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Their rivalry underpins a big divide in the nation, regarded as a beacon of West African democracy.

Those who died were believed to be being smuggled through the desert to reach the Mediterranean coast.

Markus Jooste dies one day after being ordered to pay a $25m fine for accounting fraud in South Africa.

President Museveni has denied speculation that he is grooming his son as his successor.

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Millions of children are suffering from malnutrition in Afghanistan. Credit: Learning Together

By External Source
KABUL, Mar 22 2024 (IPS)

Malnutrition in Afghanistan has reached an unprecedented level, according to United Nations humanitarian organizations. It is estimated that half of the country’s population grapples with severe hunger year-round, placing Afghanistan among the top ten nations globally with the highest rates of maternal and infant mortality due to malnutrition.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is experiencing a budget shortfall, and without additional funding support thousands of Afghan children may die from acute malnutrition, the organization sounded out in a recent tweet.

The World Food Programme (WFP) estimates that between May and October 2023, 15.5 million people faced severe food insecurity, with 2.8 million in emergency situations.

According to WFP, four million people, including 3.2 million children under five years are suffering from acute malnutrition in Afghanistan.

It largely stems from the worsening economic situation that has gripped the war-torn country within the last few years. Pregnant women do not have adequate access to proper nutrition both before and after birth, which cascades down to affect their infants.

The widespread hunger and malnutrition among the most vulnerable population groups in the country is also exacerbated by the rule of Taliban who returned to power in 2021.

The hard-line Islamists have banned women from engaging in salaried employment, which in turn has decreased the level of humanitarian assistance reaching women most in need.

For instance, Soheila, the mother of a malnourished child, gave a moving narrative of how the death of her husband has deepened poverty in the family. She became the sole breadwinner of the family, even though her earnings from working in a hairdressing salon could barely meet their needs, all of which dried up when the Taliban assumed power and she was no longer allowed to work.

Soheila and her two small children no longer have enough food and have resorted to begging in front of bakeries and around neighbours’ houses just to eat once a day.

Even though the Taliban Ministry of Health does not provide any statistics on the deaths of mothers and children due to malnutrition, international organizations and doctors working in the country provide a grim picture facing women and children in the country.

Last year, the United Nations Population Fund reported that Afghanistan is one of the countries with the highest maternal mortality rate in Asia and the Pacific, with 638 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births.

Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, recently raised concerns about the worsening situation of malnutrition in Afghanistan. According to him, a significant number of children and women in 25 of Afghanistan’s 36 provinces are suffering from malnutrition.

Dr. Hamidullah Ahmadi, physician at the nutrition department of Kabul Children’s Health Hospital, says that the number of malnourished patients has increased compared to previous years due to poverty and the economic crisis.

He added that dozens of malnourished children are registered every day, in serious need of medical attention. Some of them suffer from moderate to acute malnutrition with imminent risk of severe health complications and death.

Dr. Soraya (pseudonym), an official of the nutrition department at the Children’s Health Hospital in Kabul, says the number of malnourished patients attending the facility has increased threefold in the last year, far below the medicines and material they receive from international organizations to treat them.

Soraya requests that aid organizations and the World Food Program address the issue of famine and hunger among Afghan children as soon as possible to avoid the occurrence mass starvation of children.

Excerpt:

The author is an Afghanistan-based female journalist, trained with Finnish support before the Taliban take-over. Her identity is withheld for security reasons

Ethnic women in Bangladesh had to traverse a long hilly path to fetch water for their households, but now they can easily collect water from newly-revived springs after the village common forests conservation project. Credit: Rafiqul Islam/IPS

By Rafiqul Islam
RANGAMATI , Mar 22 2024 (IPS)

Just a few years ago, Sudarshana Chakma (35), a resident of the remote Digholchari Debarmatha village under Bilaichari upazila in the Rangamati Hill District, had to traverse a long hilly path to fetch water for her household because there were no local water sources.

“Unchecked deforestation and degradation of village common forests (VCFs) led to the drying up of all-natural water sources in our village. We struggled to collect drinking and household water,” Chakma explained to IPS. 

Ethnic communities in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) rely significantly on forests for their lives and livelihoods. They gather water from natural sources like streams and practice jhum (shifting cultivation) in nearby forests. However, indiscriminate deforestation of the natural resources had dried up springs and streams, causing water scarcity in many areas.

The tide turned when the USAID-funded Chittagong Hill Tracts Watershed Co-Management Activity (CHTWCA) engaged surrounding communities, including those living in Digholchari Debarmatha village, as conservation volunteers to protect Village Common Forests (VCFs) in 2020. This initiative successfully revived springs, ensuring a year-round water supply.

The Strengthening Inclusive Development in Chittagong Hill Tracts Project, which the Ministry of Chittagong Hill Tracts Affairs implemented, has transformed many lives, including Chakmas’.

“Now we can easily fetch water from nearby springs, bringing peace to our lives. Due to the arduous journey ethnic women had to make to fetch water, quarrels over who was going to fetch the water were common in the village and among families. Now, we live in harmony,” said Sudarshana, a mother of four.

Silica Chakma of Digholchari Hajachara village echoed her sentiments, highlighting the voluntary conservation efforts by ethnic communities to ensure an adequate water supply during the dry season.

“Before the restoration of our forests, we faced water scarcity. Now, we have no water crisis, as we collect water four to five times a day from the springs revived in the forests,” she said.

Silica emphasised that village common forests are conserved voluntarily, with strict regulations against harvesting forest resources without the approval of VCF management committees.

Barun Chakma, President of the Digholchari Debarmatha VCF Management Committee, emphasised the shift in mindset, stating that locals now protect the forests voluntarily, contrasting with past practices where trees were felled indiscriminately.

Enhancing Small Agriculture Sustainability

The CHT faces aggravated water crises during the dry season, impacting agriculture and homesteads.

To address this, local ethnic farmers in Digholchari Debarmatha have constructed bamboo-made dams on streams, creating water reservoirs fed by springs from the village common forest.

Pujikka Chakma, a 45-year-old female farmer, is grateful for the progress.

“After conserving the local forests, farmers do not face water scarcity for their agriculture and homesteads. We store spring water in the reservoir to irrigate cropland during the dry season.”

Thirty-seven-year-old Lika Chakma also acknowledged the benefits of the expanded use of spring water in agriculture, including cultivating various crops and ensuring food security for the community.

Conserving Medicinal Plants

In addition to addressing water security, ethnic communities in the Rangamati Hill District have been actively conserving medicinal plants for healthcare and treatments.

Lika Chakma explained, “We conserve medicinal plants in our local forests for use when we fall sick.”

Poitharam Chakma emphasised the importance of these efforts, given limited access to healthcare facilities in remote hilly areas. “Once our forests were degraded, we faced problems collecting medicinal plants. Now, we are conserving those in our forests.”

Barun Chakma provided details of the planting, a few years ago, of various medicinal plants, including Haritaki (myrobalan), Bohera (Terminalia bellirica), and Amloki (Indian gooseberry), in the Digholchari Debarmatha VCF. While acknowledging that it will take time for these plants to yield herbal medicines, he expressed confidence in the community’s ability to support health treatments in the future.

The conservation initiatives run by ethnic communities in Bangladesh address issues with water security, support agricultural sustainability, and protect priceless medicinal plants.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Staff from the Popular Arts Collective "La Changa" on the delivery of agro-ecological baskets on bike in southern Quito in 2020. Heifer supports this group with equipment. Credit: Isadora Romero for Heifer International

By Surita Sandosham
LITTLE ROCK, AR, Mar 22 2024 (IPS)

Shocking and ongoing levels of violence in Ecuador since the New Year followed by flooding caused by El Niño landed a double blow for those in the country who live day to day and are most vulnerable to instability.

Farming families and communities, already struggling to earn a living income, saw the entire food market disrupted. Escalating crime and violence made it more dangerous and challenging to get crops, fish and meat to market, while growing insecurity also dampened consumer demand. Reports reached us of women sleeping in their shops to protect their agri-food businesses while migration levels continued to climb.

Yet against the odds, many communities are keeping local food supplies moving thanks to ongoing collaboration with local development groups that has strengthened their resilience to shocks, offering a blueprint for cost-effective, community-led economic development elsewhere.

Many rural communities in Ecuador were able to adapt to the effects of recent events with the support of organizations on the ground, including Heifer Ecuador, the Global FoodBanking Network and others. Grassroots efforts to minimize the impact of such crises have reduced the scale of losses and the cost of rebuilding as well as the imperative to migrate, making long-term resilience a strategic investment for the humanitarian and development sectors.

This picture of hope in Ecuador should inspire the international community to invest more funding and resources into strengthening local and rural economies in Latin America and around the world so that similar shocks do not set back development gains elsewhere.

Core to building long-term resilience is learning and applying lessons from previous shocks or stressors.

For example, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, farmers in Ecuador united to pool their produce at dedicated and sanitized collection centers and create food baskets for home delivery, targeting low-income families. Meanwhile, communities established open-air marketplaces with the help of the Heifer Ecuador team to provide farmers with a safe place to sell their produce during periods of restricted movement. This meant farming families could continue to make a living, while also supporting local food security.

Clemente Cáceres shows a crab collected. Fishermen are permitted to harvest only male crabs that reach the pre-established size. Those who do not comply with this regulation will be sanctioned.

Today, farmers are applying the same flexibility and creativity to keep food markets functioning despite criminal gangs controlling key roads and ports. This includes adapting schedules to get key commodities like coffee and cocoa to ports safely.

A second element of long-term resilience is anticipating and preparing for shocks as much as possible.

The 1997-98 El Niño brought extreme rainfall to Ecuador, resulting in agricultural losses of more than $300 million by February 1998 alone. But this year, ahead of a forecasted El Niño, Heifer Ecuador worked with partners to carry out an innovative study of the areas at most risk to help take preventative measures to reduce agricultural losses and damage.

The data analyzed the potential threat to 500,000 farmers and producers in the provinces of El Oro, Esmeraldas, Manabí, Santa Elena and Guayas, and recommended measures such as reinforced flood walls and barriers, improved soil drainage, and storage and processing for crops harvested early.

The result was that communities were better prepared this time with more information about what to expect. Some simple but key prevention actions were implemented to protect food collection centers’ post-harvest equipment, among others, minimizing the impact on food systems and local economies.

One such preventative action in El Oro province involved the co-financing of a canopy for a farmer-run association to cover and protect harvested cacao as it dried — an intervention that helped prevent the product from getting wet and losing its quality during the winter season. Similarly, in Santa Elena, Heifer Ecuador and local partners reinforced the soil around a meat processing center, channeling rainwater away from the center’s perimeter to reduce the risk of flooding and prevent the deterioration of the site’s infrastructure.

With more empowered, resilient communities, humanitarian aid can therefore be better allocated for moments of unprecedented, urgent need.

In the meantime, vulnerabilities that exacerbate the impact of shocks — like the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Ecuador in 2016, which killed hundreds and displaced thousands more — must be addressed through long-term disaster risk reduction, including improvements to infrastructure and early warning systems.

The effectiveness of responding to shocks like the recent violent conflict and climate extremes depends as much on the decisions taken in preceding years as it does those taken in the moment. And with climate extremes becoming increasingly frequent, investing in long-term resilience is even more critical.

By investing in local teams and working to strengthen the resilience of rural and agricultural communities at the bottom of the pyramid, the whole fabric of society is stronger and more stable as a result. This has benefitted Ecuador when it most needed it, and by replicating this model elsewhere, it can help protect the most vulnerable around the world.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

Surita Sandosham is President and CEO of Heifer International

By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Mar 22 2024 (IPS)

The devastation of Ukraine and Gaza might seem to be beyond belief. Let us thus turn to fairy tales to find descriptions of the stony indifference of warlords.

Since ancient times lies the cottage of the mighty witch Baba Yaga close to the heart of Russia’s vast forests. It is no gingerbread house built to attract hungry children lost in the woods, although its owner more often than not has a ravenous hunger for human flesh. On the contrary, her lodge seems to have a will of its own, appearing to fence off people, rather than attracting them. Its surrounding palisade is made of human bones, which fence poles are adorned with skulls. One sharpened pole is empty, in anticipation of becoming adorned with an unfortunate visitor’s skull. Baba Yaga attaches it to her fence after feasting on the roasted body of her victim and gnawing its skull clean from flesh.

Baba Yaga

Baba Yaga broods on a great wealth and she is the ruler of all forest beings. Predators and birds are governed by her, as well as wayward cattle and coveted wild horses. It has been said that Baba Yaga is the mother of all mankind, that she is identical to Mother Earth. That she can transform herself into a cloud, that even the sun and the moon are governed by her, in addition to draught and tempests. Her abode stands close to the gates of Hell; maybe she is Death. In any case, demons and dragons obey her.

Her house rests on chicken legs. From whatever direction you approach it, the cottage turns its front towards you. To enter you have to command the moving house: “Little house, little cottage, set your face towards me and your butt against the forest”, then it bends forward like a chicken picking up a grain and the front door opens. Entering the untidy kitchen, it is difficult to discern the old crone. Either she is curled up like a cat on the slab above her oven, or she has extended her gawky body along one of the hut’s walls. The visitor may mistake her for a log, gnarled and craggy as she is. Sooner or later the witch’s scratchy, dry voice can be heard as she angrily sputters something about russkim dukhom “stench of a Russian”. With her pointed nose she sniffs up into the stale air, lifts her head, looks around until she drills the sharp stare of her luminous red, eyes deep into her visitor.

Baba Yaga is possibly not bad to the bone, not entirely evil, rather injured or poisoned by too much power. She might reluctantly develop a liking to a visitor and declines to slay him/her and instead put her reckless visitor to difficult tests to ascertain that s/he may be worthy of her trust. Her house is mined territory – each thought, every step must be carefully calculated. You must be respectful and let the witch speak before you say anything. Powerful creatures hate being contradicted, taught or admonished. Reply if asked, but watch your words. Witches can sniff out a mistake and hurl themselves on it as if they were starving wolves.

You cannot escape Baba Yaga. If you rush out of the door, she throws herself on top of a huge wooden mortar, using it to pursue her intended victim, rushing forward like a blizzard, punting her vehicle with a pestle, while she uses a broom to sweep away her tracks. Finally, the pursued victim cannot keep up the speed, staggers and falls to the ground. The witch leans over her prey and opens her huge mouth, which can be extended from earth to heaven. It is Hell opening up to devour the hapless loser, obliterating all traces of her/him.

Koščéj the Deathless

Baba Yaga has many servants, vilest of them all is Koščéj the Deathless. He may be Baba Yaga´s male manifestation, though Koščéj appears to have a life of his own. Koščéj is a powerful Tsar, with a vast kingdom of his own and an almost invincible army. It might be Hell he rules over, the name Koščéj sounds much like the old Slavic name for the place – Koshchnoye. Koščéj does not die, but he’s aging. Far back in time Koščéj found that he could separate his body from his soul. At that time, Koščéj was a handsome warrior who wanted to hide his soul so he could remain undefeated in every battle. No one dies if body and soul go on living, each on their own. However, the price was high. He now looks like a cadaver. Koščéj can through magical tricks hide his true appearance by perverting the perception of his victims. Using power and wealth he flatters and pampers his minions and if assured he is admired, or even loved, Koščéj believes the lie. Legends may offer scenes where a captured maiden allows the old monster to rest his head in her lap, while she quietly sings and asks him questions, untangling his matted hair. Koščéj becomes dazzled by what he perceives as his own excellence, a weak spot that eventually might cause his annihilation.

Koščéjs body can only be damaged by age and killed if someone finds his soul – his vulnerable humanity – and crushes it. It was by denying and hiding what he assumed to be his fragility – love and compassion – that Koščéj succeeded in transforming himself into a powerful and invulnerable being. However, that does not impede his constant search for love, a feeling that nevertheless is unavailable for a soulless man. Koščéj can neither give, nor receive love, possibly admiration, but such an emotion is based on fear, mixed with submissiveness. As a powerful being Koščéj does not hesitate to exploit his minions, among other things, he forces them to create armies and feed the evil demons that serve him like docile doves.

Maybe due to his advanced age Koščéj constantly has to prove his vigour and does every morning ride out for an exhaustive hunt in his forests. His steeds are wild and famous, some of them have three or seven legs and they can all speak. Koščéj is a bon vivant constantly on the look-out for exclusive conveniences, among other things he has a fur-lined mantle, which is warm in winter and cool in summer. His age sometimes takes its toll and he may become so tired that a servant is forced to stand behind his throne and occasionally lift up his heavy eyelids. It happens that Koščéj´s melancholy engulfs his entire court; the demons and people surrounding him then run the risk of being turned into stone and can only be awakened by the sound of a gusli, a kind of zither. In all his authoritarianism Koščéj is a lonely, insecure and thus dangerous beast.

If anyone would find Koščéj´s soul and unravel him in all his human nakedness and vulnerability, he instantly loses all his powers. Accordingly, he has made his soul inaccessible. He has impaled it on the top of a needle, placed inside an egg. This contraption is encased by an iron coffin, over which a mighty oak has grown. Koščéj’s immortality has made the oak old and strong and it encloses the coffin with its tenacious roots.

Like any kind of power, Koščéj´s strength is maintained through confirmation. The old demon has committed all imaginable sins and crimes, but his final error will be to succumb to vanity. As the Devil himself has noted: “Vanity is my favourite sin, through vanity I can manipulate anyone.”

Stories about Koščéj are an integral part of Russian lore. Aleksandr Afanasiev (1826-1871) was Russia’s greatest collector and publisher of folktales. He worked as a librarian at the Imperial Archives in Moscow and thus came in contact with folk tales. Afanasiev published a collection of more than 600 Russian folktales and proceeded to write an analysis of them, Slavs’ Poetic View of Nature, published in three volumes, each with more than 700 pages. He did not hesitate to publish stories that irritated Russia’s rulers. When the powerful Vasily Drozdov, Metropolitan of the Moscow Patriarchate, attacked Afanasiev for his publication of “obscene stories”, the librarian answered him back in a newspaper article and thus brought upon himself the unbridled hatred of Church and State. Afanasiev wrote: “There is a million times more morality, truth, and human love in my folk legends than in the sanctimonious sermons delivered by Your Holiness.”

Afanasiev could not refrain from keeping contact with his good friend, the renowned freethinker and exiled Russian, Alexander Herzen, and while visiting him in London he presented him with his collection of fairy tales. The dreaded Ohkranan, “Division of Patronage of Public Safety and Order”, found out where and when the visit had taken place. After Afanasiev´s return from his trip the Ohkranan turned his apartment upside down, until they found a manuscript with Russkie zavetnye shazki, Russian Secret Folk Tales. Afanasiev was immediately removed from his post, blacklisted and unable to find a new employment. To get money for food for himself and his family the degraded librarian sold his extensive library. He lived out his last days like a poor wretch, got tuberculosis and died destitute, only 45 years old. Ivan Turgenev wrote to a friend: “Afanasiev died recently, from hunger, but his literary merits will, my dear friend, be remembered long after both yours and mine are covered by the dark of oblivion.”

Afanasiev was far from being the only victim of ruthless Russian rulers and many great authors and philosophers have been inspired by his tales about Baba Yaga and Koščéj, while trying to tell the truth about cruel dictators. Stalin did not want to be connected with demonic doppelgängers from Russian folklore. The great poet Osip Mandelstam’s poem about the Kremlin Mountaineer might be connected with the fearsome Koščéj, the demon without a soul who reigns over a realm of death filled with smirking sycophants, who suddenly may be ossified by the demon’s remarks or bad moods.

Mandelstam was in November 1933 reading his Stalin Epigram to a select group. One of the listeners wrote down the poem and brought it to OGPU, the secret police.

Our lives no longer feel ground under them.
At ten paces you can’t hear our words.
But whenever there’s a snatch of talk
it reaches the Kremlin mountaineer.
Ten thick worms are his fingers,
his words like measures of weight,
laughing cockroaches rest above his lips,
his boot-rims glitter.

Ringed with a scum of chicken-necked bosses
he toys with the tributes of half-men.
One whistles, another meows, a third snivels.
He pokes out his finger and he alone is talking.
He forges decrees like horseshoes, throwing
one for the groin, one for the forehead, temple, eye.
He rolls executions on his tongue like berries.
He wishes he could hug them like great friends from home.

The sick and weak Mandelstam, broken by merciless interrogations, was finally sentenced to five years in correction camps. On 27th of December 1938 he died in a transit camp, just before his 48th birthday. On the 16th of February 2024, the 48 years old Russian opposition leader, lawyer, anti-corruption activist, and political prisoner Alexei Navalny died at the Yamalo-Nenets prison in Western Siberia.

Throughout history, power has in Russia been linked to make-believe and fairytale. Russian Tsars assumed superhuman, heroic attributes. Myth and ceremonies turned them into distant and mysterious sovereigns, elevated above human comprehension and Stalin followed suit. In spite of killing his enemies and jailing opponents, Vladimir Putin continues to be venerated as if he was an incarnation of the Tsars and Stalin. On 17 March he claimed a landslide victory in Russia’s presidential election, winning 87 percent of the votes in what other nations called a “pseudo-election”.

Main source: Russian Magic Tales from Pushkin to Platonov. London: Penguin Classics.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Growing Hope Across Borders: The Great Green Wall, Africa's Epic Response to Global Challenges led by Senegalese Women. Credit: Makewaves – UNCCD
 
“Women hold a vital stake in the health of the land. Their hands have shaped and nurtured life on our planet. Yet, their contribution to the health of the land is often uncompensated, and they commonly lack access to and control over the very land they cultivate” --Tarja Halonen, former President, Finland (2000-2012), Member of the Council of Women World Leaders and United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) Land Ambassador.

By Shihana Mohamed
NEW YORK, Mar 22 2024 (IPS)

At the opening of the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) on March 11, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said, “Your gathering this year is focused on how tackling poverty and strengthening institutions and financing with a gender perspective are critical to accelerate gender equality. The reason is simple: globally, poverty has a female face. Women have less access to land, natural resources and financial assets. They suffer the impacts of climate change more than men. And they are more likely to be food insecure. Many women and girls are also facing a war on their fundamental rights at home and in their communities.”

Today one in every 10 women in the world lives in extreme poverty. Among the 690 million people who are food insecure in the world right now, 60 percent are women and girls. The UN report on “Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The gender snapshot 2023” highlights poverty and lack of economic opportunities as one of the major challenges remaining for global gender equality. Over 340 million women and girls may still live in extreme poverty by 2030.

Land is an important asset for reducing poverty and boosting shared prosperity at the country, community, and family levels. Thus, the significance of women’s land rights is recognized as a catalyst to ending poverty (Goal 1); seeking to achieve food security and improved nutrition (Goal 2); and achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment (Goal 5) by the global goals set by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Women’s equal rights to land and property are grounded in core human rights instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As established by international standards, women have the right to equality in the enjoyment of all their rights, including the right to access, use, inherit, control, and own land.

Women own less than 20% of the world’s land while half of the world’s population is women,. Women do not have equal ownership rights to property in 15 countries and customs inhibit women’s access to land in 90 countries. Approximately 100 million women live in countries where they can’t own, inherit, or manage land. Nearly half of the global agricultural workforce is female but less than one in five landholders worldwide are women.

For women who are living in poverty, land is not just property; it is their home, survival and income and a chance to feed, clothe, house, and educate their children. When women farmers have access to their own land, they grow more and so do their communities and countries. Hence, strengthening women’s land and property rights increases food security and reduces malnourishment. If more women owned land, more people might be fed.

Throughout history, land has been a primary source of wealth, social status, and power. Owning land is a powerful pathway for women towards improving social and economic stability, increasing autonomy from their husbands/partners and other relatives, and fostering dignity and improved wellbeing. Ownership of land and property empowers women, providing income and security.

Without resources like land, women have limited say in household decision-making and no recourse during emergencies and crises. Land is also a source of fostering self-reliance for women as secure land rights provide women with an asset base that can be used to obtain credit for business investments and home mortgages, avoiding risky loans with higher interest rates and debts.

At the Global Land Forum in Jordan on May 24, 2022, Sima Bouse, Executive Director of UN Women, the agency promoting gender equality and women’s rights, said, “We must address the barriers to women’s land rights across the life cycle. Young, working age, and older women face particular discrimination. Laws alone are not enough to solve this. Deeply rooted traditional and social norms strongly affect women’s access to and ownership of land and property, including being denied rightful inheritance.”

Much of the land in Africa is still under customary tenure agreements, in which men are considered the owners and custodians of land while much of the contributions made in terms of labour, and knowledge comes from women. All countries in the Middle East and North Africa, and most countries in South Asia (i.e. Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal and Maldives) do not provide for equal inheritance rights for sons and daughters.

In Bangladesh, strict religion-based personal laws prevent women from owning land and property. Women who are single, divorced, or household heads are deprived of inheritance property, and in addition, there is a strong tendency for households not to put women’s names on the land deed. In India, land ownership is highly skewed in favour of men, with women constituting barely 14 per cent of all landowners.

With 73 percent of women in the agriculture sector, Nepal managed to increase the number of female landowners in the country through discounts on land registration fees for women and joint land registration fees for husbands and wives. However, their husbands make the major property decisions due to cultural norms.

In Sri Lanka, only 16% of all privately owned land belongs to women despite constitutional provisions that are non-discriminatory regarding land ownership. It is because there is no uniform law governing women’s land rights as the complex legal framework of Sri Lanka is a mix of Roman-Dutch civil law, English common law, and customary laws based on region, ethnicity, and religion (Kandyan, Thesawalamai, and Muslim laws).

In order for women to be able to enjoy their land rights in practice, countries must eliminate those laws which impose barriers to women’s land rights in more than half the world. However, eliminating legal barriers is only a starting point towards guaranteeing women’s land rights.

Even when women have legal rights to land, social norms and patriarchal attitudes embedded in many cultures and societies supported by customary practices and inequitable gender norms often limit their ability to own, access, inherit, control and dispose land. In some countries, women face opposition from within their own families, including from men and women, when exercising their land rights.

Nearly 30 years ago, in 1990s, I became a landowner for the first time in Sri Lanka when my father transferred his share of the land that he co-owned with my mother. At that time, I was not aware of the status of land ownership by women in Sri Lanka or the significance of my father’s decision. Looking back, I now realize that I was exceptionally fortunate to have a father with a progressive mindset who immensely empowered me from my childhood.

The gender gap in land ownership can only be closed by changing the mindsets of men and women in our families and communities. While it is important to educate women about their own rights, men must be an essential part of this change process. It begins with recognizing the inherent and incalculable value of a woman and her limitless contribution to her family, children, community, country, and the overall growth of humankind.

This change starts from our homes.

Our grandfathers, fathers, uncles, brothers, and sons have bigger roles to play in reversing the gender gap in land ownership rights. We also need the support and solidarity of our grandmothers, mothers, aunts, sisters, daughters, and friends to fully enjoy women’s right to land ownership as equally as any man.

Together we must inspire inclusion and break down traditional, social, cultural and gender barriers to women’s land rights.

Shihana Mohamed, a Sri Lankan national, is one of the Coordinators of the United Nations Asia Network for Diversity and Inclusion (UN-ANDI) and a Public Voices Fellow with The OpEd Project and Equality Now on Advancing the Rights of Women and Girls. She is an international gender expert and has been contributing to the cause of gender equality and advancement of women for over 20 years.
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IPS UN Bureau

 

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Federal prosecutors accuse Rwandan-born Eric Nshimiye of concealing his involvement in mass murder.

A selection of the best photos from across the African continent this week.

A selection of the best photos from across the African continent this week.

A selection of the best photos from across the African continent this week.

Credit: UNDP

By Ayodele Odusola
HARARE, Zimbabwe, Mar 21 2024 (IPS)

This year’s UNDP Global Human Development Report (HDR) marks a dramatic shift away from the cautious optimism espoused in the HDR just four years ago: despite reaching a new high, the Global Human Development Index now evolves meaningfully below the 2019 trend – threatening to make global development losses permanent.

Perhaps for citizens of many countries, it is easy to see why this would be the case. In our relentlessly interconnected world, citizens bear witness to dangerous geopolitical quagmires; unpredictable climate shocks threaten everyday livelihoods; and the world still struggles with the human consequences of insecurity and inequality in nearly every form.

It is because of these inequalities – at least – that every Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) country has rebounded to recover to its pre-2019 Human Development Index trend – yet only about half of the world’s Least Developed Countries have done so.

That is, while wealthier countries recover, much of rest of the world has lost – and remains below – the encouraging trajectory countries had once experienced before 2019.

Can I surprise the reader by saying not all is doom and gloom?

Twenty five (25) of the African countries recovered to their pre-COVID-19 trend.[1]

Further, for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, the Human Development Index for Zimbabwe rose from 0.549 in 2021 to 0.550 in 2022 (the closer this number stands to 1.0, the higher the level of human capability and individual choice). This result puts Zimbabwe in Medium Human Development category.

Still, although Zimbabwe increased in HDI value – and was ranked 159 out of 193 countries – its ranking dropped by 13 points between 2021 and 2022, implying that 13 countries (including Angola, Cameroon, Comoros, Kenya, Solomon Islands, and Zambia) outperformed Zimbabwe in improving their levels of human capability in 2022.

This notwithstanding, Zimbabwe is ranked 22nd in Africa, along with Uganda. It is also one of the best 10 countries in Africa on mean years of schooling – and one of the best 15 in Gender Development Index with a value of 0.936 out of 1.0.

To build on successes and even further advance Zimbabwe’s development, there remains quite a lot we can do.

The United Nations Development Programme, (UNDP) in partnership with the Government of Zimbabwe, is making significant strides towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for Zimbabwe, with real successes in areas of food security (SDG2), health and wellbeing (SDG3), access to energy (SDG7), and building resilience (a cross-cutting issue) across the SDGs.

Towards eliminating hunger, UNDP and the Government of Zimbabwe have supported over 40,000 farmers in southern Zimbabwe with climate-smart crop varieties, producing nutritious produce resistant to climate stress.

These efforts have produced yields as high as 74% beyond traditional harvest levels, supported by new climate-change informed infrastructure, such as automatic weather stations, rain gauges, hydro stations, and irrigation facilities – with over 1.1 million beneficiaries.

This partnership has also established 230 Farmer Field Schools to establish peer-to-peer learning between smallholder farmers.

Further, an ongoing partnership has ensured that 98% of Zimbabwe’s 1.3 million people living with HIV are currently on Anti-Retroviral Therapy, while 1,044 health facilities have now installed solar power, including 447 solarized boreholes to supply safe water. In terms of staffing, 25,000 critical health workers are now on paid retention to provide support, along with 6,606 village health workers.

Additional government partnerships led to the installation of a 152 kilowatt solar minigrid system with lithium battery storage in Binge and Chipinge, as well as 150 biogas digesters to facilitate safer, environmentally-friendly cooking. Existing boreholes are now equipped with solar pumps and improved water storage, while 100 vulnerable households now have solar household lighting.

Programmes to build resilience in Zimbabwean communities trained thousands of people on new vocational skills, provided affordable financial services to smallholders, and supported livestock management to over 85,000 farmers – investing dramatically to improve the quality of life with the support of our development partners.

These achievements are all thanks to the partnership and collaboration among the Ministry of Health and Child Care, the Global Fund, and UNDP Zimbabwe, as well as strategic collaboration with the European Union, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), and the governments of Sweden and Denmark.

While these efforts constitute solid progress, of course more must be done.

One major challenge that development partners must confront is the “chilling effect” the debt arrears – and other economic conditions – have had on Foreign Direct Investments. I want to commend the 2024 Budget of the Government of Zimbabwe that committed $55 million to deal with issues relating to the Global Compensation Deed and Bilateral Investment Protection and Promotion Agreements.

Committed implementation of the budgetary provision and improved governance across all levels of government are all key to accelerating progress on clearing debt arrears.

While UNDP and its Government partners have cooperated in a Structured Dialogue Platform to decrease debt and increase Zimbabwe’s fiscal health, more must be done by creditors to clear Zimbabwe of these external debt arrears. Rolling back the arrears, placing the country towards a financially healthy condition, would signify the kind of risk reduction that appeals to private investment.

To this end, the Government alone cannot achieve the SDGs. Instead, a whole-of-society approach is central to their achievement. The private sector must be aggressively engaged to profitably invest in Zimbabwe’s development, offering sustainable opportunities to build upon the above achievements, scaling up the kinds of successes that dramatically advance achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Towards providing all stakeholders – including the general public – with valuable services and constructive information, Zimbabwe’s CSOs and media houses have a valuable role to play, as well.

Too many opportunities for progress exist to be disheartened. As always, we have solutions as well as problems – and our own dedication, hard work, and ingenuity remain key to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

Dr. Ayodele Odusola is UNDP Zimbabwe Resident Representative.

[1] These are Algeria, Botswana, Comoros, Cote d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Congo (Democratic Republic), Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Morocco, Nigeria, Niger, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Togo, and Uganda

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Credit: Students in Nepal's Chitlang. Both Nomads/Forus

By Marie L'Hostis and Bibbi Abruzzini
NEW YORK, Mar 21 2024 (IPS)

At the half-way point of the 2030 Agenda, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) “are in deep trouble.” The need to accelerate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals has never been more urgent as only approximately 12% of targets are currently on track. “Planet” is equally at risk as “people”.

As civil society leader Mavalow Christelle Kalhoule, Forus Chair and President of SPONG, the Burkina Faso NGO network, puts it, “What unfolds in the Sahel and in so many other forgotten communities ripples across the globe, impacting us all even if we choose to look away. Implementing the Sustainable Development Goals is vital to unlock a different future.”

The new “Progressing National SDGs Implementation” report looks at how countries around the world are advancing in their efforts towards sustainable development. The 2023 edition of the report is particularly significant as it marks the midpoint towards the 2030 Agenda’s goals, and the “world is not delivering”.

The report, which has been published since 2017, looks at crucial aspects such as governance, civil society involvement and space, localization, the importance of policy coherence, and the principle of Leaving No One Behind.

To compile the analysis, the report combines official Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs) submitted by member states with spotlight and alternative assessments, which aim to offer a more complete picture of national progress, particularly with respect to the fundamental 2030 Agenda principle to leave no one behind.

The report highlights that while more countries are engaging in ‘whole of government’ planning to implement the SDGs, at the same time many of the same countries do not ensure a wider ‘whole of society’ approach that involves civil society partners in delivery of the 2030 Agenda.

The report calls for a renewed global commitment to the SDGs, with a focus on:

• Increased ambition: Countries need to adopt more ambitious plans to achieve the SDGs and ensure policy coherence.
• Leaving no one behind: Data collection and policy focus must ensure that everyone benefits from SDG progress pacitularly by considering the extra challenges faced in reaching historically marginalized groups.
• Stronger partnerships: Governments, civil society, and the private sector need to work together more effectively.
• Improved monitoring: More robust data, national statistical and monitoring systems are needed to track progress and identify areas lagging behind.

Oli Henman from Action for Sustainable Development said: “We need to ensure that SDG reviews are genuinely inclusive of all parts of society and that national plans are backed up with real steps towards financing implementation at the community level. This to the only way that the world can get back on track to deliver the transformative change that was promised in 2015.”

Wangu Mwangi, a seasoned environmental journalist and expert in sustainable development, has authored the Progressing National SDG Implementation Report 2023, drawing on her extensive experience in sustainable development, land governance, natural resources management, climate change adaptation, and African development.

This report was coordinated by A4SD, in collaboration with ANND, BOND, Cooperation Canada, CPDE, Forus, IISD, Save The Children UK, and Sightsavers.

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Dabaa nuclear project promises energy stability to Egypt. Credit: ROSATOM

By Hisham Allam
CAIRO, Mar 21 2024 (IPS)

Egypt’s economy continues to face significant challenges, but amidst these, the Dabaa Nuclear Power Plant project emerges as a beacon of hope.

This ambitious collaboration with Russia signifies a potential game-changer, promising to invigorate the nation’s energy landscape and bring about economic upliftment. Despite the international sanctions imposed on Russia, the project marches forward undeterred, promising stability, progress, and much-needed energy security for Egypt’s future. 

Egypt’s economy is currently navigating through a period of significant challenges. The country is grappling with a high inflation rate, which stood at 29.8% in January 2024. Economic growth has declined to 4.2% during FY23 (July 2022–June 2023) from 6.6% a year earlier. Despite these hurdles, the Egyptian authorities have been undertaking a series of policy adjustments and structural reforms. These measures, coupled with the anticipated recovery of real GDP growth to 4.7% in FY 2024/2025, signal potential improvements over the medium term.

Dr. Sameh Noman, a professor of engineering and renewable energy expert, explained that the project, which is 85% financed by Russia, marks a significant progression in Egypt’s energy sector. Egypt, he added, bears the remaining cost and the project is being implemented in stages.

Noman pointed out that the agreement stipulates that at least 20 percent of the secondary components of the station will be Egyptian products, a percentage that increases to approximately 70 percent upon completion. He emphasized the importance of the partnership between Egypt and Russia in producing non-primary and essential components for the station, which constitute 70 to 75% of the station’s total components. This collaboration, he noted, enables a gradual transfer of technology and expertise to Egyptian industries.

According to Noman, the payment of funds will commence after the operation of the station and the start of electricity production. He reassured that the project will not be a burden on Egypt’s economy, as this step was agreed upon in 2015, and Egypt will only bear a very small part of the cost during the construction stages.

The Dabaa plant, as Noman described it to IPS, is a single station with four reactors, each producing 1.2 megawatts, meaning that the total output from the station is 4.8 megawatts. He underscored the advantage of the plant in that the cost of producing the kilowatt is very close to the cost of producing its counterpart from renewable energy.

Nestled along the picturesque Mediterranean coast, the Dabaa plant comprises four state-of-the-art pressurized water reactors, each boasting a capacity of 1,200 megawatts. With a combined capacity of 4,800 megawatts, this ambitious initiative is poised to significantly bolster Egypt’s energy grid, meeting the growing demands of its population.

Noman said emissions from the plant are close to about 14 grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt. When comparing this with gas power stations, he noted that the latter produces 500 grams of carbon dioxide emissions per kilowatt, while wind power produces 12 grams of carbon per kilowatt.

Noman assured that the international sanctions imposed on Russia would not be an obstacle to completing the project, especially since Russia is considered a major player in nuclear energy production and the construction and operation of stations. He stated that a large part of the project has already been implemented, and we are currently in the stage of pouring concrete for the fourth transformer.

Dr. Karim El-Adham, the former head of the Nuclear Safety Authority, highlighted that Egypt is the first country in Africa to build a “VVER-1200” nuclear reactor, a model known for its nuclear safety rates and electricity production. The Dabaa station, located in Matrouh Governorate on the Mediterranean Sea coast, had undergone numerous studies over more than thirty years, ensuring its compliance with all safety conditions and nuclear safety standards set by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

El-Adham emphasized the project’s economic feasibility and its role in fostering state growth and sustainability alongside renewable energy sources. He also addressed the environmental impact of the project, revealing that the emissions from the plant are close to about 14 grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt, significantly lower than gas power stations.

He reassured that the international sanctions imposed on Russia would not be an obstacle to completing the project, especially since Russia is the first country globally in nuclear energy production and the construction and operation of stations. A large part of the project has already been implemented, and we are currently in the stage of pouring concrete for the fourth transformer.

El-Adham also noted that upon completion, the plant is estimated to inject over 35 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually at a competitive cost while simultaneously creating job opportunities for Egyptians. This, he believes, is a testament to the potential of the Dabaa Nuclear Power Plant project.

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Women's land rights formed part of the discussions of the 68th session on the Commission for the Status of Women. Credit: Naureen Hossain/IPS

By Naureen Hossain
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 21 2024 (IPS)

In the developing world, land rights for women remain tenuous in the agricultural sector. But if women farmers are recognized as landowners in their own right, it can lead to greater economic empowerment and be a positive step towards eradicating poverty.

This formed part of the wider discussions that are being hosted during the 68th session of the Commission for the Status of Women (CSW68) in New York. The leading theme of CSW68 and its side events is the effort to accelerate gender equality by addressing poverty and strengthening institutions.

In the context of the agricultural sector, what this would entail was the subject of its own side event, hosted in New York on March 14.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Government of Canada convened the discussion “Harvesting Empowerment: Women’s Resource Rights to Advance Gender Equality, Poverty Alleviation, and Food Security in Agriculture” to discuss a transformative agenda for ensuring women’s rights over land in rural areas. The event showcased efforts made by IFAD and its partners to enact what they call a transformative gender approach to empowering women and local communities at large to access their rights to land and resources. 

In rural areas, women play a key role in the management of their households and their farmland. However, it remains rare for women to be legally recognized as landowners. IFAD Lead Technical Specialist for Gender, Targeting, and Social Inclusion, Ndaya Beltchika, said as she opened the event that collective action and cooperation are needed in order to ensure resource rights for women, particularly in rural areas. “Empowering women transforms livelihoods and the agricultural landscape,” she said.

Since 2021, IFAD, in partnership with the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), has launched a global initiative to integrate a gender transformative approach in developing interventions to promote resource rights for women, such as through policies, tools, and practices. It has been implemented in six countries where IFAD is currently delivering interventions, such as Kyrgyzstan, Uganda, and Bangladesh. It involved conducting a gender analysis of the barriers that prevent gender equality in rural communities, as well as identifying the needs and priorities of the participating communities. While the analytical framework is the same, the recommendations are context-specific and differ across each country due to socioeconomic, cultural, and political factors.

“How can we take that gender analysis and apply it locally?” said Elisabeth Garner, Scientist and Gender Equity and Social Inclusion Lead, CIFOR. According to Garner, this strategy has made it possible for locals to motivate responses and elevate community needs. This has included IFAD and its partners providing additional training on human or legal rights for poorer communities. In Bangladesh, for instance, through this framework, it has allowed them to work with marginalized communities to empower them and strengthen their climate change responses.

Citizen-driven efforts for visibility and data can make a difference For marginalized communities, including women, grassroots efforts raise awareness at the local and national level. Esther Mwaura-Muiru, the Global Advocacy Director for the Stand for Her Land campaign, added that “all too often, it is up to civil society to knock at the doors” of government institutions. She cited Kenya as an example, where 80 percent of farmers are women. Through grassroots and community-led efforts, the Kenyan government was able to collect data on the number of women who reported owning land. This had the effect of tracking data on the crops and seeds that these farmers grew. Though Mwaura-Muiru said that in order to reduce the exclusion of women, there had to be multiple ways to show proof of ownership.

“Land is pre-conditional to gender equality and sustainable development,” she said.

While a transformative gender approach is possible to address poverty and strengthen financial access for poor communities, this alone will not be enough. Making structural changes can also require societal acceptance. According to Moni Rowshan, Deputy Executive Director of the Association of Land Reform and Development (ALRD) Bangladesh, ensuring total rights to land and resources for women will require a change in society’s mindset. The contributions of women are not always recognized as farming, even by women themselves. As Rowshan told IPS, when they do not recognize their work in the homestead as farming, there is a tendency to minimize their effort or credit themselves as supporting their male relatives who run the farms.

If more women own land, then men may have less. The structural shift this could cause is likely to be met with resistance due to underlying sociocultural discrimination against women’s involvement in the agricultural sector and, by extension, women’s rights. This mindset can both reinforce and be influenced by laws that recognize land rights for men, but not for women.

However, this does a disservice to the women who are at the “frontier of food supply” for their families, the nation, and the rest of the world. Rowshan also added that, compared to their male counterparts, women farmers do not typically have access to modern tools to till and harvest crops, and have to work with fewer resources and use older, indigenous techniques. While the government should take measures to implement and enforce laws that recognize women’s land rights, society must also recognize the efforts of grassroots activists and farmers who advocate for land rights. “If society and government institutions do not recognize women as farmers, these supports are not going to them,” she said.

In cases where the government may have existing programs for farmers and women, those who would benefit from them are typically not aware they exist. Rowshan told IPS how, through the Stand For Her Land campaign, women in Bangladesh learned to articulate their demands and increase their understanding of legal issues as they pertained to them. “Once they talk about that, they bring other stakeholders like the government and  different agencies to listen to them. The government does have some programs for farmers and women, but these are not reaching them. So once they interact regularly, support starts coming to them. The more they are involved and present, the more support they can get,” she said.

Land rights for women mean greater economic empowerment through ownership of farming land or property and additional access to resources. By investing in women’s resource rights, investments are made to eradicate poverty through generating income and increasing food security. This would reflect the reality in many countries of the legitimate role that women play in the agricultural sector as farmers and landowners in their own rights. As the event reached its conclusion, there was a call for partnership and cooperation in raising the effort to promote women’s land rights. This level of recognition may only be achieved when all stakeholders involved can agree to this reality.

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On International Women's Day on Mar. 8, thousands of Chilean women of all ages took to Santiago's central Alameda avenue to demonstrate peacefully for several hours and turn the Chilean capital into a stage for protest and demands for their rights. Some of them were women caregivers accompanied by dependent women. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

By Orlando Milesi
SANTIAGO , Mar 20 2024 (IPS)

In Chile, as in the rest of Latin America, the task of caring for people with disabilities, the elderly and children falls to women who, as a result, do not have access to paid jobs or time for themselves.

Unpaid domestic and care work is crucial to the economies of the region, accounting for around 20 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

Measurements by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) found that in 16 Latin American countries, women spend between 22.1 and 42.8 hours per week on unpaid domestic and care work. Men only spend between 6.7 and 19.8 hours.

Ana Güezmes, director of ECLAC’s Division for Gender Affairs, told IPS that “in most countries women work longer total hours, but with a lower proportion of paid hours.”

“This work, which is fundamental for sustaining life and social well-being, is disproportionately assigned to women. This situation impacts women’s autonomy, economic opportunities, labor and political participation and their access to leisure activities and rest,” Güezmes said at ECLAC headquarters in Santiago.

The situation is far from changing as it is replicated in young women who devote up to 20 percent of their time to unpaid work.

Paloma Olivares, president for Santiago of the women’s organization Yo Cuido, works in her office in the working-class municipality of Estación Central, in the northeast of the Chilean capital. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

 

Women left on their own as caregivers

Paloma Olivares, 43, chairs the Yo Cuido Association in Santiago, Chile, which brings together 120 members, only two of them men."Women caregivers are denied the right to participate on equal terms in society because we are forced to choose between exercising our rights or doing caregiving work. And we cannot choose because it is a job we do for a loved one, for a family member." -- Paloma Olivares

“Women caregivers are denied the right to participate on equal terms in society because we are forced to choose between exercising our rights or doing caregiving work. And we cannot choose because it is a job we do for a loved one, for a family member,” she told IPS.

“We are left in a position of inequality, of absolute vulnerability because you have to devote your life to supporting someone else at the expense of your personal life,” she said.

Olivares stopped working to care for Pascale, her granddaughter, who was born with cerebral palsy and hydrocephalus.

Three days after her birth, a bacterium became lodged in her central nervous system. She was hospitalized for almost a year and became severely dependent.

At the time, she was given a seven percent chance of survival. Today she is eight years old, goes to school and lives an almost normal life thanks to the work of her caregivers.

She is now cared for by her mother Valentina, who had her at the age of 15. Paloma was able to return to paid work, but her daughter abandoned her studies to take care of Pascale.

“When you start being a caregiver, friendships end, because no one can keep up. Even the family drifts away. That’s why most caregiving families are single-parent, the woman is left alone to care because the man can’t keep up with the pace and the emotional and economic burden,” she said.

Olivares participated from Mar. 12 to 14 in a public hearing, digital and in person, on the right to care and its interrelation with other rights, in a collective request of several social organizations and the governments of Chile and other Latin American countries before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR Court), based in San Jose, Costa Rica,

In the request for an opinion from the IACHR Court, “we asked the Court to take a stance on the right to care and how the rights of women in particular have been violated because there are no public policies in this regard. We want the Court to pronounce itself on the right to care and how the States should address it so that this right is guaranteed and so the rights of caregivers are no longer violated,” she explained.

It is expected that the Court’s pronouncement on the matter will come out in April and could establish minimum parameters regarding women caregivers for Chile and other Latin American countries.

 

Critical situation for women caregivers

Millaray Sáez, 59, told IPS by telephone from the southern Chilean city of Concepción that her son Mario Ignacio, 33, “is no longer the autonomous person he was. Since 2012 he has become a baby.”

She chairs the AML Bío Bío Corporación, an association of women in the Bío Bío region created in 2017 to address the question of female empowerment and today dedicated to the issue of caregivers.

“I have been a caregiver for 30 years for my son who has refractory epilepsy. He became prostrate in 2012 as a result of medical negligence,” said the international trade engineer who has become an expert in public policies on care with a gender perspective.

Sáez said “the situation of women caregivers is very bad, very precarious. There is a single cause, which is the work of caregiving, but the consequences are multidimensional…. from physical deterioration to the lack of legislation to protect against forms of violence, and ranging from the family to what society or the State adds.”

She also pointed to the economic consequences of dependent care.

She cited cases in which caregivers spend over 150 dollars a month on diapers alone for a person who needs them. And she pointed out that the government provides an economic aid stipend of just 33 dollars a month.

 

Teresa Valdés, head of the Gender and Equity Observatory of the Catholic University of Chile, praises the new registry of caregivers promoted by the Chilean government, but underlines the importance of municipal experiences and initiatives that promote homes and care centers to facilitate the lives of women caregivers. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

 

The magnitude of the problem

It is a pending task to determine the number of women caregivers in Chile.

The government of leftist President Gabriel Boric created a system for caregivers to register and receive a credential that gives them access to public services.

“The credential is the gateway to the Chile Cuida System. With it we seek to make them visible in services and institutions and to reward them for their work by saving them waiting time in daily procedures,” the Minister of Women and Gender Equity, Antonia Orellana, explained to IPS.

So far, there are 85,817 people registered, of whom 74,650 are women, or 87 percent of the total, and 11,167 are men, according to data provided to IPS on Mar. 14 by the Undersecretariat of Social Services of the Ministry of Social Development and Family.

But Chile has 19.5 million inhabitants, and “17.6 percent of the adult population has some degree of disability and, therefore, requires the daily care and support of other people in the home,” the minister said.

That means 3.4 million Chileans depend on a caregiver.

According to Orellana, facing the care scenario projected by the aging of the population will require the collaboration of everyone to “create and sustain an economic and productive system that generates decent work and formal employment, leaving no one behind.”

 

Other urgent demands by women

Sociologist Teresa Valdés, head of the Gender and Equity Observatory, told IPS that there are many social problems facing Chilean women today, “especially those related to access to health care, social security, unequal pay and access to different goods and services.”

Valdés regretted that the term “women caregivers” is used to refer to the role that women play and the tasks that are culturally assigned to them as a priority.

“We are all caregivers, all women work double shifts. The time-use survey shows that we work an additional 41 hours per week of so-called unpaid reproductive care work,” she said.

According to Valdés, the main advance in this problem is to include it in the debate because these are policies that require a lot of resources and extensive development, since they have to do with the structure of the labor market.

“Part of the proposal should be how to ‘de-genderize’, how care becomes a task of shared responsibility and not only that women have more time to take on the care tasks,” she said.

“When we call women caregivers, we are referring to the group most affected by the conditions of sexual division of labor and family reproduction,” she added.

The expert proposes progressively identifying ways to support women caregivers in order to provide them with available time and take care of their mental health.

She praised the programs promoted by some municipalities to free up time for these women to enjoy leisure and self-care.

“We have to move towards a cultural conception that we are all dependent. Today I depend on you, tomorrow you depend on me. Care is a social task in which I take care of you today so that you can take care of me tomorrow. And that is something that has to start from the earliest childhood,” she argued.