Africa

Mothers and their children gather at a community nutrition centre in the little village of Rantolava, Madagascar, to learn more about a healthy diet. Credit: Alain Rakotondravony/IPS

By Gabriele Riccardi
NAPLES, Italy, Nov 25 2020 (IPS)

The risks factors contributing to the dramatic rise in non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in recent decades have been known for a long time but the Covid-19 pandemic has brutally exposed our collective failure to deal with them.

Reporting on the findings of the latest Global Burden of Disease Study, The Lancet warns of a “perfect storm” created by the interaction of the highly infectious Covid-19 virus with the continued rise in chronic illness and associated risk factors, such as obesity and high blood sugar.

The mounting dangers posed by NCDs are highlighted in Good Health and Well-Being, the third of the 17 interlinked Sustainable Development Goals, which targets the reduction of premature mortality from NCDs through prevention and treatment by one third by 2030.

Yet NCDs are projected to account for 52 million deaths in 2030, representing some 75% of all deaths, up from 63% in 2013 and 71% in 2016. Worldwide life expectancy gains could be reaching a turning point.

Cardiovascular diseases account for most deaths from NCDs, followed by cancers. Diabetes is also a major killer. Deaths from Alzheimer’s disease and dementia are also seen to be rising dramatically – partly because people in richer countries are living longer but also because of improved diagnosis and reporting on death certificates, as seen in the UK where it is now the leading cause of death for women, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Gabriele Riccardi

Many — but not all — of the risk factors leading to these NCDs are preventable and treatable through changes in unhealthy behaviours. Tackling them will bring us enormous social and economic benefits.

Good nutrition is the common key in reducing the risk of NCDs, even Alzheimer’s for which there is no cure. Recent studies cited by the World Health Organisation indicate that people can lower the risk of dementia by eating a healthy diet, as well as by taking regular exercise, not smoking and avoiding harmful use of alcohol.

Obesity has become a global epidemic, not just in wealthier countries. It is on the rise in low and middle income countries, coexisting with undernutrition and stunting. One in nine people worldwide are hungry or undernourished. One in three people are overweight or obese, according to the Global Nutrition Report 2020.

Over 650 million people across the world were classified obese in 2016, exposing themselves to a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, hypertension, stroke, diabetes and at least 12 types of cancer.

But as noted by Agnes Kalibata, Special Envoy for the UN 2021 Food Systems Summit, addressing the challenges of nutrition are more complicated than those of hunger or food security because they go beyond food to cover issues of quality, access and affordability.

And so it is with obesity, a highly complex aspect of malnutrition. Policies and best practices range from the development of eating guidelines and new educational programmes to the imposition of taxes that discourage unhealthy consumption patterns.

Studies have shown that taxes increase prices, decrease purchases and reduce consumption of unhealthy food and drink. Tax policies can also influence positive change by leading to the reformulation of products to remove some of the sugar, salt, fat or calories. Norway has had a tax on added sugar since 1922.

Research into NCDs must touch many bases. The Food Sustainability Index, developed by the Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition (BCFN) in partnership with the Economist Intelligence Unit, ranks 67 countries across three categories. The US comes 34th out of 35 high-income countries in the nutritional challenges pillar, characterized by diets high in sugar, meat, saturated fat and sodium. Japan tops the nutritional ranking, while Greece and India perform best in their income categories for the quality of their policy responses to dietary patterns.

In the European Union, around 550,000 people of working age die prematurely from NCDs. As the leading cause of mortality, they are estimated to cost EU economies 115 billion euros a year, or 0.8% of GDP. More than 20% of people are obese, while about 10% of those aged 25 years and over have diabetes.

Inequities in food systems, from production to consumption, must be confronted to deal with the surge in diet-related NCDs. The vast majority of people cannot access or afford a healthy diet. Sales of cheap but highly processed foods are soaring in rich countries but also growing fast in the developing world.

The importance of nutrition and the role of food as prevention will be key themes of Resetting the Food System from Farm to Fork, a conference hosted by BCFN in partnership with Food Tank on December 1 to formulate recommendations for the 2021 Food Systems Summit.

Just as there is no single silver bullet to prevent or treat obesity, so we have to deal with an array of social inequalities — including poverty, race and housing — that interact with NCDs to increase the risk of serious illness and death from Covid-19.

NCDs have been critical in driving the death toll from the virus, which has killed more than 1.2 million people so far. And in a vicious circle, Covid-19-related lockdowns are exacerbating poverty, forcing more people to resort to food banks and aid deliveries to feed their families. The need to address nutritional challenges through food systems has never been so critical.

Gabriele Riccardi is Professor of Endocrinology and Metabolic Diseases, University of Naples “Federico II”; former President, Italian Society of Diabetology – SID; member, Board of the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition Advisory, Italy

 

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Officials are also trying to extend Mr Benbrika's time in prison for terrorism offences.

By Victor Manyong and Kanayo F. Nwanze
IBADAN, Nigeria, Nov 25 2020 (IPS)

Often cited as Africa’s greatest asset, its youth are also among the most vulnerable and volatile.

A large and growing population of talented young people has the potential to drive economic growth and well-being of societies across the continent but, as the African Development Bank warns, current conditions of severe unemployment are translating into poorer living conditions, higher flows of migration, and greater risks of conflict – in short, a social disaster in the making.

Victor Manyong

Africa’s population of 420 million or so young people aged 15 to 35 is expected to nearly double by 2050. But while 10 to 12 million more enter the workforce each year, only just over 3 million new jobs are being created.

At present two-thirds of non-student youth are defined as unemployed, underemployed, discouraged, or marginally employed. Moreover, unemployment cuts across different social categories: educated and less so, female and male, rural and urban.

The COVID-19 pandemic is also fuelling unemployment in the hardest hit sectors such as tourism and hospitality, retail and trade and agriculture, particularly in Southern Africa, the region with the highest jobless rates.

Under the Bank’s Jobs for Youth in Africa investment plan launched in 2016, agriculture – including on-farm production and off-farm processing – is targeted to create 41 million jobs over 10 years. Even taking into account that smallholder farmers make up more than 60 percent of the population in sub-Saharan Africa, this is an ambitious target that calls for effective and comprehensive policies in contrast to the piecemeal measures of the past.

While young people commonly bring their enthusiasm, energy, and ambition as well as greater capacity and knowledge in IT systems than the older generation, they however, face enormous obstacles in starting careers in agribusiness, lacking resources of land, capital, assets and access to financial opportunities. Young women are often more disadvantaged than young men.

Kanayo F. Nwanze

In the months before the coronavirus surfaced, the non-profit International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) launched a three-year project in sub-Saharan Africa that aims to build our understanding of poverty reduction, employment impact, and factors influencing youth engagement in agribusiness, and rural farm and non-farm economies.

Known as CARE (Enhancing Capacity to Apply Research Evidence), and funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), IITA launched 80 research fellowships for young African scholars, with an emphasis on young female professionals and students aiming to acquire a master’s or doctoral degree. Grantees are offered training on research methodology, data management, science communication and scientific writing, and the production of research evidence for policymaking in line with IITA’s mandate to generate agricultural innovations to meet Africa’s most pressing challenges.

Through CARE, young and authoritative voices are being brought to the policy-making table. Unafraid to challenge assumptions, youth-on-youth research is highlighting ways forward to break the vicious circle in which youths are trapped.

Dadirai P. Mkombe, a female researcher in Malawi, investigated the role direct investment plays on youth employment in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region, concluding that macroeconomic policies to encourage long-term growth, even leveraged by external debt, are necessary. Foreign direct investment is essential for job creation, she says, while cautioning that more greenfield investments are needed than mergers and acquisitions.

From Benin, Rodrigue Kaki investigated what motivates agribusiness entrepreneurship among graduates from faculties and universities of agriculture. Finding that few students can opt for self-employment in agribusiness, he recommends start-them-early programs (STEP) in post-secondary education with actions that incentivize students towards self-employment, such as setting up agribusiness entrepreneurship clubs in agricultural faculties and universities.

Motivation was also a theme for Cynthia Mkong researching university students who choose agriculture in Cameroon. Among her findings is the need for a change in mindsets, starting at school where educators and mentors should highlight positive trends and emerging opportunities in the sector. In addition, building and implementing effective policies to improve education levels for girls and household income at all levels would help revamp declining youth interest in agriculture. Her findings indicate that agriculture will rise in stature both as a field of study and occupation.

Also in Cameroon, Djomo Choumbou Raoul Fani focused his research on the contributions and competitiveness of young female grain farmers, and on rural un- and underemployment, especially among young women. Among his recommendations are the need for gender-blind policies and gender-positive information to ensure that public investment in agricultural credit, food marketing, roads, and schools be put to constructive use for young female farmers.

These few examples of policy briefs among many others produced to date illustrate how the researchers, with young female professionals well represented, are ready to challenge assumptions and stereotypes to show the way forward. In its report IFAD (https://www.ifad.org/en/youth) also emphasized that shaping the rural economies of tomorrow should involve the youths to succeed.

With the youngest and fastest-growing population in the world, Africa’s still overwhelmingly rural communities will continue to grow, even as cities do. IITA’s drive to enhance the perception of agribusiness will enable young people to see a future there. The CARE project is already yielding the evidence-based research needed by African communities to build food security and resilience. Policymakers cannot operate in a vacuum. Youth engagement is key.

Victor Manyong, Agricultural Economist, R4D Director for Eastern Africa, and Leader of the social science research group, IITA

Kanayo F. Nwanze, CGIAR Special Representative to the UN Food Systems Summit and former IFAD President

 

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Sudan, the largest country in Africa, is most vulnerable to climate variability and change with drought and flooding being the biggest climate challenges. This dated photo show displaced children fetching water following 2008 floods in Sudan. Courtesy: UN Photo/Tim McKulka

By Reem Abbas
KHARTOUM, Nov 24 2020 (IPS)

Earlier this year, when heavy rains caused massive flooding in Sudan, a three-month state of emergency was declared in September. The floods which began in July, were the worst the country experienced in the last three decades and affected some 830,000 people, including 125,000 refugees and internally displaced people.

According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, the Nile had reached a level of over 17 metres, bursting it banks and leaving thousands “homeless and in desperate need of humanitarian support”.

Sudan, the largest country in Africa, is most vulnerable to climate variability and change.

“Drought and flooding are the biggest climate challenges in Sudan and we have seen this recently,” Rehab Abdelmajeed Osman, a researcher and the National Determined Contributions (NDCs) coordinator at Sudan’s Higher Council for Environment and Natural Resources (HCENR), told IPS, referring to the recent floods.

NDCs outline the plans by countries to reduce national emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change. As agreed by the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries review these plans every 5 years.

Support to submit enhanced NDCs

With support from the Climate Action Enhancement Package (CAEP), an initiative of the NDC Partnership, Sudan is one of 63 countries that have been given financial and technical assistance to submit enhanced NDCs and fast track their implementation. CAEP has brought together member countries and 40 partners that include International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the World Resources Institute, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the U.N and the Nature Conservancy. In Sudan, the support is being implemented through the HCENR.

Abdelmajeed Osman and Areeg Gafaar, the coordinator for the NDC Partnership, are rushing to finish the plan by next year.

Sudan’s NDCs prioritise mitigation and adaptation as strategies. 

“By looking at mitigation, we look at the problems we have in Sudan through this lens. Sudan is facing increasing floods and droughts and this will affect food security and also in some places, rainfall is decreasing and people have to adapt accordingly,” Gafaar told IPS.

Food security also remains among the key issues of concern for people. An assessment after the floods noted that more than 2 million hectares of farmland had been affected. 

And in August, the U.N. World Food Programme noted that 1.4 million people in Khartoum alone “are experiencing high levels of food insecurity through September due to economic decline, inflation and food price hikes exacerbated by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic”. 

“In agriculture, we have to adapt to climate vulnerabilities and in this regard, our adaptation projects are critical and they provide services such as improved seeds and working on improving our micro-forecast systems,” added Gafaar.

The environment takes a backseat to conflict

The challenges Sudan faces to develop and implement the NDCs are not only linked to external factors, such as access to funding, but also to internal ones, which include the chaotic structure in which Sudan’s environmental entities operate, as well as conflict.

“Conflict is the biggest threat to the environment because it is a result of, as well as a source of, competition over scarce resources. Peace makes sure that conflict over resources is lessened,” said Abdelmajeed Osman.

In April 2019, Sudan’s president Omar al-Bashir, who had ruled for 30 years, was ousted from power after four months of sustained protests. A war between the transitional government and rebel groups from the western region of Darfur and the southern states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile, ended in October after an historic peace agreement between the transitional government and armed groups was signed.

Over the past 15 years, Sudan developed two national communications as part of its obligations to the climate convention and now a third communication is underway.

“The communication is just a communication but not a strategy. Sudan had a national action plan and it was developed as per the commitments to the convention to help countries pursue a climate friendly system. But due to political issues, Sudan couldn’t access many funding pools and as a result, a few pilot projects were implemented, but they were not mainstreamed,” said Gafaar.

Reasons for this include Sudan’s inclusion on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list for 27 years (Sudan was removed from the list this month by United States President Donald Trump) and the U.S. having imposed sanctions on the country since 1998.

Another reason is the chaotic department structure created by Sudan’s previous government.

“There were many different institutions such as the [HCENR] where we work, but also a national council for the environment as well as the national council on deforestation and the new government created a law that merged those councils and put us under the Council of Ministers,” said Abdelmajeed Osman.

Under Al-Bashir’s government, the same entities found themselves under the former presidency as well the short-lived Ministry for the Environment. The ministry essentially had the same departments as the HCENR, which resulted in a duplication of efforts and a lack of coordination that led to antagonism towards the HCENR. 

A new structure in place

“Now because we are under the Council of Minister, our budget will increase and the decisions are made quicker because of the direct channel,” said Abdelmajeed Osman.

Sudan’s constitutional declaration for the transitional period prioritises environment protection as a mandate of the government, stating the government will “work on maintaining a clean environment and biodiversity in the country and protecting and developing it in a manner that guarantees the future of generations”.

This commitment from the top-tiers of the government is essential as the NDCs are described by the higher council as a government paper that requires implementation by it.

Gafaar, who has years of experience working in this field, told IPS that some of the mitigation options that the government can focus on include renewable energy, forest management and waste management.

“This process gave us access to partners. We will have access to mitigation options by an international expert company and we will work on power and nature with IRENA,” said Gafaar.

 

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By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM / ROME, Nov 24 2020 (IPS)

On 10 December, representatives for the World Food Programme (WFP) will in Norway receive the Nobel Peace Prize at the Oslo City Hall. This is taking place while the COVID-19 pandemic is causing lock-downs and suffering all over world, limiting agricultural production and disrupting supply chains.

The World Food Programme focuses on hunger and food security. It supports 100 million people in approximately 90 countries. Two-thirds of WFP´s activities are carried out in conflict zones, where the organization provides food assistance to people who otherwise would have been fatally affected by undernutrition and starvation.

It is in particular the world´s poorest households that suffer from acute hunger, and their situation is worsening. In 2019, 135 million people were categorized as ”critically food-insecure” and the numbers are constantly increasing. This is not only due to the ravages of COVID-19, the current food crisis is furthermore aggravated by weather extremes, economic shocks, sociopolitical crises, lack of employment, increasing food prices, as well an endemic lack of adequate nutrition and food diversity, safe water, sanitation and health care. In several areas, protracted armed conflicts are adding to the suffering. An estimated 79 million people are currently displaced – 44 million internally, while 20 million refugees are under UNHCR´s mandate. Being deprived of their livelihoods a vast amount of these desolate individuals are constantly threatened by starvation.

Considering the above, you could assume that most people reckon that WFP´s Nobel Prize is well-deserved. Nevertheless, the World Food Programme and its mandate have often been questioned. Some have even demanded the organisation´s demise, referring to a general debate about the net effectiveness of aid. Among other arguments it has been stated that some nations have become overly reliant on foreign aid and it thus has to cease. Politicians, journalists and even some aid workers have pointed out that food support to starving people may worsen an already catastrophic situation by prolonging conflicts, creating and stimulating corruption, strengthening predatory regimes, supporting warring fractions and fostering black markets. Furthermore, it has been indicated that an apparent inefficiency of huge, UN supported and global organizations like WFP, motivates their defunding.

During assignments as consultant to WFP´s Headquarters in Rome I have listened to people telling me about their experiences from being confronted with thousands of starving people, especially undernourished, sick and dying children. This while they were putting their own lives at risk, being surrounded by murderous armies, bandits and militias. I was also told about their discomfort at being forced to cooperate with politicians who used starving people as pawns in their cynical power games. When asked if they believed in WFP´s mandate and right to exist, they answered that if you have been confronted with the suffering of severely undernourished fellow human beings, you could not even imagine a justification for not trying to help them. “To witness someone dying due to undernourishment is horrible. How can your conscience endure the knowledge that you did nothing about it, while realizing that you could have saved the one who died.”

The people I talked to were well aware that the organisation they served had its shortcomings, but they were also eager to amend them. They told me they felt privileged for having been provided with a possibility to ease the suffering of others. While passing through the foyer of WFP, I could not avoid a glance at a wall covered with bronze plaques paying homage to WFP staff who had been killed in the field while trying to help starving people. Last time I saw the wall, sometime in 2018, there were 98 names.

Like any other UN organisation, WFP is not a self-sufficient entity, it depends on voluntary donations, principally from governments. Accordingly, WFP consists of its member states and criticizing WFP means that you actually need to question your own government´s engagement in the running of the organization. Amending WFP´s flaws does not mean cutting off its financial support, it would be far better if more people became informed about the organization´s impressive achievements and tried to rectify assumed deficiencies by working through their own representatives within WFP.

Why should we terminate an experienced, global organization, which keeps track on human suffering around the world, while trying to amend it? Why allow suffering, when it can be mitigated? We all depend on each other. The suffering of others is a warning to you and me, as Hillel stated in the quote above – if I chose not to help someone, how can I then demand help from others when I find myself in peril?

Many of us live within an absurd paradise of reckless consumption, depleting the resources of our planet, destroying the very prerequisites for our existence and well-being. Just the packaging of everything we consume threatens to asphyxiate the Earth. The cost of supporting WFP and it efforts to amend world hunger is a minuscule fraction of what is spent on luxurious, unnecessary and even harmful luxury production – not talking about the arms industry. To accord a Nobel Peace Prize to an organization like WFP constitutes an acknowledgment of the responsibility we all have for each other.

In times when every inhabitant on Planet Earth is overshadowed by COVID-19, a Nobel Peace Prize to WFP reminds us how precious we are to each other. When people are confronted with a disease that so far cannot be controlled by drugs and efficient health care it makes us realize the importance of ignoring petty chauvinism, narcissism, power games and egoism. It is high time to increase international cooperation and realizing that the Earth is an enclosed, biological sphere, where we for our own survival have to join forces to save both our planet and humanity. No nation can single-handedly combat a pandemic, neither can starvation and pollution be amended without international organisations.

So let us rejoice in WFP´s Peace Prize and hope the world´s wealthy nations realize the urgency of supporting the organisation and replenish its funds. Their contributions have so far been insufficient for covering the identified needs of food-insecure populations and WFP´s funding gap is currently USD 4.1 billion and steadily increasing.

Source: Global Network Against Food Crisis (2020) 2020 Global Report on Food Crises: Joint analysis for better decisions. Rome: WFP

Jan Lundius holds a PhD. on History of Religion from Lund University and has served as a development expert, researcher and advisor at SIDA, UNESCO, FAO and other international organisations.

 

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Excerpt:

”If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, who am I? And if not now, when? That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow [...] go and learn.”
                                                                                                Hillel the Elder, active during the first century BCE

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A Nigerian student who struggled with psoriasis for years has written a book about her experience.

Credit: UN Conference on Trade Development (UNCTAD), Geneva

By Ian Richards
GENEVA, Nov 24 2020 (IPS)

Until recently, Benin was best known for its cotton exports and its vibrant clothing designs. Since this year it is also the fastest place in the world to start a company. By providing a full online service, the government helped entrepreneurs create businesses and jobs during the pandemic. A third of Benin’s new entrepreneurs are women.

Earlier this year Sandra Idossou, a Beninese entrepreneur who had earlier run a media business, decided she wanted to open a handicrafts shop in the country’s bustling commercial capital, Cotonou. Having found a shop space, her next step was to obtain a permit to operate the business.

With Covid restrictions in place and enforced by the authorities, she logged into monentreprise.bj (in English, mybusiness), Benin’s new business registration website. Within ten minutes on her smartphone she had entered her information, photographed and uploaded her identity documents and paid by credit card. Two hours later, an email arrived with her certificates of incorporation, and her business was officially created.

Sandra benefited from a UN digital government platform, called eRegistrations, which now places Benin, jointly with Estonia, as the fastest in the world in which to start a company, jumping ahead of New Zealand, Georgia and Hong Kong, China. The EU average is three days, in New York it is seven days.

ERegistrations operates in seven other developing countries (Argentina, Cameroon, El Salvador, Guatemala, Iraq, Lesotho and Mali) with installation underway in two more (Bhutan and Cuba). The aim of the UN’s platform is not to beat world records, but to make official procedures more accessible and transparent, particularly for small businesses.

Laurent Gangbes, who runs Benin’s investment and export Promotion agency (APIEx), which operates monentreprise.bj, implemented with the help of Dutch funding, is proud of what it has achieved.

“Entrepreneurs and foreign investors told me they wanted to set up a business from their mobile phone so as to avoid unnecessary travel. We brought together several government services and worked to simplify forms and cut procedures to the strict minimum required.”

“This shows that when it comes to digital government, African countries are leapfrogging ahead of the rest of the world to be the best,” he added.

Paper-based administrative procedures are characterized around the world by long queues outside government offices, rude staff, frustrated users and the thump of rubber stamps.

But the reality can be worse, with the need to visit many different government departments, a bewildering array of forms mostly asking the same information, repeated demands for certified copies of identity documents, long waits for procedures that could be automatic, and occasionally requests for bribes.

Credit: UNCTAD, Geneva

The time taken and the cost to pay an agent to deal with the paperwork can at best deter and at worst put creating a legal business out of reach. This results in many developing country SMEs and workers left in the informal economy, unable to access loans or insurance, lacking legal protections, and contributing neither taxes nor social security.

But it can also lead to political instability. A World Bank study after the Tunisian revolution, which was in part driven by youth unemployment, found that one-third of young entrepreneurs in the country had had difficulties accessing finance because of the administrative burdens associated with company creation.

Administrative barriers are not limited to developing countries. A report by the US Office of Management and Budget calculated that in 2015, Americans spent 9.78 billion hours on federal paperwork.

And when a global pandemic hits, closing government offices and sending staff home, reliance on paper forms can also prevent marriages, land sales and passport renewals.

In Benin, the online platform was launched just before the Covid crisis. But the investment proved its worth. The number of companies created through the platform tripled between February and July, reaching 3,600 applications a month.

One-third of entrepreneurs were women, half were under 30 and half were based outside Cotonou. Government officials were able to check documents and approve company applications from their home, keeping to the two-hour benchmark.

Mr. Gangbes of APIEx is pleased with the results so far.

“During the pandemic the platform also helped those who had lost other sources of family income, as well as vulnerable rural populations, to set up their own business. I am confident this will contribute to Benin’s post-covid economic recovery.” He also thinks the platform is changing the way government works.

“My staff now spend more time advising clients and less time pushing paper. They are happier and more productive. And we are collecting a lot of data on the private sector that will help shape our economic policy.” The next step for the platform is to add new procedures, such as renewing business and trading licenses.

Frank Grozel, who leads the eRegistration programme at UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) thinks the possibilities for the digital government platform are limitless.

“The platform can also be used for land registries, civil registries, social security systems, immigration services. In El Salvador we are using it to help the government fight crime.”

He added that the pandemic had forced governments to accelerate the migration of their services online. “We are seeing huge interest in this area. As with business, the future for governments is digital.”

 

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Excerpt:

Ian Richards is an economist at the UN working on development finance and digital government.

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Anis Chowdhury
KUALA LUMPUR and SYDNEY, Nov 24 2020 (IPS)

The World Bank has been leading other multilateral development banks (MDBs) and international financial institutions to press developing country governments to ‘de-risk’ infrastructure and other private, especially foreign investments.

They promote public-private partnerships (PPPs) supposedly to mobilize more private finance to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. PPP advocacy has been stepped up after developing countries’ pleas for better international tax cooperation were blocked at the third United Nations’ Financing for Development conference (FfD3) in Addis Ababa in mid-2015.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Official support for infrastructure PPPs seems stronger than ever. The Bank’s Global Infrastructure Facility (GIF) was set up to coordinate MDBs, private investors and governments promoting PPPs. Meanwhile, the G20 has been trying to modify the mandates of national and international development banks to enable them to initiate infrastructure PPPs with the private sector.

De-risking?
The World Bank’s latest Guidance on PPP Contractual Provisions measures progress in terms of “successfully procured PPP transactions”. The Bank explicitly recommends ‘de-risking’ PPPs, effectively involving ‘socializing’ risks and privatizing profits.

But the term ‘de-risking’ is misleading as some risk is inherent in all project investments. After all, projects may encounter problems due to planning mistakes, poor implementation or unexpected developments. Hence, Bank advice does not really seek to reduce, let alone eliminate risk, but simply to make governments bear and absorb it.

Thus, ‘de-risking’ really means shifting risk from private investors to governments for more contingencies, including design, planning or implementation failures by private partners. This ignores the Bank’s Growth Commission’s concern that “In too many cases, the division of labor has put profits in private hands, and risks in the public lap”.

Off the books, out of sight
Both World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) research has found many governments using PPPs and other similar arrangements to keep such projects ‘off the books’ of official central government accounts, effectively reducing transparency and accountability, while compromising governance.

Anis Chowdhury

Such project financing typically involves government-guaranteed – rather than direct government – liabilities. Not booked as government development or capital expenditure, it is also not counted as part of sovereign or government debt, e.g., for parliamentary reporting and accountability.

Instead, project costs are supposed to be paid for, over time, by direct user fees or government operational or current expenditure. Hence, most governments do not extend their normal accountability procedures to cover such expenditure and related debt.

The Fund has even warned of likely abuse of such seemingly ‘easy’ or ‘free’ money, emphasising the dangers of taking more government debt and risk ‘off the books’. This is very significant as the IMF rarely criticises Bank recommendations and advice, even indirectly.

Shifting responsibility
PPP financing is typically booked as government-guaranteed liabilities, rather than as sovereign debt per se. Being ‘off the books’, governments face fewer constraints to taking on ever more debt and risk. With such commitments, they also become much more vulnerable to ‘unforeseen’ costs.

Such contractual arrangements, typically set by private partners in most PPPs, do little to improve governance and accountability. To be sure, normal government budgetary accounting and audit procedures for PPPs may not meaningfully improve transparency and accountability.

As such financing arrangements are typically long-term, related government risks are correspondingly long-term, lasting decades in many cases. This tempts ‘short-termist’ governments ‘of the day’ to make long-term commitments they are unlikely to be held personally accountable for in the near to medium-term.

Moral hazard
World Bank guidance is clear that even a private partner who fails to deliver as contracted must be compensated for work done before a government can terminate a contract. Whether private partners actually deliver as promised does not seem to matter to the Bank which provides no guidance for addressing their failures to meet contractual obligations.

The Bank thus contributes to ‘moral hazard’ in PPPs: the less likely the private partner stands to lose from poor performance, the less incentive it has to meet contractual obligations. Guaranteeing cost recovery, revenue and profit erodes the motive to deliver as promised and to consider project risks.

Enthusiastic PPP promotion – by the Bank, other MDBs and donors urging developing country governments to bear more risk – is not only encouraging ‘moral hazard’, but also creating more opportunities for the corruption and abuse they profess to lament.

Instead, private partners have greater incentives to try gouging rents from government partners, e.g., by renegotiating existing contracts to their advantage. Conversely, governments have to choose between bearing the costs of failed projects, and paying even more to save problematic ones in the hope of cutting losses.

Faced with such choices, governments have little choice but to accede to their private partners’ demands. Bank guidance has thus further undermined governments in their dealings with private partners, who are now better able to demand improved contractual conditions for themselves, at the expense of their government partners.

Ignoring evidence
Many governments can undertake large infrastructure projects themselves, or alternatively, make much better procurement arrangements. IMF research has also found, “In many countries, PPPs have not always performed better than public procurement”.

Ironically, Bank research has shown that “well-run public firms tend to match the performance of private firms in regulated sectors”, concluding, “There is no ‘killer’ rationale for public-private partnerships”.

Even the Bank’s Research Observer has published a summary of “some of the most compelling examples of this kind of emerging critique” of infrastructure PPPs in telecoms, transport, water and sanitation, waste management and electricity.

Yet, the Bank continues to promote PPPs as the preferred mode of infrastructure financing, trying to shift more risk to governments, ostensibly to attract more private investment. Meanwhile, Bank guidance typically fails to warn governments of the risks involved and their implications.

Prejudiced guidance
Bank and other PPP advocates dismiss criticisms as ‘ideological’ despite growing empirical evidence. Such damning findings have had little impact on their PPP advocacy. Instead, the new fad is for more ‘blended finance’ to PPPs, using official concessional finance to subsidise and attract more private investment.

However, as The Economist has found, “blended finance has struggled to grow” as MDBs mobilise less than US$1 of private capital for every public dollar. It concluded, “early hopes may simply have been too starry-eyed. A trillion-dollar market seems well out of reach. Even making it to the hundreds of billions a year may be a stretch”.

Unsurprisingly, despite Bank, donor and other efforts, PPPs have only generated 15~20% of developing countries’ infrastructure investments, according to the Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group, while remaining negligible in the poorest countries.

 

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Residents of the small rural community of Amatlán, in the municipality of Zoquiapan in the state of Puebla, oversee the operation of photovoltaic panels installed by the Mexican cooperative Onergia. CREDIT: Courtesy of Onergia

By Tania Miranda
NEW YORK, Nov 23 2020 (IPS)

The alarms warning against climate inaction have sounded for years. Almost a year into the hardest pandemic and maybe the worst economic recession my generation has seen, expert voices everywhere are claiming this to be the golden opportunity to do something to right our course and even find a silver lining in this unfortunate situation, by funding the economic recovery of COVID-19 with a green stimulus package.

This approach could help move humanity into more sustainable economic growth and towards a slightly more attainable path towards the 1.5°C goal.

As a worried citizen of the world, and more particularly, as a Mexican national who understands climate change and is concerned for my country, I ponder how Mexico should face its own economic recovery.

Most experts today agree that a green stimulus package can boost the economic recovery while tackling climate change. This boost can be attributed to many of those projects being low-hanging fruits of the energy transition, and also to technology

When it comes to Mexico, one argument suggests that given its poverty rate around 40 percent (and about 9 million more citizens possibly pushed into poverty due to the COVID-19 crisis), and the economic collapse estimated at 8-10 percent in 2020, the country cannot afford to think of climate change when drafting its recovery plans; it must worry first about how to get out of the ditch.

Governments can choose to spend recovery package funds in multiple ways and this will depend upon each country’s specific circumstances. Yet, it is fair to say that regardless of those, governments should aim towards packages that spur further economic activity and create jobs, for instance, large infrastructure and mass-transit projects.

Fortunately for humanity, and for our environment, “green energy and infrastructure development can be particularly effective at addressing depressed demand because they can create a relatively high amount of jobs and lay the foundations for sustainable long-term growth”, explains Stéphane Hallegatte, lead economist of the World Bank’s Climate Change Group. In fact, World Bank data shows that green projects like energy efficiency and renewable energy are much more effective at job creation than fossil fuel projects.

Most experts today agree that a green stimulus package can boost the economic recovery while tackling climate change. This boost can be attributed to many of those projects being low-hanging fruits of the energy transition, and also to technology which, contrary to what was true in past recessions, has brought down green energy costs to the point where, an IRENA study found, more than half of the renewable power capacity added in 2019 was cheaper than that produced by fossil-fuel sources.

A Bloomberg paper also found that Photovoltaic Solar power or Onshore Wind energy is now the cheapest source of new bulk electricity generation in countries that make up for two thirds of the world’s population and 85 percent of power demand. It also discovered that the cost of storing electricity is now half of what it was only two years ago. Furthermore, we know today that investing in renewable energy creates around 2.5 times more jobs per dollar than fossil fuel projects.

 

 

Therefore, the perceived dilemma of going green vs economic development is, today, a false dichotomy.

Nations around the world have already committed large amounts of their recovery packages toward the energy transition. According to the Energy Policy Tracker, an initiative launched by six leading energy research organizations, since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic the G20 group has committed at least $346 billion USD to supporting different energy projects through new or amended policies.

Meanwhile, in Mexico, the government committed at least 3 billion USD to energy projects of which all are in the oil and gas sector. Furthermore, the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (also known as AMLO) is betting on the Mayan Train and the Dos Bocas refinery projects to spur employment and growth as a way out of the economic downturn.

So far, the only green-related unconditional policy was proposed by the Mexico City government, which committed to the expansion of the so-called “ciclo-pistas” (or bike-dedicated lanes). More recently, on October 2020, the government announced an economic recovery plan comprised of 39 infrastructure projects to be developed jointly with the private sector, out of which only 5 are energy-related and not one involves renewables.

In fact, Mexico seems committed to turning back time instead of taking part in the energy revolution when, only a few years back, it was at the forefront of the fight against climate change, both internationally and at home. In late July, AMLO stated in a written memorandum that his government has the goal of increasing crude oil production to 2.2 million barrels per day by 2024; building and revamping electrical plants in Mexico’s southeast, and; increasing hydroelectric power generation while capping the private sector’s participation in electricity generation at 46 percent. Bloomberg described the President’s wishes accurately: “the higher goal of his administration is to recover Mexico’s (the government’s) control over its oil and electricity industries, including state-owned utility Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE)”.

CFE was founded 83 years ago and its generation fleet has an average age of 33 years and 42 percent of its power is generated through high-cost, highly polluting technologies, like fuel-oil and gas.

CFE’s thermoelectric plant in Tula, near Mexico City, and one of the four largest power plants it owns and operates, has violated the allowed limits of sulfur and sulfur dioxide in the fuel-oil it burns during four years straight. These are extremely harmful contaminants for the environment and for human health that are generally regulated by governments, as they can lead to chronic respiratory diseases, cancer and premature death.

Unfortunately, the government shows no intention of reversing its course. To this, chemistry Nobel-winning Mexican José Mario Molina said in an August 2020 Reuters interview not long before he died that, “Mexico is going backwards, back to the previous century or the one before, at a time when all the experts on the planet are in total agreement that we’re in a climate crisis”.

Furthermore, CFE generation plants average a cost per megawatt-hour (MWh) of $1,127 MXN, while independent power producers average $913 pesos per MWh and the ones signed through long-term electricity auctions —mostly wind and solar plants— run at about $423 pesos per MWh, according to data published by the state energy regulator (Comisión Reguladora de Energía, or CRE). In fact, modernizing the state-run utility and its fleet would require investments in the order of $9 billion USD, according to analysts.

Left axis: Number of electricity plants. Right axis: Generation capacity in MW. Source: ITESM, retrieved from Expansión.

 

Early in his administration, AMLO halted the long-term electricity auctions. Later, in May 2020, the Mexican Official Gazette received a request for publication of a public policy proposal by the Energy Ministry that would effectively bar new renewable projects to be connected to the electric grid, claiming that a higher volume of this type of electricity generation that is considered as “intermittent,” would endangered its reliability.

These measures were met with deep concern from the private sector, as they would endanger thousands of the renewable sector’s jobs and close to $30 billion USD in investments. The measures were immediately challenged in court and in August 2020, the Mexican Center for Environmental Law and Greenpeace obtained a definitive suspension. As a result of this ruling, preapproved renewable energy projects will be allowed to continue construction and operation.

Measures to give back monopolistic power and market-share to CFE have also been rolled-out in benefit of Pemex, such as disappearing strategic alliances with third parties; halting indefinitely oil rounds for private participation in oil and gas exploration and production projects, and; extensive fiscal incentives to weather the tough times brought by the COVID-19 oil price crash.

The government is betting its economic recovery partly on the new U.S.–Mexico–Canada trade agreement, which is a solid bet. Yet it is also relying on two state-owned companies that had their glory days in the middle of the twentieth century and the construction of what are considered white elephant —or at least financially suspect— projects: an oil refinery in AMLO’s home-state and a train that increases connectivity between the Mayan regions in southern Mexico with the rest of the world.

Mexico should pay attention to what multiple other nations are doing in order to kickstart the economy post-COVID-19 and adopt solutions to its needs. A large number of those will likely be related to energy efficiency, renewable power and distributed generation, green infrastructure and climate adaptation projects.

Including these measures in its policy toolkit would benefit Mexico greatly in the short -and medium- term economically, and in the large scheme of things would help us avoid lagging behind the next big global energy revolution.

It should also work on initiatives like the recent issuance of a Sovereign Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Bond by Mexico’s Finance Ministry, in hand with the United Nations Development Programme, which was a first of its kind.

This move should increase Mexico’s earmarked spending for sustainable development programs engulfed by the UN’s 2030 agenda, which includes sustainable development and mitigation of climate-related risks.

More importantly, we need to stop championing the old ways: the fossil fuel economy and state-run inefficient monopolies. We should instead be looking towards the technologies of the future, towards space and the oceans (instead of the ground), and, on our way, put our grain of salt towards that 1.5°C goal, which, by the way, is perhaps one of the few band-wagons it is worth jumping on today.

 

Tania Miranda is an Economist with a Master’s degree in energy policy, and has worked for over 6 years in the public sector, on trade and investment promotion as well as on public diplomacy and international relations. She was born and raised in Mexico City and strives to promote stronger climate action in her home-country and abroad. She’s based in NYC.

The post Green Recovery in Mexico – A Citizen’s Plea appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Debretsion Gebremichael says people are "ready to die" to defend the region despite calls to surrender.

President Donald Trump at a press conference. Credit: White House

By Farhang Jahanpour
OXFORD, Nov 23 2020 (IPS)

The 2020 election has revealed a deeply divided nation, perhaps at its most divided since the Civil War. Many Americans are still uncertain about how the transition to the new administration will be achieved with a minimum of disruption and perhaps even violence. However, the split between pro and anti-Trump voters is not based on two sets of facts, but on facts and “alternative facts” or falsehoods. 

By all accounts, it is clear that President Trump has lost his bid for re-election, but many of his supporters still continue to claim that he has won. More than two weeks after the election when courts have dismissed claims of vote rigging, and a majority of world leaders have congratulated the incoming President Biden, Trump’s attempts to undo the election result have been a farce. 

In recent days, the courts have again dealt a series of deadly blows to Trump’s claims of a stolen election. On November 20th, Georgia finished its statewide audit of the votes, confirming that President-elect Joe Biden had defeated President Trump by 12,284.

Trump introduced a new level of crudeness and vulgarity to US politics and made use of terms that belong in the gutter, not in a serious presidential campaign.

In an unusual move, Trump invited Republican Michigan lawmakers to the White House, presumably to influence the outcome of the certification of votes. On Saturday 21 Nov, the Michigan Republican Party and Republican National Committee sent a letter to the State Board of Canvassers asking them to delay certification for 14 days. But the Michigan Department of State said delays and audits were not permitted by law, and confirmed that Biden had won by more than 154,000 votes in the state.

In Pennsylvania, Trump’s lawyers sought to invalidate millions of mail-in votes where Biden has a margin of more than 81,000 votes in the state, but Federal Judge Matthew Brann of the US District Court in the Middle District of Pennsylvania, a well-known Republican, dismissed the lawsuit saying “like Frankenstein’s Monster” it had been “haphazardly stitched together”. Brann added: “… this Court has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations, unpled in the operative complaint and unsupported by evidence.” 

In the face of compelling evidence that Trump has lost the election, many experts see his continued refusal to concede as setting a dangerous precedent and posing a threat to democracy. Some have argued that “Trump has never been more dangerous than he is now”.

“On his darkest day, Richard Nixon would never have attacked democracy the way Donald Trump has now done,” John Dean, who served as White House counsel for Nixon, told AP. “At the potential of losing, Trump has shamed himself and soiled the American presidency. God save us when he actually loses.”

The Republican Senator Mit Romney put it best in a tweet: “Having failed to make even a plausible case of widespread fraud or conspiracy before any court of law, the president has now resorted to overt pressure on state and local officials to subvert the will of the people and overturn the election. It is difficult to imagine a worse, more undemocratic action by any sitting American president.”

Before some members of Trump’s base start feeling nostalgic about Trump’s period in office, it is important to remind ourselves of some of the main characteristics of that era and what it represented domestically and internationally.

Trump conducted his 2016 presidential campaign by using very insulting terms in describing his rivals, something which he continued to do after being elected president. In fact, it can be argued that he never stopped campaigning, and his behavior in office was practically a long campaign for re-election. 

In the entire US history, no president has ever insulted his opponents, including the leading members of his own party, in the way that Trump has done. These are just some of the terms that he used frequently to refer to some leading US politicians: Sleepy Creepy Joe, Cheating Obama, Crooked Hillary, Nervous Nancy, Wild Bill, Crazy Bernie, Little Rubio, Lying Cruise, Little Bloomberg, Leaking Sneaky Dianne Feinstein, Wacko John Bolton, Low Energy Jeb, Jeff Flakey, Leaking Comey, Al Frankenstein, Pocahontas, Corrupt Kaine, etc. 

These were not meant as terms of endearment or jokes, but as deliberate insults to demean, belittle, bully and intimidate his opponents and incite violence against them. During his debates with 2016 Democratic Candidate Hillary Clinton the crowd often chanted “lock her up”, and Trump cheered them on.

I wonder if Trump has ever bothered to think what people in other countries might think of US politicians when a US president describes his colleagues in those unflattering ways. No wonder that the US reputation in the world has plummeted under Trump.

Trump repeated the same disgusting pattern of behavior during the 2020 election campaign towards former Vice-President Joe Biden and his running mate Senator Kamala Harris. Harris is the first black woman and the first South Asian American woman to be chosen as vice-president. She has had a distinguished career as a senator and Attorney General of California, and is highly educated. Yet, Trump insulted Harris’s intelligence by saying that her presidency would be “an insult to our country.”  

Not only did he attack her policies, but also used personal, racist and sexist insults against her. Apart from claiming that she would be “a big slasher of funds for our military”, Trump repeatedly accused her of being “disrespectful and nasty”. During an interview on 8 October 2020, Trump falsely said that Harris was a communist and twice referred to her as “a monster”.

He slammed Harris’s treatment of Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing for his nomination to the US Supreme Court, saying “That was a horrible event. I thought it was terrible for her. I thought it was terrible for our nation. I thought she was the meanest, the most horrible, most disrespectful of anybody in the US Senate.” During the election campaign he said of her: “Kamala Harris is really Bernie Sanders with a skirt”, describing her as “shameless” and “clearly willing to do anything for power.” This is reminiscent of the way that Trump often speaks of women and people of color.

At a rally in New Hampshire in late August, the President asserted that Harris wasn’t competent to be a US president in waiting, adding: “You know, I want to see the first woman president also, but I don’t want to see a woman president get into that position the way she’d do it — and she’s not competent. She’s not competent. They’re all saying, ‘We want Ivanka.’ I don’t blame you.”    

In fact, shortly after winning the presidency, Trump appointed his daughter and son-in-law to senior political positions without any obvious merit or qualifications on their part. This can only be regarded as an extreme act of nepotism, almost unprecedented under former administrations. 

It is remarkable that all his campaign speeches consisted mainly of slogans and insults and were almost totally lacking in any policies or visions for the future.

The language that Trump has adopted to refer to his rivals and even colleagues is not the kind of language that a US president or indeed any decent person should use in reference to distinguished people.

Trump introduced a new level of crudeness and vulgarity to US politics and made use of terms that belong in the gutter, not in a serious presidential campaign. He has demeaned the office of the US president, something that may take a long time to overcome.

 

Farhang Jahanpour is a former professor and dean of the Faculty of Languages at the University of Isfahan and a former Senior Research Scholar at Harvard. He has also taught at Cambridge and Oxford universities. He also served as Editor for Middle East and North Africa at the BBC Monitoring from 1979-2001.

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