Africa

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Halima Elias Mtwethe from Mtepa Village in southern Tanzania is one of the smallholder farmers who borrowed from the Mahanje Savings and Credit Co-operative Society (SACCOS). Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu
MADABA/MAFINGA, Tanzania , Mar 31 2021 (IPS)

Small agricultural loans, disbursed through mobile phones and targeting specific farming activities at different phases of production, have more than doubled food productivity among thousands of smallholder farmers in southern and central parts of Tanzania over the past three years, improving their livelihoods.

IPS travelled the region this month and spoke to many farmers who attested to how the new form of controlled village-specific lending resulted in their successful harvest.

Peter Lulandala, a smallholder farmer from central Tanzania’s Iringa Province, is one of those farmers.

Lulandala is servicing a TZS one million ($312) loan he borrowed from a local community bank. The problem was that once the money had been paid out to him in a single instalment he was unable to keep aside the funds for the various farming phases.

“We could borrow money, which was usually given in a single batch mostly during the planting season. For most of us, it was extremely difficult to keep part of the money in our houses or on personal bank accounts just to wait for the weeding or harvesting season.

“As smallholder farmers in the villages, we have many urgent things that always require cash. For example, it will be very difficult to see my children go to bed for the second day in a row without food and yet I have cash under my pillow or in my personal account,” Lulandala told IPS.

That was until three years ago when an innovative new money lending product became available in his village. Through the new model, smallholder farmers who belong to particular groups (like farmer groups or reside in certain villages), are expected to save some money with a targeted financial institution before borrowing three times their savings.

“This is an innovative product introduced to us by the Alliance for as Green Revolution in Africa in collaboration with the Small Entrepreneurs Loan Facility (SELF) project to help smallholder farmers access agricultural finance, and to help them use the money for the intended purpose,” said Khassim Masengo, the manager of Mahanje Savings and Credit Co-operative Society (SACCOS) in Madaba District, Ruvuma Province, southern Tanzania.

Farmers are guaranteed by two signatures of fellow group members. What makes the SACCOS lending different is that once the loan is approved, the farmer can only access it in phases.

“We disburse it in three phases so that the farmers can only access what they need during the planting season, then the second disbursement can only be released at the right time for weeding and top-dressing, and finally the last payment is for harvesting and post-harvest handling,” Masengo told IPS.

Lulandala said the new lending structure has worked for him.

“But since this particular cash is kept by the bank and with an agreement on how it will be disbursed, I will always look for an alternative way to feed my children as the money waits for the intended purpose,” said the farmer who hails from Itengulinyi village, 15 kilometres off the main highway that connects Makambako and Iringa towns.

The farmers are expected to pay back the loans after harvest.

“Once they harvest, we encourage them to keep their produce with particular warehouses, and based on the warehouse receipts, we can give them personal loans worth half of their produce for immediate domestic use or further investment as they wait for better prices,” explained Masengo.

According to Hedwig Siewertsen, the head of Inclusive Finance at AGRA, many African smallholder farmers fail to achieve their full potential because they have no access to agricultural finance.

She said that unless farmers have collateral to show that they can pay back loans, banks would not loan to them. Siewertsen noted that there was need to come up with innovative means through which smallholder farmers can access agricultural finance without necessarily offering collateral. 

“Our main aim is to improve the quality, cost-effectiveness, access and impact of financial and agribusiness products and services for smallholder farmers in Africa,” said Siewertsen.

Farm produce at the Igodikafu Warehouse in Mbuyuni village, Pawaga Ward in central Tanzania. Based on the warehouse receipts, the Mahanje Savings and Credit Co-operative Society (SACCOS) can give farmers personal loans worth half their produce for immediate domestic use or further investment as they wait for better prices. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

According to the Food Sustainability Index (FSI), created by Barilla Centre for Food and Nutrition (BCFN) and the Economist Intelligence Unit, increasing food productivity is vital, given the population growth and intensifying climate change. And this, according to the report, can only be achieved through new innovations.

It also notes that sustainable agriculture needs funding and this is particularly difficult in developing countries.

“It can be hard to funnel money in from investors, particularly for developing countries. In the FSI, the top ten countries most likely to attract investment in sustainable agriculture are all European, with the exception of the US and Israel. And while most countries in the index offer some form of public financing for agricultural innovation, 12 countries—nine of which are in sub- Saharan Africa—do not,” the report notes.  

Unlike MUCOBA Bank, which works with farmers in small groups of 10 to 15 members, Mahanje SACCOS works with villages. This means that SACCOS’s offerings are specific to members of these villages and it also allows for traceability and easy service provision.

It also gives SACCOS security because they are able to engage the borrowers in person and from their homes.

“For one to qualify for a farming loan from this SACCOS, the first requirement is that they must be descendants of one of the eight targeted villages, and that must be confirmed by the village elder of that particular village,” said Masengo.

“The main reason is that we need to work with farmers who are well known by the villagers, and whom we can access for extension services,” he said.

So far, 2,847 members of Mahanje SACCOS, among them 892 female farmers who hail from the neighbouring villages of Mahanje, Madaba, Lituta, Mtepa, Magingo, Mkongotema, Lukira and Kipingo in Madaba District, Ruvuma Province, Tanzania have become net producers of maize and beans over the past three years. They are now able to export their produce to neighbouring districts.

SACCOS has since been converted into a fully fledged bank registered by the Central Bank of Tanzania, and it is offering credit and savings services, but specifically for farmers from the eight target villages.

However, MUCOBA Bank, which is a community bank headquartered in Mafinga town in Central Tanzania, covers a larger area and targets smallholder farmers in far areas that do not have good infrastructural access to urban centres. It currently has some 50 farmer member groups.

“Our bank has agents who are also our agricultural extension officers on the ground whom we use to register farmers through farmer groups, then send us information via internet,” Philipo Raymond, the general manager for MUCOBA bank, told IPS.

With MUCOBA Bank, qualifying farmers are then given their money through mobile phones, and once they harvest, they can service their loans through the same digital channel.

With both institutions, farmers have been able to borrow as little as TZS200,000 ($87) or as much as TZS15 million ($6,520).

“Besides receiving the moneys in batches to serve specific needs, use of M-Pesa payment has made it easier for us because we do not have to travel all the way to town, and we have reduced the risk of carrying hard cash in our pockets,” Emanik Mgwiranga, the chair of the Nguvu Kazi Itengulinyi farmers group from Itengulinyi Village, 44 kilometres from the nearest town, Mafinga, told IPS.

The main crops grown are maize, beans and rice, but some farmers also include Irish potatoes.

In addition, the Mahanje SACCOS has introduced indigenous poultry farming to cushion farmers when farming seasons fail or when market prices for their produce are still low.

 

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María Luz Rodríguez stands next to her solar oven where she cooked lasagna in the village of El Salamar in San Luis La Herradura municipality. In this region in southern El Salvador, an effort is being made to implement environmental actions to ensure the sustainable use of natural resources. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/ IPS

By Edgardo Ayala
SAN LUIS LA HERRADURA, El Salvador, Mar 31 2021 (IPS)

Salvadoran villager Maria Luz Rodriguez placed the cheese on top of the lasagna she was cooking outdoors, put the pan in her solar oven and glanced at the midday sun to be sure there was enough energy for cooking.

“Hopefully it won’t get too cloudy later,” Maria Luz, 78, told IPS. She then checked the thermometer inside the oven to see if it had reached 150 degrees Celsius, the ideal temperature to start baking.

She lives in El Salamar, a coastal village of 95 families located in San Luis La Herradura, a municipality in the central department of La Paz which is home to some 30,000 people on the edge of an impressive ecosystem: the mangroves and bodies of water that make up the Estero de Jaltepeque, a natural reserve whose watershed covers 934 square kilometres.

After several minutes the cheese began to melt, a clear sign that things were going well inside the solar oven, which is simply a box with a lid that functions as a mirror, directing sunlight into the interior, which is covered with metal sheets.

“I like to cook lasagna on special occasions,” Maria Luz said with a smile.

After Tropical Storm Stan hit Central America in 2005, a small emergency fund reached El Salamar two years later, which eventually became the start of a much more ambitious sustainable development project that ended up including more than 600 families.

Solar ovens and energy-efficient cookstoves emerged as an important component of the programme.

Aerial view of Estero de Jaltepeque, in San Luis La Herradura, a municipality on the Pacific coast in southern El Salvador where a sustainable development programme is being carried out in local communities, including the use of solar stoves and sustainable fishing and agriculture techniques. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala /IPS

The project was financed by the Global Environment Facility‘s (GEF) Small Grants Programme, and El Salamar was later joined by other villages, bringing the total number to 18. The overall investment was more than 400,000 dollars.

In addition to solar ovens and high-energy rocket stoves, work was done on mangrove reforestation and sustainable management of fishing and agriculture, among other measures. Agriculture and fishing are the main activities in these villages, in addition to seasonal work during the sugarcane harvest.

While María Luz made the lasagna, her daughter, María del Carmen Rodríguez, 49, was cooking two other dishes: bean soup with vegetables and beef, and rice – not in a solar oven but on one of the rocket stoves.

This stove is a circular structure 25 centimetres high and about 30 centimetres in diameter, whose base has an opening in which a small metal grill is inserted to hold twigs no more than 15 centimetres long, which come from the gliridicia (Gliricidia sepium) tree. This promotes the use of living fences that provide firewood, to avoid damaging the mangroves.

The stove maintains a good flame with very little wood, due to its high energy efficiency, unlike traditional cookstoves, which require several logs to prepare each meal and produce smoke that is harmful to health.

María del Carmen Rodríguez cooks rice on a rocket stove using a few twigs from a tree species that emits less CO2 than mangroves, whose sustainability is also preserved thanks to the use of the tree. Many families in the community of El Salamar have benefited from this energy-efficient technology, as well as other initiatives promoted along the Pacific coast in southern El Salvador. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala /IPS

The rocket stove can cook anything, but it is designed to work with another complementary mechanism for maximum energy efficiency.

Once the stews or soups have reached boiling point, they are placed inside the “magic” stove: a circular box about 36 centimetres in diameter made of polystyrene or durapax, as it is known locally, a material that retains heat.

The food is left there, covered, to finish cooking with the steam from the hot pot, like a kind of steamer.

“The nice thing about this is that you can do other things while the soup is cooking by itself in the magic stove,” explained María del Carmen, a homemaker who has five children.

The technology for both stoves was brought to these coastal villages by a team of Chileans financed by the Chile Fund against Hunger and Poverty, established in 2006 by the government of that South American country and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to promote South-South cooperation.

The Chileans taught a group of young people from several of these communities how to make the components of the rocket stoves, which are made from clay, cement and a commercial sealant or glue.

The blue crab is one of the species raised in nurseries by people in the Estero de Jaltepeque region in southern El Salvador, as part of an environmental sustainability project in the area financed by the Global Environment Facility’s Small Grants Programme. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

The use of these stoves “has reduced carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by at least 50 percent compared to traditional stoves,” Juan René Guzmán, coordinator of the GEF’s Small Grants Programme in El Salvador, told IPS.

Some 150 families use rocket stoves and magic stoves in 10 of the villages that were part of the project, which ended in 2017.

“People were given their cooking kits, and in return they had to help plant mangroves, or collect plastic, not burn garbage, etc. But not everyone was willing to work for the environment,” Claudia Trinidad, 26, a native of El Salamar and a senior studying business administration – online due to the COVID pandemic – at the Lutheran University of El Salvador, told IPS.

Those who worked on the mangrove reforestation generated hours of labour, which were counted as more than 800,000 dollars in matching funds provided by the communities.

In the project area, 500 hectares of mangroves have been preserved or restored, and sustainable practices have been implemented on 300 hectares of marine and land ecosystems.

Petrona Cañénguez shows how she cooks bean soup on an energy-efficient rocket stove in an outside room of her home in the hamlet of San Sebastián El Chingo, one of the beneficiaries of a sustainable development programme in the municipality of San Luis La Herradura, on El Salvador’s southern coast. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala /IPS

Petrona Cañénguez, from the town of San Sebastián El Chingo, was among the people who participated in the work. She was also cooking bean soup for lunch on her rocket stove when IPS visited her home during a tour of the area.

“I like the stove because you feel less heat when you are preparing food, plus it’s very economical, just a few twigs and that’s it,” said Petrona, 59.

The bean soup, a staple dish in El Salvador, would be ready in an hour, she said. She used just under one kilo of beans, and the soup would feed her and her four children for about five days.

However, she used only the rocket stove, without the magic stove, more out of habit than anything else. “We always have gliridicia twigs on hand,” she said, which make it easy to use the stove.

Although the solar oven offers the cleanest solution, few people still have theirs, IPS found.

This is due to the fact that the wood they were built with was not of the best quality and the coastal weather conditions and moths soon took their toll.

Maria Luz is one of the few people who still uses hers, not only to cook lasagna, but for a wide variety of recipes, such as orange bread.

However, the project is not only about stoves and ovens.

Some families living in coastal villages in the municipality of San Luis La Herradura have dug ponds for sustainable fishing, which was of great help to the local population during the COVID-19 lockdown in this coastal area of southern El Salvador. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala /IPS

The beneficiary families also received cayucos (flat-bottomed boats smaller than canoes) and fishing nets, plus support for setting up nurseries for blue crabs and mollusks native to the area, as part of the fishing component with a focus on sustainability in this region on the shores of the Pacific Ocean.

Several families have dug ponds that fill up with water from the estuary at high tide, where they raise fish that provide them with food in times of scarcity, such as during the lockdown declared in the country in March 2020 to curb the spread of coronavirus.

The project also promoted the planting of corn and beans with native seeds, as well as other crops – tomatoes, cucumbers, cushaw squash and radishes – using organic fertiliser and herbicides.

The president of the Local Development Committee of San Luis La Herradura, Daniel Mercado, told IPS that during the COVID-19 health emergency people in the area resorted to bartering to stock up on the food they needed.

“If one community had tomatoes and another had fish, we traded, we learned to survive, to coexist,” Daniel said. “It was like the communism of the early Christians.”

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Credit: International Geneva

By Michelle Langrand
GENEVA, Mar 31 2021 (IPS)

The World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) Hurricane Committee decided at its annual meeting to retire four tropical cyclone names from its rotating list after assessing the record-breaking hurricane 2020 season.

After 2020, the names Dorian, Laura, Eta and Iota summon memories of deadly destruction. The four hurricanes were so damaging that the WMO’s regional body that oversees storm activity in North America, the Caribbean and Central America decided to cross out the names from the rotating list they use to designate these extreme weather events in the Atlantic.

Names are given by weather forecasters to avoid confusion between events and make it easier for warning purposes. Each region has its own naming system.

For example, in the Atlantic Southern hemisphere, names are in alphabetical order and alternate between women’s and men’s names.

When the events result in great loss of life and damages, their names are taken out of rotation and replaced with new ones. The committee’s decision brings the number of retired names in the Atlantic to 93 since storms began to be named in 1953.

“The RA-IV Hurricane Committee’s work is critical to keep our nations coordinated well before the next storm threatens,” said Ken Graham, Hurricane Committee chair and National Hurricane Center director.

“Hurricanes don’t care about international boundaries. We all face similar dangers from tropical systems. Impacts from a single storm can affect multiple countries, so it is critical we have a plan, coordinate our efforts, and share challenges and best practices.”

Last year marked a record breaking season, getting off to an early and rapid start with a record nine named storms from May through July, according to the committee.

Hurricane Dorian in 2019 was the strongest one on modern records to strike the Bahamas. Damages were estimated at $3.4bn and around three quarters of all homes on the island were damaged.

Last August, category 4 hurricane Laura ravaged the US state of Louisiana, resulting in more than 70 casualties.

Major hurricanes Eta and Iota also broke records as they landed both in Nicaragua only two weeks apart in November, when the season is usually winding down. The storms affected 8.3 million people across Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.

“Developing countries and small islands in the Caribbean and Central America are increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of tropical cyclones, which can overturn years of socio-economic development in a matter of hours.”

“In 2020, we saw this once again with tragic effect,” said Evan Thompson, president of WMO’s regional association for North America, Central America and the Caribbean.

This season was only the second time after 2005 that the WMO had to resort to the Greek alphabet after exhausting the 21 names beginning with a letter of the alphabet. The season went through a total of six Greek letters.

However, the committee said that it would stop using the Greek system as “it creates a distraction from the communication of hazard and storm warnings and is potentially confusing”. It has replaced these with an additional list of names according to the standard alphabet, excluding names beginning with Q, U, X, Y and Z which are still not common enough in local languages for communication purposes.

Source: This article was originally published by Geneva Solutions and re-published in UN Today, the official magazine of international civil servants.

 

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The post What’s in a Hurricane Name? Dorian, Laura, Eta & Iota Retired from WMO List appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The writer is with Geneva Solutions, a non-profit journalistic platform dedicated to International Geneva.

The post What’s in a Hurricane Name? Dorian, Laura, Eta & Iota Retired from WMO List appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By External Source
Mar 30 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Autism Spectrum Disorder is a complex condition that remains misunderstood.

The effects of ASD and the severity of symptoms vary so much between individuals.

But the number of people with ASD diagnoses continues to grow globally.

The rate of ASD in the US grew by an estimated 14% in just 2 years.

According to the World Health Organization, ASD affects 1 in 160 children.

The prevalence of ASD in children is at its highest in Hong Kong.

About 1 in 54 children in the United States has an ASD diagnosis.

An ASD diagnosis is four times more likely in boys than girls.

People with ASD are often subject to stigma and discrimination.

They are often unjustly deprived of healthcare, education and opportunities to be functional members of their communities.

80% of the neurodiverse population is unemployed.

Yet, research proves that employment activities and independence help reduce Autism’s symptoms.

In some cases, neurordiversity has proven to increase the effectiveness of teams by 30%.

But the global pandemic and economic recession has severely impacted those with ASD.

This year’s World Autism Awareness Day hopes to tackle this issue.

Inclusion in the Workplace: Challenges and Opportunities in a Post-Pandemic World

 

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By Syed Neaz Ahmad FRSA
LONDON, Mar 30 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Over the Pandemic months, most activities – social, cultural, economic & philanthropic have been hit hard. The worst-hit has been patients suffering from serious diseases. Most have shied away from visiting their doctors and referral fell by 52,000 due to Covid-19. However, as they say, life goes on, and in this case, death goes on too.

Prostate Cancer UK – a charity exclusive to the disease – report that despite awareness and development in technology – every 45 minutes a man dies of this dreaded disease. It is the ‘most commonly diagnosed cancer in the UK’. In addition, Covid-19 has not made things life easier for prostate cancer patients.

“Hard times show”, says Prostate Cancer UK, “what people stand for. When the future is uncertain and the choices are tough, we stand for men with prostate cancer.” Last January despite all odds they raised some £2.2 million.

‘March the Month’ campaign has motivated some 5,000 persons – who walked 11,000 steps a day to raise funds for awareness, research & treatment of this scourge of a disease.

Experts say that prostate cancer ‘begins when cells in the prostate develop changes in their DNA’. The Mayo Clinic elaborates: ‘Prostate cancer is one of the most common types of cancer. It grows slowly and is confined to the prostate gland, where it may not cause serious harm.’ Some grow slowly and need minimal or no treatment while other types are aggressive and can spread quickly.

My personal motivation is that two of my elder brothers suffered from complications of this very common cancer among men. In many developing countries there is a lack of awareness about prostate cancer.

Charities strongly recommend that “Men should be educated about prostate cancer, should know their options for early detection, and should have the access to the tests available. “Experts say “the secret lies in early detection and access to PSA testing.”

Stepping out during ‘March the Month’ was very welcome for me as it provided the much-needed opportunity to be out & about in the fresh air. Launching my charity walk at NTV Europe Studios in South Woodford CEO Subrina Hossain said: “It’s a laudable step and NTV Europe being a part of the community stands behind this fund-raising ‘March the Month’ walkathon.”

Walking 11,000 steps a day (some 4.5 miles) at Norbury Park created awareness for the cause and visits of former Mayor of the Croydon Council Humayun Kabir, Deputy Mayor Sherwan Chowdhury, and Nasar Ali President of British Bangladeshi Society of Croydon who visited the Park to encourage & support the cause helped raise funds.

Prominent among those who have generously contributed to my walkathon are British journalists, medical professionals & campaigners, academics & businessmen. IPS – an international media organization, as usual, has supported this humanitarian cause.

‘March the Month’ campaign ends on Wednesday 31st March and it is expected that it’s going to be very successful because of the freak good weather. “We are investing millions to find research to transform the way prostate cancer is understood, diagnosed & treated.”

Cancer experts say that an exciting prostate cancer vaccine is in the early stages of development. “Harnessing the immune system could offer a way to stop prostate cancer and the research is creating the technology to do it.”

The post Fitness, Fundraising and Friendship for Prostate Cancer appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana
BANGKOK, Thailand, Mar 30 2021 (IPS)

The world is emerging from the biggest social and economic shock in living memory, but it will be a long time before the deep scars of the COVID-19 pandemic on human well-being fully heal.

In the Asia-Pacific region, where 60 per cent of the world lives, the pandemic revealed chronic development fault lines through its excessively harmful impact on the most vulnerable. The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) estimates that 89 million more people in the region have been pushed back into extreme poverty at the $1.90 per day threshold, erasing years of development gains. The economic and educational shutdowns are likely to have severely harmed human capital formation and productivity, exacerbating poverty and inequality.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

The pandemic has taught us that countries in the Asia-Pacific region can no longer put off protecting development gains from adverse shocks. We need to rebuild better towards a more resilient, inclusive, and sustainable future.

We know that the post-pandemic outlook remains highly uncertain. The 2021 Economic and Social Survey for Asia and the Pacific released today by ESCAP shows that regional economic recovery will be vulnerable to the continuing COVID-19 threats and a likely uneven vaccine rollout. Worse, there is a risk that economic recovery will be skewed towards the better off – a “K-shaped” recovery that further marginalizes poorer countries and the disadvantaged.

Building a resilient and inclusive future

The good news is that countries in Asia and the Pacific have taken bold policy measures to minimize the pandemic’s social and economic damage, including unprecedented fiscal and monetary support. Last year, developing countries in the region announced some $1.8 trillion, or nearly 7 per cent of their combined GDP, in COVID-19 related budgetary support. But investments in long-term economic resilience, inclusiveness, and green transformation have so far been limited.

The region’s vulnerability to shocks like COVID-19 was heightened by its lagging performance towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, which would have enhanced resilience by reducing entrenched social, economic, and environmental deficits.

The evidence shows that we need a better understanding of the Asia-Pacific region’s complex risk landscape, and a comprehensive approach to building resilience in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. Building resilience into policy frameworks and institutions will require aligning fiscal and monetary policies and structural reforms with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

ESCAP research maps out a “riskscape” of economic and non-economic shocks – financial crises, terms-of-trade shocks, natural disasters, and epidemics – and shows that all adverse shocks have cause severe damage to the region’s social, economic, and environmental well-being. It takes several years for investment and labour markets to return to their pre-crisis levels. Adverse shocks also leave behind long-term scars by widening inequality and increasing pollution. But bold policy choices can reduce setbacks. Governments must implement aggressive policy responses to protect hard-won development gains.

Notably, policy packages should align post-pandemic recovery with the 2030 Agenda. ESCAP recommends a policy package focusing on three areas – ensuring universal access to health care and social protection, closing the digital divide and strengthening climate and energy actions. Estimates show that such an approach could reduce the number of poor people in the region by almost 180 million and cut carbon emissions by about 30 per cent in the long run.

Resilience is largely affordable

Building resilience does not add too much financial burden to the region if such investments are accompanied by bold policy actions, such as ending fuel subsidies and introducing a carbon tax. A range of policy options can meet immediate and medium-term financing needs with great potential for Asia-Pacific countries to leverage these options.

However, it is important to note that several countries will need to engage closely with international development partners and the private sector. Least developed countries with significant “resilience gaps” will also require international assistance. Developed countries that fulfil their Overseas Development Aid (ODA) and climate finance commitments will go a long way in scaling up long-term investments and addressing these countries’ vulnerability to shocks.

COVID-19 has been a trauma like no other. Yet, it offers a unique opportunity for governments and other stakeholders to chart a new path to rebuilding. Whilst being forced to adjust, the Asia-Pacific region has seen fundamental transformations in lives, workplaces and habits. It is high time that the region takes its lessons from this pandemic and commits to a foundation that ensures a solid ability to withstand future jolts to the system without its people, and the planet, having to again pay a high price.

Ms. Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is the United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific (ESCAP)

 

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France's defence ministry disputes the findings, saying its forces targeted "terrorists".

The BBC's Quentin Sommerville visits Tarhuna where the victims of years of civil war are being reburied.

Prospects for post COVID-19 recovery are dangerously diverging, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) The United Nations said developing nations have spent 580 times less per capita on their COVID-19 response, in comparison to richer nations, because they do not have the money to do so. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By Nalisha Adams
BONN, Germany, Mar 30 2021 (IPS)

The inability of developing nations to spend on post COVID-19 recovery and resilience has placed the world on the “the verge of a debt crisis”. “We face the spectre of a divided world and a lost decade for development,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said on Monday, Mar. 29, during a high-level meeting on financing development post COVID-19.

He said that developing nations needed access to liquidity to allow them to sufficiently respond to the pandemic and invest in recovery and urged the global community to provide this necessary support.

Guterres highlighted the over 2.7 million COVID-19-related deaths and the over 128 million people who fell into extreme poverty over the last year.

He noted that while the world’s rich nations have benefited from an unprecedented $18 trillion of emergency support measures, setting the stage for economic recovery post COVID-19, many developing nations could not invest in recovery and resilience. In fact many have spent 580 times less per capita on their COVID-19 response, in comparison to richer nations, because they do not have the money to do so.

One third of emerging market economies where at high risk for fiscal crisis while six countries had already defaulted on loan payments. Guterres said the situation was even worse for least-developed and low-income countries.

“They face a painfully slow recovery that will put the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement completely out of reach,” Guterres warned.

The meeting titled “International Debt Architecture and Liquidity – Financing for Development in the Era of COVID-19 and Beyond Initiative” was convened jointly by Guterres, Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“We are at a turning point in the COVID-19 crisis,” Guterres said.

He said the stark reality of lack of funding among developing nations was clearly evident in the access to COVID-19 vaccines.

“Many developed countries are on the brink of mass vaccination drives. In developing countries this could take months, if not years, further delaying a global recovery,” Guterres said.

Jamaican Prime Minister Holness said that while vaccine rollouts where gathering pace, “an uneven and inequitable vaccination programme will lead to an uneven global recovery and sadly a re-inforcement of poverty”.

“Unless we are prepared to enter deeper cooperation with fairer, smarter, and broader views of our world and common interests, we should temper our expectations that the crisis is nearing its end,”  Holness said.

While Guterres welcomed that steps that had been taken to date by international financial institutions, noting the G20s debt services suspension initiative and the common framework for debt treatments, he said this was still “far from enough”.

He also pointed out that the common framework for debt treatments was facing difficulties as countries were reluctant to use debt recovery mechanisms as they were concerned this would have a negative impact on their credit ratings.

He said there was an opportunity to address weaknesses in current debt architecture. 

“Ultimately we need a shift in mindsets to responsible borrowing and lending.”

Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said because of the closure of export opportunities and lowering commodity prices, COVID-19 has worsened debt dynamics for many developing countries.

“The collapse of export receipts from tourism has prompted balance of payment difficulties for many developing countries, especially island economies from the Caribbean to the Pacific to the India Ocean,” Okonjo-Iweala said.

She noted that the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, trade finance dried up for ‘several’ low-income nations as foreign banks cut existing credit lines or refused to endorse letters of credit unless guaranteed by others.

“Without trade finance countries cannot import the basic necessities, they can only do it by paying cash in advance,” she said, adding that action on trade can help alleviate debt pressures.

“Lowering trade barriers gives countries more opportunities to push down their debt to export ratios. Addressing supply side constraints and improving access to trade finance would help them take better advantage of market opportunities,”  Okonjo-Iweala said.

She said that by delivering results at the WTO, including at the organisation’s 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12), which will take place in November, “governments can reinforce the predictable framework of rules that underpin global trade and enhance the ability of countries to earn their foreign exchange they need”.

“Lost decades are a policy choice. We can and we must do better,” Okonjo-Iweala said.

Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), admitted that while the global economic outlook was improving thanks to efforts on vaccines and unprecedented actions by governments and the international community “prospects for recovery are dangerously diverging”. 

“What we can now report is that relative to pre-crisis projections, and excluding China, this group [of developing nations] is projected by 2022 to have cumulative per capita income losses as high as 20 percent,” Georgieva said, noting this would be a one-fifth loss of what was already a lower income to begin with.

The per capital income loss in advanced economies would be 11 percent, she said.

“We need a comprehensive approach to support vulnerable countries and people. And it must include measures at home to improve revenue collection, spending efficiency … as well as very substantial international support, [such as] grants and concessional lending,” Georgieva said.

She said the IMF would do its part through concessional financing. She also noted that the new special drawing rights (SDRs) or supplementary foreign exchange reserve assets defined and maintained by the IMF, of $650 billion, which was endorsed by the G7 earlier this month to address the long term needs for formal assets. She said she submit a proposal in June to provide more transparency into lending.

“A new SDR allocation would support the global recovery, provide substantial direct liquidity boosts to all IMF members, without adding to debt burdens, and freeing up resources for countries under pressure to do what is right and take care of their people and their businesses,”  Georgieva said.

She said in parallel the IMF was exploring options for members with strong financial positions to reallocate SDRs to support vulnerable countries.

She added that action on debt was an integral part of the comprehensive response to COVID-19 recovery.

President of the World Bank Group David Malpass said the world faced devastating challenges, especially for the poorest countries.

“For countries with unsustainable debt we are looking for solutions that meet both the near-term liquidity challenges and the longer-term sustainability challenges,” Malpass said, explaining that solutions for both time frames was critical in helping people get access to resources for health, education and climate.

He said along with the IMF, the World Bank was supporting the G20s debt services suspension initiative that saw 40 countries benefit from $6 billion in debt services suspension last year. He added that the 6-month extension of debt services suspension initiative to June 2021 could provide an additional $7 billion of temporary relief for countries.

President of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Akinwumi A. Adesina said the COVID-19 pandemic “has devastated Africa’s accounts” in a year that saw 106,000 deaths related to the virus and GDP decline of between $145 to 190 billion.

Despite the current situation, Adesina said that the AfDB projects that the Africa’s read GDP growth would recover from -2.1 percent GDP growth in 2020 to 3.4 percent for 2021. He added, however, that this growth was conditional on equitable access to vaccines and on resolving Africa’s debt distress. He said the structure of Africa’s debt had changed dramatically and its total external debt stands at $700 billion.

“We need global solidarity on vaccine access for Africa. We also need global solidarity on debt for Africa,” Adesina said.

He called for the extension of the G20 debt services suspension initiative and for it to also include vulnerable and middle income countries.

 

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