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Credit: WFP

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 9 2020 (IPS)

With the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize bestowed on the Rome-based World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations and its affiliated agencies continue to hold a monopoly of one of the world’s most prestigious annual awards.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the WFP as the “world’s first responder on the frontlines of food insecurity.”

In a world of plenty, he pointed out, it is unconscionable that hundreds of millions go to bed each night hungry. Millions more are now on the precipice of famine due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The women and men of the WFP brave danger and distance to deliver life-saving sustenance to those devastated by conflict, to people suffering because of disaster, to children and families uncertain about their next meal,” Guterres declared.

He also singled out David Beasley, WFP Executive Director, and the entire staff of the World Food Programme, for advancing the values of the United Nations every day and serving the cause of “we the peoples” as the Organization marks its 75th anniversary year.

In a video statement on social media, Beasley said: “It’s because of the WFP family: they are out there in the most difficult, complex places in the world, where there’s war, conflict, climate extremes – it doesn’t matter. They are out there and they deserve this award …

“This is the first time I’ve been speechless … This is unbelievable. And Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow!”, an exhilarated Beasley, a former Governor of the US state of South Carolina (1995-1999), said Friday.

Beginning with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (1954 and 1981), the UN recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize also include Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold (1961), the UN children’s agency UNICEF (1965), the International Labour Organization (1969), the UN Peacekeeping Forces (1988), the United Nations & Secretary-General Kofi Annan (2001), the International Atomic Energy Agency (2005), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007) and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (2013).

The award also went to the predecessor to the United Nations: League of Nations (1938) for its work on aiding refugees, and to Ralph Bunche (1950), Director of the UN Division of Trusteeship, and Acting Mediator in Palestine.

Gernot Laganda, Chief / Climate and Disaster Risk Reduction Programmes at WFP told IPS: “As WFP staff, we are humbled and moved by this honor. Many colleagues have spent years – some decades – working to increase food security for hungry people who have had their lives torn apart by conflict, climatic extremes or economic shocks”

He said some of his colleagues have lost their lives in the line of duty.

“Every WFP staff, from Executive Director David Beasley to our local colleagues working in the most difficult conditions in the deep field, sees the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s vote as a recognition that the 690 million hungry people in the world have the right to live an active and healthy life, free from conflict and with safety nets against increasing climate extremes and disasters”.

“This recognition will inspire all of us to work even harder, to save lives and change lives on the pathway to Zero Hunger,” said Laganda, who joined WFP from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), where he managed the world’s largest climate change adaptation program for smallholder farmers.

Dr John Coonrod, Executive Vice President of the Washington-based Hunger Project, told IPS: “An excellent choice”

“In a world where conflict has forced millions to go hungry, the World Food Programme brings relief and dignity. UN agencies like WFP take on the toughest challenges in the world and deserve everyone’s support,” said Dr Coonrod, who is also Coordinator and co-founder of the Movement for Community-led Development.

Danielle Nierenberg, President of the US-based Food Tank, told IPS there are few organizations in the world poised to confront the multiple challenges of the pandemic, the climate crisis, inequality, and food and nutrition insecurity, like the World Food Programme.

“During COVID-19, they have continued to be on the frontlines confronting all of these challenges. Their work has never been more important or necessary.

“I’m grateful that the Nobel Commission decided to make a statement this year commending and organization that has as its mission to nourish the world,” said Nierenberg.

Congratulating WFP, Oxfam International’s interim Executive Director, Chema Vera told IPS it is a timely and urgent recognition to the work that WFP does in fighting the scourge of global hunger.

At a time when more than 135 million people in 55 countries around the world are facing severe to crisis levels of food insecurity, this recognition must also be a clarion call for wider and immediate action.

The UN’s $10.3 billion humanitarian appeal is today barely 40% funded – and within that, the money needed for global food security and nutrition are the most under-funded parts of the entire appeal.

The international community should fully fund the UN appeal now and accompany that with the strongest political action to support the Secretary-General’s call for a global ceasefire.

“We must break the bond between conflict and hunger and work collectively towards peace,” said Vera.

Laganda of WFP told IPS that “a message that is important from my own role in the organization working on climate and disaster risk reduction programs is that WFP and its partners are facing an uphill battle”.

He pointed out that climate disasters are increasing in frequency and intensity, “and we see a growing interplay between climate and conflict”.

Hunger is on the rise, and there is not enough humanitarian financing to go around to catch up with these growing needs.

“This is why we need to complement our ever-present readiness to respond with longer-term programs which strengthen capacities for risk reduction, prevention and resilience-building, said Laganda, who formerly served as Humanitarian Program Specialist with the Austrian Development Agency and managed climate and environmental programs with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in South Africa and the Asia/Pacific region.

He said not many people are aware of this, but apart from being a cutting-edge operational agency for emergency response, WFP is also an excellent partner for governments who are working to strengthen systems for risk management – from climate information and early warning systems to social protection and climate insurance solutions.

To manage the growing humanitarian impacts of climate change over the next few years and decades, he noted, “we will not only need to prepare for more costly responses to more frequent and intense climate disasters – we also need to frontload investments into forward-looking programs that can help us mitigate and prevent predictable emergencies”.

“The time for such investments is now, and I am hoping that the honor of this year’s Nobel peace prize can increase global visibility for this type of work,” said Laganda.

Frederic Mousseau, Policy Director at the Oakland Institute, told IPS “this Peace prize is well deserved given the incredible role played by WFP in bringing essential food relief in war situations such as Yemen, Afghanistan, or Somalia, in often highly dangerous and challenging conditions for its staff”.

This said, global hunger is a problem, he argued, that can’t be solved by delivering food, especially when it is procured in the US, WFP’s primary donor by far, which has for decades prioritized sending in-kind food aid as a way to support its own agriculture, undermining farmers in the Global South as a result.

To address global hunger in a decisive way, rich countries should provide financial assistance and policy space to countries so they can promote their own agriculture and industries. Unfortunately, the reality is that rich nations -also the main food exporters- don’t do that and continue to export their own agricultural products and finance emergency food aid when famines arise, said Mousseau.

The post Nobel Peace Prize to World Food Programme Delivering Life-Saving Sustenance to Millions Worldwide appeared first on Inter Press Service.

US President Donald Trump (right) and Mexican counterpart Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador at the White House July 2020. Credit: Toa Dufour/White House

By Falko Ernst
MEXICO CITY, Oct 9 2020 (IPS)

Sporadic but spectacular acts of violence remind the global public of how deeply parts of Mexico have slid into lethal conflict over recent years.

The criminal groups that are the public face of this violence are hardly circumspect about their power. In a video dated 17 July, the Jalisco Cartel New Generation – one of the “five most dangerous transnational criminal organizations” worldwide, according to the U.S. Justice Department – showed off some of its better-equipped and trained foot soldiers and their state-of-the-art weaponry.

If the video seemed intended to broadcast the group’s paramilitary capabilities, that’s because it was. The display of force was a message to the government, a Jalisco Cartel operator told Crisis Group, “to take it easy” after the Mexican courts extradited the group’s leader’s son to the U.S. while freezing a number of its bank accounts. It was a way for the group to remind the authorities that “damage can be inflicted when arrangements aren’t being respected”, he said.

The failure of the “war on drugs” – now a welter of spreading conflicts – is a U.S.-Mexican co-production. Washington should stop pushing Mexico City to throw ever more military force at organised crime. Instead, it should help its southern neighbour find solutions tailored to each locale

Whether or not because of the video, tensions did in fact ease in the aftermath of its release, with the threat of further escalation receding and conditions returning to “normal”. In Mexico, however, normal has come to mean a state of perpetual conflict, which accounts for a large portion of the country’s steady death toll of more than 35,000 homicides per year.

 

Criminal Predation in a Pandemic

Unfortunately, north of the border, there is little public discussion of what is driving these levels of violence in Mexico. Instead, U.S. political dialogue tends to focus on one consequence of the violence – immigration.

President Donald Trump, who is now standing for re-election, first ran for office in 2016 on a mix of fearmongering about ostensible criminals, drug dealers and rapists coming over the Mexican border and promises that he would build a wall to keep them out.

Yet that campaign featured no meaningful discussion about how Mexico’s stubborn rates of lethal conflict are in reality a U.S.-Mexican co-production, fuelled by the very tactics that the U.S. has exported to fight the “war on drugs”. Nor, to date, has the 2020 presidential contest between Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden.

Nothing is likely to change for the balance of the election season, but once it is over it will be past time for whoever occupies the Oval Office to face these questions squarely – if nothing else out of self-interest. Having a neighbour affected by conflict and instability entails major consequences for the U.S, with the biggest being Mexico’s growing displacement crisis.

Mexican authorities are simply unable to protect citizens from criminal predation in an increasing number of regions, leading an estimated 1.7 million to abandon their homes due to insecurity in 2018 alone, according to Mexico’s National Institute of Geography and Statistics. Most of those forced to flee resettle within Mexico’s borders, but already in 2020 Mexican nationals have replaced Central Americans as the largest group apprehended while aiming to cross into the U.S.

The COVID-19 pandemic is only making the situation worse. Having killed approximately 80,000 Mexicans (a figure that could represent significant underreporting), the coronavirus has exacerbated the humanitarian situation and plunged the country into the worst economic crisis ever recorded, with GDP expected to fall by at least 8 per cent in 2020.

It has also seen armed groups try to consolidate their hold on communities, where they have taken on self-appointed roles from quarantine enforcement to distribution of goods and services. As desperation mounts, so will the drive of highly vulnerable people to seek a safer and more prosperous life elsewhere.

Washington and Mexico City can try to manage the flow of people by locking the border down even more tightly, but that is hardly an acceptable solution from a humanitarian perspective. It could also be difficult for both governments to sustain as the scale of the crisis grows and public pressure to address it increases.

 

Policymaking Inertia

Nevertheless, U.S. policymakers have thus far met the prospect of deepening disquiet in Mexico with inertia. They continue to support the militarised “war on drugs” that has been the anchor of bilateral security cooperation.

Recurrent threats by President Trump and other high-level U.S. government officials to sanction Mexico economically if it does not “demonstrate its commitment to dismantle the cartels” push Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to further increase the country’s dependence on the armed forces in public security matters, in spite of campaign promises to do just the opposite.

The problem is that, for the most part, militarisation has proven to be anything but a remedy. Since 2006, when the Mexican government – urged on by Washington – unleashed the military to deliver what it promised would be a swift, definitive blow to organised crime, the situation has by many measures only gotten worse: more than 80,000 Mexicans have been disappeared and annual murders have quadrupled.

The overall number of those who have met a violent death in this period, which is north of 330,000, is more than twice the number of conflict-related fatalities recorded in Afghanistan since the U.S. invaded in 2001.

Compounding the problem is pervasive impunity. Fewer than one in ten murders get resolved in the justice system – and the line between state officials and the criminals they are supposed to rein in is not only thin but occasionally non-existent.

To offer just one prominent example, a chief architect of the latest iteration of the war on drugs, former federal Public Security Secretary Genaro García Luna, is being tried in a U.S. court for alleged collusion with the Sinaloa Cartel. (He denies the charges.)

 

A Series of “Stupid Wars”

The lack of accountability has allowed the armed groups to expand their businesses far beyond the illicit drugs that were once their primary domain. With their predatory “thiefdoms” spreading out over Mexico, groups use territorial control as a means of squeezing revenue out of whatever commodity is locally available, chiefly through extortion.

The story repeats itself across the country. In Guerrero, gold mining has come to supplement heroin smuggling. In Michoacán, limes and avocados are add-ons to methamphetamine. In Chihuahua, illegal logging has come to accompany marijuana cultivation. The expansion of their business portfolio into licit commodities and crops increases the criminals’ power over people and politics – and bolsters their ability to fend off crackdowns.

Blame for this deteriorating situation falls at least in part on the war on drugs’ flawed kingpin strategy, which is based on the belief that arresting or killing criminal leaders makes criminal organisations implode. These groups do indeed die, but their parts live on, very often pitted against one another in countless feuds over parcels of land.

Michoacán is emblematic. This state was dominated by a single criminal organisation until, in 2014, the federal government sent in its troops. With help from other illegal armed groups, the army succeeded in breaking up the once dominant organisation, arresting one of its top leaders and killing the other.

But after authorities failed to follow through with sustained institution- and peacebuilding measures – for example, to free law enforcement from corruption, provide youngsters with ways out of criminal groups and offer local populations licit economic alternatives – armed conflict bounced back.

Today, the number of armed groups operating in the state has risen from one to twenty. Most are splinters of the once dominant group, and none has been able to impose itself fully on the others. The fighting has become perpetual.

Moreover, Michoacán mirrors the nationwide trend. In 2006, there were six criminal conglomerates fighting it out in a handful of regions. In 2019, the number reached 198, according to a Crisis Group analysis of online citizen journalists’ websites called “narco-blogs”.

The result of this hyper-fragmentation of armed conflict has been the birth of a series of “stupid wars that nobody has control over and that don’t end”, as one criminal lieutenant allied with the Jalisco Cartel said. Yet he – and hundreds of others – keep at it, killing, disappearing and displacing enemy operatives and those perceived to have ties to them.

Children and women are no longer excluded as targets. In Guerrero’s highlands, for instance, as part of a string of forced displacements, one armed group has driven hundreds of civilians out of their communities out of suspicion that they could in some fashion be tied socially or economically to its competitor.

A former cocaine trafficker, active until the mid-1990s, reflected upon the changing logic of violence by saying “today’s narcos aren’t even narcos anymore”. He suggested that today’s criminal actors no longer adhere to the informal norms of conduct that his contemporaries once followed.

While trying to gain the upper hand in fights over territories and markets, criminal groups also try to draw state actors onto their side. All too often they are successful, with devastating effects on law enforcement. “Whoever is supported by the state grows”, as the Jalisco Cartel lieutenant summed up the situation.

The alleged collusion between top narco-warrior García Luna and the Sinaloa Cartel is but the tip of the iceberg; similarly troubling arrangements can be found in the government’s lower echelons.

 

One Size Does Not Fit All

Given the overlap between the state and the criminals it is fighting, there are no meaningful enemies or front lines in this war. The war is not winnable. There are, however, clear and feasible steps Mexico can take to mitigate and eventually end its armed conflicts, with support from its partners in Washington.

Most critically, the government should pivot away from a one-size-fits-all approach that treats the use of force as the primary solution to every crisis and ignores who and what drives lethal violence at the local level. In what has become a mosaic of regional conflicts, circumstances matter and have to form the basis for effective policy.

Officials will thus need to understand not just the armed groups that are fighting but also the politicians and businesspeople who are aligned with them and the resources they are all fighting over. They will also need to get a handle on how to make control of these resources less profitable by alerting consumers about goods that come from criminally tainted supply chains, whether gold being purchased in Canada or avocados in the U.S.

Mexico’s government also has to invest more, with the support of the U.S. and other international partners, in social and economic programs that can divert vulnerable young people who might be drawn into the armed groups.

Likewise, it should step up efforts to provide youngsters with ways out of armed groups through demobilisation programs. Transitional justice mechanisms could also help communities come to terms with their fraught pasts and interrupt years-long cycles of revenge killings.

The focus for these efforts should be those regions where conflict is most intense, and that account for the bulk of Mexico’s violent deaths and displacement. Bold policies introduced by past and current administrations have often foundered as a result of indiscriminate application of one reform model to many different settings.

Concentrating resources and efforts on regional intervention plans that have been devised on the basis of close study of local conflict dynamics would be a better way to make progress, even if the gains appear on the surface more limited.

Even with these changes, there will still be a role for the use of force in managing these conflicts, but that role will be different than it is today. Security forces might be used to support the foregoing initiatives and their beneficiaries, who would likely be targets of violent attacks and criminal co-optation.

They might also be deployed to deter brazen criminal aggression against those local populations whom data show to be most vulnerable to displacement and other abuses. But while the state would continue to employ force where needed, it would no longer be the primary and only tool for rooting out insecurity.

Finally, key to the success of any new initiative to staunch lethal violence in Mexico will be a push to clean up the institutions charged with protecting the public from crime, and that for decades have been riddled with collusion and corruption. Various criminal operators have told Crisis Group that “reaching agreements” with police and armed forces commanders is routine.

These understandings depend on security institutions such as the armed forces remaining largely self-governing and impervious to oversight. To develop a more reliable group of officials to carry out the policies described above, the government will need to introduce transparency and accountability mechanisms throughout the security forces and to give them teeth through external watchdogs.

Which brings us back to Washington. To be successful, any solution to Mexico’s conflicts will require backing from the U.S., which would be well advised to rethink, and ultimately overhaul, the militarised approach to law enforcement it has exported to Mexico.

The U.S. government, in championing, designing, financing and, in effect, imposing the war on drugs on its neighbour, hoped it could purge the country of the corrosive social, political and economic impact of the narcotics trade and bring greater stability to the region.

Since the late 1960s, it has invested in this vision, pouring wave after wave of U.S. taxpayer dollars – billions all told – into the effort. But while U.S. resolve was enough to persuade Mexican leaders to go along with this scheme, reliance on iron-fist militarisation has proven a failure.  It is time for Washington to grasp this hard truth and change its course. If it wants to see peace across its southern border, it must support Mexico in moving away from the war footing that has spawned so much conflict.

 

This story was originally published by International Crisis Group, You can find the full report here.

The post Time to End the Lethal Limbo of the U.S.-Mexican Drug Wars appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

By Jemimah Njuki
NAIROBI, Oct 9 2020 (IPS)

“We need to build back better.”  This has been the rallying call on the COVID-19 response by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to leaders and communities around the world. It has been echoed in conference rooms and in the numerous Zoom meetings organized to discuss the pandemic. It will be especially important to apply the idea to women working in the agriculture and food sector. 

Women farmers often have lower access to productive resources than men—so in times of crisis, like COVID-19, their farm productivity and food security will likely be hit harder. The pandemic is affecting input availability and use. In a survey by Precision Agriculture for Development in Kenya, 8 in 10 agri-dealers reported a decrease in farmer footfall, and 76% reported lower sales compared to a month earlier.  

Women play a critical role in entrepreneurship in the food sector, from small scale processing to high growth companies that employ thousands of workers. In Sub-Saharan Africa, female entrepreneurs are more prevalent than male entrepreneurs, although their businesses are typically smaller and with less capital and many are in the informal sector.

The current recovery efforts, and support to the agriculture sector have remained gender blind, and when they have focused on women, they have tended to make assumptions about women’s roles in the food system

The Future of Business survey found that female led businesses were 7 percentage points more likely to be closed compared to male-led small businesses. They are also likely to take longer to recover from the impacts of the pandemic due to their lower access to formal credit and reliance on the family network for investment finance. 

A report by UN Women and the UNDP found that a total of 247 million women and girls will be living on less than $1.90 a day in 2021. And of this number, 132 million are in sub-Saharan Africa. 

And while there has been extensive discussion of gendered impacts of Covid-19, particularly the care burdens on women, and on building back better after the pandemic, what that looks like for many women engaged in stallholder agriculture is not clear to many. 

The current recovery efforts, and support to the agriculture sector have remained gender blind, and when they have focused on women, they have tended to make assumptions about women’s roles in the food system.  For example, women farmers have been targeted with interventions focused on home gardens and homestead food production and while this is important, it is not enough.

Evidence shows that women play a pivotal role in all three key components of food security: food availability (production), food access (distribution), and food utilization as well as in activities that support agricultural development. 

Leaving them out in the short and long-term recovery process is not an option and any efforts to build back better must focus on and include women.

So, how do we “build back better” for women in the food sectors? Initiatives must include two broad strategies to succeed; increased access to social protection, appropriate seeds, markets and finance; and enhanced and amplified leadership of women. This is how it can be achieved. 

First, governments can increase access to markets for women smallholder farmers by providing short term access to markets through procuring Covid19 food relief and school meal supplies. A study in India showed that public procurement institutions helped the state government implement a timely and sound procurement process during the lockdown, preventing widespread losses in crop income.

In the longer term, developing improved local markets with infrastructure that supports women such as child care facilities, encouraging shorter value chains and crop diversification has been shown to enable women access markets. 

Second, allocation of inputs must target women who are the majority smallholder farmers in the continent. Most governments are allocating funds for inputs, through digital voucher systems. For example, Kenya is spending a 500 million USD loan from the World Bank on inputs through a voucher system that has no specific targets for women despite another program with IFAD showing that targeting women has led to increases in their production. These voucher systems are however likely to leave women out due to their lower access to mobile phones.  

Third, target cash transfers directly to women as a social safety net. Cash transfers targeted at women have potential to help them rebuild their businesses, secure their food security and that of their households. In Nigeria, women who received cash transfers increased investment in their own business activities, were more likely to be involved in their own non-farm businesses and increased their profits.

Fourth, support women entrepreneurs, traders and processors engaged in the food business. Women have however always faced barriers to financial inclusion. Reforming the financial system so that it works for women must be a critical part of building back better.

For example in Zambia, the implementation of a self-check tool for commercial banks to ensure their financial products and services address women’s needs in the same way as those of men led to some banks adjusting their products to better meet the needs of women.

And finally, women who are in smallholder agriculture and agribusiness must be part of building back better. In the political space, countries with female leadership have been very successful in dealing with the pandemic. This leadership has however not cascaded to other sectors. The participation and influence of women is needed in the design, implementation and monitoring of policies and programs for building back better in the sector.  Building back better must be defined by those most affected by the pandemic. 

 

Dr Jemimah Njuki is an Aspen News Voices Fellow and a UN food systems champion. She writes on gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls.

The post What Does Building Back Better Look Like for African Women Engaged in Smallholder Agriculture and Food Businesses? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: UN Women/Ryan Brown

By Winnie Byanyima, Audrey Azoulay, Natalia Kanem, Henrietta Fore and Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
GENEVA/ PARIS/ NEW YORK, Oct 9 2020 (IPS)

The International Day of the Girl Child on 11th October is a call for us to reflect on our responsibilities. Twenty-five years ago, governments adopted the historic Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action.

Seventeen years ago, African governments committed to the Maputo Protocol affirming the rights of women and girls. Adolescent girls are leading change around the world. They are a tremendous engine of progress. They drive economies. They transform communities. Yet many girls born after these agreements were made are still denied their most basic human rights.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the epicentre of the AIDS epidemic, HIV continues to disproportionately impact adolescent girls. Today, five in six newly infected adolescents aged between 15 and 19 in this region are girls.

Over 600 adolescent girls in sub-Saharan Africa are newly infected every day. AIDS is still the second leading cause of death among young women aged 15-24 in the region. Yet the majority of adolescent girls do not have comprehensive knowledge about prevention of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.

Now, the COVID-19 crisis threatens to worsen these vulnerabilities. Evidence from past crises – such as the Ebola outbreak in conflict-affected areas of DRC – show that school closures worsen gender inequality since girls are less likely to return to school than boys.

Girls are forced to enter the informal job market or shoulder unpaid care work at home, leading to increased experiences of violence and spikes in adolescent pregnancies and harmful practices like child marriage and female genital mutilation.

As women executive leaders for UNAIDS, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNICEF and UN Women, we are joining forces to confront the injustices faced by adolescent girls in sub-Saharan Africa.

Together we are working to advance a package dubbed “Education Plus”: completion of quality secondary education; universal access to comprehensive sexuality education; access to sexual and reproductive health services and education; freedom from sexual and gender-based violence; and school-to-work transitions, economic security and empowerment.

We are championing removal of discriminatory laws and promoting the voice and engagement of young women and adolescent girls as advocates and leaders.

Africa’s adolescent girls and young women themselves have risen to speak out, together, to demand these rights. Here are just some of the things they have been telling us:

“A safe learning environment for girls must be prioritized as a lot of them fall prey to those who are meant to protect them. Girls must be able to learn in an environment that is safe and healthy,” says Brenda of Cameroon

“COVID-19 has exposed our vulnerabilities and the glaring leadership and developmental gaps that exist in my country. It has revealed the need for young people with a heart for service,” says Wanjuhi of Kenya

“Resources to disseminate information must be put in place and the media must also be involved to combat associated taboos,” says Bibiche of DRC

Learning from adolescent girls and young women has reminded us as leaders that legal, cultural, social and economic obstacles are intertwined and need to be taken on together; that at the heart of transforming girls lives is shifting unequal power dynamics; and that they do not seek to be “rescued” but seek to be supported in their own right to participate.

A South African study has shown that HIV prevalence among girls who had finished high school was about half that among girls who had not (8.6% versus 16.9%). Research shows too that including discussions about gender and power dynamics in comprehensive sexuality education makes it five times more effective in preventing sexually transmitted infections.

It is vital too that young women are supported to develop the necessary skills as they transition into adulthood to secure decently paid employment. With our united collaboration and support, this generation can truly be Generation Equality and Generation Unlimited.

It is Africa’s adolescent girls’ and young women’s own activism and organising that will drive progress. Our role as leaders is to unite behind their energy, bringing together governments, communities, civil society, business, and others.

Together we can ensure vital investments and transformational policy shifts are made so that all of Africa’s girls can enjoy all of their rights to education and empowerment. We do this not “for” Africa’s adolescent girls and young women but with them; this generation of feminist leaders is the fighting chance to beat AIDS, achieve gender equality, and secure the human rights of all girls.

 

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The post Why We’re Uniting in Support of African Girl Leaders to beat AIDS & Shift Power appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The authors are executive leaders of UNAIDS, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNICEF and UN Women, respectively.

The post Why We’re Uniting in Support of African Girl Leaders to beat AIDS & Shift Power appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Ismaila Badji. Credit: IOM/Amanda Nero.

By Marilena Crosato
DAKAR, Oct 9 2020 (IPS)

Ismaila Badji could not bring himself to leave his house for weeks after returning to Senegal. “I failed twice; at school and on the road,” he said. “What’s wrong with me? I’m still looking for the answer.” After spending time in a Libyan detention centre, Badji returned to where he came from. He did not feel like himself, he lacked motivation and he suffered from stigma from the local community.

It was thanks to two friends who took walks with him in the neighborhood that he was able to overcome these challenges. “That’s how I was able to integrate again within my community.” he recalled.

Badji is one of many young people in West and Central Africa who undertake dangerous journeys to Europe, do not reach their destination and struggle to return and re-establish their lives. For them, peer support is an essential part of the return process.

Shame, guilt, low self-esteem, and a sense of loss are common reactions among returnees. Psychosocial care is vital for people returning. A supported reintegration process is an essential element of the return journey

Badji joined the International Organization for Migration’s Migrants as Messengers (MaM) programme, which supports a peer-led approach to awareness-raising in communities to help people make informed migration decisions.

He recently started a poultry business and is now an active advocate for safe migration. The programme also seeks to develop strong social networks to improve the health and wellbeing of returned migrants and has brought together more than 260 returnees, MaM Volunteers, across seven countries in West Africa. The volunteers share accurate and balanced information about migration routes and processes and, more recently, about COVID-19.

“During our journey, we gained a lot of experience, we faced lots of things and it is often in moments like this that we measure the importance of solidarity between people… since we returned, when we see people in need, we say to ourselves that it is our duty to help others,” said Diarra Kourouma from Guinea, a MaM volunteer and returnee.

Many young people in West and Central Africa hope to find a better life for themselves and their families and risk their lives by undertaking some of the most dangerous migration journeys every year to Europe. According to IOM data (June 2020), 92 per cent of migrants attempting to reach Europe from West and Central Africa are young men under the age of 30.

Lack of jobs and other opportunities for personal and financial growth and strong pressure from families, drives large numbers of young people to migrate. When they set out, it is with the expectation that they will make it to their destination, find a job, and send money home.

The reality is that many do not reach their desired destination and are stranded, abandoned and sometimes abused and imprisoned. These harrowing experiences, often combined with stigma faced from returning home empty-handed, make reintegration in their communities of origin a challenge.

Shame, guilt, low self-esteem, and a sense of loss are common reactions among returnees. Psychosocial care is vital for people returning. A supported reintegration process is an essential element of the return journey.

 

Elhadji Mohamed Diallo. Credit: IOM Guinea.

 

“I returned to Guinea completely devastated by everything I had just experienced during my journey. I didn’t want anyone to know my story, no one to know that I am a returnee. I simply wanted to hide in silence,” said Elhadj Mohamed Diallo, a 32-year-old from Guinea.

Diallo is now the president of the OGLMI, a Guinean organization raising awareness about the dangers of irregular migration. He explains how he benefited for his role leading awareness raising activities and the importance of challenging the stigma that migrant returnees face when they go back to their communities of origin.

“It was an opportunity to regain confidence in my abilities, but also to become aware of the role I can play by sharing my story with the Guinean populations; I understood that I could help save lives. And this boosted my energy,” said Diallo. “When we return home, we want more than anything else to fight the stigma we were subjected to. For me, this means contributing to the development of my country.”

MaM Volunteers report that belonging to these peer groups and playing an active role in the community help with the process of re-establishing their lives. People involved in these peer groups have gone on to create civil society associations, start small businesses, pursue studies and work on other initiatives.

Discussions in markets, churches and schools, community theatre, music and dance, collaboration with media are just a few examples of the activities led by the MaM Volunteers to breakdown stigma and social and economic barriers returnees often face.

“When I returned from Libya, I had a hard time being accepted by my family,” said Mariama Conté, a 23-year-old business law student in Guinea and MaM Volunteer.

“In the eyes of my parents, I was just the one who had stolen money from them to leave and fail on the shores of the Mediterranean. It was thanks to my involvement as a volunteer that I managed to reconnect with them. When they saw me engaging in awareness-raising activities, fighting to prevent other young girls to fall into the same trap as me, they understood that I could be useful.”

In the past few months in the seven countries where MaM is being implemented, more than 288 creative, community outreach activities have been carried out to help communities and youth face the COVID-19 pandemic.

This includes videos, songs, billboards, posters, comics strips, radio shows and other community-based activities – all of which has been widely shared across on air, online and by word-of-mouth, reaching more than seven million people this year.

The “Stay Home and Dance” challenge, a series of videos encouraged people to stay home during the pandemic lockdown and addressed issues of social isolation through song and dance. Guinean Volunteers welcomed returning migrants in transit centers and a group of five returnees in Sierra Leone created the song ‘Together We Can Cope’ to build support and solidarity in the pandemic.

“Firstly, I feel proud to be a part of a network that is helping in the fight against COVID-19,” said Abdul Sankoh, a MaM Volunteer from Sierra Leone. “Secondly, the experience has given me a sense of wanting to do more to help other people in time of crisis or emergencies.”

 

Marilena Crosato is Community Engagement Officer, IOM Regional Office for West and Central Africa, mcrosato@iom.int.

 

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There is a deep mistrust not only of institutions and big business, but even of the medical establishment. One of the most worrying symptoms of this mistrust and disillusionment is the No Vax Movement. Credit: Bigstock

By Daud Khan and Leila Yasmine Khan
AMSTERDAM/ROME, Oct 8 2020 (IPS)

Around the 16th century there was a radical shift in the way humans perceived nature.  New thinking in physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics heralded a deeper understanding of the world around us.  Between the 17th and 18th century this new thinking had resulted in spate of technological inventions such as the steam engine, railways, electricity and the telephone.

Humans became masters of the world that surrounded us. Complemented with new institutional and financial innovations such the stock markets, banking and insurance this heralded in an unprecedented period of growth.  

These scientific and technological changes were centred in Europe and subsequently in the USA. They not only transformed the daily life and work of people who lived there, but also led to a new mind-set. Science and Technology were held to be supreme and the custodians of scientific knowledge had a right, if not a duty, to rule the world. 

With the underlying problems in the technology based model of development becoming apparent, many people in the advanced countries were themselves questioning the supremacy of science. Greater environmental awareness has also led to questions about the ethics of high consumption lifestyles
Driven by the need for raw materials and markets, and with the help of ever more powerful military hardware, this new thinking resulted in the domination, colonization and exploitation of much of Asia, Africa and South America.

This world view has been eroding for some time due to various changes.  On the military front, it is clear that apart from nuclear weapons, there is little in western arsenals that would enable them to conquer and hold territory against the wish of the local population – however poor and backward they are. 

The war in Viet Nam gave the French and the USA their first bloody nose after the victory of the Allies in the Second World War. In Afghanistan the USA, with all its aeroplanes, missiles and sophisticated electronic equipment, have not made progress against a bunch of “pyjama-clad fighters wearing canvas sneakers”. In Iraq, the Shock and Awe was a prelude to a quagmire from which the USA is still struggling to extricate itself.

On the economic front the OPEC-led oil crisis of the early 1970s demonstrated the dependence of the west on of a handful of middle-eastern Sheikhs.  More recently, China has been happily absorbing technology from the USA and Europe and using this to propel growth.

China is now the biggest economy in the world, surpassing the USA as well as the EU. It is now using its economic muscle to make inroads into western political and military dominance in much of Asia and Africa, as well as parts of South America. 

On the environmental front, the western countries initially had few qualms about using non-renewable resources in a completely unsustainable manner and to create irreversible air, land and water pollution.  Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, one of the main indicators of increasing environmental degradation, have been rising since the industrial revolution in the mid-18th century.

Accelerating climate change, with greater frequency of extreme weather  events, has highlighted the unsustainability of the current technology and energy intensive development. Biodiversity is dramatically dropping as habitats continue to be destroyed. 

With the underlying problems in the technology based model of development becoming apparent, many people in the advanced countries were themselves questioning the supremacy of science. Greater environmental awareness has also led to questions about the ethics of high consumption lifestyles.

There is a deep mistrust not only of institutions and big business, but even of the medical establishment. One of the most worrying symptoms of this mistrust and disillusionment is the No Vax Movement  –  significant numbers of people are now refusing to use tried and tested vaccines such as that for measles and mumps. 

Now a virus, one 10,000th the size of a grain of sand has wreaked havoc.  It will possibly continue to do so as infection rates will most likely spike in the coming months, as is already happening in several European countries. 

A vaccine will certainly help restore some confidence but with winter rapidly approaching, there is a possibility that many families may be spending Christmas in lockdowns and limited by other social restrictions. 

Maybe COVID marks the end of the epoch of Science. Maybe Science and Technology will no longer be the key to power and to global domination. Maybe global and regional power will be a function of land and demographics – as it was before the Scientific Revolution. Maybe the next centuries will belong to Asia and Africa with their fast growing economies and youthful populations.

 

Daud Khan works as consultant and advisor for various Governments and international agencies. He has degrees in Economics from the LSE and Oxford – where he was a Rhodes Scholar; and a degree in Environmental Management from the Imperial College of Science and Technology. He lives partly in Italy and partly in Pakistan

Leila Yasmine Khan is an independent writer and editor based in the Netherlands. She has Master’s degrees in Philosophy and one in Argumentation Theory and Rhetoric – both from the University of Amsterdam – as well as a Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy from the University of Rome (Roma Tre). She provided research and editorial support. 

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President Donald Trump at the UN Security Council (UNSC) when the US held the rotating Presidency of the Council. Credit: VOA

By Alon Ben-Meir
NEW YORK, Oct 8 2020 (IPS)

Like many Americans, I have been observing Trump’s rise to power with some perplexity, often asking myself how and why a man of his character became the President of the United States, which is viewed as the most powerful political office in the world.

But out of a sense of fairness, I thought that he should be given a chance, as he may be able to rise to the occasion and prove me and others wrong.

Indeed, for someone who seeks adulation, reverence, admiration of his ‘genius,’ respect, and appreciation of his ‘unlimited talents and expertise’ on just about every subject, I wondered, why would he not use the power of the presidency to earn all that he desperately wants to be recognized for?

After all, despite his character flaws, he made it to the White House. And yet having reached the pinnacle of power, he still wants more, when in fact the presidency, regardless of constitutional constraints, provides him with all the power he needs to effect revolutionary constructive change—if he only willed it.

Over the past four years, I devoted over 50 of my weekly articles and essays to the Trump presidency, in a way chronologizing some of his statements, the issues he tackled, his policy initiatives, his ideological leanings, and certainly his appetite for making false statements, misrepresenting facts, and creating his own alternate reality.

Before long, I realized that this man is simply irredeemable. He has shown that he is plainly unfit to hold the office of the presidency, which carries an awesome power both domestically and internationally. He did not “make America great again;” he tarnished America’s greatness for much of the world to see.

Many psychiatrists and psychologists who have analyzed his behavior, public utterances, and tweets have unanimously concluded that Trump is a psychopath, a pathological liar, uncompassionate, narcissist, greedy, and shallow.

He sees things only in black and white, and never cares to understand the nuances of any issue before him. Here lies Trump’s sickness.

In his world, the presidency is not enough to satisfy his ego and make up for his dismal failures and complete lack of self-confidence. He needs unchecked power—dictatorial power—so that no one can question his actions, motives, or agenda, however skewed or criminal they may be.

Sooner than later, Trump will leave office disgracefully, leaving behind the wreckage of a century, the extent of which none of his predecessors have remotely left in their wake. He stained the office of the presidency, as he brought nothing but shame and disdain to the most prestigious office in the land which is looked upon with awe and admiration around the world.

It will take years, and in some cases decades, to repair the extensive damage he inflicted on our country. We must now attend to healing our deep wounds that tore us apart before we can realize, once again, the American dream.

Since I submitted the manuscript of my book* nearly two months ago, Trump’s behavior has become ever more astonishing. He has consistently delegitimized the elections, sabotaged the postal service in order to interfere with mail-in voting, which millions of Americans are turning to due to the coronavirus pandemic, and openly refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose the election (let alone commit to accepting the result should he lose).

This past week Trump contracted the coronavirus, along with many of those around him, a development that should not be at all surprising given his refusal to engage in social distancing or wear a mask, or any other preventative measures recommended by the CDC.

Recklessness, stubbornness, arrogance and ineptitude have characterized him and his administration since the pandemic began, and there seems to be no bottom to his irresponsibility.

During the first presidential debate, Trump did everything he could to debase such an important part of the election process that allows the American public to hear what the candidates for the highest office in the land have to say.

He interrupted former Vice President Biden nearly 130 times, made scores of misleading statements and said outright lies, and “bragged” about an economy in tatters. He spoke about the coronavirus in the past tense, while new infections and deaths continue to rise daily—over 7 million infected and over 210,000 dead.

To be sure, Trump behaved during the debate just the way Biden characterized him—a clown; unhinged, uncaring, and dismissive with an uncanny hostile demeanor. Millions of viewers just like me cringed in their seats, ashamed to have such a loose cannon, and an ignorant and self-conceited man once again a candidate for the presidency after four years of his disastrous performance.

It is now the responsibility of every American who is eligible to vote, who cares and loves this country, to say NO to Trump and his enablers in the Republican Party. The damage that he and his stooges have inflicted on our democracy and institutions is hard to assess.

If he is given another four years, he will shatter every pillar on which this republic has rested, causing incalculable wounds from which we will not recover for decades.

*The article is an introductory chapter in the just-released book, “Trump—The Wannabe Dictator” by Alon Ben-Meir.

 

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Excerpt:

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University (NYU). He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.

The post The Wreckage Of Trump’s Presidency* appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Garment workers travel on private buses organized by their factory in Cambodia. Credit: Samer Muscati/Human Rights Watch

By Aruna Kashyap
Oct 7 2020 (IPS)

The recent refusal by five international auditing firms to inspect for labor abuses in Xinjiang was the right response to the severe human rights violations there. But this is a moment for the auditing and certifications industry, which assesses the compliance of work sites with human rights and labor rights standards, to rethink its approach to “social audits”—periodic workplace inspections—everywhere.

Xinjiang, the northwestern region of China, is home to minority Uyghur and other Turkic Muslim populations. They have long been subjected to Chinese state repression, but in recent years it has become more extreme. It is extremely dangerous and almost impossible to interview workers about labor conditions  due to pervasive government surveillance. Saying anything at all may be dangerous for workers.

Earlier this year, I spoke to a very experienced auditor who had refused to conduct social audits in Xinjiang over the last few years. “This is all under Chinese monitoring,” he told me. “Every website, every email, everything I read and send is tracked. The control in Xinjiang is so severe… they track your every movement.  There’s also facial recognition in Xinjiang. They capture your face and every activity of yours.”

Over the years, there has been growing criticism of the quality of social audits and their failure to detect human rights abuses and even flag severe fire and building safety concerns, much less sexual or other abuse of the workers by their managers or coworkers

The fact that a few firms have refused to conduct social audits in Xinjiang is an important step. But all firms should do more to publicly acknowledge their limitations in ferreting out labor abuses beyond Xinjiang.

Xinjiang is an example of how hard it is to monitor working conditions in a repressive environment—but it is not the first place in which audits have failed to flag serious rights abuses. Various incidents in the past few years have exposed further problems.

Companies have a responsibility to take steps to ensure that their business operations respect human rights, including labor rights. Many companies largely rely on social audits of businesses that are part of their global supply network—factories, farms, and mines— to produce confidential reports about working conditions.

Companies draw on these confidential audit reports to represent to consumers and shareholders that their operations are complying with human rights and labor rights standards.

Typically, social audits consist of periodic inspections of work sites, once every year or two. Many auditing firms conduct them on a contract-basis for a fee.  Inspectors—or “auditors”—have a herculean task. They have to assess compliance on a range of human rights concerns within just a few days. Auditors do this by going through documents that workplace managers produce, making observations, and interviewing workers.

Worker interviews are usually conducted at the workplace, and that can be a major problem because colleagues and managers know precisely whom an auditor interviewed. Many workers say their managers, whom they fear, coach them ahead of these inspections.

Over the years, there has been growing criticism of the quality of social audits and their failure to detect human rights abuses and even flag severe fire and building safety concerns, much less sexual or other abuse of the workers by their managers or coworkers.

In 2016, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, a nonprofit organization, helped bring a case in Germany against the auditing firm TUV Rheinland following the 2013 Rana Plaza building collapse in Bangladesh that killed more than 1,135 factory workers over the firm’s failure to detect the dangerous conditions in the factory.

In 2019, the Clean Clothes Campaign brought a case against Italian auditing firm RINA raising similar concerns, following the 2012 Ali Enterprises factory fire in Pakistan that killed more than 250 workers.

Auditing firms have a responsibility to take a rights-based approach to their business in accordance with United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. They are starting to realize that some human rights issues do not lend themselves to the way they conduct these social audits and are not really addressed.

ELEVATE, a company that conducted over 10,000 such audits in more than 10 countries, said in September 2019 that it “acknowledges that social audits are not designed to capture sensitive labor and human rights violations such as forced labor and harassment.”

ELEVATE conducted a series of Worker Sentiment Surveys, cellphone app-based surveys that suggested that social audits are widely off the mark. In Bangladesh, 30 percent of the workers surveyed said they witnessed or experienced sexual harassment.

But only 0.18 percent of ELEVATE’s social audits reported cases of inhumane treatment (including sexual harassment, verbal abuse, and physical abuse) during the same period. Similarly, in India, 28 percent of workers surveyed reported experiencing sexual harassment while only 0.8 percent of social audits detected inhumane treatment, including sexual harassment.

In 2019, Human Rights Watch wrote about the failure of these audits to detect sexual harassment at work. Yet, many auditing firms still perpetuate the myth that they can detect sexual harassment, or inadvertently misrepresent what social audits can achieve.

For instance, SGS, an auditing firm that conducts social audits meant to uncover human rights abuses, says on its website that its audits: “[R]obustly seek out evidence of unethical behaviour in child labour, freedom of association, compensation and pay, excessive and unfair working hours, forced labour, health and safety regulations, and environmental regulations,” including sexual harassment and discrimination, and that such audits let companies “allow your stakeholders, and communities, to trust your organisation is compliant with the law and international best practices.”

Auditing and certification firms should acknowledge the limitations of social audits and identify a set of human rights risks that do not lend themselves to being detected through them. Just as some firms have done in Xinjiang, they should acknowledge that they cannot adequately audit issues like sexual harassment and discrimination at work.

By publicizing the limitations of their current inspections, auditing firms put brands, retailers, agents, and suppliers on notice. It will force companies to take more effective measures to stop egregious workplace abuses. It will make it harder for companies to pass the buck onto auditing firms and take a box-checking approach to their human rights responsibilities.

Taking these measures would send a strong message that auditing firms will not quietly downplay human rights abuses in global supply chains because their approach is not effective in identifying key problems.

For their part, global brands and retailers should work together to create effective local grievance-based mechanisms in the regions in which they operate.

Developing models for collaborative, credible, and independent grievance-redress that is accessible to workers and local communities should be central to how companies approach human rights in their global supply chains. Continuing to rely on social audits will mark out companies as being out of touch with reality.

 

The post Social Audit Reforms and the Labor Rights Ruse appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Aruna Kashyap is senior counsel for business and human rights at Human Rights Watch

The post Social Audit Reforms and the Labor Rights Ruse appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Indigenous women join protests for land rights in Asia. Credit: IWGIA

By External Source
CANBERRA, Australia, Oct 7 2020 (IPS)

Can a state built upon the “taking of another people’s lands, lives and power” ever really be just?  Colonialism can’t be reversed, so at a simple level the answer is no.

But in my book, ‘We Are All Here to Stay’, published last week, I argue colonialism need not be a permanent state.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which New Zealand is currently thinking about implementing, shows how and why.

New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the United States were the only UN members to oppose the declaration when it was adopted in 2007. They were worried about the constraints they thought it would place on state authority, in particular over Indigenous land.

All four have since changed their positions. In 2010, then New Zealand Prime Minister John Key argued:

While the declaration is non-binding, it both affirms accepted rights and establishes future aspirations. My objective is to build better relationships between Māori and the Crown, and I believe that supporting the declaration is a small but significant step in that direction.

 

The state’s right to govern is not absolute

The declaration recognises the state’s right to govern. But it also constrains it by recognising self-determination as a right that belongs to everybody — to Indigenous peoples as much as anybody else.

Self-determination has far-reaching implications for rights to land, language and culture and for government policy in areas such as health, education and economic development.

The declaration’s 46 articles challenge the idea of state sovereignty as an exclusive and absolute right to exercise authority over Indigenous peoples. It parallels New Zealand’s Treaty of Waitangi by affirming Indigenous peoples’ authority over their own affairs and their right to meaningful influence as citizens of the state.

The fact that 144 UN member states voted for the declaration shows that the international community regards these assumptions as fair and reasonable. The declaration states:

Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen their distinct political, legal, economic, social and cultural institutions, while retaining their right to participate fully, if they so choose, in the political, economic, social and cultural life of the State.

 

Indigenous people’s right to make their own decisions

The declaration provides different ways of thinking about political authority. The Māori right to make their own decisions, through iwi (tribes) and other independent institutions, and to participate as members of the wider political community implies a distinctive Māori presence in the sovereign state.

The Waitangi Tribunal, which was established in 1975 to hear alleged breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi, is a forum for thinking about these questions. In a tribunal report concerning Māori culture and identity, Justice Joe Williams, subsequently the first Māori appointed to the Supreme Court of New Zealand, argued:

Fundamentally, there is a need for a mindset shift away from the pervasive assumption that the Crown is Pākehā [non-Māori], English-speaking, and distinct from Māori rather than representative of them. Increasingly, in the 21st century, the Crown is also Māori. If the nation is to move forward, this reality must be grasped.

From this perspective, the Crown is an inclusive and unifying institution. It is neither the Pākehā political community, nor the dominant party in a bi-cultural treaty partnership.

 

Beyond partnership to independence and authority

In 2019, the state’s solution to allegations of racist and ineffective practices in its child welfare agency Oranga Tamariki was to call for stronger partnerships between Māori and the state.

It is too early to say whether partnership agreements will reduce the numbers of Māori children taken from their families into state care.

But in 2020 independent reports into Oranga Tamariki show measures more robust than partnership may be required to assure Māori of the declaration’s undertaking that:

Indigenous peoples have the collective right to live in freedom, peace and security as distinct peoples and shall not be subjected to any act of genocide or any other act of violence, including forcibly removing children of the group to another group.

Claims to the Waitangi Tribunal, arguing for independent authority in health and education and ensuring that Māori benefit fully from international trade agreements, have had mixed success for the Māori claimants. However, the declaration gives international authority to the arguments made.

Indigenous peoples have the right to determine and develop priorities and strategies for exercising their right to development. In particular, Indigenous peoples have the right to be actively involved in developing and determining health, housing and other economic and social programs affecting them and, as far as possible, to administer such programs through their own institutions.

A colonial state may never be just. But as New Zealand considers its implementation of the declaration, the important moral question is whether the declaration can help people to work out what a state will look like if it no longer reflects the colonial insistence on power over others.

Dominic O’Sullivan, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, and Associate Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt University

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

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By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM / ROME, Oct 7 2020 (IPS)

The 26th of September, the Lebanese prime minister Mustapha Adib stepped down after less than a month on his post. The president, Michael Auon, stated: ”Lebanon will be going to Hell if a new government is not formed soon.” The question is if his nation is not there already. A horrifying image of the state of the nation was provided on the 4th of August when 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate, stored in a dockside hangar, blew up in an explosion killing more than 190 people, injuring 6,500 and damaging thousands of buildings.

Before a Civil War engulfed the country from 1975 to 1990 Lebanon was called the Switzerland of the East, enjoying a thriving culture, freedom of expression and a diversified economy that included tourism, agriculture and banking. Now, Lebanon suffers from endemic corruption, fifty-five percent of its population live below the poverty line, while more than 30 percent is unemployed. During the past year food prizes increased by 367 percent.

The first and only time I visited Lebanon was in 1978. My friends and I had been on our way to Baghdad, trying to follow the tracks of the Berlin-Baghdad Express. The entire stretch of this legendary railroad was no longer navigable, but we had read that most of the rails and stations were still intact. The railway was built between 1903 and 1940 to connect Berlin with the Persian Gulf. It had been financed by the German Government to gain access to Middle Eastern oil and facilitate provision of goods and supplies to German colonies in Africa and the Pacific. Furthermore, the railway was a strategic move to diminish Russian and British interests in the area. Even if World War I, the fall of the Ottoman Empire, loss of the German colonies and almost innumerable other obstacles delayed its construction, the Nazi regime could in 1940 celebrate the railway´s completion.

We came as far as Aleppo, where the rails turned east toward the Iraqi border, from there we took a bus to Damascus to apply for visas. However, at Iraq´s embassy we were told: ”Why travel to Baghdad? In these days life is complicated there. Go to Beirut instead, you´ll like it there.” A run-down taxi took us the 100 kilometres from Damascus to Beirut. Along the route we were repeatedly stopped at Syrian check points (the Syrian Army had in 1976 intervened in Lebanese internal fighting). When the startlingly young soldiers saw our worried looks they told us in broken English: ”Please, don´t worry. Beirut is fine, you´ll have a good time there.”

For Europeans like us Beirut looked strangely familiar, though destruction and desolation made us feel as if we had ended up in a parallel reality. We walked along The Corniche, the seaside promenade. On our left side were demolished apartment buildings and hotels, remains of the Battle of the Hotels that had raged the year before, characterized by heavy exchanges of rocket and artillery fire from various hotel rooftops and rooms. A postman passed by the ruins, placing letters and packages on the ground in front of them. To our left was the Mediterranean Sea, lined with stumps of palm trees. In front of a ruined hotel was an open-air restaurant with smartly dressed waiters attending an apparently wealthy clientele. Out on the sea, yachts lay anchored and speed boats raced by, towing water-skiers.

Lebanon means ”milky white”, probably in reference to its mountain peaks, which for more than half of the year are graced by snow. These inaccessible highlands are one of the reasons for Lebanon´s uniqueness. For thousands of years they have been a refuge for persecuted minorities. Maronites deriving their name from the Syriac Christian saint Maron had in the highlands been able to maintain their independence and religion. Their territory bordered areas controlled by the close-knit communities of the Druze, who do not identify as neither Muslims, nor Christians. Their scripture, Epistles of Wisdom, includes traits from the entire Middle East area finding their roots far back in age-old traditions. There were also Alawite communities sharing a faith considered to be Shiite, though their theology and rituals differ from mainstream Shia Islam. They do for instance drink wine and believe in reincarnation. In the Bekaa Valley and Southern Lebanon we find mainstream Shia Muslims, while the coast has traditionally been the territory of Sunni Muslim traders.

For thousands of years, refugees have found a haven in Lebanon. During the Armenian genocide in 1915, persecuted Armenians poured in from Turkey, their descendants now amount to approximately 150,000. Palestinian refugees arrived after the proclamation of the Israeli state in 1948 and now constitute approximately 300,000 of Lebanon´s inhabitants. During the recent Syrian crisis, 1.5 million refugees have arrived. With a population of seven million Lebanon is currently home to more refugees per capita than any other country in the world. At the same time the Lebanese diaspora is among the largest in the world. At least 10 million Lebanese live outside their country of origin and of them more than one million have maintained their Lebanese citizenship.

Lebanon is one of the few Middle Eastern nations that has been able to maintain its status as a democracy where free speech and tolerance are honoured, this in spite of more then forty years of constant clashes between its different population groups. On top of these calamities, the nation has during the last century suffered from foreign incursions. France, the U.S., Israel, Syria, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Libya have meddled in Lebanese politics. Armed forces from some of these nations have even invaded parts of the country, trying to take advantage of internal power struggles.

The same pattern was apparent when Germany through the Berlin-Baghdad Express initiative tried to tap the Middle East´s oil wealth, making the Middle East one of the scenes for power games between ”world-leading” nations, a tragedy that since then has continued unabated. Recently it was estimated that Lebanon´s 22,700 km2 offshore area may contain at least 95.9 trillion cubic feet of gas and 865 billion barrels of oil, thus wetting the appetite of not only its neighbours, but that of France and Russia as well, at the same time as powerful nations continue to consider Lebanon as a pawn in their game for world dominance.

Clans and influential families have for centuries dominated Lebanese politics and done so with foreign support. A situation further complicated by the fact that when clan members moved into formerly unknown territories family ties were often weakened, while traditions and religious convictions remained. It became important not where you came from, but whether you considered yourself to be a Druze, Maronite, Shia- or Sunni Muslim, Palestinian or Syrian, Armenian, Alawite, Greek Orthodox, or Catholic Christian. This is mirrored by a political system dictating that Lebanon’s president has to be a Maronite, the speaker of parliament a Shiite, the prime minister a Sunni and the deputy prime minister Greek Orthodox. Parliamentary seats are shared out proportionally among 18 religious groups, while public sector jobs are divided up among sects. Political parties use ministries to dole out jobs to their followers.

An anomaly discernible during the last months political development. Answering to socioeconomic demands, while seeking support from the country´s traditional political elite, the mainly Shiite Amal and Hezbollah parties were in October 2019 instrumental in bringing down the government of Saad Hariri. The president Michael Auon, a Maronite and former brigadier general who had fought pro-Syrian Druze and Palestinian militias, signed a memorandum of understanding with the two parties, making their parliamentary bloc dominant, though their disagreement about who is going to be finance minister is now blocking the formation of a new government.

Amal and Hezbollah supporters share cities and villages, while both parties are supported by Iran´s Shia government and Syria´s Alawite dominated regime. However, slight ideological differences and fierce competition for decision making positions caused a three-year conflict between the two parties, involving bombings, kidnappings and psychological warfare. In 1990, Iran and Syria brokered peace and convinced them to form an alliance.

Lebanon remains entangled in extremely complicated, clan- and family based politics. Some examples; the powerful Druze leader and socialist Kamal Jumblatt, was a supporter of PLO and backed by Syrian politicians who later became his enemies. Jumblatt gave crucial support to the Maronite Camille Chamoun (president 1952-1958), whose son Dany became leader of the Maronite militia, while his brother Dory led a coalition of politicians opposed to Syrian influence over Lebanese politics. After Dory suffered a heart attack in 2012 his son Camille Jr. now shoulders his father´s political commitments. After Kamal Jumblatt´s death, his son Walid became the leader of the Druze fraction of Lebanese politics. A powerful enemy and sometime ally to both the Jumblatt and Chamoun families was the Maronite Bachir Gemayel, a parliamentary power broker, allied to France. Gemayel saw his son Bachir elected President in 1982, only to be assassinated a week before his inauguration. His older brother Amine was elected to replace him.

President Saad Hariri who a year ago was toppled by the Shiite coalition fits well into this complicated pattern of related politicians. Serving as prime minister 2009-2011 and 2016-2019 Saad is the son of Rafik Hariri, a business tycoon who was prime minister 1992-1998 and again 2000-2004. A Sunni Muslim supported by Saudi Arabia, the U.S., and France, Rafik embarked on an aggressive economic policy based on privatization of major companies, foreign direct investments, and tax breaks. After an unprecedented rise, the GDP soon fell drastically, not hindering that Hariri´s personal wealth grew from one billion USD in 1992 to over 16 billion when in 2005 an explosion killed 23 people, including Hariri. On 18 August 2020, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon unanimously found Salim Jamil Ayyash guilty of the assassination. Ayyash, who is at large, is a member of Hezbollah and the verdict is now affecting Hezbollah´s prestige among the Lebanese.

COVID-19 adds fuel to the Lebanese disaster, while talks with IMF over a recovery plan involving a bid for 11 billion USD has stalled over disagreements between Lebanese politicians on assessing losses.

What about the disastrous 4th of August explosion? On the 21st of November 2013, MV Rhosus ported in Beirut. This huge freighter had embarked from Georgia with a cargo of ammonium nitrate destined for a factory in Mozambique, owned by a Portuguese company suspected of providing explosives for the 2004 Madrid train bombings. After inspection by the port authorities Rhosus was found unseaworthy and forbidden to live the port. The owners claimed bankruptcy and following a court order Rhosus´s cargo was sometime in 2014 brought ashore and kept in a sealed hangar. Four years later Rhosus sank just outside Beirut´s port.

The Rhosus tale is complicated, smelling of corruption and arms trafficking. It involves a shady set of actors – Cypriot, Portuguese and Russian businessmen, the Lebanese bank FBME and possibly Lebanese militia.

It is easy to get lost in the labyrinth of Lebanese politics and to avoid this I finish by taking consolation in my Beirut memories – of the postman making his rounds, delivering letters to owners of ruins and how people in spite of the mayhem around them went on with their daily chores and welcomed strangers in their midst. It is something of a miracle that a heartening, thriving mosaic of people and cultures still persists in Lebanon.

Jan Lundius holds a PhD. on History of Religion from Lund University and has served as a development expert, researcher and advisor at SIDA, UNESCO, FAO and other international organisations.

 

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Young people pose questions to Secretary-General António Guterres during a UN75 event with youth at the Graduate Institute in Geneva. António Guterres said despite youth engagement during this period – including in the 2016 peace process in Colombia and in shaping the Global Compact on Refugees two years later – opportunities for them to contribute remain inadequate. “The world cannot afford a lost generation of youth, their lives set back by COVID-19 and their voices stifled by a lack of participation”, he said. “Let us do far more to tap their talents as we tackle the pandemic and chart a recovery that leads to a more peaceful, sustainable and equitable future for all”. Credit: UN Photo/Jean Marc Ferre

By Siobhan O’Neil and Kato Van Broeckhoven
NEW YORK, Oct 7 2020 (IPS)

As governments worldwide struggle to contain COVID-19, recent reports suggesting armed groups like Islamic State are resurging offer a sobering account of the many challenges that the global community now faces.

Indeed, the UN Secretary-General has warned that we must not let armed groups exploit fragilities caused by the pandemic, as “like the virus, terrorism does not respect national borders.”

The COVID-19 pandemic – and resulting economic fallout – has created fresh opportunities for gangs, criminal syndicates, and armed groups to instrumentalize the pandemic and grow their ranks.

From calls to weaponize the virus against police officers, efforts to exacerbate the chaos being caused by the pandemic to conduct deadly attacks, to highlighting their superior public health response, violent groups are taking advantage of the pandemic to consolidate their power.

To date, the policy conversation has been largely about the response of armed groups to COVID-19. It may be even more important, however, to consider whether a poor government response will create greater support for armed groups, especially among youth.

With COVID-19-related closings of schools, businesses and borders, youth may have even fewer opportunities for advancement in societies where there were few to begin with. that could lead to increases in associations with armed groups.

Our research suggests that economic drivers or a lack of social mobility will not be the only meaningful drivers of armed group association. Equally important are the pro-social appeals that allow armed groups to transcend being “the only option” to being perceived to offer young people a positive way forward.

IS’s communication strategy, for example, has largely been characterized by “soft power” appeals towards young people based on positive incentives.

These pro-social appeals can be extremely powerful, particularly with young audiences. For example, they suggest that young people can contribute to something bigger than themselves. As the pandemic makes it difficult to connect with peers, armed groups’ promises of a ready-made community and a “significant life” are likely to be all the more compelling.

Armed groups have proved adept at exploiting generational tensions even before the pandemic broke out: IS cast itself as a “generational revolt” against earlier waves of political Islam and even self-avowed jihadist predecessors. Groups like IS offer a chance for youth to bypass generational hierarchies.

In countries where establishing yourself financially allows you to marry, and thus enter adulthood in the eyes of your community, some armed groups – like Boko Haram – have facilitated marriages that would otherwise be financially impossible for young men in their ranks.

The promise of social mobility may elevate the appeal of certain armed groups once the economic impact of COVID-19 is felt.

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare – and exacerbated – the generational divide, but the attention on youth proceeds the current crisis. Much of the discussion around “violent extremism” and “radicalization” in the last fifteen years has focused on youth. As digital natives, there have been concerns about the vulnerability of youth to online recruitment by violent organizations.

This concern, combined with their developmental needs and inclination for risk-taking has led to “a predominantly negative narrative on youth”. This pessimistic view had so permeated conventional wisdom about conflict that the UN Security Council took the unusual step of crafting a resolution aimed at shifting the narrative about youth to recognize their potential to positively contribute to peacebuilding.

But more needs to be done than changing the narrative alone. The international community has taken to reiterating that youth are able to play these roles, but rarely makes space for them do so in its efforts to prevent and respond to conflict.

As calls grow for a new social contract to address inequality, young people must be given a voice in designing and implementing peace processes, conflict prevention efforts and reintegration programming.

Youth are often treated as passive beneficiaries rather than partners in the road to recovery and peace. As governments – national to local – continue to rollout plans to address the pandemic, youth need to be represented in those policy discussions.

We need to ensure that young people are provided a place in society at large as we emerge from this crisis and beyond. Some armed groups appear to be making room – will we?

*Prior to joining UNU, Dr O’Neil was a consultant at the UN Mine Action Service (UNAMS) in Mali and Palestine and worked in US homeland security agencies. Dr O’Neil received obtained her doctorate from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her full bio can be found here: https://cpr.unu.edu/author/soneil

**Prior to joining UNU, Ms Van Broeckhoven worked on city-level programming aimed at preventing violent extremism in Belgium. She also worked as a consultant for the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, the World Bank’s Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development, and Columbia University’s Global Policy Initiative. Her full bio can be found here: https://cpr.unu.edu/author/kbroeckhoven.

 

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Excerpt:

Dr Siobhan O’Neil* is Project Director at United Nations University Centre for Policy Research on the Managing Exits from Armed Conflict project. She was previously the Project Lead for United Nations University’s Children and Extreme Violence project and the Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration Project Manager

 
Kato Van Broeckhoven** is a Project Manager at United Nations University Centre for Policy Research on the Managing Exits from Armed Conflict project and previously co-edited Cradled by Conflict with Dr O’Neil.

The post With Armed Groups on the Rise, Youth Engagement is More Important than Ever appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Neftalí Membreño (R), in charge of the machine room, checks the turbine and generator of the mini hydroelectric plant in the village of Potrerillos, Carolina municipality in the eastern Salvadoran department of San Miguel. This small rural community made up of 21 families built a small dam in 2006 that supplies them with electricity at a low cost. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

By Edgardo Ayala
CAROLINA, El Salvador, Oct 7 2020 (IPS)

The people of Potrerillos, a village located in northeastern El Salvador, worked hard to achieve something that many doubted they could do: harness the waters of the Carolina River to install a community mini hydroelectric plant, which supplies them with cheap energy.

The project got underway in 2005 in this village in the municipality of Carolina, in the eastern department of San Miguel, and the plant began operating in 2006. It benefits 40 families not only in that community but also in the hamlet of Los Lobos, near the neighbouring town of San Antonio del Mosco.

 

 

The work was carried out with the assistance of the Basic Sanitation, Health Education and Alternative Energies (Sabes) association. Financing was provided by the government of the Spanish region of Navarra, and funds for the electromechanical equipment came from the Energy and Environment Alliance with Central America.

The total cost of the project was 120,000 dollars.

The design included an aspect that guarantees environmental sustainability: the water that moves the turbine returns to the river, so its flow is not affected by the mini power plant.

The lives of the inhabitants of Potrerillos, who are mostly subsistence farmers, have improved with the arrival of electricity.

Gone are the days when nights were lit by candles and kerosene lamps, and now the villagers can watch TV, enjoy a cold drink or charge their cell phones at home, without having to go to Carolina.

One important advantage is the cost of the energy: local households pay between two and five dollars a month, compared to a monthly power bill of around 25 dollars in neighbouring villages.

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A group of youths engaged in various activities in Machinga, Malawi, to prevent and help in fighting trafficking of children from the area to Mozambique. Credit: Charles Mpaka/IPS

By Charles Mpaka
BLANTYRE, Malawi, Oct 6 2020 (IPS)

In August, police intercepted the trafficking of 31 people to Mozambique. The victims, all Malawians, included 17 children and 6 women. Their two traffickers, also Malawians, had coerced them from their rural village in Lilongwe district with a promise of jobs in estates in neighbouring Mozambique. But they were saved in large part thanks to their own community.

According to Malawian police, they incepted the trafficking after a tip-off from members of the community. This, the police say, is one of the fruits of using community policing to fight crime in Malawi. National spokesperson for the Malawi Police Service, Assistant Superintendent James Kadadzera, says the police owe many of their crackdowns on trafficking to the community policing system.

In Malawi, community policing is not vigilantism. It is a system where the police organise voluntary members of the community to form groups to detect crime and alert police for action.

“They are our eyes in places we are not present. They complement the efforts of our detectives. They sensitise fellow community members on safety and security issues,” Kadadzera tells IPS.

The Trafficking in Persons Act of 2015 provides for increased participation of individuals, institutions and communities in preventing human trafficking.

Involving communities in anti-human trafficking efforts means the crime can be tackled at its source and that trafficking transit routes are shut down.

However, after years of campaigning and a raft of frameworks and initiatives such as community policing, Malawi still ranks high as a source, destination and transit country for human trafficking.

A 2020 Trafficking in Persons Report for Malawi by the United States’ Department of State recognises Malawi’s “significant efforts” to combat human trafficking. But it says Malawi “does not fully meet the minimum standards for elimination of trafficking”.

The report highlights the case of Nepali women who were trafficked into Malawi last year, which  illustrates the fraudulent white-collar practices that are aiding trafficking here.

According to the report, there are credible reports of official complicity by police and immigration officials in the trafficking of the women into Malawi.

Even worse, the government transferred the whistleblower in the case, reportedly to prevent him from further investigating the crime and exposing the officials involved.

“In two sensitive cases,” says the report, “judges granted traffickers bail, and, in one case, there were credible reports that the trafficker continued to recruit women for labour trafficking in the Middle East while awaiting trial.”

McBain Mkandawire is executive director for Youth Net and Counselling (YONECO), which works with youth who are prime targets for traffickers for labour and prostitution purposes.

He says Malawi is struggling to combat human trafficking because of “a combination of the complicity of government officials and the rich at the top and high poverty levels at the bottom”.   

Human trafficking is a lucrative business for the rich and the powerful, Mkandawire says.

“This is a big money industry. High profile people facilitate it in one way or another. They finance it and frustrate justice because they profit from the misery of the poor,” Mkandawire tells IPS.

For example, he says, the estates where these people are trafficked to are not owned by poor people.

“Those estates are owned by the rich and the powerful. They know how their labourers are recruited. They facilitate the crime because they are profiting from the poor through cheap labour and poor working conditions. And they will do anything to frustrate efforts to eradicate human trafficking,” Mkandawire says.

He adds that through his organisation’s work on youth programmes around the country, apart from the public ignorance on how human trafficking works, high levels of poverty make Malawians easy prey for traffickers who lure them with false promises of better lives elsewhere.

In Machinga district in southern Malawi, child trafficking is one of major concerns for the community-based Youth Response for Social Change (YRSC). The youth organisation is located in a rural town in Machinga district on the border between Malawi and Mozambique. The remote town is the exit point out of Malawi via the main railway line to Nacala Port in Mozambique. 

Here, together with traditional leaders and the police, YRSC battles the trafficking of Malawian children to work in tobacco estates in Mozambique. Executive director for YRSC Lamecks Kiyare tells IPS the problem worsens during the months of August to November when the farming season begins in Mozambique.

He admits they face daunting challenges.

“It’s not easy. We face a barrage of challenges such as poor stakeholder coordination, lack of political will among community leaders and no financial resources to support the repatriated children,” Kiyare tells IPS.

According to Maxwell Matewere, the national project officer in the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNDOC) in Malawi, combating trafficking remains a pipe dream as long as Malawi does not address the underlying causes.

“The problem continues due to lack of strategies to deal with the root causes of trafficking in persons. We cannot successfully fight trafficking in persons unless the country deals with poverty, unemployment and public ignorance on human trafficking,” Matewere tells IPS.

Matewere says while the police have demonstrated some positive responses in arresting offenders of human trafficking and taking them to court for prosecution, the courts themselves are not swift and bold in handling trafficking cases.

“The lower courts continue to apply the law with kindness and favour on the offenders. We are registering increasing number of cases whose convicts have received suspended sentences other than imprisonment. No one can learn anything,” he says.

YONECO has its own experience with the courts. It has been pursuing the trafficking of a young woman to a hospitality facility within Malawi. 

The suspects first appeared court in February 2019 but to date the magistrate is yet to set a date for trial. 

“We are not told the reasons for this lack of progress. Meanwhile, the trafficker is on bail, roaming around, perhaps trafficking more people in his freedom,” says Mkandawire of YONECO.

The Registrar of the High Court and Supreme Court of Appeal, Agness Patemba, did not respond to IPS’ questions regarding complaints about the courts’ handling of human trafficking cases. 

However, issues of frustration over the delivery of justice in general by Malawi’s court system are well known. The Judiciary itself admits this in its Strategic Plan (2019-2024). It highlights poor work ethics among judicial officers and members of staff, corruption and delayed judgements among the threats to justice delivery.

But perhaps a more stirring and direct expose of the malpractices in the fraternity has come from the judiciary’s own senior judge, Esmie Chombo. In January 2018, the High Court Judge and Judge President for the Lilongwe Registry wrote a strong letter to the Malawi Law Society, outlining abuses of court processes by lawyers.    

Chombo accused lawyers of “judge shopping” and frequenting court premises at night to execute corruption schemes.

She further accused them of bribing court clerks to prioritise their work and remove from court files documents from opposing parties in order to mislead the court. There were also accused of bribing clerks to misplace or destroy case files in order to frustrate court proceedings.

She therefore called on judges and the lawyers’ body to swiftly uproot “these obnoxious practices before they take deep roots”.

Mkandawire says challenges of this kind are endemic and entrenched in the levels that hold the key to ending injustices in Malawi.

He says communities and other low-level groups can do their part. But official collusion makes Malawi’s fight against human trafficking a complex task.

“Until we get rid of corruption at every level and in every place, until we comprehensively tackle the root causes of human trafficking, this crime will remain a serious problem for us for a long time,” he tells IPS.

 

This is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Airways Aviation Group.

The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ) is pursuing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 8 with a special emphasis on Goal 8.7 which ‘takes immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms’.

The origins of the GSN come from the endeavours of the Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders signed on 2 December 2014. Religious leaders of various faiths, gathered to work together “to defend the dignity and freedom of the human being against the extreme forms of the globalisation of indifference, such us exploitation, forced labour, prostitution, human trafficking” and so forth.

 

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A program to provide funds to purchase and install new water harvesting and storage equipment in St. Vincent and the Grenadines has proved successful. Courtesy: Zadie Neufville

By Zadie Neufville
BELMOPAN , Oct 6 2020 (IPS-Partners)

On the Eastern Caribbean (EC) islands of St Kitts’ Nevis, hotter and fewer rainfall days have begun to impact everyday life. 

Conservation officer Cheryl Jeffers explained that during dry spells, children are often sent home from school because there is not enough water for sanitation purposes. The COVID-19 pandemic had also begun putting more pressure on an already stretched system, she said.

Down in St Vincent and the Grenadines, many people have no public water system and no access to rivers or streams. On Canouan, the more than 1,600 residents must harvest rainwater or purchase potable water for their household use and other needs. The same is true for the more than 2,000 residents on Union Island and 350 or so on Mayreau. Locals complained that with noticeably fewer rainfall days, the water situation is getting worse.

“The people always say, 30, 40 years ago they could plant their crops year-round because rainfall was plenty. These days, most of the food comes from neighbouring islands,” Katrina Collins Coy, president and founder of the Union Island Environmental Attackers said. 

Residents complain that the lack of water is also driving up the cost of living since food is ferried in by boat or planes, and in the dry season, water is also brought in by boat from mainland St Vincent.

Both St Kitts and Nevis and St Vincent and the Grenadines are described as water-scarce by the World Resources Institute, a global research organisation. They are among the most water-stressed countries in the world, seven of which are in the Caribbean, and six of them are in the EC. Water-scarce is the term given when a country has less than 1,000 cubic meters of freshwater resources per resident. 

For some time, and certainly, since the 2015 droughts that affected most of the Caribbean, regional scientists have warned that countries, particularly those in the Eastern Caribbean could see declines of between 30 and 50 per cent in their average annual rainfall. And, as the region faces more periods of drought, things are expected to get worse in the two island states. 

But, the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC), with the help of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was able to assist by way of a regional project, the USAID Climate Change Adaptation Program (CCAP).

CCCCC is the regional institution of CARICOM (the Caribbean Community) with the responsibility for leading climate change mitigation and resilience building among member nations.

“One of the roles of the CCCCC is to engage with relevant partners to help countries with adaptation and mitigation challenges,” said CCCCC’s Keith Nichols. 

“CCAP was developed to help these and other vulnerable countries in the Eastern and Southern Caribbean to adapt and build resilience to the impacts of climate change. We were happy to add these small water systems to the portfolio and also to provide solar systems as a power source for the pumps as demonstrations of how the Centre works with countries to reduce the region’s dependency on fossil fuels,” he explained.  Nichols heads the Programme  Development and  Management Unit at the CCCCC and is the USAID-CCAP project manager.

The Program provided funds to purchase and install new water harvesting and storage equipment in SVG. And in St Kitts and Nevis, 18 schools have been out-fitted with similar systems to ease the disruptions of the children’s education due to water shortages. 

Here, Collins Coy’s organisation partnered with the SVG Government and CCCCC to pilot the water harvesting project. So far, they’ve installed 178 water harvesting systems – 15, 1,000-gallon water tanks on Mayreau, 58 water tanks of the same size on Canouan and 105 in homes on Union Island. They’ve refurbished and covered the Papa Land (aka Bottom Well) and Top Wells on Union, installing solar panels and pumps to make it easier for residents to get water. The Attackers have also refurbished one of the two main reservoirs and catchment on Union Island and replaced the ageing and leaky pipelines serving the system.

“It has been a pleasure to see the completion of the well, which makes it easier for us to get water, we just use the tap. No more struggling with the buckets and rope, Union Islander Gerald Hutchinson said of the improvements. 

Many islanders like Susan Charles, agree that the project has made significant and life-altering changes to their access to water, easing the work of “drawing water from the well”. She pointed to the gate and fence which were built, and the covers that keep the water clean.

She added: “We are truly appreciative for the tank, the rains are coming so I no longer have to buy water, or wait for the bucket, you simply turn on the pipe.”

Over in St Kitts, water storage systems are being installed in primary and secondary schools as well as in nurseries in the two-island federation. The systems will ease the water problems experienced by the more than 4,000 students plus faculty in the beneficiary institutions. The project aims to build resilience by improving access to water by installing, refurbishing and enhancing water storage facilities to improve sanitation in 18 schools -11 in Nevis and seven in St Kitts. 

Jeffers works with the island’s climate change focal point, the Ministry of Environment, which is piloting the water project. She explained, “in Nevis, where water shortage is more pronounced, six cisterns used to capture and store rainwater are being refurbished”.

Charlestown High School, Nevis’ largest with 778 students and faculty was the recipient of a 6,000-gallon storage system. The new system will help to improve water storage capacity and end the disruptions to the educational institutions during times of drought, and times of emergencies.  

“The new installations and retrofitting of the existing systems helps teachers to maximise teaching time,” Kevin Barrett Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education in the Nevis Island administration said, noting: “Too often we have to dismiss school because of maintenance or there is some emergency repair of the line”.

The project has also trained members of the beneficiary communities in both countries and staff of the institutions to carry out essential maintenance and servicing, and well as in simple water purification methods. As guardians of the wells in the beneficiary islands, the Attackers have undertaken to maintain the newly refurbished systems.

CCAP has delivered critical equipment to countries across the EC since the project began in 2016. These include 50 terrestrial automatic weather stations (AWS), five Coral Reef Early Warning Systems (CREWS) stations, a Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR system) housed at 5Cs in Belize for use by the region, as well as related data storage equipment. 

The seven are from the Caribbean: Dominica, Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados and St. Kitts and Nevis.

** The following article was contributed by the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC)

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

By Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana
BANGKOK, Thailand, Oct 6 2020 (IPS)

Participation in global and regional supply chains has been one of the most reliable economic growth strategies, especially for developing countries in Asia and the Pacific. Smooth and efficient connectivity in both trade and transport has been indispensable to the region’s pursuit of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

Yet, containment measures for the COVID-19 pandemic have significantly interrupted production, transport, and distribution of essential goods. They exposed vulnerabilities in supply and underscored the costs of border procedures for transport and trade, which require extensive human contacts and increase the risk of infection. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which worked hard to enter supply chains, saw their livelihoods gone.

As COVID-19 crisis forced us to catch up with the digital future much faster than usual, there have been tremendous opportunities offered through digitalization. Trade and supply connections still functioned during lockdowns as customs and other government institutions not only streamlined their procedures but also turned to contactless and paperless trade. SMEs surviving the crisis did so because of their agility to speedily move to digital business operations. Businesses in textile, apparel, footwear, transport, and other sectors have almost entirely converted to digital operation.

Though a partial digital transition has occurred, supply chains face challenges in economies grappling with inferior quality and costly digital connectivity. The public sector now must catch up with the private sector to speed up moving government services to digital platforms. Creating enabling legal environment and investing in hard digital infrastructure must be prioritized in COVID-19 recovery packages.

Businesses, supported by their associations, are keen to adopt environmental sustainability principles as an innovation mindset by taking opportunity of global reshoring and redrafting of supply chains. Re-enabling trade and investment and strengthening connectivity can only be done with coordinated and collaborative government actions at the regional level based on mutual trust, solidarity, and sustainability.

Trade, connectivity and global supply chains, particularly sustainable and green trade, is not a zero-sum game. To achieve that, platforms on trade and transport initiatives to rally regional solutions to cross-border challenges are essential.

Developing appropriate provisions in Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) can address crises like the pandemic. Despite countries in Asia and the Pacific having more than half of the world’s RTAs, not many have specific provisions to govern trade policy in situations like COVID-19 pandemic. With a relatively weak multilateral trading system, a “free for all” behavior has developed, with many countries imposing trade restrictions without any regard for the international rules or those under the RTAs they have signed. The ongoing UN-wide initiative to develop model provisions in RTAs to address a pandemic-like crisis is a significant step forward.

Enhanced support for trade facilitation, trade digitalization and development of paperless and contactless trade remains a priority. Accelerating trade digitalization is key to progress. The Framework Agreement on Facilitation of Cross-border Paperless Trade in Asia and the Pacific is expected to cut trade costs by 25 per cent.

Finally, we must move forward rapidly to achieve digital, resilient, and decarbonized regional connectivity. The platforms provided by the Asian Highway Network and the Trans-Asian Railway Network have already brought countries together to capture and analyze their policy responses and impacts on regional connectivity. This resulted in concrete proposals on collaborative actions to improve its pandemic response in Asia and the Pacific.

Despite standing at a difficult crossroads, we can ensure that the path ahead is stronger, smoother, and well-connected than before. Through ongoing partnerships among the United Nations family, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) is working together with member States and the private sector to accelerate achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and realize a sustainable recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.

 

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Excerpt:

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

The post Forging Resilient Regional Supply Chains and Connectivity appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Women hold Somali flags at a Women's Peace Forum in Mogadishu, November 2018. Credit: UNDP Somalia/Arete/Ismail Taxta

By Nika Saeedi
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 6 2020 (IPS)

COVID-19 has shifted our world. Over the last six months, no matter where we live, our lives, assumptions, and relationships have changed. Now, more than ever, we have witnessed people from all backgrounds and all ages rise to assist each other.

While communities have formed networks of mutual support, many of the institutions mandated to support them have failed to fully harness and amplify the wealth of capacities and support structures that already exist.

In international development in particular, a key blind spot that limits the effectiveness of our work exists in the rhetoric we use to understand the communities we work with.

UNDP, along with many other partners, continues to advance new approaches to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, but our continued use of terminology that fails to fully embrace the power of people impedes the transformative potential of our work.

This can also lead to inadequate policy and programming, or to insufficient – or inappropriate – action. One of the most prominent examples of this is our tendency to target support to individuals and communities facing poverty, conflict, or other sources of instability by identifying them as ‘vulnerable’ people.

For example, the problem with categorizing women as vulnerable group project women’s passivity and helplessness, denying them agency and power in the processes of change. A radical reaction to portraying women as vulnerable in recent years has been an over glorification of women’s role as fighters in support of violent extremist groups, hindering their capacity and role as peacebuilders.

Words matter. They shape mindsets, and mindsets shapes approaches and outcomes. There is an important distinction between a vulnerable person and a person living in a vulnerable circumstance.

When we define people by their circumstances, we fail to engage with them as multidimensional beings. It’s time for UNDP to move from using ‘vulnerability’ as a means of defining the people it supports, to considering all people as protagonists for change.

Nika Saeedi

This might allow us to meet people’s aspirations and assist us in assessment and conceptualization of where inequality stems from and who has a role in combating it.

By moving away from a deprivation perspective, which leads to divisive mentalities about the capacity of particular groups of people, we are better positioned to recognize the reality of humanity’s common journey in building a peaceful world, and the role of each individual as a protagonist in it.

We can start this journey by changing the words we use and therefore the whole narrative from vulnerability to empowerment and constructive resilience.

Whether this reconceptualization of what unites us to be reached only after a global crisis such as this pandemic has revealed the cost of humanity’s stubborn clinging to old patterns of behaviour, or is to be reached through consultation and dialogue, is the choice before all.

We can choose to graduate from the idea of labeling women, youth, racial, religious and ethnic minorities as ‘vulnerable groups in the discussions that guide our decision-making. We can embark on a journey with greater clarity of vision and determination to question and reflect on how our policy and programming promote the nobility of them and draw on their experience.

To accept that the individual, the community, and the institutions of society are the protagonists of civilization building, and to act accordingly, opens up great possibilities for human happiness and allows for the creation of environments in which the true powers of the human spirit can be released.

Several opportunities to enhance our work with peacebuilders, activists, and other populations in bringing about sustainable change and to ensure we recognize and articulate with greater clarity their latent capacity may include the following:

• To stand with women peacebuilders to ensure they are recognized for their work and courage, have full inclusion and representation in local and global peace and recovery processes and are protected against threats and are receiving the resources to carry out their work. This year will mark the 20th anniversary of WPS, and UNDP is proud to join the International Civil Society Action Network(ICAN) and the Women’s Alliance for Security Leadership (WASL) as they launch the global #shebuildspeace call to action and campaign building on our partnership on Invisible Women.
• To recognize the powers endowed in people of faith, especially women of faith, at all levels. Women of faith are actively engaging in the local peace process and they are advocating against hate speech, initiatives addressing issues connected to the environment, like climate. UNDP and UN Women report on Conflicting Identities: The Nexus between Masculinities, Femininities and Violent Extremism in Asia recommend Programming take a whole-of-family and hole-of-community approach when designing interventions.
• To recognize the essentiality of community-based peacebuilding as parallel or pre-requisite to high-level negotiations. The effects of COVID-19 proved that local trust, access and resilience is essential part of social cohesion.
• To include and appreciate young climate change advocates, environmental defenders and environmental journalists who have recognized that creation is an organic whole and they are promoting systems required to respect the earth and to organize and fully utilize its raw materials. Their inclusion in essential in programs that promote just, peaceful and inclusive societies.
• To acknowledge the role of storytellers who provoke conversations, initiate reflections and ; and work of volunteer online defenders from across the globe combating trolls who spread hate speech.
• To show gratitude to the unique contribution of Indigenous peoples to our planet and our common future.
• To recognize persons with disabilities as having significant experience and innovative approaches to navigating barriers in their daily lives.
• To learn how people make decisions and act on them, how they think about, influence, and relate to one another, and how they develop beliefs and attitudes. We are working with young people to apply behavioral insights to address violent extremism in countries such as Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

The innovation and resilience shown by communities amidst the pandemic have underscored the need for more expansive understandings of human relationships, and to place more emphasis on identifying the latent capacities and desires of those we hope to serve.

This means believing in people and their desires to be sources of peace and justice. This means opening our eyes to the extent of people’s capacity so that we can see more peacebuilders and changemakers in more places.

This means embracing the oneness of humankind and human nobility as a foundation for how we develop our policies and programmes.

 

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Excerpt:

Nika Saeedi is Team Leader a.i., Prevention of Violent Extremism, Crisis Bureau, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

The post World Peace is Not Only Possible But Inevitable appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Vladimir Popov and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
BERLIN and KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 6 2020 (IPS)

Industrial policy – or the promotion of particular investments, technologies, industries, regions and enterprises – has been practiced by a variety of governments to try to accelerate economic growth and transformation.

The ascendance of the Washington Consensus, inspired by the neoliberal counter-revolution in economics, focused on alleged national macroeconomic mismanagement in developing countries and later, transition economies. This was typically blamed on ‘soft budget constraints’ (SBCs) in socialist states and enterprises, macroeconomic populism and industrial policy.

Vladimir Popov

Blaming industrial policy
Enterprise-level SBCs have also been wrongly blamed on industrial policy to promote certain economic activities, usually manufacturing with more advanced technologies. In practice, most industrial policy was quite selective, i.e., involving support of some industries, regions and enterprises at the expense of others.

While such selective support may or may not have been successful in promoting targeted industries, industrial policy has been wrongly, and sometimesdeliberately blamed for both enterprise and national level fiscal SBCs. Fiscal SBCs have been wrongly blamed on enterprise-level SBCs in socialist states, macroeconomic populism and industrial policy.

But contrary to many economists’ presumptions, in most economies, including many centrally planned ‘socialist’ ones, few enterprises were exempted from budgetary discipline. SBCs were therefore the very rare exception, not the rule, to promote desired new economic activities.

Enterprise-level SBCs did not “permeate all organizations” in socialist countries, as often claimed and assumed, but were instead quite selective, i.e., subsidies were provided to some enterprises, industries or regions, typically at the expense of others.

All centrally planned economies had both explicit and implicit subsidies. In most Eastern European and Soviet countries during 1989-1992, on the eve of transition, direct subsidies in the government budget amounted to 10-15% of national income.

In addition to direct subsidies for public utilities, housing and food, there were implicit price subsidies, particularly for users of fuel, energy and raw materials. Besides explicit subsidies from government budgets, rents from unsustainable, non-renewable resource extraction were shared with industries and consumers via lower prices.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Dwarf infant industries
The fiscal problem was not due to subsidization per se, or even to subsidization of manufacturing – at the expense of resource industries, trade and financial services. Rather, the problem was in the way such subsidization was carried out, i.e., by maintaining higher domestic prices for manufactured goods.

Such import-substituting industrialization (ISI) typically created industries which rarely became internationally competitive and viable. There have been all too many examples of failed ISI requiring ongoing subsidization of ‘infant industries’ incapable of ever becoming internationally uncompetitive.

These industries were exposed as unviable and unsustainable with trade liberalization and the end of Soviet era trade arrangements in the 1990s. Soviet industrialization from the 1930s had survived before that due to its insulated economic environment, with the ratio of Soviet exports to GDP not rising until fuel sales abroad rose with higher prices from the 1970s.

Perestroika reforms, initiated by reformist Soviet leader Gorbachev after the mid-1980s, failed to accelerate needed enterprise reforms or economic growth, but instead led to the ‘transformational recession’ of the 1990s, greatly exacerbated by the reforms during Boris Yeltsin’s first presidential term.

Many other enterprises – mainly in heavy industries, and often relying on Soviet technology, advice and aid – in other ‘socialist’ economies and developing countries subject to Soviet influence, experienced similar fates.

Thus, nations which tried to challenge Western hegemony met similar fates despite trying to make a virtue of ‘self-reliance’ compelled by the need to cope with Western-led trade and investment sanctions.

Successful industrial policy
Most countries trying to industrialize or to accelerate industrialization started with ISI, with effective protection enabling new enterprises to produce for domestic markets by keeping out imported foreign substitutes with prohibitively high tariffs and non-tariff trade barriers.

But many IS enterprises continued to survive, even profit from such supposedly temporary tariff protection and other government support, never becoming internationally competitive as promised by the ISI strategy.

In more successful ‘late developing’ economies, government support was conditional on meeting performance criteria which effectively attracted private investments. Such investors sought more handsome ‘rents’ by accelerating technological progress, productivitand international competitiveness.

Thus, for example, ‘effective protection conditional on export promotion’ enabled the emergence of internationally competitive enterprises in some East Asian economies. Export orientation has been especially important in improving output quality to meet internationally competitive product quality and performance standards while achieving cost competitiveness.

Without more effective means for disciplining enterprises to accelerate development, export-orientation – promoted by government policy, incentives and other support – has contributed to successful catch-up growth. East Asian economies subsidized competitive export-oriented industries which accelerated economic growth and transformation, some more successfully than others.

In China, for instance, exports compared to GDP increased from 5% in 1978 to 35% in 2006, before declining to 20% in 2018, while its GDP grew at an average of 10% annually, with its population rising slower than in most other developing countries due its ‘one child’ policy.

Appropriate industrial policy needed
Budget constraints in socialist economies were generally stronger than in developing countries and no less strict than in developed countries on average. SBCs in socialist economies were never pervasive, as widely believed, but selective, i.e., subsidizing some enterprises or industries at the expense of others.

Such selective support, while typical of industrial policy, may or may not successfully promote internationally competitive enterprises, but certainly provides no empirical support for the claim of pervasive SBCs in ‘socialist’ economies.

With state-owned enterprises, strict fiscal and enterprise-level discipline, including budget constraints, have led to restructuring, and more rarely, closures. But even when budget constraints have been less than strict, they have not been pervasive, as fiscally disciplined ‘socialist’ economies could not afford otherwise.

National-level macroeconomic mismanagement in developing countries and transition economies has all too often by ideologically defined by neoliberal economics. In so far as macroeconomic challenges are real and demand pragmatic policy attention, they should not be defined by distracting neoliberal chimera of alleged SBCs variously blamed on socialism, populism and industrial policy.

Unfortunately, the mythology surrounding SBCs has been used to throw the industrial policy baby out with the bathwater of ISI cul de sacs. Much more appropriate, yet pragmatic industrial policy is needed for developing countries and transition economies to ‘catch up’, as achieved by some East Asian and other economies.

 

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Wang Yi, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, addresses the virtual Security Council summit-level debate on “Maintenance of International Peace and Security: Global Governance post Covid-19”. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe.

By Daud Khan and Leila Yasmine Khan
AMSTERDAM/ROME, Oct 5 2020 (IPS)

Lockdowns, social distancing, face-masks and other restrictions on personal and social behaviour have helped slow the progress of the COVID-19 virus. Enough to allow health systems to start catching their breath, for doctors to work out treatment protocols, and for work to start on a vaccine. There is now a need to take stock of the many other impacts the pandemic is likely to have, particularly at the economic and political level.

In terms of short to medium term impacts, the developed countries have been the hardest hit in terms of mortality, and their economies are projected by the IMF to shrink by 8% over 2020. More critically, the economic contraction will disproportionately impact the poor in these countries and accentuate the inequality that has been rising over the last 30 years.

The US stock market has regained all losses despite the fact that millions are jobless. The tech giants continue to post immense profits. Jeff Bezos, founder and major shareholder of Amazon, is now the richest man on earth with a net worth of over US$200 billion – this means that if he were to live another 40 years, and wanted to use all his money before dying, he would need to spend almost US$14 million a day! This, at a time when a growing number of people cannot afford decent housing, adequate clothing and proper nutrition.

It has become clear that widespread disease and death, helplessly watching one’s loved ones die, and being turned away from hospitals, are not things that happen only in poor countries

In contrast to what is happening in the advanced economies, many developing countries – particularly in Africa and Asia – have experienced lower mortality rates. This differential impact could be due to demographics – with the younger population in these countries proving more resilient.

Or it could be due to their more frequent exposure to other viruses which have built up their immunity levels. In some countries such as China, Viet Nam and South Korea it was clearly due to the Governments’ containment measures and the high levels of conformity to government guidelines.

In other countries it could be that the virus arrived later, after having mutated in to a milder variant which was less aggressive. Or it could be something deeper. For example, it could be that the genetic code of people of European origin makes them more vulnerable than Asians and Africans.

Maybe this is why many countries in South and Central America that have been colonized by Europeans, also suffered heavily. But there are flaws in each of these hypotheses. Surely we will know more as data from hundreds of ongoing studies from around the world are completed, compiled and analysed. Or maybe we will never have a final definitive explanation.

In any case, the lower health impact in developing and emerging economies has meant a lower overall economic impact. According to IMF projections, the GDP in emerging markets and developing countries is expected to fall by 3% in 2020 (as compared to the fall of 8% in developed countries).

Some countries, particularly in South and Central America, have been badly hit, but there are many others which have got off relatively lightly. Among the major economies, China is the only one expected to post a positive GDP growth in 2020. Its exports have already rebounded and it is now running a massive trade surplus.

But in addition to its differential economic impacts, the pandemic has also changed perceptions. In developed countries, it has badly dented the view of many people who felt that they were living in a superior system which could withstand and cope with unforeseeable events.

That their higher standards of living, their state-of-the-art health care systems, their social cohesion, and the superior levels of institutional maturity would have made them less vulnerable. This feeling of comfort and complacency has been badly shaken.

It has become clear that widespread disease and death, helplessly watching one’s loved ones die, and being turned away from hospitals, are not things that happen only in poor countries.

Their self-confidence could be in for other jolts in the coming months. Many countries are seeing a rapid spike in cases in recent weeks especially in several European countries. One of the underlying factors is a phenomenon called compliance fatigue – a feeling of weariness after months of restrictions, and a tendency to ignore government guidance, claiming that the worst is now over.

This happened especially among the youth who started to disregard the repeated warnings of scientists and the authorities also because initially it seemed that only the elderly were at risk. They are now paying the price of this social anarchy and several countries are facing the spectre of new restrictions and lockdowns which is jeopardising the projected recovery for 2021.

The economic inequality and lower levels of confidence in the “system” will accelerate some major social and political trends in the developed world. It is difficult to foresee the details, but the disdain for global, national and local institutions which have failed to deliver for increasing numbers of people will continue to grow.

Populist parties, which have already used this growing disillusionment to increase their influence and to take power in many countries, are likely to grow stronger. A critical consequence will be that the isolationism seen in the past decade or so will increase with slogans such as “America First”, “Make Britain Great Again” and “Prima gli Italiani” gaining traction.

These factors are all pointing to a very different world from what we have been seeing. The traditional powers of the west are neither as strong economically, nor as confident of their social and organizational superiority. China, along with developing countries in Asia and Africa that have better weathered COVID storm, will likely increase their global footprint at a much faster rate that they have been doing in the past decades.

Will this make for a better and more equitable world?

 

Daud Khan is a former United Nations official who lives between Italy and Pakistan. He holds degrees in Economics from the London School of Economics and Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar; and a degree in Environmental Management from the Imperial College of Science and Technology.

Leila Yasmine Khan is an independent writer and editor based in the Netherlands. She has Master’s degrees in Philosophy and in Argumentation Theory and Rhetoric from the University of Amsterdam, as well as a Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy from the University of Rome (Roma Tre).

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By External Source
Oct 5 2020 (IPS-Partners)

As COVID-19 shapes and re-shapes the “new normal” in the Pacific, organic food and products will be a key to community adaptation and resiliency in the region’s economies and livelihoods, with the opportunity to advance a more inclusive gender and people centred approach.

The POETCom initiative, under the SPC’s Land Resources Division, has recognized this by taking the next step in its Building Prosperity for Women Producers, Processors, and Women Owned Businesses through Organic Value Chains (BPWP) project, a collaboration with the Australian Government. The project seeks to empower women for greater access to sustainable livelihoods through participation in organic value chains.

POETCom has developed a toolkit for organic value chain assessment as part of the BPWP project. The kit was trialled in September 2020 at a workshop in Suva. Due to travel restrictions as a result of COVID-19, the project is trialling its toolkits in Fiji before implementing with partners in project countries.

Cicia Organic Monitoring Agency representative and POETCom member Petero Ratucove concluded, “This workshop helped recognize and act on the importance of designing implementations and interventions that account for the roles of women that would have otherwise been neglected in the overall economic development of any community. We need to communicate the importance of gender equity and ensure that we have more equitable distribution of ownership levels of engagement in decision making processes.”

The toolkit will help POETCom staff and partners deepen their knowledge and skills in gender and social inclusion mainstreaming, while guiding them to apply a gender lens to an organic value chain analysis or assessment.

The project works with individuals, families, producers and vendors, as well as organic governance structures. The four expected outcomes are:

• Women have increased financial independence and influence in decision-making within the household.
• Women are increasingly participating in organic value chains, including decision making processes.
• Women and men benefit from viable organic value chains that meet market needs and increase food security.
• The Pacific organic sector has more gender equitable policies and practices.

Building Prosperity for Women Producers, Processors, and Women Owned Businesses through Organic Value Chains launched in October 2018 and is being implemented in three phases over four years; initially working in the Republic of Marshall Islands and Palau with later activities planned for Kiribati and the Federated States of Micronesia

The workshop feedback is helping the POETCom team revise and finalise the working version of toolkit. The kit will then be applied by POETCom members to ensure challenges, opportunities and entry-points for women are identified and developed to secure equitable and equal benefits from organic agriculture. POETCom hopes to launch the finalised version of the project toolkit later in 2021 after trials in project countries.

Source: The Pacific Community (SPC)

 

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