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BEC hacking is one of the most common types of cyber-attack and experts say Nigeria is its epicentre.

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Guido Barilla, Chair of the Barilla Foundation, says the future of food is in our hands if we act to fix the problems in our food system. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Dec 1 2020 (IPS)

For Zimbabwean organic farmer, Elizabeth Mpofu, access to healthy food is liberation.

Millions of people across the world go to bed hungry. Scores do not have access to nutritious food owing to an inequitable global food system focused on industrial mass food production. The food from this system is less nutritious, more expensive and less friendly to the environment.

How to achieve just, equitable food systems where more people do not only have enough to eat but have nutritious food was the central question food experts sought to answer at the one day ‘Resetting the Food System from Farm to Fork’. The international dialogue was co-hosted by the Barilla Centre for Food and Nutirition (BCFN) and Food Tank and forms a critical part of the discussions ahead of the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit.

“We should not be talking about food security in the world today but about food sovereignty, if we are seeking to end hunger and malnutrition,” Mpofu told IPS in a telephonic interview from her farm in Zimbabwe’s Masvingo Province. It is here that where she grows drought-tolerant sorghum and finger millet, cowpeas, groundnuts on ten hectares of land.

“Food sovereignty is about giving farmers control over how they grow food, what food they grow, what seeds they use and how they consume that food because it is food grown in a sustainable way,” said Mpofu. This is a subject close to her heart as she doubles as the general coordinator of the international peasant movement, La Via Campesina, which advocates for an agroecological approach to farming. The methodology promotes resilient and sustainable farming and food systems through agroecology, diversified health and nutritious food systems.

Farmer Elizabeth Mpofu on her maize plot. Courtesy: Elizabeth Mpofu

A sustainable food system

The world needs a new food system where all actors from farmers, civil society, researchers, chefs, policymakers and business leaders act together to create a more sustainable food future for all, was a crucial message in Tuesday’s dialogue.

Guido Barilla, chairman of BCFN, said the Covid-19 pandemic had shown how interconnected we all are with each other and the planet.

“This crisis is the latest example of the increasing pressure and expectations being put on the world’s food system – not only to keep us all fed but to ensure we are all nourished and to do so while looking after the environment tackling the climate crisis and ensuring people’s livelihoods continue to be met,” Barilla said calling for a fundamental shift in attitude and making radical choices to build a transformative agenda for a sustainable and equitable future.

“I am not afraid of the change we need to make, the future of food is in our hands, said Barilla. “Let’s make the future grow. And the list of potential improvements, from farm to fork, could be long and exciting.”

Asma Khan, an Indian-born British chef and owner of the Darjeeling Express Restaurant in London, called for a shift in eating patterns of buying and eating less to cut food waste. 

“COVID was a lesson that food systems are vulnerable and that we are all connected,” Khan said urging that restaurateurs can promote food equity by respecting food and seeing food as an opportunity to make a difference.

“Let us not use food as our right … you don’t have a right to eat as there are many people waiting to eat …  Hunger is relentless,” said Khan.

“It is important that we respect the fact that we have a privilege to eat. I really would want to honour the food we eat because there are many people who do not have this opportunity and we should be responsible. There is no justification to throw away food.”

Khan’s comments led to a discussion by farmers who outlined the the myriad of challenges – from access to land, land grabs, poor skills, climate change and impact of COVID-19 that they face.

Speaking at a panel session on Farmers Feed the World, Leah Penniman, co-founder of Soul Fire Farm and author of Farming While Black, said land was a vital issue in empowering farmers in the United States. She called for reparations for indigenous communities and black communities who lost their land through expropriation.

“When we talk about reparations, we really need to look at land reform and distribution, and there are models such as the North East Farmers of Colour and the Black Family Land Trust which have ways of putting land into permanent protection so that it can be used for full developing agriculture,” said Penniman. She noted that the US government realised the need to put land in trust to ensure that people dispossessed of land could have the chance to return to farming.

In Africa, land grabs have affected farmers and the agriculture sector.

Land grabs are some of the biggest injustices are farmers have faced, said Edie Mukiibi, vice president of Slow Food International. He advocated the building of a movement to ensure that farmers are recognised for their roles in food production and that agroecological approaches be prioritised.

James Maes, president of the European Council of Young Farmers (CEJA), agreed that farmers across the world faced similar challenges. However, contexts were different, he said, and there was a need to uphold the farmers’ rights to produce food. A change of narrative was needed on food systems debates.

“I would question the need to reset food systems. I believe resetting comes at a huge economic and social cost for those already involved in that food system,” Maes said, noting that the perspective should be on improving and empowering farmers to build resilience and to enhance their production.

As a farmer, Mpofu had a positive perspective on sustainable food systems:

“We have been talking about food security year in year out. We need to stop filling bellies and start promoting nutrition, and this lies in agroecological approaches.”

 

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• Q&A: Vote with your Fork for a World Free from Hunger

The post Securing Freedom to Eat appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By External Source
Dec 1 2020 (IPS-Partners)

Pacific Governments, agencies, donors and civil society now have a central source of reliable and current data to help them to make decisions that affect Pacific Islanders.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) has backed The Pacific Community (SPC) to create and launch the Pacific Data Hub, which will fill data gaps in the Pacific and provide trusted and evidence-based information to decision-makers.

New Zealand is currently the primary funder, putting $6.5 million over nearly four years into the SPC-led Pacific Statistics and Data project, a region-wide regional initiative out of which the Pacific Data Hub was created. Early on in the project, Australia also provided in-kind support.

“Many of the problems facing the Pacific are too big to tackle alone. The Pacific Data Hub will enable a more joined-up response to development issues,” said Belinda Brown, spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Consul-General in New Caledonia.

“It provides a platform to share knowledge and build an ongoing cycle of evidence, which will drive learning and better outcomes over time.”

The platform serves as a digital gateway to information from Pacific countries, development partners, academia and research organisations and the private sector, and will act as a single, authoritative point of entry for all Pacific data, information and publications.

“Access to reliable data enables us to make decisions that are informed by evidence. The Pacific Data Hub will increase confidence in the decisions we make through the New Zealand Aid Programme, and is particularly important at a time when we are helping countries address COVID-19 and respond to its wide-ranging socio-economic impacts,” Ms Brown said.

SPC Director General Dr Stuart Minchin said this is an exciting time for the Pacific, as the Pacific Data Hub had been nearly two years in the making.

“The Pacific Data Hub has been entirely created and developed in the Pacific, by the Pacific, with the guiding objective of improving the lives of the Pacific peoples. We’re excited about the launch and by what this will do for the Pacific well into the future,” he said.

Source: The Pacific Community (SPC)

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The UN's refugee agency appeals for urgent access to the conflict-hit Tigray region.

The latest round of the qualifying campaign for Afrobasket 2021 is over but what have we learnt?

Credit: Whitehouse.Gov

By Farhang Jahanpour
OXFORD, Dec 1 2020 (IPS)

Covid-19 is on track to be the deadliest and one of the most catastrophic epidemics since the 1918-1919 flu pandemic, which infected about 500 million people or one-third of the world’s population at the time. The number of deaths was estimated somewhere between 17 and 50 million, and possibly as high as 100 million worldwide.

The first observations of illness and mortality were documented in December 1917 at Camp Greene, North Carolina. To maintain morale, World War I censors minimized reports of casualties, but as newspapers in neutral Spain were free to report the epidemic deaths, it was wrongly named “the Spanish Flu”.

The Covid-19 pandemic will also have widespread and long-lasting political, economic, and social consequences, challenging many equations on the international arena and perhaps even changing the balance of power between the United States and China. One of the main effects of the pandemic in the international context has been in the way that different countries have dealt with it.

Unfortunately, it is the nation that is bearing the main cost of the mismanagement, arrogance, selfishness and inaction of the president. President Trump’s approach to the pandemic has been abysmal and the nation has been paying the price of that inaction

Covid-19 was first reported in Wuhan, capital of China’s Hubei province, in December 2019. On December 31, 2019, the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) China office heard the first reports of a previously-unknown virus behind a number of pneumonia cases in Wuhan. The Chinese government responded immediately to the initial outbreak by placing Wuhan and nearby cities under a de-facto quarantine encompassing roughly 50 million people in Hubei province.

The WHO quickly warned other countries of the highly infectious virus and, as early as January 30, it designated Covid-19 a “public health emergency of international concern”. Then, on March 11, it officially declared the Covid-19 outbreak a pandemic. The statement by its director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus read: “WHO has been assessing this outbreak around the clock and we are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction.”

So, WHO warned the world about the existence of the deadly Covid-19 virus on January 30, and on March 11 classified it as a pandemic and bemoaned “the alarming levels of inaction.” Due to the total lockdown of Hubei province, the Chinese limited the spread of the virus and brought it under control. Consequently, as of 29 November 2020, Covid-19 has infected 92,300 and killed 4,742 people in China.

However, the situation has been starkly different in many other countries. The figures in the United States as of 29 November 2020 are 13,216,193 cases and 265,897 deaths, by far the largest number in the world. In other words, China has experienced 0.34 deaths per 100,000 people, while the figure for the US is 77.19 per 100,000 people, or 227 times greater. The United States has about four percent of the global population, but over 20 percent of Covid-19 cases. The number of Covid patients in hospitals has reached a new record high.

Even India, with four times the US’s population and with much more limited public health facilities, has suffered 9,309,787 cases and 135,715 deaths, just over half the number of US deaths. Similarly, the figures for Russia are 2,196,691 cases and 38,175 deaths.

It is often argued that the low number of cases in China has been due to the authoritarian nature of the state, but other democracies such as Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and some European countries have fared much better than the United States too.

Australia has had 27,885 cases and 907 deaths, New Zealand 2,050 cases and 25 deaths, South Korea 33,375 cases and 522 deaths. Germany, like the rest of Europe, has suffered badly as the result of Covid-19, but there have been only 1.04 million cases and 16,011 deaths. This means that with a population four times that of Germany’s, the number of deaths in the United States is nearly 16 times higher.

Consequently, while China, South Korea, New Zealand and some other East Asian countries have been able to allow their citizens to attend work and school, and enjoy restaurants, theatres and sporting events, the United States and much of Europe have languished under lockdown for a much longer period. While China has seen a growth of 4.9% between July and September compared to the same quarter last year, the United States and much of Europe are in the throes of deep recession.

In the United States the economic fallout for the working class has been severe. Unemployment has skyrocketed with 45.4 million new unemployment claims since March, and at least 1/6th of those with jobs before the pandemic now out of work. As many as 40 million renters may be facing eviction by the end of the year.

So, the reason for this disparity between the countries with higher levels of mortality and those with much fewer cases has nothing to do with being authoritarian versus democratic. It has been mainly due to the lack of management, denial of science, putting personal interests ahead of the public good and closing one’s eyes to reality.

Even before the start of the pandemic, in May 2018, the White House disbanded the pandemic response team. In July 2019, the administration decided to eliminate the post of the epidemiologist in the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). As a result, the country was ill-prepared to cope with a major pandemic.

On January 22, when many cases of Covid-19 had been detected in the United States, the President boasted: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. It’s going to be just fine.” At other times, he called the report of the pandemic a hoax perpetrated by the Democrats to harm his re-election chances.

Initially, the president praised China’s handling of the coronavirus, saying: “China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi.”

However, later on, instead of following what President Xi had done to contain the virus, Trump blamed China for the spread of the pandemic in the United States, calling it “the Chinese virus”.

As late as February 27, he said: “It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.” Instead of introducing a lockdown, on March 4 he said: “If we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work — some of them go to work, but they get better.”

Instead of listening to the experts, he began advocating the use of untested drugs, such as “drinking hydroxychloroquine.” His justification for advocating it was: “I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it… Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.”

He gave exaggerated figures about the number of tests that were carried out or the PPE that had been distributed, but hospitals were suffering from a lack of equipment and low levels of tests. The Atlantic reported that less than 14,000 tests had been done in the ten weeks since the administration had first been notified of the virus, though Vice-President Mike Pence who had been put in charge of the pandemic had promised the week prior that 1.5 million tests would be available by this time.

At one point, the president advocated injecting disinfectant, saying: “I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? As you see, it gets in the lungs, it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that.”

It was basically this lack of scientific outlook, mismanagement, relying upon his own ill-informed feelings, lack of concern for the public good, with excessive attention paid to his re-election that contributed to the United States having one of the worst cases of the pandemic in the world. It has already cost the lives of more than a quarter of a million Americans, devastated many lives, brought the economy to a halt and may cost the country trillions of dollars before it is over.

It is the job of the president to lead, to guide, to inform and to set an example. However, President Trump failed miserably on all counts. He belittled the danger of the pandemic, ignored the experts, refused to wear a mask and even encouraged his followers to do the same, with the result that the number of infections and deaths is still showing an upward trend.

The pandemic might have cost President Trump his second term, but taking wrong decisions has a cost. Unfortunately, it is the nation that is bearing the main cost of the mismanagement, arrogance, selfishness and inaction of the president. President Trump’s approach to the pandemic has been abysmal and the nation has been paying the price of that inaction.

His unscientific approach can also be seen in relation to the issue of climate change which is a much more serious and long-term threat that is facing mankind and for which there are no vaccines. As one of the most technologically-advanced countries, the United States needs a president who at least does not effectively campaign against scientific facts.

 

Farhang Jahanpour is a British national of Iranian origin. He is a former professor and dean of the Faculty of Languages at the University of Isfahan and a former Senior Research Scholar at Harvard. He taught Persian Literature at Cambridge University for five years and for more than 30 years he taught courses on the Middle East at the Department of Continuing Education at the University of Oxford. He also served as Editor for Middle East and North Africa at BBC Monitoring for 21 years.

 

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Italian prosecutors believe Egyptian security agents killed PhD student Giulio Regeni in 2016.

A mother and doctor tend to a young girl with COVID-19 at an intensive care ward in the western region of Chernivtsi, Ukraine. Credit: UNICEF/Evgeniy Maloletka

By Asoka Bandarage
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka , Dec 1 2020 (IPS)

According to the Center for Systems Science at Johns Hopkins University, as of November 29th, there have been 62,150,421 COVID-19 cases, including 1,450,338 deaths.

And according to the latest ILO reports, as job losses escalate due to lockdowns, nearly half of the global workforce is at risk of losing livelihoods, access to food and the ability to survive. The World Economic Forum states that ‘With some 2.6 billion people around the world in some kind of lockdown, we are conducting arguably the largest psychological experiment ever.’

As governments and corporations tighten political authoritarianism and technological surveillance, curtailing privacy and democratic protest, much of humanity is succumbing to anxiety, depression and a sense of powerlessness. Countries with some of the harshest lockdowns, such as India, have seen significant increases in suicides.

Pandemic Narrative and Dissent

Dominant global political and economic institutions and the media present their pandemic narrative as based on scientific authority. However, there is increasing dissension on the origin and prevention of the virus within the biomedical profession. Many physicians and scientists are questioning if COVID-19 is a natural occurrence or the product of a leak from a lab experimenting with coronaviruses and bioweapons.

There is concern over the accuracy of PCR tests and false positives, as well as the classification of deaths simply as COVID-19 deaths when an overwhelming number of deaths are related to pre-existing illnesses or comorbidities, such as diabetes and heart disease. Even according to November 25, 2020 CDC statistics, COVID-19 was the sole cause of death mentioned in only 6% of the deaths.

The disproportionately higher rates of Covid deaths among American Indians and Alaska Natives, for example, are due to higher rates of obesity, diabetes, asthma, and heart disease than among more privileged U.S. communities.

The Covid pandemic has not been the ‘Great Equalizer’ as suggested by the likes of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and members of the World Economic Forum. Rather, it has exacerbated existing inequalities along gender, race and economic class divides across the world.

Just as unemployed and uninsured Americans are pleading for support, the combined wealth of U.S. billionaires ‘surpassed $1 trillion in gains since March 2020 and the beginning of the pandemic,’ according to a study by the Institute for Policy Studies. The top five U.S. billionaires – Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffett and Larry Ellison – saw their wealth grow by a total of $101.7 billion, or 26%, during this period.

Among the pandemic profiteers are CEOs of companies like Zoom and Skype providing video conferencing, and Amazon providing online shopping to citizens under lockdown. Yet the success of these companies has not translated into better wages and safety conditions for their employees.

However, the political and ideological power of the billionaire class and their influence over domestic and global policymaking are increasing. Relevant in this regard is billionaire Bill Gates’ central role in the development and marketing of vaccines and interest in use of vaccines as a method of population control.

The pharmaceutical industry, i.e. Big Pharma, (including vaccine manufacturers) are known for inflating prices, avoiding taxes and manipulating the political process to maximize profit. Unfortunately, this corrupt industry is a key player in the race to end the COVID-19 pandemic.

The incoming Biden administration in the US has received extensive funding from the pharmaceutical industry, yet they have not agreed to cut the cost of a possible coronavirus vaccine developed with federal research dollars.

Rather, the Biden administration, also heavily funded by the big tech, finance and defense sectors, is poised to facilitate ‘The Great Reset;’ the initiative to remake the post-pandemic world order by the World Economic Forum.

The ‘Great Reset’

The World Economic Forum (WEF), which identifies itself as ‘the international organization for public-private partnership,’ (i.e., like the Council on Foreign Relations, a geopolitical corporate power agency) sees the social and economic devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic as a ‘unique window of opportunity to shape the recovery.’

Speaking at a conference organized by the WEF in June 2020, former US Secretary of State, John Kerry expressed concern:

“Forces and pressures that were pushing us into crisis over the social contract are now exacerbated……The world is coming apart, dangerously, in terms of global institutions and leadership.”

The ‘Great Reset’ envisioned by the WEF seeks to address these challenges by radical global restructuring. It seeks to reinvent ‘the priorities of societies, the nature of business models and the management of a global commons…to build a new social contract…,’ with sustainable development and resilience as its ultimate objectives.

At its next annual gathering of the rich and powerful in Davos, Switzerland in January 2021, the WEF is expected to adopt the Great Reset and also incorporate youth leaders from around the world into the initiative through a virtual summit.

The stated goals of sustainability and resilience are laudable, but many are questioning the true objectives of both the WEF and the Great Reset. The pandemic simulation called Event 201, for example, was conducted in October 2019, about three months before the COVID-19 outbreak by the World Economic Forum in conjunction with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The simulation predicted up to 65 million deaths due to a coronavirus. Many are wondering why these powerful organizations, having apparently already run the exact scenario as a test, failed to prevent or at least prepare the world for the imminent viral outbreak.

The global political economy has been moving in the direction of increasing technological and market integration through social media, artificial intelligence and biotechnology. In the wake of COVID-19, the trends towards digitalization and commoditization of economic and social relations have increased.

The ‘Great Reset’ seeks to accelerate and solidify these trends as well as expand corporate control of natural resources and state surveillance of individuals. In the post-pandemic ‘Great Reset,’ there would not be much life left outside the technological-corporate nexus dominated by monolithic agribusiness, pharmaceutical, communication, defense and other inter-connected corporations, and the governments and media serving them.

The proponents of the ‘Great Reset’ envisage a Brave New World where, ‘You will own nothing. And you will be happy. Whatever you want, you will rent, and it will be delivered by drones…´ But it is more likely that this elite-led revolution will make the vast majority of humanity a powerless, appendage of technology with little consciousness and meaning in their lives.

Resistance

The mainstream media establishment tends to cast all critiques of the dominant Covid narrative and solutions as ‘conspiracy theories.’ Yet, more and more people are questioning the narrative on the origin and management of the pandemic and, instead, see the need to shift to a truly democratic, just and ecological civilization.

Many of the anti-lockdown protests around the world have had a limited focus on social restrictions and personal freedom, desires usually in tune with the individualism of globalized consumer culture. While these have gained some attention in the mainstream media by their acceptability, the more focused and progressive demands for social and economic rights by civil society groups have received scant attention.

These include demands by numerous groups, such as Oxfam International, to make COVID-19 medicines and vaccines free and fair for all. There is also a demand for a global public inquiry, to be led by independent scientists, to gather evidence on the origin and evolution of COVID-19. In addition, there is a call for an International Biowarfare Crimes Tribunal, to bring perpetrators of the pandemic to justice, whether they be from the US or China.

The overall objective of these demands is in greater transparency, ethics and accountability in the use of technology, especially biotechnology and vaccines against COVID-19 and other viruses. The demand for enforcement of the Biological Weapons Convention calls on the ‘nations of the world, China, Russia, the US, to come together to enforce better verification systems for preventing the production of biological weapons in the future, before the world is put through multiple pandemics to come’. These are concerns to be included in an alternative ethical, wise and compassionate ‘Great Reset.’

The Covid pandemic is a turning point, an opportunity to change. The reset we need now is not the creation of a ‘post-human, post-nature’ world defined by unregulated corporate-led growth of artificial intelligence and biotechnology. We need to balance digitalization and commoditization with an ecological reset, a way of living that respects the environment, promotes agroecology, bioregionalism and local communities.

We need to raise our consciousness and understanding of humanity as a species in nature, our connectedness to each other and the rest of planetary life.

 

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Excerpt:

Dr Asoka Bandarage, a scholar and practitioner, has taught at Yale, Brandeis, Mount Holyoke (where she received tenure), Georgetown, American and other universities and colleges in the U.S. and abroad. Her research interests include social philosophy and consciousness; environmental sustainability, human well-being and health, global political-economy, ethnicity, gender, population, social movements and South Asia.

The post Pandemic, ‘Great Reset’ and Resistance appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 1 2020 (IPS)

COVID-19 recessions have hit most countries, requiring massive fiscal responses. While most developing countries struggled with mounting debt even before the pandemic, many developed countries also face unprecedented macroeconomic pressures despite earlier spending cuts due to ‘fiscal consolidation’ policies.

Anis Chowdhury

Tax, not aid?
Before the third United Nations’ Financing for Development conference (FfD3) in Addis Ababa in mid-2015, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) head Angel Gurria acknowledged, “Much of [the tax not collected] is lost abroad in illicit flows. Developing countries also lose tax revenue from aggressive tax planning by multinational corporations. This cannot go on.”

Earlier, then OECD Development Assistance Committee chair, Erik Solheim foresaw an end to official development assistance (ODA): “Nothing would please me more than seeing the end of ODA, and for development to be financed through taxes, normal trade relations, long term investments and sustainable businesses.”

Solheim also observed: “Developing nations need to be in control of their own revenues and economic resources through sound taxation … The fight against corruption and tax havens is crucial in this context…The amount of money leaving developing countries in the form of illicit financial flows each year is many times greater than the amount of aid coming in”.

However, before and at the conference, developed economies ganged up to block developing country efforts to enhance international cooperation to stem such illicit outflows, especially tax evasion.

Losing resources
The UN-initiated Financial Accountability, Transparency & Integrity (FACTI) interim report has made staggering estimates of lost resources that could contribute to development:

• 10% of world output held in offshore financial assets
• criminal money laundering worth 2.7% of global output
• US$7 trillion of private wealth hidden in mainly secret, tax havens
• US$500~600 billion yearly in lost global corporate tax revenue due to ‘profit-shifting’ by transnational corporations (TNCs)
• US$20~40 billion yearly in bribes in developing and transition economies

Illicit financial outflows
According to Global Financial Integrity (GFI), developing countries have lost US$13.4 trillion in unrecorded capital flight since 1980, via trade mis-invoicing and tax evasion, primarily by TNCs and ‘high worth’ individuals, with US$1.1 trillion lost in 2013 alone.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

TNCs also steal money from developing countries through ‘same-invoice faking’, i.e., by shifting profits among subsidiaries by false trade invoicing. The GFI figure of illicit funds transfers does not include same-invoice faking, but estimates losses of US$700bn yearly from goods trade alone.

If trade in services is included, net resource outflows total about US$3 trillion yearly, 24 times more than OECD countries’ aid in 2014. In other words, developing countries lost $24 for every $1 of aid received in 2014, depriving them of much needed finance and government revenue for development.

Estimates of trade mis-invoicing in Africa during 2000-2016 averaged US$83 billion annually, totalling US$1.4 trillion, i.e., about 5.3% of Africa’s output value, worth about 11.4% of its trade in that period.

Such illicit outflows are greatest for Asia. Outflows grew by an average of over 9% yearly during 2004-2014, reaching around US$330 [272~388] billion in 2014. The equivalent of 7.6% of tax revenue in the Asia-Pacific region may have been lost to fraudulent trade declarations in 2016 alone.

OECD not inclusive, legitimate
Tax avoidance by TNCs frequently involves tax base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS), enabled by loopholes in tax governance and the law.

In 2013, G20 leaders endorsed the OECD BEPS action plan, requesting it to recommend international standards and measures to tackle corporate income tax (CIT) avoidance. CIT evasion cost US$100~240 billion annually, i.e., 4~10% of global CIT revenue. In response, the OECD initiated the Inclusive Framework on BEPS and the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes.

Developing countries are invited to participate on condition they commit to implement and enforce standards and norms they did not design or decide on, having been excluded from negotiations. Thus, the claim of developing country ‘inclusion’ in the OECD BEPS framework is misleading, to say the least.

Besides illegitimacy and other problems of exclusion, the proposals may also be inappropriate for developing countries. As the FACTI report observes, “Lack of inclusiveness in setting international norms results in implementation gaps and weakens the global fight against illegal and harmful tax practices”.

Digitalisation challenge
Rapid digitalisation presents new challenges, as TNC assets and profits can be easily moved among tax jurisdictions. Ensuring accurate company reporting on actual revenue and profits from each location is necessary for fairer taxation, but the status quo enables evasion instead.

Digitalisation threatens revenue collection as taxation practices try to catch up with innovations in tax evasion. Recent more ‘technology-driven’ businesses – increasingly involving ‘hard to value’ intangible assets such as patents and software – also require improving international corporate taxation.

Traditional assumptions about links between income, profits and physical presence now seem irrelevant, requiring new approaches, principles and norms. For example, countries with many users or consumers of digital services currently get little or no tax revenue from companies denying any physical presence.

But new international corporate taxation in this age of digitalisation should benefit all, both developing and developed countries. With marginal costs close to zero, all revenue can be taxed without adversely affecting digital services supply.

Current tax systems cannot prevent egregious tax avoidance by digital TNCs. For some time, the OECD has been discussing tax avoidance by digital TNCs within the BEPS framework without reaching consensus, mainly due to US opposition.

“With no consensus on taxation of the digital economy, some countries have resorted to unilateral measures”, noted the UN Committee of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax Matters. But such actions have provoked retaliation, e.g., the US threatened new tariffs on French exports following France’s attempt to tax tech giants.

Systemic challenges, cooperative solutions
Poor financial accountability, transparency and integrity – enabling illicit financial flows – is a global problem. As the FACTI report emphasised, the problem needs global solutions, while taking country circumstances into account.

It noted, “all aspects of this problem require action and ownership in developed and developing countries; in source, transit, and destination countries; in public and private sectors; and in small and large countries alike… there are no silver bullets or single measures”.

Governments around the world face severe fiscal pressures responding to COVID-19 economic crises with adequate relief and recovery measures as revenue collection shrinks. As other donor countries emulate the recent UK foreign aid budget cuts, aid-reliant developing countries will face more financing challenges.

As the OECD noted, domestic and external financing levels and trends already fell short of SDG spending needs well before the COVID-19 crises. External private financial inflows to developing economies could drop by US$700 billion in 2020 compared to 2019, 60% worse than the 2008 global financial crisis impact.

Hence, tackling resource haemorrhage from developing countries has become all the more urgent as even developed countries scramble for more fiscal means. This could finally catalyse the long-needed cooperation on international tax matters led by the UN, still the most inclusive and legitimate platform for multilateral cooperation.

 

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Doreen Moracha was born HIV positive is now an advocate raising awareness and fighting the stigma.

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By External Source
Nov 30 2020 (IPS)

World AIDS Day this year finds us still deep amid another pandemic – COVID-19. The highly infectious novel coronavirus has swept across the world, devastating health systems and laying waste to economies as governments introduced drastic measures to contain the spread. Not since the HIV/AIDS pandemic of the 1990s have countries faced such a common health threat.

This explains why UNAIDS has selected the theme “Global Solidarity, Shared Responsibility” for this year’s World AIDS Day.

Infectious diseases such as these remain a major threat to human health and prosperity. Around 32.7 million people have died from AIDS-related illnesses in the last 40 years. At the time of writing, 1.4 million people had already died from COVID-19 in just one year.

The HIV/AIDS response played out over a much longer trajectory than COVID-19. But it is, in some respects, a shining example of what can be achieved when countries and people work together

These diseases take incredible expertise, collaboration and dedication from all levels of society to track, understand, treat and prevent.

The HIV/AIDS response played out over a much longer trajectory than COVID-19. But it is, in some respects, a shining example of what can be achieved when countries and people work together. The work of organisations such as the World Health Organisation, UNAIDS and the International AIDS Society help to coordinate rapid sharing of information and resources between healthcare providers and communities.

The Global Fund and PEPFAR have mobilised resources that have helped to reduce morbidity and mortality in low- and middle-income regions. AIDS-related deaths have declined worldwide by 39% since 2010.

These and other groups have also fought against high drug prices that would render medication inaccessible to many in the developing world. In South Africa, the epicentre of the HIV epidemic, a day’s supply of the simplest antiretrovirals cost about R250 in 2002. Today easier, more palatable treatment taken once per day costs a few rands.

Collaboration and co-ordination has also meant that medications have been developed and tested in populations across the world. And once available, global guidelines and training opportunities ensure that healthcare provision and quality is standardised.

Many of these achievements did not come without a fight. Dedicated and sustained activism, at a political and community level were required to drive down drug pricing for the global South and is constantly required to ensure inclusive distribution of resources.

The corollary is also true – areas where the world continues to struggle arise predominantly where there’s a lack of solidarity and agreement. These include a lack of political support to implement evidence-based protection mechanisms for vulnerable or stigmatised populations. For example the legalisation of homosexuality. This results in continued but avoidable HIV infection and related mortality.

These lessons need to be taken on board as the world prepares for the next phase of managing COVID-19. All the interventions that helped contain and manage HIV and AIDS are critical in ensuring that no country, regardless of developmental status, and no population, especially those that face stigma and battle to access healthcare services, are left behind.

 

Building on existing systems

The lessons learnt from HIV and AIDS can be used to inform the COVID-19 response as the challenges are similar.

Many of the ongoing COVID-19 vaccine trials are taking place in multiple countries, including South Africa. The capacity to conduct these studies, including the clinical staff and trial sites, are well established as a result of decades of HIV/AIDS research. There are fears that developing nations might be excluded from accessing an effective COVID-19 vaccine. But global mechanisms are now in place to avoid this and to, instead, encourage and enable global solidarity, some of which were championed by the HIV/AIDS response.

The Access to COVID-9 Tools (ACT)-Accelerator, established by the World Health Organisation in April 2020 in collaboration with many other global organisations, governments, civil society and industry, have committed through the pillar known as Covax, to equitable distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine as well as diagnostic tests and treatments. These global institutions and mechanisms require continued support.

With the deployment of an effective vaccine, an end to COVID-19 might soon be in sight. For HIV, vaccine development has been more complex and disappointing. The global community needs to remain committed to promoting access and support for the many incredible prevention and treatment options that are available. The unprecedented effort on the part of private industry in the COVID-19 vaccine response shines a light on what can be achieved when all interested parties engage. The HIV and TB vaccine endeavours need a similar effort.

These are not the only pandemics the world will face. In fact, there are strong predictions that the emergence of new pandemics will increase in the future. This is due to the effects of globalisation, climate change and proximity to wildlife.

The best hope for humanity is to not lose sight of what these pandemics cost us in terms of loved ones, in terms of freedom and economically. We must prepare now collectively across countries and across all levels of society. These preparations need to be grounded in the lessons learnt from HIV/AIDS and re-learnt from COVID-19.

 

Social solidarity

The success of the global response to current and emerging pandemics will rely on the ability of the less vulnerable to acknowledge their shared responsibility and respond to those calls.

An important truth of the HIV epidemic is that it doesn’t discriminate. No infectious disease acknowledges political borders and everybody is at risk of being infected or affected. If nothing else, because of this we need to continue to work together on a global scale knowing that “no one is safe, until everyone is safe”.

Carey Pike, Executive Research Assistant at the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation contributed to this article.

Linda-Gail Bekker, Professor of medicine and deputy director of the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre at the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine, University of Cape Town

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

The post Battles Won – and Lost – Against AIDS Hold Valuable Lessons for Managing COVID-19 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Only 35.6 percent of all enrolled children received some kind of learning materials or activities from their teachers. | Picture courtesy: PxHere

By Upamanyu Das
Nov 30 2020 (IPS)

School closures due to the nationwide lockdown in March 2020 meant that children were disengaged with formal education for a prolonged period. The resulting talks around e-education exposed India’s digital divide, with only 24 percent of households having access to the internet.

Children studying in government schools were hit particularly hard, with a recent study indicating that more than 80 percent of government school students (in Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Uttar Pradesh) hadn’t received any educational materials during the lockdown.

With this backdrop, Pratham Education Foundation conducted surveys for its Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2020. The first round of the report (called Wave 1) has been published, and through it Pratham attempts to fill the national data gaps on the status of rural education during the lockdown. It explores the provisions of remote-learning (educational materials), and how accessible these provisions were in rural India, as well as how often they were used.

To write the report, Pratham conducted a survey in late September 2020. Based on a random sample of participants drawn from the ASER 2018 database, the survey saw participation from 52,227 households and 8,963 teachers from 16,974 villages in 26 states and four union territories.

Data was collected for each child between the ages of five and 16 in each household, and in schools it was collected for the grade that teachers could provide the most information for. Here are some highlights from the report.

 

Children’s school enrolment

The report notes that there has been a marked shift in the number of children enrolled in government and private schools in 2020:

• Roughly, there are three to four percent more children enrolled in government schools than private institutions, as compared to 2018. This is true across all academic grades, for both boys and girls.
• For children between six to ten years of age, there as been a sharp increase in those not enrolled in school (from 1.8 percent to 5.3 percent). This can be explained by schools being shut, which implies that admissions for the Grade 1 are on hold.

 

Household resources

A family’s resources can influence the support they provide towards their children’s learning in a variety of ways. The report attempted to capture these varying support mechanisms:

• Parent education levels: Only 31.3 percent and 16.6 percent of surveyed mothers and fathers, respectively, had no schooling. In contrast, 53.1 percent of mothers and 70.8 percent of fathers had completed more than five years of school.
• Access to smartphones: For 22.5 percent children whose parents had ‘low’ education levels, there was a 45.1 percent chance of their household having a smartphone, with an 84 percent chance of the child bring enrolled in a government school. While for 27.6 percent children whose parents had ‘high’ education levels, there was a 61 percent chance of having a smartphone at home, with a 69.5 percent chance of the child being enrolled in a government school.
• Textbooks: Having relevant textbooks at home is crucial for a child’s learning. The report indicates that schools have fared fairly well in this regard, with 84.1 percent of government school children and 72.2 percent of private school children having relevant textbooks for their grade.
• Learning support: Taking all children across different grades together, close to three-quarters of all school children received school-related help from their family members. This was more pronounced for younger children, with 81.5 percent children in Grades 1 and 2 receiving help from family members as compared to 68.3 percent children in Grade 9 and above. Expectedly, parents with higher education levels were better equipped to help their children. In cases where parents had completed Grade 9 or more, approximately 45 percent of children received help from their mothers.

 

Access to and availability of learning materials and activities

Only 35.6 percent of all enrolled children received some kind of learning materials or activities from their teachers:

• The proportion of children in higher grades (Grade 9 and above) receiving learning materials was 37.3 percent, while the same for children in lower grades (Grades 1-2) was 30.8 percent. The numbers were consistently higher for children in private schools compared to government schools across all grades.
• Among those who did receive learning materials, 67.3 percent of government school students and 87.2 percent private schools students received them on WhatsApp. Government schools tended to use phone calls and personal visits more often than private schools.
• Of the enrolled children who didn’t receive any learning materials, 68.1 percent of parents cited schools not sending materials, while 24.3 percent households stated not owning a smartphone as the reason. This number was almost five percent higher for government schools than private schools.

 

Children’s engagement with remote-learning

Of the 35.6 percent households which did receive learning materials during the survey week, most reported that children engaged in some kind of educational activity during that week:

• For children in all schools, 59.7 percent reported using textbooks.
• Students in higher grades were more likely to engage with online classes or video recordings than their younger counterparts. For students in Grade 9 and above, 27.5 percent accessed videos or recorded classes and 16.3 percent accessed live online classes. The same numbers for students in Grades 1 and 2 were 16.6 percent and 7.3 percent.
• Recorded video lessons and online classes were more accessible for private school students, with 28.7 percent reporting using video recordings and 17.7 percent reporting using live online classes. The same numbers were for government school students were 18.3 percent and 8.1 percent, respectively.

 

Involvement of schools

The survey also examined how schools understand their ability to maintain contact and conduct remote learning with their students.

Of the total 8,963 teachers surveyed, more than half were from primary schools, while most of the remainder were from upper primary schools. Half of them responded for Grades 2, 4, or 5; and more than a quarter for Grades 6, 7, or 8:

• Teachers reported having the phone numbers of at least half of their students. However, the necessary training provided to them was inadequate, with only half reporting having received any training.
• Two-thirds of all respondents reported that they had shared learning materials in the previous week, while another 21 percent had shared materials at least once during the lockdown. Another 86.8 percent had shared textbooks with all children in the selected grade.
• Seven out of every ten schools respondents reported receiving help from a variety of community actors in order to reach and support children.

Existing inequalities in education have only been further exacerbated during the lockdown. The report makes clear that a large number of children are in danger of being pushed out of formal education, and the marginalised populations, as always, remain at greater risk.

 

This story was originally published by India Development Review (IDR)

The post How Did Rural India Learn During Lockdown? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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Protecting and improving food systems will be vital to reduce the risk of people falling into food insecurity, the United Nations says. Credit: Sara Perria/IPS

By IPS Correspondents
BONN, Germany/BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Nov 30 2020 (IPS)

In March, after the World Health Organisation first declared COVID-19 a pandemic, the World Food Programme (WFP) of the United Nations activated a global corporate emergency mechanism for the first time. It had already written to all donor countries asking for $1.9 billion in front-loaded funding, and had begun emergency procurement. Its priority was to sustain life-saving assistance first.

And as the world’s countries began unprecedented nationwide shutdowns, including international travel bans, the closure of schools, shops, and indirect restrictions on local transport and food supply chains, WFP aimed to keep open transport corridors for passenger and cargo movement.

The U.N. agency, which won the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize for its response, had already estimated that some 270 million people — increased from 135 million pre-COVID-19 — would become acutely food insecure if not assisted. In addition, 690 million people do not have enough to eat.

But responding to the development emergency, WFP noted that in addition the pandemic was placing significant stress on existing food systems.

Protecting and improving food systems would be vital to reduce the risk of people falling into food insecurity and will enable “quicker and more inclusive recovery”, the agency noted.

Addressing “the impending global food emergency and avoid the worst impacts of the pandemic, while seizing upon the opportunity of resetting food systems,” is a focus of the upcoming online dialogue, ‘Resetting the Food System from Farm to Fork’, which will be hosted by the Barilla Centre for Food and Nutrition (BCFN) and Food Tank on Dec. 1.

“The current crisis is showing us we went wrong somewhere along the way. We need to rethink the whole food system to move forward,” said Edie Mukiibi, Vice President, Slow Food International and participant in the event.

Chair of the Barilla Group and BCFN, Guido Barilla. Courtesy: Barilla Group

Chair of the Barilla Group and BCFN, Guido Barilla, believes that resetting food systems is possible in less than a decade: “We need a positive movement to accelerate, empower, refine, and design a more sustainable future, and raising awareness in people – companies, citizens, institutions- that another future is possible.”

“If there’s one thing the current situation has taught me is that no one wins alone and that it is necessary to build new powerful alliances,” Barilla said, adding, “Another very important aspect is related to the individual commitment of each and every one of us.”

Danielle Nierenberg, a food systems advocate and founder of Food Tank, a U.S. think tank for food, said that in doing this smallholder farmers play a key role as well.

“We need farmers in decision making roles and policies that affect them whether it is dealing with the pandemic, climate crisis or how to create more equity in the food system, especially for women and girls.

“We need participatory research where farmers work with economists, researchers and extension workers to do the research that will help them improve yields or develop their practices and use different kind of technologies. Innovations are not often taken up because farmers are not involved in them,” Nierenberg told IPS.

Excerpts of the interview with Barilla follow:

Inter Press Service (IPS): In light of the COVID-19 pandemic and the further strain it has placed on the the global food system, how can we move forward to ensure that the world’s people are fed in a sustainable way?

Guido Barilla (GB): The COVID-19 pandemic shows just how interconnected we all are, not only with each other but also to the planet itself. This crisis is the latest example of the increasing pressure and expectations being put on the world’s food system – not only to keep us all fed, but to ensure we are well nourished and to do so while looking after the environment, tackling the climate crisis, and ensuring people’s livelihoods continue to be met.

Faced with this situation, we must have the courage to change – agri-food companies, retailers, institutions, chef, citizens – because there is no alternative to sustainability. We need to make radical choices and today we are here to build a truly transformative agenda for a sustainable and equitable future (contributing with our ideas and recommendations to the 2021 United Nations Food Systems Summit).

IPS: We only have 10 years to reach the United Nations 2030 Agenda. Is this enough time to change global food systems? And how can we do it in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic?

GB: From my point of view, 10 years is rather long enough to generate a revolution, and the next 5 years will be crucial. If there’s one thing the current situation has taught me is that no one wins alone and that it is necessary to build new powerful alliances:

• between the generations, to find a common language and common objectives to pursue;
• among the actors along the agri-food chain, to find joint solutions to build a truly regenerative, restorative, and resilient food system;
• between rich and poor countries to call Governments for a global partnership for agriculture, food security and nutrition in order to promote better coordinated and coherent global action;
• between civil society and private sector, to never lose sight of people’s real needs.

 

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Transforming food systems means farmers producing adequate and nutritious food for consumers. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Nov 30 2020 (IPS)

A world free from hunger is possible but only if we change how we grow and eat food. And resetting the food system — including all aspects of production, processing, marketing, distribution and the consumption and nutrition of food — is key to securing a sustainable food future post COVID-19.

“We need not return to the normal we had before COVID-19 but we need to create a new food system that has opportunities to make changes.

“There is a real commitment from all sectors now not just looking at food security but nutrition security too. For a long time we have focused on quantity and calories. COVID-19 has exposed that we also need to focus on quality. Diet-related diseases are a major risk factor for mortality from the virus,” says Danielle Nierenberg, a world-renowned researcher, activist, food system expert and co-founder of the United States think tank, Food Tank.

The global food system is under strain. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) projects that agriculture production needs to grow by 70 percent to feed more than 9 billion people in the world by 2050.

But hunger, malnutrition, obesity, and food waste and loss are on the rise. There are increasing impacts of climate change and now COVID-19.

“We have seen supply chain disruptions as a result of COVID-19 and how our global food system is fragile and vulnerable. Farmers have had to pivot and make changes after supply chain disruptions that have seen schools, restaurants, and hotels close down. Farmers have had to find new markets,” Nierenberg, who is also recipient of the 2020 Julia Child Award, tells IPS.

Resetting the food system is everyone’s business, she adds. This includes farmers, policy makers and researchers to ensure sustainable and resilient ways of growing healthy and abundant food for all.

“We need a food revolution in agriculture now. We need agriculture that is more sustainable and more resilient and that prepares us for shocks, climate crisis and global pandemics,” Nierenberg tells IPS in an interview ahead of the ‘Resetting the Food System from Farm to Fork’, an international dialogue co-hosted by the Barilla Foundation and Food Tank that will take place online on Dec. 1.

The high level dialogue will highlight the critical role of farmers in feeding the world and managing natural resources, food business in progress towards the 2030 Agenda as well as chefs in redesigning food experiences.

Excerpts of the interview follow:

Danielle Nierenberg, a food systems advocate and co-founder of Food Tank. Courtesy: Food Tank

Inter Press Service (IPS): Food systems is the buzz word on the global food agenda, why food systems?

Danielle Nierenberg (DN) : You have producers, farmers, civil society groups, key decision makers and business leaders all looking at issues of food and agriculture holistically. Food systems are complex because they are interlinked to everything else that goes on in the world.

Food impacts everything we do; from the economy to social, racial, [and] cultural equity. So looking at food through a systems lens, we can see the interconnections and how much our daily existence is linked to how we produce and consume food, hence the interest in food systems.

IPS: How do we transform food systems to deliver what we need rather than what we are getting now?

DN: We need commitment and unity from all sectors. Policy makers will have to be enlightened, businesses will have to change and produce farmers will have to diversify. That will be the key outcome from COVID-19. We cannot rely on mono-culture systems because they are fragile. Eaters too have to change some of their practices. More people are cooking from home because they have to and are learning how to eat better, nutritious food but they will have to demand that change. Food Tank has been using the term ‘citizen eater’ – someone who votes with their fork as well as their vote. They vote for the kind of food system they want, this is one way to go. Consumers have a lot of power that they have not used effectively.

IPS: Are we on track to meet the SDGs? 2030 is 10 years away but we still grappling with  hunger, malnutrition and under nutrition, especially in the developing world.

DN: Absolutely. The poorest and most vulnerable are suffering not because of COVID-19 but due the climate crisis. I tend to be an optimist. The SDGs set out some major commitments which I think are achievable over the next nine years. We need real commitment. COVID-19 has set us back with hunger on the rise and there will be likely 80 million hungry people this year than they were last year. More needs to be done to make sure these people are getting the food and nutrition they need.

The problem has always been one of distribution and not of lack of food. There is now attention being paid to food loss and food waste. We are foreseeing a lot of food going to waste this year as farmers produced but they have had no markets. For farmers to gain markets we need better technology and innovation to help them to do that.

What is different this year is we are seeing increased hunger in the global north countries too. There are massive lines at food banks in United States and parts of Europe where so many people are affected who never experienced hunger before. This is a wake-up call to the world to act if we are to achieve the SDGs.

Zimbabwean smallholder farmer, Kwanele Ndlovu, shows part of her produce at her farm in Nyamandlovu district, Zimbabwe. Danielle Nierenberg, a world-renowned researcher, activist, food system expert and co-founder of the United States think tank, Food Tank, says that because of COVID-19 people are now concerned about their health and are looking for nutritious foods, instead of processed foods. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

IPS: The theme for this year’s dialogue, ‘resetting the food system from farm to fork’. Tell us more.

DN: This is one of the very first events leading up to the U.N. Food Systems Summit that will take place in the fall of 2021.

We are bringing together leading thinkers from around the world on food and agriculture. The topics we have outlined are some of the biggest issues that need to be addressed at the U.N. Food Systems Summit. We are setting the stage for what happens next year. Inclusivity is needed and farmers should be part of these discussions.

We have farmers like Edie Mukiibi, the Vice President of Slow Food international; Leah Penniman, an author, educator and farmer in the U.S. doing a lot to improve the lives of black farmers; chefs like Massimo Bottura who is interested in reducing food loss and food waste and another chef, Dan Barber, who has achieved significant results in creating regenerative agriculture system at his farm and restaurant. 

Bobby Chinn, a TV personality and chef from Cairo teaches students about sustainable agriculture practises. We have economists too, like Jeffery Sachs and Chris Barrett, who are thinking about how to create a new food economy.

We also have experts looking at the intersection between food and technology and how technology can help farmers produce better quality food and a more democratised food system where everyone has access to food.

Agnes Kalibata, the U.N. special envoy for the Food Systems Summit and President of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) will close the event and talk about where we go from here over the next ten months before the summit happens.

IPS: Lastly, how would food systems transformation look like for smallholder farmers, who keep the world fed?

DN: Gosh. If we transform the food system, we should be recognising farmers. Farmers lack the respect all over the world. They are not honoured for the work they do, not just as producers but as stewards of the land and business people. They are the ones who keep us fed but we think of them as second class citizens, people who are not smart enough to do anything else. If we can honour the brilliance of farmers that will go a long way in transforming our food and agriculture system.

 

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