Africa

The UN says global temperature rise could lead to more frequent and more intense extreme weather events, such as prolonged droughts or devastating floods. Nations are “nowhere close” to the level of action needed to fight global warming, according to a UN climate action report released February 2021. The study urged countries to adopt stronger and more ambitious plans to reach the Paris Agreement goals, and limit the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, by the end of the century. Credit: WFP/Matteo Cosorich

By Naomi Goodman
AMSTERDAM, the Netherlands, Mar 24 2021 (IPS)

We should be well on the way to solving the climate crisis by now.

According to the Paris Agreement, last year should have been the year that all countries presented their commitments to cut carbon emissions for limiting global climate heating to within 1.5oC of pre-industrial levels.

A quarter of the way into 2021, we’ve well and truly passed the original Paris Agreement deadline. We are still awaiting submission of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) from some of the most politically and scientifically significant global emitters, climate action further delayed by a devastating global pandemic.

It’s a crisis on top of a crisis. The impacts of the climate crisis are already being felt, and the most vulnerable are the nations that also lack the resilience to weather the storm. Millions of people have already lost their lives to the climate emergency, and it’s mostly happening in the global south.

The picture is incredibly grim. The most recent UNFCCC synthesis report concluded that the contributions presented in 2020, from countries representing around 30% of global emissions, would amount to just a 1% reduction of CO2, instead of the minimal 15% needed from these countries by 2030 to get 1.5oC aligned.

70% of the world’s emissions will be addressed in NDCs yet to be presented ahead of the Glasgow COP26 in November, and we have little idea what we can expect to see.

The two biggest emitters, China and the US, are set to share their NDC targets in the coming months. Their ambition, or lack of ambition, will directly impact our wellbeing for decades to come. What we really need is for these two players to work together with a common purpose, leveraging their diplomatic influence in support of a strong and inclusive multilateral process.

There is always room for hope. China already took the world by surprise with its 2060 carbon neutrality target announcement on the occasion of the UNGA in New York last September, and a promise to peak emissions before 2030. Biden came to power with a strong climate mandate and has pledged that the US will become carbon neutral by 2050.

Solar panels in Tahala – Documentation of a solar energy project in the remote southern village of Tahala, Souss-Massa-Drâa region, Morocco. Credit: Zakaria Wakrim / Greenpeace

But why not hope further? It’s not enough to have long term international pledges without short term domestic measures. China’s NDC could also define the necessary constraints on fossil fuel-based GDP growth. A halt on all new coal infrastructure would enable Beijing to bring that emissions peak forward to 2025, aligning with the 1.5oC Paris goals.

China’s latest five-year plans did not indicate such a concrete decarbonisation pathway, but it could still be achieved. The US would also need to deliver hard policy measures in support of the clean energy transition rhetoric.

In reality, we need to see a 70% emission reduction target from the US by 2030, against 2005 levels, with some observers indicating a figure of 63% or more would be feasible in the context of Biden’s razor thin majority. Whatever the headline number, a credible set of short term domestic measures, executive orders and policy proposals must be offered in support.

We need to see substantial action on the ground from both China and the US, prioritising absolute emission reductions at source, with a meaningful timeline for the managed decline of fossil fuel production alongside a just transition for workers and communities both at home and abroad.

This is a global emergency, it is not just about the US and China, in fact, all countries need to up their ambition. Japan, South Korea and New Zealand need to improve upon the inadequate pledges they’ve so far offered. We are especially calling out Brazil with deforestation rates at their highest in a decade and ever worsening devastation from Amazon forest fires, effectively reducing the ambition of its previous commitment from five years ago, and Australia, whose NDC demonstrated a flatlining of ambition despite multiple of its major ecosystems facing collapse including the Great Barrier Reef.

One of the fundamental values of the UN system is that it has put nations on an equal footing irrespective of their standing; one country, one vote, allows vulnerable nations to be equally heard.

The Paris Agreement cemented the notion of shared responsibility across all nations, but the fact remains that those who had the biggest hand in causing the climate emergency are the countries who need to step up now and deliver the most to solve it.

Many global south countries are suffering the toughest economic consequences from the pandemic, and so we need even stronger leadership from governments that can afford to show ambition.

The EU and the UK, whose NDCs are upgraded but still underwhelming, need to leverage their diplomatic weight and set the example with greater ambition. What is pledged now will either lead us to a future of relative security, or set us on a pathway to uncertainty and danger, where the combination of ecosystem degradation and increasingly damaging weather cycles will have devastating impacts well beyond our conceivable capacity to cope.

Big emitting countries must recognise the significance of this moment and open up space for genuine, long-lasting cooperation, delivering on the spirit of equity as well as the substance of the Paris Agreement: support for finance and adaptation, as well as substantial, improved emission reduction targets which tackle real problems and transformational industrial shifts in good faith.

Every person on this planet deserves a healthy future, clean air and water, food security, and sustainable resilient cities. We need COP26 to give business a clear direction and a level playing field for bringing about the change that needs to happen now to protect our planet for the safety and future of all generations. If governments do not act to solve this crisis their citizens will make them act.

We are calling on leaders to follow the numbers and recognise the urgency of the climate crisis. The world is already at 1.06-1.25oC of climate heating; every decimal point of avoided heating now is critical to our survival on this planet. We’re in a desperate existential emergency but there is still hope.

 

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The post Hope & Numbers: What will it take to Tip the Scales on Climate Action? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The writer is International Climate Political Advisor at Greenpeace International

The post Hope & Numbers: What will it take to Tip the Scales on Climate Action? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The woven fabric has long been a political symbol but Louis Vuitton has put it in a fashion show.

For months both countries have denied that troops crossed the border to participate in the conflict.

Some South Africans have been turning to 'rage rooms' to help them cope with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The death toll from co-ordinated attacks on three villages rises to 137 - the worst of its kind.

New research suggests that socio-emotional and digital skills are linked to the increased agribusiness skills of youth. Photo: CC by 2.0/iHub

By Abdulrahman Olagunju
IBADAAN, Nigeria, Mar 23 2021 (IPS)

Saheed Babajide, a young animal production graduate and a manager at a national milk production company in Iseyin, Nigeria, is a beneficiary of the government’s youth agriculture intervention programme. But he feels he received almost no training during the three years he participated. 

“We thought we will go through rigorous trainings in our various fields in agriculture, but to our surprise we were just given a training manual merely containing little or nothing about specific agricultural training as a training guide throughout the three years of engagement,” says Babajide of his time during the “N-power AGRO programme”.

The “N-power AGRO programme” was launched in 2016 as a national social investment programme designed to create jobs and empower Nigerians aged 18 to 35.

“Relatively no training was given about our fields, talk less of trainings on critical skills needed to thrive in the 21st Century [such as digital skill and socio-emotional skills]. After our first meeting, many people left to continue their hustle and bustle while they receive their salaries,” he added.

The government pays participating youths salaries during their training. But because of the poor monitoring system, those beneficiaries who left their place of assignment before the programme ended still received these salaries. Babajide admitted that the same happened when he left his place of assignment before the programme ended.

Nigeria, with over 200 million people, is Africa’s most populous country with the continent’s largest youth population. And about 34 percent of its total population is in need of employment.

But to Nteranya Sanginga, Director General of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), developing agriculture is key to addressing the urgent challenges of food insecurity, poverty and youth unemployment on the continent.

“Developing agriculture is key to addressing these challenges. Youth brings energy and innovation to the mix, but these qualities can be best channelled by young Africans themselves carrying out results-based research in agribusiness and rural development involving young people. Youth engagement is key,” Sanginga said in an opinion editorial.  

According to Nigerian Bureau of Statistics(NBS) Q2 report 2020, “about 55.4 percent of the employable youths are still unemployed”. It is uncertain how  the COVID-19 pandemic affects these figures.

While the government has set up various initiatives to address the issue of unemployment and food security, one study into the N-power AGRO programme showed that over the years the impact or performance of the programme was minimal.

Dr Khadijat Amolegbe, a lecturer at Department of Agricultural Economics and Farm Management, University of Ilorin, Nigeria, conducted a study into another government programme exploring the skills needed to motivate youth to participate in the agricultural sector.

Amolegbe conducted a randomised controlled experiment on Nigerian youth enrolled in the National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) — a programme set up by the Nigerian government in 1973 to involve graduates in nation building and development. She measured the youth’s motivation to engage in the agricultural sector by evaluating the following;

• their intention to start an agribusiness venture;
• their intention to register a business name; and
• their intention to save towards starting an agribusiness venture.

Amolegbe is a an awardee of the Enhancing Capacity to Apply Research Evidence (CARE) In Policy for Youth Engagement in Agribusiness and Rural Economic Activities in Africa project, funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and implemented by IITA.

Amolegbe’s IITA-CARE study revealed that the youth need training beyond basic agricultural skills. According to the research study, “socio-emotional and digital skills, also known as the 21st Century skills are indispensable, not only to motivate youths into agriculture but also help them thrive and survive the new and emerging challenges”.

“We realised that efforts made to motivate youths to participate in the agricultural sector have not yielded tangible results because they focus on basic agribusiness skills. However, youths need other skills that can help them strive the new and emerging challenges because of the risks and uncertainties in the agricultural sector and the changing nature of work around the world,” Amolegbe told IPS.

Sami Hassan is a recent graduate who is currently part of the NYSC. During the service year, graduates are engaged in various programmes designed to facilitate self-reliance among youth and to reduce unemployment.

“We were introduced to the basic skills involved in any field of our choice, but we’re expected to go into the nitty gritty of the technical skill ourselves,” Hassan said. He explained that while digital skills was offered as a course, its application in specific fields such as agriculture were not expanded upon. 

Amolegbe told IPS that although the effect of digital skills in motivating youth engagement in agriculture is still ambiguous, youth with high socio-emotional and digital skills have high agribusiness test scores. This, she said, suggests that socio-emotional and digital skills are linked to increased agribusiness skills.

“With basic knowledge of agribusiness, individuals that receive socio-emotional skills training have positive significant probability of engaging in the agricultural sector than individuals that have receive both socio-emotional skills and digital skills training,” she said.

Among other recommendations, Amolegbe suggested that socio-emotional and digital skills training should be included in interventions targeted at motivating youth to participate in the agricultural sector.

“This will stimulate innovation, increase productivity and also help them prepare to counter the new and emerging challenges along the agricultural value chain,” she added.

The IFAD-sponsored study, which is part of several others carried out by young researchers under the CARE project in 10 countries across Africa, proposed that there should be an investment in digitalising the agricultural sector in Nigeria to enable youth with digital skills engage the sector.

“Input supplies should go beyond basic inputs like seeds and fertilisers, we should also encourage the use of digital tools across the agricultural value chain,” Amolegbe added.

Veronica Valentine, the Executive Director of FarmAgric Foundation, a non-governmental organisation that seeks to empower farmers and efficiently equip them with all the necessary tools to thrive in an evolving society, said the findings from the study gave a great insight into the challenges the youth have entering agriculture.

“Although our training modules at FarmAgric (which we give young farmers) are designed to sort of accommodate digital skills in order to help them in their agribusiness, especially in a digitalised world of today, we find the study very useful and hope government could implement this into their training modules in order to meet the demands of young people looking forward to venture into agriculture,” she said.

 

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By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 23 2021 (IPS)

At least 85 poor countries will not have significant access to coronavirus vaccines before 2023. Unfortunately, a year’s delay will cause an estimated 2.5 million avoidable deaths in low and lower-middle income countries. As the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General has put it, the world is at the brink of a catastrophic moral failure.

Anis Chowdhury

Vaccine apartheid
The EU, US, UK, Switzerland, Canada and their allies continue to block the developing country proposal to temporarily suspend the World Trade Organization (WTO) Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement to enable greatly increased, affordable supplies of COVID-19 vaccines, drugs, tests and equipment.

Meanwhile, 6.4 billion of the 12.5 billion vaccine doses the main producers plan to produce in 2021 have already been pre-ordered, mostly by these countries, with 13% of the global population.

Thirty two European and other rich countries also have options to order more, while Australia and Canada have already secured supplies enough for five times their populations. Poor countries, often charged higher prices, simply cannot compete.

Big Pharma has also refused to join the voluntary knowledge sharing and patent pooling COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) initiative under WHO auspices. Thomas Cueni, International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) Director General, snubbed the launch, claiming he was “too busy”.

Pfizer’s CEO dismissed C-TAP as “nonsense” and “dangerous”, while the AstraZeneca CEO insisted, “IP is a fundamental part of our industry”. Such attitudes help explain some problems of alternative vaccine distribution arrangements such as COVAX. According to its own board, there is a high chance that COVAX could fail.

Suppressing vaccine access
Despite knowing that many developing countries have much idle capacity, Cueni falsely claims the waiver “would do nothing to expand access to vaccines or to boost global manufacturing capacity”, and would jeopardise innovation and vaccine research.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Big Pharma claims manufacturing vaccines via compulsory licensing or a TRIPS waiver “would undermine innovation and raise the risk of unsafe viruses”. US Big Pharma representatives wrote to President Biden earlier this month claiming likewise.

Both Salk and Sabin made their polio vaccine discoveries patent-free, while many contemporary vaccine researchers are against Big Pharma’s greedy conduct only rewarding IP holders regardless of the varied, but crucial contributions of others.

Big Pharma’s price gouging
Vaccine companies require contract prices be kept secret. In return for discounts, the EU agreed to keep prices confidential. Nonetheless, some negotiated prices were inadvertently revealed, with a UNICEF chart listing prices from various sources.

Reputedly the cheapest vaccine available, Oxford-Astra Zeneca’s is sold to EU members for around US$2 each. Although trials were done in South Africa, it still pays more than twice as much, while Uganda, even poorer, pays over four times as much!

US negotiated bulk prices, for Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, are much higher, at US$15.25–19.50 per dose in several contracts, yielding 60–80% profit margins! Moderna will charge the rest of the world US$25–37 per dose.

Hypocrisy
Quite understandably, most developed countries opposing temporary TRIPS suspension have provisions in their own IP laws to suspend patent protection in the national interest and for public health emergencies.

Canada, Germany, France and others have recently strengthened their patent laws to issue compulsory licences for COVID-19 vaccines and drugs. European Council President Charles Michel announced that the EU could adopt “urgent measures” by invoking emergency provisions in its treaties.

Similarly, in the US, 28 US Code sec. 1498 (a) allows the government to make or use any invention without the patentee’s permission. To handle emergencies, the 1977 UK Patents Act (section 55) allows the government to sell a patented product, including specific drugs, medicines or medical devices, without the patentee’s consent.

When avian flu threatened early this century, the US was the only country in the world to issue compulsory licences to US manufacturers to produce Tamiflu to protect its entire population of over 300 million. The drugs were not used as the virus was not brought over either Pacific or Atlantic Oceans.

Biden must act
By helping developing countries expand vaccine manufacturing capacity and access existing capacity, US President Biden can earn much world appreciation overnight. US law and precedence enables such a unilateral initiative.

The Bayh-Dole Act allows the US government to require the owner or exclusive licensee of a patent, created with federal funding, to grant a third party a licence to an invention. Moderna received about US$2.5 billion from Operation Warp Speed, which dispensed over US$10 billion.

Moderna was founded in 2010 by university researchers with support from a venture capitalist. It has focused on mRNA technology, building on earlier work by University of Pennsylvania scientists with National Institutes for Health (NIH) funding.

The vaccine developer also used technology for previous coronavirus vaccines developed by the NIH. The NIH also provided extensive logistical support, overseeing clinical trials for tens of thousands. Moderna has already announced it will not enforce its patents during the pandemic.

Thus, POTUS has the needed leverage. The Bayh-Dole Act applies to Moderna’s vaccine, enabling the Biden administration to act independently and decisively against vaccine apartheid.

Sharing knowledge crucial
Developing countries not only need to have the right to produce vaccines, but also the requisite technical knowledge and information. Hence, the Biden administration should also support C-TAP, as recommended by Dr Anthony Fauci.

When the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) was in similar trouble, the Obama administration came forward to put US-owned patents into the pool while encouraging drug companies to help improve developing countries’ access to medicines.

President Biden knows that early US support was critical for the MPP’s eventual success. It dramatically increased production and lowered prices of medicines for HIV, tuberculosis, hepatitis C and other infectious diseases in developing countries.

 

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The post End Vaccine Apartheid Before Millions More Die appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Dan Gertler formed a close relationship with DR Congo's ex-leader, even getting a diplomatic passport.

A judge ruled the trial over the death in police custody of Alexander Monson, 28, should go ahead.

By External Source
Mar 22 2021 (IPS-Partners)

The post Reduce Water Use Withouth Giving up the Pleasure of Food appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Heads of state from the continent have praised the late president at his state funeral in Dodoma.

Lack of access to safe drinking water is still not a possibility for millions and this has only been further complicated by the coronavirus pandemic. Manipadma Jena/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 22 2021 (IPS)

Prioritising water governance and ensuring data collection and investment in groundwater use around the world are some of the key issues that need to be addressed with regards to achieving development goals.

“If we do not make water governance a priority, we do feel and state that we would probably not reach the Sustainable Development Goals,” Sareen Malik, the executive secretary of the African Civil Society Network on Water and Sanitation (ANEW), said during a high level meeting on water-related goals at the United Nations on Thursday.

Malik spoke alongside heads of state and civil society leaders at the “Implementation of the Water-related Goals and Targets of the 2030 Agenda”.

Lack of access to safe drinking water is still not a possibility for millions and this has only been further complicated by the coronavirus pandemic, according to speakers.

“Today, 2.2 billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water, 4.2 billion people lack access to safely managed sanitation, and 3 billion lack basic hand washing facilities,” Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte said during the talk.

“Water affects every aspect of life, we can see that in our present fight against COVID-19,” Rutte said. “Hand washing with soap and water is a key first line of defence against human-to-human transmission of viruses.”

Henrietta Fore, executive director of the UN International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), pointed out that there was a large discrepancy between data on management of groundwater and that of surface water.

With groundwater providing water for 50 percent of the global population, this lack of data can prove problematic, said Dr. David Kramer, a hydrology professor in the Department of Geoscience at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He detailed the various negative effects of lack of data investments in the studying of groundwater.

“Groundwater is a hidden vulnerable resource and not physically visible, which can make it difficult for the general population and decision makers to connect up with this challenging resource,” he said.

“The need for having sustainable groundwater is a key element – in global resilience to climate change, [as a] shield against ecosystem loss and a defence against human deprivation and poverty,” he said. 

He added that approximately 2.5 billion people around the world depend solely on groundwater for their basic water needs, and the “lack of systemic communication on data information on ground water is one of the most significant impediments to its sound management and governance”.

“There are 153 countries with transboundary groundwater systems and this lack of groundwater progress does not support future international stability,” he added.

He also pointed out the many ways surface water is affected by groundwater.

“Many decision makers don’t know that in drylands, slight changes in ground water level due to over-pumping or climate change can diminish or eradicate springs and wells that have been dependent on for millennia by both people and groundwater dependent ecosystems,” he said.

This lack of knowledge about groundwater, especially of poor quality groundwater, could translate to serious effects on the health of those using it.

“I cannot tell you the recurring sad scene I see in economically developing countries where a woman with a water container trudges past a broken well she thought was going to provide hope, only to walk many kilometres to collect the water from a distance source,” he said poignantly.

Malik of ANEW said her organisation represents African women and girls who spent 200 million hours collecting water.

“Their daughters and daughters’ daughters will be locked in life of ill health and poverty if we don’t address the water crisis,” Malik said, adding that it affects women in different ways, such as posing challenges in their menstrual hygiene management.

Political prioritisation and commitment “from the top”, is key to solving this issue, she said, alongside putting people at the core of the solutions.

“Governance-based solutions? Yes, but also putting people-based solutions,” Malik said. “The right water and sanitation in governance is about challenging the power dynamics, putting people at the centre, and ensuring that the policies and practices stem from there.”

She highlighted the importance of including women and the youth in these solutions.

Meanwhile Rutte said that the global acceleration framework on the Sustainable Development Goals 6: Water and Sanitation is an important step in the right direction. “We need to develop and strengthen capacity. We need to optimise and scale our finances, to improve mainstream data and to foster and replicate innovation,” he said.

 

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Chad will not take part in the final qualifiers for next year’s Africa Cup of Nations after being disqualified by African football’s governing body Caf.

Protests against military coup in Kayin State, Myanmar on Feb. 9. Protestors have taken to the streets of Myanmar since a Feb. 1 coup by the military. Journalists covering the anti-junta protests have been particularly at risk of being detained, after the military amended Section 505(a) of the country’s penal code to include offences that include knowingly spreading ‘fake news’. Courtesy: Ninjastrikers/(CC BY-SA 4.0)

By Alison Kentish
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 22 2021 (IPS)

Two human rights groups have called on the military in Myanmar to release journalists arbitrarily jailed and allow them to work without harassment and prosecution.

Amnesty International and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) told IPS that they will double down on those demands until all journalists are released and the operating licenses of newsgroups are restored.

“From revoking media licenses and raiding newsrooms to arbitrarily arresting and prosecuting media workers covering the current human rights crisis in the country, the Myanmar military is desperately trying to hide from the world the appalling crimes it is committing against its own people every day,” Emerlynne Gil, Deputy Regional Director at Amnesty International, told IPS.

The calls follow a briefing by the spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights Ravina Shamdasani who said that ‘deeply distressing reports of torture in custody’ were adding to the crisis unfolding in the country.

Protestors have taken to the streets of Myanmar since a Feb. 1 coup by the military. Journalists covering the anti-junta protests have been particularly at risk of being detained, after the military amended Section 505(a) of the country’s penal code to include offences that include knowingly spreading ‘fake news’. The amendments give the military increased latitude to arrest journalists.

“The death toll has soared over the past week in Myanmar, where security forces have been using lethal force increasingly aggressively against peaceful protesters, and continue to arbitrarily arrest and detain people throughout the country,” Shamdasani said last week.

Shamdasani told the press that hundreds of illegally detained people are unaccounted for and ‘this amounts to enforced disappearances’.

Representatives of press rights group CPJ told IPS that journalists in Myanmar are living in fear.

“They are scared that the crackdown will become more targeted against media and that the junta intends to establish a new censorship regime, similar to the harsh measures imposed on the media by previous military governments,” CPJ’s Southeast Asia Representative Shawn Crispin told IPS, adding that “at least 5 independent news organisations have already had their operating licenses revoked for arbitrary and vague reasons. Other groups fear they could be next.”

Reports of press censorship by authorities in Myanmar are not new. In 2018, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights assessed press freedom and high-profile journalist prosecutions through 5 individual cases. The ensuing report, ‘The Invisible Boundary – Criminal prosecutions of journalism in Myanmar’, cited harrowing experiences by the targeted journalists and stated that the unlawful arrests and prosecutions created ‘an invisible boundary for media personnel, that they cross at their peril’. It concluded that freedom of expression and press freedom were under attack.

Earlier this month, the UN Security Council said it was deeply concerned about developments in Myanmar. According to the UN, at least 37 journalists have been arrested in Myanmar since Feb. 1, with 19 still unlawfully detained.

“The Security Council strongly condemns the violence against peaceful protestors, including against women, youth and children. It expresses deep concern at restrictions on medical personnel, civil society, labor union members, journalists and media workers, and calls for the immediate release of all those detained arbitrarily,” a statement from the President said.

Amnesty International says a free press in Myanmar is more important than ever.

“It is all the more urgent now to ensure access to information in Myanmar amid escalating violent repression of peaceful protesters and severe internet restrictions, and all attempts to hamper the right to seek, receive and impart information must cease immediately,” Gil told IPS.

Six journalists have been charged under Article 505(a) of Myanmar’s penal code.

“We are also calling on the regime to refrain from imposing any new laws or measures that would restrict media freedoms,” Crispin told IPS.

A Human Rights Council Resolution of Mar. 12  consists of 9 recommendations of the Government of Myanmar, meant to protect journalists, freedom of expression and freedom of the press.

Among other measures, the Council wants the authorities to decriminalise defamation and amend the country’s media law to ensure that the Myanmar Press Council can mediate in disputes with media outlets and journalists.

The Council also wants the immediate and unconditional release of all journalists in detention, an end to all current cases against journalists for exercising their right to freedom of expression and ensure access to restitution for the journalists who have been arrested and persecuted. 

 

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The post Human Rights Groups Demand an end to Myanmar Military’s Crackdown on Journalists appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Amnesty International and the Committee to Protect Journalists say Myanmar’s military has intensified its assault on freedom of expression by closing media outlets and arbitrarily detaining journalists

The post Human Rights Groups Demand an end to Myanmar Military’s Crackdown on Journalists appeared first on Inter Press Service.

At a critical juncture on the road to the UN Food Systems Summit, three UN rights experts warn that it will fail to be a 'people's summit' unless it is urgently rethought.

By Michael Fakhri, Hilal Elver and Olivier De Schutter
NEW YORK, Mar 22 2021 (IPS)

Global food systems have been failing most people for a long time, and the COVID-19 pandemic has made a critical situation even worse. 265 million people are threatened by famine, up 50% on last year; 700 million suffer from chronic hunger; and 2 billion more from malnutrition, with obesity and associated diet-related diseases increasing in all world regions.

Michael Fakhri

Everyone agrees that we need urgent solutions and action. The convening of this year’s UN Food Systems Summit by Secretary General António Guterres was therefore welcome. However, as we move towards critical junctures on the road to the Summit, we remain deeply concerned that this ‘people’s summit’ will fail the people it claims to be serving.

After more than a year of deliberations, the Summit participants will meet this October in New York to present “principles to guide governments and other stakeholders looking to leverage their food systems” to support the Sustainable Development Goals. We will be told that the outcomes have been endorsed by the civil society groups who took part, with ‘solutions’ crowd-sourced from tens of thousands of people around the world. And if other solutions are not there, we will be told that this is because their proponents refused to come to the table.

But coming to the table to discuss ‘solutions’ is not as simple as it sounds. What if the table is already set, the seating plan non-negotiable, the menu highly limited? And what if the real conversation is actually happening at a different table?

These concerns are still as pressing today as they were on day one.

First, the Summit initially bypassed the bodies already doing the very hard work of governing global food systems. The UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) already has the structure that the Summit organizers have been hastily reconstructing: a space for discussing the future of food systems, a comprehensive commitment to the right to food, mechanisms for involving civil society and the private sector on their own terms, and a panel of experts regularly providing cutting-edge reports. In other words, everyone is already at the table. The Summit has flagrantly – and perhaps deliberately – shifted governments’ attention away from the CFS.

Hilal Elver

Second, the Summit’s rules of engagement were determined by a small set of actors. The private sector, organizations serving the private sector (notably the World Economic Forum), scientists, and economists initiated the process. The table was set with their perspectives, knowledge, interests and biases. Investors and entrepreneurs working in partnership with scientists framed the agenda, and governments and civil society actors were invited to work within those parameters. Inevitably, that has meant a focus on what the small group saw as scalable, investment-friendly, ‘game-changing’ solutions – the bread and butter of Davos. Reading between the lines, this means AI-controlled farming systems, gene editing, and other high-tech solutions geared towards large-scale agriculture.

As a result, the ideas that should have been the starting point for a ‘people’s summit’ have effectively been shut out. For over a decade, farmers, fishers, pastoralists, and food workers have been demanding a food system transformation rooted in food sovereignty and agroecology. This vision is based on redesigning, re-diversifying, and re-localizing farming systems. It requires that economic assumptions be questioned, human rights be protected, and power be rebalanced.

Some concessions have been made on the road to the Summit. But these changes have been too late, or too cosmetic, to impact meaningfully the process. Only in November was the CFS added to the Summit’s Advisory Committee. And only this month was the FAO’s Right to Food office invited to participate (with a limited mandate). Presumably there will be further changes at the margins: human rights will be mentioned in general terms, agroecology will be included as one of many solutions.

Olivier De Schutter

But this will not be enough to make the Summit outcomes legitimate for those of us — inside and outside the process — who remain skeptical. Having all served as UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, we have witnessed first-hand the importance of improving accountability and democracy in food systems, and the value of people’s local and traditional knowledge. It is deeply concerning that we had to spend a year persuading the convenors that human rights matter for this UN Secretary General’s Food Systems Summit. It is also highly problematic that issues of power, participation, and accountability (i.e. how and by whom will the outcomes be delivered) remain unresolved.

Those of us who came to the Summit table did so in the hope that we could fundamentally change the course. As the end-game approaches, we still hope that this is possible. But radical change is needed:

● The right to food must be central to all aspects of the Summit, with attention on holding those with power accountable;
● Agroecology should be recognized as a paradigm (if not the paradigm) for transforming food systems, alongside actionable recommendations to support agroecological transition;
● The CFS should be designated as the home of the Summit outcomes, and the place where it is discussed and implemented, using its inclusive participation mechanisms.

In other words, to make this a people’s summit, the table needs to be urgently re-set.

Michael Fakhri is the current UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food.
Hilal Elver served as the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food from 2014-2020.
Olivier De Schutter served as the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food from 2008-2014, and is the current UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, and co-chair of IPES-Food.

 

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Excerpt:

At a critical juncture on the road to the UN Food Systems Summit, three UN rights experts warn that it will fail to be a 'people's summit' unless it is urgently rethought.

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By Pinaki Roy and Dipankar Roy
Mar 22 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Roksana Khatun moves aside dirt and floating leaves from a pond, slowly lowers her earthen pitcher into it and fills it with around 20 litres of water.

Collecting the water, she carefully climbs the muddy, steep stairs of the pond and walks around 45 minutes to return home. She holds the heavy pitcher against her waist or on her head the entire time.

Only to fetch water for her family, she does this arduous task every day, twice, throughout the year, except for a few months when it rains and she can store some drinking water, she told The Daily Star, while on her way home from the pond recently.

“I’ve a tubewell, but it does not work. I’ve no other option … I need water for my family of six. I’ve been doing this for years,” Roksana, aged over 50, said, wiping sweat off her face with her left hand.

Despite all these hard work, Roksana’s family, which lives in Madarbaria village of Khulna’s Koyra upazila, gets to drink saline water. Their consolation is the water of the pond is a bit less saline than what many others get.

Sushama Sarkar, 53, of Hatiardanga village of Koyra, travels to a pond, which is two kilometres away from her home. Carrying the heavy pitcher, she suffers from back pain frequently.

“Some buy water but we can’t afford it … It also hasn’t rained in the last several months,” she said.
A recent UNDP survey has highlighted the plight of the country’s coastal people regarding safe drinking water. It said 73 percent of the people living in five coastal upazilas — Koyra, Dacope, Paikgachha of Khulna and Assasuni and Shyamnagar of Satkhira — have to drink unsafe saline water.

Though the permissible salinity level in drinking water is 1,000mg per litre, those people, on average, consume water with salinity level between 1,427mg and 2,406mg per litre, reveals the survey.

In the dry season or winter, the salinity level of tubewell water in Shyamnagar goes up to 6,600mg per litre, more than six times the permissible limit.

The survey was carried out on 66,234 households of 271,464 people living in 39 unions of the five coastal upazilas, under a project, titled “Gender-responsive Coastal Adaptation (GCA)”.

The study, which ended in February, also found that 63 percent of the people face difficulties even in getting that water as they have no other source of drinking water.

In 74 percent households surveyed, women are solely responsible for collecting the drinking water while in 10 percent households males take on the responsibility. The task is shared by the male and female members of the families in rest of the households.

Many spend more than two hours daily to collect drinking water. Sometimes, they need to go more than a kilometre to fetch the water, either from a tubewell or a pond.

People in more than 16 percent households surveyed said they have to walk even more.

The study also found that among the people’s available drinking water sources, the salinity level of 52 percent ponds was higher than the salinity level of ponds elsewhere in the country. It was the same for 77 percent tubewells in the coastal region.

On average, the salinity level of tubewell water is 2,406mg in Dacope, 1,453mg in Koyra, 1,510mg in Paikgachha, 998mg in Assasuni and 1,683mg in Shyamnagar.

For ponds, it is on average 650mg in Dacope, 1,024mg in Koyra, 1,581mg in Paikgachha, 1,203mg in Assasuni and 1,184mg in Shyamnagar.

Also people living there have to spend more than those in the capital for drinking water, the survey revealed.

It converted the time spent for fetching the water into monetary value based on the wages of the government programme of Kajer Binimoye Khaddo (Food for Work), and said when people spend one hour for the task, it actually costs them Tk 1,875 a month. If it is more than two hours, the cost rises to Tk 2,463.

On the contrary, Dhaka Wasa charges each household Tk 200 monthly for water.

Asked what interventions were required to improve the situation in the coastal area, Alamgir Hossain, coordinator of the survey project, funded by the Green Climate Fund and the Bangladesh government, said they support climate resilient drinking water supply through rainwater harvesting.

Replying to a query on the health impact caused by consuming the saline water, he said they would assess the impact at a later part of the project.

However, there has already been notable health impacts, including high blood pressure, skin diseases, indigestion, diarrhoea, he added.

As river water started to became saline nearly three decades ago, people living in these coastal upazilas mainly depend on ponds and tubewells for drinking water.

Many freshwater ponds were damaged at least four decades ago due to saltwater shrimp farming in some areas.

Due to cyclone Aila in 2009, many ponds became full of salt water. Most have remained so for even more than a decade. Cyclone Amphan caused a similar havoc.

Lately, salt water is being found in different tiers of the ground there, Alamgir added.

Pritish Mondal, an engineer of Public Health Engineering Department, said, “There is no shortage of water in the upazilas. But all the water is saline water,” he said.

Akmol Hosen, executive engineer of DPHE told The Daily Star that around 35 percent people of Khulna district get safe drinking water. Rest of them depend on ponds or other sources.

Shahidul Islam, the director of NGO Uttaran and a native of Sathkhira, said, “As you travel around the villages in most of the upazilas of the district, you will see there are many deep-tube wells that have been set up to ensure drinking water for the villagers, but they simply don’t work.”

Dilip Kumar Datta, professor of Khulna University, said the impact of brackish water has always been in the south-west of the country. Gradually, the salinity level is increasing in rivers, ponds and other water bodies, he said.

When asked how the salinity problem could be resolved, Ainun Nishat, Professor Emeritus of Brac university, said, “You need to build the Ganges barrage.

“It is also the number one project of the Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100. The government could build the Ganges barrage in collaboration with India.”

He also said, “As far as I know, India is very keen on supporting Bangladesh on this. Because India has realised that the Ganges barrage is very important to save the Sundarbans and the reduce salinity in this region.”

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

The post World Water Day: Cry for Water in the South appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Safe drinking water a distant dream for 73pc people in five salinity-prone upazilas in Khulna-Satkhira region

The post World Water Day: Cry for Water in the South appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Skyline of the City of London, United Kingdom. Credit: Unsplash/Ali Yaqub

By Ian Richards
GENEVA, Mar 22 2021 (IPS)

It’s now almost three months since the United Kingdom entered into a new trade agreement with the European Union.

During that time, we’ve seen traders struggle to get to grips with the new arrangements. From lorry drivers having their sandwiches confiscated by Dutch customs officers to estimates of additional paperwork costs of $7 billion a year, and pig breeders watching their meat rot on the quayside for want of the correct forms.

It has been a difficult start for a trading relationship once valued at $930 billion, and one that has shown the importance of providing traders in the UK and Europe with clear and simple information of the kind that was not required within the single market.

It was with this in mind that the WTO passed the Bali Trade Facilitation Agreement in 2014.

Although 30 pages long, its most important paragraph is its opening one, which requires each country or customs union to publish information on trade rules and procedures.

As the UK left the European Union it did just that. The day before the new arrangements came into place, it published an online step-by-step guide with instructions on the paperwork required to export everything, from sparkling wine to luxury handbags.

As other landmark trade agreements come on tap, albeit with the purpose of increasing trade, such as the African Continental Free Trade Area, these step-by-step guides have become essential.

The ACFTA is estimated to cover 1.2 billion people with a combined GDP of $3 trillion. The UN Economic Commission for Africa believes it has the potential to boost intra-African trade by half if it eliminates import duties, but to double trade if other obstacles, known as non-tariff barriers, are also reduced. The International Trade Centre (ITC) reckons this will help companies invest in manufacturing across the continent.

To make all this work, it’s important for traders to have access to the right information. As with the UK, a number of African governments have been hard at work.

In 2018, Rwanda unveiled its trade information portal. Using a software platform called eregulations from the UN Conference on Trade (UNCTAD), it features rules for importers, exporters and those transiting through the country, as well as market analysis tools, information specific to each border crossing (Rwanda has many) and a helpdesk.

East Africa’s Freight Logistics magazine called it a “game changer”.

Theoneste Sikubwabo, a chicken exporter, told the local media, “we were saved of the unnecessary costs we used to incur while moving to and from places to inquire about some trade information or gain various certifications”. He said he could now do this “from the comfort of our seats, thanks to the portal.”

Using the same platform, Kenya’s trade agency, Kentrade, also created a portal, which receives 10,000 visitors a month.

But it went a step further. Since last year it has been using the portal to battle red tape, simplifying 48 different export procedures by checking each procedure against the law to see what paperwork really is needed.

For one procedure, requiring food and coffee exporters to register with the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service, it reduced the steps involved from 10 to 5 and the total time from fourteen days to six.

Kentrade then calculated that slashing red tape for this procedure alone would save companies $230 each. They would no longer have to pay secretaries to type up so many letters and forms, directors to check and sign them, nor drivers to take them to government offices and queue up.

It is now looking at all other procedures that agricultural exporters must deal with. The savings in time and money could be considerable.

Indeed, a study by the World Economic Forum noted that actions such as these could contribute even more to trade growth than the traditional route of simply reducing tariffs. For SMEs, for whom the red tape involved with trading can make up a large part of their costs, cross-border sales could increase by between 60 and 80 percent.

The same has been happening outside Africa.

Sri Lanka, known for exporting Ralph Lauren polo shirts, Victoria’s Secret bras and tea, recently unveiled its trilingual trade information portal, which the EU ambassador in Colombo said would help make it easier to export to Europe, and by extension, because the EU’s requirements are particularly stringent, to other countries too.

Meanwhile, Tajikistan’s portal, which covers 1,500 goods and products, was the highest-cited in Asia in terms of maturity by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.

In all 18 developing countries now have top-of-the-range trade information portals from UNCTAD and ITC, many of them as advanced, if not more so, than those installed in developed countries.

Trade information portals are the lubricant that keeps trade flowing. They allow small companies to export and grow, countries to attract manufacturing investment and governments to slash red tape. Without them, as we saw with Brexit, trade can quite literally grind to a halt on a distant quayside.

 

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The post Brexit Shows Why Traders Need Reliable Information But Many Are Ahead of the Game appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The writer is an economist at the UN working on digital government and investment.

The post Brexit Shows Why Traders Need Reliable Information But Many Are Ahead of the Game appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Nawal El Saadawi, who has died at 89, drew outrage and admiration in her conservative home country.

The main opposition presidential candidate in Congo-Brazzaville says he is "fighting death".

Credit: UN Water

By Catarina de Albuquerque
LISBON, Mar 21 2021 (IPS)

This World Water Day, we celebrate the value of water, which at first might be a given: after all, water is the basis of all life. Without water we have no health, wealth, equality, or education.

But, do governments adequately prioritize and invest in clean water? The answer, in far too many parts of the world, is a resounding no. As an international community, we are too often blind to the huge cost of failing to serve so many people with the most basic but crucial of services.

Globally, there are still 2.2 billion people without access to safe drinking water and 4.2 billion who don’t have a safe place to go the toilet. Reaching all these people needs three times the current levels of investment, according to the World Bank — to meet the scale of the challenge. However, this is not a plea for charity, this is a wake-up call.

The current global water and sanitation crisis is a story of colossal, rapidly increasing, unmet demand leading to colossal, rapidly increasing costs. Meeting Sustainable Development Goal 6 – water and sanitation for all by 2030 – is not a burden but a massive opportunity.

To find concrete solutions to the financing gap, the partnership Sanitation and Water for All – a global platform for achieving the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH)-related targets — is working with Finance Ministers across the globe to focus on the opportunity for economic growth and sustainable development, through the expansion of water and sanitation services.

With the right level of investment, benefits could include an estimated 1.5% growth in gross domestic product, and a $4.30 return for every dollar invested. This is due to the likely reduced health care costs and potential for increased productivity. That’s a rate of return that any investor would wish for.

The benefits of investing are clear and examples abound. In 1961, only 17% of South Korea had access to basic drinking water but by 2012, water coverage stood at 98% – a remarkable turnaround. High-level political leadership was key, as part of a wider push towards nation-building, common well-being and modernity.

Bolivian Girls Washing Hands. Credit: UNICEF

The cost of not investing

Affordable, reliable, easily accessible water and sanitation services prevent thousands of children from preventable diseases, such as diarrhea and cholera. Healthier children absorb nutrients properly, develop stronger brains and bodies, get better school results, and end up making a fuller contribution to society. And we have seen how quickly a pandemic like COVID-19 can spread when people are not able to wash their hands with water and soap.

Without further investment, girls and women are forced to continue the time-consuming, back-breaking work of fetching water, and are left exposed to the indignity and dangers of going to the toilet in fields and streets. Water and sanitation services in schools and workplaces have the power to ensure girls and women can manage their personal hygiene while not missing out on obtaining an education or earning an income.

Adequate investment would reduce disease burden and epidemic risks, and slow down fast-moving killers such as cholera. Improved hygiene — through water and soap — is critical in the fight against COVID-19, for example. Yet one in four — 24% — of health care facilities lack basic water services, one in ten — 10% — have no sanitation service, and one in three — 32% — lack hand hygiene facilities at points of care. Data has shown that even where there is adequate WASH facilities, frontline health care workers can be 12-times more likely to test positive for COVID-19 compared with individuals in the general community.

Unless further investments are made, the level of workforce productivity will be capped. An estimated three out of four jobs that make up the global workforce are either heavily or moderately dependent on water. But, access to water and sanitation can also free up time that would otherwise be spent collecting water. UN-Water estimates that improved sanitation gives every household an additional 1,000 hours a year to work, study, care for children, and so on. Women’s productivity is particularly affected, as they are the main caretakers and manager and users of water.

The bottom line is that economic growth rests on improving educational achievement and public health — two things that are impossible without access to water.

The role of finance decision-makers

None of this is news. Since the early days of the industrial revolution, we have known the transformative economic and social benefits of access to water, and the horrific consequences of inaction.

If governments fail to help prioritize water and sanitation, the consequences could affect societies for generations. Financial decision-makers must create an enabling environment by investing in institutions and people, and mobilizing new sources of finance, such as taxes, tariffs, transfers, or repayable finance.

In the end, well-resourced, well-run water systems are catalysts for progress in every sector from gender, food, and education, to health, industry, and the environment.

Governments must use evidence to make smart decisions that will help their countries flourish. In the case of water and sanitation, the evidence is clear: continuing to neglect these services will only continue to stunt the growth of our economies, populations, and societies.

 

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The post Why Water & Sanitation Systems are Vital for the Economy appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The writer is Chief Executive Officer, Sanitation and Water for All partnership

 
The UN will be commemorating World Water Day on Monday March 22.

The post Why Water & Sanitation Systems are Vital for the Economy appeared first on Inter Press Service.