Africa

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The prime minister's wife is formally charged with murdering her husband's previous wife in 2017.

Though most developed countries treat sewage, treatment levels do not generally remove nutrients from the wastewater that is discharged. One exception is the state of Maryland (U.S.) where all major sewage treatment plants are required to upgrade to enhanced nutrient removal technologies that will remove most of the nutrients from the wastewater. Credit: Chesapeake Bay Program

By Manzoor Qadir and Vladimir Smakhtin
HAMILTON, Canada, Feb 5 2020 (IPS)

Vast amounts of valuable energy, agricultural nutrients, and water could be recovered from the world’s fast-growing volume of municipal wastewater.

Some 380 billion cubic meters (1 m3 = 1000 litres) of wastewater are produced annually worldwide — five times the amount of water passing over Niagara Falls annually. That’s enough to fill Africa’s Lake Victoria in roughly seven years, Lake Ontario in four.

Furthermore, wastewater volumes are increasing quickly, with a projected rise of roughly 24% by 2030, 51% by 2050.

Looked at another way, the volume of wastewater roughly equals the annual discharge from the Ganges River in India. By the mid-2030s, it will roughly equal the annual volume flowing through the St. Lawrence River, which drains North America’s five Great Lakes.

Among major nutrients, 16.6 million metric tonnes of nitrogen are embedded in the world’s current annual volume of wastewater, together with 3 million metric tonnes of phosphorus and 6.3 million metric tonnes of potassium.

Theoretically, the recovery of these nutrients could offset 13.4% of global agricultural demand for them.

Recovery of these nutrients in that quantity could generate revenue of $13.6 billion globally at current prices: $9.0 billion in nitrogen, $2.3 billion in phosphorus, and $2.3 billion in potassium.

The energy embedded in wastewater, meanwhile, could provide electricity to 158 million households — roughly the number of households in the USA and Mexico combined.

Beyond the economic gains, environmental benefits of recovering these nutrients include minimizing eutrophication — the phenomenon of excess nutrients causing dense plant growth and aquatic animal deaths due to lack of oxygen.

In its new study, funded by the Government of Canada, the UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) provide these estimates and projections based on a new analysis of the world’s total annual wastewater production.

In many countries, official data on wastewater is often scattered, poorly monitored and reported, or simply unavailable. Nonetheless, our study offers important approximations of global and regional wastewater volumes and insights into its potential benefits.

Our study found that Asia is the largest wastewater producing region by volume — an estimated 159 billion cubic meters, representing 42% of urban wastewater generated globally, with that proportion expected to rise to 44% by 2030.

Other top wastewater-producing regions: North America (67 billion cubic meters) and Europe (68 billion cubic meters) — virtually equal volumes despite Europe’s higher urban population (547 million vs. North America’s 295 million).

The difference is explained by per capita generation: Europeans 124 cubic meters; North Americans 231 cubic meters).

By contrast, Sub-Saharan Africa produces 46 cubic meters of wastewater per capita — about half the global average (95 cubic meters), reflecting limited water supply and poorly-managed wastewater collection systems in most urban settings.

Achieving a high rate of return on wastewater resource recovery will require overcoming a range of constraints. But success would significantly advance progress against the Sustainable Development Goals and others, including adaptation to climate change, ‘net-zero’ energy processes, and a green, circular economy.

It is important to note that many innovative technologies are available today and are being refined to narrow the gap between current and potential resource recovery levels. In the case of phosphorous, for example, recovery rates of up to 90% are already possible.

Also needed to advance progress: to leverage private capital by creating a supportive regulatory and financial environment, particularly in low- and middle-income countries where most municipal wastewater still goes into the environment untreated.

Municipal wastewater was and often still is simply deemed to be filth. However, attitudes are changing with the growing recognition of the enormous potential economic returns and other environmental benefits its proper management represents.

As the demands for freshwater grow and scarce water resources are increasingly stressed, ignoring the opportunity for greater use of safely-managed wastewater is an unthinkable waste.

We hope this study helps inspire the development of national action plans leading to wastewater collection and resource recovery and reuse.

Safely managed, wastewater is a key achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 6.3, which calls on the world to halve the proportion of untreated wastewater, and to substantially increase its recycling and safe reuse globally by 2030.

*The paper, “Global and regional potential of wastewater as water, nutrient, and energy source,” is published by Wiley in Natural Resources Forum, a UN Sustainable Development Journal. Co-authors: Manzoor Qadir, Praem Mehta, UNU-INWEH, Canada; Younggy Kim, McMaster University, Canada; Blanca Jiménez Cisneros, UNAM, Mexico; Pay Drechsel, IWMI, Sri Lanka; Amit Pramanik, Water Research Foundation, USA; Oluwabusola Olaniyan, Winnipeg Water and Waste Department, Canada.

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Excerpt:

Vladimir Smakhtin is Director, and Manzoor Qadir is Assistant Director, of UNU-INWEH, a global leader in research related to unconventional water sources, supported by the Government of Canada through Global Affairs Canada and hosted by McMaster University.

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Former child solider Mulume Bujiriri* (front left) from the Democratic Republic of Congo. A new report on Children and Armed Conflict states that children allegedly associated with terrorist organisations should be treated as victims of terrorism, not accomplices and noted that often governments “criminalised” children instead of offering them the proper support. Credit: Einberger/argum/EED/IPS

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

Counter-terrorism efforts adopted by governments around the world in response to threats of terrorism are affecting children negatively in numerous ways, a report by Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict (Watchlist) claimed last week. 

The policy note claimed a lot of these counter-terrorism measures “lack adequate safeguards for children” and lose sight of how they’re detrimental to children against the bigger picture of fighting terror threats. 

It further listed six ways in which children are affected through counter-terrorism efforts by states: treatment of children alleged to have terrorist affiliations; inability of governments to maintain internationally recognised juvenile justice standards; erosion of “principle of distinction”; being huddled in the definition of “foreign terrorist fighters”; denial of access to humanitarian needs brought upon by measures such as sanctions; and the Screening, Prosecution, Rehabilitation and Reintegration (SPRR) measures being loosely applied. 

Children allegedly associated with terrorist organisations should be treated as victims of terrorism, not accomplices, the report read, adding that too often governments instead “criminalise” children without providing them proper support. 

“Children have been tortured, subjected to ill-treatment, and unlawfully and/or arbitrarily detained on national security-related charges for their actual or alleged association with these groups,” read the report. 

Experts echo this sentiment.

“Children may also be vulnerable to recruitment and exploitation by these armed groups,” Joe English of United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) told IPS. “From north-east Nigeria to Somalia, Iraq and Syria to Yemen and beyond, children who have been recruited and exploited by armed groups in any kind of conflict are first and foremost victims whose rights have been violated.”

According to a 2019 U.N. report on terrorist exploitation of the youth, children can get recruited by terrorist units for a variety of reasons, such as their location and its proximity to a terrorist group, financial instability, societal perceptions or political marginalisation, and exposure to extremist propaganda — factors children have little control over. 

“We know that armed groups use duress, coercion, manipulation and violence to force or persuade children to join them, while some children may have lived in areas controlled by these armed groups have no meaningful choice but to associate with them,” says English. 

That is why it’s crucial that children are provided with care instead of further marginalisation if they are preyed upon by terrorist groups.

“All children in these situations, must be treated primarily as victims of human rights violations. Children affected by armed conflict should be supported with evidence-based services that aid their recovery and support their reintegration into communities,” says English of UNICEF, adding that the children should instead be provided support to “reintegrate into their communities and recover.”  

Meanwhile, it’s also important to ensure that international laws and procedures are followed in the event that children are detained. 

As the Watchlist report claims, special provisions designed for children in the justice system, as dictated by International Humanitarian Law (IHL), must be followed. 

English, of UNICEF, agrees. “Detention of children should only be a measure of last resort and for the shortest possible time,” he says. “Children should not be investigated or prosecuted for alleged crimes committed by their family members or for association with designated terrorist groups or other armed groups. Children should be provided with psychosocial services, legal assistance and support to reintegrate into their families and communities.”

While children are vulnerable to falling prey to terrorist ideology or recruiting due to a number of reasons, it’s not that the population is devoid of concerns about terrorism. According to a UNICEF survey conducted across 14 countries in 2017, violence and terrorism are concerns on children’s radars — as issues that they would be impacted by as well as issues their peers will suffer from. The survey included children from the ages of 9 to 18, according to English, who shared the data with IPS.

“Children across all 14 countries surveyed were equally concerned about terrorism with 65 percent of all children surveyed worrying a lot about this issue,” he said. 

As such, heavy concerns remain regarding children’s well-being in conflict-prone areas. There are numerous ways in which they can be affected, says English, echoing the findings of the Witness report. 

“Children are disproportionately victims of armed conflict, including conflicts with armed groups that target and terrify civilians,” he told IPS. “Children may be caught up in attacks themselves, or lose their parents, family members or caregivers. Their homes, schools or the hospitals and health clinics they rely on may come under attack.”

Currently UNICEF operates in 14 countries providing services to children on their path out of armed forces and armed groups, says English, and working with governments to advocate for children to be identified as victims so that their families receive support to rehabilitate them. 

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The post Children are Bearing the Bitter Brunt of Counter-Terrorism Efforts: Report appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Barilla Foundation
Feb 5 2020 (IPS-Partners)

Today, February 5, 2020, Italy is celebrating its seventh National Day against Food Waste.
According to the Food Sustainability Index, developed by Barilla Foundation with the Economist Intelligence Unit, every year Italians waste 65 kg of food per person.

This is an alarming figure considering that in addition to being an ethical problem, food waste fuels climate change, generating 8% of annual greenhouse gases.

Food lost or wasted every year around the world translates into a financial loss of 2.6 trillion dollars a year, while also wasting the natural resources used to produce it.

The fruit and vegetables we throw away every year in fact required over 73 million cubic meters of water to be produced, enough to fulfill the drinking water requirements of a whole region of Italy like Apulia for 153 days. Not to mention the fact that 28% of the land available around the world is used to produce food that isn’t consumed.

The figures for this waste show that we are facing a dramatic situation which, globally, is stopping us from achieving the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN’s 2030 Agenda. Visit the Barilla Foundation website to find out all the projects, articles and publications put in place to better understand the causes and therefore identify the solutions in terms of food losses and waste.

Su-Eatable Life Project, a three-year initiative funded by the European Commission, designed to save about 5,300 tons of CO2 equivalent and around 2 million cubic meters of water related to food consumption in Europe, has been launched. With the support of an easy-to-use information system, sustainable menus will be introduced to company and university canteens (in Italy and the UK). Barilla Foundation is spearheading the project, working alongside GreenApes, Wageninen University and the Sustainable Restaurant Association.

Each of us can play a part in making a change! Here are a few tips to reduce waste in the home

1) Shop rationally: before you buy, check what you really need, make a list – and stick to it – remember that wasting food is also a waste of money
2) When you’re cooking, keep an eye on your quantities and only cook what you can eat
3) Check your labels: always check the ‘eat before’ dates
4) When storing food in the fridge, put the short-life food in front and store in the freezer what you are not likely to eat soon
5) Recipes to avoid food waste: don’t bin leftovers and food waste, they can be turned into new creative dishes

The post Italy dedicates a day to the fight against Food Waste appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Gold mine known as "Ocho muertos" ("Eight Dead") in Las Claritas, Venezuela. Credit: Clavel A. Rangel/HRW

By External Source
NEW YORK, Feb 5 2020 (IPS)

Residents of Venezuela’s southern Bolívar state are suffering amputations and other horrific abuses at the hands of armed groups, including Venezuelan groups called “syndicates” in the area and Colombian armed groups operating in the region, both of which exercise control over gold mines, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday, February 4.

The armed groups seem to operate largely with government acquiescence, and in some cases government involvement, to maintain tight social control over local populations.

“It is critical for gold buyers and refineries to ensure that any Venezuelan gold in their supply chains is not stained with the blood of Venezuelan victims.”

Venezuela has reserves of highly valued resources like gold, diamonds, and nickel, as well as coltan and uranium. Although the government has announced efforts to attract partners for legal mining and a crackdown on illegal mining, most gold mining in southern states, including Bolívar, is illegal, with much of the gold smuggled out of the country.

The various syndicates that control the mines exert strict control over the populations who live and work there, impose abusive working conditions, and viciously treat those accused of theft and other offenses – in the worst cases, they have dismembered and killed alleged offenders in front of other workers.

“Poor Venezuelans driven to work in gold mining by the ongoing economic crisis and humanitarian emergency have become victims of macabre crimes by armed groups that control illegal mines in southern Venezuela,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “It is critical for gold buyers and refineries to ensure that any Venezuelan gold in their supply chains is not stained with the blood of Venezuelan victims.”

The operations of these illegal mines are also having a devastating impact on the environment and the health of workers, local sources said. Internal economic migration due to the economic and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela has increased the number of people seeking to work in mining areas. Many residents live in fear and are exposed to harsh working conditions, poor sanitation, and an extremely high risk of diseases such as malaria.

In October 2019, Human Rights Watch interviewed 21 people who had worked in mines or mining towns in Bolívar state in 2018 and 2019, including the mines near Las Claritas, El Callao, El Dorado, and El Algarrobo.

In October and November, Human Rights Watch interviewed 15 other people, including leaders of indigenous groups in the area, journalists and experts who visited the area recently, and family members of people working in mines, and reviewed reports by independent groups and media outlets, which were consistent with accounts from the people interviewed in the field. Human Rights Watch also reviewed satellite imagery that shows the growth of mining in this area.

 

Satellite image recorded as of January 3, 2020 shows the extension of Las Claritas mining site in Bolivar State, Venezuela. © 2020 Planet Labs

 

Numerous people interviewed said that many mines in Bolívar are under the tight control of Venezuelan syndicates or Colombian armed groups. The International Crisis Group has reported that both the Colombian rebel group National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional, ELN) and at least one dissident group that emerged from the demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC) operate in the area. Several people interviewed also said that these groups were active in Bolívar.

People interviewed also said that Venezuelan authorities are aware of the illegal mining activities. Ten people who worked at the mines, two journalists covering the area, and a local indigenous leader said that state security agents have visited mining sites to collect bribes.

Some of these sources said they witnessed this. Two people working in the mines and the indigenous leader, interviewed by Human Rights Watch separately, claimed they saw a top official from the Nicolás Maduro government visit the mines in different incidents.

The armed groups, who are effectively in charge of the mines and the settlements that have grown up around them, brutally enforce their rule. “Everyone knows the rules,” one resident said. “If you steal or mix gold with another product, the pran [the syndicate leader] will beat or kill you.” Another said “They are the government there…. If you steal, they ‘disappear’ you.”

As detailed below, four residents said that they witnessed members of syndicates amputating or shooting the hands of people accused of stealing. Several other residents said they knew of cases in which syndicate members had cut offenders into pieces with a chainsaw, ax, or machete.

Residents are also exposed to mercury, which miners use to extract the gold, despite it being prohibited in Venezuela. Mercury can cause serious health problems, even in small amounts, with toxic effects on the nervous, digestive, and immune systems, and on lungs, kidneys, skin, and eyes.

Studies conducted in mining areas in Bolívar many years ago already found high levels of mercury exposure, including among women and children, for whom the health risks are even higher and, for pregnant women, include serious disability or death of the fetus and, if carried to term, the child.

In addition, residents described consistently harsh working conditions in the mines, including working 12-hour shifts without any protective gear and children as young as 10 working alongside adults.

The malaria epidemic affecting Venezuela is closely correlated with the upsurge of illegal mining in the south of Venezuela. Often, miners live outdoors in tents, which increases their exposure to mosquitoes. Deforested mining pits, which fill with rainwater, provide an excellent breeding environment for malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

 

Satellite imagery show a significant increase in the number and expansion of mining sites along Chicanan River in Bolivar State, Venezuela, since 2016. © 2020 Planet Labs

 

Nearly every person interviewed who had worked in mines or mining towns had had malaria, many of them multiple times. The public health system, amid the humanitarian emergency in the country, has not been able to provide treatment to everyone. Several interviewees said they sometimes had to purchase antimalarial drugs, which could cost up to two grams of gold, currently about US$100 on the international market.

Human Rights Watch has been unable to find any public information regarding investigations into the criminal responsibility of government officials or Venezuelan security forces implicated in these abuses.

On November 14, Human Rights Watch requested information from Venezuela’s authorities on the status of prosecutions against those responsible for abuses committed by armed groups in Bolívar, including government officials and members of Venezuelan security forces complicit in abuses, but has received no response.

Human Rights Watch was unable to identify whether any of the gold mined under the control of syndicates was sold or whether it is in the supply chain of any specific companies. Nonetheless, companies should be vigilant about gold from Venezuela and undertake human rights due diligence to identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for their impact on human rights connected to their operations, consistent with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

In the case of Venezuelan gold, this includes identifying and assessing risks in supply chains, monitoring a business’ human rights impact on an ongoing basis, publishing information about due diligence efforts, and having processes in place to remediate adverse human rights impacts of their actions.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has stated that businesses have an obligation to adopt due diligence procedures to ensure that the minerals they engage with do not come out of “conflict” or “high-risk” areas – that is, areas in which armed conflict, widespread violence, collapse of civil infrastructure, or other risks of harm to people are present.

“National and international companies buying gold from Venezuela should know whether it comes from mines in Bolívar state and should have due diligence procedures in place to ensure that their supply chains are free from illicit, exploitative, and violent activities,” Vivanco said.

“If companies find that their gold supply is linked to some of these abuses, or are unable to trace its source, they should work to fix those problems or cease working with those suppliers.”

 

This story was originally published by Human Rights Watch

 

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Malawi's Constitutional Court annulled last May's election result on Monday, citing irregularities.

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Youth at the Grand Médine town hall in Dakar, Senegal. Senegal has a large youth population, half of which is under the age of 18. By 2025, 376,000 youth are expected to enter the job market that offers only 30,000 jobs. And this number will rise to 411,000 in 2030, according to the Wilson Centre. Credit: Samuelle Paul Banga/IPS

By Mantoe Phakathi
MBABANE, Feb 4 2020 (IPS)

Africa’s inability to produce adequate skills is negatively impacting its economic growth.

In fact, the continent is not getting a good return even on the minimal investment it is making in education, says Thembinkosi Dlamini, an economist and senior extractives lead at Oxfam South Africa.

He was responding to one of the main findings in the African Development Bank’s (AfDB) 2020 Africa Outlook Report, released last week. Titled Developing Africa’s Workforce for the Future, the report  notes that most African countries at all levels of income exhibit lower educational attainment, both in quantity and quality.

Thembinkosi Dlamini told IPS that education in Africa remains untransformed to meet the skills of the future. He attributed this to lack of foresight and dwindling public investments in education.

The report notes that many African countries’ student expenditure is the lowest in the world, at $533 for primary and $925 for high school. This is despite the fact that African countries allocated an average of 5 percent of GDP and 16 percent of government budget to education – just above the United Nations recommended lower limit of 4 and 15 percent, respectively from 2010-17.

As a result, Africa’s growth has not been inclusive because of the lack of jobs in high-productivity sectors such as manufacturing. Moreover, large swaths of the population are stuck in low-productivity, low-paying jobs in traditional agriculture and informal sectors.

“The slow pace of structural transformation stems from shortcomings in human capital reflecting low skills and education levels,” reads the report. 

Only about a third of African countries have achieved inclusive growth. The report observes that countries with better education outcomes and higher rates of structural change are more likely to achieve inclusive growth.

“Countries with active inequality-reducing policies have better prospects of reducing extreme poverty more by 2030,” states the report.

The report also points out that there is a lack of complementarity between physical and human capital in African countries resulting in a limited contribution of education to increasing labour productivity growth at the macro level.

“Public investments in both education and infrastructure can yield greater benefits in promoting long-term growth than investing only in education or only in infrastructure because both types of investment strongly complement each other,” reads the report.

Speaking at the launch of the report in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, AfDB president, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, said physical infrastructure, while important, is not enough to drive much needed greater growth and productivity of African economies.

“African countries should accelerate investments as well as the development of human capital,” said Adesina.

Unemployable with a master’s in engineering

The lack of investments or available job market is a case in point for Mkhonzeni Dlamini’s [no relation to Thembinkosi Dlamini]. 

Mkhonzeni Dlamini (32) graduated with a BA in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Eswatini six years ago. He thought getting a job would be easy because Eswatini’s government had classified his qualification as one of the priority courses owing to the shortage of engineers in the country. However, Mkhonzeni Dlamini failed to get a job the following year. He then decided to pursue a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering in Taiwan, hoping that this would improve his chances. He graduated in 2018 and returned home.

“Even now, I’m unemployed,” he told IPS, adding: “I don’t understand why a person with my skill is failing to get a job considering that the country needs engineers to develop.”

The visibly frustrated Mkhonzeni Dlamini blamed this situation to the “government’s poor planning”, saying that there are many other young graduates, including doctors, who are idling at home because there are no jobs.

“The government doesn’t seem to have a training plan to match available jobs. In fact, the government doesn’t seem to know how many students are on training and plan to create jobs for those graduates,” said Mkhonzeni Dlamini.

Having searched for a job since his return in 2018, he is now considering leaving the continent.

“Like many African graduates who are frustrated like me, we’re now thinking of going back to the countries that colonised us,” he said. Mkhonzeni Dlamini is exploring possibilities of getting a job in the United Kingdom.

Educating Africa’s youth for jobs of the future

Meanwhile, Adesina said youth unemployment must be given top priority. With 12 million graduates entering the labour market each year and only three million of them getting jobs, the mountain of youth unemployment is rising annually.

He said given the fast pace of changes, driven by the 4th industrial revolution – from artificial intelligence to robotics, machine learning, quantum computing – Africa must invest more in re-directing and re-skilling its labour force and, especially the youth, to effectively participate.

“The youth must be prepared for the jobs of the future – not the jobs of the past,” said Adesina.

Thembinkosi Dlamini agreed.

“We haven’t seen academic papers recently testing the relevance of the education to current and future needs of the economy,”Thembinkosi Dlamini told IPS, adding: “The report correctly points out the high skills mismatch particularly amongst youth employees [saying] that Africans are miseducated.”

Leave no country, no youth behind

Despite the limitations in the workforce, the report notes some success stories on the continent.

In 2019, East Africa was the fastest-growing region, and North Africa continued to make the largest contribution to Africa’s overall GDP growth, due mainly to Egypt’s strong growth momentum. Moreover, six African countries are among the world’s 10 fastest-growing economies: Rwanda at 8.7 percent, Ethiopia 7.4 percent, Côte d’Ivoire 7.4 percent, Ghana 7.1 percent, Tanzania 6.8 percent, and Benin 6.7 percent.

Former Liberian President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who attended the launch together with ministers and other dignitaries, described these six economies as the “stars among us”.

“We want to see more, particularly countries like mine, which have been left behind, so that more can be done to give them the support that they need,” she said.

• Economic growth in Africa is estimated at 3.4 percent for 2019, about the same as in 2018. Although stable, this growth rate is 0.6 percentage point less than the rate projected in the 2019 African Economic Outlook. It is also below the decadal average growth for the region (5 percent).
• The slower than expected growth is due partly to the modest expansion of the continent’s “big five” — Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, and South Africa — which jointly grew at an average rate of only 3.1 percent, compared with the average of 4.0 percent for the rest of the continent’s economies, notes the report.
• Africa’s GDP growth is marginally above the world average of 3.0 percent for 2019 and well above the average for advanced economies at 1.7 percent.
• It also exceeds that of emerging and developing economies outside Africa, excluding China and India. 

While the statistics matter, AfDB’s Adesina said the faces behind the figures should be prioritised.

“And every single day we work, let’s look at the real lives behind the statistics. Let’s hear their voices. Let’s feel their aspirations,” said Adesina.

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The post Africa Must Prioritise Upskilling its Unemployed Youth, Development Bank Urges appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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