Africa

Esra, a former political prisoner in Egypt describes the physical abuse she experienced while in detention.

The government is hoping for a quick victory in Tigray but it may not be that simple.

A selection of the week's best photos from across the continent.

Cameroon's PWD Bamenda are set for the Champions League five years after being in the fourth-tier all against a backdrop of political tension and violence.

Friday's African Champions League final between Egyptian giants Al Ahly and Zamalek is the first between clubs from the same country.

William Moss of Johns Hopkins university doesn't expect the vaccines to be available in Africa until late 2021.

The BBC's Anne Soy reports that aid agencies are struggling to cope as refugees continue to arrive.

By Stella Paul
HYDERABAD, India, Nov 26 2020 (IPS)

As India continues to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic and a growing number of deaths, farmers here have been fighting a battle of their own against volatile pricing, uncertain demand and lack of access to the market. But in the midst of all this uncertainty, one farming couple in a village near Hyderabad are working towards a food-secure future for themselves using eco-friendly farming techniques.

The couple, Anjaneyalu and Padma Amma, are among a growing community of  smallholder farmers who have been trained by the local government in farming without the use of synthetic inputs, including fertilisers and pesticide. The farmers receive free training under a special government programme that aims to increase soil fertility and boost yield through sustainable measures to avoid any possible food crisis caused by the pandemic.

This comes ahead of a Dec. 1 online event by the Barilla Centre for Food and Nutrition, which explores how everyone has a role to play in re-aligning the global food system with human needs and within planetary boundaries. The event will be co-hosted in partnership with the Food Tank and aims to create a multi-stakeholder platform to “offer solutions and environmentally sustainable ways of alleviating hunger, obesity, and poverty”. It comes ahead of the 2021 United Nations Food Systems Summit.

In this interview with IPS, the Ammas explain how they turned a previously uncultivable land into a source of sustenance through applying eco-friendly techniques.

 

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The post Sustainable Measures Help Farmers Script a Positive Story Amid COVID-19 Uncertainty appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Oil pump jack pumping crude out of the ground in Neuquen, Argentina (Image Alamy/Diálogo Chino)

By Fermín Koop
BUENOS AIRES, Nov 26 2020 (IPS)

As the world’s leading economies direct trillions of dollars towards Covid-19 recovery packages, a significant proportion is going to fossil fuel industries without climate stipulations, according to the 2020 edition of the Climate Transparency Report – which has assessed the climate performance of G20 countries.

Up until the middle of October, the G20 spent US$393 billion on support to the energy sector, with 53.5% going to fossil fuels ($175 billion to oil and gas, and $16.2 billion to coal). Of this, 86% has been provided without conditions for improved environmental action or performance.

The report shows that at least 19 of the G20 countries have provided financial support to their domestic oil, coal and gas sectors, including Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. If they continue along this path, governments risk reversing, instead of locking in, positive pre-Covid trends such as a stable expansion of renewable energy.

At least 19 of the G20 countries have provided financial support to their domestic oil, coal and gas sectors, including Argentina, Brazil and Mexico

“The recovery packages can solve the climate crisis or make it worse,” says Charlene Watson of the Overseas Development Institute. “Some G20 members like the EU, France, or Germany are setting mostly a good example. Others direct too much support to fossil fuels, putting at risk positive recent developments.”

G20 economies represent more than 80% of global GDP and three-quarters of global trade. The group is also responsible for 75% of global emissions and therefore has a major role in fulfilling the goal of the Paris Agreement to avoid a temperature increase of more than 2C, or ideally 1.5C, above the pre-industrial norm.

However, existing G20 commitments are insufficient to accomplish that goal, and would lead the world to a temperature 2.7C higher by the end of the century, according to the report. Countries are expected to update their climate pledges in 2020 and 2021 ahead of the COP26 climate summit.

 

Challenging previous progress

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the results of climate action in G20 countries were becoming visible in key areas. Energy-related CO2 emissions decreased by 0.1% in 2019 – a remarkable departure from the 1.9% increase in 2018 and a longer-term annual average growth rate of 1.4% between 2005 and 2017.

This was largely due to the expansion of renewable energy. The share of renewables in power generation increased in 19 of the G20 countries last year, accounting for 27% of power generation in the group. It’s projected to continue increasing in all G20 countries and to make up almost 28% of the power generation this year.

“Before the pandemic hit, results of climate action were coming to fruition in some energy-related sectors and the crisis consolidated those trends in the majority of the G20 countries,” said Jorge Villarreal of Iniciativa Climática de México. “But without further climate action, these effects will be temporary.”

Looking back on 2019, the report notes that despite a decrease in coal consumption, fossil fuels still accounted for 81.5% of primary energy supply, because of increases in oil (+1%) and gas (+3%) consumption. Also in 2019, countries provided US$130 billion in subsidies to fossil fuels, up from US$117 billion in 2018, despite their goal to eliminate them.

Progress in the transport, building and industrial sectors is also lagging and many G20 members are still losing tree cover, diminishing critical carbon sinks. CO2 emissions from the transport sector grew by 1.5%, followed by a 1.2% increase in the industry sector and a 0.9% growth in the building sector.

No G20 countries have targets for reaching zero deforestation in the 2020s, which would be needed to meet the Paris Agreement 1.5C goal. Although China, the EU and Mexico have targets for net-zero deforestation for further down the line. This is especially worrying in Latin America, considering the forest fires and illegal logging in Argentina and Brazil.

 

The scenario for Latin America

G20 members Brazil, Argentina and Mexico were found to be off-track to meet the 1.5C goal. Argentina is the only one of the three to emit more than the G20 average, having increased its emissions 35% since 1990.

Amid the pandemic, Brazil has provided economic support to the industrial and transport sectors without attaching any environmental conditions. Meanwhile, deregulation in land use in the Amazon is likely to increase logging, mining, agriculture and forestry activities, leading to further deforestation.

The Bolsonaro administration cut the budget for key forest protection monitoring and enforcement and has rolled back numerous environmental protection policies. Rates of illegal deforestation are continuing to rise, with over a third of deforestation in 2019 taking place on public lands.

“From 2012 to 2019 the level of deforestation in Brazil grew by 122%. If deforestation gets out of control, NDC goals won’t be met. The country should urgently reinstate and strengthen policies on monitoring and preventing illegal deforestation,” said William Willis, from CentroClima NGO in Brazil.

In Mexico, a large proportion of the stimulus package has been directed towards infrastructure investments, including a flagship oil refinery and airport expansion, plus tax breaks for Pemex, Mexico’s state-owned oil company. Furthermore, barriers were placed to the wind and solar energy dispatch, prioritising oil-fired power plants.

The country called oil a strategic resource and seeks to increase its use for electricity generation, increasing investment in fossil fuel exploration and extraction. Instead it should reopen further renewable energy auctioning rounds, the report argued.

There is a similar scenario in Argentina. During the pandemic, the Fernández administration introduced measures to increase commodity exports and fossil fuels. The government artificially fixed the domestic oil barrel price to offset the sharp fall in international oil prices.

Fossil fuels still make up 86% of Argentina’s energy mix. Despite the increase in renewable energy over the last two decades, the carbon intensity of the energy mix has barely changed. The share of fossil fuels in the global primary 1.5C energy mix needs to fall to 67% by 2030 and to 33% by 2050.

“The government didn’t introduce any ‘green’ measures in its recovery stimulus plans. On the contrary, it continues to strongly subsidise fossil fuels, such as gas. In order to ensure a sustainable recovery, the focus needs to be put on green energy infrastructure,” said Enrique Maurtua Konstantinidis, senior adviser on climate change at FARN, an Argentine NGO.

 

Looking ahead

There is growing recognition that a fundamental, structural shift is required among G20 countries, the report argued. As such, in 2019 and 2020 many countries have started to set net-zero emissions goals to decarbonize their economies by mid-century, with likely more to come over the next few months.

In June 2019, France and the UK set net-zero targets for 2050, and by the end of the year, the EU and Germany had made similar announcements. In 2020, Canada, China, South Africa, South Korea, and Japan joined in, with China aiming to be carbon-neutral before 2060. Cities and companies in G20 countries have announced similar goals.

Representatives from G20 countries met virtually on Friday and Saturday, November 20-21 for the bloc’s annual summit under the presidency of Saudi Arabia. It will be largely focused on addressing the implications of the coronavirus pandemic, future health care plans and steps for reviving the global economy.

“We urgently need more ambition and leadership from the world’s biggest economies – and emitters – at the upcoming G20 Summit and next year’s UN Climate Conference” said Catrina Godinho from the Humboldt-Viadrina Governance Platform. “The US election result offers some hope for international climate politics.”

 

This article was originally published by Dialogo Chino

The post G20 Puts More into Fossil Than Green Energy in Covid-19 Recovery Packages appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Batara slum in a Dhaka suburb. Credit: Naimul Haq/IPS

By Roberto Savio
ROME, Nov 26 2020 (IPS)

The recent meeting of the G20 – scheduled to take place in Riyadh but held virtually due to the Coronavirus pandemic – has been an eloquent example of how the world is drifting, in a crisis of leadership.

It was, in a sense, a showcase. Everybody had to accept the view that the host of the meeting, the ailing King Salman of Saudi Arabia, was accompanied on TV screens by his apparent heir, Prince Mohamed bin Salman, who is clearly the mastermind of the brutal assassination, dismembering and disappearance of the body of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Roberto Savio

Mohamed bin Salman got away with it, also because of the support of Donald Trump who, in his video intervention said, among other pearls, that nobody in US history had done as much as he had for the environment (like when he said that nobody since Abraham Lincoln had done as much as he had for black Americans). After that, Trump promptly left for his golf course, and ignored the debate.

Raison d’état, realpolitik, diplomatic constraints have always been part of history. The fact that the G20 was virtual, can partly hide a fact: that politicians now accept the most preposterous statements without blinking, because everything has become acceptable and legitimate. In Saudi Arabia, Prince bin Salman is highly popular and in the US, those who live in the parallel world of Trumpland follow blindly.

Biden will have a very difficult life. At least one-third of Americans believe that a massive fraud has deprived their idol of the presidency. He has a Supreme Court staffed by his nominee. And unless the Democrats win the two seats for the Senate in Georgia on January 5th, it will remain in the hands of Mitch McConnell, who will block every single Biden project that needs Senate approval.

Add to this a Trump permanent electoral campaign during the next four years, probably with his own TV channel, and it is difficult to predict that Biden’s vice-president, a woman and black, will repeat his feat in 2024.

There are plenty of solutions if there was only political will. For instance, Oxfam estimates that just an increase of 0.5% over ten years on the taxes paid by 1% of the richest (a negligible increase) would suffice to create 117 million jobs in strategic sectors like health, education, and assistance to the elderly

I apologise for this diversion. The real goal of this article is to show the stunning lack of responsibility of the leaders who met virtually, and besides making totally ritual declarations about the pandemic and climate change, when faced with the issue of the impact of Covid-19 on the poor of the world, simply decided to extend the moratorium on the interest of the external debt of the poorest countries for another year. This is a debt which, in many cases, has been amply repaid with the payment of cumulative interests.

Now, it is certainly difficult to believe that the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the UK, India, China and Canada, and the President of the European Council, and the President of the European Union – leaving aside the United States – ignore the impacting data on the increase of poverty provided by all the international organisations.

The creation of the G7 and the G20 has been the most visible attempt of the great powers to displace substantial debates and decisions from the United Nations. It was certainly not due to lack of information that they ignored the appeal of the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, who implored action in his intervention against the unfolding drama of the poor of all over the world, which is nullifying all progress achieved in the last two decades.

The data that the G20 ignored all converge on two conclusions: the impact of the Covid-19 virus is stronger than expected, and it will bring about a global social imbalance that will have a lasting impact on several millions of people – in fact, about 300 million people.

This comes on top of an already dire situation. According to the World Bank, 720 million people will be living in extreme poverty (less than 1.90 dollars a day). Of those, 114 million are the direct result of Covid-19: that is 9.4% of the world’s population. According to the UN World Food Programme, more than 265 million are already starving, and many will die. And according to the International Labour Organization 200 million will lose their job.

Let us not forget that half of the world’s population – 3.2 billion people – live on less than 5.50 dollars a day. These are in the global South, as well as those in rich countries who are close to the conditions of the poor countries. The scale of this condition is much greater than we normally think. In the United States, according to the US Census Bureau, 11.1% of the population (49 million people) can be classified as poor; but Covid-19 will probably add another 8 million people.

A staggering 16.1 million children live in food precarity, while more than 47 million citizens depend on food banks. The National Center on Family Homelessness estimates that in 2013, 2.5 million US children experienced some form of homelessness. Finally, the US Health Affairs journal affirms that in 2016, the United States had the largest rate of children mortality in the 20 countries belonging to the OECD, while according to the US Census Bureau, life expectation has shrunk by three years.

In Europe thanks to a culture of welfare (absent in the US), things are going somewhat better. Eurostat estimates that in 2017, 11.8 million people lived in a household “at risk of poverty or social exclusion”. And Save the Children estimates that 28% of those under 18 are at risk of poverty and social exclusion.

We do not have estimates of the impact of Covid-19 in Europe, but the European Union estimates that poverty may increase by 47% if the pandemic lasts until next summer. This excludes the impact of the expected third wave in the winter of 2021. Caritas Italy estimates that at the end of the year there will be at least one million more poor children.

The leaders of the G20 cannot ignore that in April UNCTAD issued an alert: we need to find at least 2.5 billion dollars to attenuate the coming social crisis. They cannot ignore that the ILO has stated that in the poorest countries of the world, like Haiti, Ethiopia or Malawi, the average income of informal workers has fallen by 82%.

They cannot ignore the political consequences of this social crisis, and how Covid-19 is putting a brake on the world economy. But the poor, for many reasons, is not a priority in political choices. Suffice it to note that in the EU’s unprecedented and brilliant Recovery Plan for Europe there are no special provisions for the poor. They are part of the general population, and of those who have suffered because of Covid-19: people working in the tourism sector, in restaurants bar, in shops, and so on.

Yet, we have all the data to know that they suffer specific problems, problems that differ from those of who have lost their jobs. Structural poverty is a cage which does not let out those who are inside it. We have no space here to analyse why poverty needs a specific action. There are tons of studies on the subject, on the relations between poverty and education, poverty and democracy, poverty and social movements, and the list goes on.

What we want to stress is that there are plenty of solutions if there was only political will. For instance, Oxfam estimates that just an increase of 0.5% over ten years on the taxes paid by 1% of the richest (a negligible increase) would suffice to create 117 million jobs in strategic sectors like health, education, and assistance to the elderly.

Repatriating 10% of the capital hidden in fiscal paradises would obtain the same result. But we have been following Ronald Reagan’s mantra that the poor bring poverty and the rich bring wealth, so the rich should be left to create wealth. This may seem like a joke, but the OECD indicates that the average taxation on companies fell from 28% in 2000 to 20.6% in 2020.

This occurred despite the rise of the wealth of large companies, which has been accompanied by a notable decline of the middle class, not to speak of workers and the proliferation of precarious and informal jobs. According to the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies, between March 18 and June 4, the wealth of the richest Americans increased by 19.1% – a monumental 565 million dollars. Now, the richest Americans own 3.5 billion dollars.

Just 10% of that would be enough to bail out the 46.2 million fellow citizens who ask for unemployment subsidies. Another solution would be to reduce subsidies to the fossil industry, which the International Institute for Renewable Energy estimates at 3.1 trillion dollars – 19 times those for renewables – in spite of the imminent climatic tragedy.

The same imbalance is happening with the pandemic. It is clear that until vaccination becomes universal, Covid-19 is here to stay. It recognises no borders and global problems cannot have an assorted collection of local answers.

Yet, to date, pharmaceutical companies have received 13.1 billion dollars to develop a vaccine: a fantastic business, as they will now make more money on the market, with their costs already having been paid by governments. A central discussion would be whether markets should make profit on common goods like water, air and humans, but we have no space for this debate.

This aside, the situation today is that again according to Oxfam, the rich countries have 13.5%of the world population, Yet they have bought in advance 51% of the doses that pharmaceutical companies will produce – in 2021, 86.5 % of the world will have to make do with the remaining 49%. A consortium of public and private enterprises, COVAX, has been established to deal with the most fragile parts of the world population. Over 185 countries are involved, but it is still very far from gathering the necessary funds.

What is the lesson we can draw from this incomplete analysis? That we are far from having a political class able to face global issues. On the contrary, nationalism and xenophobia are on their way back. The attitude of nationalist leaders to Covid-19 has been similar to that for the threat of climate change: it is a left-wing idea from globalists. So, wearing a mask has become a political declaration.

Trump lost re-election in a great measure due to his attitude on the virus. We can only have a dim hope that this lesson will have some impact. When it comes to the poor, the terms social justice and solidarity are out of fashion, but we are creating imbalances and tensions that we will probably pay dearly for. The French Revolution was not done by a political party, but by an impoverished Third State, or the poor, who revolted against the nobility and the clergy. That is a lesson that the richest 1% would do well not to forget.

Publisher of OtherNews, Italian-Argentine Roberto Savio is an economist, journalist, communication expert, political commentator, activist for social and climate justice and advocate of an anti-neoliberal global governance. Director for international relations of the European Center for Peace and Development. Adviser to INPS-IDN and to the Global Cooperation Council. He is co-founder of Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency and its President Emeritus.

 

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PM Abiy Ahmed says the military will try not to harm civilians and urged people to stay at home.

The annual commemoration of Africa Industrialization Day commemorated through a weeklong event, November 16-20 2020, was held virtually through a series of webinars covering a range of topics and themes relevant to Africa’s industrialization agenda. Credit: UNIDO

By Jenny Larsen
VIENNA, Nov 26 2020 (IPS)

Industrialization and development go hand in hand. There is hardly a country in the world that has developed without building a strong manufacturing base. But for Africa – sometimes referred to as the continent of the future – the fruits of industrialization have often seemed just out of reach.

The continent’s development progress ground to a halt in the 1980s as war, disease, famine and poor governance overtook the political and social landscape. A debt crisis, ill-designed structural adjustment policies and a crash in commodity prices left Africa poorer at the end of the decade than at the beginning.

Many of the same problems persisted for much of the 1990s. By the start of this millennium, the Economist magazine had dubbed Africa the “hopeless continent”. Over two lost decades, collective efforts to push industrial development achieved little.

The first Industrial Development Decade for Africa (IDDA), launched in 1980 by regional organizations and supported by UNIDO, ended in failure, suffering from insufficient national buy-in and funds. The second decade came at a time of dwindling commodity prices, and though it saw more private-sector and grassroots involvement, progress was negligible. (Lessons learnt, Making It magazine)

Industrialization was pushed to the sidelines. Although the impetus from policymakers and governments grew throughout the 2000s, it wasn’t until 2016 that coordinated action was once again launched under the Third Industrial Development Decade for Africa (IDDA III).

Now, half-way through IDDA III, is there hope of success where previous initiatives failed? Both the domestic and international context have changed radically over the past two decades. The goals of IDDA III are not only supported by UNIDO and the African Union (AU) but by other UN agencies, by African governments at the highest level, by the private sector, development organizations and financial institutions.

These goals are linked to the AU’s 2063 agenda to drive development in Africa and embedded in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 9 on industrialization, infrastructure and innovation.

There has also been a turnaround in support for industrial development policy, which is now recognized as playing a key part in achieving economic development and social goals on health, education and well-being,as well as a fresh approach to its implementation through the creation of new business models and an innovation drive.

This scale of commitment brings dynamism and funding that were previously lacking, leading to a step-up in the number of technical assistance projects and programmes by UNIDO and other partners.

From two Programmes for Country Partnership in Africa in 2015, UNIDO now runs eight, each with greater levels of engagement and funding than before. In Ethiopia, for example, four new agro-industrial parks were completed in 2020, and over $600 million has been earmarked by a variety of partners to increase government resources.

Despite ongoing challenges and a levelling off in GDP growth since 2017, many countries have made significant strides in boosting their industrial and agro-processing sectors, notably in food and beverages, leather, textiles, automotive and heavy machinery. The diversity needed to allow manufacturing to really take off has not yet taken root, but there are pockets of success.

Ghana, for example, has made progress through its adoption of a clear industrialization strategy, focusing on improving the business environment and the development of special export zones (SEZs). In the three years to 2019, the industrial sector was a major component in the country’s growth, rising by over 10 per cent a year. (AfDB Ghana Economic Outlook 2019)

Uganda’s industrial sector jumped in 2019 from 20 per cent of GDP to closer to 30 per cent as a result of strong investment in manufacturing. Around 80 per cent of foreign direct investment into Ethiopia in recent years has been destined for the manufacturing sector, through the development of industrial parks (ODI).

The result has been a rapid rise in growth, jobs and exports of horticulture products, textiles and clothing, with this last jumping tenfold since the early 2000s.

There is also a thriving entrepreneurial sector in many countries – often missed in industrial statistics because of small company size and the large number of firms still operating in the informal economy.

Although many of these enterprises cannot be classed as industrialized, they form part of a groundswell of business dynamism that is helping to raise incomes and develop locally supplied domestic consumer markets as workers move increasingly from the land to a variety of jobs in the city.

The past five years have also seen a huge rise in investment in African start-ups, including e-start-ups, with South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria and Egypt leading recipients of the $1 billion invested in the region in 2019.

In addition, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), worth $2.5 trillion, comes into operation in early 2021. Although trade between African countries, at 17 per cent of exports, is far below levels seen in Europe (67 per cent) and Asia (60 per cent), almost half of that trade is in manufactured goods – considerably higher than in other regions.

Developing economies of scale by providing continent-wide access for people and goods across 54 countries, AfCFTA should improve allocation of resources, raise competition, boost competitiveness and contribute to more sustainable growth in the long run.

If successful, it could provide an environment for local industry to grow at a time when the pandemic has further subdued demand in Africa’s traditional export markets, while offering an African counterpoint to the growing global trend for market regionalization (most recently seen in the signing of the world’s largest trade area in Asia, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership).

These developments will also be supported by Africa’s rising middle class of consumers, defined by the African Development Bank as those who can spend between $2 and $20 a day. By the middle of the century, it expects this middle class to reach around 40 per cent of the population, which, by then, will mean over one billion people. Nevertheless, while many of the building blocks for success are in place in a way they weren’t two decades ago, old obstacles persist.

Africa is still the world’s least industrialized region. Its share of global manufacturing value added (MVA) remains tiny at around 1.8 per cent and has even edged downwards since 2014. Its MVA as a share of GDP, taken as a measure of industrialization, has stagnated over the past 10 years.

In 2018, the latest year for which data are available, it stood at 10.5 per cent compared to more than 16 per cent at the beginning of the 1980s – a sharp contrast to MVA/GDP of over 25 per cent reached in recent years by developing Asia.

Some have argued that the continent may have already missed its chance. Competition from more developed markets, especially East Asia, shifts in demand and rapid technological change, all make it harder for the majority of still resource-dependent African economies, where business costs are high and productivity low, to follow a traditional route to industrialization.

A new threat – and the path ahead

There is also a major new threat to African economies: the COVID-19 pandemic looks certain to hit them hard, despite the fact that the health crisis has been less severe there than in other regions.

The region is facing its first major recession in 25 years. The World Bank estimates losses in GDP could amount to between $37 billion and $79 billion in 2020. Disruption to trade and supply chains and an ongoing drop in demand, especially from Africa’s biggest trading partner, China, is hitting growth, and investment flows have stalled.

UNCTAD says Africa’s merchandise exports could fall by as much as 17 per cent this year, squeezing tax receipts and cramping governments’ ability to maintain public spending and invest in the policies needed to boost industrialization.

Manufacturing is expected to suffer heavy losses, especially in the automotive, airline, energy and basic materials sectors. A large number of African policymakers expect overall industrial revenue to drop by at least 25 per cent in 2020, according to a new UNIDO survey.

The crisis threatens to cut jobs, intensify migration, increase poverty and hinder the fight against climate change. These challenges make it all the more urgent to build resilience and sustainability, further strengthening the case for industrialization.

To get there, Africa must see the pandemic as an opportunity to drive change, to invest in new business models, support innovation and diversify its products. The post-COVID-19 change in global markets gives added importance to developing local and regional supply chains to take advantage of a growing domestic market.

This will mean giving full support to the new AfCFTA. Additionally, it will require concentrated measures to support manufacturing sector businesses, including services in technology upgrading, quality compliance capacity development, product development, marketing and investment promotion.

Infrastructure development needs to be a priority too, driven by the state with private-sector support. Poor-quality roads and unreliable transport contribute to the high cost of doing business in many countries, harming competitiveness. For example, in some countries in sub-Saharan Africa the cost (per unit distance) of transporting goods could be up to five times higher than in developed countries.

At the same time, more investment in internet connectivity is needed to prepare for a digital future, as well as improvements to the continent’s energy infrastructure, building on green technologies such as hydro and wind power.

Africa also needs to invest more in education and skills, making science and technology a priority to take advantage of the ongoing digital revolution.

But economies must get the basics right as well. This means focusing on upgrading less high-tech sectors such as food and beverages, garments and paper in local and regional markets. And with 60 per cent of the working population still employed in agriculture, investing more in agribusiness will help to boost incomes and provide new jobs.

The pandemic has shown the need for self-reliance and resilience, and the reforms needed to transform African economies must build both. But it has also demonstrated the importance of partnership and cooperation.

Despite the challenges, Africa has transformed both its political and economic landscape in the past two decades. This transformation and commitment to change at both national and international level mean the goals of IDDA III are now more achievable than at any time in the past.

By working together, the African future may finally be within grasp.

 

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The post Can Africa’s Third Industrial Development Decade Deliver? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Jenny Larsen is Communications Expert, Directorate of External Relations and Policy Research at the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), a specialized agency of the United Nations that promotes industrial development for poverty reduction, inclusive globalization and environmental sustainability.

 
Industrial development in Africa has been sluggish for some decades. Now, as the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic kick in, hopes for better progress, at least in the short term, appear to be fading. But if countries grasp the right opportunities, the next decade can deliver the industrial change needed to meet the challenges ahead.

The post Can Africa’s Third Industrial Development Decade Deliver? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

With communications largely cut to the Tigray region, both sides in the conflict are trying to control the narrative.

The conservation charity is accused of working with guards who allegedly tortured and killed people.

The development of a 5-star hotel on ancestral lands of the Mro indigenous community in Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh could destroy their traditional way of life, activists warn. Courtesy: CC-BY-SA-3.0/Md.Kabirul Islam

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 25 2020 (IPS)

The construction of a five-star hotel in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh, could lead to the forced eviction of the Mro indigenous community from their ancestral lands and destroy “the social, economic, traditional and cultural fabric of the community”, warns Amnesty International.

But local activist Reng Young Mro told IPS that the international community must rally behind the Mro indigenous community to halt the construction.

The hotel is expected to be built collaboratively by a welfare organisation and a local conglomerate. It is expected to affect six villages directly and about a hundred villages indirectly, according to local news.

Young, a masters student who has been protesting against the hotel, says the Mro indigenous community is living in fear of being evicted after the hotel is built. They are also concerned the construction will affect their livelihoods, potentially taking away some of their sources of income.

Many local activists from the Mro indigenous community have been organising for weeks against the project, which would spread over a thousand acres on the indigenous land in the Bandarban area in southern Bangladesh.

On Monday, Nov. 23, Amnesty International issued a statement calling for authorities in Bangladesh to listen to, and comply with, the indigenous leaders’ demands.

“The construction of a five-star hotel under these circumstances would violate the Bangladeshi authorities’ responsibility and commitment to protect and promote the rights of the indigenous peoples, rather than providing the indigenous community with the necessary support to realise their own development plans, for example by improving access to education and electricity,” read a part of the statement, calling for the project to be immediately abandoned.

A representative of the conglomerate building the hotel told the news media that the local government has an 8 percent share in the project. However, local leaders denied this, stating they do not have any such arrangement.

Young said those building the hotel must understand that the Mro indigenous community doesn’t want promises of “improvement” forced upon them as they prefer development on their own terms.

“They are completely cheating us to build this project, which will only generate profit for them, while the locals are deprived of these benefits,” Young told IPS in Bengali.

Excerpts below from the full interview follow.

Inter Press Service (IPS): Tell us a bit about your concerns about the hotel.

Reng Young Mro (RY): The locals here have a lot of complaints about the hotel that’s being built and are living in fear about it.

Their concerns are about a range of issues: they’re having to witness construction on their ancient land. The project is [is to be developed over] a large area, where the locals have created a holy space for themselves, built graveyards and created a community. Many bank on this land to earn their living.

Meanwhile, the hotel’s project management has made a lot of plans for different kinds of entertainments such as a cable car between hills.

IPS: What are your specific concerns about facilities such as that?

RY: If there are cable cars between the hills, where the tourists are going back and forth, we are concerned about the kind of interruption this will cause in the life of the locals. There are also fears that the locals might be evicted. But the Mro community really likes to live ordinary lives in solitude, which would be hampered by this.

But it looks like roads are being dug through the villages, across the vast expanses of this area. If tourists end up frequenting these places, it will disrupt the privacy of the local people. As a result, many will either leave themselves, or they will eventually be asked to move — that is the fear. 

And for an area with very little education, for a people to whom the idea of an “improved” life is rather foreign, what good will a five-star hotel do?

IPS: Do you have any fears about the protests the Mro indigenous community are organising against this project?

RY: Yes of course, we have many fears. First of all, they didn’t take any initiative to have any discussions with us. That’s why we asked for very simple conciliation, explaining that we just want to hold on to our culture, we want to continue living our normal lives.

That’s what we’re protesting for: we don’t want a 5-star hotel. And the protests will definitely affect the interests of those who are building this hotel, and so we live in fear of retaliation.

IPS: How do you respond to the justification behind building the hotel?

RY: The project building council says they’ve discussed the project with local leaders. Yes, they did speak a bit but they now targeted more places than they initially discussed. Even if they take 20 acres and build hotels, they need to discuss this with us. To the international community, our request is that this building needs to stop.

The process through which they’ve initiated to establish this is also problematic. According to any kind of legal process — whether it’s national, or local, or specific to the indigenous community — an institution is required to work in collaboration with local leaders and with their permission. None of that is happening.

The post Q&A: Mro Indigenous Community Plea for Halt of Construction of 5-Star Hotel appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The team had feared the owners of the rings, inscribed with the names Ahmed and Doudou, were dead.

Credit: Whitehouse.Gov

By Nikolaos Gavalakis
BERLIN, Nov 25 2020 (IPS)

Donald Trump will have to leave the White House in January. Although there will be a few skirmishes in the US courts in the coming weeks to sort out whether some votes were legitimate or not, the outcome won’t change.

No sooner had the main US broadcasters declared Joe Biden the winner than some experts began writing the epitaph of the entire populist right. Sociologist Ivan Krastev spoke of a ‘devastating blow for Europe’s populists’. And former EU Council President Donald Tusk exulted that ‘Trump’s defeat can be the beginning of the end of the triumph of right-wing populism in Europe too.’

But not so fast. First of all, a look at the political map reveals a few sobering facts. In France, Marine Le Pen is already on the starting blocks for the 2022 presidential elections. In Great Britain Boris Johnson’s chaotic government is still heading for a No-Deal Brexit.

In Italy Matteo Salvini’s nationalist Lega Nord is ahead in the polls. In Poland the ruling PiS (with the support of the constitutional court) recently restricted women’s abortion rights. And in Hungary Viktor Orbán continues to wreak havoc unhindered.

Things don’t look much better outside Europe either. Despite his catastrophic handling of the corona crisis and over 150,000 deaths, Jair Bolsonaro is, according to polls from September, more popular in Brazil than ever before.

There is no denying that right-wing populists have achieved unprecedented success over the past decade and have made it into the highest offices. With the election of Donald Trump as the world’s most powerful man, this phenomenon probably reached its peak in 2016. Four years later, Trump has been defeated; but what lessons can be drawn from the election for the battle against right-wing populism?

Trumpism is here to stay

After an initial fright, as the vote count progressed, the following narrative crystallised among many in the media and on the centre-left spectrum. Never before has a candidate in the US presidential election received as many votes as Joe Biden.

His nationwide lead over Donald Trump is more than six million votes. Nor is the lead in the electoral college a narrow one. The tyrant is defeated. So, everything is fine, right?

No; there are also downsides. Donald Trump got over ten million more votes in this election than four years earlier. Just how close the election was in the decisive swing states can be seen from the following: according to the latest count, in Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, the share of the vote that went to the Libertarian Party candidate Jo Jorgensen was bigger than Biden’s lead over Trump. If a few thousand of these votes had gone to Trump, he could have been in charge for another four years.

Although the pain and anxiety caused by Trump’s relatively strong performance is quite understandable, an explanation based solely on racist structures seems insufficiently complex.

The sobering and, for many, shocking observation remains that, despite a pandemic with well over 200,000 dead because of the Trump government’s mismanagement, his abundantly documented lies and chaotic administration, his cruel migration policy and his destructive behaviour following the death of George Floyd, the voters have not turned away in droves from the Republicans after four years of Trump.

On the contrary, he was able to win over millions of people who in 2016 voted for another candidate or did not go to the polls.

It’s not just racism

How could this happen? MSNBC presenter Joy Reid put the election results down to ‘a great amount of racism and anti-blackness’. Charles M. Blow took the same line in his article, citing the ‘strength of the white patriarchy’ as the reason for the outcome.

The idea of the backward white Trump voter is however not accurate, as a look at the structure of the electorate reveals. The President succeeded in significantly broadening the Republican voter base.

Since 1960, no Republican presidential candidate has been able to win a higher share of non-white voters (one in four voted for him). Among Afro-American men, it was almost one in five, and among African American women, Trump was able to double his share of voters from four to eight percent.

He gained ground among Latino voters and white women, more than a third of Asian Americans put their cross next to Trump’s name, and he was also much more successful among the LGBTQ community (28 per cent) than four years ago (14 per cent). Even people of colour are not immune to the lure of right-wing populism.

Although the pain and anxiety caused by Trump’s relatively strong performance is quite understandable, an explanation based solely on racist structures seems insufficiently complex. After all, it is only eight years since Barack Obama scored a landslide victory over Mitt Romney.

The idea that almost 74 million Americans are supposed to be racist, or at least willing to swear unquestioning blind allegiance to a thoroughly racist system, is in any event a very bold argument. There are four aspects that offer a better explanation.

Social democracy is popular among Americans

First, it is often assumed that members of minorities who have personal experience of discrimination automatically vote for left-wing parties. However, the reasons for individual voting decisions are much more complex.

Latinos often have very conservative views on issues such as the right to abortion. Demographic groups cannot be regarded as monolithic. ‘Despite what many progressives seem to think, minorities don’t just sit there stewing in their Otherness all day,’ writes Antonio García Martínez.

Voters are individuals with different views and attitudes, not mere representatives of the population group they have been ascribed to. And they make decisions based on the political choices available and their personal preferences.

The critique of identity politics is here explicitly not directed at attempts to improve the situation of disadvantaged people, but rather at a world view that sees social developments and conflicts primarily through the lens of group identity.

In the battle against right-wing populism, sweeping generalisations about electoral groups are not helpful; what matters is to address people’s actual, and not their presumed, interests.

After both Trump elections, one thing is now finally clear: the demonisation of right-wing populists in purely moral terms (‘If You Vote for Trump, You’re a Racist’) doesn’t work.

Second, there is a common misconception regarding the reasons for people’s voting decisions. The term ‘demagogue’, which is often used for right-wing populists, implies that the voters support them out of ignorance. However, this paternalistic view fails to take into account that there are often rational grounds for their voting choices. For example, the PiS in Poland improved living standards for millions of people with an unprecedented welfare state programme.

In their short essay, Eszter Kováts and Weronika Grzebalska set out with impressive clarity the reasons why women in particular, perhaps surprisingly, support the Polish and Hungarian right-wing populists. And there are also rational grounds for Trump’s election: for example, during his term of office, the unemployment rate fell to a 50 year low – which particularly benefited those without a high school diploma.

In the US, it is classic social democratic issues that are popular with voters. According to exit polls conducted by Fox News – not a source suspected of pushing a left-liberal agenda – 72 per cent want a public health plan, also known as Medicare for All.

Democratic Party candidates for the House of Representatives who support Medicare for All did significantly better in the elections than their party colleagues who oppose it. In Florida, a state Trump won, 60 per cent of the citizens voted for a phased increase in the minimum wage to USD 15 per hour.

Colorado voted for paid leave for childbirth and family emergencies. This should come as no surprise: measures that secure or improve people’s standard of living are widely supported.

Demonisation doesn’t work

Third, it is clear that even Trump’s unbelievably poor handling of the pandemic did not seem to make much difference. In a country with hardly any effective social security, many citizens have more profound urgent existential needs than dealing with the coronavirus.

With them, Trump’s promise to avoid a lockdown and to keep the economy running at all costs was effective. 82 per cent of Republican voters surveyed cited the economy as their chief concern.

Here it is helpful to think of the economy not as an abstract term, but as the backbone of prosperity and job security. Robert Misik already stated at the Vienna state elections that ‘social Democrats and other progressive parties will only win at this time if they are seen to embody people’s need for security’.

Similar developments can also be observed in Great Britain. The reform course initiated by Keir Starmer – turning away from ideological identity politics pursued under Jeremy Corbyn, emphasising security and a left-wing economic policy – is beginning to bear fruit. According to recent polls (hopefully more accurate than those in the US), Labour stands fully five percentage points ahead of the Conservatives.

Fourth, the relationship between social elites and the general population is striking. There are millions of people in the US who are fed up with the moral entreaties of the coastal elites with their preachy political jargon. Especially in the interior of the country, people feel patronised and culturally scorned by the liberals.

‘Political correctness is thinking you’re better than somebody else—it’s correcting someone,’ says Elissa Slotkin, who represents the Democrats in the House of Representatives. ‘People do feel looked down upon.’ The simple language of populists like Trump is closer to the reality of many people’s lives. For 80 per cent of the American population, political correctness is a problem.

After both Trump elections, one thing is now finally clear: the demonisation of right-wing populists in purely moral terms (‘If You Vote for Trump, You’re a Racist’) doesn’t work. Similar approaches failed already when Boris Johnson was elected Prime Minister and against right-wing parties like the AfD in 2017 in Germany’s federal elections. Of course, right-wing populists must be criticised.

If you want to win the battle against them, however, rather than stigmatising voters and pushing leftist wishful thinking in the form of identity politics you need concrete policies that will measurably improve people’s lives: decent wages, compensation schemes for short-time working, unemployment and health insurance, affordable housing and so on.

Especially when it comes to social policy, centre-left parties surely have a variety of tools in the policy box.

Source: International Politics and Society (IPS), Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES)

 

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Excerpt:

Nikolaos Gavalakis heads the editorial office of the Internationale Politik und Gesellschaft IPG-Journal. Previously, he was head of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung's regional office 'Dialogue Eastern Europe' in Kiev.

 
Trumpism isn’t just going away after the US elections. And we finally need to understand why

The post Not all 74 million Trump Voters Can be Racists appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Nigerian comedy star Emmanuella Samuel used her YouTube earnings to build a house for her parents.

A journalist from Radio Bundelkhand in India conducts an interview. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By External Source
Nov 25 2020 (IPS)

The insidious problem of online violence against women journalists is increasingly spilling offline with potentially deadly consequences, a new global survey suggests.

Nearly three-quarters (73%) of female respondents to our survey – taken by 1210 international media workers – said they had experienced online abuse, harassment, threats and attacks. And 20% of the women surveyed reported being targeted with offline abuse and attacks that they believe were connected with online violence they had experienced. The survey, which concluded this month, was fielded by the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Online violence is the new frontline in journalism safety – and it’s particularly dangerous for women. In the digital environment, we’ve seen an exponential increase in attacks on women journalists in the course of their work, particularly at the intersection of hate speech and disinformation – where harassment, assault and abuse are used to try to shut them up.

Misogyny and online violence are a real threat to women’s participation in journalism and public communication in the digital age. It’s both a genuine gender equality struggle and a freedom of expression crisis that needs to be taken very seriously by all actors involved.

Our survey provides disturbing new evidence that online violence against women journalists is jumping offline. Frequently associated with orchestrated attacks designed to chill critical journalism, it migrates into the physical world – sometimes with deadly impacts.

In 2017, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported that in at least 40% of cases, journalists who were murdered had received threats, including online, before they were killed. The same year, two women journalists on opposite sides of the world were murdered for their work within six weeks of one another: celebrated Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia and prominent Indian journalist Gauri Lankesh. Both had been the targets of prolific, gendered online attacks before they were killed.

Parallels between patterns of online violence associated with Caruana Galizia’s death and that being experienced by another high-profile target – Filippino-American journalist Maria Ressa – were so striking that when digital attacks against Ressa escalated earlier this year, the murdered journalist’s sons issued a public statement expressing their fears for Ressa’s safety..

Likewise, the death of Lankesh, which was associated with online violence propelled by right-wing extremism, also drew international attention to the risks faced by another Indian journalist who is openly critical of her government: Rana Ayyub. She has faced mass circulation of rape and death threats online alongside false information designed to counter her critical reporting, discredit her, and place her at greater physical risk.

 

The grim reality of journalism for many women. UNESCO, Author provided

 

Pointing to the emergence of a pattern, the targeting of Ayyub led five United Nations special rapporteurs to intervene in her defence. Their statement drew parallels with Lankesh’s case and called on India’s political leaders to act to protect Ayyub, stating: “We are highly concerned that the life of Rana Ayyub is at serious risk following these graphic and disturbing threats.”

 

‘Shadow pandemic’

Physical violence against women has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, in what is called the “shadow pandemic”. At the same time, online violence against women journalists also appears to be on the rise. In another global survey, conducted earlier this year by ICFJ and the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University as part of the Journalism and Pandemic Project, 16% of women respondents said online abuse and harassment was “much worse than normal”.

This finding likely reflects the escalating levels of hostility and violence towards journalists seen during the pandemic – fuelled by populist and authoritarian politicians who have frequently doubled as disinformation peddlers.

 

Online attacks often spill over into the real world. UNESCO, Author provided

 

Significantly, one in ten English language respondents to the ICFJ-Tow Center’s Journalism and the Pandemic survey indicated that they had been abused – on or offline – by a politician or elected official during the first three months of the pandemic. Another relevant factor is that the “socially distanced” reporting methods necessitated by coronavirus have caused journalists to rely more heavily on social media channels for both newsgathering and audience engagement purposes. And these increasingly toxic spaces are the main enablers of viral online violence against women journalists.

Since 2016, several studies have concluded that some women journalists are withdrawing from frontline reporting, removing themselves from public online conversations, quitting their jobs, and even abandoning journalism in response to their experience of online violence. But there have also been numerous cases of women journalists fighting back against online violence, refusing to retreat or be silenced, even when speaking up has made them bigger targets.

 

What can be done?

We know that physical attacks on women journalists are frequently preceded by online threats made against them. These can include threats of physical or sexual assault and murder, as well as digital security attacks designed to expose them to greater risk. And such threats – even without being followed by physical assault – often involve very real psychological impacts and injuries.

So, when a woman journalist is threatened with violence online, this should be taken very seriously. She should be provided with both physical safety support (including increased security when necessary), psychological support (including access to counselling services), and digital security triage and training (including cybersecurity and privacy measures). But she should also be properly supported by her editorial managers, who need to signal to staff that these issues are serious and will be responded to decisively, including with legal and law enforcement intervention where appropriate.

We should be very cautious about suggesting that women journalists need to build resilience or “grow a thicker skin” in order to survive this work-related threat to their safety. They’re being attacked for daring to speak. For daring to report. For doing their jobs. The onus shouldn’t be on women journalists to “just put up with it” any more than we would suggest in 2020 that physical harassment or sexual assault are acceptable career risks for women, or risks which they should take responsibility for preventing.

The solutions lie in structural changes to the information ecosystem designed to combat online toxicity generally and in particular, exponential attacks against journalists. This will require rich and powerful social media companies living up to their responsibilities in dealing decisively, transparently and appropriately with disinformation and hate speech on the platforms as it affects journalists.

This will likely mean that these companies need to accept their function as publishers of news. In doing so, they would inherit an obligation to improve their audience curation, fact-checking and anti-hate speech standards.

Ultimately, collaboration and cooperation that spans big tech, newsrooms, civil society organisations, research entities, policymakers and the legal and judicial communities will be required. Only then can concrete action be pursued.

Julie Posetti, Global Director of Research, International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and Research Associate, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ), University of Oxford; Jackie Harrison, Professor of Public Communication, University of Sheffield, and Silvio Waisbord, Director and Professor School of Media and Public Affairs, George Washington University

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

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Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed says it is an internal matter amid growing international concern.