Africa

It follows a sharp rise in the number of people arriving in Spain's Canary Islands from Africa.

Three medical officers are detained for allegedly running a child-trafficking syndicate, police say.

Technical experts measure the salinity of groundwater wells on Vaitupu Island, Tuvalu. This month work will begin on building the network of tanks and pipes which will eventually convey clean water from the north of Vaitupu Island to the 1,500 people who live in the villages of Tumaseu and Asau in the south. Courtesy: Pacific Community

By Catherine Wilson
CANBERRA, Nov 18 2020 (IPS)

Rural communities on one of the nine islands that make up the Polynesian nation of Tuvalu are anticipating how life will change when they are connected to piped clean water for the first time.

Despite being surrounded by millions of square kilometres of ocean, just over half of the 12 million people who live in the Pacific Islands region have access to clean water, the lowest of any region in the world. In remote island communities in Tuvalu, and across the region, the deficit of clean water is a major obstacle to disease prevention, lifelong health and development progress.

Pisi Seleganiu, whose family live in villages on Vaitupu Island, which is located about 120 kilometres northwest of Tuvalu’s main Funafuti Atoll, told IPS: “It very much affects their daily lives. The only source is rainwater; the issue is when it becomes dry there is no supplementary water supply. People use a lot of fuel to drive to the far end of the island to get water and bring it back to the villages.”

This month work will begin on building the network of tanks and pipes which will eventually convey groundwater from wells in the north of Vaitupu Island to the 1,500 people who live in the villages of Tumaseu and Asau in the south. It’s the culmination of years of consultation between the island’s customary leaders and the regional development organisation, Pacific Community, which is headquartered in New Caledonia, about traditional knowledge of water resources.

Located in the Central Pacific Ocean between Kiribati to the northeast and Fiji to the south, Tuvalu’s estimated population of 10,580 people reside on low lying islands; the highest elevation is 4.6 metres. Surface sources of freshwater are very scarce. There are no rivers, for instance, and islanders are overwhelmingly reliant on capturing rainwater for drinking, cooking and hygiene.

“Tuvalu is blessed to have plenty of rain annually…rainwater harvesting with adequate storage is the only sustainable means to maintain supply for the population,” Uatea Salesa, project manager at the Pacific Community for the Vaitupu Water Security Project, told IPS. But he added that, during times of drought, even the rainwater wasn’t enough.

The atoll nation is highly vulnerable to the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate phenomenon, an alternating pattern of changes in the water temperature of the tropical Pacific Ocean, known as El Niño and La Niña, that, in turn, drive warm and cool atmospheric changes and fluctuating periods of rainfall. In 2011 Tuvalu experienced a severe drought, attributed to La Niña, following months without rain, which led to the government announcing a state of emergency and supplies of freshwater being airlifted into the country by international donors.

Population growth has also increased pressures on the country’s water resources. Tuvalu has a total land area of only 26 square kilometres and a population density of 408 people per square kilometre, resulting in a huge demand for consumption of a fragile natural resource.

Boosting the country’s water security is a major priority for the Tuvalu government and, to this end, desalination has been explored.

“Desalination was installed to supplement the water supply by the government on Funafuti Island [where the capital is located] and on some of the northern islands as a backup during periods of low rainfall and during drought,” Salesa said. “But desalination is an expensive technology and will not be sustainable if it becomes an alternative source of water supply.”

Staff of Tuvalu’s Public Works Dept conduct geophysical surveys to identify the thickness of underlying freshwater lens to determine the potential for groundwater development. Courtesy: Pacific Community

Soseala Tinilau, the Tuvalu government’s director of the Department of Environment, told IPS that the challenges of managing and supplying water also included the low capacity of households to store clean water and continually maintain guttering and water tanks.

The importance of clean water for life and human, as well as national development, was stressed by Dr Stuart Minchin, director general of the Pacific Community, on World Water Day, Mar. 22, this year.

“Lack of access to safe drinking water and sanitation poses a serious health risk, particularly to children, and a fundamental development constraint for Pacific nations….While access to potable water and sanitation is a basic human right that many of us take for granted, it is a right currently denied to over two thirds of Pacific Islanders, especially those in rural areas, informal communities on the fringes of the region’s growing urban areas and on the hundreds of small islands scattered across the Pacific,” Minchin stated.

Clean freshwater is an essential agent, at the moment, in the battle against COVID-19, but also in reducing the prevalence of waterborne diseases in the Pacific Islands, such as diarrhoea and cholera, which are fatal illnesses for young children. And, in an island state, such as Tuvalu, which is increasingly linked to the fortunes of climate change, it’s an imperative for continued human habitation.

“Water is an issue of survival for people in Tuvalu, water is life,” Tinilau told IPS.

And in the Pacific, it’s an issue of greater magnitude in rural communities, where only 44 percent of people have access to water, compared to 92 percent in towns and cities. In Tumaseu and Asau on Vaitupu Island, villagers whose livelihoods are mostly associated with fishing, have access to health clinics and sanitation, but life is challenging without a consistently reliable source of water in the communities.

This is now set to change after technical experts from the Pacific Community drew on the traditional knowledge held by village elders of where sources of well water were located and carried out scientific investigations in 2014. It resulted in the groundwater potential on Vaitupu Island being mapped and quantified for the first time.

“We checked out where they said the location would be, the possible sites. We used technology where we passed electrical signals down to the ground and then we knew exactly where the water was, the level of the water….it was great to see the science behind the assessment actually proving the local knowledge,” Salesa told IPS.

As the elders had said, the most expansive groundwater lens was in the far north of the island, near the coast. The island council then led successful applications to secure funding from the New Zealand Government’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade for the construction of overhead tanks at the well site and pipes to convey water direct to the villages. Clean water is expected to be on tap in Tumaseu and Asau by June 2022.

“It will be so beneficial to implement this project. It will help to improve the status of living of people in both communities. It will make a big difference to health issues,” Seleganiu said, adding that villagers will also have more time to devote to income earning and community development activities, without the time-consuming labour of transporting supplies of water by road.

 

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For every dollar earned by a man in manufacturing, services and trade, women earn just 70 cents. Credit: UNDP

By Odette Kabaya and Angela Lusigi
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, Nov 18 2020 (IPS)

Africa has over 700 companies with an annual revenue of more than $500 million, including 400 with revenue above $1 billion. The ability of these companies to thrive rests on building and retaining talented women and men.

Empowering both women and men employees, suppliers, distributors, and customers and ensuring they succeed is not only a human rights obligation, it is good business and increasingly a core part of their mission and values.

Private sector engagement is key to gender equality
Deepening engagement with the private sector, both large and small is key to achieving the global 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDGs). Achieving targets related to full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, and equal pay for work of equal value (SDG 8) and gender equality and empowering all women and girls (SDG 5) among others is possible.

Growing jobs in retail, food and agri-processing, health care, financial services, light manufacturing, and construction are already impacting communities. Companies can advance sustainable development and women’s economic empowerment by choosing to do business in ways that ensure women and men can contribute and benefit equally.

By making gender equality central to business practices, the private sector can be a driver of economic and social progress that benefits all.

Gaps remain
Despite progress, gender gaps remain and women’s prospects in the world of work are far from being equal to men’s. Today, more women are both educated and participate in the labour market and there is greater awareness that more gender equality reduces poverty and boosts economic development.

Yet, six out of ten women participate in the labour force compared to seven out of ten men and the unemployment rate for women (8.2%) is higher than men’s (6.4%). For every dollar earned by a man in manufacturing, services and trade, women earn just 70 cents.

Opportunities exist
Globally, advancing gender equality could grow GDP by 12% by 2025, this translates to 300 million more economic output in Sub-Saharan Africa. UNDP’s report on closing gender gaps in labour and productive resource in Africa finds that if women participated in the workforce at the same rate as men, an additional 74.4 million women would enter the workforce and economic output would increase by USD 962 billion.

Closing gender gaps in women’s labour force participation, paid work, employment and productivity could increase economic output by 3% to 16%.

The Government of Nigeria and UN Women last week launched the Generation Equality campaign in Nigeria. The Minister of Women Affairs, Dame Pauline Tallen declared the campaign officially launched in the presence of a high-level UN delegation including UN Deputy Secretary-General, Amina J. Mohammed. November 11, 2020. Credit: UN Women Nigeria

Barriers to overcome
Deep rooted obstacles to achieving women’s full potential at work include low-paying jobs, few channels to voice their concerns and structural and cultural barriers to career advancement. These include education gaps, stereotypes, lack of female role models, the absence of good childcare options and decent maternity leave, as well as risks to their personal safety and security.

Only 22 countries in sub-Saharan Africa meet or exceed the ILO standard of 14 weeks paid maternity leave.

Women in male dominated sectors such as mining risk harassment and gender-based violence and limited inclusion in mining value chains. Social norms assign women and girls the primary responsibility for care and domestic work, hence, on average they spend twice as much time as men.

Empowering women is good for business and livelihoods
Unilever is lifting profits through a Sustainable Living Plan with gender equality in its business model. As women represent over 70% of Unilever’s consumers, increasing their incomes allows increased consumption and empowering women as micro-entrepreneurs selling Unilever products brings in new customers, many in poor and rural areas.

Fifty companies in Uganda and Rwanda are empowering women and achieving the SDGs through UNDP’s Gender Seal Certification Programme for Private Sector (Gender Seal). The Gender Seal initiative certifies that a company promotes and integrates measures for gender equality as an integral part of corporate governance and “good business”.

This programme was pioneered by UNDP in Latin America in 2009 to provide tools, guidance and assessments towards eliminating gender-based pay gaps; increasing women’s roles in decision-making; enhancing work-life balance; enhancing women’s access to non-traditional jobs; eradicating sexual harassment at work; and using inclusive, non-sexist communication.

Participating companies are changing organisation culture, shifting cultural norms and societal expectations and providing more equal opportunities for women and men in the workplace by implementing a Gender Equality Management System (GEMS).

This creates career advancement for women, more participation in leadership, and improved human resource management, strategic planning and communication.

As more public and private organisations in Gambia, South Africa and Gambia partner with UNDP to advance gender equality, UNDP in Africa is developing a cadre of African Gender Seal experts.

Cross regional collaboration with Latin America includes training and customisation of tools taking place in November 2018 in Kampala, Uganda for experts from 20 countries.

 

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Excerpt:

Odette Kabaya is Regional Programme Advisor at the UN Development Programme’s (UNDP) Regional Service Center for Africa (RSCA) and Angela Lusigi is Strategic Advisor, UNDP Africa

The post African Employers for Gender Equality appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The PM says his soldiers are close to ending fighting in the clashes that have displaced thousands.

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Civil-military operational meeting in the middle of the street in Chile, as part of the actions to contain the covid-19 pandemic. Credit: Ministry of Defense of Chile

By Maurizio Guerrero
NEW YORK, Nov 17 2020 (IPS)

During the Covid-19 pandemic, armed forces in Latin America have been taking on essential tasks: manufacturing protective equipment, delivering food and treating civilians in hospitals. In at least a dozen countries, soldiers have been deployed to enforce containment measures, often using brute force, on populations made up of largely poor informal workers.

In Venezuela and Bolivia, the armed forces have also been used to repress political opposition and to shore up governments with questionable democratic legitimacy.

Disillusionment with democracy in the era of neoliberal austerity has led to a steady decline in satisfaction with this model of government in Latin America

Observers of the situation in Latin America fear that permanent militarisation will become the new normal, and that, in the absence of adequate civilian institutions, many governments will use their armed forces to provide basic services and to clamp down on their critics at the same time. Democracy in Latin America, they warn, may be reduced to no more than a façade once the pandemic is over.

“It will take Latin America a long time to recover from the pandemic. People will feel more insecure and will probably have less confidence in governments. In a great many countries, we will see a strengthening of ‘tutelary democracy’,” says Adam Isacson director of the Defense Oversight programme at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), a research and advocacy organisation advancing human rights in the Americas.

In ‘tutelary democracies’, according to the Polish-American theorist Adam Przeworski, civilian authorities run governments in which the military has the final say.

In the context of Latin America, these pseudo-democracies could take hold as a form of government. Isacson is particularly concerned about Honduras and Guatemala, where the presidents recently dismantled international anti-corruption commissions with the backing of the army, and El Salvador, where the president attempted to intimidate parliamentarians by calling the military into the Legislative Assembly earlier this year.

The region, beset with high rates of violence andpoor justice and accountability systems, is forecast to see a 9.1 per cent fall in GDP this year, according to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

The deployment of armies in response to natural disasters and health emergencies is standard practice, across the globe. No civilian institution is able to mobilise on such a scale. Analysts, however, agree that the worry in the Latin American context is that, in the absence of competent civilian institutions, the military will continue to play a central role once the current emergency is over.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, military units have been stationed in urban areas of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela to carry out patrols, man checkpoints, temporarily close borders and, in some cases, to detain citizens for violating health regulations. During the first few weeks of lockdown, armed forces arrested over 18,000 people in Peru and hundreds in El Salvador.

Although this backdrop may bring to mind the Latin American military dictatorships of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, the prominence of the armed forces today does not necessarily presage new military coups, according to Kristina Mani, director of Latin American studies at Oberlin College in Ohio and author of the 2011 book Democratization and Military Transformation in Argentina and Chile: Rethinking Rivalry. She is, however, in no doubt that the military’s growing role in civilian tasks cuts into the space usually controlled by democratically elected governments.

“The armed forces will undertake the tasks they are called on to do by civilian authorities, which is likely to mean that they will require more resources and have a greater ability to question civilian leaders,” says Mani. “The military will have more influence in the countries where it is being deployed most widely.”

The security forces in Venezuela have arbitrarily detained and prosecuted journalists, health workers, human rights defenders and political opponents since mid-March 2020 as part of a state of “emergency and alarm” declared in response to the pandemic, Human Rights Watch reports.

In Bolivia, the restrictions have been used as a pretext for suppressing political demonstrations against the interim government of Jeanine Áñez, who illegally assumed the presidency in November 2019 and postponed the presidential elections on two occasions. In spite of the political repression, Luis Arce, the socialist candidate running for the party of the ousted president, Evo Morales, won the elections on 18 October.

During Áñez’s government, “the military in Bolivia played a dual role by forcing people to stay at home and silencing them as a result. It was also used to clamp down on protests and demonstrations,” says Mani. “This dual role, which politicians can use to their advantage, is a serious cause for concern.”

 

In the ruins of neoliberalism

Many Latin American countries began their current democratic journey in the 1980s and 1990s, at a time when they were forced to implement so-called structural adjustments– severe cuts in government spending – imposed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Poverty levels in the region remained largely unchanged, while income inequality rose sharply.

Urban violence linked to organised crime and drug trafficking escalated and the region became one of the most violent in the world. Corruption scandals involving political leaders have been the rule rather than the exception: more than half the countries in the subcontinent are embroiled in a single case, that of the Brazilian industrial conglomerate Odebrecht.

According to Brett Kyle, assistant professor of political science and faculty member in the Office of Latino/Latin American Studies (OLLAS) at the University of Nebraska and author of the soon to be published book Military Courts, Civil-Military Relations, and the Legal Battle for Democracy: The Politics of Military Justice, civilian institutions in Latin America have a long history of failure, especially in relation to public security and the workings of the justice system. Rather than investing resources into institutional structures for security and justice, Kyle explains, Latin American governments have used their militaries to deliver “quick fixes”.

This militarisation was already visible prior to the pandemic.

The last 20 months offer numerous examples: Guatemala’s president, Jimmy Morales, surrounded himself with military personnel on announcing his decision to shut down the UN-sponsored International Commission against Impunity (CICIG); Mexico formed a National Guard largely made up of military personnel; Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, encouraged celebrations of the 1964 military coup; Honduras created a new police force that quashed the protests in December 2019; El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, brought the army into the National Assembly to intimidate parliamentarians; and the presidents of Ecuador, Peru and Chile, accompanied by uniformed generals, announced crackdowns on demonstrations.

Mexico, a country that has never endured a military dictatorship, is a singular case. The party that governed the country for 71 years kept the armed forces out of civilian matters. Since 2006, however, the military has been undertaking public security tasks under the pretext of contributing to the fight against organised crime. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has conferred even wider responsibilities on the military.

Despite his government having cut current public spending by 75 per cent this year, the military is building the next major airport and a tourist train. It has also been placed in charge of customs operations. The Mexican military is taking on an increasing number of tasks, despite being the national institution most widely denounced for its role in extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances.

According to a Latinobarómetro opinion poll, satisfaction with democracy fell from 44 per cent in 2008 to 24 per cent in 2018. There is not a country in the region where the majority of citizens are satisfied with this form of government, and in Brazil the level of satisfaction was as low as nine per cent. Confidence in the military is also falling, though the level is still high compared to other institutions: 44 per cent in 2018. And the pandemic appears to have exacerbated the lack of trust in civilian governments.

“We shouldn’t see these trends as a reason for the military to suddenly try to take over civilian governments in the region,” argues Kyle. “What we may see, however, are scenarios in which military leaders view civilian governments as incompetent and try to assume a more prominent role in decision-making.”

Although the United States has directly or indirectly intervened at least 41 times to change governments in Latin America, often supporting military coups, experts agree that the role of the US in this increased militarisation is minimal.

If anything, the impact of President Donald Trump’s government on this wave of militarisation in Latin America has been by omission: its disinterest in supporting democratic initiatives made it easier, for instance, for Guatemala and Honduras to shut down their anti-corruption commissions.

Alongside the growing militarisation in the region, Latin America is seeing the emergence of vigorous social movements . In 2019, millions of citizens in Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Peru and Venezuela took to the streets to denounce corrupt leaders, to call for an end to austerity measures and to fight for free and truly democratic elections.

“The waves of protest we saw in 2019 are going to return and will be bigger still, especially among populations that will find themselves unemployed or underemployed in the midst of a deep economic recession,” says Isacson, warning that mass demonstrations in an increasingly militarised region are “a recipe for social unrest and conflict”.

This story was originally published by Equal Times

The post On the Back of the Pandemic, the Militarisation of Latin America is Gathering Momentum, Analysts Warn appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Rangers are tracking the giraffe in north-east Kenya, after poachers killed his family members.

Journalists at an event in Kabul, to mark the Afghan National Journalists Day (March 2019), in support of media freedom and solidarity with journalists. Reporters have frequently been targeted during the Afghan conflict. Credit: UNAMA/Fardin Waezi

By External Source
Nov 17 2020 (IPS-Partners)

Reporters and other media workers in warzones across the world, are reliable witnesses who contribute to forging peace, and must be better-protected under international humanitarian law, said the UN chief on Wednesday.

António Guterres said in the statement issued by his Spokesperson that he remains deeply concerned, and condemned attacks against journalists and media workers in general, calling for “concerted efforts to tackle widespread impunity for such crimes.”

In 2018-2019, UNESCO – the UN cultural agency which speaks up for journalist safety and protection – documented 67 killings of journalists in countries experiencing armed conflict, among which, 23 were directly involved in covering battlefield hostilities.

“Apart from fatal attacks, journalists covering conflicts face a range of other threats including violence leading to injuries, arbitrary detention, denial of visas and restrictions to movement in, across or out of conflict zones”, said the Secretary-General’s statement.

Majority of deaths unsolved

Even though 2020 saw a “slight decrease” in the rate of impunity for crimes against journalists overall, 87 per cent of such cases worldwide were still not resolved, UNESCO reported earlier this month.

According to the Safety of Journalists and the Danger of Impunity, a report by UNESCO’s Director-General, only 13 per cent of cases globally involving crimes against journalists were reported “as resolved”, in comparison to 12 per cent in 2019, and 11 per cent in 2018.

The biennial report also said that in 2018-19, a total of 156 killings of journalists were recorded worldwide, and over the past decade, a journalist was killed – on average – every four days.

As of the end of September, 39 journalists had been killed in 2020, the report added.

War reporting essential

The UN chief’s stated that “the fundamental role of journalists in ensuring access to reliable information is essential to achieving durable peace, sustainable development and human rights”, and recalled that all civilians, “including civilian journalists engaged in professional missions in areas of armed conflict, must be respected and protected under international humanitarian law.”

He called on all parties to conflict and combatants – as well as “the international community as a whole, to protect journalists and enable conditions for the exercise of their profession.”

‘A dangerous profession’

“Journalism remains a dangerous profession: the threats faced by journalists are many and wide-ranging”, said UNESCO’s report last week, which coincided with the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists.

“While casualties related to countries experiencing armed conflict have declined, fatal attacks against journalists covering stories related to corruption, human rights violations, environmental crimes, trafficking, and political wrongdoing have risen in other countries.”

The report is submitted every two years to UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC) Intergovernmental Council, and opportunity for States to take stock of global developments and discuss challenges linked to promoting the safety of journalists and combatting impunity.

Palestinian journalist, Mohammad Awad, reporting from the field. Credit: UNESCO

Television journalists constitute the largest group among the victims, according to the report.

Over 2018 and 2019, TV journalists constitute 30 per cent of the journalists killed with 47 fatalities, followed by radio with 24 per cent, and print media with 21 per cent of the killings.

Furthermore, as with previous years, a majority of victims were local journalists covering local stories, with 95 local journalists killed in 2018 and 56 local journalists lost their lives in 2019, representing 96 per cent and 98 per cent of the fatalities for the two years, respectively.

Mexican death toll rises

Only this week, a Mexican reporter who was about to go live on air for a digital news outlet, with a story reportedly involving the grisly discovery of human remains, was shot multiple times and died of his wounds soon after.

Israel Vazquez of the El Salmantino outlet, was in the city of Salamanca, according to news reports, and a special team is said to be investigating the journalist’s death although no arrests have been made so far.

He is the third journalist killed in Mexico within the last month, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, and nine have been killed in the past year, according to Reporters Without Borders.

Many of those killed over many years have been reporting on corruption, or the influential drugs cartels who often act with virtual impunity.

The post Journalists covering conflict, essential workers for a ‘durable peace’ says Guterres appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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Director of Meteorology at the Ministry of Tourism and Environmental Affairs (MTEA), Duduzile Nheengethwa-Masina, said while Eswatini was able to implement many projects in the different sectors of the NDCs, some targets were not met. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi/IPS

By Mantoe Phakathi
MBABANE, Nov 17 2020 (IPS)

Barry de Maine, the director of Green Cross Pharmacy, lost about $ 7,675 worth of stock when The Mall, the largest shopping centre in Mbabane, was flooded back in 2003. But when the flash floods hit again this year, he had already installed a flange to stop water from coming in.

“This is the best I could do under the circumstances,” De Maine told IPS, adding: “Otherwise since we started experiencing floods at The Mall (17 years ago) nothing has been done.”

Besides damage to shops at The Mall, customers’ cars had to be towed away because they were floating in water.

While De Maine attributes the floods to climate change, he said no one has engaged him to discuss a long-term solution to what has become a frequent event in the capital city.

“I hear people talking about the floods but no one has ever proposed anything. I’m willing to listen but I’m more interested in action,” said De Maine.

He is likely to see action because the southern African nation is determined to leave no one behind, as it renews its commitment to the Paris Agreement. The country made its first commitment to the Agreement in 2015 when it submitted its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. 

But the first NDCs had no implementation plan, costing or monitoring tool, which presented a challenge, the director of Meteorology at the Ministry of Tourism and Environmental Affairs (MTEA), Duduzile Nhlengethwa-Masina, told IPS.

“We’re trying to build in all these elements as part of the review process to ensure that we know who is supposed to do what and how much is needed,” she said.

Under the Paris Agreement, countries revise their NDCs to cut greenhouse gas emissions to limit global temperature rise and implement solutions to adapt to the effects of climate change, every five years.

Although Eswatini is one of the developing countries whose contribution to greenhouse gases is minimal, at 0.002 percent of global emissions by 2010, it is experiencing severe climate impacts such as droughts, hailstorms and floods. About 26 percent of Eswatini’s population was projected to face acute food insecurity between December 2018 and March 2019. According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, poor rainfall, late onset of the agricultural season and prolonged dry spells are some of the reasons households could not meet their needs over the projected period.

Through support from Climate Action Enhancement Package (CAEP), an initiative of the NDC Partnership, 63 countries are given financial and technical assistance to submit enhanced NDCs and fast-track their implementation. Eswatini is one of them.

According to Dr Deepa Pullanikkatil, the NDCs coordinator for Eswatini, eight partners – NDC Partnership, U.N. Development Programme’s Climate Promise, Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, U.N. Environment, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the U.N., the Commonwealth, International Renewable Energy Agency and the World Resources Institute – are supporting different activities in Eswatini’s NDCs review process.

“The process of NDCs Revision began in May 2020 and the country expects to submit the revised NDC by June 2021,” Pullanikkatil told IPS.

The NDC Partnership has engaged 40 implementing partners as part of its Climate Action Enhancement Package (CAEP) which has provided 63 countries with financial and technical assistance to submit enhanced NDCs and fast-track their implementation. Courtesy: NDC Partnership

MTEA and the Ministry of Economic Planning and Development (MEPD) are spearheading the process.

In its 2015 NDCs, the country had committed to producing the National Adaptation Plan (NAP) by 2020, which will focus on building resilience in different sectors including agriculture, water and, biodiversity and ecosystems, among others.  

For mitigation, the country committed to focusing on the energy sector – by doubling the share of renewable energy in the national energy mix by 2030 relative to 2010 levels. Emphasis was also been placed on the transport sector to introduce commercial use of 10 percent ethanol blend by 2030. The country made bigger strides in its commitment to substitute ozone-depleting substances by phasing out HFCs, PFCs and SF6 gases.

Nhlengethwa-Masina said while the country was able to implement many projects in the different sectors of the NDCs, some targets were not met. For example, the country could not complete the NAP by 2020 but she was hopeful that it will be ready by 2021.

“As we submitted the NDCs, we also had statements of conditionality,” she said, adding: “This was relating to the fact that while we commit but we can only achieve the targets on condition that we’re receiving the financial and technological support we need, including capacity building.”

Among the challenges of implementing the 2015 NDC, she cited inadequate investments, limited awareness about the NDCs, policy incoherence and limited involvement of non-state actors.

Rex Brown, a climate change advocate, noted that the private sector – sugarcane, livestock and timber industries – is not engaged in the NDCs process yet climate change has a huge impact on it. 

“We can’t allow the private sector to fail but if it continues to bury its head in the sand, then it faces a stuck future,” Brown told IPS, adding: “It’s not only NGOs and parastatals who need to engage with this process.”

Nhlengethwa-Masina acknowledged to IPS the poor participation of the private sector, adding that when invited to meetings only a handful attend and it was usually the same business people time and again.

She said the NDCs process will come up with strategies to stimulate interest from the private sector because it is critical as the climate finance component focuses on it.

Speaking at the launch of the first review of the NDCs last month, the Principal Secretary at MTEA, John Hlophe, said it was everyone’s duty to take climate action, regardless of what sector people came from. 

Hlophe, who was addressing experts from the private sector, government and civil society organisations, said the NDCs should be owned by the “whole of government” and the “whole of society”. 

“We have to think deeply on how best to implement the NDCs once it is revised,” said Hlophe

Hlophe reiterated the call for renewed efforts made by Moses Vilakati, the Minister of MTEA, a week earlier to political leaders.

Vilakati said, when addressing complex challenges such as climate change, the country needed to bring together the best minds, technical and financial resources that support pragmatic action.

“We can only do this if we join forces,” said Vilakati.

Vilakati said coming up with viable climate adaptation and mitigation strategies in the NDCs will help Eswatini to achieve its national goals such as Vision 2022, its National Development Strategy and the COVID-19 Economic Recovery Strategy because all these goals were threatened by climate change.

“Enhancing NDCs also signals investment opportunities for public finance institutions and private investors to support,” said Vilakati.

The principal secretary at MEPD, Bheki Bhembe, said the National Development Plan 2019/20 – 2021/22 recognises the climate change challenge and is presented as a crucial focus for development planning.

“It is for this reason that the Ministry requested an economic advisor who will work closely with MTEA to strengthen the capacity of central agencies in integrating climate change into national development processes,” said Bhembe. 

Bhembe thanked the NDC Partnership for the technical and financial support in the NDCs revision adding that, this time around, the process has improved compared to 2015.

 

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Forty-Fourth Annual Meeting of Ministers for Foreign Affairs of the Group of 77 and China*

By Hugh Hilton Todd
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 17 2020 (IPS)

We have come to the point in the agenda where we must take a ‘deep-dive’ in reviewing the lessons learnt so far in our response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in order to chart a way for the future. But the future, by its very definition, must be relative. Flexibility and change will define policy making and the scope of action needed for development.

According to the World Health Organization, confirmed cases of COVID-19 now exceed 44.8 million worldwide, with over 1 million deaths as of October 30th, 2020. The human toll of death and destruction has been staggering.

We commend the speed of global collaboration in the search for vaccines, particularly through the ACT-Accelerator initiative of GAVI – The Vaccine Alliance and the WHO, with the hope that it will benefit all countries.

We also note the good news of support for the building up of manufacturing capabilities, the maintenance of global supply chains, and plans for the distribution of up to 2 billion doses of vaccine by the end of 2021, once initial testing is completed – through the COVAX Facility.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the weaknesses of our public health systems, putting immense strain on healthcare provision, and widening socio-economic divides. In short order, our development priorities shifted to the immediate task of saving lives and livelihoods.

Rapid building up of capacity for the effective distribution of social services became imperative, in the face of deepening inequalities, increased gender-based violence and greater vulnerability among children, youth and marginalized households. But we cannot relent in our primary aim to eradicate poverty and inequality.

Hugh Hilton Todd, Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana. Credit: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Guyana

UNDESA estimates that over 34 million people globally will be pushed into extreme poverty this year alone. Some consider this an optimistic forecast, with the World Bank projecting that between 71 million and 100 million people will be pushed into extreme poverty this year.

One thing is certain, that the gains of development of the past decades, and the progress made in the fight against extreme poverty have been eroded.

The social cost of the COVID-19 pandemic is unfathomable or incomprehensible. Children in poor households suffer disproportionally from the closure of schools, with limited or often no access to digital learning facilities and often missing out on school feeding initiatives.

The World Bank estimates that school closures could cause over 7 million students to discontinue their education, drastically increasing their chances of living in poverty. An additional 10 million children globally could face acute malnutrition, with a doubling of the number of people facing acute food insecurity in 2020 relative to 2019.

Globally, 243 million women and girls aged 15-49 have been subjected to sexual and/or physical violence perpetrated by an intimate partner in the previous 12 months. The number is likely to increase as security, health, and money worries heighten tensions and strains are accentuated by cramped and confined living conditions.

Our policy response has evolved, firstly, around the need to save lives and provide critical household support; secondly, in maintaining financial stability, and; thirdly, in providing liquidity and other support to business, particularly small and medium enterprises.

Estimates of global GDP contraction in 2020 range from 3.2 percent to 5.2 per cent – potentially the largest contraction in economic activity since the Great Depression. For regions like my own, this contraction is estimated to be 8.1%, with our CARICOM Small Island Developing States (SIDS) bearing the brunt of this, given the heavy reliance on tourism and services.

In the informal sector, including the gig economy, up to 1.6 billion people are estimated to be at risk of losing their livelihoods, this is according to the ILO. Many lack access to any form of social protection and youth are more likely to be in informal employment and in most cases are unemployed when compared to adults.

Again, Latin America and the Caribbean experienced a 20 percent contraction in employment in the second quarter of 2020 alone.

Not only are our Governments forced to consider shifts in policy priorities, but there are clear signs of even greater shifts by our development partners. An estimated ten trillion dollars were spent by G20 developed economies in COVID-19 stimulus packages, in the first few months of the pandemic. McKinsey and Company reports that Japan has spent 117.1 trillion Yen, equivalent to 21.0 percent of its gross domestic product.

And Germany reportedly spent 33 percent of its gross domestic product on COVID-19 rescue programmes, compared to 5.5 percent for Brazil, 10 percent for India and 8.6 percent for South Africa. At issue is, of course, the limited policy space available to G-77 countries.

The upshot of this is that the liquidity to weather this storm is severely lacking in many of our countries. With limited scope for raising revenue, coupled with contracting economic activity, we have found ourselves mainly reliant on access to financial flows from IFIs. Sadly, this access is severely restricted for the majority of our members due to outmoded systems of classification.

Official development assistance – ODA – could be the most assured form of financial support in our response to the pandemic and in our efforts to rebuild economic and social structures. We know that Official development assistance volumes declined in 2018 and 2019, and the OECD has recognized that the need for concessional development finance like Official development assistance is unparalleled in 2020, in response to COVID-19.

Now more than ever, we call on our developed partners to honor the commitment to increase Official development assistance flows as a percent of gross national income.

Trade as an engine of growth is especially tenuous, with UNCTAD estimating that COVID-19 could trigger as much as fifty billion dollars in export losses across global value chains.

Many of our countries are heavily reliant on remittance flows, which are expected to decline by 20 percent for this year. UNCTAD also projects a decline in foreign direct investment of between forty and fifty percent in the 2020-2021 period.

These factors put together, make a compelling case for greater international solidarity and cooperation. We must refocus our attention on implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, in this Decade of Action and Delivery of sustainable development.

Collectively, we must redouble our efforts to eradicate poverty and inequality, deal with the impacts and threat of climate change and work towards achieving the seventeen interconnected and indivisible Sustainable Development Goals.

The frameworks exist. But accelerated implementation will require the requisite financing, and, as always, the political will, to give meaningful effect to our aspirations.

*The 134-member Group of 77, and China, is the largest single coalition of developing countries at the United Nations, currently chaired by the Republic of Guyana.

 

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Excerpt:

Hugh Hilton Todd, Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, in an address to the Forty-Fourth Annual Meeting of Ministers for Foreign Affairs of the Group of 77 and China, on the thematic debate on "Global response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the obstacles it poses to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and achievement of the SDGs”

The post Our Development Priorities Have Shifted to the Immediate Task of Saving Lives & Livelihoods. appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Anis Chowdhury
KUALA LUMPUR and SYDNEY, Nov 17 2020 (IPS)

The United Nations’ renamed World Social Report 2020 (WSR 2020) argued that income inequality is rising in most developed countries, and some middle-income countries, including China, the world’s fastest growing economy in recent decades.

Inequality dimensions
While overall inter-country inequalities may have declined owing to the rapid growth of economies like China, India and East Asia, national inequalities have been growing for much of the world’s population, generating resentment.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

In 2005, when the focus was on halving poverty, thus ignoring inequality, the UN drew attention to The Inequality Predicament. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned that growing inequality within and between countries was jeopardizing achievement of the internationally agreed development goals.

“Leave no one behind” has become the rallying cry of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Reducing inequality within and among countries is now the tenth of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in 2015.
Uneven and unequal economic growth over several decades has deepened the divides within and across countries. Thus, growing inequality and exclusion were highlighted in earlier WSRs on Inequality Matters, The Imperative of Inclusive Development and Promoting Inclusion Through Social Protection.

The UNDP’s Human Development Report 2019 (HDR 2019) drew attention to profound education and health inequalities. While disparities in ‘basic capabilities’ (e.g., primary education and life expectancy) are declining, inequalities in ‘enhanced capabilities’ (e.g., higher education) are growing.

Meanwhile, inequalities associated with social characteristics, e.g., ethnicity and gender, have been widening. The January 2020 Oxfam Davos report, Time to Care, highlighted wealth inequalities as the number of billionaires doubled over the last decade to 2,153 billionaires, owning more than the poorest 60% of 4.6 billion.

Drivers of inequalities
WSR 2020 shows that the wealthiest generally increased their income shares during 1990-2015. With large and growing disparities in public social provisioning, prospects for upward social mobility across generations have been declining.

Anis Chowdhury

HDR 2019 found that growing inequalities in human development “have little to do with rewarding effort, talent or entrepreneurial risk-taking”, but instead are “driven by factors deeply embedded in societies, economies and political structures”. “Far too often gender, ethnicity or parents’ wealth still determines a person’s place in society”.

Capture of the state by rich elites and commensurate declines in the bargaining power of working people have increased inequality. Real wage rises lag behind productivity growth as executive remuneration sky-rockets and regressive tax trends favour the rich and reduce public provisioning, e.g., healthcare.

Polarising megatrends
HDR 2019 identifies climate change and rapid technological innovation as two megatrends worsening inequalities, with the WSR adding urbanisation and international migration. Technical change not only supports progress, creating more meaningful new jobs, but also displaces workers and increases income inequalities.

Meanwhile, global warming is negatively impacting the lives of many, especially in the world’s poorest countries, worsening inequality. While climate action will cause job losses in carbon-intensive activities, energy saving and renewable energy are likely to increase net employment.

International migration benefits migrants, their countries of origin (due to remittances) and their host countries. But immigrant labour may increase host countries’ inequalities by taking ‘dangerous, dirty, depressed’ and low-skilled work, pushing down wages, especially for all unskilled, while professional migrations are ‘brain drains’, creating new inequalities and worsening existing ones.

COVID-19 and divergence
COVID-19 may worsen divergence among countries owing to its uneven economic impacts due to the different costs and efficacy of containment, relief and recovery measures, influenced by prior health and health care inequalities as well as state capabilities.

Low-income countries have poorer health conditions, weaker health care and social protection systems, as well as less administrative and institutional capacities, including pandemic preparedness and response capabilities. Hence, they are more vulnerable to contagion, while lacking the means to respond effectively.

Rising protectionism and escalating US-China trade tensions have aggravated challenges faced by developing countries which also face declining trade, aid, remittances, export prices and investments. ‘Vaccine nationalism’ will worsen their predicament.

COVID-19 and inequality
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted many existing inequalities, and may push 71 million more people into extreme poverty in 2020, the first global rise since 1998, according to the 2020 UN SDGs Report.

As 55% of the world’s population do not have any social protection, lost incomes mean poverty and hunger for many more. Before COVID-19, 690 million were chronically food insecure, or hungry, while 113 million suffered severe acute food insecurity, or near starvation, mainly due to earlier shocks.

While those in the informal sector typically lack decent working conditions and social protection, most of the workforce do not have the means or ability to work from home during ‘stay in shelter lockdowns’ as most work is not readily done remotely, even by those with digital infrastructure.

Most have struggled to survive. Relief measures have not helped many vulnerable households, while recovery policies have not done much for liquidity-constrained small and micro-enterprises facing problems accessing capital, credit and liquidity, even in normal times.

Meanwhile, many of the world’s billionaires have done “extremely well” during the coronavirus pandemic, growing their already huge fortunes to a record US$10.2 trillion, according to a UBS-PwC report.

Widespread school closures are not only disrupting the education of the young, but also school feeding and child nutrition. Poor access to health services is making matters worse, as already weak health systems are further overstretched.

Unexpected crossroads
UN and Oxfam reports show that growing inequality is not inevitable. The world saw sustained growth with declining inequality in the Golden Age of the 1950s and 1960s. With the neoliberal counter-revolution against development and Keynesian economics, government commitments to development and tackling inequalities have waned.

A 2020 Oxfam report notes, “only one in six countries … were spending enough on health, only a third of the global workforce had adequate social protection, and in more than 100 countries at least one in three workers had no labour protection … As a result, many have faced death and destitution, and inequality is increasing dramatically”.

Governments must adopt bold policies to radically reduce the gap between rich and poor and to avoid a K-shaped recovery. Internationally, improved multilateralism can help check vaccine nationalism, rising jingoist protectionism and debilitating neoliberal trade and investment deals.

 

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