Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

A wide view of the Security Council Chamber as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (on screen) of Ukraine, addresses the Security Council meeting on the situation in Ukraine. April 2022. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

By Elias Yousif
WASHINGTON DC, May 24 2022 (IPS)

Less than halfway through the year, the May 19, 2022 passage of more than $41 billion in emergency funding for Ukraine positions the country to become the largest single recipient of U.S. security sector assistance in 2022.

The latest funding includes at least $6 billion in direct military aid to Ukraine, and billions more for Ukraine and other European partners. Altogether, even a conservative estimate places the value of the military assistance Ukraine will receive in 2022 as equivalent to what the U.S. provided Afghanistan, Israel, and Egypt in FY2020 combined.

In the aftermath of Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, Ukraine had already become the most significant recipient of U.S. security assistance in Europe, receiving $2.7 billion in American military aid between 2014 and 2021. But now, those totals are being quickly eclipsed as the United States and its western allies rush billions of dollars worth of weaponry to Kyiv.

The unprecedented sum reflects both the strategic earthquake resulting from Russia’s invasion as well as the West’s evolving assessment of Ukraine’s prospects in its fight with Moscow. With such enormous quantities of weaponry now making their way to Ukraine, it’s worth reflecting on the evolution of this extraordinary surge in international military assistance and its consequences.

What’s Been Committed to Ukraine Since the February 24, 2022 Invasion

After Russia crossed into Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the United States massively expanded its security assistance efforts and began making use of emergency authorities to expedite the transfer of weaponry and equipment to the country.

Since February 2022, the United States has provided $3.9 billion in security sector assistance to Ukraine. In short, in less than three months between February and April 2022, the United States provided one billion more in security assistance than it did in the seven years between 2014 and 2021.

The United States has provided a wide range of weapons and equipment. According to U.S. government reports, as of May 6th, United States had committed the following:

More than 1,400 Stinger anti-aircraft systems

5,500 Javelin anti-armor systems

14,000 other anti-armor weapon systems

700 Switchblade drones and an undisclosed number of Phoenix Ghost Tactical Drones

16 helicopters

Hundreds of High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles

90 155mm Howitzer artillery pieces and nearly 200,000 shells

200 armored personnel carriers

7,000 small arms

50 million rounds of small arms ammunition

The vast quantity of weapons and equipment provided to Ukraine totals over $3.8 billion so far and excludes the billions in military related assistance in the emergency supplemental passed by Congress on May 19.

The new funding package adds an additional $6 billion for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative – the Ukraine-specific program that funds defense acquisition for the government in Kyiv – and an additional $4 billion in Foreign Military Financing for Ukraine and other European allies.

Additionally, the bill adds $9.05 billion to replenish U.S. weapons stockpiles depleted by a series of transfers to Ukraine and other neighboring states. The bill also raises the statutory limit for what the President is permitted to transfer from existing U.S. weapons stockpiles to $11 billion, providing another pool of equipment that the President can draw from.

Arriving at an exact total for military aid committed to Ukraine in the aftermath of this bill’s passage is challenging. Much of the assistance is being made available to Ukraine and “and countries impacted by the situation in Ukraine.”

In addition, the funding for stockpile replenishment may not represent the exact equivalent of military hardware that has already been transferred to Kyiv. Nevertheless, estimates of the aggregate value of military aid committed to Kyiv would likely make Ukraine the largest yearly U.S. security assistance recipient of the 21st century.

The Evolution of U.S. Security Assistance to Ukraine

Changes in the scale, scope, and makeup of U.S. security assistance over the first four months of the conflict in Ukraine reflect shifting war imperatives, political realities, and appraisals of potential conflict outcomes.

The earliest days of the war following Russia’s invasion in February 2002 were characterized by positional urban fighting and small unit tactics. The United States, Kyiv, and other international partners were focused on equipping forces defending key urban areas with weaponry that could be quickly delivered and used without significant sustainment or training need.

The result was thousands of shoulder-fired anti-armor and anti-air missiles, thousands of small arms, and millions of rounds of small arms ammunition pouring into the country. Just over two weeks after the beginning of the conflict, by March 16, 2022, U.S.-origin equipment committed to Ukraine included:

600 Stinger anti-aircraft systems

2,600 Javelin anti-armor systems

Tactical drones

200 shotguns

200 machine guns

40 million rounds of small arms ammunition

1 million grenade, mortar, and artillery rounds

While the United States did provide a handful of rotary aircraft and armored personnel carriers, much like Ukraine’s other military patrons, Washington was acutely concerned that the provision of more advanced or heavy weaponry could provoke an escalation from Moscow.

In striking the balance of providing weapons to help Ukraine defend itself, Washington sought to test the limits of assistance without sparking a wider war or a direct retaliation from the Kremlin, especially as President Putin rattled his nuclear saber.

Those sensitivities were on full display after a surprise proposal from Poland to transfer some of its Soviet-era fighter jets to Ukraine in exchange for new U.S. aircraft was shot down by the Biden Administration for fear it was too direct an incitement of Russian animosity.

Those calculations changed in late March, as stiff Ukrainian resistance and failures in the Russian assault allowed Kyiv to withstand much of the Kremlin’s initial offensive, especially around the capital.

Incapable of managing their stretched logistics and maintaining pressure around so many axes of advance, Russia elected to withdraw from significant portions of the country and re-orient their war effort toward seizing the country’s east and, potentially, coastal south.

The battlefield transition also catalyzed a transition in Washington’s view of the conflict and the nature of its security assistance to Ukraine. Strategically, it crystallized assessments that Ukraine and its government would survive the conflict with significant territory under its control and could potentially reclaim some areas it lost to Russia in the conflict’s initial phase.

With the imminent and existential threat relatively at bay, and with somewhat more generous time horizons, new opportunities to consider security packages with more advanced weaponry with longer lead times became viable.

Additionally, a battle for Ukraine’s east represents a fundamentally different operational context. Far from the positional urban fighting that Ukraine was able to master early on, the famed Eurasian steppe presents new advantages for Russia.

Shorter supply lines, a more concentrated frontline, and open terrain that advantages Russia’s mechanized armor and long-range heavy firepower will create significant tactical challenges for Ukrainian defenders.

As Ukraine’s foreign minister put it to a NATO gathering, “the battle for Donbas will remind you of the Second World War with large operations, thousands of tanks, armored vehicles, planes, artillery.”

Accordingly, in this new phase of the conflict, the United States has dramatically enhanced its security assistance to Ukraine, expanding to newer, more advanced weapons systems that speak to the particular battlefield realities of this new phase in the war.

With battlefield outcomes now being determined by the accuracy and range of heavy weaponry, the U.S. has committed additional artillery, air defense systems, advanced radar systems, more rotary aircraft, and a slew of never before seen drones that will see some of their first combat in Ukraine.

The change reflects both the new battlefield challenges Ukraine will face in the Donbas, but also the view from Washington that Russia’s warnings against providing additional weaponry to Kyiv are mostly rhetorical.

In addition, the United States has expanded its assistance in non-material but strategically significant ways. Perhaps most important has been Washington’s provision of real-time intelligence to Ukrainian forces.

Reports suggest that Ukraine has made use of the information to target high-ranking Russian military officials and to sink Russia’s famed Black Sea flagship, the Moskva. The U.S. has also begun providing training to Ukrainian troops on some of the new weapon systems they are set to receive, though the training continues to take place outside of Ukraine.

Extraordinary Authorities

Since 2014, the United States has relied on a handful of conventional security cooperation and assistance authorities to support Ukraine’s defense and security forces, including Foreign Military Financing, International Military Education and Training, and the purpose-built Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative.

These programs followed typical Congressional appropriations processes and reflected a more methodical approach to building Ukrainian security capacity.

However, current events have changed the traditional assistance model. In late 2021, as the U.S. intelligence community became convinced that a Russian invasion was imminent, the United States faced a new urgency to shore up Ukrainian defenses against the substantially more developed military might of the Kremlin. The Biden Administration reached for new and exceptional tools to get hardware to Ukrainians quickly.

The most prominent of those exceptional tools has been the Presidential Drawdown Authority, which allows the Executive Branch to take weapons, ammunition, and other materiel from existing U.S. stocks and provide them to other countries without congressional authorization.

The Biden Administration has invoked the authority ten times for Ukraine since August 2021. To put that in context, a 2016 Government Accountability Office report found that the authority was invoked just 11 times between 2011 and 2015. The authority offers some advantages in the current context, including reducing lead times for materiel from months or years to days and weeks.

Additionally, in March 2022, the President invoked an emergency authority under the Arms Export Control Act, which allows the Executive Branch to bypass the statutorily mandated congressional notification process and proceed immediately with an international arms sale or export.

The authority requires the Executive to certify that an emergency exists that creates a national security imperative for the immediate sale or export of defense articles or services without the typical 15-30 pause for notification and congressional consideration.

The authority has only been invoked on a handful of occasions, including in 2019 when President Trump controversially used it to transfer munitions and other defense articles to members of the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen without congressional notification and despite strong congressional opposition.

Congress has also passed an updated version of the World War II-era Lend Lease Act, authorizing the Administration to provide military equipment to Ukraine and other countries in the region on an indefinite basis and without the need to come back to Congress for additional funding. During the Second World War, President Franklin D. Roosevelt used the statute to arm Britain and, to a lesser degree, Russia.

In addition, with the passage of the most recent 41 billion dollar package, the President has now submitted and been granted two emergency supplemental funding requests to Congress amounting to more than $54 billion related to Ukraine including at least $32.3 billion for European theatre defense and security assistance.

Conclusion

The war in Ukraine has fundamentally shifted the focus of U.S. military assistance. For the first time in the 21st century, the largest recipient of U.S. security assistance is not in the Middle East or Central Asia, but in Europe.

The war in Ukraine has become the defining foreign policy priority of the Biden Administration, and with a growing consensus in Western capitals that the end to the war is nowhere in sight, it is likely that the volume of military assistance the United States provides to Ukraine will continue to climb.

Elias Yousif is a Research Analyst with the Stimson Center’s Conventional Defense Program. His research focuses on the global arms trade and arms control, issues related to remote warfare and use of force, and international security cooperation and child-soldier prevention. Prior to joining the Stimson Center, Elias was the Deputy Director of the Security Assistance Monitor at the Center for International Policy where he analyzed the impact of U.S. arms transfer and security assistance programs on international security, U.S. foreign policy, and global human rights practices.

IPS UN Bureau

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, May 24 2022 (IPS)

A class war is being waged in the name of fighting inflation. All too many central bankers are raising interest rates at the expense of working people’s families, supposedly to check price increases.

Forced to cope with rising credit costs, people are spending less, thus slowing the economy. But it does not have to be so. There are much less onerous alternative approaches to tackle inflation and other contemporary economic ills.

Short-term pain for long-term gain?
Central bankers are agreed inflation is now their biggest challenge, but also admit having no control over factors underlying the current inflationary surge. Many are increasingly alarmed by a possible “double-whammy” of inflation and recession.

Nonetheless, they defend raising interest rates as necessary “preemptive strikes”. These supposedly prevent “second-round effects” of workers demanding more wages to cope with rising living costs, triggering “wage-price spirals”.

In central bank jargon, such “forward-looking” measures convey clear messages “anchoring inflationary expectations”, thus enhancing central bank “credibility” in fighting inflation.

They insist the resulting job and output losses are only short-term – temporary sacrifices for long-term prosperity. Remember: central bankers are never punished for causing recessions, no matter how deep, protracted or painful.

But raising interest rates only makes recessions worse, especially when not caused by surging demand. The latest inflationary surge is clearly due to supply disruptions because of the pandemic, war and sanctions.

Raising interest rates only reduces spending and economic activity without mitigating ‘imported’ inflation, e.g., rising food and fuel prices. Recessions will further disrupt supplies, aggravating inflation and worsening stagflation.

Wage-price spirals?
Some central bankers claim recent instances of wage increases signal “de-anchored” inflationary expectations, and threaten ‘wage-price spirals’. But this paranoia ignores changed industrial relations and pandemic effects on workers.

With real wages stagnant for decades, the ‘wage-price spiral’ threat is grossly exaggerated. Over recent decades, most workers have lost bargaining power with deregulation, outsourcing, globalization and labour-saving technologies. Hence, labour shares of national income have declined in most countries since the 1980s.

Labour market recovery, even tightening in some sectors, obscures adverse overall pandemic impacts on workers. Meanwhile, millions of workers have gone into informal self-employment – now celebrated as ‘gig work’ – increasing their vulnerability.

Pandemic infections, deaths, mental health, education and other impacts, including migrant worker restrictions, have all hurt many. Contagion has especially hurt vulnerable workers, including youth, migrants and women.

Workers’ share of national income, 1970-2015

Ideological central bankers
Economic policies by supposedly independent and knowledgeable technocrats are presumed to be better. But such naïve faith ignores ostensibly academic, ideological beliefs.

Typically biased, albeit in unstated ways, policy choices inevitably support some interests over – even against – others. Thus, for example, an anti-inflation policy emphasis favours financial asset owners.

Politicians like the notion of central bank independence. It enables them to conveniently blame central banks for inflation and other ills – even “sleeping at the wheel” – and for unpopular policy responses.

Of course, central bankers deny their own role and responsibility, instead blaming other economic policies, especially fiscal measures. But politicians blaming central bankers after empowering them is simply shirking responsibility.

In the rich West, governments long bent on fiscal austerity left the heavy lifting for recovery after the 2008-2009 global financial crisis (GFC) to central bankers. Their ‘unconventional monetary policies’ involved keeping policy interest rates very low, enabling corporate shenanigans and zombie business longevity.

This enabled unprecedented increases in most debt, including private credit for speculation and sustaining ‘zombie’ businesses. Hence, recent monetary tightening – including raising interest rates – will trigger more insolvencies and recessions.

German social market economy
Inflation and policy responses inevitably involve social conflicts over economic distribution. In Germany’s ‘free collective bargaining’, trade unions and business associations engage in collective bargaining without state interference, fostering cooperative relations between workers and employers.

The German Collective Bargaining Act does not oblige ‘social partners’ to enter into negotiations. The timing and frequency of such negotiations are also left to them. Such flexible arrangements are said to have helped SMEs.

Although Germany’s ‘social market economy’ has no national tripartite social dialogue institution, labour unions, business associations and government did not hesitate to democratically debate crisis measures and policy responses to stabilize the economy and safeguard employment, e.g., during the GFC.

Dialogue down under
A similar ‘social dialogue’ approach was developed by Australian Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke from 1983. This contrasted with the more confrontational approaches pursued in Margaret Thatcher’s UK and Ronald Reagan’s USA – where punishing interest rates inflicted long recessions.

Although Hawke had been a successful trade union leader, he began by convening a national summit of workers, businesses and other stakeholders. The resulting Prices and Incomes Accord between the government and unions moderated wage demands in return for ‘social wage’ improvements.

This consisted of better public health provisioning, pension and unemployment benefit improvements, tax cuts and ‘superannuation’ – involving required employees’ income shares and matching employer contributions to a workers’ retirement fund.

Although business groups were not formally party to the Accord, Hawke brought big businesses into other new initiatives such as the Economic Planning Advisory Council. This consensual approach helped reduce both unemployment and inflation.

Such consultations have also enabled difficult reforms – including floating exchange rates and reducing import tariffs. They also contributed to the developed world’s longest uninterrupted economic growth streak – without a recession for nearly three decades, ending in 2020 with the pandemic.

Social partnerships
A variety of such approaches exist. For example, Norway’s kombiniert oppgjior, from 1976, involved not only industrial wages, but also taxes, salaries, pensions, food prices, child support payments, farm support prices, and more.

‘Social partnerships’ have also been important in Austria and Sweden. A series of political understandings – or ‘bargains’ – between successive governments and major interest groups enabled national wage agreements from 1952 until the mid-1970s.

Consensual approaches undoubtedly underpinned post-Second World War reconstruction and progress, of the so-called Keynesian ‘Golden Age’. But it is also claimed they have created rigidities inimical to further progress, especially with rapid technological change.

Economic liberalization in response has involved deregulation to achieve more market flexibilities. But this approach has also produced more economic insecurity, inequalities and crises, besides stagnating productivity.

Such changes have also undermined democratic states, and enabled more authoritarian, even ethno-populist regimes. Meanwhile, rising inequalities and more frequent recessions have strained social trust, jeopardizing security and progress.

Policymakers should consult all major stakeholders to develop appropriate policies involving fair burden sharing. The real need then is to design alternative policy tools through social dialogue and complementary arrangements to address economic challenges in more equitably cooperative ways.

IPS UN Bureau

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

The Director of Education Cannot Wait, Yasmine Sherif, addressed a high-level panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos. She said private sector financing of education in crises was a critical component of ensuring quality education for all. Credit: ECW

By Joyce Chimbi
Davos, May 23 2022 (IPS)

Against a backdrop of ongoing social changes, education is becoming increasingly important for success in life. But with disasters, pandemics, armed conflicts, and political crises forcing children out of school, a future of success is often placed far out of reach.

Despite data showing the number of children living in the deadliest war zones rising by nearly 20 percent, according to Stop the War on Children: A Crisis of Recruitment 2021 report, education in emergencies is a chronically underfunded aspect of humanitarian aid.

Speaking today at the backdrop of a high-level panel titled Education in Times of Crisis: How to Ensure All Children are Learning. Why Cross-Sectoral Engagement is Needed at the World Economic Forum, Education Cannot Wait (ECW) Director Yasmine Sherif stresses the urgent need to engage the private sector better.

“Private sector has a hugely important and instrumental role to play to address the education for an estimated 222 million children and adolescents in countries affected by climate-induced disaster and conflict,” says Sherif.

“We live in a world of huge socio-economic inequities, and those who have, need to share with those who do not have. It starts with financial resources. This is why ECW is part of the ongoing World Economic Forum because there is a huge private sector audience, and we are engaging with them to get them to rally (behind education).”

The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) organized the panel.

Panel discussions were opened by President of the Swiss Confederation Ignazio Cassis and included Sherif, Jacobs Foundation co-CEO Fabio Segura, Ramin Shahzamani,CEO War Child Holland, and the Director-General of Swiss Development and Cooperation (SDC), Patricia Danzi.

Director-General of Swiss Development Cooperation Patricia Danzi said the long-term education crisis also needed addressing, and private sector participation would assist ensuring the mismatch between business needs and skills could be addressed.

Danzi tells IPS that governments cannot support education alone, and more so, education in emergencies where millions of children are out of school.

“We need other actors to take responsibilities, mobilize, and we need this scaling of other actors as quickly as possible.”

“There are two scenarios where private sector engagement is needed, in emergency situations such as war, a pandemic or disaster where you need money quickly, and this is philanthropy. We also have long-term education crises. This includes a mismatch of jobs and skills. Here the private sector requires a certain skill set that the education system cannot provide – and this goes beyond a crisis.”

Danzi said the mismatch was due to various reasons, including basic education inadequacies, access to (quality) education not guaranteed, or not enough girls being in school.

Sherif agrees, stressing that the focus is on quality education in countries in conflict with large numbers of refugee and internally displaced children.

“Funding and financing are a very big issue here. The private sector is very important because they have the finances required, and we need to get them on board.”

“Education cannot wait,” she says. There is an urgent need for more financial assistance from the private sector because this will make a difference and place SDG 4 and other related SDGs firmly within reach.

Segura says the participation and contribution of the private sector have other advantages.

“One of the things we have learned is that it is not just the financing of the gap in education but the logic and the thinking that the private sector can bring or contribute to managing education and scaling education solutions. That logic, thinking, and intellectual capital are critical even though we do not often discuss education matters in the private sector.”

In emergencies and conflict, the private sector could play a role in scaling what works.

“Also (it can) maintain a line of thinking that will prevail beyond the conflict or emergency situation. We have also learned that the private sector has a way of maintaining consistency beyond situations of emergency and conflict. We need to tap into that logic and their array of resources and infrastructure to finance the gap in education in conflict and emergency education.”

Jacobs Foundation co-CEO Fabio Segura stressed the need to look at the contribution of education in business and, at the same time, look at the contribution of business to education.

Segura stresses the need to look at the contribution of education in business and, at the same time, look at the contribution of business to education. This, he says, makes a case for engagement beyond capital and financing in emergencies as it means expanding horizons for investments and horizons for education returns.

As recent as 2017, and before the complexities introduced into global education by COVID-19, an estimated 262 million children in school were not learning basic skills like reading and writing, according to UNESCO.

“Access to education is critical, and we owe it to the next generation to be well educated. When a child goes to school longer, an opportunity for prosperity is higher for individuals, households, and society,” Danzi emphasizes.

Cross-sectoral engagement is needed to shape the future of learning and development by accelerating the speed of response in crises and helping connect immediate relief and long-term interventions to provide a safe, quality, and inclusive learning environment for affected children.

“We are in a time where all of the funding gaps to achieve SDGs are becoming very obvious, especially post-COVID-19, and so we have to redefine the role of philanthropies, government, business, and private sector in profiting from achieving those objectives that also allows us to cooperate better across sectors to achieve better goals,” he observes.

Sherif says the private sector has resources. They need to join forces with public donors, especially against a backdrop of substantial socio-economic inequities in the world and countries like Mali, Burkina Faso, and Cameroon that lack resources to finance education because of a history of conflict.

Sherif will also be speaking at another high-level panel discussion titled Neutral Ground: Education in Emergencies-Building Blocks for a Safer Future on Tuesday, May 24, 2022, highlighting the central role of education in facilitating success for children and youth in their diversity. This is a joint event by The LEGO Foundation, Street Child International, and ECW. The panel features Sherif; Chair of Learning through Play, The LEGO Foundation, Bo Stjerne Thomsen; CEO & Founder-Street Child International Tom Dannatt; Deloitte Representative/Moderator Melissa Raczak.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');   Related Articles

• Breaking Menstruation Taboos and Leaving No Girl Behind
• ECW, Strategic Partners Bring Relief to Child Refugees Fleeing Ukrainian Conflict
• Education Cannot Wait Secures Future of Children in CAR Conflict Zones

Haitians await news about their immigration status in the border city of Tijuana, in the northwest of Mexico. Credit: Guillermo Arias / IPS

By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, USA, May 23 2022 (IPS)

Illegal immigration in the 21st century poses a serious dilemma for the world. Governments in virtually every region of the globe appear to be at a loss on how to address the two central dimensions of the dilemma.

The first dimension concerns the continuing waves of illegal migration arriving daily at international borders. The second dimension of the dilemma centers on the presence of millions of men, women, and children residing unlawfully within countries (Table 1).

 

Source: Author’s composition.

 

Various aspects of international migration with a focus on the 2018 Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration were discussed at the first United Nations International Migration Review Forum convened 17-20 May. The primary result of the Forum was an intergovernmental agreed Progress Declaration, which includes calling on governments to intensify efforts for safe and orderly migration, crack down on human smuggling and trafficking, and ensure that migrants are respected and receive health care and other services. However, the 13-page declaration did not come up with explicit guidelines nor enforceable actions that would effectively resolve the illegal immigration dilemma.

Three fundamental aspects of the illegal immigration dilemma involve demographics, human rights, and profits.

First, the demographics aspect clearly shows that the supply of people wishing to migrate largely from developing countries far exceeds the demand for immigrants in developed countries. As a result of that demographic imbalance and despite the costs and risks, millions of men, women, and children are turning to illegal migration in order to take up residence in another country, which are generally wealthy developed nations.

While more than a billion people would like to move permanently to another country, the current annual number of immigrants of several million is just a small fraction of those wanting to immigrate. Also, the total number of immigrants worldwide is also comparatively small, approximately 281 million in 2020, with an estimated quarter of them, or about 70 million, being illegal migrants (Figure 1).

 

Source: United Nations, Gallup, and author’s estimates.

 

In addition, the numbers of people attempting illegal migration are reaching record highs. In the United States, for example, the number encountered, i.e., arrested or apprehended, at the U.S.-Mexico border in April reached the highest recorded level of 234,088.

The numbers of illegal migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea to reach the European Union and English Channel to reach the United Kingdom are on the rise again. In the first two months of 2022, illegal border crossings at the EU’s external borders rose 61 percent from a year ago, or nearly 27,000. The British government also reported that the number of illegal migrants arriving in small boats could reach 1,000 a day.

The second fundamental aspect of the illegal migration dilemma involves the asymmetry of human rights concerning international migration. Article 13 of the International Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has a right to leave any country, including his own, and return to his home country. However, a human right does not exist for one to enter another country without the authorization of that country (Table 2).

 

Source: Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

 

In addition, Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides individuals the right to seek asylum and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution. However, to be granted asylum, a person typically needs to be unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.

Poverty, unemployment, domestic issues, climate change, and poor governance are generally not considered legitimate grounds for granting asylum. Unfortunately, many of the asylum claims advanced are not genuine, but simply aimed at first entering and then remaining in the destination country.

Once illegal migrants are settled at their desired destination, many businesses, and enterprises profit from their labor. Given their precarious status, illegal migrants are not only willing to work for below normal wages but are also reluctant to report workplace abuses as that can lead to their dismissal, arrest, and repatriation

Most asylum claims are denied but considerable amounts of time, often several years, are needed to reach a final decision on an individual’s claim. Such lengthy periods of time permit claimants to become settled, employed, and integrated into a local community.

In addition to the logistics, governments face economic consequences and public opposition from various quarters to repatriating illegal migrants to countries having high levels of poverty, corruption, and social unrest. Consequently, unless illegal migrants commit serious crimes, they are typically not arrested and deported.

One notable recent exception, however, is the United Kingdom, which is seeking to send illegal migrants to Rwanda. The British government recently announced that those making dangerous, unnecessary and illegal journeys to the UK may be relocated to Rwanda to have their claims for asylum considered and to rebuild their lives there.

The third fundamental aspect of the illegal migration dilemma concerns the profits derived. Charging high fees for their services, smugglers accrue large profits by promoting, facilitating, and encouraging the illegal migration of men, women, and children across international borders.

Once illegal migrants are settled at their desired destination, many businesses, and enterprises profit from their labor. Given their precarious status, illegal migrants are not only willing to work for below normal wages but are also reluctant to report workplace abuses as that can lead to their dismissal, arrest, and repatriation.

Faced with continuing waves of illegal migrants, many countries are building walls, fences, and barriers, increasing border guards, having more pushbacks, returns and expulsions, and establishing more detention centers. However, based on recent illegal migration levels and trends, those and related steps have not achieved their desired goals.

Similarly, faced with the presence of large numbers of illegal migrants residing within their borders, governments are struggling with how best to address this troubling dimension of the illegal migration dilemma. Governments are not inclined to grant an amnesty or path to citizenship for illegal migrants nor are they prepared to deport the illegal migrants residing within their borders. As a result, the current situation in most countries remains unresolved for most illegal migrants, who remain in a precarious status.

In sum, it appears that governments are unlikely to be able to resolve the illegal immigration dilemma any time soon. In fact, the dilemma is likely to be exacerbated by increasing illegal immigration due to growing populations, worsening living conditions, and the effects of climate change in migrant sending countries.

Joseph Chamie is a consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division and author of numerous publications on population issues, including his book, “Births, Deaths, Migrations and Other Important Population Matters.”

Farmer José Antonio Sosa, known as Ché, stresses the importance of taking into account the direction of the land for planting, and the use of live or dead barriers to prevent rains from washing away the topsoil to lower areas, thus combating soil degradation in Cuba. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Luis Brizuela
HAVANA, May 23 2022 (IPS)

Thorny bushes and barren soil made it look like a bad bet, but Cuban farmer José Antonio Sosa ignored other people’s objections about the land and gave life to what is now the thriving La Villa farm on the outskirts of Havana.

“The land was a mess, covered with sweet acacia (Vachellia farnesiana) and sickle bush (Dichrostachys cinérea), with little vegetation and many stones. People asked me how I was going to deal with it. With an axe and machete I gradually cleared the undergrowth, in sections,” Sosa told IPS.

Now there are plots of different varieties of fruit trees, vegetables and tubers on the 14 hectares that this farmer received from the State in usufruct in 2010, as part of a government policy to reduce unproductive land and boost food production.

The crops feed his family, while contributing to social programs and sales to the community, after part of the produce is delivered to the Juan Oramas Credit and Services Cooperative, to which the farm located in the municipality of Guanabacoa, one of the 15 municipalities of the Cuban capital, belongs.

On the farm, where he works with his family and an assistant, Sosa produces cow and goat milk, raises pigs and poultry, and is dreaming of farming freshwater fish in a small pond in the not too distant future.

La Villa is in the process of receiving “sustainably managed farm” certification. The farm and Sosa represent a growing effort by small Cuban farmers to recuperate degraded land and use environmentally friendly techniques.

The restoration of unproductive and/or degraded lands is also connected to the need to increase domestic food security, in a country highly dependent on food imports, whose rising prices mean a domestic market with unsatisfied needs and cycles of shortages such as the current one."The guideline foresees implementing new financial economic instruments or improving existing ones by 2030 in order to achieve neutrality in land degradation." -- Jessica Fernández

At the end of 2021, Cuba had 226,597 farms, 1202 of which had agroecological status while 64 percent of the total – some 146,000 – were working towards gaining agroecological certification, according to official statistics.

Sosa, who has been known as “Che” since he was a child, said the use of natural fertilizers and animal manure has made a difference in the recovery and transformation of the soil.

“It is also important to pay attention to the way crops are cultivated or harvested, to avoid compaction,” the farmer said.

Studies show that changes in land use, inadequate agricultural practices (including the intensive use of agricultural machinery and irrigation), the increase in human settlements and infrastructure and the effects of climate change are factors that are accelerating desertification and soil degradation in this Caribbean island nation of 11.2 million people.

Sosa stressed the importance of paying attention to the direction of the land for planting, and the use of living or dead barriers “to prevent the water from carrying the topsoil to lower areas when it rains.”

These cucumbers were grown using agroecological techniques on the La Villa farm, located in the municipality of Guanabacoa, one of the 15 that make up Havana, Cuba. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

Drought and climate change

In this archipelago covering 109,884 square kilometers, 77 percent of the soils are classified as not very productive.

They are affected by one or more adverse factors such as erosion, salinity, acidity, poor drainage, low fertility and organic matter content, or poor moisture retention.

The most recent statistics show that 35 percent of the soil in Cuba presents some degree of degradation.

But at 71 years of age, Sosa, who has worked in the countryside all his life, has no doubt that climate change is hurting the soil.

“The rain cycles have changed,” Sosa said. “When I was young, in the early 1960s, my father would plant taro (Colocasia esculenta, a tuber that is widely consumed locally) in March, around the 10th or so, and by the 15th it would be raining heavily. That is no longer the case. This April was very dry, especially at the end of the month, and so was early May.”

He also referred to the decrease in crop yields and quality, “as soils become hotter and water is scarcer.”

Several studies have corroborated important changes in Cuba’s climate in recent years, related to the increase in the average annual temperature, the decrease in cloud cover and stronger droughts, among other phenomena.

According to forecasts, the country’s climate will tend towards less precipitation and longer periods without rain, and by 2100 the availability of water potential could be reduced by more than 35 percent.

But more intense hurricanes are also expected, atmospheric phenomena that can discharge in 48 hours half of the average annual rainfall, with the consequent stress and severe soil erosion.

Although the least productive lands are located in the east, and Cuba’s so-called semi-desert is limited to parts of the southern coast of Guantánamo, the easternmost of the 15 provinces, forecasts indicate that the semi-arid zones could expand towards the west of the island.

Gloria Gómez (right), director of Natural Resources, Prioritized Ecosystems and Climate Change, and Jessica Fernández, head of the Climate Change Department of the General Directorate of Environment of Cuba’s Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment, confirm the government’s intention to promote the use of credits, insurance and taxes as incentives for farmers to improve soils. CREDIT: Luis Brizuela/IPS

Goals

In addition to being a State Party to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, since 2008 Cuba has been promoting the Program for Country Partnership, also known as the National Action Program to Combat Desertification and Drought; Sustainable Land Management.

Likewise, the Cuban government is committed to the 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), agreed within the United Nations in 2015.

In SDG 15, which involves life on land, target 15.3 states that “By 2030, combat desertification, restore degraded land and soil, including land affected by desertification, drought and floods, and strive to achieve a land degradation-neutral world.”

According to Sosa, the increase in soil degrading factors requires more efforts to restructure its physical and chemical characteristics.

In addition, he said, mechanisms should be sought to prioritize irrigation, taking into account that many sources are drying up or shrinking due to climate variability.

“In my case, I irrigate the lower part of the farm with a small system connected to the pond. But in the higher areas of the farm I depend on rainfall,” he said.

The construction of tanks or ponds to collect rainwater, in addition to the traditional reservoirs, are ideal alternatives for this Caribbean country with short, low-flow rivers and highly dependent on rainfall, which is more abundant during the May to October rainy season.

But farmers like Sosa require greater incentives: there is a need for more training on the importance of sustainable management techniques, and for economic returns, as well as financial and tax support, in order to make agroecological practices more widespread.

The use of natural fertilizers and animal manure is one of the keys to the restoration and transformation of the once degraded soils covered with thorny bushes of what is now La Villa farm, in the municipality of Guanabacoa, Havana, Cuba. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

In 2019, Cuba approved the National Land Degradation Neutrality Target Setting Program.

“The guideline foresees implementing new financial economic instruments or improving existing ones by 2030 in order to achieve neutrality in land degradation,” Jessica Fernández, head of the Climate Change department of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment, told IPS.

The plan is to enhance the use of credits, insurance and taxes as economic incentives for farmers, based on soil improvement and conservation, and to account for the current expenses destined to environmental solutions to determine the total expenses for soil conservation, the official added.

“We are in talks and studies with the Central Bank of Cuba to gradually introduce green banking,” Gloria Gómez, director of natural resources, prioritized ecosystems and climate change at the ministry, told IPS.

“This service will seek to promote and finance projects that provide solutions to environmental problems through loans with lower interest rates, longer repayment periods, incentives for green products and services, or eco-labeling,” she said.

Since 2000, the Ministry of Agriculture has been developing the National Program for Soil Improvement and Conservation, and in January the Policy for Soil Conservation, Improvement and Sustainable Management and Fertilizer Use came into effect.

At the same time, the Cuban State’s plan to combat climate change, better known as Tarea Vida, in force since 2017, also includes actions to mitigate soil vulnerabilities.

In the last five years, the principles of Sustainable Land Management (SLM) were applied to more than 2525 hectares, while one million of the more than six million hectares of agricultural land in the country received some type of benefit, statistics show.

Other national priorities are related to increasing the forested area to 33 percent, extending the areas under SLM by 150,000 hectares and improving 65 percent of agricultural land by the end of the current decade.

By Sania Farooqui
NEW DELHI, India, May 23 2022 (IPS)

The year 2019 was not just a time before the world saw the global pandemic, but also a time when the world saw mass political uprisings with women at the forefront. The MENA region in a way led this force, in Sudan women played as drivers of the revolution, protesting decades of corruption, socioeconomic grievances and gendered violence. Nubian queen became the symbol of the revolution in Sudan which finally saw the overthrow of the dictatorship in 2019.

In Lebanon, the revolution was called ‘feminist’, due to the participation of women in large numbers, who were “shaping the direction and character of the revolution.” The unwavering courage demonstrated by Lebanese women attracted multiple misinformation, serious sexual objectification, misogynist slurs and mocking on various media platforms. Not that it held the women back, they continued to be at the forefront creating history, as always.

In Syria, the wait has been long, it’s been a decade of the revolution and war, the Syrian feminist movement, despite the roadblocks, ongoing war, crisis and patriarchal norms has continued to become stronger and the women defining figures and symbols of the Syrian revolution. Women such as Razan Zaitouneh, Samira Al-Khalil, Mai Skaf, Fadwa Suleiman, are women who will be remembered for their bravery and courage through the Syrian revolution. A decade later, Syrian women continued to fight not just the remnants of the war, but the continued patriarchy in the country.

Feminist movements have always been challenged, not only because they are reclaiming their spaces and power, but also because ‘proximity to power’ threatens misogynists everywhere. Women, however, as seen through these revolutions, have challenged the very idea of dualism, and demonstrated their desire to stay, fight, and have their voices heard.

Sudanese Women in Media: ‘Press Freedom is my Right’

According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Sudan ranks 151 out of 180 countries in the RSF’s World Press Freedom index. “A military coup d’état on October 25, 2021, signaled a return to information control and censorship. Journalists are working in a worsening climate of violence; threats have intensified in recent years with the emergence of new militias and armed movements. Reporters are systematically attacked and insulted in demonstrations, by both the army and rapid-response forces. The government exploits the private lives of women journalists to intimidate them,” the report stated.

Roya Hassan

Roya Hassan, a podcaster and feminist writer from Sudan in an interview given to IPS News says, “Sudan is a very hard country for women Journalist, there is patriarchy, there is authoritarianism, even the community is very backward, so for us women journalists, as changemakers and feminists – producing knowledge, sharing knowledge, creating knowledge is a very important and valuable tool.”

Earlier this year, according to this report, three press bodies in Khartoum signed a press code of honour along with other documents for the Sudanese Journalists Syndicate demonstrating their efforts and commitment to restore the organization since the head of the Sudanese Sovereign Council, Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burham, dissolved all the syndicates and professional unions. In 2019, the head of the Sudan’s journalist union was detained by the military, and Media watchdog RSF had recorded at least 100 cases of press freedom violations during the protests that finally led to al-Bashir’s overthrow in April that year.

“The government does not welcome people discussing human rights, feminist issues, political issues, I didn’t get hurt physically, but I know photographers who have been beaten up, jailed, tortured just for doing their jobs. I have been lucky, but it doesn’t make it any easier for any of us in this environment,” says Hassan.

Lebanon: A Feminist Revolution

The first revolution in Lebanon started on 17 October 2019, an incredibly important moment that was the culmination of years of activism. What followed these protests was an economic breakdown that dragged the country to the brink of becoming a failed state, COVID-19 pandemic, Beirut port explosion, and the current ongoing elections. Lebanon’s protest movement, which later became known as the October Revolution or the October 17th Uprising, saw women participating at an unprecedented level.

Alia Awada

In an interview given to IPS, Alia Awada, feminist, activist and co-founder of No2ta – The Feminist Lab, said, “I think women and girls in our region deserve to be heard, but we also need to provide them with legal knowledge and understanding of how to deal with certain political issues, family laws, social-economic issues, and make decisions based on them.”

“I have been working on campaigns focusing on women’s rights, child rights and refugees, and other campaigns to fight domestic violence and sexual violence, to call for the rights of kids and everyone else”.

Lebanon ranks one of the lowest countries in the world on the Gender Gap Index, 140 out of 149, and its ranking in terms of women’s participation in the labour force is one of the lowest globally. Women protesters, activists and public figures have often faced serious sexual objectification, followed by massive online trolling against them.

Campaigning, Awada says has been very challenging in the country, “We need to do these campaigns to put pressure on the government, who are overlooking certain issues, like we did in Lebanon through the 522 campaign which was against Lebanese rape-marriage law.”

Through her work, Awada continues to “cook potions and experiments with formulas to shake the patriarchal status quo that has been weighing on the lives of women and girls for too long. “I want No2ta to be a safe space, a strong feminist lab, where we spread the knowledge and produce high quality feminist work that would influence social change and behavior towards of the public towards women,” Awada said.

Women in Syria: Empowerment and Resilience

After 10 years of humanitarian crisis, war and displacement, Syrians are still struggling to put food on the table, nearly one-third of all children are chronologically malnourished, and more than 6.5 million children need urgent assistance. The war brought one of the largest education crises in recent history, with a whole generation of Syrian children paying the price of conflict.

The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has reported 13.4 million people need humanitarian and protection assistance in Syria, with 6.7 million internally displaced persons. “Millions of Syrians have been forced to flee their homes since 2011, seeking safety as refugees in Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and beyond, or displaced inside Syria. With the devastating impact of the pandemic and increasing poverty, every day is an emergency for Syrians forced to flee. As the crisis continues, hope is fading,” the report said.

Rawan Kahwaji

“Lots of efforts have been going on, from the political side, from the social side, from the emergency humanitarian community side, there are a lot of efforts being put in to find a solution that would give justice back to the Syrian people and refugees who have been suffering for the past 11 years,” says Rawan Kahwaji, co-executive manager and advocacy coordinator of DARB in an interview given to IPS.

“However, it is important to remember the role women play, not just in the Syrian society or political level, but also on a social level. Focusing on peace processes, we as NGOs must ensure there are spaces that will be inclusive of women, gender sensitive, we have ensured that when we talk about transitional justice, women and their perspective are included in those discussions, what justice means for a woman and how we can build a more gender sensitive Syria for the future,” says Kahwaji.

One of the big impacts of the war that were thrusted upon women was the role of the provider, which in turn became their source of empowerment, but not easily. According to this report, only 4 percent of Syrian families were headed by women before 2011. That figure has now become 22 percent. Severe economic crisis and not enough food for people to eat has been propelling women into looking for work, but the challenges of human rights faced by women in Syria, whether discriminatory laws, patriarchal culture, exclusionary politics of the regime, continue to a big barrier.

“As someone who has been through this refugee journey, being a refugee is challenging, being a woman refugee even more challenging. We have multiple issues and challenges that we have to face on a regular basis, whether it is legal, economic, social, work or simply places that are unsafe. If you are a widow or lost your partners, or you are the breadwinner of the family, there are difficulties in finding work, in a new country or community. Having no legal rights, or clear legal rights makes it more difficult,” says Kahwaji.

Syrian law abounds with many clauses that are discriminatory on a gender basis, be it law denying Syrian women right to grant citizenship to their children, personal status laws, property laws, the penal code and others. This legal discrimination is thus one of the most “prominent factors that has undermined, and continues to undermine, the status of women as active citizens in society, due to the forms of vulnerability that the law enshrines.”

Within Syria, women are underrepresented both in national government and local councils, because of security concerns, and conservative societal beliefs regarding women’s participation in public life. While efforts to increase women’s participation in peacebuilding and governance have made strides, but only at a local governance level, it still remains stunted overall. This report stated, nationally, women held only 13 percent of seats in parliament in 2016 in Syria, a proportion lower than both the global and regional averages.

Sania Farooqui is a New Delhi based journalist, filmmaker and host of The Sania Farooqui Show where she regularly speaks to women who have made significant contributions to bring about socio economic changes globally. She writes and reports regularly for IPS news wire.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

By Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana
BANGKOK, Thailand, May 23 2022 (IPS)

The Asia-Pacific region is at a crossroads today – to further breakdown or breakthrough to a greener, better, safer future.

Since the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) was established in 1947, the region has made extraordinary progress, emerging as a pacesetter of global economic growth that has lifted millions out of poverty.

Yet, as ESCAP celebrates its 75th anniversary this year, we find ourselves facing our biggest shared test on the back of cascading and overlapping impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, raging conflicts and the climate crisis.

Few have escaped the effects of the pandemic, with 85 million people pushed back into extreme poverty, millions more losing their jobs or livelihoods, and a generation of children and young people missing precious time for education and training.

As the pandemic surges and ebbs across countries, the world continues to face the grim implications of failing to keep the temperature increase below 1.5°C – and of continuing to degrade the natural environment. Throughout 2021 and 2022, countries across Asia and the Pacific were again battered by a relentless sequence of natural disasters, with climate change increasing their frequency and intensity.

More recently, the rapidly evolving crisis in Ukraine will have wide-ranging socioeconomic impacts, with higher prices for fuel and food increasing food insecurity and hunger across the region.

Rapid economic growth in Asia and the Pacific has come at a heavy price, and the convergence of these three crises have exposed the fault lines in a very short time. Unfortunately, those hardest hit are those with the fewest resources to endure the hardship. This disproportionate pressure on the poor and most vulnerable is deepening and widening inequalities in both income and opportunities.

The situation is critical. Many communities are close to tipping points beyond which it will be impossible to recover. But it is not too late.

The region is dynamic and adaptable.

In this richer yet riskier world, we need more crisis-prepared policies to protect our most vulnerable populations and shift the Asia-Pacific region back on course to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals as the target year of 2030 comes closer — our analysis shows that we are already 35 years behind and will only attain the Goals in 2065.

To do so, we must protect people and the planet, exploit digital opportunities, trade and invest together, raise financial resources and manage our debt.

The first task for governments must be to defend the most vulnerable groups – by strengthening health and universal social protection systems. At the same time, governments, civil society and the private sector should be acting to conserve our precious planet and mitigate and adapt to climate change while defending people from the devastation of natural disasters.

For many measures, governments can exploit technological innovations. Human activities are steadily becoming “digital by default.” To turn the digital divide into a digital dividend, governments should encourage more robust and extensive digital infrastructure and improve access along with the necessary education and training to enhance knowledge-intensive internet use.

Much of the investment for services will rely on sustainable economic growth, fueled by equitable international trade and foreign direct investment (FDI). The region is now the largest source and recipient of global FDI flows, which is especially important in a pandemic recovery environment of fiscal tightness.

While trade links have evolved into a complex noodle bowl of bilateral and regional agreements, there is ample scope to further lower trade and investment transaction costs through simplified procedures, digitalization and climate-smart strategies. Such changes are proving to be profitable business strategies. For example, full digital facilitation could cut average trade costs by more than 13 per cent.

Governments can create sufficient fiscal space to allow for greater investment in sustainable development. Additional financial resources can be raised through progressive tax reforms, innovative financing instruments and more effective debt management. Instruments such as green bonds or sustainability bonds, and arranging debt swaps for development, could have the highest impacts on inclusivity and sustainability.

Significant efforts need to be made to anticipate what lies ahead. In everything we do, we must listen to and work with both young and old, fostering intergenerational solidarity. And women must be at the centre of crisis-prepared policy action.

This week the Commission is expected to agree on a common agenda for sustainable development in Asia and the Pacific, pinning the aspirations of the region on moving forward together by learning from and working with each other.

In the past seven-and-a-half decades, ESCAP has been a vital source of know-how and support for the governments and peoples of Asia and the Pacific. We remain ready to serve in the implementation of this common agenda.

To quote United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, “the choices we make, or fail to make today, will shape our future. We will not have this chance again.”

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is the United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific

IPS UN Bureau

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

The economic and political crisis in Lebanon has left most households short on food. Now, the outbreak of war in Ukraine threatens to send food prices skyrocketing and push basic foods out of reach. Lebanon imports more than 50% of its wheat from Ukraine. Credit: UN World Food Programme (WFP)

By Rasha Al Saba
LONDON, May 23 2022 (IPS)

In the midst of what has been an incredibly turbulent period for Lebanon, the conclusion of elections last week ought to be hailed as a chance to focus on the future. This, the first election since the mass uprisings in 2019 against what was seen as a corrupt ruling elite, has shown some signs of the drive for change.

Lebanon’s consociational system – power sharing between the three large religious blocks – is effectively the compromise forged with the backing of the international community to establish peace in the country after a long and bitter civil war.

Despite widespread criticism this sectarian influence forged by the Taif Agreement in 1989, has remained firm, creating an elite ruling class, that in subsequent decades has consistently failed to tackle the major problems the country faces.

In the face of what is believed to be one of the worst economic depressions the world has seen in 150 years, an estimated 80 per cent of the population now live in poverty. The rising prices had already in 2019 led to the mass uprising, and the shortages have only got worse as rising fuel prices have put scarce food and medicines further out of reach of the population.

The devastation of the explosion at Beirut’s port in 2020, and the death toll and economic paralysis caused by the pandemic have only compounded issues.

While the headlines all focus on the waning influence of Hezbollah – and by proxy, of Iran, there are other aspects to the election worth highlighting.

Of course, the loss of the alliance between Hezbollah and the Aounist party is significant, mainly because it is hard to predict how the popular base that sits behind the armed Hezbollah will react. The Lebanese peace has been hard won, but the peace has not come with a growth in stability and prosperity.

As with the drivers of the revolution in Tunisia, it is the lack of opportunities and entrenched inequality that are at the forefront of the frustration of ordinary Lebanese. In this sense the increase in the number of seats claimed by independent and opposition candidates could potentially result in competing blocs, none of which enjoys an absolute majority.

Some of these candidates have derived their sustenance from the anti-elite protests of 2019. The victory of lawyer Firas Hamdan, an independent candidate who won in the south against Marwan Kheireddine, former minister and Chairman of the AM Bank, is demonstrative of this trend.

Hamdan was injured during the 2019 protests, and his victory may signal a weakening of the hold of the traditionalists who have benefitted from the political system themselves, while being unable to create a governance agenda that benefits the whole of the country.

Another change is the modest increase in the number of women in the new parliament, who now account for 8 out of 128 parliamentarians, versus 6 women in the old parliament. However, half of those who succeeded are independent candidates, which can empower the anti-elitist bloc in the parliament.

The anti-refugee sentiment of the Lebanese government has also been clear during the election when the Ministry of Interior imposed a ban on the movement of Palestinian and Syrian refugees.

Syrians have been featured in the election campaigns and agenda throughout the election. There are genuine fears among Syrian refugees that advances for the main parties in this election could result in the approval of laws that may pave the way for the repatriation of Syrian refugees to Syria.

If passed and implemented, such laws increase the risk of torture, detention and killings at the behest of the Syrian regime they previously escaped.

These elections took place in the midst of destitution and desperation that were once unimaginable. The surge of protest in 2019 against those conditions suggested that mass change was possible, but this was dampened by the arrival of the pandemic, which then took a significant toll on a population already rendered vulnerable.

Nearly three years later, this has translated into an election result that is mixed for Lebanon.

In a country of multiple minorities and historic diversities, the creation of a government that can transcend identities and take a countrywide approach to governance is imperative. The arrival of the new independent women candidates, campaigning and winning on a new platform offers a sliver of hope.

But if the ‘old politics’ of Christian versus Muslim, and a separate proxy competition of Iran versus Saudi Arabia continues to hold sway, the road ahead will be tough indeed.

IPS UN Bureau

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

Excerpt:

The writer is Head of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Department at Minority Rights Group International, UK.

Women in Nigeria collect food vouchers as part of a programme to support families struggling under the COVID-19 lockdown. Credit: WFP/Damilola Onafuwa

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, May 23 2022 (IPS)

Michael Bloomberg, the three-term Mayor of New York city and a billionaire philanthropist, was once quoted as saying that by the time he dies, he would have given away all his wealth to charity – so that his cheque to the funeral undertaker will bounce for lack of funds in his bank account.

Sounds altruistic – even as the number of billionaires keep rising while the poorest of the world’s poor keep multiplying.

The latest brief by Oxfam International, titled “Profiting from Pain” and released May 23, shows that 573 people became new billionaires during the two-and-a half-year Covid 19 pandemic —while the world’s poverty stricken continued to increase.

“We expect this year that 263 million more people will crash into extreme poverty, at a rate of a million people every 33 hours,” Oxfam said.

Billionaires’ wealth has risen more in the first 24 months of COVID-19 than in 23 years combined. The total wealth of the world’s billionaires is now equivalent to 13.9 percent of global GDP. This is a three-fold increase (up from 4.4 percent) in 2000, according to the study.

Asked about the philanthropic gestures, Gabriela Bucher, Executive Director of Oxfam International, told IPS wealthy individuals who use their money to help others should be congratulated.

“But charitable giving is no substitute for wealthy people and companies paying their fair share of tax or ensuring their workers are paid a decent wage. And it does not justify them using their power and connections to lobby for unfair advantages over others,” she declared.

Oxfam’s new research also reveals that corporations in the energy, food and pharmaceutical sectors —where monopolies are especially common— are posting record-high profits, even as wages have barely budged and workers struggle with decades-high prices amid COVID-19.

The fortunes of food and energy billionaires have risen by $453 billion in the last two years, equivalent to $1 billion every two days, says Oxfam.

Five of the largest energy companies (BP, Shell, Total Energies, Exxon and Chevron) are together making $2,600 profit every second, and there are now 62 new food billionaires.

Currently, the world’s total population is around 7.8 billion, and according to the UN, more than 736 million people live below the international poverty line.

A World Bank report last year said extreme poverty is set to rise, for the first time in more than two decades, and the impact of the spreading virus is expected to push up to 115 million more people into poverty, while the pandemic is compounding the forces of conflict and climate change, that has already been slowing poverty reduction.

By 2021, as many as 150 million more people could be living in extreme poverty.

Yasmeen Hassan, Global Executive Director at Equality Now, told IPS Oxfam’s report demonstrates systemic failings in the discriminatory nature of countries’ economies and underscores the urgent need for financial systems to be restructured so that they benefit the 99%, not the 1%.

“As with any crisis, Equality Now foresaw that gender would influence how individuals and communities experienced the pandemic, but even we were shocked at how exceptionally and intensely pre-existing inequalities and sex-based discrimination has been exacerbated”, she said.

While billionaires — the vast majority of whom are men — continue to amass vast sums of wealth, women around the world remain trapped in poverty. Wealthy elites are profiting off women’s labor, much of which is underappreciated, underpaid, and uncompensated, she pointed out.

“Economic hardship and inadequate policy responses to the pandemic have eroded many of the hard-won gains that have been achieved over recent years for women and girls. From increases in child marriage, sexual exploitation and human trafficking, to landlords demanding sex from female tenants who have lost their job, and domestic workers trapped inside with abusive employers, women and girls around the world have borne the brunt of the pandemic,” Hassan declared.

The Oxfam study has been released to coincide with the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) annual meeting—which includes the presence of the rich and the superrich—taking place in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland from 22-26 May. The meeting, whose theme is ‘Working Together, Restoring Trust’, will be the first global in-person leadership event since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020

“Billionaires are arriving in Davos to celebrate an incredible surge in their fortunes. The pandemic, and now the steep increases in food and energy prices have, simply put, been a bonanza for them. Meanwhile, decades of progress on extreme poverty are now in reverse and millions of people are facing impossible rises in the cost of simply staying alive,” said Oxfam’s Bucher.

She said billionaires’ fortunes have not increased because they are now smarter or working harder. But it is really the workers who are working harder, for less pay and in worse conditions.

The super-rich, she argued, have rigged the system with impunity for decades and they are now reaping the benefits. They have seized a shocking amount of the world’s wealth as a result of privatization and monopolies, gutting regulation and workers’ rights while stashing their cash in tax havens — all with the complicity of governments.”

“Meanwhile, millions of others are skipping meals, turning off the heating, falling behind on bills and wondering what they can possibly do next to survive. Across East Africa, one person is likely dying every minute from hunger. This grotesque inequality is breaking the bonds that hold us together as humanity. It is divisive, corrosive and dangerous. This is inequality that literally kills.”

Elaborating further, Hassan of Equality Now said women are more likely to be informally employed, low-wage earners, and this disadvantaged position has resulted in higher rates of women losing their jobs, particularly in sectors that were not prioritized in government relief packages.

“Women are also more likely to be primary caretaker and many have had to absorb increases in unpaid duties while schools and nurseries shut down. As a consequence, some women have been forced out of jobs as they found it impossible to juggle full-time work while also providing full-time childcare. This loss of income has been especially catastrophic for women in poverty and has made them more vulnerable to a range of human rights violations.”

She said world leaders must stop pursuing policy agendas that benefit the rich and hurt the poor.

“Instead, we urgently need a committed and coordinated response from governments and policymakers to reduce inequality and poverty, and address discrimination that is holding women and girls back while allowing the super-rich to get richer still,” she added.

The Oxfam study also says the pandemic has created 40 new pharma billionaires.

Pharmaceutical corporations like Moderna and Pfizer are making $1,000 profit every second just from their monopoly control of the COVID-19 vaccine, despite its development having been supported by billions of dollars in public investments.

“They are charging governments up to 24 times more than the potential cost of generic production. 87 percent of people in low-income countries have still not been fully vaccinated.”

“The extremely rich and powerful are profiting from pain and suffering. This is unconscionable. Some have grown rich by denying billions of people access to vaccines, others by exploiting rising food and energy prices. They are paying out massive bonuses and dividends while paying as little tax as possible. This rising wealth and rising poverty are two sides of the same coin, proof that our economic system is functioning exactly how the rich and powerful designed it to do,” said Bucher.

Oxfam recommends that governments urgently:

–·Introduce one-off solidarity taxes on billionaires’ pandemic windfalls to fund support for people facing rising food and energy costs and a fair and sustainable recovery from COVID-19. Argentina adopted a one-off special levy dubbed the ‘millionaire’s tax’ and is now considering introducing a windfall tax on energy profits as well as a tax on undeclared assets held overseas to repay IMF debt. The super-rich have stashed nearly $8 trillion in tax havens.

·— End crisis profiteering by introducing a temporary excess profit tax of 90 percent to capture the windfall profits of big corporations across all industries. Oxfam estimated that such a tax on just 32 super-profitable multinational companies could have generated $104 billion in revenue in 2020.

— Introduce permanent wealth taxes to rein in extreme wealth and monopoly power, as well as the outsized carbon emissions of the super-rich. An annual wealth tax on millionaires starting at just 2 percent, and 5 percent on billionaires, could generate $2.52 trillion a year —enough to lift 2.3 billion people out of poverty, make enough vaccines for the world, and deliver universal healthcare and social protection for everyone living in low- and lower middle-income countries.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

Credit: Office of New York City Mayor

By Thalif Deen
NEW YORK, May 22 2022 (IPS)

A fifth wave of a new Covid 19 variant BA.2, followed by a surge in infections, is threatening to undermine the safety of New York city (NYC) which was gradually returning to normal after a prolonged pandemic shutdown. As a result, the City went on “high Covid alert.”

But NYC Mayor Eric Adams has assured New Yorkers he will not bring back mask and vaccine mandates in work places, shopping malls, restaurants and Broadway theaters. Instead, he said he will focus on anti-virus treatment and home-testing.

Briefing reporters at a press conference, he said “I think the reason we are here—and not seeing drastic actions – is because we’ve done an amazing job of telling people—vaccines, boosters”.

“When I was hit with Covid, it was just a tickle in my throat. I was still able to exercise, didn’t have any breathing issues, no pain,” he added.

“We are staying prepared and not panicking. When I look at the hospitalizations and deaths, the numbers are stable”, Adams assured.

Back in March, the Mayor released a new color-coded system that tracks COVID-19, alerts and keeps New York City residents apprised of the risks they face.

This new system will better help New Yorkers understand the current level of COVID-19 risk and how they can best protect themselves and others based on the current risk.

The system consists of four alert levels that outline precautions, and recommends actions for individuals and government—and is based on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Community Burden Indicator.

Meanwhile, there was a rising wave of celebrity infections in the US last month, including Attorney General Merrick Garland, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and several members of Congress, including Joaquin Castro, Susan Collins and Adam Schiff, along with Broadway stars Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick and Daniel Craig.

The United States also reached a milestone: one million deaths from the coronavirus infection.

According to the New York Times, more Americans have died from Covid-19 than in two decades of car crashes or on battlefields in all of the country’s wars combined. The U.S. toll is higher than that of any other country in the world.

Our voices must be heard and listened to – now and in the future, say child labour survivors and activists at the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour in Durban Badaku Marandi (India, survivor), Rajesh Jatav (India, survivor), Selimatha Dziedzorm Salifu (Ghana, survivor), Divin Ishimwe (Burundi activist), Esther Gomani (Malawi, activist), Rebekka Nghilalulwa (Namibia, activist, representative of the 100 million March). Credit: Cecilia Russell/IPS

By Lyse Comins
DURBAN, May 20 2022 (IPS)

Governments of the world must focus on providing quality free education and prosecuting corrupt officials and people who siphon state and donor funds as crucial steps towards taking decisive action to fight child labour across the globe.

These were among the diverse opinions of child labour survivors and young activists in reaction to the Durban Call to Action to eradicate the practice at the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour in Durban. Hundreds of delegates, including world leaders in business, trade unions and civil society organisations, attended the conference, which ran in the city from May 15 to 20, 2022. Sessions and panel discussions highlighted topics from agriculture, climate change and global supply chains and how these sectors and issues contribute to child labour.

Speaking during the closing ceremony on Friday, International Organisation of Employers vice president for Africa, Jacqueline Mugo,  highlighted the salient points of the 11-page Durban Call to Action.

“The Durban Call to Action is a comprehensive action plan. Employers fully support this plan,” Mugo said.

The Durban Call to Action aims to:

• Ensure decent work for adults and youth above the minimum age for work
• End child labour in agriculture
• Prevent and eliminate child and forced labour through data-driven policy and programmatic responses
• Realise children’s right to education
• Achieve universal access to social protection
• Increase financing and international cooperation.

“It is in our hearts to make this crucial turning point happen. We must not fail the children of the world. This implementation of the Durban call will largely be the work of an African who will take up leadership ILO later this year, so we have no reason to fail. We are deeply committed to work for its full implementation,” Mugo said.

Togolese diplomat Gilbert Houngbo ILO Director-General (elected) takes up his new position on October 1, 2022, strategically positioning him to lead the fight against child labour globally.

“This conference is breaking new ground. Let us recall that 160 million children are in child labour, half of which are involved in hazardous work that puts their physical and mental health at risk. We must not forget that behind every number there is a girl, there is a boy like any other who wants to learn, who wants to play, who wants to be cared for and to grow up and be able to get a good job as adults. They are denied the most basic rights to protection. It is intolerable and, quite frankly, morally unacceptable,” Houngbo said.

According to the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) and UNICEF’s latest statistics released in 2020, highlighted at the conference, at least 160 million children are now involved in child labour, a surge of 8.4 million in just four years.

Sierra Leone Labour Congress secretary-general Max Conteh blamed the Covid-19 pandemic for eroding the progress made in the fight against child labour.

“Statistics point to past achievements being fast eroded and child labour being exacerbated, no thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic. This has resulted in large numbers of children dropping out of school and falling into the labour market,” Conteh said.

South Africa’s Minister of Employment and Labour, Thulas Nxesi, called on countries to implement action plans to fulfil the Durban Call to Action.

“The message was very clear, governments must pass the necessary legislation, governments and business (must) accept that we need a structural change of the economy, it must not just be about profits, it must also be about people. That message was very clear. It would be a serious oversight not to earlier in the conference, children delivered the Children’s Call to Action, which highlighted the need for free access to education, social protection, the provision of safe spaces during crises such as pandemics and climate change disasters and the importance of evoking the spirit of “nothing about us without us” to democratically include children in policies and decisions that affect their lives.

Selimatha Dziedzorm Salifu (survivor, Ghana), Divin Ishimwe (activist, Burundi), Rebekka Nghilalulwa (activist, Namibia), Rajesh Jatav (survivor, India), Esther Gomani (activist, Malawi) and Badaku Marandi (survivor, India) are optimistic and determined that this time the call to action to #EndChildLabour must succeed. Credit: Cecilia Russell/IPS

Several child labour survivors and activists who commented on the conference and the Durban Call to Action said the focus on fighting child labour should be on education, eliminating corruption and listening to children’s voices.

Esther Gomani, a student from Malawi, was satisfied that the voice of some 60 children, who represented ten countries, were heard during special children’s sessions, for the first time, at the global conference.

“Before now, they did things without including people (children). People come to conferences, and there is no commitment. They come to enjoy the benefits. Now children’s voices have been amplified (so they will be heard) — nothing about us, without us. We need to be involved in the solutions,” Gomani said.

Rajesh Jatav, a child labour survivor from India, who was rescued by the Kailash Satyarthi Foundation, said governments should focus on providing quality education.

“Education is the key. This is the only message. Look after quality basic education. Governments have lots of money for quality education. But there is corruption. They should use this money on stopping illicit flows,” Jatav said.

Badaku Marandi, a survivor from India agreed vehemently.

“We are child survivors and are educated, we challenge the government and private sector to provide quality education,” Marandi said.

Rebekka Nghilalulwa, a child activist, and representative of 100 million March (Namibia) said the plan needed to be put into action to achieve results.

“I want to see each and everyone’s responsibilities and roles described. The Durban declaration should properly outline implementation. That way next time we will be celebrating and not deliberating on issues. It would be disappointing to include voices just for show. As much as we are young, we have the experience (of child labour),” Nghilalulwa said.

IPS UN Bureau Report

This is one of a series of stories that IPS will publish during the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour in Durban, South Africa.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');   Related Articles

• Alarm Bells for Africa, Child Labour in Agriculture Requires Urgent Action
• Call to Invest ‘Serious Resources’ in Education, to Stem Tide of Child Labour
• Political Will and Partnerships Key to Ending Child Labour, says ILO’s Joni Musabayana

“The good news is that human decisions are the largest contributors to disaster risk, so we have the power to substantially reduce the threats posed to humanity, and especially the most vulnerable among us” Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, May 20 2022 (IPS)

It is often said that a pessimistic person is an optimistic but well-informed person. Here, a good number of people may believe that human wit and inventiveness are capable of facing both the current and the looming disasters, like the impact of climate change, for instance.

Others, instead, may think that such human ingenuity will once more address the symptoms rather than the causes provoking them. Thus, they would be right to want to be informed and aware of the root causes of such disasters in order to push for eradicating them.

“By deliberately ignoring risk and failing to integrate it in decision making, the world is effectively bankrolling its own destruction. Critical sectors, from government to development and financial services, must urgently rethink how they perceive and address disaster risk”

Anyway, and regardless of people’s level of optimism or informed-optimism, the big problem may fall on the shoulders of ruling politicians, those who are so heavily influenced by big business that they act as mere decision-announcers rather than makers.

Likewise, the other international specialised bodies and the world’s scientific communities, the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) reminds that human activity and behaviour is contributing to an increasing number of disasters across the world, putting millions of lives and every social and economic gain in danger.

 

The risks of optimism and underestimation

Its Global Assessment Report specifically blames these disasters on “a broken perception of risk based on optimism, underestimation and invincibility,” which leads to policy, finance and development decisions that exacerbate existing vulnerabilities and put people in danger.

“The world needs to do more to incorporate disaster risk in how we live, build and invest, which is setting humanity on a spiral of self-destruction,” said Amina J. Mohammed, United Nations Deputy Secretary General, who presented the report Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2022.

 

Stop ignoring the risk… deliberately

“Disasters can be prevented, but only if countries invest the time and resources to understand and reduce their risks,” said Mami Mizutori, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction and Head of UNDRR.

“By deliberately ignoring risk and failing to integrate it in decision making, the world is effectively bankrolling its own destruction. Critical sectors, from government to development and financial services, must urgently rethink how they perceive and address disaster risk.”

 

More disasters to come

Meanwhile, the scale and intensity of disasters are increasing, with more people killed or affected by disasters in the last five years than in the previous five, and the number of disaster events is projected to reach 560 a year – or 1.5 disasters a day – by 2030.

Adding to the long term impacts of disasters is the lack of insurance to aid in recovery efforts to build back better. Since 1980, just 40% of disaster-related losses were insured while insurance coverage rates in developing countries were often below 10%, and sometimes close to zero, the report said.

 

Reforming national budgets

A growing area of risk is around more extreme weather events as a result of climate change, recalls the group of experts from around the world who drafted the report as a reflection of the various areas of expertise required to understand and reduce complex risks.

In it, they called for reforming national budget planning to consider risk and uncertainty, while also reconfiguring legal and financial systems to incentivise risk reduction.

“The good news is that human decisions are the largest contributors to disaster risk, so we have the power to substantially reduce the threats posed to humanity, and especially the most vulnerable among us.”

 

Deaf ears

Such reiterated calls for reframing countries’ national budgets to address the priority areas, including disaster prevention and risk reduction, have been shockingly falling in deaf ears.

How else to explain that in 2021, the world military expenditure passed 2 trillion US dollars for the first time, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), which has also informed that global nuclear arsenals grow as states continue to modernise, thus sharply increasing the dangers of an unimaginable number of victims of the most devastating death machinery?.

 

There is always enough money to fund destruction

Also, how to passively hear that a number of European countries have just doubled their military budgets amidst a looming economic and social crisis impacting their citizens?

And how else to explain that the world’s politicians continue to subsidise fossil fuel with six trillion dollars in just one year, being fully aware that such fuels harvest the lives of millions of humans?

 

The unwanted to be seen war on Nature

“Humanity is waging war on nature. This is senseless and suicidal. The consequences of our recklessness are already apparent in human suffering, towering economic losses and the accelerating erosion of life on Earth,” said António Guterres, the UN Secretary General, in his forward to the recent report “Making Peace with Nature: A scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies.”

 

Too many empty promises

Meanwhile, none of the agreed global goals for the protection of life on Earth and for halting the degradation of land and oceans has been fully met.

For instance, by deliberately ignoring the growing risks, three-quarters of the land and two thirds of the oceans are now impacted by human activities.

And one million of the world’s estimated 8 million species of plants and animals are threatened with extinction, while many of the ecosystem services essential for human well-being are eroding.

Also, how do you understand that nearly 1 billion people worldwide live in extreme poverty and are disproportionately affected by stoppable and preventable land degradation, which threatens their shelter, food, water and income?

 

As India grows and develops, its economic production and energy consumption will increase. | Picture courtesy: Flickr/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

By R R Rashmi
NEW DELHI, May 20 2022 (IPS)

The recent IPCC report that came out in the month of March 2022 says that, by the end of the century, the temperature rise is likely to be 2 to 3.7 degrees if global emissions, as they stand today, are not curtailed. In fact, according to the report, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions need to come down by 45 percent globally (compared with 2005) by the end of 2030.

And current trends show that the reduction is falling quite short, as the total impact of all the nationally determined contributions put together is still not more than 11 percent. So, there is a vast gap between what we need to be doing and where we are currently.

 

First, let us understand the global context

The urgency of curtailing emissions is not lost on the political class. However, what continues to be a fraught matter is the share of responsibility that different countries are willing to accept when it comes to minimising their CO2 emissions.

Developed nations, which have contributed the most to the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere and have the resources and capability to curtail emissions, are unwilling to take on the greater share of this responsibility going forward. Most developing nations feel that this is unfair, given that they have contributed less (or minimally) to the problem and are still being forced to contribute equally

Developed nations, which have contributed the most to the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere and have the resources and capability to curtail emissions, are unwilling to take on the greater share of this responsibility going forward.

Most developing nations feel that this is unfair, given that they have contributed less (or minimally) to the problem and are still being forced to contribute equally. Moreover, fast-growing economies like Brazil, China, and India have ever-expanding energy needs, considering the stage of development they are at.

Their reliance on fossil fuels at this time will naturally be higher. The fundamental problem remains one of apportioning the responsibility or ownership of future efforts, as the available carbon space in the atmosphere needs to be vacated (by developed nations) for those who need it (many countries in the Global South), but that is not happening.

Against the backdrop of this global competition for capturing carbon space, at the COP 26 summit in Glasgow last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that India will achieve net-zero status by 2070.

The focus for India will now be on increasing the share of renewable energy in energy production and generation both in relative terms and absolute volume so as to eventually phase down consumption of coal and fossil fuels taking place in the economy across various sectors, and improving the carbon sink.

 

Increasing the uptake of renewable energy in India

There will likely be a large degree of government mobilisation towards solar and wind energy as well as biomass. Each of these has a role to play in India’s energy transition. However, given our climate, solar will receive the largest push.

The prime minister has announced that, by 2030, India will create 500 gigawatts of solar capacity. Currently, the national peak demand for electricity is around 203 gigawatts, whereas we have a capacity of around 400 gigawatts, including the renewables already in place.

So, by creating 500 gigawatts of solar electricity capacity, we should be able to meet a large share of our electricity demand even as it continues to increase. The prime minister wanted this to be in the range of 50 percent, meaning 50 percent of the electricity needs would be met from renewables by 2030. But, in actual fact, this may need a still higher quantum of renewables electricity capacity to be created.

The difficulty is that the efficiency of renewables is low, which is why the actual uptake of solar energy in the energy system is not more than 10 percent. In other words, we are only able to use approximately 10 percent of the electricity capacity that is created with renewables.

Even if we include the generation from nuclear or large hydro power in the small renewables, the share of renewable energy in the total electricity generation is still at about 21–22 percent, as compared to 78 percent with coal, oil, and gas.

So the question before us, as we try to make an energy transition, is: How do we enhance the uptake of renewables in the electricity system and how do we stabilise the grid? And where will the funding come from?

Even if India is able to produce intermittent renewable energy at a low variable cost, there are other systemic fixed costs that need to be factored in. These include the need for meeting the baseload in the grid (that is, the minimum level of electricity demand over 24 hours), transmitting the energy, transporting it across different states and regions, and, in the case of solar, making it available when the sun is not shining.

All of these require considerable investment in infrastructure and systems. And today our domestic financial system alone is not capable of mobilising finance at this scale.

So, the primary problem in making this energy transition is twofold. First, India needs to create technology for energy storage, which can meet the baseload in the grid and stabilise it when solar or wind energy is not available.

And, second, we need to mobilise the finance at a scale that can help us create a capacity of 500 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2030, and more as we go along. Every single gigawatt of renewable energy is going to cost approximately INR 6 crore. And not only in terms of financial cost, this kind of investment in renewables requires a lot of land as well.

So, the question is: Can we really mobilise these funds and resources at this scale and overcome the technology hump of renewable energy storage?

There is another challenge that lies ahead. Certain industrial sectors in the economy—for instance, petrochemicals, steel, and cement—are extremely inflexible in terms of the kind of technology and energy that they need.

So, even if we are able to reduce the emissions intensity of our GDP by improving energy efficiency and the proportion of renewable energy in our energy system, it is not going to be enough. As India grows and develops, its economic production and energy consumption will increase.

And, for these sectors, replacing carbon will not be possible without the availability of alternative fuels, which are necessary for certain industrial production and processes. Such fuels are necessary for transport and cement and steel production, which are likely to grow by three times.

Therefore, to make the transition, we need heavy investment in alternate low-carbon fuels such as hydrogen and natural gas. We also require tech innovation at scale to bring down the cost of these fuels and enable the production of steel and cement at an affordable and competitive rate.

In summary, India’s mitigation efforts must revolve largely around mobilising funds and investing in tech innovation at scale.

 

What India needs to focus on when it comes to adaptation

Enhancing climate resilience is going to be critical for a country like ours. Given that many states face unique kinds of climate threats, each of them must have a climate resilience strategy, so that the productivity of the economic system does not get compromised in the process of addressing climate change.

While we focus on making changes to our energy system, we need to take simultaneous measures to ensure that agricultural productivity remains stable, water does not become scarce, coastal communities are not threatened by the rise in sea level, and so on.

One way to do this is by increasing the capacities of the communities to address climate change. Managing water resources is going to be the key to adaptation efforts, given that close to 80 percent of the water in India is consumed in agriculture.

At the same time, we need to insulate communities from climate disasters like floods, droughts, cyclones, and extreme heatwaves, which requires investment in infrastructure, for instance, roads and telecom structures.

Here, the challenge is that there are very few entities coming forward to make the kind of investments we need. In the case of mitigation efforts, there are business models that can generate returns for the investors. But, in the case of adaptation and resilient infrastructure, there are no financial returns, and it is only the government budget or public resources that we have to fall back on.

 

There is reason to be hopeful

While the task ahead of us entails massive systemic changes that may seem daunting, we should not lose hope.

The intensity of global discussions has permeated into national strategies, such as India’s. The successful execution of our strategies depends on political commitment, which already exists at the national and state level. State MPs and MLAs are now thinking and talking about climate change—this was not the case 10 years ago.

What we need now is for state climate action plans (many of which exist) to incorporate a framework for mobilising investments and measuring benefits and outcomes. Once this is done, it’s only a matter of time before a climate lens is fully integrated into our development policies too.

Corporate India has also woken up to their contributions to worsening climate change, and are beginning to shift their priorities accordingly. Many industry majors such as the Tatas, Mahindra & Mahindra, Wipro, Shell India, and Dalmia have announced net-zero targets by 2040 or 2050.

The SEBI has mandated 1,000 top companies listed on the stock exchange to follow a mandatory framework of business sustainability and responsibility reporting and make disclosures on some of the key environmental parameters. This is a step in the right direction, and once we develop a robust disclosure system that includes penalties and rewards for actions taken, we will begin to see a lot more movement in this area.

When it comes to citizens, there are a few things that can be done. The first is to build our own awareness, and that of those around us, when it comes to climate change impacts. We must integrate the environmental consciousness into our education system.

Doing this can help build community action against policies and actions that have adverse consequences for the environment. This is difficult but not impossible to do, given that young people today are much more environmentally conscious than the previous generations.

The second course, of action, is to develop a deeper understanding of our own resource efficiency—how much we are consuming, recycling, or restoring. Earlier we would talk about three Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle); now there are six Rs (Rethink, Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Repair).

We need to move towards a circular economy, which will require participation from all citizens as well as industry. India has a head start here, given that traditionally we have had a culture of recycling and reusing. Industry needs to move in this direction too and follow the norms for extended producers’ responsibility. Improving resource efficiency, even in our own homes, will go a long way in making a difference to how climate change progresses in the coming years.

Rajani Ranjan Rashmi is a Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Global Environmental Research, TERI, where he works on climate change, mitigation and adaptation strategies, carbon markets, and related issues

 

This story was originally published by India Development Review (IDR)

Two boys collect fresh bread for their families at a bakery rehabilitated by WFP in Aleppo. Credit: WFP/Jessica Lawson. May 2022.
 
Syria remains one of the World Food Programme’s biggest emergencies, and the numbers are staggering. A quarter of all refugees in the world are Syrian and they have sought safety in 130 countries. Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine has made a political solution in Syria even more unlikely. Meanwhile, the humanitarian situation is deteriorating dramatically.

By Sinan Hatahet
ISTANBUL, May 20 2022 (IPS)

Moscow’s decision to intervene militarily in Syria in 2015 effectively preserved the Assad regime in Damascus. Russian air power and intelligence support, along with Iranian-backed militias on the ground, allowed the regime to beat the opposition and brutally reassert its control over much of Syria.

Since March 2020, the conflict seems to be entering a new period of stalemate with the delineation of three distinctive territories with static frontlines.

Yet this latest de-escalation phase is inherently volatile and has persisted chiefly thanks to the Russian-Turkish fragile entente in north-western Syria and the US interim but still ongoing presence in north-eastern Syria.

Ultimately, Assad’s endgame is to regain control of all the Syrian territory, and he has shown no signs of commitment toward negotiating a peaceful epilogue to the conflict.

Assad believes he has time on his side. In the West and in the region, there is lagging support for regime change in Damascus and adopting an alternative framework for a gradual transition towards ‘peace’.

Even Assad’s opponents seem to have pragmatically abandoned their initial objective of toppling the regime and are primarily seeking to preserve a form of autonomy instead. Nevertheless, without an agreement with Damascus all forms of autonomous governance in Syria are vulnerable and dependent on temporary arrangements among the foreign backers of the different ‘authorities’ on the ground.

Sinan Hatahet

Assad’s backers

Assad’s capacity to reclaim undivided authority over Syria depends on the continuous support of his allies, but so does his survival. The precarious state of Syria’s economy, US and EU sanctions, and severely damaged infrastructure constantly threaten the state’s integrity and capacity to maintain its institutions. To prevent a structural collapse of the Syrian state, both Russia and Iran are playing pivotal roles.

Iran provides oil, gas, and funds, while Russia provides security and diplomacy to accelerate Assad’s regional and international rehabilitation, which is synonymous with investments and financial aid. Thus, it is safe to assume that Syria is particularly exposed to the Ukraine war’s fallout as Russia is expected to divert its attention and resources away from the region.

A distracted Russia in Ukraine has several implications on Syria’s current state of affairs – but to varying degrees. Militarily and security-wise, even though Turkey or the US could exploit Russian weaknesses in Syria to challenge the status quo, it is highly doubtful as it would demand further commitment to Syria, and currently there does not seem to be an appetite to engage more.

Geopolitically, the Ukrainian conflict may lead to structural changes in neighbouring security complexes and further strengthen Turkey and Iran as regional powers. Still, the extent of its impact on Syria is also limited. Instead, it is primarily worsening economic and humanitarian conditions from which Syrians are likely to suffer.

Syria’s rising food insecurity

Although Moscow does not back Damascus financially, and Russian exports represent only 3.7 per cent of Syrian imports, the latter depends on critical Russian produces such as wheat and fodder.

Wheat is essential for food security, given the centrality of bread in Syrians’ diets. Syria’s annual need is estimated at around 4.3 million tonnes; in 2021, Syria imported 1.2 million tons and produced only 1.05 million tons resulting in long-hours lines for bread In regime-held areas, and unprecedented hikes in prices.

The deterioration of Syrian food security is not a product of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Still, it is expected to worsen as access to Russian food products is currently interrupted.

Moreover, alternative food supplies are not easy to find as imports from most countries are compromised by sanctions and the lack of Syrian foreign currency reserves to finance such transactions.

For the time being, Damascus seems to rely on India to compensate for the loss of Russian wheat and fodder. Still, in the long run, the sustainability of such a route is questionable, especially given the increasing costs of supply chains and the growing global inflation rates.

The economic effects of the war in Ukraine have already been felt across Syria. Various products related to wheat and flour production have already seen rapid surges in market prices. The impact is not only felt in regime-held territories but also in north-western and north-eastern Syria, which previously did not suffer from a lack of access to international markets.

The prices of basic imported commodities have also risen. Access to adjacent markets also became more difficult as several countries, including Turkey, started imposing bans on exporting grains, cooking oil, and other agricultural commodities to Syria.

The availability problem

The rise in prices has also impacted humanitarian aid. In March, the national average cost of the World Food Programme’s standard food basket increased by 24 per cent over one month. Similarly, the health sector has been affected. Medical facilities in opposition-held areas rely entirely on international funding to provide essential services and medication.

In addition to the disruption in supply chains and increased costs, allocated funds for the sector dropped by more than 40 per cent in the last ten months, resulting in the closure of hospitals and vital services.

Finally, the Russian-Western diplomatic confrontation and the lack of a political venue for de-escalation would potentially threaten the delivery of humanitarian assistance to Syria. The UNSC’s unanimous adoption of resolution 2585 in June 2021 to renew cross-border aid delivery for another 12 months was the result of a US-Russian dialogue that seems improbable as the Ukraine conflict rages on.

The interruption of cross-border aid delivery would demand a quick and effective response to bring relief to the two million civilians and IDPs in need in Idlib and northern Aleppo.

Fundamentally, the Ukrainian conflict will not trigger a paradigm shift in the Syrian conflict. It will instead entrench the status quo, further complicate negotiations over a political transition, and worsen the humanitarian conditions in the country.

The international community believes that food security in Syria is an affordability issue, which justifies the maintenance of sanctions as a lever against Assad. Nevertheless, the most recent dynamics show an increasing availability problem.

To prevent a looming food security catastrophe, humanitarian and donor countries should ensure the continuous flow of humanitarian assistance to Syria, as they should maintain their efforts to compartmentalise aid delivery from political and securities issues.

The Assad regime has shown no signs of relinquishing any of its ‘sovereign rights’ in delivering aid in Syria. However, similar to 2014, desperate times call for desperate measures, and Damascus could be coarse into accepting a new model. But more than ever, Syria needs a different approach to deliver much-needed humanitarian aid.

Sinan Hatahet is a Senior Associate Fellow at Al Sharq Forum and advises a number of think tanks on Syria. Previously, he headed the media office of the Syrian National Coalition.

Source: International Politics and Society (IPS)-Journal published by the International Political Analysis Unit of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Hiroshimastrasse 28, D-10785 Berlin

IPS UN Bureau

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

Delegates at the Youth Forum at the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour in Durban, South Africa, demanded that all forums in the future include their participation. Credit: Cecilia Russell/IPS

By Lyse Comins
Durban, May 20 2022 (IPS)

Ashley has vast work experience. She has laboured by the sweat of her brow in the blistering sun on the streets of Guatemala, in the open fields on farmlands and indoors, toiling for long hours to the hum of a sewing machine.

Her work resume might be impressive to some – street trader, farmworker and tailor – but she, like 160 million children around the world, is trapped in child labour, working desperately to support her impoverished family and provide for her education.

“For most working children, it is very hard for us to express ourselves. All working children have different necessities, and most of their parents cannot supply these: clothing, health, and education. The root cause of child labour is poverty because it makes us as working children get out of our houses to risk our lives to be able to help our family,” she said.

“Working children are not done with formal education. They have not finished primary education because their families do not have financial resources. We need to go out and financially sustain ourselves economically. In other cases, third parties abuse them,” Ashely told delegates at the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour in Durban, South Africa.

“In my country and also the whole of Latin America, you will see every day how children are posted in parks, by the traffic lights, doing any kind of work in bad conditions.”

Ashley took time out from her work to share her story and join a small band of teenage peers and child labour survivors to make history, representing the children of 10 countries from across the globe at the conference, which runs in Durban, South Africa until Friday 20 May.

Like Ashley, across the globe in India, Amar Lala was born into a poor family and worked as a child labourer before being rescued by Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi, a social reformer who has tirelessly campaigned against child labour and advocated for the universal right to education.

“I used to work in the stone quarry breaking stones every day and putting those stones into pots. We used to get hurt every day but had no chance to get to hospital to get treatment. I had no idea, and even my family had no idea what education was. I was the luckiest boy to get helped when the Nobel Laureate saw me and rescued me. I got the opportunity to study and decided to become a lawyer to stand for other children who are like me. Today, I can proudly say I am a lawyer standing in court, every single day fighting for children who have been exploited and are in child labour and bondage,” Lala said.

Nothing about us, without us, was a clear message at the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour in Durban, South Africa. These delegates were among those who drew up their own call to action at the conference. Credit: Lyse Comins/IPS

Children affected by child labour, like Ashley, Kabwe from Kenya, Mary Ann from South Africa and survivors like Lala, now 25, shared their stories before a group of children stood in unison to deliver the Children’s Call to Action, at the first global conference, ever, to include a platform for the voices of children impacted by child labour. The conference hosted more than 60 children and young people from different parts of the world, representing Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Organisers withheld the children’s full names to protect their identities and personal safety.

Representatives from the International Labour Organization, including Thomas Wissing of the Technical Advisory Cluster, chair of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, Mikiko Otami, SA Minister of Employment and Labour, Thulas Nxesi and other high profile international government, business and civil society leaders were present during the session, either physically or virtually.

In their call-to-action statement, which captures the expectations of children who attended the conference, they noted that the conference was being held at a “critical moment” when the world is seeing an increase in child labour, especially on the African continent, where 92,2 million children are entrapped, some 80% working in the agricultural sector.

In summary, the children said they were asking for:

• Social protection and the provision of safe spaces for children during emergencies. Governments should make budgetary allocations to support and enrich children’s development, especially in poor, marginalised communities. Initiatives should be formulated, inclusive of children’s voices, to ensure that children’s rights and well-being are not violated or relegated to the background in emergencies. All states should adhere to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Sustainable Development Goal 8.7 and nationally adopted policies and laws on protecting the child.
• Apportionment/ allocation of budget. Richer countries should provide development assistance to poorer countries, especially in emergencies. For example, the provision of safe spaces for shelters that can be used to empower children and their parents/caregivers on matters of child labour. Governments should commit to initiatives that enhance the appropriation of finances to maximise their use towards support for access to social protection, free quality public education, health care for all children and free sanitary towels to ensure full school attendance. Stakeholders must be empowered to demand accountability and transparency from governments at all times. Corruption and the misappropriation of funds will disallow the opportunities for free access to quality public education for all and diminish children’s abilities to pursue their dreams of becoming meaningful members of society.
• Ensure the democratic representation of children and young people in the making and implementation of key decisions that affect them the most at all times. Organisations such as student unions, child-based groups and civil society organisations must engage with children to find solutions.

“We children and young people of the world…are saying ‘no to child labour’. We are asking governments and all other actors to respect and consider our voices to eradicate child labour by 2025. We hope that this conference does not become one of just words, but of actions,” the children said.

Commenting on the children’s involvement in the conference, Otami said they had helped provide a clear understanding of what the world was fighting for and the need for the holistic implementation of children’s rights.

“Hearing the voice of the children is very important. We talk about evidence-based research – what the children are experiencing and thinking is part of the evidence,” she said.

Wissing said children’s participation had been discussed at previous conferences, but the South African government had decided that it was ready to give children a platform to speak to the world’s policymakers.

“Children’s rights are not something you can negotiate according to local conditions or problems. These are aspirations that need to be put into action. You look at these conventions (on the rights of the child and the eradication of child labour), but if you don’t implement them, we will be discussing the same thing in 50 years. We want to eliminate child labour,” Wissing said.

He said the ILO was working with trade unions to lobby businesses for decent wages and working conditions for parents so that their children could go to school

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');   Related Articles

• Former Child Labourer, now Lawyer, Passes Light of Freedom to Others
• Technology for Tracing the Work of Child Labour Could Help End the Practice
• Child Labour: No Quick End to Children Trapped in Tobacco Production

A mountainous landscape in the area of the headwaters of the Velhas River, where "barraginhas", the Portuguese name for holes dug like lunar craters in the hills and slopes, prevent erosion by swallowing a large amount of soil that sediments the upper reaches of the river, in the southeastern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

By Mario Osava
BELO HORIZONTE/ITABIRITO, Brazil , May 19 2022 (IPS)

The southeastern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais owes its name to the main economic activity throughout its history: mining – of gold since the 17th century and later iron ore, which took on an industrial scale with massive exports in the 20th century.

The so-called Iron Quadrangle, a mountainous area of some 7,000 square kilometers in the center of the state, concentrates the state’s minerals and mining activity, long questioned by environmentalists, who have been impotent in the face of the industry’s economic clout.

But the threat of water shortages in Greater Belo Horizonte, population six million, along with two horrific mining accidents, reduced the disparity of forces between the two sides. Now environmentalists can refer to actual statistics and events, not just ecological arguments.

Belo Horizonte, the capital of the state, experienced an unprecedented water crisis in 2014 and 2015, during a drought that affected the entire southeast of Brazil.

“For the first time we experienced shortages here that only the semi-arid north of the state was familiar with,” said Marcelo da Fonseca, general director of the Mining Institute of Water Management (Igam).

On Jan. 25, 2019, a tailings dam broke in Brumadinho, 35 kilometers from Belo Horizonte as the crow flies. The tragedy killed 270 people and toxic sludge contaminated more than 300 kilometers of the Paraopeba River, which provided 15 percent of the water for the Greater Belo Horizonte region (known as RMBH), whose supply has not yet recovered.

On Nov. 5, 2015, a similar accident had claimed 19 lives in Mariana, 75 kilometers from Belo Horizonte, and silted up more than 600 kilometers of the Doce River on its way to the Atlantic Ocean. (The river, whose waters run eastward, do not supply the RMBH.)

Two years of drought, in 2014 and 2015, frightened the population of Greater Belo Horizonte, the capital of the state of Minas Gerais in southeastern Brazil. For the first time the threat of water shortages was felt, said the director general of the Minas Gerais Water Management Institute, Marcelo da Fonseca. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Mining hazards

Minas Gerais has more than 700 mining tailings dams. The latest data from the State Environmental Foundation (Feam) show 33 in different degrees of emergency, four of which are at level three – high risk and mandatory evacuation of endangered residents – and nine at level 2 – recommended evacuation.

“We are hostages of the mining companies, they occupy the territory and make other economies unviable,” said Camila Alterthum, one of the founders and coordinators of the Cresce Institute and an activist with the Fechos, Eu Cuido movement, promoted by the Rio de las Velhas Watershed Committee.

Fechos is the name of an Ecological Station, a 603-hectare integral conservation area belonging to the municipality of Nova Lima, but bordering Belo Horizonte.

“There are mountains here that recharge the Cauê aquifer, which supplies more than 200,000 inhabitants of southern Belo Horizonte and a neighborhood in Nova Lima,” an adjoining municipality, said Alterthum, who lives in Vale do Sol, a neighborhood adjacent to Fechos.

Activist Camila Alterthum is opposed to mining, which she says is a permanent threat to the destruction of nature and water sources. She is fighting to expand the Fechos Ecological Station, whose forests contribute to the water supply for more than 200,000 inhabitants of Belo Horizonte, in southeastern Brazil. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Her movement presented to the Minas Gerais state legislature a bill to expand Fechos by 222 hectares, to provide more water and preserve local biodiversity.

But Vale, Brazil’s largest mining company, aims to expand its two local mines in that area.

In order to acquire the land, it is offering double the number of hectares for conservation, a counterproposal rejected by the movement because it would not meet the environmental objectives and most of it is an area that the company must preserve by law anyway.

A fiercer battle was unleashed by the decision of the Minas Gerais government’s State Environmental Policy Council, which has a majority of business and government representatives, to approve on Apr. 30 a project by the Taquaril company to extract iron ore from the Curral mountain range.

Forestry engineer Julio Carvalho, of the Itabirito municipal government, stands next to a “barraginha” on a private rural property, whose owners joined the municipal effort to contain soil loss and river sedimentation in this area of southeastern Brazil. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

This mountain range is the most prominent landscape feature of Belo Horizonte, in addition to being important in terms of water and environmental aspects for the capital, although it is located on its border, on the side of the municipality of Nova Lima. The mining threat triggered a huge outcry from environmentalists, artists and society in general.

Droughts and erosion

There are other threats to the RMBH’s water supply. “We are very close to the springs, so we depend on the rains that fall here,” Fonseca told IPS at Igam headquarters in Belo Horizonte.

Two consecutive years of drought have seriously jeopardized the water supply.

Two basins supply the six million inhabitants of the 34 municipalities making up Greater Belo Horizonte.

The Velhas River accounts for 49 percent of the water supply and the Paraopeba River for 51 percent, according to Sergio Neves, superintendent of the Metropolitan Business Unit of the Minas Gerais Sanitation Company (Copasa), which serves most of the state.

The Paraopeba River stopped supplying water after the 2019 accident, but its basin has two important reservoirs in the tributaries. The one on the Manso River, for example, supplies 34 percent of the RMBH.

The phenomenon of “voçorocas” (gullies) is repeated in several parts of Itabirito and Ouro Preto, the municipalities where the Velhas river basin originates, in southeastern Brazil. The soil is vulnerable to erosion and measures to mitigate the damage are finally beginning to proliferate in a region dominated by iron ore mining. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

The Velhas River only has a small hydroelectric power plant reservoir, with a capacity of 9.28 megawatts, but it is generating only four megawatts. It is run-of-river, that is, it does not store enough water to regulate the flow or compensate for low water levels.

In addition, sedimentation has greatly reduced its storage capacity since it began to operate in 1907. The soil upstream is vulnerable to erosion and has been affected by urban and agricultural expansion, local roads and various types of mining, not only of iron ore, which aggravate the sedimentation of the rivers, said Fonseca.

Decentralized solutions

The municipal government of Itabirito, which shares the headwaters of the Velhas basin with Ouro Preto, the gold capital in the 18th century, is promoting several actions mentioned by Fonseca to mitigate erosion and feed the aquifers that sustain the flow of the rivers.

Businessman and environmentalist Ronaldo Guerra stands on his farm where he promotes ecotourism and exhibits his proposal for a succession of small dams as a mechanism for storing water on the surface and in the water table, strengthening the forests and the hydrographic basin in a mining region of southeastern Brazil where there is growing concern about the water supply. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

It is intriguing to see craters in some rural properties in Itabirito, especially on hills or gently sloping land.

They are “barraginhas”, explained Julio Carvalho, a forestry engineer and employee of the Municipal Secretariat of Environment and Sustainable Development. They are micro-dams, holes dug to slow down the runoff of rainwater that causes erosion.

This system prevents a large part of the sediment from flowing into the rivers, as well as the phenomenon of “voçorocas” (gullies, in Portuguese), products of intense erosion that abound in several parts of Itabirito and Ouro Preto, municipalities where the first tributaries of the Velhas are born.

As these are generally private lands, the municipal government obtains financing to evaluate the properties, design the interventions and put them out to bid, in agreement with the committees that oversee the watersheds, Carvalho told IPS.

The municipality of Itabirito is the “water tank” of Belo Horizonte, the capital of the state of Minas Gerais, in southeastern Brazil. The municipal government is promoting programs aimed at revitalizing the watershed that supplies nearly half of the six million inhabitants of Greater Belo Horizonte, explains Frederico Leite, environmental secretary of the municipality, which depends on mining activity. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

For country roads, which generate a great deal of erosion in the undulating topography, “dry boxes” are used, as well as small holes in the banks to retain the torrents or at least curb their speed, he said.

Other “mechanical land use and conservation practices” include recovering water sources through reforestation and fencing to prevent animals from invading water sources and trampling the surrounding areas.

Itabirito is also seeking to dredge the river of the same name, which crosses the city, to reduce sedimentation, which was aggravated by flooding in January, when the water level in the river rose unusually high.

Environmental education, a program of payments for environmental services and the expansion of conservation areas, in the city as well, are the plans implemented by Felipe Leite, secretary of environment and sustainable development of Itabirito since 2019.

“We want to create a culture of environmental preservation,” partly because “Itabirito is the water tank of Belo Horizonte,” he told IPS.

The municipal government chose to cooperate with the mining industry, especially with the Ferro Puro company, which decided to pave a road and reforest it with flowers as part of a tourism project.

In São Bartolomeu, a town in the municipality of Ouro Preto, Ronald Guerra, an ecotourism entrepreneur, proposes a succession of small dams and reservoirs as a way of retaining water, feeding the water table and preventing erosion.

On his 120-hectare farm, half of which is recognized as a Private Natural Heritage Reserve –a private initiative conservation effort – he has 13 small dams and raises fish for his restaurant and sport fishing.

The son of a doctor from Belo Horizonte, he opted for rural life and agroecology from a young age. He was secretary of environment of Ouro Preto and today he is an activist in several watershed committees, non-governmental organizations and efforts for the promotion of local culture.

Tuberculosis has killed 1,5 million people in 2020 - mostly in African and Asian countries - while two million people died of COVID-19 worldwide during the same period. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS

By Angelique Luabeya Kany Kany
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, May 19 2022 (IPS)

It is time to treat the scourge of Tuberculosis scourge with the same urgency as we did the COVID-19 pandemic.

As we emerge from the devastating toll of the pandemic on people’s lives and on global economies, we must wake up to face the staggering toll of 1.5 million Tuberculosis deaths and 10 million new infections recorded in 2020. And these deaths were mostly in African and Asian countries.

These deaths were largely invisible as we fought COVID-19. Even as countries lift COVID-19 restrictions due to declining numbers, we know that Tuberculosis continues to spread.

Access to Tuberculosis care was also hampered by the pandemic restrictions and COVID-19 prioritization on diagnostic and care at healthcare facilities. The World Health Organization (WHO) goal is to reduce new TB cases by 90% and TB deaths by 95% by 2035. We have 13 years left to reach that milestone.

Unfortunately, most people at risk of Tuberculosis are from low- and middle-income countries who will not afford costly vaccines or drugs. The incentive for these big pharma companies to invest in Tuberculosis vaccine development is low.

The harsh reality is that we still don’t have a protective vaccine, and drug resistant TB cases are rising. While research is ongoing, a critical factor hampering progress is the lack of funding. The only TB vaccine available, Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) developed 1920, has limited efficacy.

The relatively quick availability of several vaccines, treatment, and diagnosis for COVID-19 illustrates how billions of dollars in funding can speed up vaccine development against a new deadly disease. For example, the funding available for COVID-19 vaccine development is estimated at 107 billions of dollars while only 0.117 billions available for Tuberculosis.

Yet Tuberculosis has killed 1,5 million people in 2020 – mostly in African and Asian countries – while two million people died of COVID-19 worldwide during the same period. To date, there are 109 vaccine candidates for COVID-19 and only 14 for TB. As noted, we only have one Tuberculosis vaccine while there are 18 vaccines available for COVID 19 .

Tuberculosis research needs at least US$15-billion to have a chance to reach the 2035 target. At the moment, researchers have access to only half of this amount.

Why is funding for a deadly and centuries old disease lacking?

One can argue that Tuberculosis research is too expensive. We have several phases for testing any new drugs or vaccines in clinical trials. Before testing in humans, new drugs and vaccines are tested in animals for adequate safety and immune response. Then there are at least four phases of testing in clinical trials. The next cost implication is that there are several strains of the Tuberculosis bacteria which increases testing costs.

Tuberculosis is a chronic disease with slow progression from infection to disease. Measuring vaccine efficacy requires resources, time and a large sample size of people participating in these studies. These steps increase complexity and cost for Tuberculosis vaccine development. But these costs are small compared to what we spend on COVID-19 research.

Could the reluctance in funding stem from the fact that the Tuberculosis burden falls largely on poor countries in the global South? Tuberculosis is not a pandemic, so the global urge to find a vaccine or drugs is different.

Pharmaceutical companies usually invest in drugs and vaccines from which they can earn profits. Rich countries therefore have other health priorities. Whereas rich countries were impacted by COVID-19, Tuberculosis is largely managed there.

Unfortunately, most people at risk of Tuberculosis are from low- and middle-income countries who will not afford costly vaccines or drugs. The incentive for these big pharma companies to invest in Tuberculosis vaccine development is low.

In the 2016 report of “The catalytic framework to end AIDS, TB and eliminate Malaria in Africa by 2030”, the African union (AU) itself noted that “funding for research and innovation is not prioritized in AU members, intra Africa cooperation lags behind and partnerships are still largely drawn outside Africa”. While external funding is critical, African countries should reinforce and rethink strategies to accelerate Tuberculosis vaccine and drugs development.

As we roll out COVID-19 vaccines and ARVs are made available to HIV patients, we must renew our efforts to do the same with Tuberculosis. Tuberculosis carries a high cost of infection, treatment and death. It is the biggest killer for HIV patients.

African and Asian countries should invest in seeking a vaccine and drug development because they have the heaviest burden. In addition, they must strengthen weak health systems and bolster efforts to identify and adequately treat Tuberculosis cases to stop transmissions.

HIV and COVID-19 pandemics have shown that money can be released when human kind is threatened. The rapid spread of SARS-CoV2 illustrates the fact that the modern world is a global village.

The world should wake up to the rise of microbial resistance that includes Tuberculosis Drug resistant Tuberculosis is a real threat to humanity.

We should not wait for a COVID-like crisis to act. We need to harness the partnerships from this pandemic to prevent another. A world without Tuberculosis feels like a dream. An efficient vaccine can make it come true.

Dr Angelique Luabeya Kany Kany is the Chief research officer at the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative, University of Cape Town. Dr Luabeya is the Principal investigator of several novel TB vaccines clinical trials, two COVID 19 vaccine trials and diagnostics studies. She is a WHO-TDR Clinical research and development fellow.

 

Amar Lai, a former child labourer, is now a human rights lawyer and a trustee of the 100 Million Campaign. He was saved from child labour by Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi who identified him while running an education campaign in the area where he worked alongside his parents in a quarry. Credit: Lucky Agbovar/IPS

By Fawzia Moodley
Durban, May 19 2022 (IPS)

Amar Lai’s first memories are working alongside his parents and siblings in a quarry, breaking rocks. He was aged four.

Now chatting to Lai, a confident 25-year-old human rights lawyer, it is hard to believe he was once a child labourer.

But when you hear his story, it is easy to understand why this man saved by the Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation, which rescues bonded children, has dedicated his life to the same cause.

Lai was interviewed on the sidelines of the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour in Durban until May 20, 2022. The conference has seen five days of intense discussion on how to end child labour, including exposés of hazardous working conditions the children find themselves in.

At the tender age of four, Lai was forced to work in a quarry in Rajasthan, India.  His family were destitute, so they had to work for a pittance to put food on the table. They lived in a hut.

“We used to work from morning to night, and sometimes the whole night. My family was not allowed to miss a single day of work because it meant they would not be paid, which meant no lunch or dinner.

His father, Lai recalls, was paid a “small amount of money, and that’s how we survived”.

It was back-breaking work, especially for the little ones – and dangerous.

“You had to hold a machine to break the mine, and sometimes the stones would fall down. My brother and sister were often injured because when breaking the stone, you needed to use your hands, you got cut, anything could happen.”

Going to the doctor was out of the question, so they had to make do with home remedies.

Lai said they lived very far from the city, and they knew nothing about schools nor life beyond their little isolated world.

Then something happened that changed Lai’s life: “In 2001, Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi was running an education march, and moving through (the area) where we were, and they identified that my family and I were working there.”

Satyarthi convinced Lai’s parents that their children shouldn’t be working but in school – and although this was greeted initially with scepticism, he and two of his brothers eventually moved to Satyarthi’s rehabilitation centre for children rescued from child labour. The centre provides education and technical skills to the kids.

“I passed my senior high school, and then I started to think about what I should do in the future. I met many children there who were just like me or worse off. I realised that I was so lucky to get an opportunity to study, unlike millions of other child labourers.”

So, Lai decided to become a lawyer to help children like himself.

“I could fight for them in court, stand in the court to change the system, policies and regulations. I could challenge the government.”

In 2018 Lai got his law degree.

“Today, I am fighting for children who are sexually abused or are in child labour, trafficked and exploited. I am leading their cases every single day in court.”

He works for the Kailash Foundation, which provides free legal services to vulnerable children.

Lai is also a trustee of the 100 Million Campaign.

“This is a campaign started by Kailash. The idea is that we 100 million youth leaders who are educated, who understand and are privileged to have an education, need to stand up for those who are still in child labour and being exploited.”

On the foundation’s impact on his life, Lai says: “I cannot believe what the foundation did for me. I just picture myself in a house that was dark, and I couldn’t see anything and then in 2001, I came out of the house, and there were a lot of lights.

“And because of the lights, I can give some light to another child’s life. I feel I am the voice of those millions of children that are not at the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour.”

Lai says he lives by Satyarthi’s rule: “You don’t need to do a lot, just do your bit”.

“If every single person can do their bit, then one day there will be no child labour in the world, and every child will get an education.”

Lai, a delegate at the conference in Durban, South Africa, which is trying to find ways to reach the UN’s goal of ending child labour by 2025, believes it’s an important platform.

“It’s very necessary because the leaders, the decision-makers, sometimes forget, sometimes neglect what they promised. They need to be reminded. And also, because the conference has given voice to children’s voices.”

He is convinced that their plea will be heard.

“I think the voice, the power we have, what we have faced we can represent, and I believe that it will make an impact because what happened to us is happening to 164 million children around the world.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

This is one of a series of stories that IPS will publish during the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour in Durban, South Africa.

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');   Related Articles

• Technology for Tracing the Work of Child Labour Could Help End the Practice
• Political Will and Partnerships Key to Ending Child Labour, says ILO’s Joni Musabayana
• Call to Invest ‘Serious Resources’ in Education, to Stem Tide of Child Labour

Excerpt:

“It’s very necessary because the leaders, the decision-makers, sometimes forget, sometimes neglect what they promised. They need to be reminded. And also, because the conference has given voice to children’s voices.” - Former child labourer, Amar Lai, on why the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour is important.

Food insecurity is affecting millions of people in Burkina Faso. Credit: UNICEF/Vincent Treameau

By Danny Bradlow and Magalie Masamba
PRETORIA, South Africa, May 19 2022 (IPS)

The COVID pandemic has had a profoundly negative impact on Africa’s sovereign debt situation. Currently, 22 countries are either in debt distress or at high risk of debt distress.

This means that African governments are struggling to pay the debts that they incurred on behalf of their states. For example, Mozambique and Zimbabwe are already in debt distress. Others at high risk include Malawi, Zambia and Comoros.

This situation is likely to be exacerbated by the war between Russia and Ukraine. The conflict is causing commodity prices, particularly food and gasoline, to rise. It is also disrupting the supply chains of critical goods like fertilisers.

The ability of countries to manage their debt is complicated by the changing composition of the debt. They now owe more money to a broader range of creditors.

In 2020, sub-Saharan Africa had a total external debt stock of US$702.4 billion, compared to US$380.9 billion in 2012. The amount owed to official creditors, including multilateral lenders, governments and government agencies, increased from about US$119 billion to US$258 billion.

Danny Bradlow

In the past, official creditors of African countries were primarily the rich Western states and multilateral institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. This group has now expanded to include China, India, Turkey and multilateral institutions like the African Export-Import Bank and the New Development Bank.

In addition, the amount of bonds issued by African states on international markets has tripled in the last 10 years. These bonds are held by a broad range of investors such as insurance companies, pension funds, hedge funds, investment banks and individuals.

In our new book we address the challenges that these changes have created for sovereign debt management for the 16 countries in the Southern Africa Development Community.

We hope the book will stimulate debate among academics, activists, policymakers and practitioners on how Southern Africa Development Community should manage its debt. Five recommendations emerge from the contribution. These include the need for enhanced debt transparency and an approach to debt management that takes into account a host of factors beyond just finance.

The landscape

The book contains a series of essays initially presented in several virtual workshops held in 2020. The participants sought to understand the debt challenges facing countries in the Southern Africa Development Community. They also offered policy-oriented recommendations for dealing with them.

Magalie Masamba

The book includes contributions from a multi-disciplinary group of international experts as well as African researchers. In their contributions they discuss the complexities of debt management and restructuring – generally and in the Southern Africa Development Community member states.

They pay attention to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the debt situation but also recognise that it is only one factor contributing to the difficult debt situation in the region. Thus, they also focus on the broader domestic and international factors that are shaping debt management in the region.

In an effort to chart a way forward, the contributing authors addressed the following four themes:

• The impact of structural changes in the global economy on the Southern Africa Development Community debt landscape. An example is the increasing importance of finance in the global economy.
• The challenges of sovereign debt management and restructuring in the region;
• The implications of the lack of transparency on the accumulation and use of sovereign debt;
• Options for incorporating human rights and social considerations into sovereign debt renegotiations and restructuring.

Contributors make five key recommendations:

The first concerns debt transparency. The recommendation is that countries in the region should adopt comprehensive debt data disclosure requirements and state borrowing procedures that are transparent and participatory. The aim would be to facilitate holding relevant decision makers accountable.

Debt transparency is the cornerstone of reforming debt management. Sovereign debtors should follow well publicised, predictable and binding legal procedures in incurring new financial obligations. In addition, they should disclose the amount and contractual terms of their loans. This should include any arrangements for enhancing the security of the loan.

An example is resource-backed loans. In these loans repayment is either made in natural resources or is guaranteed by the revenues generated by the sale of the natural resource.

Sovereign debtors should disclose this information to their creditors, the multilateral financial institutions of which they are member states. They should also make the information publicly available through national platforms.

Good governance. This involves strengthening national debt management policies to deal with issues of governance.

Transparency on its own won’t ensure responsible borrowing. Debt management frameworks and practices should conform to all the principles of good governance. The list includes transparency, participation, accountability, reasoned decision-making and effective institutional arrangements.

Legal predictability. This involves strengthening contractual provisions in debt contracts.
Debt is a contractual relationship. It is therefore important – for debtors and creditors – to enter into contracts that are as comprehensive as possible. This means contracts should fairly allocate risks between the parties.

This would include, for example, accommodating who is better able and more willing to accept the risks. In addition, contracts should provide the parties with clear answers to issues that could arise between them.

This would require policymakers providing guidance to their debt managers on the terms and conditions they can accept in contractual negotiations.

Comparability of treatment during restructuring. This means that, when needed, all creditors should participate on comparable terms in any sovereign debt restructuring. Southern Africa Development Community sovereign debtors can improve creditor confidence by offering all creditors comparable treatment. This would give them comfort that any relief they provided would benefit the debtor rather than other creditors.

This should facilitate the debtor’s efforts to reach agreement with all its creditors.

A comprehensive approach. Sovereign debt is not just a financial issue. It has implications for the social, political, economic, cultural and environmental situation in the debtor country. It requires a comprehensive approach to debt restructuring that incorporates all relevant stakeholders.

This includes citizens of the debtor states, multilateral creditors, bilateral creditors, and private creditors such as bondholders, institutional investors of various sorts and commercial banks.
It also requires that all necessary issues are addressed. These range from financial sustainability to the social, human rights and environmental impacts of the restructuring.

The sovereign debtor and its creditors must therefore seek to effectively engage with each of these actors and with all of these issues.

These recommendations show that there is a need for more innovative approaches to sovereign debt. One possible approach is the DOVE (Debts of Vulnerable Economies) Fund. It will use funds raised from all the stakeholders in sovereign debt to buy the bonds of African debtors in distress and commit to only agree to a debt restructuring that complies with a set of published principles based on international standards that support a comprehensive approach to the debt restructuring.

Source: The Conversation which was founded in Melbourne, Australia in 2011 and now operates as a global network of sites with dedicated teams working in Australia, the US, the UK, France, Africa, Indonesia, Spain and Canada.
https://theconversation.com/debt-distress-in-africa-biggest-problems-and-ways-forward-182716

Danny Bradlow SARCHI Chair is funded by the National Research Foundation. He received funding from the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) for this book project. Magalie Masamba receives funding from Danny Bradlow’s SARCHI Chair and Oxfam South Africa. Magalie is a co-editor and co-author in this book project funded by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA).

IPS UN Bureau

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

A picture exhibited at the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour is taken from the book ‘Through their eyes – Visions of forced labour’. This picture was created by Gargalo Vasco Portugal who won an award for his depiction of child labour. Credit: ILO and RHSF, 2021.

By Lyse Comins
DURBAN, May 18 2022 (IPS)

Technology used to trace the origin and price of consumer goods to ensure farmers earn fair profits could easily be adapted as a tool to fight child labour Fair Trade living wage and income lead Isa Miralles told delegates at the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour.

Miralles told a panel discussion that brought together civil society organisations to highlight their crucial role in reaching SDG 8.7 to eliminate child labour and that the organisation’s technological tool could help to raise transparency and accountability regarding child labour practices. The six-day conference takes place in Durban, South Africa, until Friday, 20 May.

The conference aimed at putting the world back on track to meet the 2025 deadline for ending child labour was opened on Sunday by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. Two Nobel laureates appealed for resources to end the scourge.

Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi said he “refused to believe that the world is so poor that we cannot protect the children”. During the week high-level delegations have been looking at research, finance and innovation to ensure that children are protected from the practice.

Willy Buloso, Regional Coordinator for Africa of ECPAT International, who leads the organisation’s advocacy work against the sexual exploitation of children in the tourism and travel sector in Sub-Saharan Africa, also highlighted how his organisation’s successes could be adopted to assist in the fight against child labour.

Miralles explained how Fairtrade’s tech-centric approach to using a software tool to trace products throughout the food supply chain, such as farm sources of cocoa and fresh produce in Africa as well as spices in Indonesia, to retail level in the Northern Hemisphere, could also be used to bring transparency to the source of labour used to produced goods. The organisation co-created the tool to guide businesses to support a living wage for food producers and change the way farm trading occurs.

Child labour in Africa is a major challenge as most of the world’s 160 million children entrapped in child labour live on the continent. About 80% of the 92,2 million children trapped in child labour in Africa work in the agricultural sector, usually with their families. The practice is rife in the cocoa sector in the Ivory Coast and Ghana.

Fairtrade’s traceability tool could help to create transparency and accountability around this pressing problem, Miralles said.

“We are using the technology to unlock the value of the supply chain for the people at the start of it. We provide the software to trace every action in the supply chain, log in every buyer, trace products from producer to consumer, monitor quality, and whether goods are made by women and whether they are carbon neutral. We are creating a digital passport of our products,”  Miralles said.

“I can request proof a farmer was paid a certain price, and then the buyer can load up the information of the farmer and the price paid. This mechanism is relevant because it can also work to show whether a product is child labour free. We can pass this on through the whole supply chain and create intelligence,” she said.

She said consumers could log into a website, scan a product’s bar code, and find out more about its sourcing, and the tool’s intelligence could also be shared with courts in Europe, where necessary.

“We are bringing this to the consumer, and obviously, it is quite novel,” Miralles said.

She said consumers did not necessarily have to pay a higher price for Fairtrade products. There was leverage in the supply chain to ensure farmers obtained fair prices and that most profits were not made by wealthy Northern Hemisphere retailers.

Buloso, who is working to stamp out the child sex trade that accompanies tourism and travel on the continent, said it was “a great idea” for civil society organisations, not focused on fighting child labour to share insights.

He said the problem of child sexual exploitation did not involve mainly wealthy tourists from the North travelling to Cape Town and Zanzibar, as many assumed, but rather local people engaging in exploitation.

“The state of exploitation of children in prostitution is mostly by perpetrators who are based here in Africa in our countries. Perpetrators are among us,” he said.

Buloso added that 30% of child sex exploitation victims were boys.

“Something we can transfer from our work in (advocating against) sex exploitation of children, to the fight against child labour, is the code of conduct we developed to provide tourism businesses with tools to work together to fight sex exploitation,” Buloso said.

Buloso said the code of conduct, which included six criteria, could be used by organisations fighting against child labour.

The code of conduct criteria included:

• Establish an internal tourism and travel business policy against the sexual exploitation of children.
• Businesses must educate and train their employees on preventing and reporting cases of sexual exploitation of children.
• Businesses must include a zero-tolerance clause in contracts with stakeholders and clients.
• Businesses must provide tourists with information about the sexual exploitation of children.
• All tourism and travel industry stakeholders must be supported and provided with key information about the problem.
• Businesses must report annually on how they uphold the code of conduct.

Augustina Perez, Child Rights Senior Associate at the Bank Information Centre, which partners with civil society to spotlight risks and improve the transparency, accountability, and sustainability of development finance, said the World Bank had been proactive in addressing child labour.

“We have a project in the cocoa sector in Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). We know most child labour is in agriculture, and we know that together with Ghana, the country produces 60% of the cocoa in the world,” she said.

“The government (Ivory Coast) is a little resistant to putting child labour on the agenda, but the World Bank has been very proactive and has invited BIC to join a working group. We are trying to raise all the red flags and everything crucial to the Ivory Coast like taking (checking) IDs and addressing the root causes of child labour,” she said.

She said her organisation had presented the problem to the US government.

Ghana deputy minister of employment and labour relations, Bright Wireko-Brobby, speaking during an interview with IPS on the sidelines of the conference, said his government was committed to eradicating child labour. Ghana was the first country to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990 and then adopted it into its national laws.

“In Ghana, mostly the child labour issue can be found in the cocoa-growing areas and also pockets in the fishing and mining industry and the area of trade and commerce,” Wireko-Brobby said.

However, he said his government disputed a report by NORC at the University of Chicago which claimed that there were almost 1,6 million children involved in child labour in the cocoa industry in Ghana and the Ivory Coast.

NORC conducted surveys with children aged between 15 and 17 between 2008 and 2019 and revealed that cocoa production had increased by 62% in both countries. The report acknowledged that the governments of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana had implemented education reforms such as free education and compulsory attendance to fight child labour and that school attendance of children from agricultural households rose from 58 to 80 percent in Côte d’Ivoire and 89 to 96 percent in Ghana.

Wireko-Brobby said his country had made gains in the fight against child labour.

“In recent times, we have ensured that every child should be in school. We have provided meals, lunch and breakfast for every child in Ghana. We challenged that commissioned study because we did not believe that despite our interventions, child labour would go higher. We are now domesticating some of the indicators,” he said.

He said his government would welcome an intervention like Fairtrade’s tool to ensure cocoa production is child labour free.

“There is a focus on private sector interventions in the cocoa industry where they are trying to make sure that there is not a point in the supply chain where they can trace child labour. The collaboration between the private sector and the government is strong, and we try to bring it into the mainstream. Every child must be able to enjoy their childhood,” Wireko-Brobby said.

This is one of a series of stories that IPS will publish during the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour in Durban, South Africa.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');   Related Articles

• Political Will and Partnerships Key to Ending Child Labour, says ILO’s Joni Musabayana
• Africa Expected to Strongly Support Durban Call to Action on Child Labour
• It’s Time To Globalise Compassion, Says Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi