Africa

Forest on the island of Dominica. With 54% support, the conservation of forests was the most popular climate action policy selected by participants in the Peoples’ Climate Vote. It was the world's largest climate change public poll. Credit: IPS/Alison Kentish

By Alison Kentish
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 27 2021 (IPS)

Between October and December 2020, something was different for people playing popular video games like Words with Friends, Angry Birds and Subway Surfers. Instead of a traditional 30-second ad, gamers across the world were invited to participate in a climate change survey. It was an unconventional way of polling that gave University of Oxford researchers an opportunity to tap into the 2.7 billion user-strong gaming market and produce the world’s largest climate change public opinion poll.

The results of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)-commissioned Peoples’ Climate Vote were released on January 27. They show that 64 percent of people view climate change as a global emergency, even in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The results included over 1.2 million people in 50 countries, which cover more than half of the world’s population.

“Mobile gaming networks can not only reach a lot of people, they can engage different kinds of people in a diverse group of countries,” said Professor Stephan Fisher of the University of Oxford Department of Sociology. “The Peoples’ Climate Vote has delivered a treasure trove of data on public opinion that we’ve never seen before. Recognition of the climate emergency is much more widespread than previously thought.”

The survey is unprecedented in both scale and diversity. It includes respondents from wealthy nations and Least Developed Countries, land locked nations and small island developing states. It also spans gender, education levels and age groups – including youth under the age of 18, a key demographic typically unable to vote in regular elections.

According to the results, 69 percent of these young people classify climate change as an emergency. There was not much difference between age groups however, with 65 percent of respondents aged 18-35 holding that view, while 66 percent of people aged 36-59 and 58 percent of people over 60 stating that they too, believe that climate change is a global emergency.

“People are very nervous, very scared. They are seeing wildfires in Australia and California. They are seeing category five storms in the Caribbean. They are seeing flooding in southeast Asia and they are looking around and saying ‘this is a real problem, we have to do something about this,’ UNDP’s Strategic Advisor on Climate Change and Head of Climate Promise, Cassie Flynn told a virtual press briefing.

The UNDP official pointed to a ‘groundswell of support for ambitious climate action’ by survey respondents, who were asked to select what policies they would like to see their governments prioritise. Conservation of forest and land led the climate solutions at 54 percent, followed by investment in renewable energy (53 percent), the implementation of climate friendly farming techniques (52 percent) and rolling out of green businesses and jobs (50 percent). As countries around the world develop their pledges as part of the Paris Climate Agreement, Flynn says the UNDP will work with them to ensure the voice of the people is articulated in those plans. 

“The idea was that the decisions that governments are making now, whether on COVID-19 or climate, that people would be able to have a voice at the table, because these decisions will influence so many generations to come, that this is a way of bringing those voices forward,” she said.

The results showed that the leading driver of a respondent’s view of climate change is education. In every country, those with post-secondary education demanded action; with Least Developed Countries like Bhutan tying with Japan at 82 percent of respondents saying governments must act now to tackle the crisis.

Along gender lines, at 4 percent, the divide was small overall, but wide on a national level in countries like Australia, Canada and the United States, where more women and girls believe the world is in a climate emergency than their male counterparts. The opposite is true for Nigeria.

The researchers say for several governments, this is the first time they will have access to extensive, analysed data on public views on climate change and policy prescriptions.

In terms of limitations, the survey organisers say for the next phase of the survey, there must be efforts to bridge the digital divide. While this survey bucked tradition and embraced technology in polling, it left out a few key constituencies, including smaller countries and rural communities without the bandwidth and tools to participate in the survey.

2021 is seen as a crucial year for action on climate and biodiversity. One of the highlights is expected to be the UN Climate Conference scheduled for Glasgow, UK. UNDP officials say world leaders have to make unprecedented decisions that will affect ‘every person on this planet and every generation to come.’

With the results of the world’s largest climate change public opinion poll now available, they say not only has more than half the world stated its belief that climate change is a global emergency, citizens from over 50 countries have made it clear to their leaders just how they want them to solve tackle the issue.”

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Excerpt:

A University of Oxford/UNDP initiative, the survey results span 50 countries, which cover more than half of the world’s population.

The post What World’s Largest Climate Change Public Opinion Poll Says appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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Secretary-General António Guterres (left) discusses the State of the Planet with Professor Maureen Raymo at Columbia University in New York City. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

By Antonio Guterres
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 26 2021 (IPS)

We begin this year with a heightened awareness of the importance of resilience. The COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us that we cannot afford to ignore known risks.

Climate disruption is a risk we are well aware of. The science has never been clearer.

We are facing a climate emergency.

We are already witnessing unprecedented climate extremes and volatility, affecting lives and livelihoods on all continents.

According to the World Meteorological Organization, there have been more than 11,000 disasters due to weather, climate and water-related hazards over the past 50 years at a cost of some $3.6 trillion US dollars.

Extreme weather and climate-related hazards have also killed more than 410,000 people in the past decade, the vast majority in low and lower middle-income countries. That is why I have called for a breakthrough on adaptation and resilience.

We need the trillions of taxpayers’ dollars funding the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic to jump-start the low-carbon, high-resilience future we need.

But recovery cannot only be for the developed world. We must expand the provision of liquidity and debt relief instruments to developing and middle-income countries that lack the resources to relaunch their economies in a sustainable and inclusive way.

I see five priorities to guarantee adaptation and resilience.

First, donor countries and multilateral, regional and national development banks need to significantly increase the volume and predictability of their finance for adaptation and resilience.

The recent United Nations Environment Programme Adaptation Gap Report calculates annual adaptation costs in developing countries alone to be in the range of $70 billion US dollars.

These figures are likely to reach $140 or eventually up to 300 billion US dollars in 2030 and the range between $280 and 500 billion in 2050. But huge gaps remain on financing for adaptation in developing countries.

That is why I have called for 50 per cent of the total share of climate finance provided by all developed countries and multilateral development banks to be allocated to adaptation and resilience in developing countries. Adaptation cannot be the neglected half of the climate equation.

The African Development Bank set the bar in 2019 by allocating over half of its climate finance to adaptation. I urge all donors and multilateral development banks to commit to this goal by COP26 and deliver on it at least by 2024.

I welcome today’s commitment by Prime Minister Mark Rutte on behalf of the Government of the Netherlands. Let us remember that developed countries must meet the commitments made in the Paris Agreement to mobilize $100 billion US dollars a year from private and public sources for mitigation and adaptation in developing countries.

Second, all budget allocations and investment decisions need to be climate-resilient.

Climate risk must be embedded in all procurement processes, particularly for infrastructure. Developing countries must receive the necessary support and the tools to achieve this. The United Nations system is ready to support this effort worldwide.

Third, we need to significantly scale-up existing catastrophe-triggered financial instruments such as the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility and the African Risk Capacity.

I also call on donors, the multilateral development banks and private finance institutions to work with vulnerable countries on developing new instruments with innovation to incentivize investments in resilience building.

For every dollar invested in climate resilient infrastructure, six dollars can be saved, as Prime Minister Mark Rutte just said.

Fourth, we need to ease access to finance, especially for the most vulnerable, and expand debt relief initiatives. The share for Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States in total climate finance remains small, representing only 14 per cent and 2 per cent of flows respectively.

These countries stand on the frontline of the climate crisis, yet, due to size and capacity constraints, they face significant challenges in accessing climate finance to build resilience.

There must be a collective effort to remove these obstacles.

Finally, we need to support regional adaptation and resilience initiatives.

This would allow, for example, debt-for-adaptation swaps, for example for the Caribbean or the Pacific Islands, and provide much needed liquidity to vulnerable countries in dire need.

Support for adaptation and resilience is a moral, economic and social imperative.

Today, one person in three is still not adequately covered by early warning systems, and risk-informed early approaches are not at the scale required.

As illustrated by the Global Commission on Adaptation, just 24 hours warning of a coming storm or heatwave can cut the ensuing damage by 30 per cent. We need to work together to ensure full global coverage by early warning systems to help minimize these losses.

We have the tools, skills and opportunity to deliver “more, faster and better” adaptation actions. I hope this summit helps to secure the breakthrough on adaptation and resilience that is needed and that it leads to ambitious outcomes at COP 26.

Let us live up to our responsibilities and jointly change course towards a sustainable, fair and resilient future.

 

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Excerpt:

Antonio Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, in an address to the Climate Adaptation Summit

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By Shafi Bhuiyan
TORONTO, Canada, Jan 26 2021 (IPS)

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aim to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all ages. The main focus of the SDGs is to improve equity to meet the needs of women, children and disadvantaged populations in particular.

Shafi Bhuiyan PhD

Traditionally, a mother nurtures a family through care, support, and love. Hence, the health of a family starts with the health of the mother. Maternal health is often overlooked in many countries, focusing only on treating complications when deemed ‘necessary’. However, contrary to that, maternal health care needs to cover all the aspects of a mother’s health, starting from pre-pregnancy to post-pregnancy extending into childcare.

Globally, the Maternal and Child Health MCH Handbook International Committee’s implementation research established that the MCH handbook is an innovative home-based record that integrates information about maternal and child health into one booklet, including pregnancy, labour, immunization, breastfeeding, nutrition, child growth and development, and diseases. As such, it has proven to be an effective tool in promoting and protecting the health of mothers and children. MCH handbooks are often the only health care guides that facilitate equitable access to primary health care. The handbook will thus help to break the stigma of seeking health care for women and empower women to make informed decisions about their own health and pregnancy.

The handbook was first introduced in Japan in 1948, along with other public health interventions. The handbook has helped Japan become the country with the second-lowest infant mortality rate in the world. Nevertheless, Japan is still identifying new perspectives and potential to use the MCH handbook for early detection of diseases in children (autism, neurodevelopmental disorders) and the evaluation of risks for obesity, cardiovascular, endocrine diseases, and mental illness.

The MCH handbook has been adopted in over 42 developed and developing countries worldwide, and has proven its efficacy in enhancing maternal and child healthcare. Mothers with MCH handbooks have been observed as being more knowledgeable of proper antenatal care, good nutritional choices during pregnancy, and possess increased awareness of the importance of immunization. Also, content of the MCH handbook is flexible and easy to edit according to the country’s culture and socio economic status.

The MCH handbook helps service providers and users to understand what comprehensive MCH services entail. With its two-way interface, the handbook also provides mothers with an opportunity to collaborate with healthcare providers. It enables mothers to document their health concerns, symptoms, and timelines to monitor their health progress over time. Simultaneously, it allows healthcare providers to keep records of health services accessed by mothers. This reciprocal exchange of information between the healthcare provider and mothers increases both the provider’s capacity to monitor health status and the patient’s capacity to understand when to seek medical care.

The handbook is recognized for its simplicity, cost-effectiveness, ease of implementation and the aggregation of multiple health knowledge tools and health records. Its simplistic user interface has also demonstrated a huge impact on economic and research value.

Even before the emergence of COVID-19, high-quality and timely maternal healthcare services were unavailable, inaccessible, or unaffordable for millions of women. Now with public health restrictions, there is an excessive burden on the healthcare system. This limits the access to care and negatively impacts women’s and children’s health. As a result, many expecting mothers are likely to end up receiving less than adequate care throughout their pregnancy.

Disruption of essential services might lead to disproportionately greater perinatal losses in areas with high maternal and neonatal mortality, reductions in breastfeeding prevalence and an increase in the number of unvaccinated and under-vaccinated children. All these factors exacerbate the existing inequities in accessing healthcare services. However, the MCH handbook could promote a continuum of care for maternal and child health and bridge the existing gap even during the pandemic. Utilizing the handbook [digital or paper books] also ensures invisible mothers and children become visible. It helps strengthen the healthcare system by allowing women to become active participants in their healthcare.

Globally, the MCH handbook has been used in many countries for over two decades. There are now efforts to develop a digital MCH handbook application, thereby ensuring safe delivery and MCH services locally and globally. The MCH handbook digital application is expected to help reduce delays in decision-making at the family level, as well as delays in arranging quality services at the facility level.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) emphasize improving health equity so that ‘No One is Left Behind’. Pilot implementation research from multiple countries has demonstrated that the MCH Handbook is a useful tool for extending the knowledge for better access to quality primary health care, that is affordable and equitable. It could also support the integration of reproductive health into national strategies and promote effective maternal and child health programs. Thus, the MCH handbook provides a platform to improve universal access to health-care services, strengthen human health security and reduce the “unmet need” for the most unprivileged population.

Dr. Shafi Bhuiyan is an award-winning professor and an internationally recognized–academic/professional leader in global health. He is a co-creator of Pilot Masters of Sciences program at U of T, and a co-founder & academic director of the Internationally Trained Medical Doctors Bridging Program at Ryerson University. Dr. Bhuiyan currently serves as the Chair, Board of Directors, Canadian Coalition for Global Health Research and a visiting Professor, Bangladesh University of Health Sciences.

 

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Credit: United Nations

By External Source
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 26 2021 (IPS)

The United Nations has warned that the devastating socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic will be felt for years to come unless smart investments in economic, societal and climate resilience ensure a robust and sustainable recovery of the global economy.

In 2020, the world economy shrank by 4.3 per cent, over two and half times more than during the global financial crisis of 2009. The modest recovery of 4.7 per cent expected in 2021 would barely offset the losses of 2020, says the latest World Economic Situation and Prospects.

The report underscores that sustained recovery from the pandemic will depend not only on the size of the stimulus measures, and the quick rollout of vaccines, but also on the quality and efficacy of these measures to build resilience against future shocks.

“We are facing the worst health and economic crisis in 90 years. As we mourn the growing death toll, we must remember that the choices we make now will determine our collective future,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who remotely addressed the Davos Agenda event on January 25.

“Let’s invest in an inclusive and sustainable future driven by smart policies, impactful investments, and a strong and effective multilateral system that places people at the heart of all socio-economic efforts.”

Developed economies, projected to see a 4 per cent output growth in 2021, shrank the most in 2020, by 5.6 per cent, due to economic shutdowns and subsequent waves of the pandemic, increasing the risk of premature austerity measures that would only derail recovery efforts globally. Developing countries saw a less severe contraction at 2.5 per cent, with an expected rebound of 5.7 per cent in 2021, according to the estimates presented in the report.

Key Areas of Impact

The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs says that 131 million more people were pushed into poverty in 2020, many of them women, children and people from marginalized communities. The pandemic has adversely affected women and girls disproportionately, exposing them to increased risk of economic devastation, poverty, violence and illiteracy.

Women make up more than 50 per cent of the workforce in high-risk labour and service intensive sectors, such as retail, hospitality and tourism – areas hardest hit by the lockdown. Many of them have limited or no access to social protection.

Massive and timely stimulus measures, amounting to US$12.7 trillion, prevented a total collapse of the world economy and averted a Great Depression. However, stark disparity in the size of the stimulus packages rolled out by developed and developing countries will put them on different trajectories of recovery, highlights the report.

The stimulus spending per capita by the developed countries has been nearly 580 times higher than those of the least developed countries (LDCs) although the average per capita income of the developed countries has been only 30 times higher than that of the LDCs.

The drastic disparity underscores the need for greater international solidarity and support, including debt relief, for the most vulnerable group of countries.

Moreover, financing these stimulus packages entailed the largest peacetime borrowing, increasing public debt globally by 15 per cent. This massive rise in debt will unduly burden future generations unless a significant part is channelled into productive and sustainable investment, and to stimulate growth.

According to the report, global trade shrank by an estimated 7.6 per cent in 2020 against the backdrop of massive disruptions in global supply chains and tourism flows. Lingering trade tensions between major economies and stalemates in multilateral trade negotiations were already constraining global trade before the pandemic.

“The current crisis reiterates the importance to revitalize the rule-based multilateral trading system to put the world economy on the trajectory of a robust and resilient recovery,” said the Under-Secretary-General of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), Liu Zhenmin. “We must make global trade resilient to shocks to ensure trade remains the engine of growth for the developing countries.”

The report highlights opportunities for developing countries if they can prioritize investments that advance human development, embrace innovation and technology, and strengthen infrastructure, including creating resilient supply chains.

Stressing the importance of stimulating investments, the report shows that while the majority of the stimulus spending went into protecting jobs and supporting current consumption, it also fuelled asset price bubbles worldwide, with stock market indices reaching new highs during the past several months.

“The depth and severity of the unprecedented crisis foreshadows a slow and painful recovery,” said UN Chief Economist and Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development Elliott Harris.

“As we step into a long recovery phase with the roll out of the vaccines against COVID-19, we need to start boosting longer-term investments that chart the path toward a more resilient recovery – accompanied by a fiscal stance that avoids premature austerity and a redefined debt sustainability framework, universal social protection schemes, and an accelerated transition to the green economy.”

An unprecedented crisis – one that has killed more than 2 million people, uprooted many more lives, forced families into poverty, exacerbated income and wealth inequality between communities, disrupted international trade and paralyzed the global economy – needs an extraordinary response.

Ultimately, the report underscores the importance of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals – the blueprint for a fair, peaceful and resilient world.

“Promoting inclusive and equitable growth, reducing inequality and enhancing environmental sustainability is the best plan we have to recover from this crisis and safeguard the world against future crises. Building resilience must guide every aspect of the recovery and we will find women playing critical roles as champions of resilience,” added Maria-Francesca Spatolisano, UN DESA’s Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Inter-Agency Affairs.

Source: UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA)

 

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A woman stands outside a yurt in Ger District, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. There is power plant nearby but the government says it aims to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. Courtesy: CC BY-SA 4.0/Nathalie Daoust

By Manipadma Jena
BHUBANESWAR, India, Jan 26 2021 (IPS)

Climate warming is believed to have taken place at some of the fastest rates in the world in Mongolia, raising the country’s average temperatures by 2.24°C between 1940 and 2015, with the last decade being the warmest of the past 76 years.

In the Gobi Desert, the occurrence of dust storms increased from 18 to 57 days between 1960 to 2007, and in 2000 almost half a million people were affected by drought. The north-eastern Asian country’s northern region is expected to become more arid over this century as annual precipitation decreased by 7 percent over the past 76 year despite an increase in winter rains. In addition to the drying landscape, changes in water availability is a serious, growing concern.

“Around 90 percent of the annual precipitation is now lost to evapotranspiration. Livestock feed is increasingly falling short (in the steppes),” Dr. Batjargal Zamba, Mongolia’s National United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) focal point, told IPS via Skype from Ulaanbaatar.

Traditional livelihoods bear the brunt of changing climate

Between 1999 and 2002, and again between 2009 and 2010, Mongolia was hit by a series of extremely harsh winters or dzuds that resulted in the death of around 10 million of an estimated 44 million livestock population. The extreme cold and coating of icy snow can prevent animals from getting to their pasture and causes mass deaths. Nearly 70 percent rangeland pastures are degraded, according to the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

This is a major push factor for the huge migration of traditional herders of camels, yaks, goats, and sheep into Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia’s capital city on the banks of the Tuul River in the north-central portion of the country. Urban availability of better health, education and market facilities add to the rural migration.

Nearly half of Mongolia’s 3.2 million people reside in its capital, and the city is facing uncontrollable air pollution, making climate impacts worse. Ulaanbaatar, like other Mongolian cities, has air pollution concentrations — mostly from coal burning to heat homes  — almost six times higher than the recommended World Health Organisation (WHO) air quality guidelines.

In traditionally dry Mongolia, flash floods have become a new feature. As warmer air has a higher capacity to carry moisture in the form of water vapour, global warming is already causing extreme rainfall events. In summer, Mongolia’s 2.24°C higher temperature is melting the snow faster, thawing the permafrost, so much so that it is not just the vast Gobi Desert in the south which is affected, but devastating flash floods have reached Ulaanbaatar, destroying roads and houses on its way, according to Zamba. 

These natural hazards occurring from shifts in climate dynamics frequently affect Mongolia with high loss and damage to agriculture and livestock sectors, hampering poverty reduction efforts, causing economic shock, and contributing to unsustainable rural to urban migration. With a per capita income of $4,295, Mongolia was ranked 106th globally, according to the World Bank.

Mongolia steps up climate control with international partnerships

According to Mongolia’s Ministry of Environment and Tourism, the government has been undertaking a number of measures, which include:

• National Climate Change Programme (2011),
• Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (2015),
• Green Development Policy (2015), 
• Sustainable Development Vision 2030 (2016), and
• the newly-approved Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC).

The central element for implementing the Paris Agreement are the NDCs of each of the 196 Parties to the climate convention. NDCs are national climate plans highlighting climate actions, related targets, policies and measures governments aims to implement in response to climate change and as a contribution to global climate action.

Mongolia is engaged closely with international efforts to mitigate climate change and its impacts. It is one of the 63 countries that is being supported by the Climate Action Enhancement Package (CAEP), an initiative of the NDC Partnership (NDCP) with financial and technical assistance not only to submit enhanced NDCs but to also fast-track their implementation.

Mongolia’s NDCs, outlining and communicating their government’s post-2020 climate actions, was approved in November 2019. In it, Mongolia intends to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 22.7 percent by 2030, compared to the business-as-usual scenario. This goal excludes land use, land-use change, and forestry (LULUCF). To reduce emissions, it will focus on the energy sector, namely energy production, energy consumption and transmission loss. In the non-energy sector it will focus on agriculture, industry, and waste-to-energy.

Adaptation in the livelihoods sector, especially in nature-based solutions to water conservation, is also highlighted in the NDCs.

“In addition, if mitigation measures such as carbon capture and sequestration; waste-to-energy, technologies, which are few with developing nations are implemented under international financial mechanism and technical support, Mongolia could achieve a 27.2 percent reduction in total national GHG emissions,” Zamba told IPS.

“This would include capture of methane gas from coal mining, waste-to-energy conversion particularly utilising Ulaanbaatar city’s massive waste dumps. Additionally, greening the steppe region, which covers more than three-fourths of the national territory, increasing forest cover would build up a substantial carbon sink [to increase] carbon removal and reduction in total, to as high as 40.9 percent,” asserted Zamba. Siberian larches and cedars, spruces, pines, and firs with deciduous trees birches, aspens, and poplars cover Mongolia’s northern mountain slopes.

After Mongolia’s new national government came to power in June 2020, the drive to mitigate climate change has been increased via an inter-sectoral integrated climate action plan involving as many as nine ministries. 

The CAEP has also helped on various fronts, making Mongolia’s climate actions more robust and inter-sectoral. Under the CAEP, the Mongolian government has partnered with the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN (FAO), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) and the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), among other institutions over the course of 2020 and 2021, according to ministry sources.

“The CAEP has facilitated to integrate NDC implementation into our national action plans and strategies. Mongolia aspires to reach net-zero emission by 2050,” Zamba said.

Enkhbat Altangerel, Director-General of Mongolia’s Ministry of Environment and Tourism, told IPS via email: “Mongolia has joined the NDC Partnership in 2017 and since has been an active member. A number of significant achievements were attained within the frame of the cooperation, such as a partnership plan which was developed and approved, NDC Partners’ online and coordination platform was established. This was a pioneering measure in the field and currently the platform functions as the main NDC coordination and tracking mechanism at the national level.” 

Private sector engagement is essential and prioritised in the implementation of climate policies said Altangerel. Already two private sector commercial banks, XacBank and the Trade and Development Bank, are designated as Accredited Entities for the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and are able to disburse GCF-provided green loans to large solar projects. The government has also proposed a Mongolian Green Finance Corporation in cooperation with GCF, which will become the main national green financing body.

Implementing the 2019 NDC till 2030, inclusive of mitigation and adaptation plans, is calculated to cost $11.5 billion, Zamba told IPS.

A yurt in Mongolia with a solar panel that provides electricity and also connects the satellite tv. Courtesy: CC By 2.0/Niek van Son

Speeding towards renewable energy in the Land of Eternal Blue Sky

With between 220 and 260 clear, sunny days each year, Mongolia is called the Land of the Eternal Blue Sky. The country’s combined wind and solar power potential is estimated by the ADB to be equivalent of 2,600 gigawatts (GW) of installed capacity or 5,457 terawatt-hours of clean electricity generation per year. The amount is enough to meet the country’s energy demand of around 1.2GW as of 2018 and allow it to still export the remaining, yet currently Mongolia’s coal-dependent energy sector emits two-thirds of its GHG. Coal being cheap and plentiful, coal-fired thermal power plants accounted for a total of 96.1 percent of the total electricity supply in 2015.

But that’s about to change.

“The most emitting sectors are energy and agriculture,” admits Altangerel, “but renewable energy is where our key mitigation achievements are, so far.”

From a current renewable mix of 20 percent share in total electricity generation dominated by wind and solar, with hydro and geothermal, it is targeting a total 1,356 MW or triple the current installed capacity by 2030.

To reduce dirty power generation, Mongolia will also install its first large-scale advanced battery energy storage system in partnership with ADB, facilitated by CAEP. Renewable is also set to provide urban heating in Mongolia’s bitter winter where coal, wood and even rubber tyres are used by the urban poor.

Facilitating private sector partnerships

The private sector engagement is essential in implementation of climate actions said Altangerel.

“We are not asking the private sector to help; we are coercing them. With incentives of course!” Zamba half-jokingly adds. In developing economies public-private partnerships (PPP) are essential, with governments being resource constrained.

The government has prioritised cooperation with the private sector in implementing the NDCs and relevant policies.

After XacBank, one of Mongolia’s large commercial financial institutions in 2019 became the first private sector Accredited Entity for GCF, the bank disburses GCF-provided green loans to large solar projects. The Trade and Development Bank is the second bank to be designated Accredited Entity for GCF. Mongolia has also proposed a Mongolian Green Finance Corporation in cooperation with GCF which will become the main green financing national body.

“Considering the efficiency and rapid process of the CAEP programme, our government is further planning to extend its collaboration with NDC Partnership at sectoral level for the implementation of sector-specific NDC targets and activities,” Altangerel told IPS.

 

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jan 26 2021 (IPS)

Current development fads fetishize data, ostensibly for ‘evidence-based policy-making’: if not measured, it will not matter. So, forget about getting financial resources for your work, programmes and projects, no matter how beneficial, significant or desperately needed.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Measure for measure
Agencies, funds, programmes and others lobby and fight for attention by showcasing their own policy agendas, ostensible achievements and potential. Many believe that the more indicators they get endorsed by the ‘international community’, the more financial support they can expect to secure.

Collecting enough national data to properly monitor progress on the Sustainable Development Goals is expensive. Data collection costs, typically borne by the countries themselves, have been estimated at minimally over three times total official development assistance (ODA).

Remember aid declined after the US-Soviet Cold War, and again following the 2008-9 global financial crisis. More recently, much more ODA is earmarked to ‘support’ private investments from donor countries.

With data demands growing, more pressure to measure has led to either over- or under-stating both problems and progress, sometimes with no dishonest intent. ‘Errors’ can easily be explained away as statistics from poor countries are notoriously unreliable.

Political, bureaucratic and funding considerations limit the willingness to admit that reported data are suspect for fear this may reflect poorly on those responsible. And once baseline statistics have been established, similar considerations compel subsequent ‘consistency’ or ‘conformity’ in reporting.

And when problems have to be acknowledged, ‘double-speak’ may be the result. Organisations may then start reporting some statistics to the public, with other data used, typically confidentially, for ‘in-house’ operational purposes.

Money, money, money
Economists generally prefer and even demand the use of money-metric measures. The rationale often is that no other meaningful measure is available. Many believe that showing ostensible costs and benefits is more likely to raise needed funding. Using either exchange rates or purchasing power parity (PPP) has been much debated. Some advocate even more convenient measures such as the prices of a standard McDonald’s hamburger in different countries.

Money-metrics imply that estimated economic losses due to, say, smoking or non-communicable diseases (NCDs), including obesity, tend to be far greater in richer countries, owing to the much higher incomes lost or foregone as well as costs incurred.

Development discourse changes
The four UN Development Decades after 1960 sought to accelerate economic progress and improve social wellbeing. Unsurprisingly, for decades, there have been various debates in the development discourse on measuring progress.

The rise of neoliberal economic thinking, claiming to free markets, has instead mainly strengthened and extended private property rights. Rejecting Keynesian and development economics, both associated with state intervention, neoliberalism’s influence peaked around the turn of the century.

The so-called ‘Washington Consensus’ of US federal institutions from the 1980s also involved the Bretton Woods institutions, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, both headquartered in the American capital.

In 2000, the UN Secretariat drafted the Millennium Declaration. This, in turn, became the basis for the Millennium Development Goals which gave primacy to halving the number of poor. After all, who would object to reducing poverty. The poor were defined with reference to a poverty line, somewhat arbitrarily defined by the Bank.

Poverty fetish
Presuming money income to be a universal yardstick of wellbeing, this poverty measure has been challenged on various grounds. Most in poorer developing countries sense that much nuance and variation are lost in such measures, not only for poverty, but also for, say, hunger.

Anyone familiar with the varying significance, over time, of cash incomes and prices in most countries will be uncomfortable with such singular measures. But they are nonetheless much publicised and have implied continued progress until the Covid-19 pandemic.

Rejection of such singular poverty measures has led to multi-dimensional poverty indicators, typically to meet ‘basic needs’. While such ‘dashboard’ statistics offer more nuance, the continued desire for a single metric has led to the development, promotion and popularisation of composite indicators.

Worse, this has been typically accompanied by problematic ranking exercises using such composite indicators. Many have become obsessed with such ranking, instead of the underlying socio-economic processes and actual progress.

Blind neglect
Improving such metrics has thus become an end in itself, with little debate over such one-dimensional means of measuring progress. The consequent ‘tunnel vision’ has meant ignoring other measures and indicators of wellbeing.

In recent decades, instead of subsistence agriculture, cash crops have been promoted. Yet, all too many children of cash-poor subsistence farmers are nutritionally better fed and healthier than the offspring of monetarily better off cash crop or ‘commercial’ farmers.

Meanwhile, as cash incomes rise, those with diet-related NCDs have been growing. While life expectancy has risen in much of the world, healthy life expectancy has progressed less as ill health increasingly haunts the sunset years of longer lives.

Be careful what you wish for
Meanwhile, as poor countries get limited help in their efforts to adjust to global warming, rich countries’ focus on supporting mitigation efforts has included, inter alia, promoting ‘no-till agriculture’. Thus attributing greenhouse gas emissions implies corresponding mitigation efforts via greater herbicide use.

Maximising carbon sequestration in unploughed farm topsoil requires more reliance on typically toxic, if not carcinogenic pesticides, especially herbicides. But addressing global warming should not be at the expense of sustainable agriculture.

Similarly, imposing global carbon taxation will raise the price of, and reduce access to electricity for the ‘energy-poor’, who comprise a fifth of the world’s population. Rich countries subsidising affordable renewable energy for poor countries and people would resolve this dilemma.

Following the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, the UN proposed a Global Green New Deal (GGND) which included such cross-subsidisation by rich countries of sustainable development progress elsewhere.

The 2009 London G20 summit succeeded in raising more than the trillion dollars targeted. But the resources mainly went to strengthening the IMF, rather than for the GGND proposal. Thus, the finance fetish blocked a chance to revive world economic growth, with sustainable development gains for all.

 

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Mozn Hassan

By Sania Farooqui
NEW DELHI, India, Jan 25 2021 (IPS)

Ten years ago on this day, January 25, one of the biggest revolutions in the world took place in Egypt’s Tahrir Square, as protestors poured into the streets chanting slogans of “Bread, Freedom and Social Justice”, demanding one of the region’s longest-serving and autocratic President Hosni Mubarak to step down. Three weeks later, on February 11th, Mubarak stepped down as president, leaving the Egyptian military in control of the country.

Amnesty International in a statement said, several female protestors at Tahrir Square were taken into military custody on March 9th, 2011 – the day after International Women’s Day – and subjected to grave torture, including being beaten, prodded with electric shock batons, subjected to strip searches and forced to submit to ‘virginity tests’ and threatened with prostitution.

Major General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), said that “‘virginity tests’ had been carried out on female detainees in March to “protect” the army against possible allegations of rape”.

When the administrative court issued a ruling against this practise and called it illegal, a military court acquitted the physician who performed these tests, sending out a clear message of impunity.

A decade after the January 25th Revolution in Egypt, the country continues to thrive on this culture of impunity. A 2013 United Nations study found that nearly all Egyptian women – 99 percent of those surveyed has been victims of sexual harassment. Egypt has continued to deny accusations of these grave human rights violations and sexual violence. In 2020, Rights groups estimated some 60,000 detainees in Egypt are political prisoners, including activist, journalists and lawyers

Mozn Hassan, one of Egypt’s most outspoken voices on human rights, founder and Executive Director of Nazra for Feminist Studies has been working on building an Egyptian feminist movement and support women human rights defenders through legal and psychological intervention in the country much before the Egyptial revolution took place in 2011.

Nazra for Feminist Studies was established in 2005 in Cairo, where it continued building the feminist movement in Egypt and the MENA region.“We are losing everyday, but the feminist movement in Egypt is not a failed movement,” says Mozn Hassan to IPS News.

“Being an independent feminist voice can cost you a lot, targeting by state actors, asset freeze, travel ban, charges of supporting women to have “irreponsible liberty”, or facing threats of charges that could bring you to life time in prisons, are just a few examples,” said Mozn.

Since June 2016 a travel ban has been imposed on Mozn Hassan, following previous incidents of jucidial harassment against Nazra for Feminist Studies, including summons in relation to foreign funding case. In January 2017, Cairo Criminal Court ruled to freeze assets of Mozn Hassan and her non-government organization Nazra for Feminist Studies. Last year in July 2020, the Criminal Court of North Cairo rejected the appeal of the travel ban, later postponing the review of a request to cancel this ban.

“What is happening to Nazra is a clear example of how patriarchal and conserverative individuals cannot accept feminism and feminist acts. I am only one amongst other human rights defenders who has been charged for supporting women to have ‘irresponsible liberty’.

“We have seen different types of pain, loss and grief. We saw systematic sexual assaults; we are seeing friends celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Egyptian revolution in jail in the time of Covid-19. At the same time, we are also seeing women’s movements struggling and fighting to have rights, something that has never happened in the Egyptian constitution,” says Mozn.

In November 2019 United Nations member countries at the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the Human Rights Council in Geneva criticised Egypts human rights crisis and called on to end torture and ill-treatment, investigate crimes comitted by security forces, allow non governmental organizations and activists to work independently, and protect human rights while countering terrorism.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet and several UN experts have repeatedly condemned abuses in Egypt. Several countries have also urged Egypt to make serious measures to halt violations against women.

“Being an activist is hard, being a feminist is harder and being a person who is not part of a social gang, even harder in Egypt. It really is a choice,” says Mozn.

A decade after the revolution in Egypt that overthrew the long-time dictator, what followed the country was economic collapse, job losses, deteriorating human rights conditions, brutal military dictatorship, failing public healthcare systems, and extreme poverty. The committee to Protect Journalists ranked Egypt third, behind China and Turkey, in detaining journalists.

The only way to continue is to understand why we are doing what we do, to continue believing in what is right, says Mozn. “We are gaining support from people, there are small changes but without the process of freedom and democracy in place, the costs will always be higher than gains. We need a holistic vision compiled with political will to move forward.”

“Solidarity is the secret that makes us continue doing our work, and heal from those who want to stop us. Solidarity has been the key aspect of our resilience at Nazra and for me personally as well,” says Mozn.

Sania Farooqui is a journalist and filmmaker based out of New Delhi. She hosts a weekly online show called The Sania Farooqui Show where Muslim women from around the world are invited to share their views.

 

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Women ragpickers in Delhi scavenging through a pile of refuse for recyclable material. Credit: Dharmendra Yadav/IPS

By Daud Khan and Leila Yasmine Khan
AMSTERDAM/ROME, Jan 25 2021 (IPS)

Developing countries as a group have been growing faster than developed countries for several decades. As a result the ratio between average incomes between the two sets of countries – albeit still very large – has been shrinking.  This is good news. The other piece of good news is that over this period the number of people living in extreme poverty has also been dropping – from 1.9 billion in 1990 to about 650 million in recent years.  China has recently declared an end to extreme poverty. 

The bad news is that much of increased income and wealth in many developing countries has been concentrated at the top with relatively little going to the poor.  This includes big, fast growing countries such as China and India. 

As a result the bulk of the population in developing countries is living in a society where income inequality is increasing.  This matters for two reasons:  

• Firstly, that the increase in average GDP in the developing countries is not translating as fast as it should into generalised well-being indictors such as such as higher education, real wages, average height and life expectancy. This is very disappointing.  
• Secondly, people are not as happy as they could be.  After all happiness is impacted not just by how much they earn and consume, but also about their place in society and how they stand compared to others. The widening gap between the poor and the rich in many countries creates a sense of depravation and injustice. This makes them highly susceptible to political turbulence and instability, both of which have a high cost in terms of economic performance and wellbeing.

Is the increase in inequality an inevitable part of the development process, or at least of the early stages of growth?  Is it true that one “cannot redistribute poverty”? Is it true that rich tend to save and invest more and therefore some concentration of income and wealth is necessary to generate higher growth? Is it true that only a rich and privileged business class has the confidence and appetite for risk and innovation that is a prerequisite for development?  There is strong evidence that the answer to all the above questions is a “NO”. Growth and development can go hand in hand with reduced inequality and better living standards for the poor.

Developing countries are very much on their own in charting out a pathway out of the current situation of inequality and poverty. The developed countries that used to be on the forefront of well balanced growth have for some time abandoned this role

Historic evidence comes from Western Europe which during the early part of the last century, managed to increase wellbeing indicators in line with, or sometimes even faster, than GDP growth.

To some extent this was due to technical innovations such as those in preventive and curative medicines, but a lot had to do with improved social services in health and education, opening up to trade, social protection programmes, and increasing civil rights, particularly to minorities and vulnerable groups.

More recently, experience in several Latin America countries show how more democracy and strong social welfare programmes can reduce inequality and improve the lives of the poor. 

The need to address inequality has been made more urgent by the COVID-19 pandemic.  The past year has exacerbated inequality by increasing unemployment, cutting workers’ wages and hitting the poorest and most vulnerable communities. 

Weak social safety nets and poor public health systems have left the poor in a dramatic situation. COVID-19 has particularly hit women who have reduced access to health services and jobs. There has been a sharp increase in domestic violence against women and girls. 

Given this worsening situation, can anything be done to make growth more equitable?  Most certainly – in fact there are several things that can be done and they fall into two broad categories – more “pro-poor” growth, and well-designed social welfare programmes.  

One of the most important pro-poor policies relates to macro-economic stability. It is often not appreciated how vulnerable the poor are to inflation, recessions, overvalued exchange rates and high interest rates.  Keeping these key macro–economic variables under control is imperative. It is not going to be easy as Governments battle the COVID crisis but has to be done. 

The other major element of a pro-poor growth strategy is increasing access for the poor to the essential prerequisites for a productive life.  These include improved infrastructure that meet the needs of the poor such as clean water and sanitation, as well as improved electricity and transport services. 

Equally important are better access to health and education; and to physical and financial assets, in particular credit and land in both rural and urban areas.  Of increasingly importance is access to digital services which are an essential prerequisite to accessing new technologies and productivity growth.

Finally, it is essential that developing countries work together to maintain an open trading system which allows them to produce in line with their endowments and skill levels.  

Clearly not all the poor will be able to take advantage of the improved opportunities created by pro-poor growth.  Factors that exclude them include geographical isolation, gender bias, disabilities, ethnicity or sometimes pure and simple bad luck where things “just don’t work out”.  

Currently only a fraction of the population of developing countries has access to comprehensive social protections programmes and safety nets.  This needs to increase dramatically – not as a form of charity but as a form of social responsibility.    

Unfortunately developing countries are very much on their own in charting out a pathway out of the current situation of inequality and poverty. The developed countries that used to be on the forefront of well balanced growth have for some time abandoned this role.  

Income inequality in the developed world also started increasing in the 1980s. This happened not only in highly market oriented economies such as the USA, but also in historically egalitarian countries such as Germany, Denmark and Sweden.

And this is not just as a result of technical or market-driven changes that favour for example the “tech-giants”, but also reflects policy choices such as reduced taxes for the richest.  

The tendency for Governments in developed countries to favour the rich was exacerbated during the 2008 financial crisis where vast amounts of public money were provided in the form of support to the financial institutions and large-scale industrial enterprises considered “too big to be allowed to fail”. 

Early indications are that something similar may happen with the post-COVID recovery effort. Substantial amounts of public funds may end up going to large firms – rather than to the poor – which may exacerbate the trends towards rising inequality. 

In the coming decades, the developing countries have a historical chance not only to closing the gap in terms of average incomes gap with developed countries, but also improving the quality of this growth. 

 

Daud Khan works as consultant and advisor for various Governments and international agencies. He has degrees in Economics from the LSE and Oxford – where he was a Rhodes Scholar; and a degree in Environmental Management from the Imperial College of Science and Technology. He lives partly in Italy and partly in Pakistan

Leila Yasmine Khan is an independent writer and editor based in the Netherlands. She has Master’s degrees in Philosophy and one in Argumentation Theory and Rhetoric – both from the University of Amsterdam – as well as a Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy from the University of Rome (Roma Tre). She provided research and editorial support. 

 

The post Closing the Gap between Developed and Developing Countries: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By PRESS RELEASE
GENEVA, Jan 25 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the Global Education Cluster (GEC), the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE), Switzerland, UNICEF, the University of Geneva, UNESCO and UNHCR are delighted to announce the launch of the Geneva Global Hub for Education in Emergencies.

The Geneva Global Hub for Education in Emergencies is an ambitious commitment towards the realisation of the right to education for crisis-affected and displaced children and youth and comes at a time of unprecedented humanitarian needs. Of the world’s approximately 257 million primary and secondary school-age children out of school, 127 million live in countries affected by emergencies. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated this situation. We are witnessing a global crisis in which children and youth are at heightened risk of losing years of education.

The urgent need to respond effectively to the education needs of the world’s most vulnerable children and youth is why the co-signatories pledged at the 2019 Global Refugee Forum to making Geneva the Global Hub for Education in Emergencies. The members will work together towards three main goals:

• Growing demand for change: The Hub is a catalyst for partners to come together to increase their prevention and response to education needs in emergencies. It will strengthen policy and integrated approaches across the humanitarian, development, migration and peace spectrum, as well as with other sectors such as health and climate, to better prioritise and deliver quality, inclusive education in emergencies for crisis-affected children and youth through the increased collaboration of International Geneva actors and beyond, including linking up with other relevant initiatives.
• Inspiring commitment: Bringing together the Geneva strategic community of committed thought leaders will inspire political will and influence agenda setting so that governments and partners see education as a top priority before, during and after emergencies and in protracted crises.
• Boosting country-level impact: All children and youth affected by armed conflicts, violence, disasters, epidemics and forced displacement must have their right to a quality education realised. The Hub aims at boosting the country-level impact of education in emergencies preparedness measures and responses through better data, evidence on what works and innovative research and solutions that support the delivery of safe and quality education while building resilient education systems.

Overall, the Hub will be a catalyst to accelerate progress towards SDG 4 in crises and displacement contexts and help realise the commitments set out in the Global Compact for Refugees.

About the Geneva Global Hub for Education in Emergencies

Humanitarian crises, conflict and displacement deny millions of children and youth their right to education. Of the world’s approximately 257 million primary and secondary school-age children out of school, 127 million live in countries affected by emergencies. Nearly 30% of the world’s primary and secondary school-age children and youth live in crisis-affected countries. However, prior to the COVID19 pandemic, they accounted for almost half of all out-of-school children. The situation is even starker at primary level: in 2019, less than one-third of primary-school-age children resided in crisis-affected countries, but almost three-quarters of those out of school resided in these countries.

That is why at the 2019 Global Refugee Forum, Switzerland pledged to promote Geneva a Global Hub for Education in Emergencies to leverage the Geneva international community by convening actors and creating synergies for joint action so that all crisis-affected and displaced children and youth have their right to education fulfilled, respected and protected. The pledge was co-signed by Education Cannot Wait, the Global Education Cluster, the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies, UNICEF, the University of Geneva, UNESCO and UNHCR.

The Geneva Global Hub focuses on school-aged children and youth, meaning access and completion of quality pre-primary, primary and secondary education, including non-formal educational pathways and transition to the formal national education system, in line with SDG 4.1. and 4.2. The Hub is also involved in research and evidence-creation for education in emergencies and data. Furthermore, the Hub’s focus includes all crisis-affected and displaced children and youth, regardless of their status (i.e. refugee, host community, internally displaced children and youth, as well as those affected by conflict, violence, disaster and epidemics).

The post Launch of the Geneva Global Hub for Education in Emergencies – a Catalyst for Change appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Doctors were furious with the government spokesman's comments about politicians' coronavirus deaths.

By Michelle Belisle
NOUMEA, New Caledonia, Jan 25 2021 (IPS)

In 2019, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 24 January as International Day of Education, in celebration of the role of education for peace and development. The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 4 challenges all nations to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” by the year 2030. As we think about this in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the emerging post-COVID-19 environment, what does inclusive and equitable education look like and how do we ensure that lifelong learning opportunities are benefitted by all?

EQAP Director Michelle Belise

Pacific Island Literacy and Numeracy Assessment (PILNA) results have provided us with rich data that identifies trends in literacy and numeracy for primary school students in the region. The PILNA data in recent cycles have also provided additional insights that speak to learning more broadly in terms of the learning skills that primary students are developing. PILNA 2018 data indicates that problem-solving and critical thinking skills are a challenge for many students in the Pacific region. For example, over 70% of year 6 students struggled with questions that required interpretation and reasoning in numeracy. Similarly, over 50% of students were unable to provide an explanation for their responses to questions in literacy that asked them to interpret what they had read or to make a decision or support an opinion, based on their reading.

At the senior secondary level, student results for the South Pacific Form Seven Certificate (SPFSC) have shown similar trends in recent years. Higher-order questions requiring students to apply their knowledge and problem solve in subjects across the spectrum, but particularly in the sciences and maths, are challenging. Students are generally able to respond to questions by applying recall or direct application of skills and knowledge, but struggle when asked to inter-relate multiple concepts, to address real-world situations or to extend their thinking into a more abstract use of skills and knowledge.

“…traditional education has frequently focused on problems that already have solutions…”

How do we equip learners for the demands of lifelong learning in an ever more rapidly changing world? Traditional education has focused on skills and facts, the kind of education many of us have experienced and the kind of education that has long been a staple of formal education systems around the world. It has frequently focused on problems that already have solutions and in supporting students in getting to those solutions. In recent years there has been increasing recognition that if learning is a lifelong effort, education needs to provide learners with skills that will allow them to solve problems that don’t yet have solutions.

Learning in the twenty-first century should be less focused on facts and figures, which are far more readily available than was the case in past centuries. Instead, education for lifelong learning must emphasise the importance of critical thinking, problem solving, reasoning, analysis, interpretation, synthesizing information, as well as collaboration and digital literacy skills. Gaining these skills, however, involves different ways of engaging in learning that are often not as readily available in large classrooms or in settings where students are not encouraged, or perhaps even overtly discouraged, from questioning what the teacher is saying. The efforts to develop the many skills needed by learners are complicated by the added challenge of disruptions to learning caused by the pandemic and efforts to fill the gaps with distance learning and virtual gatherings.

As we navigate the COVID crisis, we have a unique opportunity to reset standards in education, by providing the tools to ensure future generations embrace critical thinking both here in the Pacific, and globally.

Michelle Belisle Director, Educational Quality and Assessment Programme Pacific Community (SPC)

 

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