Africa

Usama Aminu describes his ordeal as he managed to escape the mass kidnapping in Nigeria's Katsina school.

A student who escaped after gunmen raided an all-boys school in Nigeria speaks to the BBC.

By Fairuz Ahmed
NEW YORK, Dec 14 2020 (IPS)

The United Nations Secretary-General’s UNiTE by 2030 to End Violence against Women campaign marked the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence (25 November to 10 December 2020) at a time when COVID-19 exacerbated the conditions women operate under.

The theme, Orange the World: Fund, Respond, Prevent, Collect!, was aimed at amplifying the global call to action to bridge funding gaps, ensure essential services for the survivors of violence during the pandemic, prevent abuse and collect data that could lead to life-saving services for women and girls.

While the campaign rippled across social media, women’snetworking platform Fuzia www.fuzia.com) responded with several initiatives aimed at their 4 million followers.

Globally as countries implemented lockdown measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus, violence against women, especially domestic violence, intensified. School closures and economic strains left women and girls poorer.

UN Women call the abuse against women during COVID-19 the “shadow pandemic” and in recent studies outlined shocking statistics. They estimate 243 million women and girls were abused by an intimate partner in the past year. Meanwhile, less than 40 percent of women who experience violence report it or seek help.

Recognising the dire need for help Fuzia hosted a live session with a licensed clinical psychologist, Aastha Kapoor, talking about how to survive an abusive relationship. Kapoor, in conversation with Fuzia’s project manager Anjali Joshi, spoke about how difficult it is for abused women to confront their reality.

Kapoor said that her patients often take three or four sessions before talking about the abuse, and even then, it is often difficult to break ties with the abuser.

The women “have to communicate with themselves” to end these relationships and understand that while there is hope that people will change, this is seldom the case, she warned.

Joshi spoke about how abused women are often not believed, a phenomenon she termed ‘gaslighting’ and persuaded by family and others to return to abusive relationships.

Taboo topics like triggers of suicide, openly seeking mental health counselling, therapy, interpersonal relationship issues, dos and don’ts, manipulation, adolescence, and the boundaries of parent-child relationships formed part of the interview, with viewers getting their questions answered immediately.

“Abuse is not necessarily always physical abuse. Abuse also comes as manipulation, gaslighting, which might happen with friends, workplace, partners, and family,” Kapoor said. “So, it is important to have a safe space to come out and speak. A conversation and judgment-free platform can make the victim open up and seek guidance.”

Joshi remarked that people need to talk about these sensitive topics because these are evident in real life. Identifying and learning that the problem is here is the first step to cure the issue.

Fuzia works entirely on digital platforms and uses other exciting and innovative techniques to support its online community.

Its editorial philosophy includes supporting women as they handle matters at home, bringing up children, as workers – especially in healthcare fields.

Without support, it recognises that women could suffer from mental health issues and identity crises. This nurturing and societal support varies significantly from one country to another, and regional norms tend to have a strong influence.

Fuzia has understood and pinpointed these needs and came up with innovative ways to lend a supporting hand to females across the globe.

With a variety of followers and creative thinkers under one umbrella, they have created a space that is judgment free and nurturing. Any age, race, colour, ethnicity, and gender orientation are welcome on their platform.

Apart from domestic violence and abuse, their forums provide support for people experiencing workplace neglect, healthy and unhealthy relationship spectrums. It also tackles LGBTQ issues, teen and tween issues, self-care, healing a trauma and suicide prevention among others are discussed here, and guidance, along with region-specific information is provided.

In many countries where religion and societal stigmas play a central role, women are often side-lined. Their saying “NO” can be taken as a form of “YES” and personal opinions and choices are virtually ignored. Selfcare, matters of body and sexuality are highly negated and considered taboo topics.

Megs Shah, CEO of The Parasol Cooperative, in an exclusive interview with IPS, said that women often live in these abusive relationships because of societal pressure.

Thoughts like: “What will people say?”; “I am a helpless woman”; “My children will suffer if I leave a relationship”; “I will be financially constrained,” keep the abused women from asking for help.

Often these beliefs are articulated when she speaks to survivors and single mothers on a Facebook group.

Another, recently launched, Fuzia campaign, “Write out Loud”, encourages writers were to creatively express their views on women’s empowerment and gender equality.

Fuzia also has a blogger and podcaster who writes under the pseudonym “Zia”. She tackles women empowerment, gender equality, and activism.

Zia comments during the 16 days: “Compromises are required in all relationships, but women no longer need to be self-sacrificing. We now have to put our foot down. We now have to break the cycle of patriarchy. For that, we now have to raise the voices we were born with. The new norm in society should be EQUALITY. All relationships should strive for it. When we decide to break the norms when we stand up for ourselves, and that’s when we decide what’s right and what’s wrong.”

This article is a sponsored feature.

 

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The post Helping Women to Step out of the ‘Shadow Pandemic’ of Women Abuse appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Sania Farooqui
NEW DELHI, India, Dec 14 2020 (IPS)

Decades of aggressive efforts to create equal opportunities for women, shatter the glass ceiling and build a more inclusive society only ends up in failure, when the key stake holders refuse to acknowledge discriminatory laws, socio-cultural and religious set ups that continue to threaten progress made by the female work force.

Yousra Imran

British Egyptian writer Yousra Imran’s book ‘Hijab and Red Lipstick’ gives a sharp insight into the lives of women in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Sara, the protagonist in the book is torn between her father’s conservative interpretation of Islam, his need to control and protect her from everything he calls “haram”, a term used for ‘forbidden’ in Islam and her desperate bid for freedom from life under the guardianship system.

“The current challenges for women in the Gulf and some Middle Eastern countries is that despite modernization the law still sees women as minors when they are unmarried women, and if they do get married, legally they move from being under the guardianship of a father or brother to the guardianship of their husband.

“Women just want their own agency – the ability to make decisions without needing a written letter of permission or no objection letter from a male guardian”, says Yousra Imran to IPS. She is the author of the book Hijab and Red Lipstick.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG) that aims to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls still remains a challenge in many parts of the world.

According to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), “In Arab region, women face high barriers to entry into the labor market and are at the risk of unemployment than men.”

The latest policy brief from the UN on The Impact of Covid-19 on Women, states that “The coronavirus outbreak exacerbates existing inequalities for women and girls across every sphere – from health and the economy, to security and social protection. The pandemic has also led to an increase in violence against women and girls – particularly domestic violence which has intensified.”

Ending all forms of discrimination against women and girls, are crucial accelerators for sustainable development goals. Sexual violence and exploitation, division of unpaid care, local domestic work and discrimination in public offices, all remain huge barriers in the progress of SDGs, according to the UNDP.

It is important for the Middle East region to acknowledge women’s right as a human right and build an eco system that doesn’t lead to intensification of the authorities crackdown against women and women’s right defenders in the country.

In 2016, a historical attempt was made by 14,000 Saudi women when they handed over a petition to the government, calling for an end to the country’s male guardianship system. The women in Saudi Arabia refused to be treated as “second class-citizens” and demanded to be treated as “full citizens”.

It took almost three years for Saudi authorities to announce reforms to the discriminatory male guardianship system.

Among other things, women could travel without the permission of a male guardian, apply for and obtain passport over the age of 21, register a marriage, divorce or a child’s birth. While these efforts were welcomed, they were far from the abolishment of the guardianship system. Women still can’t marry without the permission of a guardian, or provide consent for their children to marry. Women can’t leave prison, exit domestic violence shelter or pass on citizenship to their children without permission from their guardian.

“There have been a few improvements in recent years “, says Yousra. Women in Saudi Arabia getting the right to drive, and greater emancipation of women into leadership roles and into the workforce across the Gulf, however, the legal system itself still needs addressing and laws need to be changed, she says.

The move towards greater freedom for women in Saudi Arabia were undermined and lost, when right after the driving ban was lifted, an apparent crackdown on women got dozens of activists detained and arrested, ironically partly for calling for these very reforms. A few who are still in jails fighting for their freedom.

All of these factors will perhaps remain in violation of Saudi Arabia’s human rights obligation and its inability to realize its Vision 2030, that declares women—half of the country’s population—to be a “great asset”.

While the UAE has made several moves to overhaul some of its strictest Islamic laws and bolster women’s rights, there are still questions in regards to its obligations under international human rights law and equality of women.

Qatar too has faced questions on obligations towards women’s rights, as family laws still continue to discriminate against women, including making it much more difficult for women to seek divorce, protection against violence, including within the family. Human rights organizations have continuously called on Qatar to stop criminalizing sex outside marriage and ends its agressive enforcement of “love crimes”.

The failure to continuously acknowledge regions heavily restricted freedom of expression and civil society activities, violations by security forces continue in the context of the criminal justice systems, including torture and other ill-treatment, especially towards its women.

Despite significant progress through reforms on paper towards the lives of Arab women that has been achieved over the years, the journey ahead is still long, complex and far from meeting the Sustainable Development Goal 5 and Vision 2030.

Sania Farooqui is a journalist and filmmaker based out of New Delhi. She hosts a weekly online show called The Sania Farooqui Show where she regularly interviews Muslim women from across the world on various topics.

 

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The post Discriminatory Laws Still Holding Women Back in the Middle East appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Women collecting water from a deep tube well in Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh. Credit: A.S.M. Shafiqur Rahman/IPS

By External Source
Dec 14 2020 (IPS)

Globally, millions of people don’t have access to water in their home. They collect water from shared water supply points or surface water sources and physically carry water containers back home for household use.

The importance of accessing water that’s safe to drink and enough water for washing, cleaning and cooking is clear. But little attention has been given to the safety of water collection away from home, or to the health and safety of the people who typically do this work. It’s most often women and girls from low income households who must queue for, collect and carry water home.

Little attention has been given to the safety of water collection away from home, or to the health and safety of the people who typically do this work. It’s most often women and girls from low income households who must queue for, collect and carry water home

Three key pieces of research that we’ve done recently highlight the dangers of collecting water. The studies include many African countries and each report cites specific country level data.

The research included a systematic review of published studies, analysis of data from surveys in 41 countries and a survey of 6,291 people across 24 sites in 21 low and middle income countries. These respondents were asked whether they had ever been injured while collecting water.

First we looked for evidence that carrying water is associated with health problems. The literature review found evidence that water carriage is associated with pain, fatigue, problems accessing perinatal health care and violence against vulnerable people. We found strong evidence that water carriage is associated with stress.

Another analysis focused on the link with maternal and child health. An analysis of surveys found that compared to households with water access on premises, fetching water is associated with poorer maternal and child health outcomes. Water access on premises is associated with improvements to maternal and child health.

We also did a survey to find out who was getting injured while fetching water. The mean age of those surveyed was 37 years. Just over 72% were female and 43% lived in rural settings. Of our respondents, 845 (13%) reported one or more water-fetching injuries (879 injuries).

In estimating the global burden of disease from lack of access to safe drinking water, injuries from collecting water are often ignored. This means that problems associated with a lack of safely managed drinking water are likely to be underestimated.

Understanding why and how injuries occur can motivate action to provide water access on premises for more people. Where water collection away from home must continue, understanding how injuries occur can help find ways to make water collection safer.

 

Who’s getting injured and how

We found that the odds of injury were 50% greater for women compared to men, nearly five times higher for rural dwellers and 2.75 times higher for peri-urban dwellers compared to urban dwellers. Greater household water insecurity increased the likelihood of a water-fetching injury.

Each additional hour spent collecting water per week was associated with a 2% increase in the odds of injury. Off-premise water sources requiring queuing and surface waters almost doubled the odds of injury compared to on-premise sources.

In our survey, 554 people who talked about how their injury occurred revealed some of the dangers of water collection. Falls were most common (76.4%); people described slipping or falling while queuing or carrying water. Women were nearly twice as likely to fall as men (61.4% vs 33.7%). Nearly all “traffic accidents” – motorised vehicle accidents, bicycle accidents or while riding an animal during water fetching – occurred in Pakistan, Democratic Republic of Congo and Kenya. These were more likely to be reported by men.

Injuries which occurred directly from carrying water containers or collecting water from wells accounted for 6.5% of injury mechanisms.

Physical confrontation (6.9%) also caused injury, and men were more likely than women to report this (10.7% vs 3.5%). There were intimations of sexual assault, for example a woman from Kampala said:

The caretaker of the pre-paid meter wanted to fall in love with me, but I told him that I am married and have children which led him to hate me, and he has hit me before.

Other researchers have reported that gender based violence occurs when people access water, sanitation and hygiene facilities. We expect that interpersonal violence was under reported in our study. Respondents may not discuss it because of feelings of distress or shame, fear of punishment from attackers or family members, or the absence of support for victims.

 

Women are responsible for providing water for their families. Many spend hours travelling to the wells and back home every day, carrying heavy clay pots on their heads. Credit: Irfan Ahmed/IPS

 

Changes needed

There’s a clear need for water supply systems that prioritise personal safety alongside the traditional goals of improving water quality and quantity.

Our findings suggest several ways to manage and reduce the risk of water-fetching injuries through existing programmes. These include:

• Collecting additional data on physical safety and accessibility.
• Supplying water on premises, which can include schools and work places.
• Maintaining numerous shared water points and supporting affordable delivery systems to reduce trip distance and time spent in queues.
• Providing equipment such as wheelbarrows, to reduce pain and fatigue from carrying water containers.
• Maintaining clear pathways along water collection routes. This would reduce the risk of injury due to slips, falls and traffic hazards.
• Encouraging men to help with water carriage through public health campaigns, to reduce women’s injury risk and other adverse maternal and child health outcomes associated with water fetching.
• Locating water points in visible, open, public places alongside campaigns to reduce gender-based violence and abuse.

Dr Jo-Anne Geere, Lecturer, School of Health Sciences, University of East Anglia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post Safe Drinking Water Should Mean Safe Collection Too: How to Reduce the Risks appeared first on Inter Press Service.

South Africa's Devon Petersen says he is now better known for his darts ability than his dancing skills.

Raghbendra Jha, Professor of Economics and Executive Director, Australia South Asia Research Centre, Australian National University

By Raghbendra Jha
CANBERRA, Australia, Dec 14 2020 (IPS)

Economic growth is the time-tested method of raising living standards and, if not accompanied by large increases in inequality, lowering poverty. Since World War II, economic growth has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, including in South Asia.

Raghbendra Jha

Now, economic growth is largely the result of three factors: physical and human capital accumulation, labour force growth and productivity growth. Clearly, the faster the rate of productivity growth the higher the rate of economic growth and the greater the reduction in poverty and improvement in living standards.

One of the surest ways of improving productivity growth is through Research and Development (R&D expenditure). The above table contrasts the 2018 experience of two major Asian countries in this regard: India and South Korea. Both countries had comparable per capita incomes in 1950. Now South Korea has attained high-income country status whereas India is a low middle-income country.

One of the reasons for this is the difference in the R&D expenditure of the two countries. As the above table shows, Korea spends more than 6 times India on R&D as percentage of individual GDPs. The absolute value of R&D expenditure is higher in Korea and this country has many more researchers per million population. Also interesting is the pattern of R&D expenditure in the two countries. The bulk of R&D expenditure in Korea is carried out by businesses whereas in India more than half of R&D expenditure is by government, through tax receipts.

This implies that when government finances are tight, as they will be during the current pandemic, R&D expenditure will be reduced. Also, government administered funds may not be as efficiently allocated as those in private business enterprises. Thus, in low-income countries there is a need to raise tax revenues for the purpose of subsidising R&D.

Also, agricultural productivity is not keeping pace with the speed of urbanization and growth in food demand and the demand for food is highly skewed making for an inordinate amount of food going for non-human consumption and wastage.

By 2050 more than two-thirds of the world’ population will be living in metropolitan centres. Concurrently, the population of the world is expected to rise from 7.7 billion in 2019–20 to around 9.8 billion in 2050. This growth is expected to be largely concentrated in Africa and Asia with stagnant, even declining, populations in many OECD countries.

Source: http://uis.unesco.org/apps/visualisations/research-and-development-spending/

Global urban population has grown by a staggering 411 per cent between 1960 and 2018—much higher than the growth of the total population. In Sub-Saharan Africa and the least developed countries urban population has grown more than ten-fold.

At the global level, cereal yield per hectare has grown by 285 per cent over the period 1961 to 2017 with much smaller increases in less well-off regions.

In many developing countries the total population has grown at a much faster rate than agricultural yield. These are some of the very countries that will experience the fastest pace of urbanization. Hence, there are genuine concerns for prospects for food security in these countries.

Although cereal yield has gone up, there is a substantial diversion of cereals for purposes other than human consumption, e.g. livestock. In the US, in 2015, 36 percent of corn was being used for feeding animals and 75 percent of global soya output was used to feed animals. Almost one third of the world’s arable land is being used to grow crops to feed animals.

In 2015, 70 billion farm animals were raised for the purposes of food. Over time, as world incomes grow, there is likely to be a further shift towards the consumption of meat and other animal products.

Trend rate of agricultural productivity growth is about 1.5 percent per annum whereas the rate of growth required to ensure food security for all by 2050 is about 1.75 percent. This significant gap needs to be closed. It is, therefore, imperative to boost agricultural R&D across the world, particularly in developing countries.

The diversion of grain to feed farm animals should be curtailed significantly. The consumption of crops by farm animals is creating an externality, i.e., reducing access to food for several millions. The market is unable to price this externality. A consumption tax on meat would serve this purpose. This is a market-based solution.

The diversion of crops to the production of biomass, ethanol and other products should be restricted by taxing such products. The revenue raised from both these taxes could be used for subsidising R&D in general and agriculture in particular to stimulate economic and food growth.

 

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The post R & D Expenditure: How to Raise It and Why appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Raghbendra Jha, Professor of Economics and Executive Director, Australia South Asia Research Centre, Australian National University

The post R & D Expenditure: How to Raise It and Why appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Sudan has agreed to pay $335m to US victims of terror and has normalised relations with Israel.

Accra-based coffee and cocoa trader Meron Dagnew at the Secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Credit: Africa Renewal

By Kingsley Ighobor
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 14 2020 (IPS)

One day in February 2020, Accra-based coffee and cocoa trader Meron Dagnew visited the Secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to introduce herself, even before the Secretariat was fully operational.

“I couldn’t wait,” she told Africa Renewal in a recent interview “I need free trading in Africa to begin as quickly as possible; it will be so good for my business.”

The AfCFTA Secretariat officially opened in Accra on 17 August 2020, although, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, free trading will now begin on 1st January 2021 instead of the originally scheduled date of 1 July 2020.

Ms. Dagnew is eager to take advantage of reduced tariffs and a consolidated market — potential spinoffs from AfCFTA — to expand the operations of her company, BE Kollective that imports Ethiopian coffee to Ghana and exports Ghanaian cocoa to Ethiopia.

“I am hoping to not pay as much as 35 per cent tariffs on my goods; I am hoping that soon I can take my value-added cocoa and coffee to African countries without problems of rules of origin. I could then make more profit, expand my business and hire more people,” she says.

Ethiopia is one of the world’s largest coffee producers and Ghana is the world’s second-largest cocoa producer, after Côte d’Ivoire. Ms. Dagnew is particularly attracted to West Africa’s market of 380 million people.

High tariffs and non-tariff barriers such as customs delays and administrative bottlenecks at border posts underscore the challenges facing African traders and at the same time accentuate a strong desire by traders for a free trade zone.

Kingsley Ighobor

The AfCFTA eliminates tariffs on 90 per cent of goods produced on the continent, tackles non-tariff barriers to trade and guarantees the free movement of persons.

Ms. Dagnew’s business slowed down in March 2020 just as the pandemic began to rage. As African economies start to slowly open while adjusting to the realities of the pandemic, Ms. Dagnew intends to restart trading soon.

Yet, she frets about other structural challenges to intra-African trade, such as the competition with big global brands that compete on an uneven playing field. For example, BE Kollective, according to Ms. Dagnew, competes with Nescafé, which is imported into Ghana by retailers.

“The problem is that importers of Nescafé from countries in Europe or Asia pay much less tariff than I pay because those countries have favourable trade agreements with African countries,” she stresses. “Therefore, the odds are currently stacked against us intra-African traders.”

Ms. Dagnew is also concerned that countries’ customs services lack adequate information about the AfCFTA.

“Not long ago, I went to the customs service in Ghana and told them I wouldn’t need to pay tariffs at some point because of AfCFTA. They didn’t understand what I was talking about,” she recalls. “There are many traders who have no idea what AfCFTA is all about.”

She recommends a massive information campaign to raise awareness of AfCFTA among customs services, traders and other key actors in countries participating in the free trade area.

Lack of infrastructure

A lack of adequate modern transport infrastructure also impedes traders’ desire to reap the full benefits of free trade, studies show. With the right transport infrastructure and high integration, manufacturers of consumer goods could earn up to $326 billion per year, according to McKinsey & Company, a US-based management consulting firm.

And according to the World Bank, it takes about three and a half weeks for a container of car parts to be cleared by Congolese customs. While East African countries Tanzania and Uganda have established a one-stop border post to slash time for cargo movement between them, new delays in the form of divergent standards for goods have quickly emerged, underscoring the mutating nature of non-tariff barriers.

African countries could rake in $20 billion yearly by simply tackling non-tariff barriers that slow the movement of goods, according to the UN Conference on Trade and Development, the UN entity that deals with trade investment and development issues.

The African Union (AU)’s efforts at boosting infrastructure through its Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) are expected to yield the Lagos-Abidjan transport corridor, the Zambia-Tanzania-Kenya power transmission line, the Lagos-Algiers highway and the Brazzaville-Kinshasa bridge, among others.

But experts encourage individual countries to invest in modern port, airport and rail line infrastructure.

Women traders

Widely spoken about in intra-African trade conversations are the challenges that women traders face.

Women constitute 70 per cent of Africa’s informal cross-border traders, and according to a 2019 study by UN Women titled Opportunities for Women Entrepreneurs in the Context of the AfCFTA, African women traders often confront corruption, insecurity and sexual harassment.

The AfCFTA agreement itself requires countries to protect the vulnerable, including women traders, and to address corruption.

African states with bilateral trade agreements with foreign countries or other regions such as the European Union will need to walk a tightrope in meeting prior commitments while implementing the AfCFTA.

In February 2020, for instance, East Africa’s economic giant Kenya began bilateral trade talks with the US, a move seemingly at odds with the country’s commitment to Africa’s free trade area.

Optimistic projections of the benefits of Africa’s free trade are, in theory, based on orthodox economic calculations — a linear demand and supply correlation that may not fully encompass externalities such as the availability of countries’ implementation capacity, requisite infrastructure, policy coherence and so on.

The World Economic Forum signals that AfCFTA’s full and effective implementation is what will lead to its transformative impacts, meaning that its touted benefits are by no means guaranteed.

The Secretary-General of AfCFTA, Wamkele Mene, acknowledges the enormous tasks ahead. “We have to roll up our sleeves and work,” he told Africa Renewal in an earlier interview.

Yet there is much to celebrate regarding the free trade agreement. The pact consolidates a market of 1.2 billion people and a combined GDP of $2.5 trillion. It would represent the world’s largest trading block by the number of participating countries if all AU member states were to ratify the agreement.

While some 30 countries have so far ratified the agreement, more countries are expected to join the bandwagon when free trading begins and its benefits become tangible.

Mr. Mene estimates that intra-African trade could increase from its current 18 per cent to 50 per cent by 2030.

It will boost earnings for traders, strengthen Africa’s competitiveness in the global marketplace, foster export diversification and enhance value addition to produce and transform natural resources.

Because of the AfCFTA, Africa’s manufacturing output is expected to double to $1 trillion, creating 14 million jobs by 2025, writes Landry Signé for Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

An industrializing continent will catalyze the agricultural sector. In the coming years, Mr. Signé anticipates, manufacturing will complement “agricultural production and agro-processing plants, which provide the food and energy to meet growing African and global demand.”

He adds that African youth engaged in computer software and apps development will seize the opportunity to produce “leapfrog” technologies to meet increasing domestic demand. In other words, good paying jobs will be created for the continent’s bulging youth population.

“Across all subsectors and countries, Africa’s industrial revolution appears imminent,” Mr. Signé declares, optimistically.

Meanwhile, African traders envisage the end of the COVID-19 pandemic or at least its receding soon. They hope the teething problems that arise will be tackled and that AfCFTA will be a shot in the arm for Africa’s development.

“It will be a dream come true for traders like me,” enthuses Ms. Dagnew.

Source: Africa Renewal, United Nations

*The Africa Renewal information programme provides up-to-date information and analysis of the major economic and development challenges facing Africa today. It examines the many issues confronting the people of Africa, its leaders and its international partners: economic reform, debt, education, health, women’s advancement, conflict and civil strife, democratization, aid, investment, trade, regional integration, rural development and many other topics. It works with the media in Africa and beyond to promote the work of the United Nations, Africa and the international community to bring peace and development to Africa.

 

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The post Africa Readying for Free Trade, Come January 2021 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Kingsley Ighobor, Africa Renewal*

The post Africa Readying for Free Trade, Come January 2021 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The country's government says Ambrose Dlamini, 52, died in hospital in South Africa on Sunday.

What drives a mother to sell her baby for £70? The story of a woman caught between poverty and traffickers.

Gunmen raided an all-boys boarding school on Friday, abducting an unknown number of children.

Motjeka Madisha, 25, was capped 13 times for the national team and was seen as a rising star.

The catwalk in Dakar has been moved into a baobab forest due to Covid-19 restrictions.

The Italian isle welcoming migrants and undergoing cultural change - from Afrobeats to scotch bonnets.

Gunmen on motorbikes raid a boarding school, home to some 800 boys, in north-western Katsina state.

Olpha Selepe, also known as GeeSixFive, shot to fame with a hit single just weeks before her death.

Greece insists such accusations are an insult but some migrants documented their trips with GPS.

There are "overwhelming" reports of Eritrean refugees in Tigray being killed or abducted, the UN says.

By Quamrul Haider
Dec 11 2020 (IPS-Partners)

Today marks the fifth anniversary of the Paris Accord hammered out by more than 190 countries at the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21). The core objective of the accord is to save humanity from the existential threat posed by climate change. To that end, the participating nations agreed to keep the increase in the average global temperature to 2 degrees Celsius while endeavouring to limit it to 1.5 degrees by the year 2100. Besides pledging to temper the rise in temperature, they agreed to restructure the global economy, phase out fossil fuels over the coming decades, switch to renewable sources of energy, embrace clean technology, and most importantly, reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050.

The accord gives every country the ability to set its own goals to confront the climate crisis, in line with their specific situation. Moreover, instead of demanding expeditious and deep cuts in fossil fuel usage, it allows parties to peak greenhouse gas emissions “as soon as possible” followed by a gradual decrease in order to reach the zero emissions goal. It is patently evident that such a vague timetable fits the interests of the major polluters, including the United States, China and India. Nevertheless, beginning this year, each nation is required to reassess its own reduction plans once every five years. However, there is no consequence or penalty if a country fails to reassess or falls short of the pledged reductions.

The accord also requires nations to address “loss and damage” caused by climate impacts. Since the wealthy, industrialised nations are largely responsible for the backlog of climate changing emissions lingering in the atmosphere, they should compensate poorer nations for unavoidable loss and damage. But even after COP25 held in Madrid last year, wealthy nations are playing Jekyll and Hyde roles—promising to cover losses while dragging their feet on providing new finance.

We are now a full five years into the Paris Accord which, according to the former US President Barack Obama, is supposed to make the “world safer and more secure, more prosperous and more free.” Are we really on course to transform our planet into one as envisioned by Obama? Are we winning the race against climate change? Did we succeed in slowing down the carnage resulting from climate change? By all accounts, the accord did not make an iota of difference in decelerating the progression of our planet, and subsequently our civilisation, toward climatological meltdown. On the contrary, climate change and its deleterious effects are accelerating, with climate-related catastrophes piling up, year after year.

Our planet is now almost at the breaking point. The environmental changes sweeping across the world are occurring at a much quicker pace than five years ago. As the Earth warms, we are witnessing more cataclysmic wildfires turning forests into carbon dioxide emitters, not to mention calamitous floods inundating nearly half of countries like Bangladesh and Thailand. Persistent droughts, ferocious storms and an increase in extreme weather phenomena—derecho, microburst, bombogenesis, Frankenstorm and many more—are on the rise. The fingerprints of climate change since 2015 can also be seen in the exacerbation of internal and international migration patterns of climate refugees.

Scorching heat waves, of all places, in the Arctic region, are now more frequent and long-lasting. With only a few weeks left in this year, it is more likely than not that 2020 will be among the hottest years ever, even with the cooling effect of this year’s La Niña. Seas are warming and rising faster, putting more coastal cities at risk of going under acidic water. Warmer waters are wreaking havoc on marine organisms forcing them to migrate away from their familiar habitats. Glaciers are melting at an alarming rate, thus disrupting availability of freshwater.

Climate-induced mayhem is taking a heavy toll on the Arctic region. The amount of Arctic sea ice whose whiteness normally acts as a natural reflector of heat back out of the atmosphere is dwindling so rapidly that the region may soon become ice-free. Loss of ice is also changing the Arctic terrain—making it greener and prettier, but at the expense of releasing copious amounts of carbon dioxide and methane trapped in the frozen soil, which in turn is making global warming even worse. Additionally, scientists have found evidence that frozen methane deposits in the Arctic Ocean, worrisomely called the “sleeping giant of the carbon cycle,” are escaping into the atmosphere. In fact, northern landscapes are undergoing massive change, with potential ramifications not just for the Arctic itself, but the world as a whole.

Permafrost in cold climate countries is thawing at breakneck speed, releasing, just like Arctic ice, large amounts of long-stored carbon dioxide and methane. In addition, viruses and bacteria that had been buried under the permafrost for thousands of years are being released into the environment, posing health risks to humans and other forms of life. Also, deforestation of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, a vital carbon sink that retards the momentum of global warming, has surged to its highest level since 2008.

As for peaking of emissions, there is a cavernous gap between the sharp cuts in emissions required to meet the goals of the Paris Accord and current projections. In a recent report, World Meteorological Organization (WMO), a specialised agency of the United Nations, states, “There is no sign of slowdown, let alone a decline, in greenhouse gases concentration in the atmosphere despite all the commitments under the Paris agreement.” Rather, emissions from just about every country are still on the rise, thereby making it difficult to close the gap so as to achieve zero emissions by 2050.

The report further notes that even the coronavirus-related drop in emissions failed to make much of a dent in the amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gases accumulating in the atmosphere. Consequently, WMO warns that the world risks becoming an “uninhabitable hell” for millions unless we drastically cut emissions—by at least 7.2 percent every 10 years if we want to keep the rise in temperature to 1.5 degree. Otherwise, we will soon be north of 3 degrees.

The warning from WMO is corroborated by a study published last month in the British journal Scientific Reports, in which the authors assert that we have already passed the “point of no return for global warming.” The only way we can stop the warming, the authors say, is by extracting “enormous amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.”

Notwithstanding the warning, Earth’s average temperature already rose by roughly one degree since the advent of modern record keeping in 1880. The devastation caused by one degree rise clearly indicates that an additional 1.5–2 degrees rise before the end of this century will lock in the changes to the Earth’s climate system that will be beyond our adaptive capacity.

Five years ago, the then UN chief lauded the Paris Accord as a landmark agreement, a potent message from world leaders who had finally decided to take on climate change in earnest. Five years later, in a complete about-face, the present UN chief, in a speech at Columbia University in New York, issued a searing indictment of our utter disregard for the pledges made in Paris. He said, “The state of the planet is broken. Humanity is waging a suicidal war on nature, facing new heights of global heating, new lows of ecological degradation….”

So much for the Paris Accord! No wonder environmentalists believe that the accord is meaningless, and with good reason. Indeed, the toothless, nonbinding, non-enforceable accord is an oversold empty promise—a gentleman’s handshake applauding the imposition of a global climate regime on humankind that is harming the planet in the name of saving it.

Finally, world leaders should realise that fixing the climate is not about making pretty promises at grandiose conferences held at glamorous cities. And if we rely on grandstanding and farcical accords that give us false hopes, we will lose the race to keep our planet cool and inhabitable.

Quamrul Haider is a Professor of Physics at Fordham University, New York.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

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