on the environment.

According to the researchers, the new model will consist of a health and a climate pyramid. The health pyramid has the most common foods globally, clustered in 18 groups of items that are similar in their nutritional features and impact on health. Researchers conducted a comprehensive search of scientific data linking the consumption of each food group to health outcomes. They paid particular attention to the risk of cardiovascular diseases such as heart attack and stroke, which are the leading causes of death and disability globally.

The climate pyramid traces the connection between animal-based products and climate change. It also lists foods, including plant-based products, which have a low climate impact.

“The implementation of healthy diets within sustainable food systems is one of the most powerful tools to achieve the so-called “planetary health,” the understanding that human health depends on natural systems and can no longer be conceived independently from its impact on the planet’s condition,” Endocrinology and Metabolic Disease Professor at the Frederico II University of Naples, Gabriele Riccardi told IPS.

Riccardi, who is a member of the BCFN Foundation’s Advisory Board and a former President of the Italian Society of Diabetology, told IPS that in the past, the concept of health was applied to individuals, without adequate consideration for the impact of personal behaviours on the health of the general population. He said the COVID-19 pandemic was bringing a shift in perspective.

“Most people are now aware that wearing a face mask or undergoing vaccination is important not only to protect themselves but also to preserve the health of the general population. Within this context, health gains at the personal level cannot be achieved at the cost of depriving other people of some of their chances of being in good health,” he said.

“This is likely to occur if the health of a population group is based on an unsustainable lifestyle eroding the Earth’s natural systems that provide essential benefits like food, water and shelter on which all human beings depend.”

The new Double Pyramid launch collaborates with the non-profit organisation Food Tank, which promotes sustainable means of hunger, obesity, and poverty alleviation.

Food Tank President and Founder Danielle Nierenberg said that along with the health and climate pyramids, the Foundation had developed seven cultural double pyramids that investigate how people can eat healthily in different regions of the world.

“For example, the Mediterranean Diet is often lauded as sort of this perfect diet, but many cultures – indigenous cultures like those of Southern Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa have diets that include pulses, legumes and healthy fats and oils. They are more culturally appropriate and can help farmers and eaters alike not only live better lives but make better incomes,” Nierenberg told IPS.

The seven cultural pyramids are Latin America, South Asia, East Asia, Nordic and Canada, USA, Mediterranean and Africa. The Foundation’s model is adapted to these food cultures, and the intention is to promote a balanced diet for health and longevity while reducing the carbon footprint to the world.

“We’re really excited to partner on another virtual event. Our first one was in December. This will kick off the sessions that will take place this year in the lead-up to the United Nation’s Food Systems Summit.”

The research findings bring a new angle to the issue of dairy product consumption. Riccardi says recent evidence “does not support different attitudes to the consumption of these products based on their fat content.” For example, comparing full-fat to reduced-fat dairy products. He says instead, the new pyramid concludes that overall moderate consumption does not increase cardiovascular diseases.

The new pyramid shows that fermented products, such as cheese and yoghurt, are associated with a reduced risk of those diseases in the dairy category. They should be the preferred option for consumers.

Riccardi told IPS that through the Double Pyramid, the research team would also present a major new finding of how different types of meat vary in their relationships with health.

Barilla Foundation Chairman Guido Barilla, President of the World Wide Fund for Nature Pavan Sukhdev, and Michelin Star Chef Chiara Pavan are among speakers scheduled for the April 14 event.

• The Double Pyramid will be launched on April 14. It promotes a one health approach to food by connecting food culture, health, and climate

 

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Morocco's Raja Casablanca beat Egypt's Pyramids 3-0 to become the first qualifiers for the Confederation Cup quarter-finals.

Claudete Volkswey and her husband smile together on their poultry farm in the municipality of Toledo, in the southwest Brazilian state of Paraná. The poultry shed is now heated using biogas instead of the wood-burning stove that used to keep her up at night, stoking it every two hours to keep the chicks warm in their first few weeks of life, as she explained at the South Brazilian Biogas and Methane Forum seminar, in her participation via videoconference. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

By Mario Osava
RÍO DE JANEIRO, Apr 12 2021 (IPS)

“Biogas is worth gold to us, we can no longer live without it,” Claudete Volkswey, a poultry farmer in the municipality of Toledo, in the southwestern state of Paraná, Brazil, said enthusiastically about the new source of energy that has allowed her to get a good night’s sleep again, because she no longer has to get up to stoke the fire every two hours.

Ademar Luiz and his wife, Zenilde Nunes Luiz, also celebrate the alternative energy source that has freed them from the complications of firewood and has made it possible to have hot water round the clock, a blessing in the cold winters of Laurentino, a municipality in the southern state of Santa Catarina.

In the Northeast, Brazil’s poorest region, biogas forms part of the movement that is helping to overcome rural poverty in that semiarid ecoregion by disseminating so-called social technologies, the best known of which is rainwater harvesting tanks for human consumption and irrigation in family agriculture.

Spreading the use of biodigesters, the same way the rainwater tanks have been widely adopted, totaling more than 1.3 million today, is the dream of Ita Porto, coordinator of Diaconia in the Sertão do Pajeú, an area comprised of 20 municipalities in the interior of the northeastern state of Pernambuco.

“For this to happen, they have to become a public policy, as the rainwater tanks are. This would add energy security to the water and food security that are already taken into account by the government,” Porto told IPS by telephone from Afogados da Ingazeira, where one of Diaconia´s main offices is located.

Her ecumenical Christian-inspired social organisation is an active participant in the Articulação Semiárido do Brasil (ASA), a network of 3,000 diverse associations aimed at development in the semiarid Northeast based on coexistence with the ecosystem, in contrast to earlier failed official strategies to “combat drought”.

There are about 800 units of the Sertanejo Biodigester, a model designed by Diaconia, built in Brazil, most of them in the semiarid Northeast. The initiative won a mention in the third edition of the Biodigester Network for Latin America and the Caribbean’s RedBioLAC magazine, in 2019.

Biogas is becoming an important energy source in this South American country of 212 million inhabitants, both for electricity and heat generation and for the production of biomethane to replace fossil fuels.

The enormous amount of agricultural, industrial and urban waste represents a potential of which only two percent is currently used, according to Alessandro Gardemann, president of the Brazilian Biogas Association, which groups companies and producers in the sector.

The advance of commercial production is made in sanitary landfills, in large agricultural and industrial units. In the south of Brazil, the expansion of pig and poultry farming is driving the biodigestion of their excrement, to boost profits, reduce costs and meet growing environmental demands.

They can play an important role in the energy system, providing power and balance, in the face of the major growth of intermittent sources, wind and solar, in addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

But it is the family biodigesters, noted for their proliferation rather than their size, that generate the most visible social and environmental benefits.

For Claudete Volkswey and her family, biogas meant keeping the poultry shed housing about 19,000 chickens and chicks on their farm warm without having to wake up “two or three times” in the middle of the night, sometimes in sub-zero temperatures, to stoke the wood-fired oven that was the previous source of heat.

This biodigester is on a small farm in the semi-arid region of the state of Pernambuco in Northeast Brazil. In general, local families now use biogas for cooking, replacing cooking gas cylinders, which are expensive in comparison to the income levels in this part of the country. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

“Our health is at stake,” Volkswey said in her presentation via videoconference at the South Brazilian Biogas and Biomethane Forum, which took place from Mar. 29 to Apr. 1, virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The manure, which is like gold for biogas production, comes from the 9,000 “nursery” piglets that Volkswey’s son is raising on the family farm in Toledo, a municipality that concentrates the largest number of pigs in Brazil: around 1.2 million.

The cost of firewood used to be as high as 2,800 reals (about 500 dollars) a month. The biodigester that has heated the poultry shed for the past nine years was costly, as it was one of the first in the western part of the state of Paraná, “but it was worth it,” said Volkswey.

Not having to forage for or buy firewood is another advantage cited by Ademar Luiz, also a pioneer in biogas in his municipality, Laurentino, 120 kilometres from the coast of Santa Catarina.

He built a small biodigester in 2008, to try it out. Six years later he built a larger one that allowed him to fuel the stove and heat water for the household round the clock. He no longer uses firewood or the electric shower heater, which saves the family 90 dollars a month.

Farmers Ademar Luiz and Zenilde Nunes Luiz decided to produce biogas to cook and heat water in their house in Laurentino, a municipality where winters are cold in the southern state of Santa Catarina, saving on firewood and electricity. This screenshot was taken from their presentation at the South Brazilian Biogas and Biomethane Forum, held in late March in Brazil. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Luiz only uses the manure from his four dairy cows. He used to have 30 and produced 600 litres of milk a day, in addition to raising other cattle, but he sold almost all of them two years ago, when he was 56. It became difficult for him to care for so many animals because of his back trouble.

Producing milk is hard work and a dairy farm is like “a prison” as you have to be there every single day. “But I like it,” he told IPS by phone from his farm, where he also grows corn and soybeans. “With a tractor and harvesting machine, I can do it,” he added.

Luiz confessed that before he had the biodigester he used to dump the manure into the river, “for the bad luck of those who live downstream.”

There are many environmental benefits, because the biodigesters protect water, forests and the climate, as well as eliminating odors and mosquitoes.

A screenshot from Claudete Volkswey’s videoconference presentation at the South Brazilian Biogas and Biomethane Forum shows the poultry shed where she raises some 19,000 chickens. She decided to produce biogas on the family farm, using a biodigester fueled by the manure from the pigs that are also raised on her farm, and abandoned the use of the wood-burning stove, which would keep her or another family member up at night as it needed to be stoked every two hours to keep the newly hatched chicks alive on nights when temperatures sometimes drop below freezing. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

In addition, biodigestion converts the waste into fertiliser and as a result, he said, his corn harvest grew.

“That’s why I don’t understand why other farmers don’t join the move to biogas, the manure is free. I am the only one using a biodigester in this municipality,” he lamented. The necessary investments are paid off with what is saved in just a few years and are easily financed in the banks, he said.

His wife was also reluctant at first. She only approved of the novel system after discovering that the beans and chicken stew cooked on the biogas stove didn’t smell like manure, he joked.

Ita Porto emphasises that women benefit the most. In general, they are the ones in charge of fetching firewood and, because they do the cooking, their health is affected by constantly breathing smoke from burning wood or charcoal.

This biological digester was built by a regional university to supply biogas to a bakery run by a women’s cooperative in Pombal, a municipality in the semi-arid ecoregion in the Northeast Brazilian state of Paraiba. This waste-to-energy generator provides half of the electricity used by the bakery, which sells a large part of its products to the lunch programme in local schools. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

A World Bank study released in 2020 estimated that 2.75 billion people still use wood or charcoal for cooking. Many die of lung cancer, respiratory damage and heart disease as a result.

Widespread replacement of traditional stoves with safer and healthier cookstoves would have dramatic health, environmental and social effects, experts say.

Incipient and scattered actions are promoting the use of biogas in Brazil.

In the state of Ceará in Northeast Brazil, the non-governmental Centre for Labour Studies and Worker Advisory Services (CETRA) has been running a project since 2017 that envisages the construction of 1,800 biodigesters with support from several national and international institutions, Porto explained.

The route to massive dissemination of the technology could open up if one or more Brazilian states adopted this alternative as public policy, the activist asserted.

Related Articles

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• Producing Clean Energy from Pigsties in Brazil

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A Security Council meeting in progress. Credit: United Nations

By James A. Paul
NEW YORK, Apr 12 2021 (IPS)

Commentators talk about a “new Cold War” between the United States and China. They sometimes conclude that the geopolitical rivalry between these two major powers has ruined the effectiveness of the UN Security Council through hostile vetoes and other barriers to Council action.

In fact, however, damaging rivalry on the Security Council is nothing new. The Council has always been hobbled by vetoes and other special privileges of the Permanent Members.

Geopolitical rivalry between the Permanent Five – the US, UK, France, China and Russia –has been a standard feature of the Council since its earliest meetings seventy-five years ago, repeatedly preventing the body from fulfilling its mandate.

Today’s US-China clash has affected the Council, of course, but not nearly as severely as Great Power rivalries in the past.

Some analysts have argued over the years that the Council’s ten Elected Members have moderated the body’s oligarchic tendencies and given it a more effective and “democratic” character. But this is a pipe dream.

Elected Members have a very secondary role, even when they are rich or very populous, like Germany or India. They have a short, two-year term in office and the Council’s rules are stacked against them. The Permanent Members act ruthlessly (if decorously) to hold onto their privileges and to gain global advantage.

Planning for the foundation of the United Nations was undertaken during World War II, by the “Big Three” – or the “Three Policemen” as President Roosevelt liked to say in private. The US, Britain and the Soviet Union sought to take control of world “security” and ensure domination over their own spheres of influence.

As the archives make clear, they wanted control over natural resources and markets for their products and other material benefits – though of course this control was presented in more palatable terms like “preserving the peace.”

Eventually, before the UN Charter was finalized, France and China were invited to join the oligarchy as junior partners. The rest of the nations had to accept the arrangement: take it or leave it.

Over the years, there have been many forms of conflict among the five. The first systemic rivalry pitted old imperial rivals – Britain and France – against more recent powers – the United States and the Soviet Union.

As independence movements challenged the colonial overlords and liberation wars erupted, “Big Three” solidarity collapsed and the Council was unable to act. Britain and France, using vetoes and other means, systematically blocked Council action that would threaten their colonial authority.

The Council could not even hold debates or discussions on most colonial conflicts, not matter how brutal and bloody. Algeria, Kenya, Vietnam, and many other wars disappeared from the Council’s purview.

From the earliest years, then, it became clear that the Security Council was not an instrument for even-handed peacemaking (as many internationalists and peace-advocates had hoped) but a scene of politely ferocious diplomatic rivalry and maneuvering for global advantage.

The colonies won their independence eventually, with help from the UN General Assembly, but not thanks to the Security Council.

Then there was the “Cold War” between the United States and the Soviet Union, flaring up in the late 1940s and continuing until the late 1980s. Each sought hegemony in the decolonizing global order.

This rivalry, too, had a great impact on the Security Council and led to many vetoes and organized inaction on wars and conflicts worldwide. The Soviets used the veto on conflicts in Czechoslovakia, Hungary and other places, while the United States and its allies similarly blocked Council action on Vietnam, Palestine, Cuba, Cyprus, Western Sahara, and many other lands.

The multiple rivalries around the globe resulted in Council gridlock that was considerably worse than what we see today. The Council in those days met infrequently and its production of resolutions and statements was sparse.

UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld of Sweden holding a press conference at UN Headquarters on 24 March 1960. Credit: UN Photo

UN military action in the Congo in the early 1960s appeared to be an exception, but the results in the end were hardly encouraging. UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld perished in a highly suspicious airplane crash in the African jungle; a military dictator soon emerged in Congo to protect Western mineral interests.

In 1989, after the Soviet Union collapsed, there was a brief period of Council cooperation and more jointly-agreed activity. Council Meetings increased in frequency, vetoes waned and resolutions increased dramatically in number.

There was brief hope that the Council would at last be effective. But this honeymoon did not last long and rivalries soon re-emerged. China, the least active member of the Council, began to extend its global ambitions and to take its Council role seriously.

Russian vetoes and blockages came to the fore again. The Western three, as always, did not hesitate to use their muscle and their blocking power –and they frequently denounced their Council rivals in heated terms. Inevitably, Council action suffered.

But the Council remained far more active than it was in its first fifty years. Wherever we look, past and present, there is no idealized period of lasting cooperation and commitment to peaceful outcomes.

Rivalry and proxy wars still prevail in the global landscape between the titans. What a tragedy that these powers are in charge of solving the very problems that – much of the time – their rivalry creates!

China’s huge economic success and its large population give it a big advantage in the geo-strategic sweepstakes today. It’s hard to remember the passive China that did so little in the Council just two decades ago.

Whatever its current self-interest in Council matters, China is not hostile and negative towards the UN as is its nemesis, the United States. China’s alliance with Russia adds to its clout in the Council and in diplomacy more broadly.

The United States, meanwhile, is hobbled by its negative approach to multilateralism. Bristling with military power and inclined to bullying other countries, the US is still the capo dei tutti capi, the boss of bosses on the world stage. But for how much longer and with what impact on the Council’s future?

The US-China rivalry has not altered the Council dramatically, but it reminds us that there is now a fifth rival that the other four must take closely into account. Council decision-making has a radically new geometry.

The US-China clash may last for years, but it certainly will not be the last major Council fault-line. As long as the oligarchy of the Permanent Five persists, there will future diplomatic battles and future barriers to constructive Council action.

We can and must hope for more. To be truly effective in the future, the Council must be substantially reformed. The Five Policemen, the Council’s oligarchs, should have no place in a democratic and peaceful institution.

But how do we successfully change this archaic structure? Certainly not by creating new Permanent Members and endorsing new national power centers. There are already five too many foxes in the global chicken coop!

Fundamental change will have to come from below, from public pressure, from campaigns that demand a real peace, not Cold Wars without end.

* As Executive Director, James Paul was a prominent figure in the NGO advocacy community at the United Nations and a well-known speaker and writer on the UN and global policy issues. He is the author of “Of Foxes and Chickens”—Oligarchy and Global Power in the UN Security Council.

 

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Excerpt:

The writer* served as Executive Director, Global Policy Forum, from its foundation in late 1993 through the end of 2012.

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Rangina Hamidi

By External Source
Apr 12 2021 (IPS-Partners)

H.E. Rangina Hamidi is the first female Minister of Education of Afghanistan in the last 30 years. Minister Hamidi was born in Kandahar, Afghanistan, fled with her family to Pakistan in 1981 during the Soviet Occupation and eventually immigrated to the United States. She attended high school in the United States and received her B.A. degree with a double major in Religion and Gender Studies at the University of Virginia.

In 2003, Minister Hamidi returned to Afghanistan to help rebuild her country. Using her leadership and management skills, she founded Kandahar Treasure in 2008, the first women-owned and women-run social enterprise in Kandahar Province. Kandahar Treasure grew to provide over 400 women sustainable income with the production of exquisite hand-embroidered textiles for apparel and home décor. The products are marketed nationally and internationally. While it is critically important to empower women financially, Minister Hamidi realized the importance of education after experiencing that foundational change in women’s lives will come through education only.

Today Minister Hamidi continues to champion the rights of girls and women, supporting new education initiatives designed to achieve goals for universal and equitable education as outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. She has made it her personal mission to become the role model for many girls in Afghanistan who will one day change the future of their country.

ECW: In Afghanistan, over 3.7 million children are out of school; at least 60 per cent being girls. Yet, this represents significant progress for the country. Can you tell us more?

H.E. Rangina Hamidi: As the first female Minister of Education in the last 30 years, I take pride in the journey this ministry has made. We have come a long way since 2001 in terms of educational outcomes. The Ministry of Education has taken significant steps in rebuilding the education system to safeguard and advance children’s rights to education.

To go from approximately 800,000 students and very low numbers of girls in 2001 to more than 9 million students in 2020 – of whom 39 per cent are girls – is a major achievement. Today, most students who begin their primary school will complete their educational journey in Afghanistan. This represents progress.

Such an unprecedented expansion in access is always compounded by huge qualitative challenges which I heavily feel each day including raising primary attendance rates beyond the rate of 55 per cent. The key goals of my ministry are to introduce drastic reforms aiming at improving the quality, and increase enrolment in primary education to 100 per cent. Bringing all the out-of-school children back to school in a conducive learning environment is a major goal we have set for ourselves. As a woman minister it is my particular goal to work on increasing the enrollment and retention of girls in schools.

ECW: In 2018, together with the Ministry and our education partners, ECW rolled out a Multi-Year Resilience Programme in Afghanistan to address the education needs of such out-of-school children. How relevant and impactful has this programme been in the lives of out-of-school girls and boys, particularly those accessing education for the first time?

H.E. Rangina Hamidi: Aiming to enroll half a million out-of-school children, the ECW-financed Multi-Year Resilience Programme (MYRP) represents a significant platform to help the Ministry of Education to achieve its target of enrolling children in schools.

The focus on out-of-school children and use of community-based education as the education service provision modality aligns perfectly with the ministry’s target and policy priorities. Multi-year design and catalytic seed funding are innovative approaches as lack of funding too often disrupts our children’s continuity of learning.

Today, Afghanistan’s MYRP can boast having more than 150,000 first-time school goers with 58 per cent of girls continuing their learning and overcoming challenges, including COVID-19, which was a major setback for the whole education sector. Close to half (48 per cent) of teachers recruited through the MYRP are women.

I also welcome the comprehensive inclusive education strategy for children with disabilities in community-based education initiatives being piloted by the MYRP.

Additionally, one of the important features of the MYRP is the robust in-country governance mechanism, which is led by the Ministry of Education with active participation of donors, multilateral agencies like the World Bank, United Nations agencies like UNICEF and UNESCO, and civil society actors. This mechanism enhances the programme’s effectiveness and alignment.

ECW: The MYRP still needs to mobilize US$108 million to be fully funded and reach all 3.7 million out-of-school girls and boys. What is the government’s strategy to reduce the financing gap? Is the funding gap factored into both the Humanitarian Response Plan and the National Education Sector Plan?

H.E. Rangina Hamidi: Thank you for asking such an important question. From the bottom of my heart, I thank HE President Ashraf Ghani for allocating AFS 49.8 billion (US$646 million) towards education, which is 11.6 per cent of the national budget. This demonstrates commitment of the senior most leadership of the country even during this difficult period of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, donor support remains critical for education programmes and projects in Afghanistan. One significant source of such funding is the US$49.5 million ECW catalytic grant for the MYRP. I am grateful to all the donors contributing to the global pooled fund of ECW – particularly Sweden and Switzerland, who have earmarked US$13.5 million for the MYRP in Afghanistan.

Investment in the MYRP helps to enhance the coherence between emergency and development aid efforts, while promoting peace. We trust that additional donors will contribute generously, following the path shown by our friends from Sweden and Switzerland with earmarked funding. Similarly, I urge all donors to honour their pledge made in the donor conference, which will help us to achieve our Humanitarian Response Plan and other ambitious strategic plans.

ECW: Afghanistan has a young population with a median age of 18 years, creating a huge burden on the education system. Can you describe the challenges faced by Afghan girls and boys to access quality basic education? What are the Ministry of Education’s priorities and strategies to meet them?

H.E. Rangina Hamidi: We recently completed a sector review that shows significant educational achievements for fellow Afghan children. However, we do have substantial challenges to overcome. These include shortage of school infrastructure; insecurity, which disproportionately affects girls; lack of an adequate number of qualified teachers, especially female teachers, which impacts girls’ enrolment; and inadequate teaching and learning materials. The Ministry of Education is in the process of implementing a reform agenda which will revise the national curriculum, which will require new textbooks to be disseminated and teachers to be trained. The new reform agenda will be implemented in light of the challenges that the Ministry of Education has faced in the last two decades as the focus of the ministry is now on the quality of education.

The Ministry of Education’s Strategic Plans are forward-looking, which focus on bridging the existing gaps while aiming to expand the provision of education services. To achieve these goals, we are leveraging 21st century innovations such as the use of information and communication technology (ICT) to establish digital learning platforms, improved use of data to make evidence-based decisions, and expanded knowledge sharing platforms to connect stakeholders across the country.

The ECW-supported MYRP is an essential vehicle in rolling out the National Education Sector Plan. I firmly believe this programme will contribute toward national efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, not only in the education sector, but also in terms of ending hunger and poverty, ensuring gender equality, and leaving no one behind.

We have recognized community-based education as a formal learning pathway for the children in hard-to-reach, insecure, underinvested, marginalized and culturally sensitive areas and established a community-based education division under the direct supervision of the Deputy Minister for Education HE Dr. Attaullah Wahidyar. The community-based education policy and corresponding strategies will certainly benefit from the experiences of the MYRP in Afghanistan, such as learning assessment, tailored teachers’ training strategy, and students’ transition plans, to mention a few.

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit children disproportionately as it poses additional barriers to education. In Afghanistan, 4.1 million children between 6 and 18 years of age are expected to be deprived of schooling due to COVID-19. The pandemic has already affected an academic year for all students in cold climate provinces, while delaying the start of the new academic year in warm climate provinces. We are closely engaged with all education actors to address the possible dropout and learning loss due to COVID-19, especially in community-based education learning environments.

ECW: Our readers would like to get to know you a bit better on a personal level. Can you tell us what education means to you personally, and why? Can you also share with us three books that have influenced you the most personally and/or professionally, and why you’d recommend them to other people to read?

H.E. Rangina Hamidi: In 1987 living as a refugee Afghan child with my family in Quetta, Pakistan, my sister and I were privileged to be born in a family where education was viewed as a right and it was not an exclusive right of boys only. My parents worked hard to find money to enroll their children in private schools because refugee children were not allowed to be enrolled in Pakistan’s government schools. Unfortunately, community elders who were actively engaged in the fight against the soviet invasion did not think that it was appropriate for girls to get an education. To them there simply was no need of education for girls’ future. We were pulled out of school out of the fear of facing harsh repercussions of having our faces burned with acid – which was the punishment for not obeying rules at that time. My father made the brave decision to go to the USA in 1988 because he saw no future for his daughters if he remained where he was. Today I am the result of his decision he made in 1988. Education changes girls’ futures.

The three books that have influenced me in shaping who I am are:

• Islamic Roots of Democratic Pluralism:Abdulaziz Sachedina
• A Thousand Splendid Suns:Khaled Hussaini
• Ghost Wars: Steve Coll

These three books speak about my passion in life: Islam in the modern world, Afghan women’s issues and the current situation of Afghanistan. These three books among others have left a mark on me.

ECW: Finally, are there any other key points you would like to share with our readers around the world on the importance of working together with ECW and its partners to address education in emergencies, so that together, we can help get crisis-affected children and youth back to learning with the fierce urgency of now?

H.E. Rangina Hamidi: As the leader of the education sector in Afghanistan and custodian of Afghan children’s education, I commend ECW’s collaborative approach which ensures more effective and coordinated responses among all education stakeholders. The MYRP in Afghanistan is already yielding positive results and we hope the programme’s duration can be expanded to allow all of the 150,000 early-learners to at least complete the primary cycle of education. We also call on additional donor support to ensure it can be brought to scale to support more children who continue today to be deprived of a quality education.

Today, Afghanistan is on the road to recovering from decades of conflicts and multiple crises. Our government, together with partners such as ECW, is taking bold steps to put education at the center of these recovery efforts. I invite world leaders, policymakers and donors to stand with Afghanistan’s girls and boys. The time to invest in education is now, it is the steppingstone towards a brighter, more prosperous and peaceful future for our children.

 

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