Africa

Tensions between Tigray and the federal government threaten to boil over into a serous conflict.

Ghana's longest-serving leader led by example but later fell foul of his own standards, says Akwasi Sarpong.

Indigenous men and women of Nuñoa in Puno, Peru, spin and weave garments based on the fiber of the alpacas. Credit: SGP-GEF-UNDP Peru/Enrique Castro-Mendívil

By Siddharth Akali
MANILA, Nov 13 2020 (IPS)

This week, 450 public development banks from around the world met for the Finance in Common Summit at the Paris Peace Forum. They gathered to discuss how they can direct their combined investments of over USD 2 trillion – 10% of total investments in the world – “to support the transformation or the global economy” and “build new forms of prosperity that take care of people and the planet.”

However, the summit has done little to fundamentally transform development so it is bottom up, focussing again on government officials, bankers, think tanks, and academics over the real experts at the frontlines, who are living, breathing, and drinking the impacts of these banks policies and practices that have their stolen lands and polluted their ecosystems.

Grassroots communities and human rights defenders directly affected by these banks’ activities did not have a seat at the summit table, or the chance to speak and be heard in the webinar room.

And after ongoing advocacy by hundreds of civil society groups from around the world, and several United Nations special procedures, the final declaration of the summit contains only reference to community-led development and human rights. There are no concrete actionable commitments beyond business as usual dressed in the language of motherhood and apple pie.

The Finance in Common Summit was the first global meeting of the vast family of institutions that intersect between finance and public policy, and was one of the largest international governance and finance gatherings in 2020 since the spread of the pandemic.

The organizers of the summit are heralding public development banks as a “visible hand” that can help mobilize and direct the finance we need for the future we want. Unfortunately, these institutions do not have a great track record, with significant documentation of their projects excluding directly affected communities and doing more harm.

Development banks have repeatedly supported fossil fuel projects that have contributed to climate change, polluted ecosystems causing lung diseases and made people more vulnerable to the worst effects of Covid-19.

They have also engaged in greenwashing, supporting fossil free projects that take traditionally held lands without the consent of local communities and Indigenous Peoples, destroying the biodiverse ecosystems they have protected for generations.

These institutions have also repeatedly looked the other way and been complicit in the human rights violations of corporations and governments they work with. They support activities where armed forces push forward large infrastructure and extractives projects on traditional lands without the participation and consent of Indigenous Peoples.

They indiscriminately fund states where there is corporate capture of institutions, and police and courts violently punish those who speak truth to power rather than those who murder social justice leaders.

For instance, despite warning from local communities in Colombia several development financiers provided support for the construction of the Hidroituango dam, which has had a catastrophic impact for the people and the environment, including forced displacement of hundreds of families, loss of livelihoods, floods, landslides, and mass fish kill.

In the past 11 years, six members of the grassroots organization Movimiento Ríos Vivos and more than 30 other community members have been killed for raising their concerns about the project.

Development banks have also supported privatization of essential services, prioritizing growth and corporate profits over protections for workers and communities. And now, in the middle of a pandemic, many people are left without access to healthcare, shelter, livelihoods, food, sanitary products and medicines, even as stock markets rise.

However, in the name of crowding in private investments, development banks are continuing to pump out billions of dollars to bail out corporations during the pandemic, with few safeguards to ensure the money reaches the people who need it the most.

Indeed, public development banks have contributed to a world where the 22 richest men in the world have more wealth than all the women in Africa. They have done little to challenge systems through which caregiving falls disproportionately on women, focusing instead on farcical women’s empowerment efforts.

They have also failed to confront their role in advancing racism and colonialism, or contributing to increased surveillance and securitization, and inhibiting world peace.

A better world is possible, even as we reel under the shocks of intersecting crises of the pandemic, climate change and rising inequality, violence and militarization. And a better world can benefit from the right kind of public development finance.

But public banks, governments, and businesses need to make changes if we want to move away from a world of self-inflicted existential threats. The response to the current crises of our times cannot be to simply push out more money without consideration for the long-term environmental and social impacts of these funds on local communities and workers.

And who better to assess the long term impacts of these investments than communities and workers themselves?

The very idea of international development finance has to be reshaped under the leadership of communities who have repeatedly called for the lens of collective responsibility and reparations. The existing models of debt and financial aid, focused on states and corporations, only serve to replicate colonial power imbalances, and support the prevailing top-down paradigm.

Instead, people who are the purported beneficiaries of development finance have to be the key decision-makers.

To make future iterations of the Finance in Common summit impactful, the first thing the organizers have to do is to recognize communities are the experts of their own development.

Community-led development and human rights must be front and center on the summit agenda. Indigenous Peoples, grassroots communities and social movements must be invited to share their vision of development.

If governments and their public banks are serious about transformation, and leaving behind old patterns of crises, human rights in common have to come before finance in common.

 

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Excerpt:

Development banks have repeatedly looked the other way and been complicit in the human rights violations of corporations and governments they work with. They support activities where armed forces push forward large infrastructure and extractives projects on traditional lands without the participation and consent of Indigenous Peoples.

 
Siddharth Akali is an international lawyer who has been trained by local communities, Indigenous governments and peoples in Canada, India and Nepal. He works as director of the Coalition for Human Rights in Development, a global coalition of social movements, civil society organizations, and grassroots groups working together to ensure that development is community-led and that it respects, protects, and fulfills human rights.

The post Global Summit of Development Banks Fails to Learn from Destructive Past appeared first on Inter Press Service.

BBC Africa's Jameisha Prescod looks at how Zambia's financial issues have been made worse during the pandemic.

By Masooma Ranalvi
NOIDA, India, Nov 13 2020 (IPS)

“My daughter is eight years old. In May 2017, I had her ‘Khatna,’ her circumcision, done. I had taken her to a traditional cutter. Once back home I made her sleep on the bed. After some time, around 4:00 p.m. I took her to the bathroom, she was bleeding as if she had started her menses. It seemed like she was urinating blood. By 6:00 p.m. my daughter had been bleeding so heavily, the blood had soaked three bed sheets and I was very worried.  And my daughter was quiet and she also kept asking me if she will be fine.” Excerpt from:  How I got her from the hands of death: WeSpeakOut study 2018

The child belongs to the Bohra community, where Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) persists.  A study by my organisation, WeSpeakOut, in 2018 indicates that over 75% of the girls in the community are cut. Their clitoral hoods are removed.  They are not all “fine.”  Some suffer life-threatening infections.  And the procedure leaves girls physically and emotionally scarred and robbed of sexual pleasure for a lifetime.

If FGM in India and elsewhere in Asia remains hidden and unmeasured, if governments collect no data, UN agencies should sponsor the large-scale qualitative and quantitative studies needed, and support groups trying to do this research on the ground

The Bohra community is not in Africa, long the focus of global efforts to stop FGM.  It is in India.  The fact that it happens here came to light when women, including me, spoke about our childhood traumas, researched the prevalence of FGM, and exposed it to the world.  But we are part of a global blind spot on the FGM map.  To many in the Indian government and the international community, we remain invisible.  India has no government database on FGM, a secret and silent practice for centuries

My survivor-led organization, WeSpeakOut, has spent the last five years meeting with top officials from government commissions and ministries, providing evidence and testimony, and circulating petitions, including one that garnered over 200,000 signatures.

We have been imploring the government to pass a law banning FGM.  We and members of Parliament who have asked questions about this have been rebuffed.  .

The Indian government’s official response is that since there is no official data on  the prevalence of FGM in India, FGM in India does not even exist.  They claim this, even though WeSpeakOut provided them surveys as part of the consultations held around the country to track progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Eliminating FGM is a clear target under the SDGs, agreed to by 193 United Nations member countries around the world, including India.  But the government’s obfuscation undermines this goal.  It leaves the United Nations — the global organization that is supposed to be able to shed light, offer guidance, and apply pressure so that nations do the right thing—powerless.

India is not alone.  It is one of at least 60 countries that do not collect or provide national-level data on the prevalence of FGM.  The sustainable development goal 5.3 is to end female genital mutilation or cutting by 2030, and with less than ten years to go we are still not even sure of the extent of this practice globally.

Masooma Ranalvi. Credit: Natasha Sweeney Photography

If our governments continue to pretend the problem does not exist, international organizations should step in.

They could start by including India in official United Nations documents on FGM. At international forums where our government representatives have signed treaties denouncing FGM, Indian officials should be asked about FGM in India. India should not be allowed to hide behind its supposed support for international treaties and conventions promising to end FGM globally, while ignoring and covering up the practice within its own borders.

Countries like India that committed to fast-track progress for achieving the SDGs pledged to Leave No One Behind.  What is the value of this pledge if nations that break this promise cannot be held accountable?  There must be any international mechanism to pull up truant nations.

If FGM in India and elsewhere in Asia remains hidden and unmeasured, if governments collect no data, UN agencies should sponsor the large-scale qualitative and quantitative studies needed, and support groups trying to do this research on the ground.   International funding does not typically reach organizations like mine, and we survive with hardly any local contributions. We can all be part of the larger global effort to end FGM by 2030. We can collaborate to put together the funding, research, legal and technical expertise needed to achieve this collective goal.

All SDGs are interconnected; poverty, development, gender justice, peace and prosperity cannot be viewed in isolation. The SDGs are universal and transcend borders, and neglecting one goal hinders progress on others.  For this to work, governments cannot be evasive or complacent.  They need to mean what they say, and to demand the truth from others.

They failed to do this at the concluded United Nations High Level Political Forum 2020.  But there will be other high-profile international meetings  – more opportunities to ask tough questions and demand honest answers.

 

Masooma Ranalvi is the Founder of WeSpeakOut, India’s largest FGM survivor-led organization. She is a 2020 Aspen Institute New Voices Fellow. Follow her on Twitter @RanalviMasooma

The post In India, Ending FGM Demands Truth and Transparency appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Amnesty International also says "probably hundreds" have been hacked to death in northern Ethiopia.

Coronavirus has aggravated pre-existing financial pressures, including a $12bn external debt load.

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

A BBC journalist on the fears she has for her family in Ethiopia's Tigray region following an outbreak of fighting.

"Scores and probably hundreds" were hacked to death on Monday in the Tigray region, the group says.

The UN says nations must take decisive action to stem a "mounting loss of life in the Mediterranean".

The Berlaymont building in Brussels, headquarters of the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union (EU). Credit EU.

By Joaquín Roy
Nov 12 2020 (IPS)

An anecdote tells, never sufficiently confirmed, that in the hardest moments of the Second World War when Stalin was dictating his orders of battle to his subordinates, he was told that perhaps it would be advisable to consult with the Pope. The Soviet dictator replied: “And how many armored divisions does the Pope have?”

The rationale of the question has been used in international relations theory and practice consistently to illustrate a vision of the realist school, in the company of classical interpretations such as those of Thucydides and von Clausewitz.

Stalin’s reflection has often been adduced to interpret the real level of influence of the European Union on the international scene since the middle of the last century.

It has never been easy to explain the birth and survival of Monnet and Schuman’s invention by means of a variant of realism.

One of the clichés about the soul of the EU is as an example of possessing a “soft power”, according to the founding arguments of Joseph Nye.

Joaquín Roy

It agrees with the birth of an entity whose initial leaders were mostly Christian Democrats, who based their logic on reconciliation and who promoted a new entity based on an unusual “declaration of interdependence.” While the bulk of the history of international relations exuded the phenomenon of war, the EU stubbornly justified its existence on the strategy of peace.

Citizens outside Europe tried to answer the question about the reason for the founding of the EU with strange answers such as competition with the United States, the improvement of the European economy, and the reinforcement of capitalism. The goal of making war “unthinkable, and materially impossible” was rarely alluded to.

Since then it has not been easy to understand the EU, because to do so, “one must be French or very intelligent” as Madeleine Albright once said. She rightly described the EU as extremely complex, especially if you insist on viewing it through the lens of “hard power.”

The funny thing is that its survival has been an enigma for more than 70 years, in an already long existence sown along with experiences as shocking as the Vietnam War, the end of the Cold War, the disappearance of the Soviet Union, and now the questioning of the fundamentals of the United States.

Despite such impressive achievements as the adoption of the euro, the marked improvement in the standard of living of Europeans, their comparatively superior longevity, the pleasant feeling of being able to travel and reside throughout the EU, there is a certain discomfort and inner feeling, their survival is in doubt.

The explosion produced by Brexit, barely softening the effects of the 2008 economic crisis, while some of the evils of the past are reborn (nationalism, authoritarianism, racism), and the community territory is beset by uncontrolled immigration, has not helped to soften fears.

Inside and outside, the predictions of its disappearance are insistent. And specialists wonder why, while many voices disagree with these pessimistic predictions.

 

Anu Bradford, author of “The Brussels Effect” (Oxford University, 2020)

 

Anu Bradford, a law professor at Columbia University in New York, belongs to this sector. She is the author of a book that has been considered as the most influential of the decade in the field of international relations and the EU in particular.  Its title is The Brussels Effect (Oxford University, 2020), repeatedly reproduced as a term that is destined to be enthroned in the permanent vocabulary of the EU. The central thesis is that the EU, despite its lack of “hard power”, has achieved not only its survival, but a position of preeminence in the world theater.

But this nature of a global agent does not come from the traditional methods of imposing its interests, but simply through the use of a weapon of something as simple as law, developed in the design of a network of norms in the internal scene of the industry, business, the environment, agriculture, and protection against climate change.

But these norms are not imposed on the external territories, in a traditional imperialist way, but, exceptionally, they are self-adopted by the external businesses themselves, voluntarily.

How is this achieved, without the imposition of the hard power of the EU? Bradford’s answer is very simple: external actors, in the United States, Latin America, Asia, weigh between the cost of adding the standards of EU regulations or losing such a substantial market. They hesitate before being forced to adopt community standards or even be their goods rejected, once the process of entering the gigantic EU single market has begun.

They wisely choose to make the necessary investment and place the blue sticker with the twelve golden stars of the EU as a guarantee, a courtesy gift from the “pope” Ursula Von der Leyen, president of the European Commission. The EU does not oblige anyone: it is the choice of external economic interests.

Joaquín Roy is Jean Monnet Professor and Director of the European Union Center at the University of Miami

 

The post The Armored Divisions of the European Union appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Uganda remain unbeaten in the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers with a narrow 1-0 win over South Sudan.

He led two coups, first in 1979 and then in 1981 and was an elected president from 1992 to 2001.

The former air force officer who first seized power in 1979 leaves a divided legacy.

Flour and fuel shortages are being reported in Tigray, where federal and regional forces are fighting.

A farmer in Vietnam's Mekong Delta. Credit: UN Photo/Kibae Park

By Kyle Springer
PERTH, Australia, Nov 12 2020 (IPS)

This was the year that Vietnam was poised to make progress on its rise as a regional leader. Under the auspices of Vietnam’s ASEAN chairmanship, a breakthrough in global trade has been achieved despite rising protectionism and a global pandemic.

Assuming the chair of ASEAN in January, Vietnam’s diplomacy has proven adaptable amid the constraints of COVID-19. The successful completion of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade agreement under Vietnam’s watch this year will cement its claim to middle power leadership in the Indo-Pacific region.

The 2020 ASEAN Summit would have been easy to write off, but we have learned to expect a lot from a Vietnam-chaired year. Consider what Vietnam’s leadership has delivered in the past. When Vietnam chaired ASEAN in 2010, it inaugurated the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting (ADMM) Plus, a defence dialogue of all ten ASEAN members and its eight dialogue partners, which includes the US and China.

When Vietnam convened the East Asia Summit (EAS) that same year, the US and Russia attended as Vietnam’s guests, paving the way for their official membership in the summit the following year. The ADMM Plus and the EAS are now key institutions in the political architecture of the Indo-Pacific.

And in the crisis year of 2020, Vietnam’s skillful diplomacy once again comes to the rescue. When Vietnam delivers RCEP during this November’s adjusted Summit process, it will be the most significant development in the global trade system since the establishment of the WTO in 1994.

Eight years in the making and spanning over thirty rounds of negotiations, RCEP promises to buttress the post-COVID-19 economic recovery of its fifteen members. Covering 29 percent of global GDP, its provisions spur the further development of regional value chains and greatly lower regulatory barriers to investment.

Vietnam’s leadership of RCEP marks its transformation to become one of the region’s fastest-growing and most internationally-engaged economies. Thirty years ago, Vietnam emerged from a period of war during which it had fought every permanent member of the UN Security Council except the then-Soviet Union. Vietnam had isolated itself from its Southeast Asian neighbours when it invaded Cambodia in 1978, and it suffered a bloody clash with China at its northern border in 1979.

On the economic front, matters were equally dim. Post-war reconstruction did nothing to boost Vietnam’s inflation-stricken economy. Five-year economic plans failed to stimulate growth and production in its agriculture-based economy. Trade and aid sanctions were placed against it by the US, Australia, and many of its other neighbours. With this context, no one could have foreseen the transformation that would later take place.

RCEP perhaps represents the apex of Vietnam’s efforts to integrate into the global economy starting in the mid-1990s. Coming on the back of its domestically-focused Doi Moi (renovation) economic reforms that began in 1986, Vietnam joined ASEAN in 1995 and acceded to the World Trade Organization in 2007. It eschewed protectionism and began pursuing a number of free trade agreements starting in 2005.

Today, it has signed a number of deals with advanced economies. Vietnam has emerged not only as a participant in multilateral trade efforts, but as a leading proponent of regional trade integration. It is a member of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) with Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. The CPTPP’s predecessor, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), earned fame with US President Donald Trump’s decision to pull the US from the deal after long being promoted as a cornerstone of former President Barack Obama’s “rebalance” to the Asia-Pacific region.

A few months after the US left the agreement, the remaining TPP members met on the sidelines of the 2017 APEC trade ministers’ meeting, hosted by Vietnam. There the ministers reaffirmed the value of the TPP and discussed how to finalise it with the eleven of the original signatories.

Here Vietnam made the decision to stay in the agreement, despite losing market access to its most important trade partner – the US. Vietnam’s participation in the CPTPP makes Vietnam’s stance clear: it is committed to trade liberalisation even though the spirit of the time is decidedly protectionist.

RCEP continues Vietnam’s efforts, and Vietnam once again delivers an important new institution while it presides in its moment as ASEAN chair. RCEP is timely as well. It will put Vietnam and its Indo-Pacific partners in a good place to solve the economic problems pressuring the region, not the least the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, which has hit Southeast Asia particularly hard.

Here again, Vietnam looks like it will come out on top. With its domestic outbreak under control, Vietnam’s standing in the forecasts for economic growth are promising. Even under the most pessimistic modelling, Vietnam’s economy should maintain positive growth in 2020.

By the time Vietnam next takes the reins as ASEAN chair, presumably in 2030, its economy will be well on its way to becoming one of the world’s largest. RCEP will get a lot of credit for that progress.

Along with catalysing post-COVID-19 economic growth in the broader Indo-Pacific region, RCEP will further enhance Vietnam’s ability to attract the investment it needs to propel its economy in this promising direction.

The challenge for Vietnam’s leadership will be matching its regional ambitions with continued domestic economic reforms.

This article is published under a Creative Commons Licence and may be republished with attribution

 

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The post Vietnam Takes the Lead on Indo-Pacific Economic Integration appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Kyle Springer is the Senior Analyst at the Perth US Asia Centre.

The post Vietnam Takes the Lead on Indo-Pacific Economic Integration appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The actual number of children at risk is not known due to a dearth of research on child deprivation and government responses in Zimbabwe. This 16-year-old boy sells sweets and popcorn to earn a living in downtown Harare. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/ IPS

By External Source
Nov 12 2020 (IPS)

The ability of Zimbabwean families to take care of children has been compromised by a collapsing economy, compounded by COVID-19. About 4.3 million people in rural communities, including children, are food insecure this year. The World Food Programme indicates that at least 60% of the population of Zimbabwe need food aid.

The Vendors Initiative for Social and Economic Transformation in Zimbabwe has estimated that over 20,000 children have turned to vending as a means of survival since the COVID-19 lockdown.

According to reports, child vendors in the city of Bulawayo are mostly selling fruit and vegetables. And in the capital, Harare, they sell a variety of goods from vegetables to used clothes and shoes.

The phenomenon of child vendors in Zimbabwe has been topical for some time. But the situation appears to be worsening.

When children spend hours of their day in the streets or at the market, they lose a portion of their childhood that will never be regained. They miss out on education, play opportunities and other childhood activities. This has far-reaching effects on their development

There are no statistics about how much income vendors make, due to the informal nature of this business and a lack of centralised coordination of their activities. Nevertheless, it’s clear that poverty is the reason children are on the streets. But in their efforts to help their families, they are exposed to risks such as exploitation, abuse and missing school.

The situation calls for a critical conversation about the capacity of families to protect and care for their children and the role of social protection policies in the country.

 

Policy to protect vulnerable children

A National Action Plan for Orphans and Vulnerable Children has been in place since 2004. The policy guides the provision of care for these children. My prior experience and observations as a social researcher suggest that the plan isn’t working in practice.

There are number of gaps.

The first is that there’s no clear definition of what the term “orphans and vulnerable children” means, especially in the current economic climate and increasing vulnerability of children in the country. There’s a danger that children will fall through the cracks and go unnoticed without any government support.

Secondly, there is a lack of good data. The actual number of children at risk is not known due to a dearth of research on child deprivation and government responses in Zimbabwe.

Thirdly, government interventions aren’t reaching those in need. The government’s National Action Plan for Orphans and Vulnerable Children is meant to be overseen by a multi-sectoral committee to mobilise resources. Under it poor households were to receive grants varying from US$10 (one person household) to US$25 (four person household) per month (paid bimonthly) through a cash transfer. The funds for this come from the Child Protection Fund.

The first phase of the plan was between 2005-2010 and the second phase between 2011-2015. The evaluations of these two phases showed several gaps in service provision and targeting of orphans and vulnerable children in the country.

Even by 2017 only 23,000 beneficiaries in eight districts had received the cash transfers. However, the number of families in need way surpasses the number that received it. According to social policy experts, the unconditional social cash transfer programmes don’t target all poor households. They only target those that in addition to being extremely poor, also suffer from severe social and economic vulnerability. This, however, is open to interpretation.

The current third phase of the plan was supposed to cover household economic security, basic social services and child protection. The fact that there appears to be a growing child vendor problem in the country in 2020 shows the plan is not reaching everyone in need.

 

Child vendors exposed to risks

The legal working age in Zimbabwe is 16, but children as young as 10 and 12 years old are selling goods on the streets.

Children aren’t being adequately protected from child labour and the risks they face, including exploitation and abuse.

When children spend hours of their day in the streets or at the market, they lose a portion of their childhood that will never be regained. They miss out on education, play opportunities and other childhood activities. This has far-reaching effects on their development.

According to the International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth, the third phase of the National Action Plan for Orphans and Vulnerable Children seeks the involvement of families and the community in child protection.

But the governnment’s ability to drive the plan is severely compromised because it doesn’t have the capacity in the Ministry of Social Services. This is due to a massive exodus of Zimbabweans from the country as a result of the economic crisis. As a result, the plan is heavily reliant on external assistance and development partners.

 

Going forward

So far, the government’s response has been to reunite children found in the streets with their families. The reality is that without alternatives for these families to earn an income and to feed their families, children will go back on the streets.

In addition, it’s proving difficult to change the mindsets of Zimbabweans on the role of children in the society. Culturally, the involvement of children in the family economy is generally regarded as acceptable. Parents feel that it’s a way of training the children to become more responsible adults.

The government can prevent child vending through identifying families that are at risk of losing their livelihood. Social policy programmes need to be expanded to cover more people. This implies increasing the social protection budget to cater for growing numbers of families with children in need.

Policy makers and social service practitioners must consider adopting a bottom-up approach and work collaboratively with the affected and at-risk families. This can be done through participatory approaches such as workshops to hear from the community how best the issue of child labour can be tackled in this economy.

Dr Getrude Dadirai Gwenzi, Early Career Researcher in the Sociology of Child Welfare in Africa, Lingnan University

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

The post More Children in Zimbabwe Are Working to Survive: What’s Needed appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun tops a vote for the book award's 25th anniversary.

Children study in a Community Based Education class in Miirwais Meena, Kandahar province, Afghanistan. Credit: Fazel/UNICEF

By Guy Dinmore
LONDON, Nov 12 2020 (IPS)

As if four decades of war were not enough, then came the pandemic.

For each of the past five years, Afghanistan has been identified by the United Nations as the world’s deadliest country for children and, despite progress made in peace talks between the government and the Taliban, child and youth casualties from the ongoing conflict continue to mount in 2020.

Education itself has come under fire, with hundreds of attacks on schools and teachers. A 2018 joint report by the Afghanistan Ministry of Education and UNICEF, estimated that as many as 3.7 million children in Afghanistan were out of school, 60 per cent of them girls.

Against this backdrop, Education Cannot Wait (ECW) – the global fund launched at the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit to deliver quality education for vulnerable children and youth in countries affected by armed conflicts, forced displacement, climate-induced disasters and protracted crises – selected Afghanistan as one of the first countries to roll out a Multi-Year Resilience Programme (MYRP). The in-country Steering Committee formed to oversee implementation of the programme appointed management of the MYRP to UNICEF as a grantee.

Sarthak Pal, ECW project coordinator for UNICEF in Kabul, says Afghanistan’s MYRP was designed to focus on ‘out of school children’, by setting up community-based education (CBE) classes close to where they live. Classes are arranged mostly in private homes and sometimes in mosques for those who cannot make the long journey to the nearest school.

“Most of these out of school children live in remote, rural and hard to reach places,” Pal told IPS from Kabul. Pal explained that focusing on out of school children was a context-specific choice for Afghanistan, and may differ from MYRPs in other countries with their own unique contexts.

Children attend a Community Based Education class in Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. Credit: Frank Dejongh/UNICEF

The first year of the MYRP – with teaching starting in May 2019 – saw some 3,600 classes established in nine of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. This required newly recruited teachers, 46 per cent of whom are women, to teach 122,000 children. Nearly 60 per cent of the enrolled children are girls.

“When Education Cannot Wait came to Afghanistan in 2018 there were 3.7 million out of school children. These were the children and youth left furthest behind. Today, results from our multi-year resilience investment in Afghanistan are among the most promising in our global investment portfolio, especially for girls’ access to education now reaching the target of 60 percent of our investment. This shows how we can achieve education outcomes for the most marginalized children and youth in complex crisis settings by bringing together humanitarian and development actors under the leadership of the Ministry of Education. The children and youth of Afghanistan, the Afghan girls, deserve no less,” said the ECW Director, Yasmine Sherif.

One new pupil in the classes is Khalid*, an eight-year-old boy with a permanent foot disability, who was displaced by conflict from Afghanistan’s Kunar province to Nangarhar province. Previously deprived of education by war and poverty, Khalid now attends a CBE class with access to free education and books. His teacher praises his enthusiasm and creativity and says Khalid has gone from being illiterate to learning how to read, write and draw.

The closest school is 4 kilometres away from where Khalid lives, too far for him to go, but now he has a classroom just 300 metres from his home. Both Khalid’s life, and the life of his family, have been transformed.

Khalid’s nine-year-old sister Hosna is able to attend an all-girls government school close-by. “In the evening, Khalid and I study together at home and help each other in our lessons,” she says, expressing how astonished she was by Khalid’s rapid improvement and capabilities. “Khalid is so intellectually improved and motivated.”

Bringing education closer to home helps secure the backing of both the community and the shuras (school councils), and is particularly effective in addressing barriers to girls’ education, such as long distances, a lack of female teachers and safety concerns. The role of School Management Shuras, or councils, has been important in building a sense of community ownership, although there are barriers to girls’ participation remains in some provinces.

UNICEF-Afghanistan staff visit the supported Zanogra Community Based Education cluster to distribute new school bags and notebooks as the school year begins in Surkhrod district, Nangarhar province. Credit: Marko Kokic/UNICEF

ECW classes also reach children in camps set up for those displaced by conflict. Feizia Salahuddin quietly recounts in an IPS video how three of her siblings were killed. The 12-year-old girl also lost her mother. “We face so many hardships here,” she says. But then a smile appears when she describes going to ECW-supported CBE classes in Herat. “I love to study. It makes me happy,” she says.

An additional hammer blow to education this year came not from bombs or landmines but COVID-19. The government ordered all schools closed in March 2020, and CBE classes could only start reopening recently. Children affected by the impact of COVID-19 school closures now also faced increased vulnerability to recruitment by parties to the conflict, particularly boys. The crisis also exacerbated existing vulnerabilities of girls to child marriage and teenage pregnancy.

Dave Mariano, Head of Communications for Afghanistan for Save the Children International, an implementing partner for ECW, said the government had initially decided CBE classes could continue, but subsequently said teaching would have to continue via radio, television and internet, to which millions of children do not have access. Fortunately, classes eventually started to reopen with appropriate COVID-19 safety measures.

“The reopening of CBEs required a lot of coordination to ensure that necessary provisions were in place to safely reopen, such as the availability of PPE, sanitisers, and even general public awareness on how to mitigate COVID risks through basic hygiene and other practices,” Mariano told IPS.

Despite the challenges, UNICEF is already looking ahead to extend the MYRP, supported in this goal by the Ministry of Education and donors. Sweden is the largest in-country donor in Afghanistan, closely followed by Switzerland. However, UNICEF says the MYRP remains “grossly under-funded” with a 70 per cent funding gap across three years.

“We are advocating that three years of MYRP is not enough. The primary school cycle in Afghanistan is six years. We can’t leave the children half-way through. That is our main advocacy agenda now,” said Pal.

ECW has given priority in Afghanistan to improving education for girls with a focus on female teacher recruitment. This is being achieved in Herat, where 97 per cent of teachers are women and 83 per cent of students in accelerated learning classes are girls.

For girls like Feizia Salahuddin, this means a chance to start rebuilding lives shattered by conflict and displacement, giving a sense that through a classroom and her textbooks, she is once more part of a community.

“I get nervous when I get called to the blackboard, but my teachers and classmates support me,” Feizia says. “That is why I like them. They cooperate with me and teach me.”

*Names have been changed in accordance with child safeguarding and communications policies.

 

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The post Despite Conflict and COVID-19, Children Still Dream to Continue Their Education in Afghanistan appeared first on Inter Press Service.