Africa

A climate activist has won a prestigious prize for leading the battle to block it being built in Ghana.

No cause to celebrate as COVID-19 has created setbacks on the aims of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. It’s been 25 years since the declaration was signed. Credit: Markus Winkler / Unsplash

By Fairuz Ahmed
NEW YORK, Nov 30 2020 (IPS)

This year, the world commemorated the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, instead of celebration; however, its progress has been impeded by the COVID-19.

The so-called ‘new normal’ where people have been forced to stay at and, if possible, work from home has resulted in the pushing back of the Gender Equality and Women Empowerment targets.

Earlier this year Alia El-Yassir, the United Nations Women Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia remarked that “Women’s organizations and civil society at large should be an integral part of COVID-19 response and recovery efforts.”

Her comments about women being on the front lines of the pandemic are as true today as they were in April when she made them.

“They (women) know what needs to be done and we urge all development partners to seriously consider the solutions they offer so that we can continue to ensure the principles of equality and social justice.”

While there have been many such calls this year, several online platforms, like Fuzia and The Female CEO, have risen to the challenge, creating connections between women and other groups, and creating a forum for support and online training and education.

This is crucial as the statistics are far from encouraging.

According to a report published by the Center for American Progress, four times as many women as men dropped out of the labour force in September, roughly 865 000 women compared with 216,000 men in 2020. There were nearly 10 million mothers of young children in the labour force in 2019, and it is estimated that the risk of mothers leaving the labour force and reducing work hours to assume caretaking responsibilities amounts to $64.5 billion per year in lost wages and economic activity in the United States alone.

As front-line responders, health professionals, community volunteers, transport and logistics managers, scientists, homemakers, work from home mothers, caregivers, and teachers, women have been actively involved, battling the crisis of the COVID19 lockdown and economic crisis.
The pandemic has vastly affected restrictions in women’s rights and access to justice, increases in women’s unpaid work at home, loss of employment, and income by women, who globally dominate the insecure informal economy.

Globally the lockdown and social distancing have also triggered additional risk of domestic violence. It has been reported by the United nations that on an average 25%-35% rise has been noticed in domestic abuse reporting calls, globally.

As the world faces this unprecedented time, the world has shifted from a brick-and-mortar presence to massive dependency on technology and supporting infrastructure.

Fuzia’s focus is females of all ages and demographics – and while the digital platform started before COVID-19 – it has adapted to the new reality.

Apart from women, it’s become a content provider supporting the LGBTQ community, and it doesn’t exclude men.

With discussion boards, job training, skill set improvement, guest speakers, and motivational posts Fuzia has been supporting 4 million followers from her various social media outlets to stay focused and evolving all through the pandemic.

In an article published in The New York Times in October, it referred to employers saying that many workers, including those who are older, are nervous about returning given the health threat.

According to the UN News, more than nine in 10 of the world’s workers continue to live in countries with some sort of workplace closures. Regionally, the Americas have been worst affected by far, with working hours diving 18.3 percent. Europe and Central Asia saw a 13.9 percent fall, followed by Asia and the Pacific (13.5 percent), Arab States (13.2 percent) and Africa (12.1 percent).

In most cases, globally, people with children, particularly women, are struggling to return to jobs because they have limited childcare options with schools and day-cares all or partly closed.
In such instances working from home and acquiring new skills to adapt to a new world has become a must.

This is where online platforms have come into their own. Fuzia, for example, offers a plethora of training events. A few of their engagement efforts are interview preparation help, better communication training, work from home tips and tricks, balancing a calm mind and body while being under lockdown.

Periodic hosting of live sessions with Q&As and discussions with industry leaders keeps the audience engaged.

Their recent interviewees have included Shelleye Archambeau, who has been named as the second most influential African American in technology by Business Insider, a known author and also a Fortune 500 board member. In discussion with Fuzia co-founder Shraddha Varma, Archambeau advised job seekers looking to ‘ace’ an interview to understand the subtext of the questions and the one about learning new skills was a test of a candidate’s resilience and their attitudes to “investing” in themselves.

Another top interviewee was Tricia Scott, founder and editor of The Female CEO. The discussion revolved around networking and community online support – something which both platforms specialize in.

Fuzia was represented at the Women Economic Forum 2018 and engages million active users from various social media outlets at present. Riya Sinha and Varma launched the virtual community dedicated to empowering women using digitized tools. They have created a platform which diminishes the lines between geographical locations and time.

Through the content offered on the platform, any user from any location around the globe can access information and take part in learning a new skill.

Fuzia nurtures the creativity of women through live sessions, contests, shout outs, select features and campaigns, online learning, webinars, workshops, experiential learning, contests, and more.

As the platform is open to all age groups and sexual orientation it boasts a judgment-free zone. Mutual respect and tolerance are highly valued. These initiatives help women, who are the majority of the users, develop their skills, gain the courage to be expressive, and excel. They also link up the right skill at the right places giving the women who are yet to be successful a proven theory that works.

A huge portion of the females who use Fuzia are from remote areas, and Fuzia has targeted these women for skills training online – and during the pandemic, increased the range of courses and training online.

 

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A healthcare worker at a testing facility collects samples for the coronavirus at Mimar Sinan State Hospital, Buyukcekmece district in Istanbul, Turkey. Credit: UNDP Turkey/Levent Kulu

By Riccardo Petrella
BRUSSELS, Nov 30 2020 (IPS)

The holding of this Special Session (the 37th in the history of the UN) is of considerable importance. It is a unique opportunity to define and implement joint actions at the global level to fight the pandemic in order to ensure the right to life and health for all the inhabitants of the Earth. As the President of the UN General Assembly wrote in his letter of convocation: “Let us not forget that none of us are safe until we are all safe”.

This is a historic moment. The future of the UN is at stake, and above all the capacity of our societies to give life a universal value free from any subordination to market, economic and power “reasons”.

Health, life, is not a question of business, profits, national power, domination or survival of the strongest. The right to health for all is not only a question of access to care (medicines, vaccines….).

This special session is also very important because it represents a great opportunity for us citizens. It encourages us to express our priorities and wishes, to put pressure on our elected leaders so that their decisions comply with the constitutional principles of our States and with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Declaration of the Rights of Peoples.

As the Agora of the Inhabitants of the Earth, we have already intervened in September with the UN Secretary General in defense of a health policy without private patents for profit and free of charge (under collective financial responsibility.

On 23 October, at the WTO (World Trade Organisation) level, the “rich” countries of the “North” (United States, European Union, Norway, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Australia, Japan…) rejected the request made by South Africa and India, supported by the WHO (World Health Organisation) and other countries of the South, to temporarily suspend the application of patent rules in the fight against Covid-19.

The suspension was intended to allow people in impoverished countries fair and effective access to coronavirus treatment. We deeply deplore it. With this rejection, the aforementioned countries have flouted the political and legal primacy of the right to health according to the rules and objectives set at the international level by WHO over the “logics” and market interests promoted by WTO. This is unacceptable.

Is humanity at the beginning of the end of any global common health policy inspired by justice, responsibility and solidarity?

Inequalities in the right to health have worsened as part of a general increase in impoverishment. According to the biennial Poverty and Shared Prosperity Report of the World Bank the COVID-19 pandemic is estimated to push an additional 88 million to 115 million people into extreme poverty this year, with the total rising to as many as 150 million by 2021.1

The vaccine market is valued at about $29.64 billion in 2018 and is expected to grow to $43.79 billion at a CAGR of 10.3% through 2020. The sector is marked by a high degree of concentration: four major pharmaceutical groups dominated in 2019 in terms of turnover generated by the marketing of vaccines.

Leading the way is the British company GlaxoSmithKline, followed by the American Merck and Pfizer, with 7.3 and 5.9 billion euros respectively, and then the French company Sanofi with over 5.8 billion euros last year.

The concentration of vaccine production is also impressive. Europe currently accounts for three-quarters of global vaccine production. The rest of the production is divided mainly between North America (13%) and Asia (8%). In Europe, there are pharmaceutical giants such as Roche, Novartis and Bayer.

The resulting social fractures from above-mentioned trends make it more difficult to implement measures and actions in line with common, shared objectives, in the interest of all, especially the weakest who are at risk.

The spirit of survival and nationalist, racist and class divisions have been reinforced. With a few exceptions, the commodification and privatisation of health systems have contributed to the transfer of decision-making powers to private global industrial, commercial and financial subjects.

National political powers, which are responsible for the processes of commodification and privatisation, are less and less able to design and impose a global and public health policy in the interest of the world’s population.

Mainstream narratives, values, choices and regulation practices must change

The world situation is dramatic. This does not mean that it’s impossible to reverse to-day’s trends. Here below we mention the solutions that Agora of the Inhabitants has submitted to the attention of the president of the UN General Assembly in view of the Special Session on Covid-19.

Our proposals were the subject of a consultation with associations, groups, movements and citizen networks during the month of November. We have received 1,285 signed personal emails of support from 53 countries.

First, the Special Session must strongly reaffirm the principle that the health of all the inhabitants of the Earth is the greatest wealth we possess. Health matters, health is a universal right. It should not belong only to those who have the power to purchase the goods and services necessary and indispensable for life. Our States must stop spending almost 2 trillion dollars a year on armaments and wars.

The health of 8 billion human beings and other living species is more important than the power of conquest and extermination. To this end, it is necessary to change the priorities of global finance by investing in the economy of global public goods (health, water, knowledge/education.

The Special Session should: – propose the creation of a public cooperative financial fund for health, as an integral part of a Global Deposits and Consignments Fund for Global Public Goods; – commission UNIDIR or a commission of independent experts to submit a study report on immediate reductions in military expenditure and the reconversion of its allocation to the development, production and distribution of public goods and services in the health and related fields of water, agro-food and knowledge.

Second, universal rights to life imply that the goods and services indispensable for life should no longer be subject to private appropriation nor to exclusive collective appropriation. Therefore it is necessary to build the common future of all the inhabitants of the Earth by promoting and safeguarding the common public goods and services indispensable for life.

Water, health, seeds, housing and knowledge and education, are the most obvious common public goods. They cannot be dissociated from universal rights. Patents on life (and artificial intelligence) are a strong example of the dissociation between goods that are indispensable for life, such as medical care goods (infrastructure, medicines, and so on) and the right to life.

Hence, we propose:

• to recognise that health (goods and services) is a global common public good that must be safeguarded, protected and valued by the community, under the responsibility of democratically elected public authority institutions, at the different levels of societal organisation of human communities, from the local to the global community of life on Earth;
• approve the abandonment for the period 2021-2023 of application of the rules concerning patents on living organisms, in particular on all the tools for combating the Covid-19 pandemic (diagnostics, treatment, vaccines). The monopolies left to patent holders have no relevant social, ethical, economic and political value. To this end, the Member States of the United Nations and its specialised agencies, representatives of all the peoples and citizens of the Earth, commit themselves, for want of anything better, to use as of now existing instruments of international law such as compulsory licensing;
• decide to set up a global Task Force, under the aegis of the UN, to revise the legal-institutional regime of intellectual property in the Anthropocene, the aim of which would be to abandon the principle of the patentability of living organisms for private and profit-making purposes and to define a new global regime on intellectual property in the light also of the experience accumulated in recent years in the field of artificial intelligence.

Third, it is of fundamental importance to abandon submission to the dictates of “In the name of money”. “You are not profitable? You are not indispensable. In any case, your life is not a priority”. It is not because a person is not profitable for the capital invested that he or she is no longer indispensable. Being without purchasing power does not mean becoming without rights. Life is not money. Living beings are not commodities, resources for profit.

To this end, the Special Session should:

• highlight the need for the re-publicization of scientific research (basic and applied) and technological development. The pooling of knowledge and health protocols, medicines and vaccines must be part of the immediate measures to be taken. In this perspective;
• propose the approval of a Global Compact on Science for Life and Security for all the inhabitants of the Earth;
• to convey in 2022 a UN world conference on the global common public goods and services. The current mystifying use of the concept of ‘global public goods’ in relation to Covid-19 vaccines underlines the urgency and importance of the proposal.

Fourth, a global health policy requires a global political architecture capable, above all, of outlawing predatory finance. The “global security” of the global public goods in the interests of life for all the inhabitants of the Earth can be achieved by creating global institutions with corresponding competences and powers.

The Earth inhabitants do not need new winners, new global conquerors. They need world leaders and citizens who are convinced that the future of life on Earth requires a new and urgent Global Social Pact for Life. In 25 years’ time, the UN will celebrate the centenary of its founding.

The Special Session must make it clear that there can no longer be a debate on small adjustments to the global regulatory model known as “multilateralism”.

The Special Session should:

• recognise Humanity as an institutional subject and key actor in the global politics of life. The opening of a Global Common House of Knowledge, based on the existing pooling of knowledge, experiences, technical tools (case of Costa Rica concerning health…) will be a significant concrete step forward;
• propose the urgent creation of a Global Public Goods and Services Security Council, starting with health, water and knowledge.

It is time for governments and citizens to get or regain common control of health policy. The Special Session must set the record straight. The right to health for all is not only a question of (economic) access to care (medicines, vaccines…) but, more, a question of building the human, social, economic (such as employment…), environmental and political conditions that shape an individual and collective healthy state.

Agora of the Inhabitants of the Earth

1 Extreme poverty, defined as living on less than $1.90 a day, is likely to affect between 9.1% and 9.4% of the world’s population in 2020.

 

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Excerpt:

Riccardo Petrella, an Italian national living in Belgium is Emeritus Professor, Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium), with Honorary Degrees (Honoris Causa) from eight universities in Sweden, Denmark, France, Canada, Argentina and Belgium. His research and teaching fields have been regional development, poverty, science and technology policy and globalisation.

 
The UN General Assembly is holding a Special Session on the Covid-19 pandemic at the level of Heads of State and Government on 3 and 4 December.. It took more than a year of discussions to overcome the opposition of certain states, notably the United States and President Donald Trump.

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The campaign to save a 100-year-old tree shows cultural fears can make politicians listen in Kenya.

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Nigeria's president condemns an attack in which 43 labourers were "slaughtered" near Maiduguri.

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Women in Nigeria collect food vouchers as part of a programme to support families struggling under the COVID-19 lockdown. Credit: WFP/Damilola Onafuwa

By Aeneas Chapinga Chuma
JOHANNESBURG, Nov 27 2020 (IPS)

As COVID-19 swept across the globe, one thing became clear: a well-functioning, well-resourced, agile and resilient health system can mean the difference between life and death.

For Africa, the economic costs of the health pandemic were high. The prescription was often worse than the illness as Africa’s poor found themselves without work, food and even access to health care as economies were locked down across the continent in a bid to contain the virus.

The World Bank predicts that a pandemic-fuelled depression could lead to as much as 3.3 percent drop in growth this year – pushing the region into its first recession in 25 years.

We will not defeat COVID-19 without Africa in the global response. Africa cannot be muted in the global conversations and its leadership must play a role not only in identifying the problems but also in seeking the solutions


This health pandemic has serious socio-economic consequences. What COVID-19 has taught us is that the state has a critical role to play. It was the state, not the private sector, to which citizens looked to and which rose to the occasion when the pandemic struck. 

This was true in Africa as much as it was in Europe and other developed countries and calls for a rethinking of the importance of state capacities and capabilities in sectors of public significance. 

Now, rather than see the pandemic as the end, we could view this crisis as an opportunity for a collective effort to forge our own path at the global table for health.

We need to ask ourselves what global solidarity and shared responsibility would look like for the continent. We know that Africa has many lessons to share.

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has taken a strong lead in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Right from the start organizations leading the AIDS response were mobilized with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria allocating up to US$ 1 billion to help countries fight COVID-19. 

The Africa CDC requires more resources if it is to play an even bigger role. 

Where will those resources come from? African countries need to rethink development and how they can build local capacity if the continent is to play its part in the global strategy.

UNAIDS has been clear that we will not defeat COVID-19 without Africa in the global response. Africa cannot be muted in the global conversations and its leadership must play a role not only in identifying the problems but also in seeking the solutions.

To this end, UNAIDS was among the first to join the African CDC’s newly created Partnership to Accelerate COVID-19 Testing (PACT) as part of the Africa Joint Continental Strategy for the COVID-19 response.

The partnership aims to close the gap in testing by supporting the efforts of African countries to rapidly scale up their capacity to test and trace – a crucial step in reducing infections and deaths. PACT also calls for the rapid establishment of an Africa CDC-led system for pool procurement of diagnostics and other COVID-19-related response commodities.

COVID-19 does not discriminate in who it targets but economic and social determinants of ill-health are strong predictors of who might die from the virus. We cannot allow Africa’s poor to bear the greatest risk without support.

COVID-19 and AIDS are colliding epidemics, and, in many countries in the eastern and southern African region, sexual and gender-based violence is a third and silent triplet. 

The UNAIDS “World Aids Day Report, Prevailing Against Pandemics by Putting People at the centre”, has noted that the global commitment to fast-track the HIV response and end AIDS by 2030 is now off track. 

Indeed, agreed milestones for 2020 have been missed. But Africa can take comfort that the architecture, human resources and lessons learned from the AIDS response hold invaluable lessons. 

We now know that the evidence points to people-centred 2025 targets around comprehensive HIV services, context specific integration of services and the removal of societal and legal impediments to an enabling environment for HIV services. Together these three elements form a powerful whole with people living with HIV and people at greatest risk of HIV infection at its core. 

Shrinking budgets mean less investments in the HIV response. Our report shows clearly that the collective failure to invest sufficiently in comprehensive, rights-based, person-centred HIV responses comes at a high price: from 2015 to 2020, there were 3.5 million more HIV infections and 820 000 more AIDS-related deaths than if the world were on track to achieve the 2020 targets.

We must have a global response for both HIV and COVID-19. While recent vaccine announcements have brought some hope, UNAIDS calls for vaccines and treatments which are available for all and is active in the global movement for a People’s Vaccine. 

But this will not be an easy task. The COVAX initiative coordinated by WHO, Gavi and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness needs our vigilance to ensure access for the world’s poor.

The decline in AIDS-related deaths—a 39% drop from 2010 to 2019—demonstrates what can be done. We have made important progress towards zero new infections, zero AIDS-related deaths and zero discrimination. 

But we are far from our goal.

We must now double our efforts for both HIV and COVID-19.

Our goal for HIV is clear: we want people-centred and context specific integrated approaches that lead to at least 90% of people living with HIV or at heightened risk of HIV infection to be linked to services needed for their overall health and wellbeing. And we need a global COVID-19 strategy that works for everyone.

We cannot do the necessary without Africa at the table. And our experience of such phenomenon is that if Africa is not on the table, it will be on the menu—and that would be disastrous. 

 

Aeneas Chapinga Chuma is currently the interim Director for the UNAIDS Regional Support Team for Eastern and Southern Africa based in Johannesburg, South Africa. 

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The 21 travellers were bound for the UAE - which has already stopped issuing visas to Kenyans.

The prime minister was left with no option but to respond with force, the attorney general says.

In 2019, Ethiopia experienced the fifth-worst food crisis worldwide. Credit: FAO/IFAD/WFP/Michael Tewelde

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 27 2020 (IPS)

The numbers are staggering— as reflected in the ongoing coronavirus pandemic which has triggered a new round of food shortages, famine and starvation.

According to the Rome-based World Food Programme (WFP) 690 million people do not have enough to eat. while130 million additional people risk being pushed to the brink of starvation by the end of the year.

“Hunger is an outrage in a world of plenty. An empty stomach is a gaping hole in the heart of a society,” Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said last week pointing out that famine is looming in several countries.

Striking a personal note, Guterres said he could have never imagined that hunger would rise again during his time in office as Secretary-General.

The WFP singled out 10 countries with the worst food crises in 2019: Yemen, Congo, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Syria, Sudan, Nigeria and Haiti. The list is expected to increase by end of this year.

WFP Executive Director David Beasley told a meeting of the U.N. Security Council last April: “There are no famines yet. But I must warn you that if we don’t prepare and act now – to secure access, avoid funding shortfalls and disruptions to trade – we could be facing multiple famines of biblical proportions within a short few months.”

Against this grim scenario, resetting the future of food is possible, say the Barilla Foundation and Food Tank, which are jointly sponsoring an international online dialogue December 1 to “present concrete solutions to rethink our food systems– from farm to fork.”

The discussions are expected to help set the stage for the United Nations Food System Summit to be held in 2021.

The spread of COVID-19 has demonstrated the fragility of global food systems, “but it also offers opportunities to transform the way we produce, distribute and consume food.”

Guido Barilla, Chairman, Barilla Group and Barilla Foundation, said: “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.”

Danielle Nierenberg, President and Founder of Food Tank, told IPS the pandemic has had a huge impact on the world’s food and agricultural systems.

“Ironically, there will be record yields for many grains this year, but the disruptions in the supply chain caused by the pandemic as well as the global climate crisis and increasing conflict in several countries is leading to a hunger pandemic as well,” she pointed out.

Hunger, as many experts have pointed out, is not because the world doesn’t produce enough food, but a problem of distribution that has been exacerbated by concerns over health and lack of national leadership and political will in many countries, including the United States, to ensure that no one goes hungry, said Nierenberg.

Jeffrey Sachs, Professor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development, Columbia University and Director, U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network, said: “Changing the food system is a complex challenge, but the first step is to know where we want to go, and that’s toward a healthy diet produced with sustainable agriculture.”

Abby Maxman, Oxfam America’s President & CEO, told IPS COVID-19 is the final straw for millions of people already struggling with the impacts of conflict, inequality, and climate change.

“The pandemic is fuelling hunger in the world’s worst hunger hotspots such as Venezuela and South Sudan, and it is creating new epicentres of hunger in countries such as India, South Africa, and Brazil where millions of people who were barely managing have been tipped over the edge by the pandemic,” she said.

She also pointed out that COVID-19 has exposed the weaknesses of a food system which prioritizes the profits of big food and agriculture companies over the needs of food producers and workers.

“We’re hearing the same refrain all around the world – families are very worried as they are forced to make impossible decisions – do they risk catching the disease as they go out to earn money to buy food? Or stay home and watch their children go hungry?”

It’s not actually a choice for most. Governments must contain the spread of this deadly disease but it is equally vital they take action to stop the pandemic killing as many – if not more – people from hunger, said Maxman.

The future of the global food systems is in our hands. Let’s make the future grow! Credit: Barilla Foundation

The Advisory Board of the Barilla Foundation, described as an independent foundation that works on proposing concrete actions to solve issues around global food systems, has proposed a strategy to transform the food systems through shared and systemic solutions and a global collective commitment.

The online international dialogue is expected to highlight the critical role of farmers in feeding the world and managing natural resources, food business in progressing towards the 2030 Agenda, and chefs in re-designing food experiences. The prospects of technology and innovation, the role of food as prevention and the most recent policy developments, including the EU Farm to Fork Strategy, will also be discussed.

Asked if the availability of two vaccines by early next year will contribute to alleviate or end the food emergency, Nierenberg told IPS that while the vaccines are promising and will health ensure the health of millions and millions of people, the pandemic has shown us how fragile our food and economic systems are–it exposed a lot of cracks that were already there, but that have grown wider since the pandemic.

“We’ll need more than vaccines to make sure that food is considered a human right and that people around the globe have access to a living wage and safe, affordable, and accessible food,” she declared.

Oxfam America’s Maxman told IPS the exciting news about vaccines is providing hope of getting out of this global nightmare, but the scientific breakthrough is only part of the equation.

Equally important, she said, is making sure every single person on this planet can get it as soon as possible. But at the moment, rich countries, including the US, are already hoarding more than half of the vaccines to be developed by the companies with the leading five vaccine candidates.

“With only 4% of the world’s population, the US has already reserved almost 50% of the Pfizer’s total expected supply in 2021. That’s why Oxfam is calling for a people’s vaccine: a global public good, freely and fairly available to all, prioritizing those most in need here at home and around the world”.

To protect everyone no matter their wealth or nationality, corporations with the leading candidates for an effective COVID-19 vaccine must commit to openly sharing their vaccine technology to enable billions of doses to be made as soon as possible at the lowest possible price, Maxman declared.

Asked about the impact of waste, obesity and overconsumption, Nierenberg said: “I think NOW is the time for a real resetting of the food system”.

“It’s clear that agriculture needed to be revolutionized pre-pandemic—and we can’t return to the way things were”.

These unprecedented challenges, she noted, provide enormous opportunities to create a food system that can’t be broken—one that is truly regenerative and restorative, and that leaves no one behind.

“We can’t go back to “normal.” Normal left us vulnerable, and this crisis has widened the cracks in a food system already in need of repair. But this is our time to pivot. Right now, we can develop long-lasting solutions to nourish both people and the planet,” declared Nierenberg, recipient of the 2020 Julia Child Award and who spent two years volunteering for the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic.

Maxman said: “The global food system is broken. We must rebuild a fairer, more resilient, and more sustainable food system”.

The fact that eight of the biggest food and drink companies paid out over $18 billion to shareholders even as the pandemic was spreading across the globe illustrates just how broken our food system is, she noted.

“In the short-term, governments need to make sure that local food systems can continue to function, people can access and afford to buy nutritious food, and producers can continue to grow and produce the food needed for local communities”.

But as countries recover from the crisis, governments must prioritize investing in small-scale producers, ensuring that women food producers do not face discrimination, taking steps to make sure food producers can adapt to climate change, and demanding that big food and beverage companies pay workers a living wage, she declared.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

 

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Credit: SIPRI

By Diego Lopes da Silva
STOCKHOLM, Nov 27 2020 (IPS)

Autocracies are once again the global majority. The 2020 Democracy Report of the Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-DEM), ‘Autocratization surges, resistance grows’, raises the alarm that while the world in 2019 was substantially more democratic than it was in the 1970s, an ongoing trend of autocratization may reverse this scenario.

Democratic institutions in countries as diverse as Hungary and Mali are weakening, leading to consequences of as yet unknown dimensions. A likely outcome is an increase in military spending: there is a significant body of evidence showing that autocracies spend more than democracies on their militaries, all else being equal.

This SIPRI Topical Backgrounder discusses the possible consequences of growing autocratization on military spending. Understanding the interaction between political regimes and military spending is of interest to scholars as well as to policymakers, as many of these autocratizing countries—such as Brazil, India and Turkey—increasingly bear importance in the international security landscape.

It also examines the case of Brazil in light of the findings of the 2020 Democracy Report and looks at how Brazil’s recent autocratization has affected its military spending.

Is the world becoming more autocratic?

The 2020 Democracy Report documents the acceleration and deepening of autocratization around the world. V-DEM defines any substantial decline on its Liberal Democracy Index (LDI) as autocratization. Simply put, it refers to the erosion of liberal democratic institutions.

The LDI captures the extent to which individual and minority rights are protected against a potential ‘tyranny of the majority’ and the state. Institutional features such as civil liberties, separation of powers, a constitutionally constrained executive, and a strong and independent judiciary are of special concern to this index.

Autocracies—political regimes where civil society’s influence and control over decision making is limited and unevenly distributed—are, for the first time since 2001, the majority in the world. The number of liberal democracies has fallen from a peak of 45 countries in 2010 to 37 in 2019.

Levels of democracy have fallen throughout regions: as a population-weighted average, Latin America’s 2019 democracy index receded to 1992 levels, while in the same year Eastern Europe’s reached its lowest point since the end of the Soviet Union.

Hungary is a notable example. It is the first electoral authoritarian member of the European Union according to V-DEM’s methodology and the most extreme case of autocratization of the decade 2009–19, followed by Turkey, Poland, Serbia and Brazil.

Why would autocratization affect military spending?

In a nutshell, the literature puts forward two main hypotheses on the relationship between military spending and democracy. Far from being exclusionary, these hypotheses complement each other; empirical cases are likely to display features in accordance with both explanations.

The first hypothesis—the democratic control hypothesis—claims that liberal democracies spend less on their militaries as a means to avoid heightening threat perceptions and leaving fewer resources available to other valued social goods.

Thus, politicians seeking election or re-election may be more inclined to reduce military spending to provide more resources for health and education, for example. They would do so to please constituents and therefore maximize their chances of remaining in power.

Democratic institutions provide the channels through which civil society can express its preferences, reward politicians who abide by them and sanction those who do not.

A second hypothesis—the autocrat–military hypothesis—concerns the rent-seeking behaviour of the military. According to this theoretical strand, competition for resources is fundamentally different under democratic and autocratic regimes.

In democracies the military should not resort to violence as a means of securing resources; it must compete for budget allocations with other state bureaucracies on an equal footing. Conversely, autocratic regimes tend to rely on the military for internal repression. In these regimes, the military can bargain for larger budget allocations in exchange for political support.

There is evidence to support the association between military spending and democracy: countries with well-functioning democracies tend to spend less on their militaries, both as a share of gross domestic product (GDP)—military burden—and as a share of government expenditure.

A study published in 2015, for instance, found that full democracies—those scoring highest in democratic quality—spend on average almost 40 per cent less than full autocracies—those scoring lowest in democratic quality—on their militaries, all else being equal.

There is also some evidence suggesting that presidential democracies spend more on the military than parliamentary systems. Among autocracies, military regimes have higher military spending levels than single party and personalist regimes. The link between political regimes and military spending is well established in the literature.

These findings suggest that if the current trend of autocratization continues, military spending is likely to rise. The effects are already noticeable: some countries moving towards autocracy are either increasing military spending or changing budgeting practices. The following section discusses some preliminary findings on the relationship between autocratization and military spending in Brazil.

The autocratic surge in Brazil: President Bolsonaro’s relationship with the armed forces and military spending

According to V-DEM’s 2020 Democracy Report, Brazil ranks fifth among the top 10 autocratizing countries of the decade 2009–19. Democratic levels began to decline in Brazil in 2014, after a corruption scandal involving President Dilma Rousseff’s Workers’ Party. A political crisis ensued ultimately leading to Rousseff’s impeachment in 2016.

The impeachment process was highly controversial, casting serious doubt on the quality of Brazilian democratic institutions. Autocratization accelerated after far-right President Jair Bolsonaro took office in 2018. Bolsonaro has made clear on several occasions that his commitment to democratic institutions is weak, going as far as to claim that ‘the dictatorship’s mistake was to torture but not kill’ dissidents, referring to Brazil’s latest military dictatorship between 1964 and 1985.

Bolsonaro is a former army captain and has appointed a retired army general as vice president. He has populated the state bureaucracy with military personnel and relies heavily on the military to govern.

When Bolsonaro took office in 2018, fewer than 3000 military personnel occupied civilian positions in the state bureaucracy; by 2020 that number had risen to over 6000. Many key positions in the government are or were occupied by retired army officers, such as the minister of health, the minister of mines and energy, the minister of defence and the national security adviser.

The military has backed Bolsonaro against political opponents as well as against other government branches. In May 2020, Bolsonaro’s national security adviser, Augusto Heleno, a retired army general, warned that the Supreme Court’s ongoing inquiries into the president’s supporters may lead to ‘unpredictable consequences for national stability’.

Following Heleno’s statement, Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro—President Bolsonaro’s son—said that an institutional break, in other words a democratic rupture, in Brazil is only a matter of time.

The relationship between Bolsonaro and the military has had consequences on the allocation of government resources. The presidency presented a budget proposal to Congress in August 2020 calling for a 4.83 per cent increase in the defence budget for 2021.

The Ministry of Defence was successful in lobbying for 8.17 billion reais (US$1.5 billion) for investments in arms acquisition programmes, much higher than in previous years. The Ministry of Defence has even more ambitious plans in mind to enlarge the military budget: the latest version of the National Defence Strategy, submitted to Congress in July 2020, proposes raising Brazil’s military spending from the 1.4 per cent of GDP average of the past decade to 2 per cent of GDP.

Although the proposition is based on that of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)—since 2002 NATO member states have agreed to spend at least 2 per cent of their GDP on their military—Brazil’s proposed approach is fundamentally distinct from the one taken by NATO. The NATO 2 per cent military burden is a political guideline, not a legal obligation.

The Brazilian proposal, however, appears to aim at setting national defence expenditure at 2 per cent of GDP in the Annual Budget Law. While the means to do so are not yet clear, the language in the document implies, or at least creates potential for, the establishment of a legal mechanism securing a minimum allocation per year (2 per cent of GDP) to the military irrespectively of approval by Congress. If that is indeed the case, it would severely weaken democratic control over the budgetary process.

Discussions about raising military spending in Brazil are taking place during exceptionally challenging times. Firstly, since 2017 Brazil has been under a new fiscal regime that limits government spending for the following 20 years.

The expenditure ceiling links any increase in federal primary expenditure to the previous year’s inflation, ensuring that spending does not grow in real terms. The fiscal regime heightens the zero-sum game of resource allocation, as government branches must now compete for shares of a substantially smaller pot of money.

If the proposal for a 2 per cent military burden is approved, it would automatically decrease the resources available to other ministries.

Secondly, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has hit Brazil particularly hard. In the six months following the first registered case, Brazil reached 4.3 million cases and over 133 000 deaths. In June 2020 COVID-19-related fatalities averaged 1000 deaths per day.

The COVID-19 pandemic has overwhelmed Brazil’s health system and put a strain on public resources. Raising military spending amid the most severe health and economic crises Brazil has ever experienced will considerably limit the country’s ability to respond effectively to COVID-19.

Had the 2 per cent military burden proposition been approved in 2019, military spending would have grown from $28 billion to $40 billion annually. The difference, $12 billion, is more than a tenth of the 2020 budget allocated by the Brazilian Government to address the COVID-19 pandemic.

This simple comparison provides a tangible example of the opportunity costs involved in raising military spending amidst such a severe health crisis.

The quid pro quo between Bolsonaro and the military supports to some extent the hypothesis that autocracies rely on the military. Brazil is not a full autocracy; it is still a democracy with functioning institutions.

Nevertheless, it is clear that Bolsonaro relies heavily on the support of the military to govern and thus Brazil does display some of the features of the autocrat–military hypothesis.

Moreover, Brazil also fits the democratic control hypothesis. The proposal to fix the military burden at 2 per cent—if carried out without the approval of Congress—would be a significant setback to Brazilian civil society’s ability to influence public expenditure. In that sense, it represents a weakening of democratic control.

Military spending in autocratizing countries

If the current trend of autocratization leads to higher military spending, the consequences would certainly be damaging for international security and economic development. Higher military spending could lead to heightened threat perceptions, and thus ultimately increase the likelihood of conflict.

Likewise, larger military budgets might mean that fewer resources would be available for spending on health and education or to effectively aid a post-pandemic economic recovery. While some may argue that military spending could benefit economic growth, extant evidence suggests otherwise.

The effects of growing autocratization on military spending are becoming increasingly clear in Brazil, where Bolsonaro intends to raise military spending to 2 per cent of GDP. The government presented this proposal amidst a pandemic that has hit the country particularly hard and under an austere expenditure ceiling.

The Brazilian case may forebode a trend: if other autocratizing states, such as India and Turkey, follow suit, we can expect rising levels of military spending. Studying the relationship between military spending and political regimes is of utmost importance to anticipate the shifts autocratization may bring to international security.

This Topical Backgrounder has only scratched the surface of this relationship. A more in-depth analysis of the Brazilian case, alongside cross-country comparisons, might provide a clearer picture of the issue.

 

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The post Autocracy on the Rise: Should we Expect Military Spending to Follow? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Dr Diego Lopes da Silva is a Researcher with the Arms and Military Expenditure Programme at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)

The post Autocracy on the Rise: Should we Expect Military Spending to Follow? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Digital technologies are changing agriculture and food systems. It is important to bridge the digital gap in this sector so that family farmers in developing countries are not left behind as food security depends on them. Credit: FAO.

By Mario Lubetkin
ROME, Nov 27 2020 (IPS)

Overcoming the digital gap to face food insecurity with the use of artificial intelligence practices in agriculture is part of a growing debate that seeks to simultaneously safeguard natural resources and address the difficulties generated by climate change and the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In recent times, multinational high-tech companies, such as IBM and Microsoft from the U.S., international institutions, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and ethical and spiritual references, such as the Pontifical Academy for Life, have devoted their efforts and work towards this objective.

Artificial intelligence technologies can play an important role in transforming food systems by performing tasks that are otherwise conducted by people such as planting and harvesting. This can help to increase productivity, improve working conditions and use natural resources more efficiently with better knowledge and planning management.

These technologies are beginning to be applied in areas of agricultural robotics, soil and crop monitoring, and predictive analytics, to name a few.

In the context of climate change, population growth and the depletion of natural resources, this technological advance can also contribute to the preservation of soils and water, a fact that gains greater relevance in the attempt to achieve food security in a sustainable way.

“I am convinced that we will continue to transform our food systems to feed the world thanks to digital agriculture,” said FAO Director-General QU Dongyu, while stressing that digital technologies “must be accessible to all.”

The ethical value of technological development has received strong attention from Pope Francis. Moreover, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, argued that “we must feed all people, but not necessarily all should eat the same.”

He added that the protection of biological diversity (human, vegetal and animal), “should occupy the center of our attention and should guide the entire process, from the ethical phase of design to the ways in which they are proposed and disseminated in different social and cultural contexts.”

Mario Lubetkin. Credit: FAO

According to the president of Microsoft, Brad Smith, “technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning tools will be especially useful as we work to address the issues of hunger and food insecurity, especially in a world that must face climate change, as they can foresee problems and respond with critical resources that help prevent future famines and save lives.”

In this regard, according to figures published by FAO, there are currently 690 million people who are going hungry, and by the end of 2020, as a result of the effects of COVID-19, the figure could increase by 130 million.

IBM´s vice president, John Kelly, recalled that “only if we put people, their interests and their values at the center of our thinking about the future of technology can we emerge stronger in the face of global challenges such as the pandemic and food security.”

In February, the Pontifical Academy for Life, in collaboration with FAO, Microsoft, IBM and the Italian government, among others, launched a call to build the ethics of artificial intelligence based on principles such as transparency and inclusion.

The purpose of this, is that these systems can be easily explained. They can take into account human beings, while providing the best possible conditions to express themselves and develop impartially, thus avoiding that only a few benefit from them.

To achieve this, the current digital gap must be overcome. At present, 6 billion people do not have a broadband connection, 4 billion cannot access the internet, 2 billion do not have mobile phones and 400 million do not have a digital signal at all.

The use of artificial intelligence tools is part of the action promoted by an important group of countries for the establishment of an International Platform for Digital Food and Agriculture, a forum of multiple parties interested in identifying and defining the possible benefits and risks of digitization of the food and agriculture sector.

In January 2020, 71 Ministers of Agriculture from different countries formally promoted this initiative, which encourages the combination of forums that are dedicated to agriculture with those that focus their attention on the digital economy. In turn, the initiative proposes to support governments in the development of voluntary practices and guidelines for the application of digital technologies in agriculture.

In a similar direction, FAO and Google recently launched a new big data tool for rural producers and other figures in the agriculture sector. It enables the transmission of images from a satellite in quasi-real time, with analytical functionality and on a planetary basis, in order to allow the detection, quantification and monitoring of changes and trends in the land surface, thus simplifying access to relevant information for small producers.

 

The post Overcoming the Digital Gap and Food Insecurity: a Complementary Target appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Mario Lubetkin is Assistant Director General at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

The post Overcoming the Digital Gap and Food Insecurity: a Complementary Target appeared first on Inter Press Service.