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View of the empty UN General Assembly hall from its main aisle. Credit: UN Photo
 
With current UN Secretary-General António Guterres set to step down in 2026, who is in the running to replace him? In this seven-part series, Felix Dodds and Chris Spence reveal who might be in the running and assess their chances.

By Felix Dodds and Chris Spence
APEX, North Carolina / DUBLIN, Ireland, Apr 23 2024 (IPS)

What makes an effective UN Secretary-General?

In our previous posts, we highlighted six possible candidates: Michelle Bachelet (Chile), Rebeca Grynspan (Costa Rica), Maria Fernanda Espinosa (Ecuador), Alicia Bárcena (Mexico), Mia Mottley (Barbados), and Amina J. Mohammed (Nigeria).

These are names that have come up in conversations with UN insiders and other experts. All six would offer skills and experiences we believe would be valuable in these fast-paced, uncertain times.

With two years to go until the selection process takes place, some might feel it is too early to start this conversation. We disagree. By raising the question of António Guterres’ successor sooner rather than later, we hope to place on record the qualities we believe are needed. Here are the key skills and attributes we hope the next Secretary-General will bring.

A Bridge Builder

First, we believe the UN will need someone who can bridge a fragmented and polarized international landscape. Political divides have become all too evident, not just in the tragedies playing out in Ukraine, Gaza, Syria and elsewhere, but in the wider geopolitical sense.

A multipolar world is emerging from the previous global order. Add to this the growth of political populism, the triple planetary threat of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution, and rapid technological change—including AI—and we are without doubt in unprecedented times.

A future Secretary-General will need to find ways to bring the fractured international community back to the table in a meaningful way. In this respect, one of the first tests for any prospective candidate will also be one of the hardest: persuading all five permanent members of the UN Security Council not to veto their candidacy while at the same time presenting a compelling vision that the General Assembly will find inspiring enough to support.

In fact, some are already wondering how the “Big Five” countries on the UN Security Council will find common ground on whom to nominate as their next UN leader when tensions remain so high between Russia and China on the one hand, and the US, UK and France on the other?

One question the Security Council will need to resolve in 2026 is whether it wants more of a “Secretary” than a “General”? Our sense is that they may prefer the former—that is, someone who is more pliable and less strident in their approach.

However, we believe a leader who can move seamlessly between the two roles—letting others lead when needed but stepping up when the time is right—would ultimately be better for the world at large.

In this respect, we may get more clarity on the perspectives of UN member states in the months to come. This year, 64 countries and the European Union are holding elections. This means around 50% of the world’s population is heading to the ballot boxes.

By the end of 2024, with many new leaders elected—or old leaders re-elected—we will have a better idea of how difficult it is going to be to build consensus and trust, both within the Security Council and in the General Assembly.

Breaking the Glass Ceiling

When António Guterres was appointed Secretary-General, many commentators voiced disappointment that the glass ceiling had still not been broken and a first female UN leader had not emerged. We agree. In 2026, the UN will be more than 80 years’ old. It is high time a woman was running the organization.

If our earlier posts show anything at all, it is that there is an abundance of talent waiting to unleashed. If the UN is ever to fully deliver on its vision as a force for global good, it needs to lead the way and shatter its own glass ceiling.

A Leader from the South

As we have already noted, some insiders expect the UN to revert to a rotation system where different regions each have a “turn” at holding the Secretary-Generalship. This system was interrupted last time around, when a Portuguese national was appointed when most expected an Eastern European.

This time, some are saying it is Latin America and the Caribbean’s turn. While we would welcome this, we do not think this should be an absolute rule. Instead, we would like to see the strongest candidate appointed from the widest possible pool.

What we do believe, though, is that a leader from the Global South would be appropriate this time around. With three-quarters of the world’s population living in the South and the last two UN leaders coming from the Global North (Portugal and South Korea), we believe the time is ripe for this change. With six billion people to choose from in the developing world, there is a wealth of talent to choose from.

Other Possible Candidates

While our posts have profiled six candidates we believe could do the job well, there are likely to be many other names arise in the conversation over the next two years. Below are shorter profiles on a few we have already come across.

Kristalina Georgieva (Bulgaria): An economist and current head of the International Monetary Fund, Georgieva has also served as Chief Executive at the World Bank and Vice-President of the European Commission. Those who believe the next Secretary-General should come from Eastern Europe would point to her reputation as a highly competent and effective administrator at the highest international level.

Jacinda Ardern (New Zealand): One of the world’s youngest heads of government when she was elected Prime Minister, Ardern served from 2017 to 2023. Her government was noteworthy for its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, which contained the virus more successfully than many other countries, with the result that relatively few lives were lost.

Ardern was also praised for her response to a terrorist attack early on in her tenure, which led to rapid reform of her country’s gun laws. Known for her focus on governing with compassion and with a focus on human wellbeing, Ardern left office in 2023.

Since then, she has taken on several projects with an international dimension, including fellowships at the Harvard Kennedy School and Center for Public Leadership.

Juan Manuel Santos (Colombia): The former Colombian President and Nobel Peace Prize winner worked hard to end his country’s ongoing civil war. His “peace dividend” may appeal to those looking for a leader with a strong track record on peace and reconciliation. However, he would not be viewed as a change agent for those seeking to break the glass ceiling on women’s leadership (see above).

Achim Steiner (Brazil/Germany): The current head of UNDP can boast a long track record in the UN, the German government, non-profits and academia, although recent allegations of financial irregularities at UNDP may need to be resolved in order for his candidacy to gain traction.

Rafael Grossi (Argentina): The Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency and former Argentine diplomat has impressed many, although some wonder if his focus on nuclear issues and disarmament, which dates back more than two decades, may be too narrow in scope given the broad demands of the UN Secretary-General’s role?

Prof. Felix Dodds and Chris Spence have participated in United Nations conferences and negotiations since the 1990s. They co-edited Heroes of Environmental Diplomacy: Profiles in Courage (Routledge, 2022), which examines the roles of individuals in inspiring change.

https://www.ipsnews.net/2024/04/next-un-leaderpart-1/
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IPS UN Bureau

 

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Mahmoud Abbas (centre right), President of the State of Palestine, addresses an event to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the Nakba, held by the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People on 15 May 2023.

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 23 2024 (IPS)

The Biden administration, once again displayed its political hypocrisy by denying UN membership to Palestine, while continuing to advocate a “two-state’ solution” to the crisis in the Middle East.

But one lingering question remains: will the two-state solution include– or exclude– Palestine as a full-fledged UN member state?

Sarah Leah Whitson, Executive Director of the Washington-based Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), told IPS: “That the US has once again resorted to its well-worn veto to block Palestine’s UN membership is all you need to know about why its pretend commitment to a ’two-state solution’ is nothing but empty rhetoric”.

The US has been Israel’s number one weapons supplier in ensuring that a Palestinian state never emerges, both by blocking meaningful action from the international community and providing Israel with a bottomless arsenal of weapons with which to terrorize Palestinians, she pointed out.

Meanwhile, the denial of UN membership to Palestine also underlines the continued abuse of veto powers not only by the US but also China and Russia who use it as a weapon to protect their political and military allies worldwide.

The beneficiaries mostly include Israel, North Korea, Syria and Myanmar.

Since 1992, according to Wikipedia, Russia has been the most frequent user of the veto, followed by the United States and China.

As of March 2024, Russia/USSR has used its veto 128 times, the US 85 times, the UK 29 times, China 19 times, and France 16 times. On 26 April 2022, the General Assembly adopted a resolution mandating a debate when a veto is cast in the Security Council.

Robert A. Wood, deputy permanent representative of the United States to the United Nations, vetoes Palestine’s U.N. membership during the Security Council meeting on April 18, 2024. Credit: Manuel Elías/United Nations

Stephen Zunes, professor of Politics and chair of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco and who has written extensively on the politics of the Security Council, told IPS the US has vetoed no less than 45 resolutions critical of Israel, “thereby rendering the Security Council effectively impotent”.

Norman Solomon, Executive Director, Institute for Public Accuracy and National Director, RootsAction.org told IPS the U.S. solo veto again underscored its chosen isolation from world opinion and governmental lineup about Israel and the human rights of Palestinian people.

Washington’s position is morally untenable, based squarely on “might makes right” geopolitics, he said.

Even inside the United States, the political tide is shifting away from reflexive support for Israel, but — rhetoric aside — the White House remains locked into support for the Israeli system of apartheid and occupation, while a majority of Congress remains willing to fund Israel’s genocidal war on people in Gaza, Solomon pointed out.

“The U.S. government doesn’t want Palestine to have a seat at the U.N. table because the U.S. government actually doesn’t recognize that such an entity as “Palestine” even exists. Nor do top policymakers in the U.S. executive and legislative branches truly proceed as though Palestinian people have legitimate claims on Palestine”.

The tacit U.S. approach, he said, is that history in the region begins whenever convenient for the U.S.-Israeli alliance, whether in 1948 or 1967 or on Oct. 7, 2023.

There are many flaws in the stances and pretensions of members of the Security Council, whether permanent or rotating. The governments they represent vary from having significant elements of democracy to operating as de facto dictatorships.

“Yet, to a notable degree and to a wide extent, on matters involving Israel and Palestinians, the votes cast at the U.N. in both the Security Council and the General Assembly reflect as close to a consensus of governments and peoples as exists in the world today”.

Israel is an apartheid state, its occupation of territories since 1967 is absolutely illegitimate, and its war on the people living and dying in Gaza is mass murder, said Solomon, author of “War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine”

According to an April 22 report on Cable News Network (CNN), Israel’s Foreign Ministry will summon ambassadors from several countries later this week to express its displeasure for their support for Palestinian membership at the UN, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz was quoted as saying.

“The diplomatic push involves countries that have voted in favor of Palestinian membership in the UN and have ambassadors stationed in Israel, including France, Ecuador, Japan, Malta, South Korea, Slovenia, China and Russia”.

Algeria, Sierra Leone, Guyana and Mozambique — which also supported the proposal — do not have embassies in Israel, CNN said.

In a statement last week, the Washington, D.C., based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said: “The Biden administration should be ashamed and embarrassed after 12 nations rejected its plea to vote against membership for the State of Palestine, forcing the United States to stand alone with another unjust veto.

“For decades, the UN Security Council has failed to prevent unjust wars and genocide around the world. The world should no longer accept a flawed system in which five nations can exercise veto power over the affairs of more than eight billion people, including nearly two billion Muslims who are not represented among the five permanent members.” CAIR said.

“Nations and people of the world must push for the UN Security Council to be either radically reformed or abolished altogether in the years ahead.”

According to the UN, States are admitted to UN membership by a decision of the 193-member General Assembly upon the recommendation of the 15-member Security Council.

The resolution needs a two-thirds majority (currently 128 votes) in the General Assembly– and no vetoes in the Security Council. The State of Palestine was accepted as “a non-member observer state” of the UN General Assembly in November 2012.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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UN Live’s CEO Katja Iversen at the launch of ‘Sounds Right’. Credit: Naureen Hossain/IPS

By Naureen Hossain
NEW YORK, Apr 22 2024 (IPS)

UN Live’s CEO, Katja Iversen, says the way to engage people in the environment is through popular culture—film, music, gaming, sports, food, and fashion. She is excited about the Sounds Right project, which puts the sounds of nature—bird songs, waves, wind, and rainfall—at the center of a campaign to support those involved in climate action.

In an exclusive interview with IPS, Iversen shares the motivation behind this innovative project.

The Sounds Right initiative was officially launched on April 18. It established NATURE as an official artist, eligible to earn royalties. Music fans were invited to support nature conservation by listening to NATURE’s recordings or tracks with musicians. This initiative was developed and delivered by the Museum for the United Nations (UN Live) and a broad range of partners in the music and environmental sectors.

IPS: How was the Sounds Right initiative conceived? What is the significance of recognizing NATURE in the same way that we recognize and reward musical artists through royalties?

Katja Iversen: The “Sounds Right” initiative was conceived as a global music movement to prompt conversations about the value of nature, raise innovative financing for conservation, and inspire millions of fans to take action.

The original idea came out of a project called VozTerra in Colombia, which the Museum for the United Nations—UN Live helped initiate. The initiative, as it looks today, has been developed by UN Live in close partnership with musicians, creatives, and nature sound recordists, as well as environmental, campaigning, and global advocacy organizations and VozTerra.

The significance of the initiative is that it treats NATURE as the artist she truly is and nature’s sounds—such as bird songs, waves, wind, and rainfall—as artistic works deserving of royalty payment. It leverages the power of music to connect fans with nature by having artists feature natural sounds in new and existing tracks.

It is going to be really big. To test things out, NATURE was discretely established as an official artist two weeks ago on various streaming platforms, including with some pure nature sounds. As of today, on Spotify alone, NATURE is in the top 10 percent of artists, with over 500k monthly listeners and almost 5 million streams—even before the initiative is officially launched and a playlist with artists featuring nature tracks goes online.

IPS: How was the Museum for the UN—UN Live able to bring together artists, music executives, and environmental groups for this initiative?

Iversen: The Museum for the UN—UN Live, together with EarthPercent, has organized the collaboration between artists, music executives, and environmental groups by leveraging our unique position at the intersection of culture, sustainable development, and diplomacy. We, at UN Live, have a track record of engaging very diverse communities in innovative cultural programmes, and we were able to draw on our extensive networks and entrepreneurial skills to bring together a broad variety of groups around a great idea.

It is a truly unique coalition of partners, including EarthPercent, AKQA, Hempel Foundation, Dalberg, Count Us In, VozTerra, Axum, Music Declares Emergency, Earthrise, Eleutheria Group, The Listening Planet, Biophonica, Community Arts Network, Limbo Music, LD Communications, No. 29, and Rare.  We developed the initiative in consultation with the UN Department of Global Communications, and we’ve also joined forces with The Nature Conservancy, Wildlife Conservation Society, APCO, Riky Rick Foundation, AWorld x ActNow and others to reach the many millions of people.

Sounds Right poster.

IPS: How do you foresee artists and environmental groups from developing countries connecting with this initiative now and in the future?
Iversen: We are very serious about this not being a Global North undertaking. Recognizing that the global majority is often at the forefront of experiencing the impacts of loss of biodiversity and climate change while living in some of the world’s most important ecosystems, this is also where the solutions and the most important voices are found—both the voices of humans and nature. Of the first group of 16 artists on the first Feat Nature playlist, there are musicians from Venezuela, Colombia, Kenya, India, and Indonesia. And on future compilations, more will come.

Just imagine that as NATURE the artist grows and grows, more and more musicians will want to collaborate and feature nature in their music. We are looking forward to working with musicians from across the globe and will, in time, potentially also develop special releases focused on certain geographies, issues, or groups.

The funds raised will be distributed under the guidance of the Sounds Right Expert Advisory Panel, a group of world-leading biologists, environmental activists, representatives of Indigenous Peoples, and experts in conservation funding. The majority of the experts are from the global majority.

IPS: How does ‘Sounds Right’ go toward serving the SDGs?

Iversen: Well, we are the Museum for the United Nations, and we are here to rally the world around the work, values, and goals of the United Nations, so naturally Sounds Right is also aligned with the SDGs.

More particularly, it aligns with the goals related to life on land (SDG 15) and underwater (SDG 14) by funding conservation projects through royalties collected from nature-based recordings. Additionally, by raising awareness and fostering an appreciation for the environment through music, the initiative supports SDG 13 (climate action) and SDG 17 (partnerships for the goals) and also justice.

Importantly, Sounds Right is an example of the power of popular culture and exemplifies how creative industries and popular culture platforms can contribute to achieving the SDGs, including by merging artistic expression with environmental activism.

IPS: How does the Museum for the UN—UN Live leverage culture to promote the SDGs?

Iversen: If we could solve the world’s problems and achieve the SDGs with data, facts, figures, and reports alone, it would have been done. What we also need is to work with culture, norms, opinions, feelings, and hearts. We know that popular culture—film, music, gaming, sports, food, fashion—affects people’s opinions, norms, and actions. So if we really want to change and if we want to reach the many, we go to where the many are. It’s in their earbuds, it’s on their phones, it’s on their screens, and it’s on their sports fields. That’s where you hit both the head and the heart.

That’s what we need, in addition to the facts and the figures. U.N. Live worked with popular culture, unleashed the power of popular culture to reach many people—millions and billions of people—because they use popular culture. So we have to go where the people are with the messages they can understand and the actions they want to take.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Taliban's decree imposes radio ban on Afghan women, further restricting media freedoms. Credit: Learning Together.

By External Source
Apr 22 2024 (IPS)

Since the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan in 2021, the space for women in the public sphere has significantly narrowed, with successive orders further restricting their presence in various sectors, including the media.

The Taliban have recently decreed that women’s voices should no longer be broadcast on radio in four provinces – Khost, Logar, Helmand, and Paktia.

Women and men must stay separate from each other in media houses, and women are even banned from calling radio stations during social discussion programmes to seek solutions to their problems.

The radio stations are constantly monitored by the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue, even where there are no male workers, says Halima, a presenter in one of the radio stations. “Every time they come, they warn us not to laugh and not to joke in the programmes because it is a great sin”, she says.

“We used to have four and a half thousand female journalists and media workers in Afghanistan”, says Ahmad (name withheld), a media activist, “but unfortunately, due to the recent political developments, the imposition of restrictions, and the lack of economic opportunities, many female journalists lost their jobs”. Last year a substantial 87 per cent of female journalists left the industry.

In the eastern provinces, Ahmad says, the Taliban do not allow women’s voices to be broadcast on the radio, while in the Southern provinces, journalists are not allowed to take photos because, to the Taliban it is a great sin.

At the end of February the Afghan Centre for Journalists sent out information to media outlets, according to which, Mohammad Khaled Hanafi, Acting Minister for the Promotion of Virtue warned that women would be banned entirely from working in the media if they show their faces on television or in interviews. A representative for the Ministry was reported brandishing sample pictures of appropriately dressed women with only two eyes peering from behind a hijab.

Female workers now manage only seven media houses. Two of these are in Badakshan one in Balkh, one in Farah one in Herat and two in Kabul – all of these face a huge number of challenges. Although most of these media houses are symbolically run in the name of women, but the important work and decision-making of media are in the hands of men.

In Helmand Province, women are banned entirely from appearing on television, neither should their voices be heard on radio. According to the local newspaper Hasht Sobh, Abdul Rashid Omari, the Taliban security commander in Khost province, has warned local media officials in an official letter that they would be prosecuted if they allow girls or women make phone call to radio stations.

“Some private radio stations in Khost promote moral corruption, a good example of which is broadcasting school lessons or social programs in which many girls participate” the letter states. Adding further, “By abusing these educational and social programs, girls make illegitimate phone calls with the organizers of the programs during the official and unofficial time, which, on the one hand, leads the society to moral corruption and, on the other hand, against Islamic standards”

There is not much space left for the media in Afghanistan, complains Frishta (name withheld). It is even hard for them to breath, but despite all of those restrictions, she continues to work.

“It is true that I am in charge of the radio station, but I can never make important decisions on its operations. The owner of the radio, who is a man, always makes the decisions. I produce the programs according to his guidelines and orders,” says Frishta.

But, the reason why Frishta perseveres is that a few international organizations provide financial support for women’s work in radio and television, and the money is much needed. Among them are United Nations agencies, UNICEF and UNESCO, which support 28 regional or local radio stations across the country in the publication of humanitarian information and training programmes. Also, an EU-funded project,”Support to Afghan Media Resilience to Foster Peace and Security”, has assisted several women’s radio stations produce education, cultural and news programmes.

Besides the increasingly diminishing space for women in the media, the Taliban are clamping down the media in every other way. For instance, Youssef Bawar (name changed), one of the reporters in the Eastern Zone, says journalists of Persian language external broadcasts, such as Afghanistan International TV and AMU TV, cannot work openly inside Afghanistan. If found, they will be arrested and tortured. The Taliban Department of Information and Culture in Nangarhar Province last year, warned journalists that those who criticize the Taliban have no right to complain if they are arrested and treated in whatever way.

According to Yousef Bawar, foreign journalists coming to report on Afghanistan must obtain permission from the Taliban Department of Information and Culture. Once they are inside the country, a member of the Taliban will accompany them around in order to prevent them saying anything negative about the Taliban rule. The Taliban do not disclose charges brought against foreign reporters.

Yalda (not real name) is a journalist who worked as a journalist for seven years but could no longer stand the conditions anymore and left the profession. According to Yalda, the Taliban would come to their office several times a month, inspect their work and ask managers why they are working with women.

“Many times, they warned our manager that if male and female colleagues were seen together, then we wouldn’t have the right to complain about whatever happened to them”, she says.

“The media are not allowed to produce critical reports about the lack of facilities or services in the educational or health sectors in general. They are not allowed to criticize the government, and most of the media’s programs focus on the achievements publicised by the Taliban,” Yalda says.

The fall of the Republic created an adverse impact on the media in Afghanistan and many media outlets closed down and many journalists became unemployed. Previously there were 438 radio stations, but that has now been reduced to only 211; the number of newspapers has fallen from 91 to 13. Afghanistan’s 248 television channels have now been whittled down to just 68 since the Taliban took power three years ago.

Yet the few media outlets that are left still face great difficulties along with the disappearance of female journalists. They are bedevilled with lack of timely access to information, lack of programming support and above all, direct media censorship.

The return of the Taliban has brought about immense challenges across all sectors, but perhaps none as profound as the stifling of media freedom and the suppression of journalists’ voices.

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

At the Sounds Right launch were Cathy Runciman, CEO, EarthPercent, AURORA, Martyn Stewart, and Louis VI. Credit: Naureen Hossain/IPS

By Naureen Hossain
NEW YORK, Apr 22 2024 (IPS)

Spearheaded by the Museum for the United Nations, a new campaign brings together music and ecology to spark people’s interest and engagement in environmental conservation through consciously listening to music.

On April 18, 2024, the Museum for the United Nations—UN Live, along with its partners, officially launched Sounds Right, a global initiative that recognizes nature’s contributions to music with the purpose of increasing conservation funding for the environment.

The Sounds Right initiative brings together environmental groups, nature sound libraries, and members of the global music industry to bring attention to the environment and encourage collaboration through music. Through this campaign, nature is now recognized as a verified artist, with a stage name to boot: NATURE. On major streaming platforms such as Spotify, NATURE has its own profile and includes several audio tracks under its ‘name.’. Already to NATURE’s name are recordings of the sounds of nature around the world, from rainstorms to bird calls to nocturnal activity.

Sounds Right poster.

What further distinguishes this campaign is that musicians can include NATURE as a featured artist, through which NATURE earns royalties. Artists from different parts of the world, including India, the UK, Colombia, Norway, Denmark, Kenya, and the US, have already joined Sounds Right. As part of the campaign’s launch, these artists released new songs or remixes featuring NATURE, wherein the songs include nature sounds. So far, fifteen songs have been released ‘feat. NATURE’, and are available on Spotify, with the promise of more releases to come throughout 2024.Through these outputs, NATURE is able to earn royalties for their contribution when people listen to these verified tracks on streaming sites like Spotify.

“So far as we know, Sounds Right is unique in its approach to making NATURE an official artist whose royalties are donated to conservation initiatives,” said UN Live’s Global Lead Programmer, Sounds Right, Gabriel Smales. He confirmed that NATURE tracks are also available on other music streaming platforms such as Apple Music, YouTube Music, Soundcloud, and Deezer. There is also interest in making NATURE tracks accessible through streaming services in countries in the Global South, such as India’s JioSaavn. It’s been projected that Sounds Right will make USD 40 million through royalties, with 600 million active listeners over the next four years.

The distribution of royalties, or fund management, will be overseen by one of UN Live’s partners, EarthPercent. The US- and UK-based charity brings together artists and members of the music industry to pledge a small portion of their income to climate causes.

According to their CEO, Cathy Runciman, they, along with UN Live, formed an expert advisory panel for Sounds Right’s conservation fund, which includes environmental activists, conservation scientists, and indigenous rights leaders. The panel will review and advise on grant applications that are received and determine whether they meet the impact model that they’ve determined. At present, the conservation fund will go towards addressing biodiversity loss in key biodiversity areas in India, the Philippines, Madagascar, and the Indian Ocean Islands. 

According to Runciman, through the pure nature sounds, 70% of royalties will go towards the conservation fund, with 30% going towards the two sound partners that have collected and shared the sounds: VozTerra and the Listening Planet. These non-profit groups will use their shares to continue to make recordings. In the case of music tracks and remixes, royalties will be split evenly by 50 percent between the musician and the conservation fund at minimum. As Runciman told IPS, this is an example of the company’s passionate belief that artists need to earn a living from their work.

“At EarthPercent, we’ve always felt that these two things go hand in hand. The absolute win-win situation is that artists should be successful and earn a living in order to create more art because otherwise we have no music,” she said. “The other participant in the world of music, who should be a stakeholder, is the planet. In this case, particularly ‘nature.’ We are working to fund nature’s restoration and protection…Artists need just compensation for the work that they do. Without artists being fully paid, we will have no music. Sounds Right couldn’t exist.”

It was through EarthPercent that several musicians who have released tracks for this campaign were first brought on to join Sounds Right. Musicians present at the launch event told IPS that they were already working with EarthPercent when they learned of Sounds Right and were invited to contribute their music to the initiative.

UK rapper Louis VI has previously used his music to talk about climate change and biodiversity loss, giving a platform to the narrative of the Black and Brown diaspora worldwide. “Let’s be honest; for us to move forward to a more livable future where nature is at the heart of it, we need all the narratives,” he said. “I felt like music was so well placed to put that at the forefront. So to have Sounds Right making that official was so special.”

Norway-based artist AURORA remarked that Sounds Right allowed for a meeting of the brain, the heart, and the soul. In other words, the logic of science, finance, and philanthropy was combining with the emotional resonance that is brought on through music to bring the Sounds Right initiative forward. Speaking of her own experience with bringing nature to her music, she told IPS: “I’ve been working for and breathing for Mother Earth because I grew up with her around me and only her around me, so it was easy for me to understand her beauty. I know that the world doesn’t necessarily have that access to see her beauty so clearly, so naturally in your core.”

As an affiliate organization of the UN, the Museum for the UN—UN Live’s mandate involves generating progress against the SDGs and adhering to the mission values of the UN, which they achieve through mass culture campaigns. Smales explained to IPS in the case of Sounds Right, their programs typically involve three factors: the science or social cause that needs attention (biodiversity loss), a cultural genre through which the message could be carried to people (music), and finally, a scaling platform that can engage people (music streaming platforms).

Through employing popular culture to advance the UN’s mission values and the SDGs, UN Live is able to reach people and take risks on creative ventures not often seen in bigger organizations. For the average music fan, the act of listening to music can now have a direct impact on protecting the environment. Sounds Right also has the potential to empower musicians to use their work to raise awareness. The initiative has taken steps towards raising up the voices and perspectives of musicians from the Global South, particularly in countries that will suffer disproportionately from climate change and biodiversity loss.

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Bananas encased in plastic bags to protect them from insect and parasitic infestation. Credit: FAO/Giuseppe Bizzarri

By Kaveh Zahedi
ROME, Apr 22 2024 (IPS)

There is a growing wave of plastics, smothering our countryside and lapping at our shores.

Studies have shown we are breathing microplastics, eating microplastics, drinking microplastics, and picking them up through skin contact. Evidence is mounting that they can pose a potential threat to food safety and human health.

Scientists have found microplastics in the gut, human heart tissue and blood. They’ve been detected in breast milk, placentas, and developing brains. There is currently research suggesting that microplastics, a complex mix of chemicals, leach chemical compounds during cooking processes.

Agriculture is a large contributor to this wave. There were 12.5 million tonnes of plastic used in crop and livestock production in 2019 and 37.3 million tonnes in food packaging.

There were 12.5 million tonnes of plastic used in crop and livestock production in 2019 and 37.3 million tonnes in food packaging. Bringing crops and meat from field to fork accounts for 10 million tonnes of plastic every year, followed by fisheries and aquaculture with 2.1 million tonnes and forestry with 0.2 million tonnes, FAO estimates

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that bringing crops and meat from field to fork accounts for 10 million tonnes of plastic every year, followed by fisheries and aquaculture with 2.1 million tonnes and forestry with 0.2 million tonnes.

In the short term, materials like plastic mulch film on farms are relatively low cost and help improve yields and profits. But once they’re abandoned or lost, the plastic breaks down into microscopic pieces, which pollute soil and water supplies and habitats, and reduce productivity and food security in the long term.

Urgent action is needed – crossing national boundaries and sectors – by governments, producers, farmers, and individual consumers too.

The international community is suiting up for the plastics challenge. The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution could reach a conclusion by 2025. At the same time FAO members are considering means to promote sustainable use and management of plastics in agriculture for stakeholders across the agrifood value chain.

The FAO has also just begun executing a project in Uruguay and Kenya, as part of the Financing Agrochemical Reduction and Management Programme.

Led by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and supported by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the USD379 million initiative aims to develop legal and financial frameworks in seven pilot countries in all, to help farmers phase out pesticides and plastics and adopt better practices.

Developers forecast the five-year programme will prevent the release of more than 20,000 tons of plastic waste, avoid 35,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions and protect more than 3 million hectares of land from degradation.

The FAO promotes a variety of solutions to the plastic pollution problem, based on the principles of a circular economy.

Depending on the context, these include adopting agricultural practices that avoid the use of problematic plastics; substituting natural, biodegradable, or compostable alternatives; reusing plastic products if there are no harmful contaminants; establishing mandatory schemes for collecting waste and establishing financial incentives to drive behaviour change from production to consumption.

One thing is important. The solutions must not stop at national borders but overlap across agricultural sectors. We need the global framework provided by the legally binding global plastic pollution agreement and the specific details of best practices in the agriculture sector too.

But importantly we must begin now. Everyone must play a part. Plastic pollution in agriculture is a global problem that requires urgent action at every link in the production chain – from governments to farmers, plastics producers to grass roots users and consumers.

We are no strangers to a challenge such as this. The world united on behalf of the ozone layer and won. It is recovering. It’s time to suit up again and employ all the means at our disposal, try as many of the suggested solutions as possible, to slow down and disperse this ever-growing wave. Our health depends on it.

Excerpt:

Kaveh Zahedi is the Director of the Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity and Environment at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

By Hafez Ghanem
PARIS, Apr 22 2024 (IPS)

The world is facing multiple crises that must be tackled quickly, with innovative approaches and brave decisions. The global financial architecture is an area that needs reform and thinking outside the box. The system created 80 years ago is not able to deal with today’s problems that range from climate change to pandemics, to increasing inequality, to conflict and fragility, to food insecurity and poverty.

Hafez Ghanem

The climate battle is being lost and the world is failing to achieve the Paris Agreement’s goal of maintaining global warming at below 1.5°C. It is also off track for reaching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement as well as the SDGs, the whole world (especially EMDEs) will need to accelerate investments for climate and for development. This represents a huge financing challenge for EMDEs (excluding China). According to the Independent High Level Expert Group on Climate Finance they will need to invest $2.4 trillion a year by 2030 just for climate action, with total investments being around $5.4 trillion of which $1trillion will have to be externally financed.

The current global financial architecture is not delivering for the EMDEs: official development assistance (ODA) is too low, net private capital flows are negative, and EMDEs are facing debt sustainability problems. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) ODA in 2022 was $204 billion, nowhere near the trillion that is needed. Moreover, the $204 billion figure includes in-donor refugee costs of $29.3 billion and assistance to Ukraine of $16.1 billion. That is, actual ODA to the EMDEs, the so-called country programmable aid, was much less than $200 billion. At the same time, private capital is leaving EMDEs. Calculations by Kharas and Rivard (2024) show that in 2022 net private capital flows to EMDEs was minus $125 billion and that negative figure increased to minus $193 billion in 2023. This is happening in the face of rising sovereign debt problems. According to the World Bank about half of the world’s poorest countries are either in debt distress or are at high risk of debt distress. In some countries debt service costs are higher than the budgets for health and education.

In view of this situation the United Nation’s Secretary General, (SG) (as well as many voices in the Global South) is calling for reforms of multilateralism including the global financial architecture. The UN is organizing a Summit of the Future in September 2024 to discuss possible reforms and has issued a report entitled our Common Agenda with a companion policy brief on reforms of the global financial architecture. The Global Economy program at the Brookings Institution organized a series of roundtables to discuss the UN proposals, and issued its own report with a series of recommendations for reforming the global financial architecture. The recommendations cover: (1) the system’s governance, (2) increasing financing for climate and development and dealing with unsustainable debt; (3) expanding the global financial safety net; and (4) reforming the international tax system. In the remainder in this blog, I shall summarize some of the recommendations pertaining to increasing financing for climate and the SDGs.

The first set of reforms to be considered concern increasing the lending capacity of the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs). The G20 has been very active in this area and has supported several studies, the most recent ones are: a 2022 independent review of Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) capital adequacy frameworks (CAF); a 2023 report on further MDBs reforms titled “The Triple Agenda”; and finally also in 2023 a Roadmap for the Implementation of the CAF Report. Implementation of the recommendations on the capital adequacy frameworks would increase MDBs lending capacity by $196.5 billion and are on the road to implementation. In addition to those reforms, it will be necessary to increase the capital of the MDBs.

The G20 has called for a recycling of $100 billion equivalent of the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to EMDEs through the MDBs. In 2021 the Fund injected $650 billion worth of SDRs into the world economy to help countries deal with the economic fallout from the pandemic. Countries received SDRs in proportion to their IMF quotas. Thus, according to Georgieva et al (2023) rich countries, who already had sufficient reserves received $350 billions of additional liquidity which they did not need ;and therefore it sits “dormant”. An initial recycling of SDRs has occurred through the IMF’s Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT) and the Resilience and Sustainability Trust (RST). But so far, no recycling has been done through the MDBs; even though (unlike the PRGT and the RST) the MDBs are able to leverage the recycled SDRs. Using the ratios in the G20’s Triple Agenda Report recycling $100 billion of SDRs as hybrid MDB capital would raise a total of $1.5 trillion of additional financing, $700 billion in direct lending and $800 billion in indirect private financing.

Increasing the lending capacity of the MDBs is important but will not be enough to meet all the financing requirements for climate action. There is a need to distinguish between climate investments that are national public goods (adaptation and loss and damage estimated to require $600 billion/year) that are also mostly financed by public resources; and mitigation which is a global public good that should be mostly financed by the private sector. Mitigation is estimated to require about $1.8 trillion/year; about 1.5 trillion for the energy transition and $300 billion for agriculture and natural capital. The existing system of MDBs could handle adaptation and loss and damage. But, as suggested by Ghanem (2023) a new institution, a Green Bank, which could be completely independent or could be part of the World Bank Group, is needed to finance mitigation. Green Bank would be different from existing MDBs because it would be a public-private partnership with private shareholders participating in its funding and governance. Moreover, it would only finance (through equity and loans) private sector climate mitigation projects.

There are many proposed reforms of the global financial architecture that are being discussed and debated. In this short blog I chose to focus on those that aim at increasing the system’s ability to finance climate and development. These are key challenges that currently the international financial system appears unable to adequately address. Among the reforms presented here there is a consensus on the need to implement the CAF recommendations and they appear on their way. There is still resistance to the idea of recycling “dormant” SDRs through the MDBs and a decision on this issue has been postponed several times. The Green Bank proposal has not yet gained much traction as many people worry about the creation of another international organization. I would like to point out, though, that there are currently 62 multilateral climate funds that are only disbursing 3-4 billion dollars a year and that are not well coordinated. It would make sense to close most of those funds and replace them by one Green Bank that could mobilize private support and the trillions needed and be accountable for results.

Hafez Ghanem, a former World Bank Vice President for Africa, is a non-resident senior fellow in the Global Economy and Development Program at the Brookings Institution and senior fellow at the Policy Centre for the New South.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Credit: United Nations
 
With current UN Secretary-General António Guterres set to step down in 2026, who is in the running to replace him? In this seven-part series, Felix Dodds and Chris Spence reveal who might be nominated and assess their chances.
 
The potential candidates include Amina J. Mohammed (Nigeria), Mia Motley (Barbados), Alicia Barcena (Mexico), Maria Fernanda Espinosa (Ecuador), Rebeca Grynspan (Costa Rica) and Michelle Bachelet (Chile). These are names that have come up in conversations with UN insiders and other experts. All six would offer skills and experiences we believe would be valuable in these fast-paced, uncertain times.
 
“Violence against women in all its forms is a human rights violation. It's not something that any culture, religion or tradition propagates.”

By Felix Dodds and Chris Spence
APEX, North Carolina / DUBLIN, Ireland, Apr 22 2024 (IPS)

Michelle Bachelet is a formidable candidate to be the next UN Secretary-General. Some would even make her the frontrunner, should she choose to stand. Bachelet was the first female head of state in Chile, having served as president on two separate occasions: 2006 to 2010, and 2014 to 2018. Bachelet can also boast a long pedigree when it comes to human rights.

Bachelet lived in exile in Australia and Germany during the early part of Augusto Pinochet’s period as dictator, although not before being tortured by Pinochet’s secret police. She studied medicine and, on returning to Chile several years later, began to campaign for restoring democracy.

In 2000, she was appointed as Minister of Health by then-President Ricardo Lagos, introducing several major reforms and reducing hospital waiting lists. In 2002, she was appointed Minister of National Defense—a first for a woman in any country in the region.

Among various reforms, she strove to position the military so it would never be involved in subverting democracy, while also seeking reconciliation between the armed forces and the victims of Pinochet’s dictatorship.

In her first term as President (2006-2010), Bachelet introduced a range of reforms, including strengthening social security systems to offer more support for children and the elderly. She also appointed a cabinet with equal representation of men and women, and supported legislation to legalize gay marriage and promote women’s reproductive rights.

Michelle Bachelet

After her first term as President, Bachelet took a senior role at the UN. In 2010, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced that Bachelet would become the first executive director of the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women.

Also known as UN Women, the new entity was the result of a merger of several previous UN groups. UN Women’s role is to advocate for the rights of women and girls and address specific issues such as violence against women and LGBT people. Bachelet held this position from 2010-2013.

Returning to Chilean politics, in late 2013 Bachelet was elected President of Chile for a second term. Again, Bachelet focused on strengthening human rights and supporting vulnerable communities, as well as promoting environmental protections.

Some policies—such as an attempt to introduce free education to a large number of poorer students—caused controversy and opposition—although some progress was still ultimately achieved.

In 2018, Bachelet returned to the UN. Perhaps appropriately considering her focus as President, she was appointed UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, serving from 2018 to 2022. Bachelet spoke out strongly during this time on a number issues, from alleged human rights violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, to the situation in the Nagomo-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the detainment of Uyghurs and other Muslims in China, and the situation in Yemen.

Assessing Bachelet’s Prospects

Could Michelle Bachelet become the next UN Secretary-General? Here is our assessment of her advantages and disadvantages, should she choose to enter her name into the contest.

Advantages

– Seniority: Bachelet has held the top job in Chile not once, but twice. Not only that, but she has also held two senior roles within the UN. Her experience has been at the highest level, and her networks are impressive. It is hard to imagine someone with a more appropriate mix of expertise.
– UN Credentials: As a former head of both UN Women and the UN High Commission for Human Rights, Bachelet’s insider knowledge is considerable. She would know how to navigate the organization effectively from her first day in the job.
– A Female Leader: As with other candidates featured in these articles, Michelle Bachelet would be a strong candidate to break the glass ceiling and become the first female leader of the UN.
– A Latina Leader: With the tradition that the UN Secretary-General is chosen by rotating through the various UN regions, Bachelet would likely satisfy those who believe it is Latin America and the Caribbean’s “turn” to nominate Guterres’ successor.
– Proven Impact: There are few potential candidates who could point to such broad impact both as a national leader and during two separate stints in high-level UN roles, especially in the fields of human rights and supporting vulnerable populations. Given the unprecedented uncertainty swirling around international diplomacy these days, a figure with a reputation as a “doer” may be welcomed.

Disadvantages

– A Threat to the Big Five? Like Mia Mottley of Barbados, Bachelet has made comments in the past, particularly during her time as the UN High Commissioner Human Rights, that may not have been welcomed by some UN member states. It is worth bearing in mind that whoever emerges as Guterres’ successor will need to convince all five permanent Security Council members—China, Russia, France, the US, and UK—that they are the best person for the job. It will be a difficult line for anyone to walk, especially when even a single veto could scuttle their hopes.

In spite of Bachelet’s obvious credentials, if just one of the “Big Five” members of the Security Council show signs of sensitivity to her comments on human rights in the past, Bachelet may have her work cut out to change their point of view. Still, her credentials are impressive and even opponents might have a hard time making a case against her.

Prof. Felix Dodds and Chris Spence have participated in United Nations conferences and negotiations since the 1990s. They co-edited Heroes of Environmental Diplomacy: Profiles in Courage (Routledge, 2022), which examines the roles of individuals in inspiring change.

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https://www.ipsnews.net/2024/04/next-un-leaderpart-2/
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Credit: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

By Mandeep S.Tiwana
NEW YORK, Apr 22 2024 (IPS)

Today, the spectre of a major regional conflict, and even a possible nuclear conflagration, looms large in the Middle East. Despite stark warnings issued by the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, the multilateral system is struggling to resolve the very challenges it was supposed to address: conflict, impoverishment and oppression. In a deeply divided world, this September’s Summit of the Future offers a rare chance to fix international cooperation and make good on gaps in global governance.

The problem is, too few people and civil society organisations, outside UN circles, even know the Summit is happening. This is characteristic of a lack of broad consultation. Things started poorly with limited time and opportunities for civil society to provide inputs last December into the zero draft of the Pact for the Future, which is supposed to be a blueprint for international cooperation in the 21st century.

The zero draft, released in January 2024, lacks the ambition many hoped would be on show to tackle the enormity of the challenges before us. It included just one mention of the role of civil society and nothing about civic space, even though growing restrictions on fundamental freedoms are severely impeding the transparency, accountability and participation needed to realise the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – the set of ambitious but largely unrealised universal commitments the Summit intends to reaffirm.

To be clear, the Summit’s co-facilitators, Germany and Namibia, are in an unenviable position, having to balance the demands of states that want the process to be purely intergovernmental and others that see value in civil society’s engagement. Some don’t see any role for civil society: in February, a handful of states led by Belarus sent a letter to the Special Committee on the UN Charter questioning the legitimacy of civil society organisations. If their demands were acceded to, the UN would miss the innovation and reach that civil society participation brings to the table.

Next month, the UN is hosting a major civil society conference in Nairobi with the aim of providing a platform for civil society to contribute ideas to the Summit of the Future. But, with barely a month between the selection of applicants and the hosting of the conference, it remains to be seen how many civil society representatives, particularly from smaller organisations in the global south, will be able to make it.

There remains a need for the UN to take on board the Unmute Civil Society recommendations, which include a call for the appointment of a civil society envoy. Such an envoy could drive the UN’s outreach to civil society beyond its hubs. With many finding the institution remote, an envoy could champion better and more consistent participation of people and civil society across the UN’s sprawling agencies and offices. So far, civil society engagement with the UN remains deeply uneven and dependent on the culture and leadership of various UN departments and forums.

The Summit can only benefit from civil society engagement if it’s to achieve it aims, particularly as many conflicts are raging around the world, including in Gaza, Myanmar, Sudan, Ukraine and elsewhere. Many of civil society’s reform ideas are included in the UN Secretary-General’s New Agenda for Peace, which will be deliberated at the Summit, including nuclear disarmament, strengthening preventative diplomacy and prioritising women’s participation in peace efforts.

There’s also an urgent need to address the soaring levels of debt many global south countries face, which is diverting public spending away from essential services and social protections into debt servicing. Civil society backs efforts such as the Bridgetown Initiative to secure commitments from wealthy countries on debt restructuring and debt cancellation for those countries facing a repayment crisis. But civil society needs to be included to help shape plans, because if financing for development negotiations don’t include guarantees for civic space and civil society participation there’s no way of ensuring that public funds benefit people in need. Instead, autocratic regimes could use them to shore up repressive state apparatuses and networks of corruption and patronage.

Civil society further calls for reforms in the international financial architecture. These include demands to bring decisions by the G20 group of powerful economies into the ambit of the UN’s accountability framework, and to equitably distribute shares and decision-making at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, presently controlled by a few highly industrialised countries.

But it’s unclear how many of civil society’s transformative proposals for global governance reforms will end up in the final outcomes of the Summit of the Future. So far, there’s been limited transparency in relation to UN member state negotiations, records and compilation texts, despite civil society having shown its commitment by making over 400 written submissions to the Pact for the Future process.

Troublingly, few governments have consulted nationally with civil society groups on their positions for the Summit of the Future negotiations. If these trends continue, the international community will miss a key chance to make life better for future generations. It isn’t too late to robustly include people and civil society in the process. The aims of the Summit are too important.

Mandeep S. Tiwana is CIVICUS Chief Officer for Evidence and Engagement and representative to the UN in New York.

 

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The Iranian/Pakistani gas pipeline likely to top agenda for the visit of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to Pakistan. The visit takes place in an atmosphere of renewed tensions in the Middle East and a threat of US sanctions. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Apr 21 2024 (IPS)

When Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi visits Pakistan this week (April 22, 2024), experts say the two issues topmost on his mind that he will want to discuss with his Pakistani counterpart, President Asif Ali Zardari, will be border security and the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline.

“This visit comes at the most troubling time for the region,” said Senator Mushaid Hussain Sayed, chairman of the Islamabad-based Pakistan-China Institute, pointing to the war in Gaza and the resurgence of terrorism from Afghanistan, which borders both Pakistan and Iran. Added tension comes after retaliatory strikes by Israel and Iran. A suspected Israeli strike on an Iranian consulate in Syria at the beginning of the month was followed by a retaliatory attack by Iran on Israel on April 13. US officials say Israel responded, despite a plea by UN Secretary-General António Guterres for restraint. 

The gas pipeline will be an uneasy conversation to hold for Zardari, but with the lives and livelihoods of over 240 million Pakistanis tied to this fuel, finding a solution is of paramount importance for the rulers.

Hassan Nourain, consul general of Iran.

Pakistan needs gas more for residential, commercial, and industrial purposes now than for power generation, said energy expert Vaqar Zakaria, heading the Islamabad-based Hagler Bailley Pakistan, the environment consultancy company.

“Domestic consumers will be the immediate beneficiaries from the Iranian gas supply,” agreed leading sustainable development practitioner Abid Suleri, heading the Islamabad-based Sustainable Development Policy Institute. He also said the country’s economy will flourish manifold if the industry receives a steady supply of this gas.

Zakaria had been part of the negotiations some 25 years ago, in the 1990s, when conversation on importing gas from Iran through an Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline first started due to the fact that “our gas reserves were fast depleting because we were using up this finite resource as if there was no tomorrow. People would leave the stove on for hours instead of turning off the gas,” Zakaria said, blaming the lackadaisical attitude of the people and the visionless government policy of selling it at “dirt cheap rates to keep the voters happy.”

There was a third partner, India, which decided to exit in 2009, “citing pricing and security issues, and after signing a civilian nuclear deal with the United States in 2008,” Zakaria recalled.

“Iran has huge energy reserves such as crude oil and natural gas and is ready to meet the needs of friendly and neighboring countries,” said Hassan Nourain, the consul general of Iran in Karachi, in an interview to IPS. In 2021, it was estimated that Iran had close to 1,203 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, the second largest after Russia.

Pakistan and Iran continued negotiating, and on May 24, 2009, the project was signed by the Pakistani president, Asif Ali Zardari, and the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for the supply of gas ranging from 750 million ft3/d to around 1 billion ft3/d, for 25 years, from the South Pars gas field in Iran and delivered at the Pakistan-Iran border, near Gwadar.

The project, having a pipeline length of 1,150-km within Iran and 781-km within Pakistan, was to be constructed by each country in their respective territories. Iran completed its side of pipeline construction by 2012 and was ready to transport gas to Pakistan by 2015, the Nourain said. Pakistan did not start until 2013.

A year later, in 2014, Pakistan’s petroleum minister, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, told the Iranian government that due to sanctions on Iran, banks and contractors were unwilling to go ahead with the project on Pakistan’s side.

Natural Gas Consumption

Natural gas situation in Pakistan.

Ten years later, Pakistan is toying with the idea of building the pipeline again and in February of this year, Pakistan’s caretaker government approved the construction of the first 80-kilometer stretch from the Iranian border to Gwadar in Balochistan.

Donald Lu, US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, immediately censured Pakistan for its plans to import gas from Iran, as it would expose Pakistan to US sanctions.

“If a neighbor is giving us gas at competitive rates, then it is our right [to buy it],” Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif told the media earlier this month.

“The threat of these unilateral sanctions imposed on Iran by the US is illegal,” said Nourain. “In 2006, the United Nations Security Council demanded Iran halt its uranium enrichment programme and imposed certain sanctions but after monitoring it, in 2016, most sanctions were lifted for at least ten years.”

But, pointed out Arif Anwar, an international development practitioner: “The US is entitled to do what it wants with USAID and or any banks, businesses and insurance companies that operate in the US. The sanctions on Iran and on countries trading with it have been around for decades and may even have some UN legitimacy cover.”

Moreover, warned Anwar, given that Pakistan needs support from the International Monetary Fund, which would also require US support, “Pakistan needs to tread a careful path.”

“Pakistan needs gas,” said Lahore-based lawyer Ahmad Rafay Alam, terming the US warning “an unfair US policy.”

“The pipeline is pivotal for Pakistan’s energy independence,” pointed out Sayed. “It cuts costs as it is 40 percent less than imported LNG (liquefied natural gas),” he said.

“The US no longer has the moral authority to impose sanctions on either Iran or Pakistan if both countries exercise their sovereignty and agree to buy and sell anything to one another, not after its support of the Gaza genocide,” Alam said, echoing the sentiments of a vast majority of the South Asian nation of over 240 million that remain staunch supporters of Palestine.

Some analysts believe that the Pakistani population will benefit from a steady supply of gas. This photo was taken at the LPG filling station in Clifton, Karachi. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS

But, said Anwar, the Pakistani government needs to reflect on how it arrived at this difficult predicament. “The sanctions against Iran were in place well before the contract was signed. Why didn’t the government insert suitable safeguards in the contract?” and then responded to his own question: “Because political expediency takes priority.”

He was referring to the quandary that Pakistan is in right now—if it does not build the pipeline, Iran can slap a fine of USD 18 billion. The deadline expires in September this year. And if it goes ahead, the US may place sanctions on Pakistan.

“The government of Pakistan asked Iran to extend the timeline in 2014 for ten years and that expires this year,” the Nourain pointed out.

Seeking Waivers

However, there is one option left for Pakistan. “We start with the Pakistani side of the pipeline, and in the meantime, we officially seek a waiver as well,” offers Sayed.

Former Law and Justice Minister Ahmad Irfan Aslam said taking the diplomatic route and seeking support from Saudi Arabia and the UAE may secure Pakistan a waiver, but warned: “In return, the US will have its own set of demands.” It will mean treading smartly and “constructing a package that works for both sides,” he told IPS.

But with the hostile US-Iran relations, Michael Kugelman, director of the Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute in Washington, said Washington may not be in a charitable mood with countries engaging commercially with Iran.

“It won’t be inclined to give Pakistan a sanctions waiver,” he said.

“Some countries are allowed to import gas and petroleum products from Iran; why can’t Pakistan get the waiver?” countered the Nourain.

China, Greece, Italy, South Korea, Japan, Turkey, Iraq, and Taiwan were given waivers by the US in the past for importing oil from Iran but not extended beyond April 2019, leading to a significant drop in Iran’s oil exports. However, China has continued to import Iranian crude oil and has made it clear that it is not willing to comply with US sanctions against Iran.

“The US applies a double standard,” said Nourain, adding: “When the US warns Pakistan of sanctions, it is not on the government, but on the people of Pakistan.”

“We should insist on the same rules for Pakistan as there are for others regarding importing energy from Iran,” Sayed said.

The US mission in the country told IPS that Pakistan has not requested a waiver.

But if Pakistan pursues the pipeline project, Zakaria pointed out that it may find it difficult to look for funders.

Kugelman believed Beijing could be wooed, but Moscow could also be an option. “With Russia enjoying friendly relations with Iran, if the former can help Pakistan on this, Pakistan-Russia relations will also gather strength,” he added.

Anwar had an alternative perspective. “If countries can engage their private sector for space travel, surely Pakistan can do it for a gas pipeline,” he said. “The agreement may be government-to-government but the private sector could manage construction and operation,” he said. “The government should not try everything itself, but rather create an environment for the private sector to invest and deliver goods and services.”

Or, pointed out Kugelman, “Pakistan may focus more attention on legal avenues that bring down the risk of facing a massive fine if it doesn’t end up building it.” He admitted that none of the options were good or easy. “It’s one more policy conundrum for a new government grappling with plenty of them.”

Imported Gas or Domestic Renewables?

Pakistan is getting LNG at USD 13/MMBTu through long-term contracts, while the spot market is currently trending around USD 8/MMBTu. So, Pakistan should negotiate firmly with Iran on pricing to buy it at a “considerably cheaper price for it to make sense for Pakistan to build the pipeline and transport the gas across Pakistan,” said Haneea Isaad, energy finance specialist at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).

And with predictions of a “supply glut” from 2025 onwards, she pointed out, the price of LNG is expected to continue the downward trend.

Suleri had the same advice. “Securing affordable LNG, irrespective of its source, is Pakistan’s best bet.”

However, Isaad warned that an unprecedented hot or cold spell in Europe and East Asia may “lead to a hike in LNG prices right back in and should be factored in.”

Others ask that if Iran goes off the charts again, perhaps Pakistan can look to Central Asia for supplies of natural gas, to which the US should have no objections. Last year, Islamabad and Ashgabat signed a joint implementation plan to revive the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project, which aims to export up to 33 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year through a proposed approximately 1,800-kilometer pipeline from Turkmenistan to India. “TAPI will not take off until Afghanistan and India do not come on board, and frankly, in the current geopolitical mess that we’re in, this is not going to happen anytime soon,” said Suleri.

With the challenge of ensuring a steady supply of gas at an affordable price and the looming threats of sanctions and penalties from Iran, Suleri also reminded us that Pakistan’s pledge to shift to 60 percent renewable energy by 2030 was just six years away.

“We can switch to solar water heating in homes, like it is done in Kathmandu, instead of using natural gas, with backup electric water heating when the weather is cloudy,” suggested Zakaria. Electricity can also be generated in homes using solar panels, he added. “And instead of expanding the gas network to smaller towns at a high cost, LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) can be cross-subsidized with gas to provide cleaner fuel to houses at an affordable price.”

“Pakistan should look into investing in REs,” agreed Suleri, but pointed out that it may not be commercially viable to supply at a scale that meets the country’s requirements.

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A mini ginnery could ensure the future of the cotton industry in Kenya. Credit: Wilson Odhiambo/IPS

By Wilson Odhiambo
NAIROBI, Apr 19 2024 (IPS)

Kirinyaga University may have just breathed new life into Kenya’s ailing cotton industry as varsity dons develop a portable cotton ginnery.

For an industry that has been struggling to survive, this news came as a relief to cotton farmers, whose lives the invention is expected to change, and to a government pushing for job creation and self-reliance through manufacturing. 

The project, funded by the government through the National Research Fund (NRF), is a portable cotton ginning machine aimed at addressing the problems faced by farmers, by providing them with a means to process their cotton directly on their farms and hence determine their own market prices.

The invention is the brainchild of four professors from Kirinyaga University: Dennis Muchangi, Grace Kiiru, David Kabata, and Agnes Mutiso.

The cotton processing industry has been struggling to recover for decades since its collapse in the 1990s, despite Kenya boasting of being a pioneer cotton miller and having the largest cotton gin in East Africa, Kisumu Cotton Mills (KICOMI).

The famous KICOMI, located in Nyanza province, has been a centre of controversy since its sudden shutdown in the 1990s. The mill, started in 1964, provided jobs for thousands of people as it was strategically located in the country’s largest cotton production region (served the western and Nyanza regions).

The result of this closure was a collapse in the country’s largest cotton production region as the farmers eventually opted for other means of survival. Today, the mill remains a shell of its former glory, despite repeated attempts by the government to revive it.

‘’From our research, we found out that the remaining cotton ginneries in the country were struggling to stay open due to the high cost of maintaining the ginneries, and the ones that were in operation were inaccessible by most cotton farmers across the country,’’ said Dennis Muchangi, project team leader.

‘’The closure of ginneries forced the remaining cotton farmers to rely on middlemen to find a market for their products, which meant exploitation and eventual loss of morale in cotton farming for most of them. Currently, they are forced to sell a kilo of grade 2 cotton at Ksh. 26, while grade 1 goes for Ksh. 52,’’ Muchangi told IPS.

Kirinyaga University’s invention has brought hope to cotton farmers, most of whom had ventured into other sources of income.

According to the academics, their invention will help the government boost the textile manufacturing industry while also creating blue-collar jobs such as artisans and mechanics, as the machine is easy to make with locally available material and the designs for its manufacture will be made open to the public.

‘’The portable ginnery is quite a simple machine with designs that are easy to understand for any local mechanic,’’ said Muchangi. This means that they can be built in any location.

The mini ginnery is a far cry from the large industry ginneries, as it is made out of simple scrap metal and other materials that can be found locally and assembled in any work shop.

‘’Another problem we noted among the available ginneries was maintenance delays, which led to a lot of stalling and shut downs. The big ginnery machines are expensive to maintain and too complex for local mechanics, which meant having to wait for months to get expert engineers from Nairobi to come and fix them. This was bad for the farmers and the cotton industry,’’ Muchangi explained.

‘’With our machines, farmers will no longer have to wait for experts and they can instead call any locally available mechanic.’’

Muchangi added that while the government is expecting to spend billions to revamp the stalled ginneries, their miniature machine requires less than Ksh. 100,000 (about USD 724) to build and even less to maintain.

Grace Kiiru, a project member, explained that the machine is also easy to use and, once taught, can be operated by anyone, both men and women. This, she said, will help empower women and the youth.

‘’While the larger ginneries require experts to operate, our machine is quite easy to learn and use and can be operated by anyone once they get the basic knowledge. This means that they can be operated throughout, thus boosting cotton production,’’ Kiiru told IPS.

The ginnery has also been designed to be able to accommodate farmers who live in areas with limited or no access to electricity.

‘’Given that most farmers are found in rural areas, characterized by limited or lack of electricity, we have made our machine in such a way that it can be operated manually or can be fitted with a petrol-powered generator for those who can afford it. We are also working on enabling it to run using solar energy,’’ Kiiru said.

The ginnery is small enough to be transported on a motorbike, making it accessible even in rural areas where motor vehicle transport may be a problem.

According to Kiiru, the machine has the ability to process up to 500 kg of cotton in a single day, which will make it quite profitable to farmers who can sell their products directly to the textile factories.

‘’Our intention is to help farmers determine their own prices by cutting out the middleman. By processing their own cotton, farmers will be able to sell their product for as much as Ksh. 200 (USD 1.51 per kilo up from the Ksh 25 (about USD 0.19) per kilo that they are currently being forced to accept,’’ she explained.

Kenya currently relies on cotton imports to supplement its textile industry, a fact that Saada Mangi laments has made the cost of some fabric high.

‘’Most clothing designers like myself import fabric from India due to the high cost and sometimes lack of material of the same quality locally. We are forced to sell our finished clothes at high prices, meaning we have to target certain clients who can afford them,’’ Mangi said.

‘’It is sad to see people prefer imported clothes and materials because they are more affordable compared to what we make locally. This is part of what kills our culture as a country,’’ Mangi said.

‘’Rivatex Textiles, Kenya’s largest textile factory, has had to rely on cotton imports from countries like Egypt to sustain its demands. Our machines will give farmers in the western and Nyanza regions a reason to resume cotton farming, which means no more importation and hence reduced prices on textile products,’’ Muchangi concluded.

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The 15-member Security Council-- which includes five veto-wielding permanent members, namely the US, UK, France, China and Russia-- plays a decisive role in the election of a UN Secretary-General. Credit: United Nations
 
With current UN Secretary-General António Guterres set to step down in 2026, who is in the running to replace him? In this seven-part series, Felix Dodds and Chris Spence reveal who might be in the running and assess their chances.
 
The potential candidates include Amina J. Mohammed (Nigeria), Mia Motley (Barbados), Alicia Barcena (Mexico), Maria Fernanda Espinosa (Ecuador), Rebeca Grynspan (Costa Rica) and Michelle Bachelet (Chile). These are names that have come up in conversations with UN insiders and other experts. All six would offer skills and experiences we believe would be valuable in these fast-paced, uncertain times.
 
“The suffering we see around us is a reminder of what is at stake when we lose sight of the long term, when we leave people behind and we lose the ability to put ourselves in others’ shoes. What we’re seeing is a preview of what the world could be in 2030, if the Sustainable Development Goals fail.”

By Felix Dodds and Chris Spence
APEX, North Carolina / DUBLIN, Ireland, Apr 19 2024 (IPS)

This was the stark warning of Rebeca Grynspan, Secretary-General of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), in 2023.

Grynspan was appointed as the new head of UNCTAD—and its first female leader—in 2021. Before this, she had been Secretary-General of the Ibero-American Summits from 2014-2021, and a deputy head at the UN Development Programme (UNDP) from 2010-2014.

She has also held other UN roles dating back a decade further. These include serving as a subregional director of the Economic Commission for Latin American and the Caribbean (ECLAC), and as UNDP’s regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean.

But her expertise also crosses into government.

During the 1990s she held several high-profile roles in her native Costa Rica, including serving as Vice President from 1994-1998. She also held the housing, economics, and social affairs portfolios at various stages of her career, and was a Vice Minister of Finance in the late 1980s.

Rebeca Grynspan, Secretary-General of the Geneva-based UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)

Grynspan has also been on various boards and high-level panels over the years, dealing either with financial matters, human development, or both. For instance, she chaired the board of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), served as a delegate to the UN Commission for the Reconstruction of Haiti, and more recently was on the G20 High Level Independent Panel (HLIP) on Financing the Global Commons for Pandemic Preparedness and Response.

She has also served on boards tackling issues such as nutrition and food policy, and women’s political leadership. She is also coordinator of the Task Team of the Global Crisis Response Group on Food, Energy and Finance set up by the UN Secretary-General to help support countries face the economic shocks related to the war in Ukraine.

Could Grynspan’s breadth of experience, and her deep background in finance and economics, be viewed as an asset at a time when financing in general, and particularly support for the Global South, are widely seen as inadequate?

For example, the shortfall in funding for the Sustainable Development Goals in the South is now estimated at $4 trillion. How can we turn this around? Grynspan’s professional experience, including negotiating the debt of her country with the IMF, and her extensive training as an economist (she holds economics degrees from universities in Costa Rica and the UK) could be viewed as timely and valuable in this regard.

Assessing Grynspan’s Prospects

Could economist Rebeca Grynspan become the next UN Secretary-General? Here is our assessment of her advantages and disadvantages should she choose to enter her name into the contest.

Advantages

– Seniority: Grynspan may not have been a president or prime minister, but as Vice President of Costa Rica she climbed close to the summit of her country’s political mountain. Although it is unclear whether the current Secretary-General’s status as a former prime minister will be a one-off event or the start of a trend, Grynspan’s seniority in her native Costa is unlikely to harm her candidature, should she choose to apply, and would likely help it.
– UN Experience: As the first female Secretary-General of UNCTAD, Grynspan has already broken one glass ceiling within the United Nations. She would also bring more than twenty years’ experience within the UN system, something that would surely be viewed as an asset during these uncertain times. Additionally, she is familiar with the internal workings of the UN in Geneva, New York and across Latin America, giving her insights into decision making at both headquarters and regionally. This breadth of experience within the UN could be useful to any future UN leader.
– Proven Impact: Grynspan is viewed as someone who can have an impact, a perception recognized by Forbes magazine, which named her among the 100 most powerful women in Central America four years running. She was also instrumental in the UN-brokered Black Sea Initiative agreed by Russia, Türkiye, and Ukraine that has allowed millions of tons of grain and other foodstuffs to leave Ukraine’s ports, playing an important role in global food security.
– Connections: Grynspan has had many years operating in the regional level and at the global level, too. Her networks may arguably not be as wide as some other candidates, but would still provide a good platform for her to succeed.
– A Woman Leader: As with our other candidates, Grynspan offers the chance to break the glass ceiling and become the first female leader of the UN.

Disadvantages

– Climate and the Environment: Although Grynspan has strong credentials on trade, finance and development, it is only recently that she began to have a higher profile on climate change and some of the other big environmental issues of our time. For instance, she recently co-hosted the first ever Trade Day event at COP28, and has become a strong advocate for reform of the financial and debt architecture to allow developing countries the fiscal space to invest in carbon mitigation and adaptation. Could her relatively recent involvement in this key issue count against her, or will it rather be seen as adding to her impressive credentials in other areas?
– Peace and Security: Peace, security and conflict resolution have not featured prominently in her background. However, as with climate change, they are often front-and-center of international news. If the UN Security Council members are looking for expertise in this area, might Grynspan’s relative lack of experience be considered a possible weakness? Or, would they consider her recent role in the Black Sea Initiative as recent evidence of her engagement in this area?
– Name Recognition: Although she is widely respected in her fields and across the UN, Grynspan may not have the same sort of name recognition among the public as some of the other candidates.

Prof. Felix Dodds and Chris Spence have participated in United Nations conferences and negotiations since the 1990s. They co-edited Heroes of Environmental Diplomacy: Profiles in Courage (Routledge, 2022), which examines the roles of individuals in inspiring change.

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The UN General Assembly in session.
 
With current UN Secretary-General António Guterres set to step down in 2026, who is in the running to replace him? In this seven-part series, Felix Dodds and Chris Spence reveal who might be in the running and assess their chances.
 
The potential candidates include Amina J. Mohammed (Nigeria), Mia Motley (Barbados), Alicia Barcena (Mexico), Maria Fernanda Espinosa (Ecuador), Rebeca Grynspan (Costa Rica) and Michelle Bachelet (Chile). These are names that have come up in conversations with UN insiders and other experts. All six would offer skills and experiences we believe would be valuable in these fast-paced, uncertain times.

By Felix Dodds and Chris Spence
APEX, North Carolina / DUBLIN, Ireland, Apr 18 2024 (IPS)

Is the rough-and-tumble of leading the UN General Assembly a good preparation for the top UN job?

Maria Fernanda Espinosa served as President of the UN General Assembly from 2018-2019, garnering votes from 128 out of 193 member states. With her victory, she became only the fourth woman—and the first from Latin America—to run this important UN body.

Her time in charge of the General Assembly was eventful. During her year as its leader, Espinosa pushed hard for progress on women’s empowerment and gender equality, particularly in terms of boosting women’s political participation. On several occasions she gathered women heads of state and government, as well as other female leaders, for events aimed at advancing this agenda.

María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, President of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly. Credit: UN Photo

She also focused on the rights of refugees, presiding over the adoption of the Global Compact on Refugees, as well as a Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. Furthermore, she launched an International Year of Indigenous Languages and helped advance the international conversation on single-use plastics, supporting efforts to eliminate their use at UN headquarters in New York and Geneva.

Additionally, she used her tenure to urge greater progress on nuclear disarmament and on diseases like tuberculosis.

But her career began thousands of miles from New York. Her early focus was in the Amazon, working alongside indigenous communities in her native Ecuador. Later, she represented Ecuador as its Ambassador to the UN. She also served twice as her country’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and in several other ministerial positions, including as Minister of Defense and, earlier, as Minister of Natural and Cultural Heritage.

Prior to holding these senior government positions, Espinosa was an associate professor and researcher at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences. She also served as an advisor on biodiversity, climate change, and indigenous peoples’ policies. Later, she became regional director for South America for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a position she held from 2005-2007.

Espinosa’s track record on climate change is also noteworthy, as she has served since 2009 as a key negotiator in several climate conferences, including COP21 in 2015, where the Paris Agreement was signed.

Her early academic life was as broad and eclectic as her later professional career, with degrees in social science, Amazonic studies, anthropology, political science, and linguistics. She even won a national prize in poetry.

Assessing Espinosa’s Prospects

Could Maria Fernanda Espinosa’s wide-ranging experiences qualify her to be the next UN Secretary-General? Here is our assessment of her advantages and disadvantages, should she put her name forward.

Advantages

– Right Region: Like several of our other potential candidates, Espinosa’s Ecuadorian background and an apparent preference for a leader from Latin America and the Caribbean could work in her favor.
– UN Experience: Espinosa has been both the President of the UN General Assembly, where she emerged with her reputation intact, and a UN Ambassador in New York. She has led the Group of 77 developing nations in UN negotiations and been a lead negotiator in key climate talks. These UN experiences should surely burnish her credentials.
– Connections: Espinosa developed strong networks during her time leading the Group of 77 and as President of the UN General Assembly. She has strong connections among leading women’s groups and indigenous peoples. Could this robust set of networks among senior politicians and various important stakeholders help her become Secretary-General?
– A Woman Leader: As noted previously, the UN has never had a female leader during its 80-year history. It is high time this changed. Espinosa would be another capable candidate. In addition, she has a clear track record promoting women’s leadership at the United Nations.

She is current Executive Director of the Group of Women Leaders for Change Inclusion, hosting a successful summit in Madrid early in 2024 that drew leaders from the UN system, as well as high-profile names such as Hilary Clinton.

Disadvantages

– Should Only Prime Ministers Apply? The current Secretary-General, António Guterres, was previously Portugal’s Prime Minister. While earlier UN leaders did not head-up governments, it is an open question as to whether Guterres’ appointment will set a new precedent or expectation for future UN leaders. If it does, Espinosa and other candidates who cannot boast of being a former president or prime minister may have their work cut out. That said, historically the UN Secretary-General’s role often attracted former foreign ministers to apply. If that earlier precedent is restored, Espinosa’s time as Ecuador’s foreign minister (twice) could be an advantage.
– An ‘Outside’ Insider? Like Alicia Bárcena and some other possible candidates, Espinosa can claim both outside experience as a government minister, and ‘inside’ UN expertise heading up the UN General Assembly and playing a leading role at major UN negotiations. However, it is worth noting that Espinosa has never actually worked within the UN as a staff member; most of her UN experience was gained while she was with the Ecuadorian government. This makes it substantively different. Espinosa will likely have less true inside working knowledge than some other possible candidates of how the UN operates internally, possibly meaning her learning curve would be steeper.
– Name Recognition: While those in UN climate circles and at New York headquarters will know her, Espinosa is not a household name. Could this tell against her?

Prof. Felix Dodds and Chris Spence have participated in United Nations conferences and negotiations since the 1990s. They co-edited Heroes of Environmental Diplomacy: Profiles in Courage (Routledge, 2022), which examines the roles of individuals in inspiring change.

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Works at the Tilenga Development Project operated by TotalEnergies. Some landowners object to what they consider forced evictions with inadequate compensation. Credit: Wambi Michael/IPS

By Wambi Michael
KAMPALA, BULIISA, and HOIMA , Apr 18 2024 (IPS)

When Mugisha Jealousy Mulimba learned that the government of Uganda was dragging him to court, he expected justice. But he says he has realized these courts are being used to deprive him of his rights to a fair hearing and the right to fair and adequate compensation for his land and property.

Mulimba told IPS that within days after the government’s case against him and 41 other landowners in the oil-rich Uganda Albertine region was heard in December 2023, the court ruled that money meant for the expropriation compensation should be deposited with the court and that the government could evict them so that TotalEnergies oil refinery construction could go ahead and the pipes for the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) could be installed.

“It was the fastest trial that I have known of since my childhood. And more so that involving a case when the government sued its citizens,” Mulimba told IPS.

“Justice Jesse Byaruhanga of the High Court in Hoima heard and passed the judgment against us within four days. You can imagine determining a case filed by the government within four days,” he added. Now the landowners are playing a waiting game, not knowing when they will finally be evicted.

Mulimba and hundreds of the dependents of the 42 landowners  are on the brink of homelessness, facing eviction for refusing to accept the unjust, unfair, and inadequate compensation by TotalEnergies, which is acquiring the land from the peasant farmers on behalf of the government.

The threat of forceful eviction of the landowners has been around for years. But this time, it appears to be imminent, with the government armed with an eviction order and determined that the oil, discovered in 2006, should be extracted by 2025.

“Unfortunately, we, the landowners, have been punished since 2018. And now, with their eviction order, they can do anything. But we are determined to die for our rights,” said Fred Balikenda. The government applied and granted a specific order to have Balikenda evicted from his land in Kirama village.

“Each of us is going through the toughest times. You don’t know when they will finally pounce or how they will treat us,” said Balikenda

On December 4, 2023, Uganda’s Attorney General’s Chamber sued 43 landowners. The suit asked the court to grant the government leave to deposit compensation money in the court so that TotalEnergies could take possession of land for the Tilenga oil and gas project.

The government asked that it be discharged from any liabilities arising from any claim from the eviction order.

The High Court ruled on December 8, 2023, that the landowners’ compensation be deposited in court so that TotalEnergies can take possession of the land in dispute. TotalEnergies E&P has since 2020 been trying to acquire a 60-acre piece of land on behalf of Uganda’s Ministry of Energy.

The “hurried ruling” in favor of the government raised eyebrows within the legal fraternity. In Uganda, land disputes stay in the court system for years without resolution.

“All the cases we filed against the government are still rotting in the courts. The same judiciary hears the case against us by the government in four days. Has the devil taken over our government? We are crying in our hearts, wondering who will help poor people like us,” said Kwonka William Mugisa, another landowner.

A human rights lawyer, Eron Kiiza, issued a statement saying that the judge in the matter violated established legal principles by delivering a verdict in the land case within four days, without allowing the accused parties to respond or contest the matter.

“When a judge, oozing impunity, deliberately denies parties to a case/suit an opportunity/right to be heard, to contradict the evidence, to file their submissions, and hastily makes orders for the benefit of TotalEnergies to prejudice Ugandans’ homes, gardens, residences, livelihoods, dignity, and property, he is undermining the rule of law and fundamental human rights and freedoms,” said Kiiza.

Kiiza and other lawyers in January have tried to urge the Uganda Law Society to boycott the Judiciary’s activities in protest against the conduct and the way the judge handled the matter.

He, with the permission of the landowners, appealed the ruling to the Court of Appeal to overturn the High Court eviction order and compensation money deposited in the court.

The Court of Appeal had not fixed the date for hearing the appeal petition at the time IPS was filing this report. Fearing that the government could go ahead with the eviction, Mulimba and four other aggrieved parties traveled to Kampala at the end of February in an attempt to seek an audience with the Minister of Constitutional Affairs and the other leaders in the judiciary to hear their plea.  Mulimba old IPS that they were not allowed to enter any of the offices.

Kwonka William told IPS that, going by the government’s valuation report, he was being forced to accept an equivalent of about USD 9 for his land and assets.

The Energy Ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Irene Batebe, said in an affidavit that compensation due to the respondents was based on approved valuation reports and a 30 percent project uplift by the government.

Meanwhile, Mulimba, flanked by his wife, Pityedi Mugisa, told IPS that the government, through the court, is trying to force them to accept unfair compensation in the form of cash.

“The land is for the family. We asked for land in exchange. If they can find equivalent land, we are ready to leave. But we didn’t ask for cash,” said Mulimba.

The couple said they have attended scores of meetings demanding fair and adequate compensation but have been unsuccessful.

“We had been using that land for many years. We earned money for school fees from it. We get food from it and we got medical support from there,” he said. “So, we are not fighting the government but we are fighting for our rights to be respected.”

Dickens Kamugisha, a lawyer and Chief Executive of the Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO), told IPS that the landowners have been trying to meet government officials to ensure that there is fairness and justice.

“Instead of ensuring fair and adequate compensation, they are now using the court. Knowing that these people cannot get the best lawyers to represent them, knowing that they cannot influence the courts. So the government is filing those cases to get those rulings that they want to use to evict the people,” he said.

Kamugisha said AFIEGO supported the oil refinery-affected people in filing a case against the government of Uganda over low, inadequate, and unfair compensation in March 2014.

“Nearly ten years later, hearings on the case have yet to be concluded. That is an injustice. And where there is injustice, you cannot have a settlement that is coming from negotiations,” he asserted.

Besides, Kamugisha told IPS that no law provides that the government can go ahead to acquire land and deposit the landowner’s compensation in court.

“In 2021, the judiciary illegally allowed the government to deposit the households’ compensation in court. This set a bad precedent that should never be repeated. It is also sad that the government has continued to use and misuse courts to destroy citizens’ right to own property and/or get adequate compensation,” Stated Kamugisha.

As the landowners wait for the Court of Appeal to consider their appeal, some of them told IPS that they are being threatened by security operatives who, they said, keep visiting their homesteads.

“That is mainly happening here in Kasinyi, Ngwedo Center, and Kisimo villages, where most of us live. Someone comes and parks a motorcycle or car at your land and then drives away. Isn’t that intimidation?” another landowner said

According to Global Witness, evidence from its undercover investigation in December 2023 showed that state authorities had threatened and detained a number of campaigners.

“In a handful of instances, the state authorities appeared to be in communication with TotalEnergies before reprisals took place,” said the report.

IPS learned from some of the employees at TotalEnergies and EACOP that the oil company was opposed to the idea of forceful evictions because it was not within its rules and that it feared the likely negative publicity.

There are also reports that TotalEnergies was considering hiring an independent firm to look into the claims by the landowners.

But Kamugisha said it is TotalEnergies that is displacing these people.

“It is unfortunate that Total is saying they are bringing here an independent investigator. They are bringing an investigator at a time when they are working with the government to get eviction orders. How is that investigator going to be helpful?”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Solar panels line the rooftop of the home of Cuban entrepreneur Felix Morffi, in the municipality of Regla, Havana. Large consumers in the residential sector could find in the installation of solar panels a way to offset the amount of their energy bill through cogeneration for self-consumption or receive a payment for injecting clean energy into the national power grid. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

By Luis Brizuela
HAVANA, Apr 17 2024 (IPS)

With a bolder policy and flexible payment mechanisms, perhaps Alexis Rodríguez would have opted for solar panels for his home, instead of the portable generator that has made it possible for him to weather the frequent blackouts caused by Cuba’s recurrent energy crises.

“It’s a little noisy, the fuel is expensive, but I can tolerate one and solve the other. What is intolerable is for my family and I to spend nights and early mornings without electricity, without rest, suffering the heat and mosquitoes, and with the risk of the food in our fridge spoiling,” the barber, who lives in the eastern city of Holguín, told IPS."Solar panels are the best, there is no fuel cost or noise. But they need to be sold with real incentives in order for more people to invest in them." -- Félix Morffi

Rodríguez shelled out 850 dollars a few months ago for a 2500 watt (W) gasoline-powered generator.

Marileydis Pérez, a homemaker in Batabanó south of Havana, received a 900 W generator from her son, who sent it from his home in the United States, “to run the fans, the television and turn on the lights on blackout nights.”

Pérez told IPS that although the government created a system of shifts for the sale of gasoline, “just five liters” for those who have registered generators, “I have only been able to buy it that way once in two years.” As a result, she resorts to the black market for gasoline.

Highly dependent on fuel imports, Cuba consumes more than eight million tons annually, of which almost 40 percent is covered by heavy domestic crude oil with a high sulfur content, used mainly in thermoelectric generation.

During the last five years, along with the deterioration of the domestic economic situation, the fall of the main sources of foreign currency and the tightening of the U.S. embargo, the authorities have faced increasing difficulties in meeting fuel demand.

An update of retail prices in the domestic market led to an increase of more than 400 percent in sales rates since Mar. 1.

The price of a liter of regular gasoline climbed from 25 to 132 Cuban pesos (equivalent to 1.10 dollars at the official rate). The same was true for regular diesel.

On the black market, a liter of regular gasoline costs 250 to 300 pesos, or 0.70 to 0.85 cents on the dollar, taking into account the exchange rate parallel to the government’s.

In this country of 11 million inhabitants, the average monthly salary is equivalent to about 40 dollars, which amounts to around 14 dollars in the informal reference market for a significant number of products, goods and services to which families have access in order to satisfy their basic needs.

The problems facing the energy supply have fuelled the importation of generators, as well as their sale on the black market. Government-owned stores that only take foreign currency also sell them at very high prices, far beyond the reach of most families.

An extension for the non-commercial import of up to two generators that produce more than 900 W has been in place since 2022.

 

A man starts up a gasoline-powered generator in the town of Batabanó, Mayabeque province, Cuba. The country’s energy problems have fuelled the importation of portable generators in the face of the frequent power cuts caused by the energy crisis in this Caribbean island nation. CREDIT: Luis Brizuela / IPS

Barriers

People who spoke to IPS expressed misgivings about the use of generators because they are noisy.

They pointed out that they are not always placed outside the houses or in ventilated rooms so that toxic combustion gases can escape and overheating can be avoided.

When IPS asked about the possibility of solar panels, Pérez said that “in addition to being very difficult to find outside Havana, they usually come without batteries, and if they are brought in, they cost half a million pesos (about 4200 dollars at the official exchange rate).”

When the public corporation Copextel, in charge of marketing and after-sales services, began to sell them in late 2021, “they were at 55,000 pesos” (2,300 dollars at the official exchange rate at the time), unaffordable for anyone who depends on their wages or on a pension,” said Rodríguez.

The price covered the purchase, transportation, installation and assembly of the panels and inverters by the company’s technicians.

“I spend less than 200 pesos on electricity a month. With what a solar panel costs I can pay for electricity for more than 20 years,” added Rodríguez.

Another hurdle for the expansion of solar power in the residential sector lies in the electricity tariff subsidy, which is charged in a devalued currency.
According to official figures, around six percent of the more than four million households in Cuba consume more than 500 kilowatt hours (kWh) per month. Above that threshold, the electricity tariff was increased by 25 percent since March to eliminate subsidies.

By installing solar panels, this segment of the population could find a way to offset the amount of the bill through cogeneration for self-consumption or receive a payment for injecting clean energy into the national grid.

“Those who have mainly purchased the panels are people with high incomes, especially owners of hostels and rental houses. It makes it possible for them to provide air conditioning in rooms for tourists and other services during the day,” Dunia Ulloa, commercial manager of Copextel’s branch in the Havana municipality of Plaza de la Revolución, told IPS.

Two people use the flashlight of a cell phone during a blackout in Havana. The government hopes that, from the current five percent, renewable sources will account for around 30 percent of electricity generation by 2030, in order to strengthen national energy security. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

 

Projects and incentives still fall short

About 95 percent of Cuba’s electricity generation relies on fossil fuels, which include the natural gas produced with domestic oil, offshore oil rigs leased from Turkey, as well as diesel and fuel oil based generators and engines.

The government aims for renewables to account for around 30 percent of electricity generation by 2030, up from the current five percent.

With an installed capacity of 260 megawatts (MW), the solar parks installed in this Caribbean country represented two percent of annual electricity generation at the end of 2023, according to official data.

On Mar. 14, Minister of Energy and Mines Vicente de la O Levy reported that two contracts had been signed for the installation of 92 solar parks in all provinces, with a potential of 2000 MW.

By May 2025, the first of the 1,000 MW contracts must be fulfilled, and the second by 2028. Each one also has an additional 100 MW of storage capacity, he said.

Since 2014 Cuba has had a Policy for the Development of Renewable Energy Sources and their Efficient Use, and in 2019, Decree Law 345 established regulations to increase the share of renewables in the energy mix and gradually decrease consumption of fossil fuels.

In 2023 the Ministry of Finance and Prices issued Resolution 238 which doubled to six pesos (0.05 cents of a dollar at the official exchange rate) the price per kWh from renewable sources delivered to the national grid by independent producers in residential areas.

In addition, the regulations waive for up to eight years the tax on profits for economic actors that carry out electricity generation projects with renewable energy sources, and the customs tax on the importation of equipment to that end.

The results are not very encouraging, pending more attractive proposals for individuals to invest in green energies, in order to sell surplus electricity to the Cuban State.

The regulations do not exempt the import of these technologies for commercialization from customs duties: the cost is the same for materials or equipment, whether they are beneficial or detrimental to energy consumption.

Unlike other countries where people make a living from selling clean energy, in Cuba those who install solar panels essentially seek energy self-sufficiency, that is, to have electric power even during blackouts.

“Solar panels are the best, there is no fuel cost or noise. But they need to be sold with real incentives in order for more people to invest in them,” entrepreneur Félix Morffi, 86, a former mid-level technician in machinery and tool repair and a tenacious advocate of clean energy opportunities, told IPS.

A group of 36 solar panels on the roof of his house provide 10 kWh to support the work of his automotive repair shop, an autonomous enterprise built by Morffi next to his house in the municipality of Regla, in the Cuban capital.

After covering his household needs, the surplus electricity he produces goes to the national grid.

“An essential element is to provide credit. Not everyone has the money to buy the equipment. The other is to not get bogged down in red tape, because it scares people off. Banks must have people who deal only with this issue, who are trained, and who want to get things moving. If that happens, you will see how in the neighborhoods more and more people start to put up panels,” said Morffi.

In his view, “those who produce the most should be recognized, perhaps by giving them household appliances, increasing the rates paid to them for surplus energy or covering part of the investment. In the end, it is a gain for the country and reduces fuel expenses.”

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Dr. Amani Abou-Zeid is the current African Union (AU) commissioner for Energy and Infrastructure. She believes that cross-border approaches are critical for clean energy affordability. Credit: Aimable Twahirwa/IPS

By Aimable Twahirwa
ABU DHABI, Apr 17 2024 (IPS)

Investors, regulators, researchers, policymakers, and representatives of renewable energy companies, acknowledged the key challenges of shifting away from fossil fuels to renewable energy in Africa when they gathered in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE) this week.

The latest estimates by the African Development Bank show that Africa’s energy potential, especially renewable energy, is enormous, yet only a fraction of it is currently employed. Official projections indicate that the demand for energy could also be around 30 percent higher than it is today over the next decade on the continent. 

Francesco La Camera, the Director-General of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) stated that the energy transition is accelerating rapidly, but it clearly remains off track, with an unacceptable uneven distribution of renewable growth that still disproportionately affects the Global South.

“African governments and other stakeholders should adopt innovative solutions to overcome pressing challenges and achieve the energy transition,” La Camera told IPS in an interview.

According to him, there is opportunity [for the continent] to prioritize and narrow down collective actions to overcome the structural and systemic barriers that are impeding progress.

In Africa, experts believe that there are multiple dimensions to energy poverty, which is associated especially with the lack of clear plans and a clear understanding of what the continent wants to achieve.

“Electricity remains the backbone of Africa’s new energy systems, powered increasingly by renewables but a large part of the continent is still left out of the energy transition,” said Bruce Douglas, the Chief Executive Officer at the Global Renewables Alliance, one of the global coalitions of leading industry players committed to accelerating the global transition to renewable energy.

Yet several new commitments were made at the latest UN Climate Change Conference (COP 28) that took place in Dubai, UAE, last year, giving further momentum to the energy transition. Experts are now exploring priorities for the energy transition and immediate steps to ensure that current policies on the continent are improved to encourage greater deployment of renewables.

The latest estimates show that, with Africa accounting for around 39 percent of the world’s renewable energy potential, several renewable energy milestones can be achieved.

“Private and public investment is critical to tackling the multiple dimensions of today’s energy crisis on the continent but to ensure energy security, diversification of various sources is also essential,” Douglas told IPS.

Africa, for example, has abundant hydro, solar, wind, geothermal, hydrogen, and bioenergy resources, but still, the continent’s current energy generation mix continues to rely on fossil fuels, while renewable sources account for nearly 18 percent of the electricity output, it said.

Whereas countries committed on the sidelines of last year’s UN Climate Change Conference to accelerate progress towards tripling renewable power capacity globally to at least 11 terawatts (TW) by 2030, some experts believe that this is still not a long-term solution as more than half of the population still lacks access to electricity.

Amani Abou-Zeid, the Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy of the African Union Commission (AUC) told IPS that a cross-border approach is critical for participating countries in the transition to clean energy affordability.

“Some countries in Africa have embarked on cross-border projects on clean energies but much more effort is needed to develop really sustainable transitions and adequate instruments,” she said.

The Africa Continental Power System Masterplan, a blueprint currently being developed by the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD), highlights some key strategies for countries across the continent to identify key components at national and regional levels that will enable the creation of a smart power systems master plan that promotes access to clean, affordable, reliable, and sustainable electricity supplies across the continent by 2040.

Adja Gueye, Director of Promotion and Cooperation at the National Agency for Renewable Energies in Senegal points out that overall, African countries need appropriate plans at the policy level to overcome some key hurdles on the path to clean energies.

“To facilitate this transition, it would be appropriate for African countries to revise their regulatory framework and move towards harmonization, since the continent needs to improve regional and cross-border electricity interconnections,” she told IPS

Both Gueye and Abou-Zeid are convinced that without infrastructure and appropriate green energies policies and strategies at national and regional levels, it is challenging and impossible to buy and sell electricity across borders.

“Top-down governmental policies and long-term plans on clean energies in Africa are essential,” Abou-Zeid said of the current strategy to establish a long-term continent-wide planning process for power generation and transmission involving all five African power pools.

These include the Central African Power Pool (CAPP), East African Power Pool (EAPP), Northern African power Pool (COMELEC), Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) and Western African Power Pool (WAPP).

Dr. Jimmy Gasore, Rwanda’s Minister of Infrastructure, who is also the current chair of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) points out that Africa’s climate goals necessitate collective recognition that the energy transition is not just about technological change but also about ensuring equity and justice.

“We need to ensure that the benefits of the energy transition are universally accessible, prioritizing the needs of the most marginalized communities,” he said.

To optimize and diversify green energies on the continent, some experts also stress the importance of encouraging effective cooperation between the private and public sectors in renewable energy and energy efficiency projects.

“To prepare for the current transition to renewable energy, partnerships are essential,” said Gueye of the National Agency for Renewable Energies in Senegal, one of the few dedicated national agencies dealing with clean energies in Africa.

 

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With current UN Secretary-General António Guterres set to step down in 2026, who is in the running to replace him? In this seven-part series, Felix Dodds and Chris Spence reveal who might be nominated and assess their chances.
 
The potential candidates include Amina J. Mohammed (Nigeria), Mia Motley (Barbados), Alicia Barcena (Mexico), Maria Fernanda Espinosa (Ecuador), Rebeca Grynspan (Costa Rica) and Michelle Bachelet (Chile). These are names that have come up in conversations with UN insiders and other experts. All six would offer skills and experiences we believe would be valuable in these fast-paced, uncertain times.

By Felix Dodds and Chris Spence
APEX, North Carolina / DUBLIN, Ireland, Apr 17 2024 (IPS)

A third possible candidate for UN Secretary-General is Alicia Bárcena. Mexico’s current Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Bárcena boasts a professional background that is both broad and deep.

Having originally trained as a biologist, she subsequently completed a master’s degree in public administration at Harvard University and has held several important roles within the Mexican government and at the United Nations. Her current role as Mexico’s Foreign Secretary, to which she was appointed in July 2023, marks just the latest relevant role in a long and distinguished career.

Internationally, her 14-year stint as head of the UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) from 2008-2022 was the most recent example of her involvement in the UN, which dates back to when she served on the Secretariat for the Rio Earth Summit in 1992.

Alicia Bárcena

It also led her to the Earth Council in Costa Rica. A non-profit organization tasked with follow up to the agreements reach in Rio, Bárcena was its Founding Director in the 1990s.

One of the Earth Council’s major achievements was the development of the Earth Charter, an international declaration setting out values and principles for a sustainable, peaceful, and just world.

Bárcena’s subsequent work with the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and UN Development Programme (UNDP)—which focused on sustainable development and environmental engagement—reinforced her sense that complex challenges require connection and cooperation among many stakeholders.

Bárcena later served as UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s chief of staff at UN headquarters in New York. Under Annan’s successor, Ban Ki-moon, she was promoted to Under-Secretary-General for Management. It was during her years in New York that she helped create a UN Ethics Office and set up a whistleblower protection policy and rules on financial disclosures for senior officials.

She also began work on the UN Capital Plan to refurbish and fix UN headquarters. It was during these years that she gained access to the highest levels of decision-making in the organization. As a result of this experience, her knowledge of the internal workings of the UN in New York and elsewhere is almost unmatched.

As head of ECLAC from 2008-2022, she continued to pioneer greater transparency, public participation and justice in decision making, particularly on environmental issues. This culminated in 2021 with ratification of the region-wide Escazú Agreement by more than two dozen countries from Latin America and the Caribbean. The Escazú Agreement contains regional pledges on access to information, public participation and justice in environmental matters.

Bárcena’s belief in mediation and advocacy for peaceful resolution of global disputes—something we need now more than ever—is also firmly held. When taking over as Foreign Secretary in mid-2023, she described Mexico as:

“… a country of peace and, therefore, [we] must continue to help mediate peaceful settlements of disputes and to consolidate peace. This has been our position in the United Nations Security Council and in all multilateral forums.”

Some insiders believe Bárcena offers a rare blend of experience. Like Kofi Annan, she is an ‘insider’ candidate who understands the UN and what it can and cannot achieve. This would likely mean she would need less time to learn on the job than someone unused to the UN’s internal workings.

At the same time, she has also spent time in senior roles in Mexico, so understands governments’ perspective and needs. Such knowledge will likely be viewed positively by member states when assessing what sort of person they would like in the UN’s top job. Could this combination of internal and external experience make her an ideal candidate for the next UN Secretary-General?

Assessing Bárcena’s Prospects

Could Alicia Bárcena become the next UN Secretary-General? Here is our assessment of her advantages and disadvantages should she choose to put her name into the contest.

Advantages

– A Woman Leader: As with our other candidates, Bárcena offers the chance to break the glass ceiling and become the first female leader of the UN.
– Right Place, Right Time: As noted in our previous article on Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley, Bárcena is also from the Latin America and Caribbean region, which many insiders believe should provide the next Secretary-General.
– Breadth of Experience: Bárcena’s decades-long experience with both the UN and Mexican government, as well as her engagement with other stakeholders, might appeal to UN member states looking for a more balanced background. Bárcena has worked with the UN as both an insider and an outsider, which may well be an asset.

Disadvantages

– Public Profile: Bárcena is well known both in Mexico and in UN circles. However, she is not a public name or former head of state like current Secretary-General António Guterres. Could this tell against her?

Prof. Felix Dodds and Chris Spence have participated in United Nations conferences and negotiations since the 1990s. They co-edited Heroes of Environmental Diplomacy: Profiles in Courage (Routledge, 2022), which examines the roles of individuals in inspiring change.

https://www.ipsnews.net/2024/04/next-un-leaderpart-1/
https://www.ipsnews.net/2024/04/next-un-leaderpart-2/

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
ACCRA, Ghana, Apr 17 2024 (IPS)

The World Bank has exaggerated probable gains from the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to promote partial and uneven trade liberalisation that is unlikely to enhance development on the continent.

Free trade, in theory
The Bank report claims significant net employment and income gains for all from joining the AfCFTA. Advocates claim it will accelerate African economic growth and progress, creating millions of jobs and raising incomes.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

However, even mainstream economic theory and history do not support its claims about expected benefits. Even conventional trade theory does not claim that all trade liberalisation accelerates economic growth.

And even when it does, international trade mahaguru Jagdish Bhagwati noted long ago that the ensuing economic growth could be ‘immiserising’ when productivity gains accrue to consumers, not producers.

Nor does empirical evidence show trade liberalisation necessarily accelerating economic growth. Bhagwati has also shown preferential commercial agreements undermining free trade.

History shows today’s developed countries have been pragmatic and opportunistic. Typically, they only opened up after freer trade would benefit them while ‘kicking away the ladder’ for others trying to emulate them.

Most developing countries had partial trade liberalisation forced on them by modern European colonialism and structural adjustment from the 1980s. Often, they ended up with economic activities with ‘diminishing returns’, keeping them poor.

Alleged gains
Advocates claim trade liberalisation improves economic efficiency, implying production can be costlessly relocated internationally to produce more at less cost. Mainstream theory also maintains freer trade only improves efficiency under certain conditions:

● full employment, i.e., no unemployment or under-employment;
● no supply-side rigidities, with exporting firms able to quickly increase output, lower unit costs, and easily adjust to changing demand;
● an efficient market for risk exists, with affordable insurance for producers to cope with price volatility;
● ‘losers’ are compensated by ‘winners’ of trade liberalisation.

All these conditions have never been met anywhere, least of all in developing countries, especially the poorest ones. Most importantly, there has never been cross-border compensation of losers in the South by winners in the North.

Model distractions
For its report, The African Continental Free Trade Area: Economic and Distributional Effects, the Bank used computable general equilibrium (CGE) models to simulate some AfCFTA economic impacts.

However, the models’ unrealistic assumptions prevent meaningful assessment of their actual impacts. Thus, full employment and unchanging trade and fiscal balances – required by such CGE modelling – are presumed, with actual conditions assumed away and ignored!

The models are typically specified to favour trade liberalisation, invariably generating net positive economic impacts. Nonetheless, the gains are generally modest, sometimes negligible.

Hence, such apparent benefits depend on problematic assumptions and biased model specifications. With different assumptions and model parameters, findings change radically, e.g., changing government revenue affects public spending and, thus, aggregate demand.

The new findings may even undermine the case for trade liberalisation. For example, more realistic elasticities yield less impressive results. Hence, the models’ claims of gains from trade liberalisation have “dubious empirical relevance at best”.

Hence, “developing countries would be ill-advised to follow the radical recommendations of the World Bank’s liberalisation strategy insofar as it rests on results drawn from the current trade models.”

Job gain illusions
The Bank report admits its CGE simulations greatly qualify its claimed impacts on employment, unemployment and wages. It claims trade liberalisation reduces poverty by assuming very high ‘elasticities’ of poverty reduction due to greater foreign market access raising incomes.

It acknowledges the “analysis does not capture the effects of AfCFTA on job creation, but rather its impacts on job reallocation as employment shifts from sectors of comparative disadvantage to sectors of comparative advantage. This analysis, therefore, focuses on workers switching jobs or on labor displacement, not job creation.”

The report assumes total employment in Africa remains unchanged by trade policy effects. Hence, AfCFTA does not increase jobs; it only moves workers from one sector to another, raising incomes with higher wages, not more jobs.

What were this dubious exercise’s main employment results? First, agriculture’s share of jobs is projected to decline from 35.9% to 29.7% between 2020 and 2035. Second, the share of wholesale and retail trade workers will increase from 16.9% to 20.0%.

Third, wages of less-skilled workers will increase faster than for the more skilled, reducing the ‘skill premium’ and poverty among the former. Female wages will rise faster than men’s as more women are employed in labour-intensive activities. But the magnitude and significance of these trends are moot.

The simulations do not show the AfCFTA boosting value-addition and jobs. While manufacturing value-added would increase between 2020 and 2035 in 15 of the 24 countries covered, its share of output would only grow in six!

Learning from mistakes
Like other reports preceding it – including those for the African Union – the Bank study is based on unrealistic assumptions grossly understating the actual risks and costs of trade liberalisation.

Such studies provide a veneer of legitimacy for such policies. Their results depend on the data used and modellers’ choices. While seemingly impressive, they are of dubious relevance and value.

Trade liberalisation from the 1980s undermined Africa’s modest manufacturing capacity and food security, primarily developed post-independence. This worsened its protracted stagnation lasting into this century.

In 2017, economist Ndongo Samba Sylla warned the AfCFTA implies “suicide for African countries”. Regardless of its pan-Africanist pretensions, the AfCFTA risks resuming trade liberalisation’s earlier devastation.

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Leide Aparecida Souza, president of the Association of Residents of the Genipapo Settlement in the rural area of Acreúna, a municipality in central-western Brazil, stands next to breads and pastries from the bakery where 14 rural women work. The women's empowerment and self-esteem have been boosted by the fact that they earn their own income, which is more stable than from farming, and provide an important service to their community. CREDIT: Marina Carolina / IPS

By Mario Osava
ACREÚNA/ORIZONA, Brazil , Apr 16 2024 (IPS)

A bakery, fruit pulp processing and water pumped from springs are empowering women farmers in Goiás, a central-eastern state of Brazil. New renewable energy sources are driving the process.

“We work in the shade and have a secure, stable income, not an unsteady one like in farming. We cannot control the price of milk, nor droughts or pests in the crops,” said Leide Aparecida Souza, who runs a bakery in the rural area of Acreúna, a municipality of 21,500 inhabitants in central Goiás."The Network is the link between the valorization of rural women, family farming and the energy transition. We chose family farmers because they are the ones who produce healthy food." -- Jessyane Ribeiro

The bakery supplies a variety of breads, including cheese buns and hot dog buns, as well as pastries, cakes and biscuits to some 3,000 students in the municipality’s school network, for the government’s school feeding program, which provides family farming with at least 30 percent of its purchases. Welfare institutions are also customers.

The bakery is an initiative of the women of the Genipapo Settlement, established in 1999 by 27 families, as part of the agrarian reform program implemented in Brazil after the 1964-1985 military dictatorship, which has so far settled 1.3 million families on land of their own.

Genipapo, the name chosen for the settlement, is a fruit of the Cerrado, the savannah that dominates a large central area of Brazil. Each settled family received 44 hectares of land and local production is concentrated on soybeans, cassava and its flour, corn, dairy cattle and poultry.

Six solar panels will reduce the costs of the women’s bakery, installed on the former estate where 27 families were given land in Acreúna, in the Brazilian state of Goiás, as part of the country’s ongoing agrarian reform program. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

 

Bakery empowers rural women

The women of the Association of Residents of the Genipapo Settlement decided to create a bakery as a new source of income 16 years ago. They also gained self-esteem and autonomy by earning their own money. In general, agricultural and livestock income is controlled by the husbands.

Each of the women working at the bakery earns about 1,500 reais (300 dollars) a month, six percent more than the national minimum wage. “We started with 21 participants, now we have 14 available for work, because some moved or quit,” Souza said.

A year ago, the project obtained a solar energy system with six photovoltaic panels from the Women of the Earth Energy project, promoted by the Gepaaf Rural Consultancy, with support from the Socio-environmental Fund of the Caixa Econômica Federal, the regional bank focused on social questions, and the public Federal University of Goiás (UFG).

Gepaaf is the acronym for Management and Project Development in Family Farming Consultancy and its origin is a study group at the UFG. The company is headquartered in Inhumas, a city of 52,000 people, 180 km from Acreúna.

Due to difficulties with the inverter, a device needed to connect the generator to the electricity distribution network, the plant only began operating in March. Now they will see if the savings will suffice to cover the approximately 300 reais (60 dollars) that the bakery’s electricity costs.

 

Iná de Cubas stands next to the biodigester that she got from the Women of the Earth Energy project in the municipality of Orizona, in the center-east of the Brazilian state of Goiás. The biogas generated benefits the productive activities of small farmers in rural settlements, as do solar plants on a family or community scale. Image: Mario Osava / IPS

“It’s not that much money, but for us every penny counts,” Souza said. Electricity is cheap in their case because it is rural and nocturnal consumption. Bread production starts at 5:00 p.m. and ends at 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. from Monday to Thursday, according to Maristela Vieira de Sousa, the group’s secretary.

The industrial oven they use is low-consumption and wood-burning. There is another, gas-fired oven, which is only used in emergencies, “because it is expensive,” said de Sousa. Biogas is a possibility for the future, which would use the settlement’s abundant agricultural waste products.

Alternative energies make agribusiness viable

Iná de Cubas, another beneficiary of the Women of the Earth Energy project, has a biodigester that supplies her stove, in addition to eight solar panels. They generate the energy to produce fruit pulp that also supplies the schools of Orizona, a municipality of 16,000 inhabitants in central-eastern Goiás.

The solar plant, installed two years ago, made the business viable by eliminating the electricity bill, which was high because the two refrigerators needed to store fruit and pulp consume a lot of electricity.

The abundance of fruit residues provides the inputs for biogas production, an innovation in a region where manure is more commonly used.

The refrigerators in which Iná de Cubas keeps the fruit and fruit pulp that she prepares for sale to schools in Orizona in central Brazil consume a great deal of electricity. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

“I only use an additional load of animal feces when I need more biogas,” said Cubas, who gets the manure from her neighbor’s cows, since she does not raise livestock.

On her five hectares of land, Cubas produces numerous species of fruit for her cottage industry.

In addition to typical Brazilian fruits, such as cajá or hog plum (Spondias mombin), pequi or souari nut (Caryocar brasiliense) and jabuticaba from the grapetree (Plinia cauliflora), she grows lemons, mangoes, oranges, guava and avocado, among others.

For the pulp, she also uses fruit from neighbors, mostly relatives. The distribution of her products is done through the Agroecological Association of the State of Goias (Aesagro), which groups 53 families from Orizona and surrounding areas.

Agroecology is the system used on her farm, where the family also grows rice, beans and garlic. The crops are irrigated with water pumped from nearby springs that were recovered by the diversion of a road and by fences to block access by cattle, which used to trample the banks.

“The overall aim is to strengthen family farming, the quality of life in the countryside, incomes, and care for the environment, and to offer healthy food, without poisonous chemicals, especially for schools,” explained Iná de Cubas.

Biodigesters made of steel and cement, solar energy for different purposes, including pumping water, rainwater collection and harvesting, are part of the “technologies” that the Women of the Earth Energy project is trying to disseminate, said Gessyane Ribeiro, Gepaaf’s administrator.

In the area where Iná de Cubas lives, the project installed five biodigesters and seven solar pumps for farming families, in addition to solar plants in schools, she said.

 

The eight solar panels on the roof of the Cubas family’s house, in the rural area of Orizona, make small agro-industrial processes viable, adding value to the wide diversity of native fruits from different Brazilian ecosystems, such as the Cerrado savannah and the Amazon rainforest, along with species imported throughout the country’s history. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

 

Network of rural women

The Women of the Earth Energy Network, brought together by the project and coordinated by Ribeiro, operates in six areas defined by the government based on environmental, economic, social and cultural similarities. In all, it involves 42 organizations in 27 municipalities in Goiás.

The local councils choose the beneficiaries of the projects, all implemented with collective work and focused on women’s productive activities and the preservation of the Cerrado. All the beneficiaries commit themselves to contribute to a solidarity fund to finance new projects, explained agronomist Ribeiro.

“The Network is the link between the valorization of rural women, family farming and the energy transition,” she said. “We chose family farmers because they are the ones who produce healthy food.”

“We offer technological solutions that rely on the links between food, water and energy, to move towards an energy transition that can actually address climate change,” said sociologist Agnes Santos, a researcher and communicator for the Network.

Recovering and protecting springs is another of the Women’s Network’s activities.

 

Two solar panels run a pump installed in a spring in the forest to pump the water needed by the 29 cows owned by Nubia Lacerda Matias’ family in Orizona, in the state of Goiás, near Brasilia. Thus the cows stopped drinking water in the springs, which are now fenced off, vital to protect the water source for local families living downstream. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

Nubia Lacerda Matias celebrates the moment she was invited to join the movement. She won a solar pump, made up of two solar panels and pipes, which bring water to her cattle that used to damage the spring, now protected by a fence and a small forest.

“It’s important not only for my family, but for the people living downhill” where a stream flows, fed by various springs along the way, she said.

But the milk from the 29 cows and corn crops on her 9.4-hectare farm are not enough to support the family with two young children. Her husband, Wanderley dos Anjos, works as a school bus driver.

Iná de Cubas’ partner, Rosalino Lopes, also works as a technician for the Pastoral Land Commission, a Catholic organization dedicated to rural workers.

In his spare time, Lopes invents agricultural machines. He assembles and combines parts of motorcycles, tractors and other tools, in an effort to fill a gap in small agriculture, undervalued by the mechanical industry and scientific research in Brazil.

Credit: David Peinado/Anadolu via Getty Images

By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Apr 16 2024 (IPS)

The Darién Gap is a stretch of jungle spanning the border between Colombia and Panama, the only missing section of the Pan-American Highway that stretches from Alaska to southern Argentina. For good reason, it used to be considered impenetrable. But in 2023, a record 520,000 people crossed it heading northwards, including many children. Many have lost their lives trying to cross it.

People are also increasingly taking to the seas. A new people trafficking route has opened up across the Caribbean Sea via the Bahamas. Growing numbers of desperate migrants – mostly from conflict-ridden Haiti but also from more distant countries – are using it in an attempt to reach Florida. It’s risky too. In November 2023, at least 30 people died when a boat from Haiti capsized off the Bahamas.

The pattern is clear: as is also the case in Europe, when safer routes are closed off, people start taking riskier ones. Millions of people in Latin American and Caribbean countries are fleeing authoritarianism, insecurity, violence, poverty and climate disasters. Most remain in other countries in the region that typically present fewer challenges to arriving migrants – but also offer limited opportunities. The USA therefore remains a strong migration magnet. Its tightening immigration policies are the key reason people are heading into the jungle and taking to the sea.

Dynamic trends

Out of the staggering 7.7 million Venezuelans who’ve left their country since 2017 – greater than the numbers of displaced Syrians or Ukrainians – almost three million have stayed next door in Colombia, with about 1.5 million in Peru, close to half million in both Brazil and Ecuador, and hundreds of thousands in other countries across the region.

Latin American host countries are relatively welcoming. Unlike in many global north countries, politicians don’t usually stoke xenophobia or vilify migrants for political gain, and states don’t usually reject people at borders or deport them, and instead try to provide paths for legal residence. Overall they’ve been pragmatic enough to strike a balance between openness and orderly entry. As a result, a high proportion of Venezuelan migrants have acquired some form of legal status in host countries.

But host states haven’t planned for long-term integration. They face typical global south challenges, such as high levels of inequality and many unmet social needs. That’s why those moving towards the USA include many Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who were already living in other countries. They are mostly driven by the lack of opportunities, although in the case of Haitians language barriers and racial discrimination are also significant motivators.

While the USA has tightened its migration policies, its porous southern border – the longest border between global north and global south – remains inviting for many. In its 2022 fiscal year, US authorities had a record 2.4 million encounters with unauthorised migrants at the border. Many had come a long way, having crossed the Darién Gap and then headed across Central America and Mexico.

Dangerous journeys

People do so at great risk. According to the United Nations’ Missing Migrants Project reported at least 1,275 people died or went missing during migration in the Americas in 2023.

It’s unclear how many people have perished so far in the Darién Gap. In many cases, deaths go unreported and bodies are never recovered. The crossing can take anywhere from three to 15 days. As they cross rivers and mountains, people suffer from the jungle’s harshness and difficult weather.

According to Doctors Without Borders (MSF), much of the danger is because the Darién is one of the world’s most humid regions and doesn’t have any proper infrastructure. People can easily slip and fall on its steep paths or drown in rushing rivers. Hired guides can leave people stranded. Those who can’t keep up can get disoriented and lost. The difficult terrain forces many to leave their supplies along the way, including food and drinking water.

Migrants also often cross paths with local criminal groups that steal from them, kidnap them or commit rape. In December 2023, MSF recorded a seven-fold increase in monthly incidents of sexual violence. But despite the dangers, the number of people crossing in 2023 almost doubled compared to 2022.

The Darién Gap is only the gateway to Central America – the start of a much longer journey. The dangers don’t stop. Many end up staying somewhere in Mexico, but others keep marching northwards and face many hazards trying to reach the USA – drowning , or dying of heat exposure and dehydration in the desert during the day, or of hypothermia at night. Migrants have also died of asphyxiation in botched migrant smuggling operations. They are often blackmailed by smugglers and experience human rights abuses, including lethal violence, from Border Patrol agents.

US policies

Starting in early 2021, the administration of President Joe Biden made several changes to US immigration policies, such as rescinding the travel ban on primarily Muslim-majority and African countries, restoring the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals programme and granting Venezuelans living in the USA Temporary Protection Status, among other things.

But it was only in May 2023 that the Biden administration finally lifted Title 42, a public health order that, under the cover of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Trump administration used to immediately expel those caught crossing the border, with no right to apply for asylum. At the same time, however, the government issued several new rules that became known as the ‘asylum ban’. Before showing up at the border, people are now required to make an appointment with a smartphone app or have proof they have previously sought and failed to obtain asylum in the countries they’ve travelled through on their way to the USA. If they don’t comply with these requirements, they’re automatically presumed ineligible for asylum and can be subjected to expedited removal.

Civil society points out that it’s very difficult to get an appointment. The app frequently fails and many migrants don’t have smartphones, adequate wi-fi or a data plan. They face language and education barriers and are exploited by people pretending to help. Barriers to seeking asylum have risen to the point that advocates view them as violating the Refugee Convention’s principle of non-refoulment, according to which people can’t be returned to a country where they face serious threats to their life or freedom.

Election politics

Pressure is intensifying as the USA’s November 2024 presidential election approaches.

Republican governors of southern states such as Texas have made a show of bussing newly arrived migrants to far-off cities run by Democrats, dumping them there with no support, treating them as pawns in a political game. Congress Republicans have also repeatedly delayed backing support to Ukraine unless new border control measures are enacted in return.

In October 2023, Biden announced plans to strengthen the southern border and resume deportation flights to Venezuela, which had been paused. But no one has gone lower than Donald Trump, who recently told a rally that ‘immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country’ – a straightforward use of white supremacist rhetoric. His comments have grown increasingly dehumanising – he has repeatedly referred to migrants as ‘animals’.

In his 2023 State of the Union speech, President Biden responded to Trump directly, stating he refused to ‘demonise immigrants’. But in the same breath he urged Republicans to pass a bipartisan immigration bill they’re currently blocking, which would further tighten asylum rules, expand funding for border operations and give the president authority to empower border officials to summarily deport migrants during spikes in illegal immigration. The bill continues to be rejected by hardcore Republicans who see it as not strict enough.

For migrants and asylum seekers, the prospects look bleak. As far as their rights are concerned, the election campaign is a race to the bottom. A Trump victory could only bring further bad news – but a Biden win is unlikely to promise much progress. Election results aside, people will keep taking to the sea or venturing through the jungle, the barbed wire and the desert. Politicians need to recognise this reality and commit to upholding the human rights of all who strive to find a future in the USA.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

 

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